Notes: You people are fantastic and kind. How could I not be inspired to work on this? Thank you, really!

.

.

.

~ x ~

A Hunting We Will Go
Little Glass Slippers

And then it dreams of pleasant things,
Of fountains filled with fairy fish,
And trees that bear delicious fruit,
And bow their branches at a wish.

~ x ~

.

.

.

~ v ~

Tom supposed that he had an unrealistic fantasy about how the adoption process went, or, perhaps, he had too high hopes for a dramatic conclusion to his stay at Wool's.

He had almost expected the other children to protest, to claim they were him (even the girls, who could not possibly be him), and for there to be a great cacophony of moans and cries at the indignation that he had a father, or even an angry huff would have made sense. Perhaps he had spent too much time anticipating the day his father came for him to be real about it; the actual process was dull. Terribly, horribly dull, and it made Tom ashamed of his wild expectations. After all, where were the protests? The other children, surely, couldn't be as complacent as they were being.

Were they really that molded into soulless automatons that they didn't even fight for a chance of life?

A shiver wracked his shoulders as he carefully laced his shoes, fingers shaking with nervousness. Nothing was like he had expected; sure, his father looked the part, but Tom had said maybe two, three words to the man before Mrs. Cole shooed him off to pack his meager collection of belongings with Martha. His hands were sweaty and his cheeks burned, plus, there was a discomforting sensation stirring in his stomach. Woozy with anticipation, with nerves, and a knot he couldn't quite place at first. Then he recognized it as a shameful fear. Once he brought it up in his mind, it refused to leave or loosen its hold on him. Painful and cruel, the idea was.

What if his father decided he didn't want Tom? What if he paused, half-way through signing papers, and determined that Tom wasn't worth it?

Tom flinched when Martha swooped down and gripped his shoulders tight in her hands. Her thin, light brow was drawn, and her expression serious as she wiped away the tears that had started to crawl down his cheeks. Martha's smile was precious and there was worry and reassurance in her eyes as she wrapped her arms around him.

"Oh, Tom, it'll be alright, just you wait... he loves you, your father, I can tell. Despite not knowing a thing about you, he loves you," she whispered as one of her hands brushed through his hair, causing its waves to become curls, "And once he comes to know, he will love you even more. Just, just be yourself, be polite. Give it time. Alright, sweetie?"

He buried his face into her shoulder, and gripped the folds of her cotton blue dress tightly. Muffled, he asked, "You're sure?"

"Positive," Martha confirmed with a pat on the back, "Absolutely. Now, young man, promise me you'll be strong and practice your letters, no matter what, understand, and I'll take you to your father. He's likely finished with the papers, and Bertha - Mrs. Cole, will be fussy as a newborn if we take to long. So, will you promise me, Tom?"

Tom looked up at her, took a deep breath to school himself, and said with all the seriousness a child of six-years could muster, "I promise."

"Good," she mused with a nod, and helped him to his feet. She handed Tom his bag, filled with the clothes he had and the papers with his letters from class. There was, unknown to Martha, a few stolen trinkets and old toys he had snitched from the other children, but Martha need not know that. She would hate him, surely, and Tom, well, Tom was a little sentimental and didn't want a bitter parting with his only mother figure.

He would miss Martha, Tom decided as she lead him away from his room, despite having gotten a father. If only she could come with them, be his mother, and then he would have a perfect little family. But he knew that Martha would never leave the orphanage; he had heard her, once, speaking to Mrs. Cole about being unable to have children, and being unable to adopt because of money. He wasn't too sure about the being unable to have children, but he knew about being unable to adopt. It was the times, as the matron would say whenever an older child would have to be sent from the orphanage to face the world.

Martha squeezed his hand when they reached the door to Mrs. Cole's office, and whispered a soft, teary farewell before heading to mess hall where the other children were eating lunch.

Tom inhaled deeply and smoothed down his hair as best he could. His hand trembled as he reached out to take the cold, brass knob. The door opened with a quiet whine, and he stepped inside the dimly lit office, where he saw his father seated at the matron's desk, signing a paper with a sweeping flourish. The matron looked sharply in his direction, as if she expected a miscreant or some such, but her face smoothed when she saw who it was. At the soft beckoning of her hand, he stepped inside the office and shut the door with a push.

Mrs. Cole's office was stuffy and warm, and he felt a distinct dampness at his temples that made his hair stick sloppily to it. Tom thought he smelled cinnamon in the air, though he considered that he might just be imagining it. He took a seat on the stiff, wooden bench near the door as he waited for his father to finish up with the legal papers. He took the time to watch the man, who was oddly youthful and full of life, and apparently untouched by the hardships beginning to spread if his poise suggested anything. There appeared to be no end to the papers, which made Tom's spirit drop and the anticipation curl tighter in his gut.

Finally, finally, after what felt like hours, but was surely only a few moments, Mrs. Cole handed over his birth documentations and other records concerning when he had had the flu, and that time he had slipped down the stairs and bruised his back. His father stood and held a hand out to the matron, who took it and said, sternly, "Take good care of Tom, Mr. Riddle. He's a good a boy as anyone could hope for."

His father held the file under his arm, and reassured the matron, "You need not fear, madame, he will have the best life I can grant him."

"You may go, now," Mrs. Cole told him, and then, she looked to Tom and said, "Good luck, Tom, and good-bye."

Tom smiled and set his eyes on his father - his father, by birth and now, by law! His father! Whatever nervous, traitorous feelings flushed from him when the man smiled back, never once betraying the dark secrets that might have existed in his heart. Wordlessly, Tom took his father's hand and allowed himself to be lead out of the bleak, dreary existence of Wool's Orphanage. Now he could feel the spiteful stares and hateful jealousies of the other children at his back, the whispers and murmurs, despite them being in the hall, and far, far from him.

Oddly, it didn't hurt to leave the place that had always been his home.

The walk from the orphanage was silent apart from the outside noises and sound of polished shoes clicking on the stone walkway.

They reached the road, and Tom gave a start.

"You... you have an automobile?" he squeaked and shuffled uncomfortably when his father looked to him. Not only was it an automobile they were headed to, within the sleek, black and hooded vehicle, there was a driver in the front. His life was going to be different now, he realized for the first time. His life was going to be awfully different.

His father shook his head and corrected: "We have an automobile, Thomas. What's mine is also yours, now."

"Truly?" Tom whispered with reverence, just to make sure that it wasn't some delusion or dream.

"Truly," his father confirmed, and opened the door, gesturing for Tom to get in. Tom did so, marveling at the leather seats and the sheer novelty of being in an automobile. Sure, he had seen the contraptions going past Wool's, but he had never been in one. Or even close to one. It was just so new. New and wondrous. He took his pack from his back, and settled it on his lap as his father slid in to the seat next to him.

The driver turned round at the sound of the door shutting, and greeted Tom cheerfully before asking, "Home to Little Hangleton, Mr. Riddle?"

"Yes, please, I long for the countryside again, London is much too crowded," his father replied wearily, rubbing a gloved hand to his temple and giving a sidelong glance out the window.

For a while, Tom was content to marvel at the sight of buildings and people being passed from his window, but eventually the lack of conversation, the lack of noise, which was so common in the orphanage, began to wear at him. The hum and clank from the engine of the vehicle could only do so much for his discomfort. He shifted and fiddled in his seat, picked at his trousers, wiggled his toes in their coffins, and took a minute to look at every little knob and doohickey in the automobile until he couldn't stand it anymore.

It was awkward, he mused after consideration, for both of them.

Tom didn't know his father from slop, and his father only knew Tom's name.

'Twas a fair recipe for prolonged silence.

If Martha were there, she would know what to say, what to do to break the nervous strain of silence. There was one thing he could ask, but he didn't know if he had the courage to voice the question. On the other hand, it was all he could do to try and scare off the quiet terror lounging on his lap. He crossed his fingers for luck and prepared himself. He didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with his father.

"Why - " he started, but choked up when his father glanced his way, and changed his question quickly after revisiting his promise to Martha, "Er, will I still get to study my letters, sir?"

Gut instinct told him that asking about his mother would be a rocky start.

"Of course," the man answered, one elegant brow frozen at an odd angle, "I'll begin arrangements for you to study your letters, as well as maths, sciences, and history, shortly after we arrive home. It might be a while, as your tutor will have to travel a long ways. But after that, I suppose I will allow him or her lodgings in our home."

Now there, there was something to talk about - "Home, sir? What is your, oh, er! Our home like?"

"Our home is a splendid manor overlooking the small settlement of Little Hangleton, and the open countryside surrounding it. The manor is upon a rolling, green hill, the property and home have been in the family for many, many generations; plenty of our ancestors lay buried under the greenery. It is a large manor in of itself, and I've been alone in it for some besides the hired help, since the death of my father - your grandfather," his father offered, sweeping hand gestures to help with the visualization of such a place.

It sounded spectacular. But. "I had a grandfather? When did he die? Or, or, I shouldn't have asked, I'm so - "

Tom's apology died in his throat as the man shook his head, "My father was old. His passing was peaceful. And, as for your question, he died on New Year's Eve in 1926."

"On the day I was born!" Tom blurted out before smothering his traitorous mouth with his hands.

"Ah, yes," his father mused, a strange, pleased and slight glint in his eyes, "Unfortunate, but true. Though I've a feeling it was meant to be, don't you?"

He shifted in his seat, considering the question, before finally deciding on, "I suppose so, sir."

Tom supposed it was meant to be. A life for a life, right? But hadn't his mother died when she had given birth to him? Wouldn't that have been enough to fill the debt?

Or was it some other, mysterious coincidence that lead both his mother and grandfather to die on the day he was born?

Who else, Tom wondered, died for him to live?

Notes: I imagine Riddle Sr. would own a Duesenberg J. And also, the year is 1933, for anyone wondering.

In reality, adoption or a son and father meeting for the first time ever, would be even more awkward than this. Tom's just smart enough not to ask the wrong questions, or what he perceives as the wrong ones. And yes, as a child, he could potentially make the conclusion that his mother and grandfather died for him to live. Especially about his mother. And, um, this is likely going to be a very slow-moving and long story, since it will eventually end up during Harry Potter's time. I might not go through all of Tom's years at Hogwarts, but I'll at least do the first where he is a "muggleborn" sorted into Slytherin and the one where he finds the Chamber of Secrets.

Feedback is love.