Title: Mudblood
Rating:
R (for mentions of rape)
Warnings: mentions of rape
Disclaimer: If you can sue me for owning it, it's not mine.
Summary: They wouldn't have done it if he were pureblood, he knows...hatred courses through his veins, flaming through him as painfully as the wounds they've left scratched into his skin. One day they'll regret this.

Mudblood

In a secluded part of Hogwarts Castle, fifth-year Cecil Avery is gleefully recounting to a group of friends, including his third-year brother, about how he tortured and raped that strange little Muggleborn first-year.

"Good show!" laughs Emelius Lestrange. "I'll never understand how that insolent brat made it into Slytherin in the first place."

"He certainly got what he deserved," agrees Marcus Macnair, sniggering.

"But isn't it dangerous to do things like that?" asks Avery the younger, frowning worriedly up at his brother.

Cecil pauses for a moment, considering.

oooooooo

It's not surprising, thinks that same eleven-year-old first-year, that the wizarding world is just as prejudiced and vicious as the Muggle world. Really, he should have expected this. Just because he now lives in a world full of magic doesn't mean that he'll be any happier.

He presses a careful hand to the bleeding wound where a cutting curse has slashed his shoulder open. It's magic that did this, not a simple Muggle knife. That doesn't make it hurt any less. They call him a stupid Mudblood now, instead of a know-it-all freak, but that doesn't hurt any less either.

He doesn't know why that Hat put him, a Muggleborn orphan, in Slytherin House. He wishes it hadn't. He wishes it had put him in Ravenclaw, where they'd respect his intelligence. He wishes it had put him in Hufflepuff so the Slytherins would ignore him. He wishes it had put him in Gryffindor, so he'd have an excuse to hurt the Slytherins back.

He does not wish that he was back in the orphanage. Exchanging one hell for another will not make anything any better.

He wishes he would stop bleeding.

As he lies here, curled up in a broom cupboard no one ever uses, he imagines what he will do to his Slytherin tormentors. His last fantasy was that he will become Minister for Magic, and arrest all his current tormentors and send them all to prison and execute them.

But he knows this will never happen, for many, many reasons.

And it's nowhere near horrible enough to punish them all for what they've done to him now.

They wouldn't have done it if he was pureblood, he knows. They see him only as an animal, not worth human rights to dignity. They view torturing him as fun.

This time, they'd enchanted a knife...

It's not only his shoulder that hurts.

That's right, that's it. Take off your clothes. Yes, all of them.

The shock that had numbed his emotions and the fear that had forced him into automatic obedience is fading now. A small spark of anger begins to burn within.

Kneel. You heard me, on your knees! Good boy...

He clenches his hands into fists. I'll make them kneel, he thinks savagely. I'll make them kneel at my feet, one day. It's a surprisingly satisfying image.

Come here. No, don't walk. Crawl. Like the animal you are, Mudblood.

I'll do that to them too, he decides viciously. His eleven-year-old mind can't think of any punishments worse than what they've done to him, and he takes great pleasure in imagining his tormentors suffering the humiliation they'd inflicted on him...

See this knife? We've put a very special charm on it, just for you...

Hatred courses through his veins, flaming through him as painfully as the wounds they've left scratched into his skin. One day they'll regret this. One day anyone who dares hurt him will regret it, and will suffer for it just as badly as he is suffering now...

You'll never get a girl now, boy. Whenever they see that scar they'll ask what it is, and you know what you'll tell them, don't you? That you're marked forever, marked as mine...

I'll mark them, he thinks furiously. I'm not theirs. I'll never be theirs. But one day...one day, they'll be mine. And they'll fear me as they've never feared anyone before.

They'll fear me so much that no one will even dare to speak my name.

His stupid, boring name...silently, he pulls a scrap piece of parchment out of a pocket. He stares at it for a long, long time, mind whirling.

Then, a bit dizzy from all the blood he's lost, he presses his shaking fingers to his still-bleeding wound and writes:

Tom Marvolo Riddle

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

And then he begins to laugh.

oooooo

"...isn't it dangerous to do things like that?"

Cecil Avery pauses only very briefly and then snorts with contempt. "Nah. The professors will never find out. And that helpless little Mudblood is about as dangerous as a Flobberworm."

"Yeah," Emelius adds. "Forty years from now, he'll still be crawling at our feet, begging us for mercy, like any good Mudblood should."

"C'mon," says Macnair, flinging an arm over Cecil's shoulders. "Let's go get lunch. I heard they're serving pie for dessert..."

oooooo

A/N:I imagine this taking place before Tom learns that he's actually half-blooded and Slytherin's Heir. It would therefore be perfectly logical for him to assume that since he's from a Muggle orphanage that he is in fact Muggleborn.