This is something that I really needed to just get out, otherwise I would forget it. To all you who read Elemental, the updates will be a little slower, but not because of this. I'm just trying to get the story moving along.

In no way do I own these characters, not even the obscure ones that I mention only once. Only Charlotte is of my creation.

Charlotte Cole was born on March 2, 1928. She had black hair, and lightly freckled skin. People saw her as imaginative, kind, and excited. But she was a strange girl, as well. For one thing, her mother was the caretaker of an orphanage in London, Wool's Orphanage. Charlotte lived there with the other children, despite her father's reluctance. She had her own room, and was treated exactly like every other child in that orphanage. Secondly, she believed in all sorts of things, thing that might have been considered impossible. Charlotte believed in ghosts and magic and monsters, which slightly scared everyone, but they accepted it because she was a young girl and was prone to making up stories that weren't true. She had dreams about the monsters, too, and she wrote them all down in a little black book the she kept in her pocket. She also loved to read. She would read any book that came to the orphanage, whether it was about magic, or history, or philosophy. None of the other children even touched the big books until they were ten or eleven. But she had always liked them. But the strangest thing about this girl was that she had no friends. Nobody that she actually trusted with her secrets and the book. Nobody, that is, except for Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Tom was exactly one year, three months, and two days older than her, and he was her best friend. The unlikely friendship had started when the whole orphanage, including Charlotte, went to a small town on the coast for a day. The seven year old, black haired girl had been sitting alone on the beach for quite some time, waiting to see how long it would take before anyone noticed she was missing. It was a game she constantly played, just to see if her mother would come looking, or send another child to find her. Anyways, she had been sitting in the same spot for over two hours, when she saw a little boy climbing into a small boat by the the cliffs. Recognizing him from the orphanage, she jumped up, and began calling to him. He turned back, annoyed by the interruption.

"Do you mind if I go with you? I'm awfully bored being alone."

The boy sighed. "Fine. But don't mess up anything." Once she had climbed in and was safely sitting down, the boy tapped the boat with his finger, and the vessel began to slide throughout the still water. Charlotte gasped, and stared at the boy in wonder.

"What was that? What did you just do?"

"I don't know. I just do it. Say, haven't I seen you around the orphanage before? You're Mrs. Cole's daughter, right?"

Charlotte smiled. "Yes. I'm Charlotte. What's your name?"

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," he said proudly, "But you can just call me Tom."

"Oh. You're the one Billy Stubbs hates." There was a long silence as the boat floated alongside the cliffs. Charlotte spoke up.

"Where are we going?"

Tom was taken aback. This girl seemed to disregard all the horrible rumors about him, or maybe she just didn't know. "Exploring. Why aren't you scared of me?"

She giggled. "Why should I be?"

"Everyone else is. They say bad things about me, mean things."

"Well, I think you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover. I read that in a book once."

"What does that mean?"

"I think it meant that you shouldn't say mean things or make assumptions about people if you don't really know them. You only think you do, because of what other people say."

He smiled. "You know, you're pretty smart for a little girl."

"Little? I'm eight years old! You can't be that much older than me!"

He smirked. "I turn ten in December."

She huffed and caroused her arms. "Well, it's only July, so you're not ten yet."

Tom smiled, a real smile, something that nobody had seen since he was a small toddler. He liked this girl. She was smart, and not afraid to talk to him, even though he had done strange things. She was different than the others. He decided to put her to the test. He decided to take her to the cave.

"Do you want to see something exciting? Something nobody else has seen before, without going insane?"

Charlotte grinned, and nodded enthusiastically. "Is this what made Amy and Dennis go quiet last year? I always wondered what made them do that. Is it scary?"

"Yes. You may never be the same again. You could end up like them. Are you sure?"

She took a deep breath, and looked him straight in the eyes. "Yes."

And that was when they floated up next to the cave, a giant black hole. Tom tied the boat to a rock, and hopped out. He offered his hand to the little girl, who was looking around with wide eyes. He led her into the cave, to the underground lake. She hesitated before climbing into the little dinghy they would take to the island. As the boat glided through the still water, he asked her a question.

"Are you scared?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to stop?"

"No. You can't stop just because you're scared, nobody would do anything interesting. Are those bodies in the water? How did they end up here?"

He liked her even more.

And that was the start of the strange friendship between Charlotte Cole and Tom Marvolo Riddle.

So, good or no? Tell me!