A/n: This takes place when Voldemort, Tom Riddle, is ten. He doesn't know he's going to Hogwarts yet, he doesn't know he's a wizard yet. He's just a lonely ten-year-old at an orphanage who doesn't fit in. Sounds just like Voldemort, eh?
This is really short, and it's very strange. I'm warning you now.
At the First Sign of Evil Power
By PikaCheeka
"What are you doing Tom? Drawing again?" Harold snickered.
"Yea. I bet he's drawing something that doesn't exist again..." Lee joined in.
I didn't look up. I don't bother to anymore. I know exactly who is standing over me, and how. Harold is always in the front. And Lee and Katrina are always on either side of him. I clenched my teeth. This was the third time this week that they had tormented me about my drawing. My drawing of dragons, unicorns, and other creatures I can not even name. This was one of them.
"Wow Tom. What is that? Another figment of your imagination?" Katrina kicked the table leg, causing me to draw a line across the picture.
I glanced at it now. It had been very good, one of my best. It was like a griffin, except where it should have been lion, it was now horse. Now it had a line across it, cutting its wings and back leg off.
I suddenly jumped up, glaring at them.
"Ooo...is little Tommy mad now?" Harold scoffed.
"That we ruined his widdle daydreaming?" Katrina cooed.
I grabbed up the picture and ripped it up. They were older then me by a few years, so I couldn't do anything back to them. I had to just ignore them and leave every time it got too bad.
When I got to my bed, if you could call it that, I pulled out the bag of papers underneath it.
The bag was full of pictures I had drawn. I looked at them carefully now. I hoped to find another one like the one I had just destroyed.
Sure enough, near the bottom was another creature, identical. Without thinking, I took out another pencil and carefully, beneath the picture, I wrote the word "Hippogriff". I do not know what this means.
I have always liked to draw. But this past year or so, as soon as I turned ten [and I was nearly eleven], I had been drawing strange creatures. Dragons, unicorns, hippogriffs, griffins, large snakes called Basilisks...That was the first one I drew.
"Hey, Tommy, what are you doing now?" Harold had asked.
"I'm drawing a snake." I had said.
"What's the point of drawing a stupid snake?"
"I like snakes."
"Ooo...Tommy likes snakes!"
I glared at him. Then, next to the snake, I began to draw something else.
"Now what are you doing?" Lee had joined in the taunting.
I didn't answer. I kept drawing.
Then Katrina snatched the paper away from me. She screamed. "Harold! He drew a man beside the snake! And it's tiny! And he's about to get eaten!"
Harold stared at it for a moment. "You stupid creep. Snakes aren't that big!"
"Basilisks are."
"It's no wonder your mother died and your father ran away, You've got mental problems..." Then he stomped off, throwing the paper back at me.
I was about to jump up and run after him and beat him. But I didn't. Instead, I wrote a name under the man. "Harold."
That was how it started. That's how I started drawing these things. I do not know where they come from. They all sound familiar. But I don't know them. I know what a dragon is, yes, but what about some of these other things? Kappas? What were those? And how did I know what they looked like? It was a mystery. I don't think I'll ever know.
Suddenly, a loud cry broke my thoughts. And somebody leapt over my bed and at my pictures. I cried out and jumped back. It was Harold, big surprise there. I grabbed up all the drawings, but he was faster. I managed to grab the basilisk picture. That was all.
"Hello, Tommy..." he sneered. Then he started ripping them.
"No!" I wailed and lunged at him. But it was too late. Every one was destroyed, save the basilisk.
Then he laughed wickedly and ran off.
I sat on the floor and cried.
After a long time, I picked up the last picture. The word Harold had been erased a long time ago. I decided to return it. This time, I added a few more fangs to the snake. Then I stared at it. "I wish you were real. I wish you could kill Harold." I whispered softly. To my shock, it didn't sound like English.
I cocked my head and tried again, more interested then frightened. "Come to life." It wasn't English, it was something else. I was hissing again. It didn't some to life, of course. But I had a new language. I was overjoyed, for some reason. Smiling for the first time in ages, I slipped the paper back under my bed and trotted off toward the woods.
Upon reaching the first trees, one of the helpers who worked here, Miss. Mary, ran up and grabbed my arm. "Get back in the orphanage!" she cried.
"Why?" I said, startled.
"Because a boy vanished. I think he ran away, and he went into the woods. We can't have any more lost."
"Call the police."
She sighed. "Of course we called them. Now get back inside.
A horrible thought suddenly hit me. I turned and ran back inside, down the hall, and into the room I slept in. I ran to my bed and pulled out the picture.
The Basilisk was gone. The page was empty.
Except for a small pile of bones where Harold had been.
A/n. I'm not going to explain it...but I'm sure you know what happened. Odd, isn't it?