– CHAPTER TWO –

Tom Riddle

Tom Riddle lay abed as he often did, bored.

His trip to London yesterday hadn't done much to ease his boredom. Normally, he'd have easily been able to slip off on his own and explore the crowded streets and the places in London that Mrs Cole would never let him go, but Tom thought that she must have warned Joan to keep a special eye on him before they'd left, because she had hardly left Tom alone. He remembered Mrs Cole taking Joan aside just before they'd set out and he assumed that was when she'd given the stupid girl instructions to follow him around.

Tom sighed.

He'd read all of the books there were to read in the dismally small library here in the orphanage, and he couldn't sneak out to London today because that old bat Mrs Cole was on duty. Whenever one of the younger, stupider girls was scheduled to work, Tom could sneak out. They never checked in when they were supposed to, and if you knew the right times to come back like Tom did, you could leave all day and be back by five o'clock for the roll call before dinner and they'd never know you were gone.

Mrs Cole, though, she was different – annoyingly sharp, and even more annoyingly consistent about her duties. She was always hovering around the corridors and she always seemed to be exactly where Tom didn't want to see her. She never missed roll call, which was supposed to be four times a day – once at nine o'clock in the morning, again at one o'clock, then at five o'clock before dinner, and again at nine o'clock in the evening, before bed.

She had just been in here for the morning roll call, which meant that Tom had about four hours of solitude before she came back to check on him. He knew it would be solitude because no one would even think of coming to see him unless they needed to, and that was just the way Tom liked it. None of the other children would bother with him anymore. Not since he'd hung Billy Stubbs' rabbit from the rafters.

Honestly, the stupid creature had stunk something awful, and Billy had pushed Tom the day before, actually pushed him. What did he expect? Tom would have made him hurt in his own way, but there had been other children around and they told all sorts of nasty stories. So Tom had merely shrugged off the dirt and gone inside with Mrs Cole. The very next day he snatched the rabbit from its foul-smelling cage and hung it from the rafters in the attic as his revenge.

And even Mrs Cole, sharp, smart and wary Mrs Cole, didn't believe Tom had done it because the attic was always kept locked and she was the only one with the key. She had refused to believe that Tom could have taken the key off of her when she was working, and so the whole incident had been forgotten.

But he didn't need a key to open the attic door. He had merely walked up to the end of the hall and looked up at the entrance cut out into the ceiling. There was a small drawstring to pull the stairs down, but it wouldn't open unless you unlocked it first. Tom had merely thought it ought to be unlocked, and it did it all by itself. He hadn't even had to pull the drawstring – the stairs had descended for him as easily as if he had pulled it himself. After that, it was an easy thing to tie the rope around the rabbit's neck. The rafters were high though, and Tom didn't have a ladder, so he had made the rabbit and the rope float up to the top and simply let go. That had been the hard part – he had never made anything float through the hair for so long before, but he managed it, just as he knew he would. The rabbit had struggled for a minute or two, writhing and squirming, and Tom had watched, waiting for the moment of death and for the thing's squeaking to cease. When it had, he'd descended the steps, closed it all up and locked it up again. It had been a very easy thing, though he couldn't quite explain how he had done it.

Billy Stubbs had cried for two weeks, searching every nook and cranny in the orphanage. He blamed Tom quite loudly until Tom snuck into his room in the middle of the night and told him what would happen if he kept telling Mrs Cole that he'd done it. Tom had even given him a little taste of the pain he had in mind, just to make sure Billy got the idea. He hadn't said a word the next morning, and after the two weeks Mrs Cole had gone up to the attic to fetch some old decorations for the holidays and found the rabbit all rotten and smelly.

That had been the sweetest part of the whole thing, Tom thought. Seeing the look of doubt and confusion on Mrs Cole's face when she came down to tell them all that they had found the rabbit hanging from the rafters. Tom knew that she could never believe that a child had done it, seeing how the door was always kept locked and the rafters so very high up…

He smiled at the memory and got up from the bed, walking very deliberately over to his desk. It was clear of clutter with the exception of a small blank pad of paper and a pencil. The mirror mounted on the wall reflected his own self and Tom glanced at it for just a moment. He was still wearing that triumphant smile at the thought of Mrs Cole's face all scrunched up in confusion, and his dark hair fell neatly together, though he'd not combed it. Taller then the other boys his age, and paler too, Tom often marveled at how very different than the others he was. Even dressed in the dirty, smelly rags the orphanage provided, Tom could see that he was more attractive than the other children. He'd often been told that he was a good-looking boy and he'd found that worked to his advantage. Few believed such people capable of anything nasty, and Tom enjoyed feeling like he was better looking than the other children. He could get away with all sorts of things, and he recalled an ugly old woman in the streets of London the last time he'd been there and he knew he wanted to be nothing like her.

Truthfully, he was nothing like any of them. Billy Stubbs was a whiner, Amy Benson more so – she was almost always crying about something – even the older boy, Jackson, walked around the orphanage in fear and admiration of Tom. He could see it in their eyes. It was the same wary, fearful look that some of the younger girls who worked at the orphanage wore whenever they had to deal with him.

Abandoning the mirror, Tom walked over to his wardrobe in the corner where he kept all of the things he'd collected from the other children over the years. He hid it in a different place every few days because he knew that nosey Mrs Cole had a habit of searching his room whenever someone blamed him for something gone missing. Usually the brats only said it once, and then after Tom had spoken to them, they kept their silence. Now most of the children knew to just leave him be.

He reached up to grab the box from the top shelf – he didn't even have to use his tip toes – and removed the lid to peer inside it. Everything was still there; the mouth organ he'd taken from Dennis Bishop, Mason's yo-yo, a silver thimble from the maid and some other things, so that wretched woman must not have found it. The day before he'd left for London with the other children, he'd checked in on his box of treasures. He had a thought that Mrs Cole might search his room again, so he'd put them up here and thought, much like the attic dor, that the box should be empty when Mrs Cole came in, that way she could never know for sure that he'd taken anything. In truth, the box was full, but Mrs Cole either hadn't found it, or hadn't seen what was inside it. He grinned at his own cleverness and wondered whether or not his trick had worked.

He knew he was special. None of the other children could do the things that he could do, he was certain. In fact, Tom wasn't even sure what he could do. He tried new things as often as he could. Extraordinary things, impossible things, right from his own imagination. He could move things with his mind, as he had Billy's rabbit, he could hurt people, make them cry out in pain. That one he used most of all, the confusion on people's faces as they wondered where the pain was coming from was sweet. He could even talk to snakes – he'd found that out on their last outing, where one of them had slithered up to him in the grass and began whispering to him, and he whispered back.

So, if he could do all of that, why couldn't he conceal objects from that woman's prying eyes? What were the limits to his abilities, if there were any?

Tom looked into the box again and touched Dennis' mouth organ softly, almost a caress. He remembered when he'd taken this – it was a sweet memory. But, he knew, it had a pair… It was part of a set, really…

And there it was at the bottom: Amy Bensen's doll, or rather a piece of it. Tom had torn it to shreds and kept the head as a keepsake. Amy had cried and cried until Tom had shut her up.

It had been an easy thing, Tom recalled, luring Dennis Bishop and Amy Bensen into that cave by the sea on one of their summer outings two years ago. He'd made it sound fun and exciting, exploring, he'd told them. He hadn't even lied, truthfully. He was exploring – exploring his abilities, and he'd learned all kinds of things in the darkness of that cave.

Amy had scarcely spoken a word since, and Dennis couldn't look at Tom without bursting into tears or running the opposite direction. When they'd returned, a frantic Mrs Cole had rushed over, wrapping a protective arm round Amy's shoulders, and demanded to know where they'd been. Amy was pale as a ghost and just as silent, while Dennis sported several cuts on his knees and arms from when Tom'd shoved him into the hard rock walls with his mind.

Mrs Cole had been suspicious, of course. Tom was no fool, but Amy kept her silence, and Dennis (at Tom's direction) merely said that they had gone exploring and he'd tripped climbing the rocks. Mrs Cole had nothing to go on, and they'd packed everyone up early and headed back to the orphanage. Neither Dennis nor Amy had ever spoken about what had happened, and so Tom was safe, as he knew he would be.

Tom sighed again, placing everything back in his box and the box of treasures back on the shelf, closing the wardrobe door. It was still early in the morning and he had an entire day left of monotony and boredom left to him. He supposed he ought to go outside. There were plenty of places to be alone outside, and what excited Tom even more was that there were plenty of snakes if you knew where to look.

He left his room and walked along the hallway and descended the stone steps, ignoring the other children playing silly clapping games and went outside, walking along the edge of the wall into the backyard. The whole place was fenced, like a prison, but there was a small creek at the back where the snakes liked to hide out. It wasn't very deep – it hardly came up to Tom's ankles when he took his shoes off and waded in – but there were plenty of frogs and small creatures for the snakes to feed on.

Tom could often find them here, slithering through the grass or wading through the water, and there was a tree along the creek that Tom climbed sometimes, and he could sometimes find them in there. Of late, Tom had noticed that there were more snakes than before, but he knew that was because of him. They had told him so.

He'd first discovered that he could talk to snakes on the last summer outing, the one after he'd taken Amy and Dennis to the caves. He knew he'd never be able to get away with anything like that again – Mrs Cole hardly took her eyes off of him – so he usually just sat off the shore, away from the sand and picked at the blades of grass. He hated getting wet and he hated the other children, so it was usually a pretty boring day. That time, however, he'd seen a snake sneaking through the grass and he'd picked it up, and it had hissed. Only, it hadn't just hissed, it had spoken.

Back then, Tom could hear a little bit of both; the hissing that was all ordinary people could hear, and then the highs and lows of those hisses that formed words in Tom's mind – words that he could understand. He had already been experimenting with some of his powers, and this one had been his favourite. He talked with the snake the whole day and by the end of it, he'd discovered that not only could he speak with it, he could control it. He'd told it to do all kinds of things, like sneak up on Amy Bensen and scare her for a laugh, and it had obeyed without question.

He liked snakes, and of late they seemed to like him.

Tom sat down now with his legs crossed at the edge of the creek and waited. It didn't take long. After only a few moments, Tom heard the familiar sound of grass parting to his left, and knew someone was coming to greet him. It was just a small thing, common garter snakes were often afraid of humans and avoided them altogether, but it slithered up Tom's arm when he offered it, and he whispered to it, and it whispered back.

It was strange, thought Tom. He knew no one else could do this, but he didn't understand it either. He had been told by some of the snakes that he was speaking "snake language", but couldn't recall how he had learned it. It just seemed natural to him. When he spoke it, he could hear the strange, harsh and unnatural sounds that left his mouth, most unlike his normal speech. Likewise, when the snakes whispered back, Tom could understand them as though he were speaking to Mrs Cole or one of the other nasty children.

'Greetingsssss, man-friend,' said the snake from his palm. Snakes often hissed their words, Tom had noticed, drawing out the letters "s" and "c" often. 'Many have heard tales of the man-boy who sssspeakssss the tongue of sssserpents. Many have come to thissss placccce to sssssee.' And just as the snake said it, Tom heard more slithering approaching. He glanced up and saw all kinds of snakes sneaking through the grass, perhaps twenty in all. Some were big and some were small, some dark and sleek, their scales shining, and yet others were lighter and less lustrous, but no less beautiful. They came out of the grass or out of the water of the creek to slither at his legs or across his lap. Tom wasn't the least bit afraid.

'Is that normal?' he asked the snake in his palm. 'Can other people… talk to you?' asked Tom, looking down at the small garter snake, had crept up his arm and was sitting atop his shoulder now.

The snake brought his head up from his shoulder and shook it from side to side, and Tom took that to mean no.

No then. No one else could talk to snakes. In that, and in so many other ways, Tom Riddle was alone. Special.

'There are legendsssss,' hissed one of the snakes across his lap, a larger black one, perhaps three feet long. 'Of powerful men who ssssspeak to usssss. Many have come from far away, like myssssself, to ssssseeeeeee sssssuch a man, sssssuchhhh a boy….'

'There are others, then?' asked Tom fervently. 'Tell me!'

Several of the snakes backed up in response with a low, angry hiss. Tom didn't jump, but his eyes narrowed as he looked down at the larger one in his lap who hadn't moved. The snake seemed to tense in his lap, coiled as though ready to spring.

'Tell me!' commanded Tom again, putting behind the command the same kind of power into his voice that he'd used to bend the snake along the sea to his will.

And then, after a long, tense moment, the serpent relaxed and smoothed itself out in Tom's lap again as before. It slithered around his waist and chest to bring its head up in front of Tom's face. Though snakes lacked the same emotions as humans, Tom had found that he could nonetheless sense them in snakes. This one was angry, but cowed. It would not hurt him.

'There have been othersssss,' hissed the snake, sounding as though he'd rather not be giving up the information. "Otherssss in the passst. We ssserpentsss know… Now, there issss only you…'

'Only me…,' murmured Tom to himself. That pleased him. It was just more evidence to the fact that he was beyond ordinary. They sat like that in silence, snake and boy, for a long time until something interrupted Tom's thoughts.

'W-What are you doing?' came a voice behind him.

Tom turned just as the large snake slithered off his chest and disappeared into the grass. It was Dennis Bishop, with Billy Stubbs, and Jackson Davies with little Amy Bensen trailing behind them. When she saw Tom she went white as a sheet and bowed her head, averting his eyes. Dennis had a football in his hand and the four of them looked to have come outside to play. All four looked positively terrified, and Tom was certain they'd seen the snake.

He stood up, the last few straggling snakes slid down his legs and into the grass. He was angry that they'd seen him talking to them, he ought to have been more careful. He felt his hands curl into fists at his side.

'Were you talking to that snake?' asked Jackson, the oldest and boldest of the four. He always put on a stubborn expression and a superior tone crept into his voice whenever he spoke with Tom. He was less frightened of Tom than the others were, but still wary enough not to approach him. The four stood six feet from him, with Amy cowering behind.

'No,' replied Tom coldly.

'Sure looked like it,' said Jackson, taking a step forward. 'What kind of a freak talks to snakes?'

Tom didn't answer, but his anger was growing inside of him, he could feel it. Amy's face was buried in her hands and even from here Tom could hear her whimpering, telling the boys not to make Tom angry. A small rock flew up from the ground close to Dennis' feet and hit him in the forehead. All three boys (Amy still had her face buried in her hands) looked around to see who had thrown it, but there was no one to see.

Fear and confusion flashed across Dennis' face, and he looked like he was on the verge of running away, but Jackson shook his head and held him back. 'The wind,' he said stupidly. 'Must've been the wind.'

'It wasn't the wind!' screamed Amy from behind her hands. Her voice was shaking and she seemed on the verge of tears. 'It wasn't the wind! It was him! I told you, I told you! Don't make him angry, I told you –'

'Don't be stupid,' said Jackson, rounding on her. 'He's a liar and a freak, but he can't throw rocks like that. And stop crying. We're hear to play ball, aren't we?' He turned to Tom, sneering. 'And you're not going to stop us, are you? Go back inside and read your stupid books, and leave the rest of us alone, freak.'

Tom's anger flared. He hated being called a freak, because it was the furthest thing from the truth. Tom was no freak – he was special, far more so than this stupid boy. And Tom would prove it to him right now.

The snakes hadn't left him. He knew they still waited in the grass, he could sense them, and it was to them he leaned down and whispered in the soft guttural hissing language that was familiar to them both, 'Get them.'

For a moment, Jackson looked as though he didn't understand, then he merely glared at Tom from across the yard. No doubt he had heard the sounds that had left Tom's mouth. There was a long and stunned silence, where nothing happened but Tom glared at Jackson, and Jackson stared defiantly back. Tom could still see the uncertainty and fear in his face, the tension in his muscles as he waited for something to happen.

And then Amy screamed.

One of the snakes was hissing at her feet, and she ran screaming back towards the orphanage. All three of the boys followed as the swarm of serpents reached them as well, hissing and biting at their ankles.

Tom laughed as they ran, watching as the football Dennis had dropped in his haste bounced once on the grass. He laughed until they disappeared around the corner, and then he looked up, and his laughter died on his face only to be replaced with cold anger and defiance.

Mrs Cole was looking horror-struck out of a second floor window. She had seen everything.

Notes from the Author: This Chapter was especially fun to write. It's our first introduction to Tom Riddle, and boy, isn't he a creepy little guy? (At least, I hope you thought so). Originally, I had Dumbledore visit him in this scene, but it didn't feel right. I wanted you guys to get a better understanding of the young Tom Riddle before introducing Dumbledore, so we might better understand his emotions and motivations in the next Chapter. Many of the snakes that visited Tom came from far away places to hear about and see the boy who could talk to snakes. I feel it's necessary to say it (even though I implied it in the snakes' speech), just because it's not very likely a three foot snake is just hanging 'round London, but you never know. Thanks for reading this far!