Disclaimer: I don't own Tom Riddle Sr., Tom Riddle Jr., Little Hangleton, or the word "Muggle." Everything else I probably do own. But I'm not making any money off it. So you can't sue me. Suckers!
A/N: Basically, the story of the love between Voldemort's parents. This functions kind of as a prequel to my story "Rain in the Night," in which Tom Riddle Jr. murders his father and his grandparents. I think there's a lot to the story that we don't know. What drove a pureblooded witch to fall in love with a Muggle? What led Tom to abandon her? The challenge: make them both sympathetic characters. My success: dunno. That's why there's this little button at the bottom of the screen that says "review."
"Under the Skin"
His mother had always had notoriously bad knees. So had her mother, and her mother and father as well. All the women and half the men in her family were arthritic in the knees. But not him. Tom took after his father, strong-boned and –jointed, tall and straight.
Rheumatism never hit his mother in May, but no bother.
Tom walked down the narrow sidewalk and along the empty street, feeling a particular kinship with the wind-whipped village at this deserted hour. He'd seen pictures of cities—big towns, even—where the streets were alive and bustling at any time of the day. It was due to the size of Little Hangleton that there was a time, between lunch hour and the end of the workday, that the streets became a virtual ghost town. This was Tom's favorite time to come out, though not because he didn't like people. Today he was out to get a newspaper. Though why he bothered he didn't know: the news never really changed; it was the same old death and taxes and labor and malcontents every day. But in any event he was still out to get a morning paper. He shifted his weight to his right leg and redoubled his pace, considerably more bounce-and-falter in his gait.
*
Her mother had been beautiful. And in addition to the fact that she had been perfect, that was all Julia knew about her. She was kind. Well-mannered. Talented. Beautiful. A blank spot in the memory of a birthday, a holiday, a first day of school. Julia hated her, but then hating was just another blank spot, and Julia suspected that hatred wasn't really as bad a thing as people made out.
Julia wasn't beautiful, but then beauty was only skin-deep. Skin-deep and in the eye of the beholder. How coincidental. Only in her eye, she suspected, could this scene of empty streets be beautiful. It was beautiful in the way the sun hit the sidewalks and pavement, illuminating each discolored spot and crack. Little Hangleton had a budget, but it apparently didn't extend to such things as street repairs. Didn't matter. Julia loved it the way it was. She clutched briefly at a thin silver chain that hung around her neck and below the neckline of her blouse, and slowed her pace slightly.
*
It was May, and he wasn't in school. He'd never been out and about Little Hangleton at this time of year, at least not since he had been young. He'd forgotten the ghost town hours until this April. They had always frightened him as a child, whenever his mother took him to town. They didn't exist so much in the summer, either, as the liberated schoolchildren in town kept the streets alive. Young hooligans they were, though Tom wasn't so sure.
Tom saw the newspaper stand ahead and sped up. His right leg was beginning to ache with fatigue, so he switched to favoring it instead of the left. A girl in working-class clothes passed him with an odd glance. He glared to her face, and then watched her receding back, the slight twitch of her hips that so many girls (he knew) practiced. Hers was less defined—probably, he thought vaguely, because of her flat-soled shoes.
Within a few more seconds he had reached the newspaper stand and fished a few coins out of his pocket. The vendor—an old friend of late—greeted Tom warmly and asked him to convey greetings to his father. Tom nodded mechanically and turned to leave, unfolding the paper and glancing over the headlines. Over the top he saw a little old man exit a shop and start along the street with a knotted wooden cane. That was always the way in the ghost town hours—isolated encounters, a greeting here and there. Tom said a few words to the old man in passing and continued on looking at today's death and taxes and labor and malcontents. As he did, it occurred to him that though he formed fewer words during these hours, he actually said more. A paradox—kind of like a school-less May.
Tom smiled and closed the newspaper, pausing to fold it underneath his arm. He felt almost as if he were breaking some law of nature, being out here at this time of day at this time of year. That made him smile some more, and he wondered how many of his schoolmates could boast of a similar experience. Then he remembered the girl he'd seen and wondered why she wasn't in school. Then he remembered his father's long-winded rants on school drop-outs, and he started walking again, forehead creased. Drop-outs were lazy lugs that never amounted to anything. Tom wasn't a drop-out. He sped up, forgetting in his haste to limp.
He'd made it a few blocks before he approached a building corner and nearly ran headlong into a girl. She appeared suddenly from around the corner, stopping short with a gasp an inch from hitting him.
"Oh, my God! I'm sorry!" she cried, one hand on her cheek, which Tom noticed was un-rouged. "I hope I didn't hurt you?"
"You didn't even touch me."
"Well! That's good."
Her lips weren't rouged either, and there wasn't any shadowing above her eyes.
"I'm sorry…I'm terribly clumsy."
Her eyes were large and grey and stayed on his face throughout the entire apology.
"It's no problem. I should have been paying attention."
"My goodness, I just didn't even think to look for anyone around the corner! It's become so mechanical for me, coming this way every day and all." She shook her head and laughed, and Tom suddenly realized two things: she was lying, and she was also the girl he'd seen on the way to the newspaper stand. He decided not to call her on either count. He liked to hear her talk.
"Yeah, I guess it's getting to be that way for me now, too," he said, and winced as he wondered if she would inquire why. She didn't.
"So—er…do you live around here?" she asked.
"Er…yeah," he said, shifting his weight and feeling somewhat relieved to be the one giving her a queer look. She blushed and studied the ground.
"I do live outside of town, though," he offered helpfully, knowing that even for a non-apology his was a particularly lame one. But she was obviously endeavoring to keep the conversation alive. He wondered for a moment why he was doing the same. Last year he wouldn't have bothered. Then again, last year had been different.
"I live outside town, too," she said, looking up again. "Out in the fields to the east. Real far away. Don't ask me why my parents built so far out."
He laughed in the appropriate spot and she continued.
"I come into town every so often. I'm not a hermit." Her grey eyes were locked onto Tom's again so that he started to feel the need to squirm. He almost didn't catch her pause in speech. Grey water with mist over them—that's what they looked like. He smiled.
"My parents pretty much keep to themselves. I think they consider coming into town to be beneath them."
"Oh—are they rich?"
Tom laughed in genuine pleasure. "Rich, snobby and stuffed full of self-importance. How about your parents?" She laughed, and he marveled at her obliviousness.
"About the same. Except not rich. So really there's no point."
"Oh, there's always something to feel stuffed up about," said Tom.
"I'm sure," said the grey-eyed girl, and it occurred to tom that he didn't know her name.
"Er…my name's Tom. Tom Riddle."
"Julia Galloway."
Her hair, though it hung only to her shoulders, was straight. Very unlike most girls, who imitated the cinema starlets with waves and ringlets.
"You're a Muggle?" she asked. Tom, eyes still on her hair, realized he'd been so absorbed in its dark color that he'd forgotten to listen to her.
"What?"
"Nothing," she said cheerily.
"No," said Tom, flushing. "I—I'm sorry. I think I was daydreaming for a few seconds there."
"No—it's quite alright. I just got my words mixed up in my mouth."
"Ah—I hate it when that happens to me."
"Does it happen often to you? I find that whenever I'm excited I'm quite incoherent."
"So you're excited now."
She blushed. He smiled. Julia Galloway recovered quickly and her eyes regained his, looking a little embarrassed.
"I must apologize—I'm quite unimpressed with myself throughout this conversation. I don't mean to come off like such a schoolgirl."
"Really? I'm not unimpressed."
She looked at him sidewise. "Thank you."
"No problem." Alright, he'd said it, and they'd exchanged words over it, and now they were stuck in another uncomfortable silence. "Er…shall I walk you home?"
"No!"
Tom recoiled.
"I mean—I'm awfully sorry—I've got a few more appointments in town—"
"That's alright," said Tom heavily. "I'll be on my way."
"Wait! Well—Tom—I'd like to meet you again."
"Really?"
Her eyes were sincere.
"Well then…"
"Same time tomorrow?" she suggested helpfully.
"Sure."
She was so wonderfully working-class. Tom watched her receding back, her dark straight hair, her twitch-less flat-shoed gait. And she was so wonderfully oblivious. She'd asked about his family's money! He could have died from the pleasure.
Back home now. His limping had slowed somewhat.