"Hey, Amy, you're no fun, you know? You could lighten up a bit." A lazy grin stretched across his face as he yawned, stretching his long arms and legs like a cat. "It would do your health no good if you keep it up like that."

"Why do you keep insisting that?" Amy replied. "I hang around you, don't I? I could easily go and play with Dennis and his friends, and instead, I play with you. Why isn't that enough?"

A look of mock hurt crossed his face. "I thought you enjoyed my company," He said, placing a hand over his heart. "You wound me." His jet black hair fell neatly in front of his grinning eyes, his mouth tilting upwards in a slanted smirk.

Amy rolled her eyes, but he could see a slight grin appearing on his face. The two of them sat outside the orphanage on a sunny Saturday, underneath the shade of a tree. Children's screaming and giggling could be heard in the background, but both of them paid it no mind. His eyes were only on her long, brown hair and chestnut colored eyes.

"You're my best friend," Amy replied simply. "But sometimes, I just wish you would play some games with us. Not necessarily with Dennis, of course, but, well, with me and the other kids." I wish you were normal. He knew she had wanted to say.

He scowled at the mention of Dennis Bishop; it was long known that Amy harbored a crush for the boy, which he was determined to break. It wouldn't do for her to run off. She was his, one of the only thing that was, and he was determined to hold onto her, no matter what. It didn't matter if she was ashamed of him, she was here to stay.

"Play what?" He forced out, trying to keep a light, curious look on his face. He didn't want to play anything, other than to sit here and just talk and enjoy her company, but it wouldn't do for her to be upset over the matter.

"Tag, of course," Amy smiled happily. "I love tag so much. It's so fun, especially with more people."

His heart softened at her smile, but the clenching feeling returned. 'More people' always meant, 'This would be so much better if you invited Dennis to play with us.' He didn't want to play any games with Amy that involved other people. He wanted to play something with just the two of them, even if it meant he had to play another round of dollhouse with her.

"I don't like playing tag," He informed her, colder than he had anticipated. "You should know that."

Amy's face fell and she lowered her eyes to the ground. Immediately, he felt bad, but it was against his nature to immediately comfort people, and he let her squirm for a few minutes in awkward silence before he held out her hand towards her. She looked at it, her eyes still damp from tears.

"I'm sorry," He muttered, barely audible. "You know I didn't mean it. Please forgive me?"

He rarely ever apologized to anyone, for he knew he was superior to everyone, but this was Amy, and she deserved special treatment. After all, she was the person who picked him up and treated him right after all the other kids made fun of him. Still, even though he tried to make it up to her, she still wouldn't place him before that Dennis kid. It annoyed him.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when Amy reached over and hugged him, and hesitantly, he wrapped his arms around her. It wasn't as if he didn't like her embracing him, the whole concept of it was still new to him. Amy's hair smelled faintly of lavender, and he did his best to bury his head in it.

He thought about Hogwarts, his home. He thought about the fact that he was the heir of the Slytherin, superior to everyone else. He thought about the orphanage, which he hated above all. Lastly, he thought about the person who made this whole experience tolerable. Raising his head to slightly look around, he made sure no one was around before he uttered the words he had never uttered to any other person before.

"I love you,"

Amy looked at him, surprised, before a small smile settled on her face. She thought he meant the best friend way; of course she did, she'd seen girls hug and giggle together, blurting out the words like they were meaningless. She didn't understand yet, but he prayed that maybe, one day she would.

"I love you too, Tom."

"Tom Riddle, you will get down here right now, of you will never see your school or Mr. Domblebee again."

Sighing quietly to himself, fourteen year old Tom Marvolo Riddle put away his toy wand that he constructed himself, (His real wand was still caged in a container back at Hogwarts. There was no way he would ever be allowed to possess a wand outside of school until he graduated, not when that fool had anything to do with it.) and picked himself off the floor. As much as he didn't care whether or not he saw Dumbledore again, Hogwarts was still the home that the orphanage never provided. He knew he was superior to Muggles such as Mrs. Cole, he was the heir of Slytherin, for Merlin's sake, but Mrs. Cole had one secret weapon up her sleeve that Tom could never beat.

The secret weapon went by the name of Albus Dumbledore.

Mrs. Cole pulled that trick whenever she needed to, which was fairly often. She was mistaken and under the impression that he had wanted to see the old codger, but it didn't matter what she thought his impression was. As long as she pulled that name from a hat, she had Tom under his finger. Geez, what was wrong with him? With the power of his name, the old codger had him trembling. Tom vowed to change that, and one day, it would be his name that was trembled on when spoken.

Fear me, the great Tom Marvolo Riddle, heir of Slytherin.

He snorted at the absurdity of it, and then silently went downstairs, where Mrs. Cole was waiting, hands on her hips, clicking her tongue impatiently. She was a middle-aged women with nothing better to do with her time and who resembled a stereo-typical librarian lady, her dirty blonde hair tied up in a tight bun and her purple glasses perched on her nose. She was the other orphanage kid's mothers, but to Tom, she was just another Filch.

Tom saw the orphanage kids sitting at their assigned seats around the table, the numbers increasing so greatly this year that there were five different tables needed to sit all the orphans. There were the gossiping girls, who glimmered lip gloss on each other, giggled constantly, and would sink into depression every time one of them were adopted. (Which was very rare, seeing how no one wanted a couple of super chatty, hyper teenage girls who would try to murder you if you separated them.) They would bat their eyelashes at the jocks, especially the soccer boys, but no one would pay them any attention. One of the blondes at the table, Melissa Smith, could be seen winking at Tom all day, but even she didn't want to get too close to what everyone deemed 'a freak.'

Then there were the jocks that were so athletic Tom could swear that they were secretly wizards in disguise, so flexible and so athletic it was nearly impossible for regular Muggles. Nathan Jackson could be seen at this table, flicking his blonde hair out of his eyes like he thought he was the coolest person in the world, and proclaimed that if his parents hadn't gone ahead and ditched him at an orphanage, he would've been the most popular model in the world.

Such foolish dreams. Muggles can't do anything.

The third table was consisting of the nerds, who studied hard, and even though the entire orphanage had been forced to go to an extremely bad school, all of the people who were sitting at this table had a chance to go to a very good college, and a good chance for a great future, which was ten times more than Tom could say for the rest of the kids. These kids would never be seen anywhere without a book in their hands, and Tom could swear that sometimes, these kids were very close to guessing about the wizarding world.

The fourth table was the table of kids who didn't belong in any of the groups. The table was for people like Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop. No one had known what was wrong with them; one day, they were all right, giggling like foolish little ten year olds, and then later that day on a field trip, they had been shocked into speechlessness, both of them had never been the same again. Tom sneered slightly at them.

The fifth and final table was by far, the coziest table there was. The smallest one, it also had the smallest population sitting there, mainly Tom and his food. None of the other orphanage kids didn't dare to speak to him, because though they never received proper education, it didn't take one of the nerd kids to figure out that bad things came to those who annoyed Tom Marvolo Riddle. Things were stolen, Dennis's rabbit was even hung one year. Tom didn't mind it that way; he preferred to endure the orphanage without any commotion, and get back to Hogwarts as quickly as he could. Causing chaos would only give Dumbledore more of a reason to expel him.

"Now that we're all here," Mrs. Cole fixed her stern eyes on Tom and peered over her glasses at him. "I have some news. We have a new girl at the orphanage today. I expect you all to treat her like family here. We will all be kind to each other." Tom stared at her, but he was sure the other kids at the orphanage were looking at him right now, snorting. He didn't care; Mrs. Cole called this news? Why did it matter that some girl was coming here? She would be no use to him; no Muggles ever were.

Tom carefully picked at his food as the rest of the kids started speaking. He could hear Melissa's shrill voice above all the others, making him wish he could just Avada her to shut her and her big mouth up. It was when Mrs. Cole told her to 'use her inside voices' (really, Muggles were so creative) that Melissa raised her voice even more, which Tom didn't think was humanly possible, and announced,

"Is that girl the one I saw today coming up the stairs with a small pink suitcase? She was a freak. Why is she here?"

"Now, Melissa, that's not nice. Don't call people a freak." She seemed to forget that she called Tom a freak daily. Tom tried as hard as he could to block out the sound by busying himself with picking at his sausage that was slightly burnt.

"She's weird. She can't possibly be older than any of us, yet she has white hair, and silver eyes. No one has those things but freaks. Freaks with diseases."

That was just mean, Tom thought, frowning to himself. While he didn't care much of defending someone he never even met yet, he was sure that however the girl looked, she still would be ten times prettier than Melissa would ever be. Melissa's friends sure didn't think so though; they were gossiping within their tight group and debating if ugliness was contagious.

Fools.

"Melissa, I don't ever want to hear you speak that way again," Mrs. Cole said sternly, though it was evident from the look on her face that she agreed fully with the girl. "Now, please welcome her. She's been an orphan for two weeks, so she's still dealing with it. Treat her nicely." She looked towards the stairs. "You can come out now."

To say that the new girl was more interesting than Tom's sausages was an understatement. He dropped his fork and stared into those impossibly silver eyes as they scanned the room. She was tall, but not taller than him, and her long, silvery hair fell to her hips. Tom had to disagree with Melissa; while he had never been interested in these kinds of things, he had to admit that he had never seen someone more beautiful.

Almost like a veela.

Her eyes stopped on his, and he felt her evaluate him, before offering him a small smile, which he didn't return. And then, she spoke to the room, though she was looking at Tom the whole time.

"Hello, my name is Nagini."