The World With Out Me
Harry Potter Fanfiction by Sarah Sanderson
Disclaimer – If I owned Harry Potter I would have to be JK, which sadly I'm not :( a girl can dream though right? Until then I own nothing
Tom's relationship with the other residents of Wool's Orphanage was strained, to say the least. This was something that in his younger years the dutiful matron Mrs. Cole had tried feverishly to reconcile, but to not result. Or not lasting result by any rate. No sooner would Tom become friendly with some of the other children and they would either reveal their friendly behaviour to all be part of some nasty trick to humiliate or use him, or they would stumble across him in one of his "Freakish" moments, when impossible and cursed things would happen in his presence like they some how gravitated towards him, after which his so called friends would have nothing to do with him.
His only seemingly true friends, who never betrayed him or used him with out opening asking for his help first, where three boys named Hampton, Peet, and George, who where older and more knowledgeable about the world then he, at the mere age of nine, could ever have been. They would sneak out of the orphanage at night and break into the surrounding houses to steal things. They needed a smaller boy to fit though the windows, who could get in and then unlock the door and let them walk in like they owned the place. And the one thing that always made Tom proud was that they never even thought to approach any of the other boys his age or size. They knew they needed a boy to help them and thought straight away of him. They didn't even care about the things he could seemingly do, or even try to get him to show them how it was done. They never lied to him, they just told him they needed him and why, let him in on their little game, and for the first time in his life he felt like he belonged.
It didn't last. Good feelings and good times never did in his life. In the end he just stopped trying.
Tom got sick, or so Mrs. Cole said. There was a snake in the bathroom stalls, and everyone ran away screaming – but not him. He walked calm and quite up to the snake, and saw on it's face the same look of fear that was on every child's. The snake was as lost and alone as every orphan in that place. Tom wanted some how to help it. To show it how to leave that horrid place and go home. A place he could never have. He spoke slowly, so as not to scare the snake, told it to calm down and not to worry.
"I'll look after you" he breathed the words he had longed his whole life to be told. Even with his friends he was still not looked after, they watched each other's backs and shared the spoils and the laughs – but they weren't brother's any more than Mrs. Cole was their mother – just ghostly empty shadows of what a family should be. So when he spoke he expected the words to sound wrong, to be twisted and un familiar to his mouth and ears, but some how they felt unbelievably right in every possible way.
Then all Hell broke lose.
"Oh my dear havens! Riddle what are you doing? Back away slowly from the s-s-snake. I'm sure it will not hurt you, just come away now" Mrs. Cole's whimper of a voice called panicked from the door.
"What? No I know it wont hurt me. She just wants to get out of here, she wont bite" Tom's could see the confusion colouring her face as clear as he could hear it in his own voice. What was she talking about? Had she not heard the snake's reply? It came as clear as a bell to his ears, that sweet pleading promise not to hurt a child, not one of them. Why could this women not see the snake's fear? Hear her words. But before Tom could ponder this anymore Mrs. Cole had grabbed his arm and painfully yanked him though the door frame away from his… friend? If a beast could be a friend.
He remembered afterwards the look the snake gave him as he looked back briefly, apologetic about how powerless he was. The snakes eyes where wide and there was some cold reptilian pain coursing though them. Hurt, fear, pain, regret, disappointment, loss, and utter terror all in one brief flash. Then the snake's eyes where gone and Mrs. Cole had basically thrown Tom into his room and as he blinked to bring himself back and deal with what was happening he heard the sound of the matron's keys in the lock. He was stuck there.
That night Hampton, Peet, and George snuck out with out him, apologetic murmurings though his key hole about how they couldn't get Mrs. Cole's keys away from her in time to make the night's trip worth it, and he was just to hold tight tonight and they would tell of their adventures in the morning when he was let out to break his fast. Tom remembered Peet's warm brown eye staring at him though the key hole. Tom had hated them that night. All three of them. He hated Peet looking in on him like he was some sort of caged animal, and he hated that they where still sneaking out when what they needed to be doing was sneaking in – to the now locked bathroom where his new friend was trapped until morning when a man was to come at Matron's request and kill his friend. Tom hated all the boys and went to bed glaring daggers into the mantel image of Peet's eye. He hated them as he used his old coat hanger to sneak out his room. He hated them as he snuck along the hall, alone and utterly un loved. And he hated them as he snuck into the bathroom and held out his arm to the beauty that was the snake. He slept that night with her under his blankets, hugging his arm, and he hated his old friends as he dreamed of snakes and a marshy battlefield from a long time ago.
When Tom saw the police man leaving Matron's office the next morning, with a sobbing Mrs. Cole left inside, and the truth of what the boys had been gossiping over breakfast (A breakfast that his human friends had not been with him for like they had promised) sunk in and his heart like he was being stoned alive while chained to solid ice – then he could not bring himself to hate them. A brief flash of Peet's warm brown eye flashed before his eyes, and he ran back to his room, holding in the sobs until the door was shut and he was cowering hidden in his wardroom (In you could call it that as it was so barren of clothes). The snake he had crisind Nagini curled around him in a serpent like embrace and he pressed his face into her soft and smooth scaled and let his sobs let rip though his body. He could hear George's mocking playfully voice echo in his eardrums, scolding him for being a baby and crying. But then he sobbed all the harder as the thought of where George was now. He gasped out in wheezy rasps that he knew now only his darling Nagini could understand.
"George isn't coming back to Wool's. He's been sent away. He's almost a man, so they treat him like one. He's going to the big place where they put all kinds of criminals. He's locked in there will all of those – those monsters. I'll never see him again, I know it."
Tom took in a big shuddering breathe. He wasn't entirely sure when he was telling Nagini about the fake of the boys – no the men – who had been the closest thing he had to brothers when she had never even met them. But she had almost met them, and she seemed to be lessening intently, a faint encouraging hiss echoing round the cavernous wardrobe as her head rested on his back soothingly.
"Hampton ran away. Don't know where. If they find him they will lock him away too. With George – on somewhere else – maybe they will lock him up in some where else like here – he said he had lived in a few. But he's never coming back either – I know it. They've left me Nagini" His face was stinging because of the shear amount of salt water running across it onto Nagini's beautiful body. Peet's warm brown eye flashed at him though his closed eyes though the key hole. He chocked back a rasping sob that felt strong enough to shake the whole room. He felt like he was about to puke up all his organs right there and them.
"Peet's – Peet's – Peet's gone" He couldn't bring himself to say the word he was aiming for. Not even in this strange hissing touge he had discovered. He rememberd the first time he had heard that word, before he had known what it ment, and how it related to him. He had thought it had and warm wooden sound like "Bed" but had long ago learnt it's true meaning. Now he understood more than ever. Bed was warm and safe, but this other word was far from it and terrible as the darkest shadows of his nightmares. He thought numbly if all four boys would have made it back to wool's ok if he had been with them. If he had been sneaky for them and they hadn't had to wake the owner. The owner who owned a gun.
"Peet's – gone" he hissed again, in some sort of mangled voice that was not human nor snake it seemed. But Nagini understood. She rested her heavy head on his back like a cold scaly hug. And in that moment Peet saw the war torn marshes of his dreams, and the snakes, and the children running to their parents – and he felt a cold blinding rage towards the man he knew only as 'Father', towards the man who according to the hushed conversation he had over heard matron have with the Doctor, had left his 'mother' (Another word harsh and unused in his mind it seemed) when she needed him most. He had left her to wander about and bring Tom into the world. He had left her so she became what Peet now was as well. For the first time in his life Tom cupped his hands and prayed to the God that Mrs. Cole always talked about.
"Please, please God man, if your there. Talk to Peet for me. I don't know his full name – I think it might be Davy something… but you'll know him. He's new up there, and he has warm brown eyes. He told me he never had a mother because she left him here – and he always wanted one. You have my mother up there too – so could you please tell Peet that he can have her, since I'm a big boy now – I do not need a mother any more. I'm going to find the man who made my mother gone – and I'm going to send him to you – so you can send him to Hell"
Nagini hissed approvingly at his words, and he smiled at her as he wiped his face on his sleeve. He could feel the spark growing in his eye. That was the last time Tom Marvolo Riddle had cried.
Ok so bit of a weird chapter, but the next one starts with him in 5th year, and he will reference back to his times at Wool's and his back story is important so that when you meet cold and cruel 15 year old Tom you don't think he's just a little shit and stop reading. Next chapter will also involved some time travellers – not that he knows that :P
Comments and Reviews are my air now that all my favourite TV shows have stopped for summer – so please don't leave me here to suffocate, ok? :)