I don't any of these fantastic characters (well, just imagine what I'd be like if I had my very own Tom Riddle . . . in a cage . . . anyway, back to reality)

All respect and adoration to JKR for creating the fantastic, uber-renty Tom Riddle.

Please R&R!

*~*

Tom Riddle stood before the small mirror on the wall in his dormitory. He had waited until all his housemates had gone to breakfast, pleading a stomach-ache.

This was not true, but he was far too excited to eat.

He teased the comb one last time through his, as always, perfectly styled hair, before reaching into his wand pocket.

Instead of his wand, however, he pulled out . . . a black eyeliner pencil.

*~*

Tom had been so excited when he got the Hogwarts letter. He always knew he was of a different class to the plebs with whom he was forced to live in the orphanage. He wanted, more than anything, to escape to boarding school. However, it was an impossible dream . . . the 'socialist' principles of the social services meant that he was going to the local comp with every other kid who had never read a book in their life.

He immersed himself in stories of boarding schools and summer camps and children outwitting adults to solve mysteries. He decided that, altough he could not separate himself from them physically, he would have to do so intellectually. He read and read, still feeling that there was something missing, that his mother would appear, that she was not dead, that her love would somehow save him . . .

One hot summer's day, he was sitting in the cramped dormitory he shared with seven other boys. The book open on his lap was The Picture of Dorian Gray, but he was not really reading it. He was gazing out of the open window, watching the football game which was swiftly degenerating into an anarchic free-for-all, when he saw the fight come slowly to a halt. One by one, each boy's gaze was drawn towards a most unlikely sight – and elegant barn owl was flying across the yard, carrying what seemed to be an envelope in its talons. Tom saw, with amazement, that it seemed to be heading right for him! He didn't know what to expect, so threw himself off his bed, Wilde's pages fluttering like the owl's wings as his book fell to the floor.

The bird seemed unfazed by this, as it simply dropped the envelope on his bed and flew out the way it had come in. Tom watched in amazement as the owl flew away, until it was no more than a dot on the horizon.

He recovered his composure as he heard the clamour of footsteps on the stairs – he jumped back onto his bed and stuffed the letter inside his pillowcase. He had just reached down to retrieve his book from the floor as his roommates and, in fact, most of the orphanage came flying in.

He had to wait until much later to read the letter. He hadn't even had time to read the envelope – it might not even belong to him! He laughed at himself – how could he even think it would be adressed to him? Things like that only happened in kids' books, never in the real world.

Still, he entertained childish hopes that this letter was a message from his mother, who hadn't been able to contact him because she was held captive in a Siberian prison, or an Icelandic fortress, and had, after ten long years, found to means to communicate with him, by a trained homing owl, or an owl which was in fact a remete controlled robot built by renegade engineers.

These fantasies, spiralling wilder and wilder, kept him sane throught the long wait for solitude. He was rarely, if ever alone is his dormitory.

When night had fallen. And he was quite sure every other inhabitant of his dorm was asleep, Tom sat up in bed, pulled the curtain over his head and took the letter out from inside his pillowcase.

The moon had just begun to wane, and there was quite enough light for him to read by. The envelope was addressed to him:

Tom Marvolo Riddle

The Lumpiest Bed

The Smelliest Dormitory

Great Hangleton Orphanage

Great Hangleton

Tom was shocked – how could anyone know his was the lumpiest bed? (it was, thought, he was sure of it.)

A feeling of forboding suddenly rushed through Tom's body. Whatever was in tis envelope, he felt sure, would change his life irrevocably.

He felt the heavy cream paper between his fingers and, with a sudden burst of courage, tore open the envelope.

Dear Mr Riddle,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl no later than 31 July.

Yours Sincerely

Proffesor S. K. Ungulent

Deputy Headmaster.

The letter made no sense to Tom. He read in through a few times more before he could reallt take in what it was saying. An escape! A ticket out of this hellhole! To an elitist public school, no less.

A school of Witchcraft and Wizardry . . . this surpassed Tom's wildest dreams of escape. Which is why he pinched himself, hard, three times before he returned the letter to his pillowcase and wriggled down under the blankets.