Chapter 1

"I did not!"

"You did too!"

"I did not!"

"Did too!"

"Lizzie, give it back!"

Nine-year-old Tom Riddle awoke that particular Saturday as he always did, to bickering voices coming from the halls of the orphanage. He turned over on his bed, away from the wall he had been facing, and scowled in the direction of the door. Consulting the secondhand wristwatch that he had nicked from one of the younger boys, he saw that it was not yet eight-o'-clock in the morning. Glaring at the voices that seemed to be just outside his door, he swung his thin legs out of bed and threw on a dressing gown, before pulling open the door. His eyes fell immediately on a boy and girl, both of whom looked to be about five or six years old, wrestling each other on the floor over a small toy automobile. When they heard Tom's door creak open, however, they immediately fell silent.

"What's going on?" he asked in a stern voice, more menacing than any other nine-year-old could possibly be capable of.

"N-nothing," the boy answered fearfully.

Tom raised an eyebrow.

"We're s-sorry," the girl said, lower lip trembling. The look in Tom's eyes was furious, and little Lizzie was more afraid of him than she had ever been of Mrs. Cole, the matron at the orphanage.

"Clear out," said Tom scathingly, "Before I make you regret it."

The boy and girl needed no further urging. They fled down the hall, neither of them daring to look back. The toy car that had been the object of their argument was lying abandoned on the floor. Tom stooped down and picked it up. Going back into his room and shutting the door behind him, he went over to his old, rickety wardrobe and took out a small, wooden box. Inside the box were several odd trinkets; a handkerchief, a mouth organ, and a yo-yo among them. Nothing in the box belonged to Tom; he had taken all of it from the other orphans. On occasion, he had been caught and lectured about stealing and had received a sound beating with Mrs. Cole's feared willow cane, but the thrill of taking what was not his was a tempting, empowering force that he found himself driven by. With a victorious smirk, the toy car was added to the collection. Tom looked over his trinkets one more time, before putting the lid back on the box and storing it once more in its place in the wardrobe.

Stretching and yawning, he decided that he might as well dress for the day. He did so, and then checked his appearance in the small, cracked mirror that hung beside the wardrobe. At the age of nine, he still had the rounder face of a boy, but his eyes were already an intense shade of emerald green, and always seemed to have a certain sparkle of ambition in them. His clothes were faded and worn- a fact that Tom deeply resented. The frayed trousers, shirts and sweaters were a constant reminder that he was poor and parentless- less than the rest of society. Perhaps it was this that gave his eyes such intensity and drover him with such fervor; he was filled with an overwhelming contempt for the way that he was forced to live at the orphanage, and consumed by the desire to rise above this pathetic existence. He hated his mother for abandoning him… Mrs. Cole told him that she had died giving birth to him, without much of a clue as to who his father was, or where to find him.

Tom idolized his father.

In his mind, Tom Riddle senior (for he had been told he was named for the man) was a strong, brave, handsome man, fearless and proud. Tom always believed that there was some reason why his father had never come for him. Maybe he had been captured by Soviet Union spies… maybe he was working undercover in some far-off country… or maybe (and this was the young Riddle's greatest hope),maybe his father was out there right now, searching night and day for his beloved son.

Tom had dreamt long hours about the day that his father would come to the orphanage and say, "I'm here to claim my son!" He dreamt of living, just his father and him, living together in the country, happy. These dreams, sadly, had not come true, and Tom was grudgingly coming to accept that they probably never would. Still, he nursed a small spark of hope that someday, somehow, he and his father would meet face to face.

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From the time Tom Riddle had been a very small child, Mrs. Cole had known he was different from the other children. Physically, he had always been small, thin, and pale, preferring to remain indoors rather than go outdoors with the other orphans. He was very quiet, with a voice that could command an entire room with a whisper. There was a look in his eyes far too mature for a young boy; he had stared down Mrs. Cole herself on many an occasion, unperturbed by her (somewhat drunken, as she was partial to gin) threats and her willow cane. But his strangeness went deeper than just outward appearance. Mrs. Cole had noticed over the nine odd years that Riddle had lived in the orphanage, that whenever he was near, strange things tended to happen. Little things, like glass breaking sporadically, or books falling off of shelves, those were things that Mrs. Cole cold make excuses for or find logical explanations for. But other things happened too… one day little Abigail Finch had been crying in the hall (her mother having just passed on, leaving her orphaned), when Tom Riddle had opened his door and whispered something to the girl. Mrs. Cole hadn't caught what it was; she had been coming up the stairs, when suddenly Abigail, who had been crying and shrieking uncontrollably for hours, fell completely silent. The matron had walked in on the scene; Abigail had been sitting on the floor, with a dazed, trance-like look on her face, and Tom Riddle was leaning casually in his doorframe. When he saw Mrs. Cole's large frame appear on the stair, Tom had simply turned away without another word and shut his door. The girl, Abigail, had been extremely quiet ever since the event, over three years ago. She rarely spoke at all, and when she did, it was never above a whisper. She wasn't the only one, though. Once on a lakeshore outing, some of the children had gone off exploring a cave nearby. Tom had been seen entering one of the caves with Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop. And when they came out, both of them hadn't been able to remember anything. Amy had suffered from strange nightmares ever since, and Dennis would sometimes begin talking to himself suddenly, though no one could understand what he was saying. At the age of ten, Tom Riddle was more feared than any of the older boys. The older children had stopped trying to befriend him, and the young ones were known to tiptoe around his door.

Yes, Tom Riddle was a funny one, Mrs. Cole thought. Likely he would come of age, leave the orphanage, and the next time she'd see him would be on a wanted poster. It was the kind of fate that awaited the dark and reclusive types, she had seen it before. Tom wouldn't be the first orphan boy to turn bad, nor would he be the last, she mused one day as she sat in her office, a glass of gin in her hand. It was a sunny afternoon in May, and most of the children were running about outside.

Without warning, she heard screams coming from upstairs. Raising her eyes, she groaned, rousing herself from her comfortable position in her arm chair, and placed her gin glass on the table, half-full. Another shriek rang out, and Mrs. Cole paused, looked back at the glass, picked it back up, and swallowed the last of the liquor.

She followed the sound of the din to a bedroom on the fourth floor, where a gaggle of children had gathered.

"Wot's going on, then?" she asked, seeing the children's petrified faces.

One of the older girls, who looked as though she'd been crying, said, "The rabbit… it's dead…"

Mrs. Cole's eyebrows raised. "Dead? Whose rabbit? What's going on?" she demanded.

She pushed her way through the crowd of children, into the room. A young boy was sitting in the middle of the room, sobbing uncontrollably. And above him…

"Mary, mother of God," Mrs. Cole muttered under her breath. "How…?"

Suspended from the rafters by a short length of rope, a good eight feet in the air, was a dead rabbit.

Mrs. Cole's eyes grew dark and angered. "Who is responsible for this?" she asked sharply, turning to face the children. "Well?" she said, when no one answered.

"We don't know, mum," said one of the boys. "No one's been in Billy's room all day. We've all been outside. 'Cept for…" but he stopped quickly and looked down at the floor, as though he shouldn't have spoken at all.

But Mrs. Cole knew all too well who he was talking about. The only boy who never went outdoors…

"Tom Riddle!" she said. "To my office. Immediately."

"What did you do to that rabbit?" Mrs. Cole accused, not a moment after her office door had shut.

Tom was seated in a chair on the opposite side of her desk, staring at her levelly with his intense emerald eyes. He sat casually, as though he were having tea, and not being interrogated about killing a living creature. He remained silent.

"Answer me, Riddle! Unless you'd prefer I cane you."

He looked amused, she thought, at her threats. It made her uncomfortable. Here he was, ten years old, and she felt like the younger of the two.

"I never laid a hand on the rabbit," Tom said, speaking very softly, yet Mrs. Cole could understand every word. "And that's the only answer I have to offer you."

"Are you telling me that the rabbit just got some rope and hung itself of its own accord?" she snapped.

"Stranger things have happened," he replied mysteriously. Then, without even being dismissed, he stood up, holding eye contact with Mrs. Cole, and walked out. Dumbfounded, the matron could think of nothing to do or say to stop him.

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