Summary: I. "Before he was Voldemort, he was Tom Riddle: and before he was Tom Riddle, he was a boy looking for a father who hadn't wanted him at first."
NOTES: Before we begin, I would like to take this time and tell you a few things: first of all, this will not end up in a "Harry turns evil/powerful/dark/sadist/creature that no one has heard of" nor a "Voldemort turns out to be the good guy, and super, cuddly nice" sort of thing. Nor is Dumbledore the awful, horrible person people like to portray him as. Nor will Snape suffer through the indignation of being called "Sevvy". Serious beans there. And also, it will take a while until Harry shows up in this. You'll know when. But he will show up. Eventually. He's persistent like that. He's like that itch that will not go away. Ever. No matter how much cream is applied.
Also, yes, this is something along the lines of hey, what if there was something fishy with the Riddle family, and Voldemort's dad man's up and gets him? thing. Almost sure it hasn't been done before. Almost. If it has, I apologize. It came to me in a fit of insomnia. Whoop.
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~ x ~
A Hunting We Will Go
Pockets of Life
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go,
Heigh ho, the dairy-o, a hunting we will go!
A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go,
We'll catch a fox and put him in a box,
And then we'll let him go!
~ x ~
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~ v ~
There were little pockets of life in the otherwise bleak, abyssal block known as Wool's Orphanage, despite what its inhabitants and keepers would have one believe. And, in the spirit of going against the assumed, there were even more pockets of life then one could have possibly imagined if they were to see the well-cleaned, but drab and dim-lit halls of Wool's. It was a good thing that Tom knew otherwise - he had found one of those rare pockets and coveted it with a greedy heart. He refused to end up some dull, boring automaton that was the fate of most children who weren't adopted (and in these times, adoption was a rare thing).
But unlike the other children, unlike Billy Stubbs and Dennis Bishop, Tom Riddle had a father.
See, Tom had a father out there - in that big, wide world - who was undoubtedly looking for his long, lost son whose mischievous mother had run off to keep from him. Somewhere out there, was a Riddle Sr., searching for Tom, and one day he would fine him, and he would no longer have to fight for his pockets of life. But until then, he would fight tooth and nail to keep the other, soulless children from intruding on his niches.
One such niche was out in the bare-bones play-yard of Wool's, near the back of the rusted chain-link fence that was overgrown with weeds, ivy, and pricker-bushes. Tom had found the spot a year ago, when he was but five-years, when he had ran after his sheepskin-ball when it went rolling among the prickers. The other children would never have gone into the sharp, tangled mess to retrieve anything - and they never had. He had crawled into the sharp mess, thorns and prickers leaving little, red scratches all over his cheeks and bare arms, but he had found his ball! And he had found so much more.
Among the pricker-bushes and shadowed canopy of ivy, he had stumbled upon a little clearing where a few daisies pushed there way up through the dust and dirt. He had only ever seen the fake, sad and plastic flowers Mrs. Cole liked to place in horribly plastic vases at random intervals around the mess hall and her office, in order to give the place some semblance of life. It had never worked. But here, in the little nest, Tom had seen his first real, living flower among forgotten toys and chain-link. He visited the flowers everyday, because they gave him hope. Hope that someday, somehow, he would get out of Wool's.
Tom nurtured the daisies. It wasn't hard work, but it was hard smuggling small portions of water out to them when there was the rare dry spell.
Sometimes Mrs. Cole would catch him and forbid him from going outside for a few days. It was torture, but when that happened, he would go to another pocket of life.
Yesterday, he had been caught in the act of trying to get water to his daises when Mrs. Cole had spotted him, so today, Tom had to stay indoors. That was alright, though, since he would spend the time behind a bookshelf in the orphanage's meager library, which had once been dust-free and great, when Wool's had had the funds to keep it that way. Now, though, it was just a room filled with bookshelves and dusty, out-of-date texts. Some of the older children would use it for their classes with Martha, but Tom wasn't old enough for the classes of life-skills and history, just for his letters and writing. He had read bits and pieces of the books in the library, but that wasn't why he went there. Well, sometimes he went there just to read. Sometimes.
Today Tom dressed and didn't bother to put his shoes on like his roommate, Billy, did. Billy had recently gotten a rabbit with a twitching, velvet nose that sat in a deep, wooden box at the end of Billy's bed. Martha had said her name was Flower Jane, but Billy called her Skins, and Tom called it Thing. He glared at Thing as it scratched at the bottom of its box, staring up at him with dark, beady eyes and buttoned up his shirt.
"I heard you got in trouble yesterday, Tommy," Billy chirped, twisting Tom's name into that horrible, horrible nickname. Did he mention he hated being called 'Tommy'? It was demeaning.
He scowled, surprisingly well for a child of six, "So what if I did?"
"You get in trouble a lot, and at this rate, Mrs. Cole is going to start locking you up in the Room, not just banning you from the yard," the boy said happily as he left their room.
Despite his best efforts, Tom could not prevent a shudder at the mention of the Room. The "Room" was just that, a room, but it was a horrid, wretched room with no windows, no light, and only a single, wooden chair in the cold expanse of brick. It was reserved for the worst of the children. For those who stole, lied, or hurt one another. To Mrs. Cole, sometimes there need be no proof of the transgression, only rumor of it. Or the conception of it in her mind. But Mrs. Cole would never put Tom in the room; she thought him the most "handsome, darling thing ever". And so did Martha.
He had his way with them. The ladies.
Tom smiled to himself at his little joke, and scuttled out into the gloomy hallway, down the stairs (careful to avoid the fifth one down, as it tended to give an inhumane shriek if stepped on), and toward the library. He pushed the stubborn door open, flinching at the dry squeak from the rusted hinges, and stepped into the poorly lighted room of learning. Cold swept up his legs when his bare feet touched the dead, dread wood. He had always felt that the library was thrice-cursed. It might as well have been, considering how much the other children avoided it.
He made his way to his niche, which was behind a bookshelf that was almost - but not quite, which was why it was so hidden like his daises - pressed against the wall. But not quite. There was just enough room for him to squeeze, however painfully it was for him, between the shelf and the wall until he reached a rather strange place.
It was a door; a small, wooden door, that, thankfully, opened with a push and not a pull. He wormed down until his bum touched the cold floor, nudged the door open with his foot, and squirmed inside. Tom followed that up with an awkward bit of maneuvering so he could see where he was headed.
The tunnel wasn't long, but it was filled with cobwebs and spiders that might have been dangerous if he wasn't so non-threatening to the vapid little buggers.
It opened up into a little room, with a ceiling half as high as the others except for a small section that accommodated a regular-sized window. Cheerful, mid-morning light filtered through the dusty light, giving him a perfect view of the various odds and ends he had managed to gather, and had found, within his secret room. There had been an old, moth-eaten mattress that smelled faintly of cats, and a rickety chair with a matching table. Tom had added the paper, pens, snitched toys and dried daises to it.
Tom may not lead an exciting life, but he did his damnedest to make it seem so.
"What," he asked a little, faded wooden horse, "Should I do today?"
Why, Tom imagined the horse chattering back, you should write a letter to your father. He must be worried, what with your mother stealing you away from him, only to leave you with nothing but his name. Yes! Write a letter, hey, and ask Mrs. Cole to send it to him. Better yet, ask Martha, she's more apt to do it.
He gave a small considering nod to the toy, and said, "Yes, of course, why didn't I think of that?"
Taking a seat on the rickety chair and selecting an almost whole piece of paper, and a pen, Tom began to write. Or, well, he would have, had he not gotten a glimpse of the most wonderful and unusual thing through his window. Jumping to his feet, he climbed on top of the table, and pressed his face the chilly glass. Through the dust and the fog from his breath, he could see the front yard of Wool's. And, walking up the yard, along the cobblestone path, was a man. Adoptions were unusual, and Tom couldn't help but wonder at the purpose of the man.
He could see no distinguishing features from the distance, but he could tell that the man was tall. And an adult with money, or status, despite the times.
Tom squinted imperiously, determined that this person had no good intentions, for why would someone good and rich need to adopt? Or want to, for that matter?
But then, as things happened, the man got a little closer to Wool's, and Tom saw something in him. Something that was quite like himself. Was it the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth? The set of the jaw, the faint reproach in the brow? The hair, maybe? That this man clearly knew his own worth, and how to use it, perhaps? Was it how he walked? How his step spoke of his harsh nobility?
Or, maybe, Tom considered with a reasonable mind, it was all of that.
"Could it be?" he hissed to the horse, "Could it really be?"
How should I know? I only know what you know! the horse neighed wittily, throwing back its little, wooden head.
Frowning, Tom turned to the tunnel, and went through the meticulous task of extracting himself from the little room (he figured it had once been a servant's room, when Wool's had been some sort of manor). By the time he made it to Mrs. Coles' office and rid himself of dust and cobwebs, there was already a gathering of sorts around the door. News of an adult coming to the orphanage spread like a cold. Once one knew, everyone knew. But, unlike them, Tom knew what this adult was here for. He was here for Tom, because he was, without a doubt, Tom's father. He just knew it.
So let them suffer through their rumors, he thought, let them squirm, be jealous of him when the time came, because Tom was leaving Wool's, once and for all.
He was content with listening to their whispers and wonders about who would be chosen until Martha came and ushered them all into the mess hall, where the gentleman who had arrived would be able to get a basic impression of all the children (who were told to tidy their hair, fix their buttons, and get the wrinkles out of their skirts and trousers as best they could), and go from there.
It wasn't long before Mrs. Cole and the mysterious adult entered the hall.
"... they are all delightful children, I assure you, always on their best behavior," Mrs. Cole was saying, as if she wanted to tempt the man into adopting two or three instead of one.
The man waved a gloved hand, and spoke in a peculiarly accented tone, that seemed as though it originated from some foreign, past era, "Actually, madame, I was looking for a specific child."
"Oh? Well, in that case," the matron muttered, "Who are you looking for?"
Tom felt his heart tighten in his chest.
"She would have named him Tom. Thomas Riddle."
Notes: BOOM. Cliffhanger. Aww yeah. And yes, I imagine that in his earliest years, when he was still a wee thing, Tommyboy would have been obsessive and crazy over having a daddy, but otherwise, a normal kid. Until the accidental magic started to happen, and when he started to realize that "hey, no one is coming for me. FUCK MY LIFE."
So, what did y'all think? Worth perusing?