Tom Riddle had always been different.
Everyone at Wool's Orphanage knew it.
Whilst the other children played in the orphanage's courtyard, Tom would sit in his room, all alone. When at school with the other orphans, he would sit in the back row, never answering a question, never asked to read a passage aloud, never bothering to join in with everyone else, simply staring at the teacher until she became so blurred that Tom couldn't see anymore, while he waited for class to be over.
Though quiet – "reserved", the orphanage matron called him – Tom was anything but shy. When provoked or teased, he would get angry – so angry, according to some of the boys, that the environment around him just seemed to darken entirely. Strange things would happen, things that science and nature didn't allow. It was almost as if the universe made an exception for Tom.
The adults thought him to be a fine young man, though. He was devilishly handsome, there was no denying that, with his gleaming dark eyes, always brooding over something from the darker side of his mind, pale skin, the same color as freshly fallen snow, light and almost feminine, and his thick locks of hair, the same dark color of his eyes. Besides his looks, though, Tom was very astute. He received some of the highest marks in school, and had a tendency to use longer words when he spoke. More than once, Tom had called some of his fellow orphan boys "ignorami", only to have them scratching their heads rather dumbfoundedly, wondering what he was getting at.
But, as one orphan girl often wondered, was there more to him than the cold shoulder he often gave the world? Was there a possibility that Tom really was a good person? And if he was, how could she get him to show it?