The first time it happened was when he was six years old. It was the first time that he realized that he was different from the others, special.
It was a hot day in the middle of summer. The heat was so hot that it seemed to bake not only his body, but his very soul. He felt like there was no reason to keep trying to do anything in the intense heat. Why not just shrivel up like a dry, dead leaf? It was not as though he had any wish to do otherwise.
All around him, kids were laughing and shouting. It annoyed him because they all were so noisy and he could not concentrate. He also could not understand why they were all playing together in apparent amusement while he was sitting in the corner, bored and hot. Something in his throat tightened and a fire seemed to ignite in his stomach. He felt terribly out of control all of a sudden, in a way he could not describe. These kids, with their obnoxious noise and stupid games, made him feel wild and uncontrolled and frustrated and something else that he could not describe. How dare they make him feel like this! He stood up and glided across the playground, moving like a soft, ominous shadow. The kids did not notice him coming, their laughs and shrieks louder than ever. One young girl was being particularly noisy, her shrill laugh resonating throughout the playground. She was merrily chasing her brother and cried out as she ran through a puddle to be splashed by the droplets of water kicked up in her trail. As if he were possessed, he reached out his hands and pushed her.
It was strange how something that was such an integral moment in his life happened in a matter of seconds. As if in slow motion, the girl fell to the ground. She yelled in pain as her exposed knees were scraped against the sharp stones that lined the ground. She sat there as if stunned, and he watched her with equal shock and fascination. Then, her eyes watered and one droplet spilled over, flowing slowly down her cheek. When she lifted her hands to her face, as if to hide her crying from the world, a streak of crimson from her scraped palms trickled slowly down her chin. There was a look on her face that he had never seen before. Her eyes were wide and round, her mouth hung open, and she appeared to shy away from him.
Her brother came running at the sound of her cry of pain. When the brother saw his sister on the ground, the brother adopted the same look. Then, the brother grabbed his sister by the hand and the two took off running.
He stood there, puzzled as to why he felt so relieved. No, it was beyond even the sentiment of relief. He felt powerful and incredibly… happy. It had felt so good to push her, and to see that look in her and her brother's eyes. Why that was, he did not know, but it was not as if he had a ton of pleasure in his short, difficult life.
He had never met his parents. He did not even know if they were still alive. He had lived in an orphanage all his life. The one thing that he knew about himself was that his mother had chosen his name for him right before she died: Tom Marvolo Riddle. Tom was the name of his father while Marvolo was that of his grandfather. He clung onto this information like a blanket because it was all he knew about himself. Otherwise, he would be nameless, without a hope of ever being thought of as different in any way from the other pathetic children who occupied the orphanage. Indeed, the Egyptians had thought that the ren or the name made up one fifth of the soul. Many myths he had read spoke about the power of names. If you knew a foe's name, you had power over them. Just saying your opponent's name could mean vanquishing them. Names were powerful.
The next incident had been when he was seven. It was his birthday and Mrs. Cole had told him that he could ask for anything he wanted as a present "within reason." He found it amusing that the woman did not realize the hypocrisy of saying he could have anything and then denying him things that she considered to be unreasonable, which was a criteria that she alone defined.
"I want to know how my mother died," he had demanded, not even bothering to try to sound polite. Why should he, if she was going to give him what he wanted anyway.
Mrs. Cole had looked uncomfortable and tried to dissuade him, but he was adamant. What else would he want? He did not want the sticky, sickly sweet candy that left a sour taste at the back of his throat, nor the toys that the other children in the orphanage would want to play with and hold with their pudgy fingers. He needed to know what had happened.
Mrs. Cole finally relented and began to tell the story. He listened eagerly, his face blank, as she described the cold New Year's Eve where the ragged woman stumbled up the steps of the orphanage. She told of how the woman had given birth to her child and then, with her final, parting breath, named the boy before dying, condemning him to the life of an orphan.
"So I killed my mother," he stated once Mrs. Cole had fallen silent.
"No, sweetheart, not at all," the slightly rotund woman exclaimed in alarm. "Don't think such a thing."
But he did think such a thing. There was no other logical way of thinking about it. His mother had given birth to him and it had taken all of her remaining strength. She had died as a result of giving him life. The strange part was that he felt nothing as a result of the realization that he was his mother's killer. He had read enough novels to know that he was supposed to feel something. A few times, when there had been very little to read, he had borrowed some of Mrs. Cole's angst-filled romances, where the heroes and heroines sobbed over the death of a parent. As he gazed into the concerned face of the orphanage mistress, he felt the same loss of control that he had felt at the playground bubble up inside of him. Why did she pretend that he had not killed his mother? Why would she lie? He turned away from her, his eyes betraying nothing but the cold gray of smooth stones, and walked away slowly.
The next day, a scream came from the orphanage mistress' room. He followed the other kids leisurely as they rushed into her room. Mrs. Cole held her arm tightly, moaning with pain. As the other kids ran to her side, demanding to know if she was alright in their squeaky, nasally voices, he held out his arm for the small garter snake to clamber onto. He gently stroked the snake's beautifully cold scales, and the corners of his mouth twitched into a full-fledged smile.