Disclaimer: The ideas are mine, he characters belong to J.K.
"I can make them hurt if I want to."
Tom Riddle Jr.
The ten year old boy was smiling when he opened the door to his room. Tom Riddle Junior was happy to find himself alone.
Privacy was, after all, a rare gift in an overcrowded orphanage in the East End of London.
He dropped his backpack next to the door and picked up a History Book. It was insulting that he should be forced to attend that poor excuse for a public school with the other boys from the orphanage. It was a dreadful waste of time when he could learn so much better on his own. Not that there was much to learn in History anyway. The boy would simply leaf through the pages, memorizing names and dates that might be asked in exams. Tom had never found much use in studying the past, much less reading about other people's accomplishments. He would much rather spend his time daydreaming about the great things he would do in the future.
When he had almost reached his bed something caught his eye. Tom dropped the book on his pillow and walked towards the window.
There was some sort of animal moving awkwardly over the windowsill. A turtle. It was very small, it couldn't be much larger than the palm of his hand and it had small blue spots on its shell.
Bishop's pet turtle.
Tom's smile widened on his face. He'd been meaning to try that for a while.
"Stop," commanded the boy, looking at the turtle, but the animal continued to move, as thought he hadn't said anything.
Tom seemed surprised. He took a moment to concentrate, looking at the small turtle and picturing a snake on his mind.
"Stop," he commanded again, and this time a strange hissing sound came from his mouth. There it was he thought, for a moment, that strange animal language again.
But the turtle went on her way, uninterrupted, as if the boy hadn't said anything.
Tom was growing impatient.
"Stop," he said once more, and once more his words, strange as they may sound, did not disturb the little turtle's march.
It would appear that his little gift, for the lack of a better word, that language he could speak never having studied it before, did not work on turtles. He had only ever used in snakes before. But the turtle was a reptile, wasn't it? It was as close as it got to a snake, it should have worked! How many animal languages could there be? Why could he only speak one?
He became angry. So angry in fact that it took him a moment to realize that something was happening to the little animal.
The turtle's march had finally halted. It's four limbs, as well as it's head were oddly stretched, as though invisible ropes were pulling them apart, each in a different direction. It did not take long for cracks and tears to appear on the turtle's skin.
The left foot was the first to be torn apart from the body.
It took a while for Tom to realize that it was he who was doing it. His anger. His… gift.
Almost as soon as he realized that everything stopped. He wasn't angry anymore.
He felt… powerful. There didn't seem to be any limits to what he could do.
He was about to push the little turtle out of the window, but something on the turtle's shell cut his finger and the ten year old pulled his hand back. His finger was bleeding.
The turtle was pushed away, to the corner of the windowsill. It was almost as if Tom was doing it with his thoughts again.
But he was too distracted to think about that now. He was studying the blood on the windowsill, in the place where the turtle had been, just a fraction of a second earlier. It was not his blood, but it surprised and displeased him to notice how similar it actually was.
The blood of that obviously lesser creature was also red.
Irritated, Tom used a pencil to push the little turtle out of the window. It was a long fall from the third floor.
Author's Note: I wrote this for the Greek Mythology Mega Prompt Challenge: (Perseus - write about Tom Riddle) and the Ultimate Battle Competition! (matching accessory pack – 600 words).