Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter; its copyright belongs to J. K. Rowling.
Prologue
Smoke-grey clouds conspired to hide the afternoon sun, abiding the dreary tone set by the courtyard of Wool's Orphanage. Bands of boys and girls were scattered about, in their respective grey, patched jackets and dust-smitten accordion skirts. It was far from the season for visit days, and so, no one cared much about looking all neat and presentable. Jack Hayes' flushed cheeks were blemished with dirt and sketching charcoals; his brown hair was as scruffy as it was foul-smelling.
Hot showers came once a month, if one behaved well. As he heaved Jack up by the collar, Ray Hawkins found that the smaller boy wasn't fond of their cold variety.
"Where'd you hide 'em?" Ray had a distinctively unkind face; he was thirteen years old, and the odds of him ever finding a family had become null years ago. His sunken, beady grey eyes glinted with predatory amusement.
"I-I don't! Your deck 'a cards? I didn't take 'em. Swear to God!" Jack pleaded. His hands were concealed by the sleeves of his oversized jacket.
"Search him again anyhow, gents," Ray's command was heeded without question. The retinue of younger boys closed around Jack, like covetous pigeons around a charitable bird feeder.
There was a mucky handkerchief and some breadcrumbs in Jack's trouser pockets, but no deck of cards. The boys then checked the flap pockets of his jacket, and then his inner pockets; nothing. His shoes were removed, and groping hands thrust into his trousers.
"He doesn't have 'em, Ray. All tut and crumbs." said Willie, a scrawny blonde boy, whose jacket fit him like a blazer on a chimpanzee.
"Damn it all. 'Ight, well piss off then, Jack," Ray let go of the younger boy's collar, turned him around, and gave a shove. Jack fell to the floor, but hastily arose and scurried away. Ray watched him go. "We've picked at every rouser already. Reckon it could be one of the girls?"
"There's one more..." murmured Earn, a boy with long, sandy hair, the quietest of the gang.
"Who's that, then?"
"You won't like him," Earn whispered, with all the foreboding a twelve-year-old boy could muster.
"Good thing I ain't looking to kiss him then, aye?" Chuckles rose. Ray's sunken eyes pranced from boy to boy, savouring the esteem they gave to his humour. "Who is it, anyhow?"
"Tom… Riddle." Earn's thin voice cracked. He looked at the ground, as though the very mention of Riddle's name would precipitate his wrath.
A daunting silence infected the air between the boys, like an inkwell spilling onto a bare sheet of paper. Earn's faint, blue eyes darted from boy to boy, pleading- please, please don't even consider this. Although none of the boys had first-hand experience with Tom Riddle, they had all heard the rumours of his exploits. There must have been a reason Mrs. Cole gave Tom Riddle an entire room to himself, while even teenagers approaching adulthood still had to share theirs.
"Let's get him then, lads." Ray's hesitant face contorted into his usual expression of haughty confidence.
"Ray…" Earn whispered.
"What? There's five of us, and one of him. Don't be yellow now, aye?" Ray nudged Willie, whose petrified expression melted into a parody of Ray's self-assurance.
"Yeah, c'mon Earnie." Willie pressured.
"Fine." Although Earn's qualms didn't subside, he didn't want to seem faint-hearted in front of the other boys.
"C'mon then, let's go." As Ray strode through the yard, flanked by two boys on either side, the other grey-garbed orphans scampered to make way.
A few paces ahead of them was the gnarled, ancient, and leafless yew tree, the branches of which lurked in disquiet like a gigantic, hibernating octopus loosely dispensed above the furtive weeds of the seabed. They nearly hadn't noticed the slight, sitting figure of Tom Riddle, whose dark eyes were focused on the dextrous shuffling of cards in his hands.
"Riddle! Give 'em here." Ray's voice was firm.
"No." To the uninitiated, Tom Riddle's high pitched, slightly nasal voice would have been disregarded as that of an ordinary nine year boy's. The goosebumps that oozed through Earn and Willie's skins disagreed.
"I won't ask again. Give 'em here, now!" Ray shouted, as though seeming outwardly angry would quell the fear whisking in his stomach.
"You should leave." Riddle said, sounding bored.
"Or what? Your circus tricks won't work here. You can't run!" Ray sauntered up to Riddle, the other boys following. Riddle adeptly straightened the cards, pocketed them, and stood up. His neatly combed black hair hardly reached Ray's chest.
"They're not circus tricks. You should know that by now." Riddle sneered, his face just about pressing against Ray's chest.
"Oh yeah, why don't you do something, then? We're more than you, five to one." Ray pressed further against Riddle; from a distance, it would have seemed like the two were hugging with all but arms.
Riddle stepped back; for a moment, Ray had thought he conceded. Instead, the space he vacated revealed the tree's dark hollow, girdled by several tortuously twisted, moss-crusted branches. An unpleasant smile formed on Riddle's face, cruel dimples emerging.
"Ssshiihaassiii... niisaayas...hasaayiii.."
"What are you playing at, you- Argh!" Ray was tripped over; a small, chalk-white snake had spurted from the lightless hollow of the tree, and coiled itself around Ray's ankle. All the other boys screamed and ran.
After shoving the large gate of the dormitory building open, and sprinting up a set of creaking stairs, Willie Stewart pounded at door after door. He was looking for Frank Lehmann; the only person, apart from Mrs. Cole herself, who was able to intimidate and discipline Riddle. For some reason, Riddle's sinister antics just didn't register properly around adults. At least, not yet.
"Frankie! Frankie!"
"Bloody hell, what's the matter with you?" Frank Lehmann's disheveled, burly seventeen-year old figure appeared out of a doorway which he had to stoop to exit. Willie felt a pang of envy at Frank being allowed to wear his own clothes, even if it was only a pair of waist-high plaid brown trousers and a loose-fitting shirt.
"Riddle! Riddle got a snake to a-attack Ray!"
"Ah, damn it. Riddle making a right fuss again? Pray, the boy's got the Devil in him. Let's go."
Frank leisurely walked down the stairs, as though he were going to collect a cup of tea from the kettle, rather than deal with Riddle and his belligerent snake. Striding through the courtyard, Frank whistled atonally, as he massaged his unkempt black hair. The warped sight of the leafless yew tree did not startle him.
"Riddle! Freak-boy! Get the snake off Ray, now! I said now!" Frank barked.
Tom Riddle's expression contorted into a fearful one, as he began to rapidly hiss at the snake. The snake loosened, but as it did, Ray propped himself up, and tackled Riddle onto the grass. The snake, which looked like it had just initiated the process of retreating into the bushes, turned course, and set itself on Ray's neck. Ray rolled off Riddle, his hands scrambling to remove the snake around his neck. His face rapidly reddened.
With the firm grip of his left hand, Frank seized the snake off Ray's neck. In his right hand, was a tapered pocket knife, with a biscuit-brown wooden handle.
One moment the snake was frenziedly flailing in Frank's grasp. The next, it became limp, like the dismembered, unnaturally long arm of a child's corpse, with droplets of blood trickling onto the grass.