SnAkE In ThE GrAsS
My Name is Emaleth Riddle
OR
The trouble with being Lord Voldemort's twin sister.
You could say it started with our birth, I suppose. I can't say we were ever wanted, except perhaps by our mother, but even then I'm not sure. Was she happy knowing that she had a baby on the way? Had she even guessed there would be two? I don't know. Can't know. Possibly, and I do think this is the most likely scenario, she had at first been pleased that she has a piece (or two) of her husband with her. But then, after spending most of her pregnancy cold, and undoubtly alone, she had no will to stay alive for it (or them). But that will stay our mother's secret alone until the end of time. Our mother was dead before we had the chance to meet her.
You know the story. Poor Merope Gaunt, direct Heir of Slytherin (and a witch), fell deeply in love with Tom Riddle (a Muggle). As a witch, she made a love potion, a powerful love potion, and gave it to Mr. Tom. It had shocked the villagers, her father, his parents, when they ran away together and got married. She got pregnant, stopped the doses of love potion – and hey, presto! Tom Riddle senior left her, and she was all on her own. She sold family heirlooms right, left, and centre, trying to keep herself a live long enough so that the baby (or babies) would live.
Mrs. Cole, Lady of the orphanage, and legal guardian extraordinaire told us once about the night of our birth. "It was New Years Eve, bad as any I'd seen before. Bitter cold, it was, and snowing. There was a woman on the steps, belly like a whale's. We took her in, as we'd done before, and have done since." She slurred this slightly. Mrs. Cole liked her Gin.
"She had one baby, and it was a boy. She named him, as you well know, Tom Marvolo Riddle. She tried to lay back then, lay back to die. The midwife got a tad snappy with her then, telling her that 'No, you can't die. Not now. Not while the second is still on the way.' This woman, your very own ma, did not like that. She sat straight up again, hissing – like a snake of all things! The girl came out not long afterwards, and she named her Emaleth Maia Riddle. After that she collapsed in a heap and promptly died." Mrs. Cole finished the story with a slight flourish, waving her hand (and glass) around for emphasis. Mrs. Cole herself collapsed then, but she wasn't dead, just snoring.
And so Tom and I grew up in St. Mary's orphanage. We were orphans, and outcasts, wherever we went. We were unusually close then, peculiar even for the mismatch of children found at St. Mary's. We had our own language, even, and the other children told us we sounded like snakes. We weren't at all surprised by this, because we knew we could talk to snakes too.
There were our now infamous "Incidents". The Billy Stubbs incident, when Tom had mutilated Billy's rabbit before hanging the then broken and bloody body from the rafters. The Amy Benson incident, when I had set my pet snake on her canary, had made her hair all fall out. I hated Amy, because Amy had tried to steal my locket. The one thing that my mother had left me - left me OR Tom – She had tried to steal. And the Seaside Incident, when we had lured Amy and Dennis Bishop down a Cliffside and into a cave, where we had tormented them, messing with their minds. None of them had ever been pinned on us, because Tom certainly couldn't have reached those rafters. How could I have controlled a snake, of all things, or made hair fall out? And it just wasn't possible for us to have climbed down that cliff without equipment, much less take two other children down with us.
But we had done those things, and we had done those things because we were special. Different. We hated our lives at St. Mary's with a passion, and we convinced ourselves that we were so special and different that we were better than the masses of children that surrounded us. We were better, and they were insignificant. They didn't even deserve our attention, and they should consider themselves lucky if we did talk to them. When we were children, we built our self-image up until it was epic.
We isolated ourselves from the others, both emotionally and physically. We would shut ourselves in Tom's room, and read. We would spend almost every day like this, only appearing at meal times. Mrs. Cole tried to discourage us from doing this and forbade us from locking our door. We didn't listen, and she had the locks removed. After that, we learned how to keep the door un-open able without any means of support. Mrs. Cole subsequently gave up, leaving us to do what we pleased.
Sometimes, just sometimes, we would escape the drudgery, climbing out our window and out into the street. We had our own London, running wild and thieving what we thought we needed (but, really, it was just what we wanted).
And so Tom and Emaleth Riddle grew up, in a cold and bleak orphanage in London. We had a plain childhood, and not a very good one. But grow up we did, and for all appearances we looked normal. But normal we weren't, and we clung to our tricks (and our anger at having such a life) to keep ourselves from drowning in a sea of grey.
And so we grew up.