Important AN: I won't write these unless there are important facts about the story you need to know. Ignis will be an AU where we will see very little of the wizarding world. The story will focus more on Tom and the friends he makes. There will be elements of torture and death, coz that's just how I like my Tom.

Chapter One

When I was a child, I'd sit for hours

Staring into open flame

Something in it had a power,

Could barely tear my eyes away

Hozier- Arsonist's Lullabye

It was 1930 and a young Tom Marvolo Riddle stood staring at an ominous gate. A big dark gate that reminded him of elaborate prison bars he had read about in his stories. And Wool's Orphanage in London was very much a prison. One he couldn't escape from no matter how hard he wished or hoped or begged. Tom didn't remember a time before the orphanage. A time when he had to have had a family. A mother and a father and maybe a sibling or two, all the children he read about had such families.

Mrs. Cole had always told him that his family never wanted him, that he was a runt and unloved. But he didn't believe that, not for one moment. All mothers loved their children and his was no exception, there had to be a reason for her to give him away. Maybe she couldn't care for him anymore or her nasty parents had made her give him away. His mother had named him and she wouldn't have done that if she hadn't loved him, would she? He was extremely proud of his name. It was the only link he had to his family.

Tom sighed deep in his six year old chest, the wind ruffling his silky black hair. With a last stare at the gate he turned back towards the orphanage and its dark looming doors and the vile inhabitants. There would be no attempts at a prison break today.

"Give it back!" The screech was accompanied by Tom's bedroom door banging open. He slowly closed his book and gently settled it onto his bed before turning to look at the child that had so unceremoniously barged into his room. His name was Rodney and he was a study of reds. Red hair, red cheeks, neck a mottled red colour. Tom thought him loud, brash and would dearly like to rip his tongue out of his mouth. No matter how much he wanted to Tom would never do that. He still had to be a good boy, or at least pretend to be.

"Give what back?" he asked looking at the other boy with dark emotionless eyes. He had learned early on that the less emotion he showed the more disturbed people became and the more they left him alone. "You took my ring, you freak!" spittle flying from his thin lips.

Tom couldn't quite keep his lips from tugging into a slight sneer at the sight. "I don't even know what your ring looks like, how could I steal it?" he stared at the red boy with clear disdain. They both knew this was a farce, a sham. The boy had no ring. But Tom had a part to play and he would play it, regardless of his own wishes. "I know you took it" the boy snarled, taking another deeper step into the room. "You're the only freak here who keeps stealing our stuff!"

At Rodney's steps into the room Tom cautiously stood from his bed ready for confrontation. He was painfully aware of his small stature and body made weak and thin by malnourishment. It wouldn't be the first time one of the other children had taken advantage of their size against Tom.

Tom felt his blood turn to ice in his veins when he heard Mrs. Cole's voice grate down the hallway. "What is all this shouting about?" the matron's pillowy breasts the first parts of her to come into sight, followed by her large stomach and sizable nose. She stood there standing in the doorway glaring at Tom with steely eyes, "what did you do Tom" she demanded.

"I didn-" "He stole my ring!" the red boy screeched staring at Tom in clear triumph. Tom had to clench his teeth to keep from shouting at the boy. He knew from experience that it would only make things worse for him. "Tom," Mrs. Cole said sounding disappointed but Tom could see the satisfaction in her eyes "why would you take poor Rodney's prized possession?"

"I didn't take his ring" Tom made sure to enunciate each word slowly. "Don't lie Tom" came the immediate response "we know your type." Tom felt his rage bubble under his skin, and with it came the Voice. Do it Tom it whispered seductively it would be so easy it said. We could set her on fire. Her screams would be beautiful it crooned in his ear. Tom couldn't help the little shudder that worked through him. It was getting harder and harder to deny the Voice.

"I didn't take his ring" Tom bit out, knowing it was a bad idea but unable to stop himself. He heard Mrs. Cole suck in a breath, "no dinner for you tonight Tom. You should know better that to lie to me. Now, you'll give little Rodney back his ring and that will be the end of it." He didn't say anything, he was too busy listening to the Voice. Burn her, tear her apart, make her hurt it murmured. Make her bleed, make the world red came the moan. "Nothing to say?" came the loaded question. Both of them knew that no matter what he said now, no matter his objections or explanations, she would only punish him for it. He bit his tongue and didn't say a word.

"Two days without food Tom", came the acid murmur, "you have until tomorrow morning to return the ring, or you know what your punishment will be." Tom could see the red bastard practically twitching with pleasure at that. The Voice snarled, a primal and hair raising sound. The Voice might have loved pain, and blood, and fear but it absolutely hated Tom's.

With those parting words Mrs. Cole swept out of the room, the red bastard close on her heels.

Tom sat outside next to a tree again, as he always did when things in the orphanage got too much. His backpack full of his important possessions cradled in his arms. He knew better than to leave anything in his room when he wasn't there. Things always got 'lost'.

He sat in the dark, trying to calm his mind and the Voice. It wouldn't do well for him to lose his temper. Not when he was this mad, he didn't know what he was capable of doing and didn't want to test his 'gifts' now. Not here at the orphanage.

The orphanage. He felt an unwilling snarl travel up through his vocal cords and spill out of his curled lips. He hated the place with a fiery passion that he struggled to cope with. Starvation and beatings and slicing words. That was all he'd gotten from that place. And he hated it.

They thought just because he was six that he was stupid. Tom was a genius and he knew it. He'd been reading adult books since he was able to steal them at the age of four. He stole them from other children, from Mrs. Cole. When he was allowed to leave the orphanage on little tours he always found ways to go to the library. He knew how the world was supposed to be and he knew that what Mrs. Cole was doing wasn't right. But he also knew that no one would listen to him when told he had a history of lying and theft.

He'd read all about how to survive in the wild, what to do with your money, how to charm people, how to stay undetected in the world. Not that he thought he would need these skills but it was better to be prepared for any outcome.

He glared at the orphanage, his rage only growing as his thoughts grew progressively darker. He wanted to hurt them so bad, just like they had hurt him. Over and over again, for things he hadn't even done. He wanted them to burn. He wanted to listen to them scream, watch their faces contort in pain and terror through the pretty colours of the fire. He wanted them to hurt.

He sat next to that tree outside of the orphanage. Next to the gate, in the dark of night. There he sat imagining the flames. Imagining their pain. He lost himself in the flames of his fantasies. The flickering tongues of blue and red and orange and hints of purple had him transfixed. He felt that he could touch the flames if he wanted to. Make them real. So lost was he in his imaginings it took the third scream to bring him back to reality. And what he saw made the breath catch in his throat and a shiver skim across his skin. The orphanage was aflame.

He gaped at the orphanage, unable to comprehend the scene. The orphanage was on fire. Just like he had wanted it to be. He sat there in the glow of the flames, frozen, listening to the screams of the dying. He noticed Mrs. Cole banging at a window, shouting. It seemed to him like they were unable to open any doors or windows. They were stuck.

He felt full lips curl upwards into the first smile in what felt like forever. They couldn't get to him now. He stared at the backpack in his arms and then to the gate. He slowly got up, opened the gate and took his first step out on to the road that led away from the orphanage. He slowly turned back to look at the orphanage in all its glorious, riotous colour. He felt his heart flip and his shoulders straighten. He felt positively giddy. For the first time in his six years he was free.

With the fire gleaming in his hair and eyes, the screams if the inhabitants of the orphanage in his ears and the purring of the Voice in his head, Tom Marvolo Riddle turned his back on Wool's orphanage of London and on his fate and forged himself a new path. One that would write his name in the stars.

EN: Question time! Where do you think this story will go, and where do you want it to go? constructive criticism is very appreciated. This is my first time so be gentle with me?

Illium