Wool's Orphanage
London, England
31 December, 1926
"I hope he looks like his papa," Merope Gaunt moaned as the nursemaids around her tended to her. The woman's skin was an even paler pallor than usual, not that the attendants would be aware of that. She was still chattering from the cold outside, knowing that it was still snowing as the bitter English wind whipped every which way. "-And he is to be named Tom, for his father, and Marvolo, for my father," she broke off, gasping in pain, her hazy eyes looking outside to the silent snow that was beginning to fall. Before she needed to push again, she continued, "Hi- his surname is going to be Riddle."
Merope Gaunt was dead soon after, and the cries of her baby boy woke up the inhabitants of the orphanage that the wails of his birthing mother hadn't.
1932
"TOM!" Martha screamed, running toward the boy with her long blond hair whipping out behind her. "You know what we've said about climbing! Let's see what damage you've done, then," she sighed, kneeling next to the boy and examining him. He always got into trouble on the orphanage's weekly outings. Or, as of late, the outings they took once in a fortnight. London was still rife with politics lately, and it often wasn't safe for the children.
"I'm fine, Martha. Get off me," the boy complained, pushing her away, and brushing himself off. That left the young woman gaping at him, and then looking back up at where he had fallen from. He took her surprise as an escape, and hid near the the edge of the park until they were allowed back to the orphanage. It was either the tree or the roof. And he could hardly get at the roof… Aside from once, and he still wasn't sure how that had happened. The other kids had been chasing him, and he had just suddenly been there. Getting down had been no fun process either, and he'd been punished with no dinner that night.
Tom Riddle had nowhere else to go to avoid the names being thrown at him, and the kicks and the jibes. The tree was what worked for him, even if they could still throw rocks at him. There were usually enough branches to cover him. Tom supposed that it would be too much to ask of his 'caretakers' if he were to mention that he'd like the other children to stop trying to bruise him every time they came into contact. He would just have to bide his time until he was able to teach them a lesson. As it turned out, he wouldn't have to wait long.
The next outing that the orphanage took was to a lake, where Tom was able to finally do it. He'd figured out how to make bad things happen to people that were mean to him. Once he'd lured Amy and Dennis away, he'd been able to do it. He'd made the shadows dance, and the winds howl. The creatures in cave even came out to play. Animals that should never see the light of day. Tom wasn't entirely sure that they'd even existed before he'd called them forth. In the distance, he could hear Mrs. Cole calling, and Tom sneered, forcing the two he'd brought back here to get up and move out. Angry for being interrupted, he thought angry, violent, thoughts at the two causing them to stumble, and open their mouths in wide, silent screams.
Tom made himself scarce, and banished all thought toward the two, hoping to make them think that they had simply been having the worst nightmare of their lives. He stuck around only to listen to Mrs. Cole confront the two of them, and their shaky replies before he went back to meet up with the others, a smug feeling settling into his skin. Maybe life at the orphanage wouldn't be so bad now that they understood what he was capable of.
Mrs. Cole was carrying a shaking Amy, and holding a firm grip on Dennis' shoulder, steering him this way and that when the three made it back to their picnic area. She was giving Tom a frightened look while he was careful to look concerned, and of course, innocent.
While Martha and Mrs. Cole debated whether or not to get a doctor to look at the two of them, the rest of the children were gathering around, Tom, after a suppressed eye roll, did as well. In his book the sooner they got home the better, and he tried to force that thought into Martha's head. Surprisingly, it worked, and Tom jumped a bit, surprised. Well, maybe she had just been thinking that already. She did seem smarter than Mrs. Cole after all.
Over the next few years, Tom would make sure that they didn't forget his power. The one thing that he had that they did not. When Billy Stubbs had given him a bloody nose, Tom had hung his rabbit from the rafters that night. It wasn't until the next day that anyone noticed, mostly because the now decomposing rabbit had started to stink from the summer heat.
1938
Even better, when Billy Stubbs and Eric Whalley had decide that they'd try to ruin his things, he'd given them horrible boils, and a rash. In a strange way, Tom almost hoped that they would die from it. He might actually attempt it if he didn't think that Martha and Mrs. Cole wouldn't try to have him exorcised.
Only a week after Billy and Eric's diagnosis and just after his birthday, there was a rapt knock on Tom's door. Shit, had they figured out that it was him somehow? He composed himself, shutting his book, leaving the notes hang out the side a bit, and looked up to the ever-present Mrs. Cole, and the old man dressed in strange out-of-style clothing, and a long beard. He had surprisingly deep eyes, and an interesting feeling about him. He didn't feel quite as boring as the rest of the people in the orphanage, but he couldn't quite place his figure on it. Regardless, he had his suspicions about the man.
"Tom, you have a visitor," Mrs. Cole supplied, unhelpfully. He didn't let his irritation show, and his eyes flicked over to the man.
"How do you do, Tom?" he asked, stepping into the room without being invited, just like everyone else in this damned building. Mrs. Cole turned down the hallway after excusing herself, leaving the man alone with Tom. He did not reply right away, only looking out the window past his row of seven perfectly cleaned rocks. They'd all hit the back of his head at one point or another in his life, and he didn't like the thought of them mingling with the other rocks, only waiting to be thrown again. There was a picture of the lake wedged up between the pipe for the heater and his wall. After the 'pleasantries,' Tom resigned himself back to his chair, facing away from the man introduced as Dumbledore.
"Don't." The man paused, and continued into the room, taking the liberty to even sit down on the edge of Tom's small thin bed. Tom grit his teeth, and turned in his desk a bit further, looking at the man more evenly, with a cold calculating look. "You're the doctor, aren't you?" he inquired, still eyeing him.
"No. I am a professor," he replied, not looking surprised, or anything, really. The man looked cool, and blank. Professional.
"I don't believe you. She wants me looked at. They think I'm… Diffferent." As Tom spoke, he watched as the old man nodded slightly at a few things.
"Well, perhaps they're right," he replied in a murmur, setting Tom off. He knows how these doctor visits go. They have a chat with a Mad boy or girl and then they ship them off to the asylum, and only God knows what goes on there for it to be worse than this wretched, grim, old place.
"I'm not mad," he growled, scowling at the persistent man.
"Hogwarts is not a place for mad people. Hogwarts is a school. School of magic." I frowned for a moment, taken aback. Magic? Was this a trick? Of course it was, Magic wasn't real, and after all it was only him that could do strange things. Right?
"You can do things, can't you Tom? Things that other children can't?" How did he…
"I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who are mean to me. I can make them hurt -if I want to... Who are you?" he asked, in a defensive manner, squinting his eyes at the man.
"Well I'm like you, Tom. I'm 'different'," Dumbledore replied, looking around a bit shiftily.
In an extremely obvious manner, Tom pushed back with, "Prove it." Instead of answering with words, Tom's dresser simply caught fire. Instead of jerking to their feet like a normal child, worrying about the things inside of the cabinet, Tom didn't have anything of value in there. Nothing that he couldn't replace, anyway.
After Dumbledore finally murmured, "I think there's something in your wardrobe trying to get out, Tom," Tom stood, and walked over to the burning wooden storage facility, and lifted the silvery box. Shutting the door closed with his… magic? The boy walked back over to his bed and sat the box down, pouring out the contents.
"Thievery is not tolerated at Hogwarts, Tom. At Hogwarts you'll not only be taught how to use magic, but how to control it. You understand me?" Tom did not like the Professor's tone of voice. Accusatory. Yeah, sure he'd stolen a few things, but he'd wanted them more than the other children. The other children had lots of things, but Room 27, Tom's room, was always more bare than the other children's. Sure some could attest that to being neat, but if you were looking well enough you'd notice that the room was damn near empty. He took things that the other children wouldn't miss, or that would hurt them. And he never kept the ones that would be noticed if they were gone. He didn't want to face Mrs. Cole's wrath. The headmaster muttered something about needing to get back, but Tom stood up, wanting to continue talking to the first person that he had something interesting in common with.
"I can talk to snakes, too," Tom informed in his calm voice, though he was desperate on the inside, wanting for the man to stay only a while longer. Tom got his wish as the old man paused from his rushing out of the room, before Tom lost his nerve, he continued, "They find me—whisper things. Is that normal for someone like me?" At the end there was a tinge of hope in Tom's eyes, but he quickly disguised it. How pathetic he was, hoping that perhaps everything about him could be explained. Sure, it was nice to have something different about you, something that made you better than others, but… He still wanted to belong somehow. When Albus Dumbledore looked back at Tom, he saw the flare of wonder, and the remaining hope being squashed as he shook his head slightly.
"No, Tom. But it is not… Unheard of," he promised, nodding toward the child before leaving as abruptly as he'd arrived. Tom sank back onto his bed, and leaned back into the rough woolen blankets. He hung off the professor's words, smiling to himself. He couldn't wait to go to Hogwarts and get away from this hovel. Hoping that the attendants wouldn't come bother him tonight, he wrapped himself up in his diary, writing about what he thought Hogwarts would be like, and what he hoped to do when he got there.
Author's note:
GRENG-JAI: The feeling you get when you don't want to ask someone to do something for you because it would be a pain for them.
Let me know how I did, and if you have and feedback I would love to heat it. I'll have another chapter up some time soon, hopefully.