Revenge

Onesmartcookie78

Summary: Tom plots his revenge with a nest of Adders.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter in any way, shape or form. Unfortunately, (well, fortunate for her) it belongs to the lovely Joanne Rowling. Any plots or characters that you recognise belong to her.

A/N: This fic was written for the description of an apple wand.

Revenge

Applewood owners possess the ability to converse with other magical beings in their native tongue. Write about a Character who can talk to animals/other magical creatures.

Tom Riddle was used to being left alone. He hated the company of the other children because there was no chance of having an intelligent conversation. Almost none of them –despite their less than superior schooling- could read (which may have been the teacher's fault. He was dreadful) but was more than likely due to their own ineptitude.

And since he couldn't tolerate it when people didn't put any effort into their work, Tom Riddle loathed the other orphans.

He did enjoy reading though; it wasn't hard to find him sitting on a ledge in the sorry excuse for a courtyard, nose shoved in a book. But even that wasn't what he spent more than half his time doing.

No, Tom Riddle was a special boy. It hadn't been hard for him to figure it out; he had become angry a Billy Stubbs (the other boy had been making fun of him for being so small) and the poor child's rabbit had suffered the consequences. The animal had been brutally murdered and hung from the rafters in the attic. Its eyes had been clawed out –a nod to Tom's favourite poem, The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe- its neck twisted unnaturally and its tail stuffed in its mouth.

Tom, of course, had easily influenced Miss Cole into switching Bishop and Stubbs's chores around so that Stubbs was cleaning the attic. No one could ever say that Tom was unkind though; he'd made sure that Stubbs had been given a feather duster.

Yes, Tom had willed it, pictured it exactly as such, and it had happened. He hadn't even needed to lift on a single one of his slender pianist fingers. It had just happened.

So he had tested the extent of those abilities. He had scarred Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop for life in a cave during a field trip of sorts (the two could still barely talk about it), and gotten back at Eric Whalley. Yes, that had been rather fun. Whalley had been the ringleader of his torment and –using logic he had gleaned from his books- Tom had deduced that when you took out the leader, everyone else would soon cease their activities as well.

Originally, Tom had thought of doing something similar to what he'd done to Billy Stubbs's rabbit, but he didn't want to be a suspect in a murder case. In all of the crime books that he had read, the murderer was always caught. He couldn't have that happen; it would ruin his fun!

So he thought and thought. He spent time in the courtyard thinking, sitting on his ledge and waiting for inspiration to strike. When an idea didn't come to him at that location, he moved to the small patch of grass underneath the dying apple tree.

Although some children went outside (most preferred not to due to his presence), none went near the apple tree.

It was known to all that a rather large nest of adders resided there, a particularly poisonous snake that no one wanted to encounter.

Tom was not to be deterred. He had bent the rabbit to his will, so who's to say that he couldn't do the same to the snake? If worst came to worse, he could always kill the creature.

In fact, that prospect was rather amusing in itself.

Perhaps he should get the snakes to obey his every whim and have them do things for him? Though he'd never been caught before, that was always something looming over his shoulders. But if he could get the adders to listen to him…?

Yes, that would be his goal. He could have the snakes bite Eric, not enough to kill him, mind, but enough to make him very, very sick.

Perfect.

There was one flaw in his plan, though it was miniscule and barely worth paying attention to in his mind: what if the snakes refused his totalitarian dictatorship of their kind? What if they resented the idea of a demagogue? Would he have to settle on a monarchy?

Why was he even thinking about this? The stupid things were animals. No better than that rabbit.

Maybe that was not a minor mistake after all. Yes, he was going to play it by ear.

His mind made up, Riddle settled himself against the bark of the tree and began to wait. He listened, he read, and all day he heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. He'd been waiting for a sign to leap out and hit him in the face and yet nothing.

Tom Marvolo Riddle was nothing but patient however, and so he waited. And waited. A week passed. Then two. A month. Revenge on Whalley was forgotten as Tom bided his time, waiting for the adders to appear. So that he could rule them. Or kill them.

Three months passed and the ten-verging-on-eleven year old Tom was bored. He'd been through the limited library at Wool's Orphanage as well as the slightly-larger-but-not-by-much one at his "school" (honestly, it shouldn't count as such; the teachers had proved to be as infantile as the children –excluding him, of course- they taught) but couldn't find a book he hadn't read.

A bored Tom Riddle is a vindictive Tom Riddle. A Tom Riddle with too much time on his hands is dangerous.

And worst of all, a bored Tom Riddle likes to experiment.

He began his manipulations easily; a whispered word in passing to Amy Benson had her convinced that Billy Stubbs had killed his own rabbit. Another utterance and Dennis Bishop believed that Amy was the one who had attacked him in that cave.

Tom didn't possess many admirable facets –that is, unless torture, murder, lying and devilishly good looks counted- but one that he did was dedication. He was willing to see something through to its end. However long it may take, he would do it.

And as said previously, he was a patient child.

It wasn't long before the other children were in an uproar.

They were screaming, running like nuts, jumping on each other and punching, accusations had spread like wild fire and the fight (which had started out as a verbal argument) had soon escalated into its current tumultuous state.

Tom watched on, bemused at the power of a single, tiny suggestion. He gained a little satisfaction from the chaos, but not near enough. His boredom persisted.

Miss Cole entered and was instantly incited at the scene before her. It was clear that Tom was the problem.

He stared up at her innocently, shooting her a charming smile, and saying that he was the victim. The other children were only defending him.

Miss Cole was not to be persuaded. She dragged him out to the courtyard by his ear, giving him a stern look and then locked the door behind her. His punishment was clear: he was to spend the night outside.

Rolling his eyes, Tom stalked to his tree and plopped down. This time, he didn't even have a book to keep him company. The results had outweighed the penalties though. Now he knew what buttons to push- which ones would set which people off. Although he hadn't gained any pleasure from today's activities, he could use the knowledge for later.

Tom sighed and closed his eyes. It was sometime later when Tom woke up, to a voice in his ear.

"Human, why do you tressspasss here?" The thing hissed.

Tom's eyes flew open immediately to see a large white snake with a back diamond pattern curled around his shoulder. Despite his attempts to remain unaffected, Tom sucked in a breath of surprise.

"If you don't leave, I will bite you boy. Ssspeak now," The adder commanded.

"What are you doing?" Another snake crawled upon the orphan's opposite shoulder.

Tom could feel his green eyes widen and he stiffened. There were two very poisonous snakes on his shoulders. The only poisonous snakes in England were adders, so of course they were on his shoulders. What luck.

"He isss a ssspeaker child," the new adder continued.

"He doesssn't look like one." The other one argued.

"Why can I hear sssnakesss talking?" Tom thought.

"Sssee? He ssspeakss," his defender bragged. Guess he'd said it out loud.

"Nonsssensse. He heard usss ssspeaking. He only heard usss hisssing."

"No, I can hear you talking," Tom snapped. He was already mad according to the other children, so did this make him even more mental? Was he going to have to see more doctors? The snakes hadn't scared him, but that thought did. He didn't want to be poked and prodded all over again. He wouldn't stand for it.

"Sssee? He isss a ssspeaker child. Your will isss our command, massster."

A feral grin manoeuvred its way across his features as his revenge plan reinserted itself in his mind. "I have an idea."