I'm lazy. This could have come out months ago... Nevertheless I hope you enjoy! (And review!)

Chapter One

Far out in the countryside, as the local legends claimed, stood the odd run-down building.

The source of inspiration for gossipers down in the local village: over 600 years old was the rumour, passed from one wizened old man to his neighbour, while the younger men drank their ale and paid no attention. Completely abandoned for centuries…

The Dalphon, it was called.

Barely a cottage, with one single room that housed little but worn furniture, threadbare from generations of abuse by mice and rats and other creatures of a lesser savory nature. All the windows were reputedly broken. Glass littered the floor. Everywhere a thick layer of dust lay upon the ground and up the walls.

And the atmosphere there, by popular legend, was so stale and fetid that even to the more lively lads of the village, breaking into the house for a joke was considered a health hazard.

But for the two quiet occupants who had made their home here, the Dalphon had proven to be nothing more than a decrepit old cottage, whose handy superstitious qualities had been invaluable in keeping the gullible Muggles away...

Putting both hands in the sink, Merope Riddle returned to the familiar task of washing the dishes, the old-fashioned Muggle way, of course, without the use of magic.

In the past, circumstances with magic had affected the witch so much that she had sworn off using it, or raising her wand at all if she could help it, preferring instead to do things in simple, uncomplicated terms.

Taking the handle of a dirty mug, Merope pushed inside it with her other hand, a foaming flannel clasped in her fist, which she then proceeded to use in scrubbing the entire innards of the china thoroughly. Placing the clean cup on the draining board beside her, Merope returned to the sink, this time to attack a plate.

A bowl, a wooden cup and another plate followed, before Merope paused to momentarily gaze out the window.

Her son still had not moved from his spot in the garden.

Sitting silently on a fallen log in the rough forest immediately outside the cottage, his remarkable stillness and concentration looked particularly unnatural on the face of the boy only 6 years of age. Merope frowned, dropping the flannel absent-mindedly and craning her neck to see what her Tom was so occupied with.

From a clearer vantage point, Merope saw Riddle's hands rested on his knees and he appeared to be gazing thoughtfully at a small rabbit that sat on its haunches a few feet away from him. The creature, she observed, sat just as still as her son, neither trying to dart away from the human, nor wanting to come any closer than it already was. Quieter than the dead, each simply stared at the other.

From inside the cottage, Merope stared at the abnormal scene for a split second longer, before muttering darkly and returning to her housework.

Her son had always been a strange little boy. From a very early age he had shown a curious fascination for all the small things around him, the odd little things that others missed. An old shoelace lying on the riverbank… A torn piece of rough fabric chanced upon… The remains of dead voles…

All these things Merope knew her son had kept and collected, hiding them away in a box under his bed. Sometimes at night, while he had been sleeping, she had crossed the single room of their house and opened his box of treasures, wondering what new things he had found and stored. Each time there had been something different, a new oddment… of sorts.

Drying the last of the two plates, Merope gazed out the window again to see Tom stirring from his position on the log. His eyes had finally left the rabbit, which immediately darted away into the undergrowth. Merope watched him make his way slowly back from garden, wandering eventually through the open back door.

Without mentioning a word to his mother, he crossed the room, heading straight to his bed and pulling out the box from under it. Reaching a hand into his trouser pocket, he placed something hurriedly inside his box, before quickly closing it again and replacing it under the bed. Rubbing his small thin hands together he turned around, slowly making eye contact with his mother. Instantly, his serious young face seemed to soften subtly.

'Well… aren't you going to give me a hug, Mother?' He asked quietly.

By Merlin, he sounded so sweet and sincere; his voice possessing the gentle tone that would charm any adult who heard it and, when he was older, would make any number of girls swoon at his feet.

But to his mother, her son's voice was nothing but a cunning guise, and to anyone else taking a closer look at the scene, they would have observed the certain hardness in his young eyes as he spoke, that warned of displeasure should anybody fail to comply with his wishes.

Merope paused for a moment. Then adopting a smile, she walked over to her Tom, bent down to his height and wrapped her arms lightly around his small shoulders, drawing him close. She almost flinched when she felt his own skinny arms wrap around her neck and hold her tighter. Looking down, Merope saw his dark bushy head press forcefully against the crook of her arm, felt his heat crush against her body. And yet, and yet… despite herself, Merope found her emotions soaring in kind.

It really was alarming; how the cold exterior of her son could disappear, becoming replaced with such fierce passion at the slightest giving of affection she gave her son. Yet deep down Merope always felt a calming sense of gratification mingled with her hesitation at the indulgence of her son's strange, possessive love.

For sometimes, just sometimes, it was almost as if her Tom, her old Tom, was embracing her again. Clinging desperately to her with that fierce love she had once poured into his veins.

Merope trembled suddenly. Poor boy. He would never understand what he did to her, when he hugged his mother like that, what fantasies he gave her again. Nor would he ever understand her reservations, her tense frame as she accepted his sacrifice of emotion, forever ashamed of what she had done, and what she now took from her own son instead.

She felt her eyes prick with tears. Merope knew she was a bad mother, she knew Tom deserved better, but she was powerless in his arms and she needed to take something from the close contact while it lasted.

The young boy, slowly drawing away from her light embrace, suddenly found himself being pulled back into the fiercer, full-blooded hug that he had initially craved for from his mother. Upon his neck, kisses were pressed in loving adoration.

Closing his eyes, Tom Riddle sighed in Merope's arms.

She had always been very careful around the subject of magic around him.

Shunning the stuff herself, she couldn't deny however, that her Tom had inherited a strong aptitude and talent for magic himself from his formidable ancestors. It had long become apparent without him ever having touched a wand.

An aura of power had existed around him from even the youngest of ages, and its mighty presence had forever influenced those with whom he came into contact with.

The creatures of the forest, rabbits, foxes, even badgers, had for a long time been daily held in thrall to his wishes, frozen and silent at his command.

And when he had grown tired of them, he had moved onto humans; the few inhabitants who came into contact with him, when he stole into the nearby village, were noted for frequently tripping up over themselves as they passed a boy in the street, often accompanied to the sound of a quiet laugh.

Merope herself, of course, was most of all aware of the powers her son had discovered as an infant and gleefully grasped with both hands, putting them to use for his own enjoyment. It was with great reluctance as he grew, that she admitted he had probably begun to use them on her as well, in ways to his own liking.

The true extent of his powers, however... These had never been more apparent than when they had both been walking together one day through the forest, on their way to acquire food down in the Muggle village.

The day was foggy, the sun overcast by dark clouds. Merope frowned, expecting rain to fall any minute. Muttering ominously, she had hurried the two of them along as fast she could, trying to get them inside and under the cover of the market stalls as soon as possible.

Walking fast, with an 8 year-old Tom running slightly ahead at her side, Merope failed to notice the Muggle tramp appear from behind the trunk of a tree before she had practically ran slap bang right into him.

Her forehead bumped into his dirty, reeking shirt and Merope flinched and jumped back.

'Sorry… excuse me,' she mumbled, her head downcast, eyes averted.

Moving to the right of him, she made to continue on her way but the man had suddenly grabbed her wrist.

'Not so fast, lady. That wasn't a mighty kind thing you did to me.'

Merope cringed. His breath stank of old, sour ale and she almost choked as he leered down at her, his squinty eyes taking in her small frame interestedly.

'That wasn't mighty kind at all. Say… I think you ought to be apologising better than that for what you done…'

In a moment he had spun her around and pinned both arms behind her back next to a tree. Pressing his body tightly next to hers so she couldn't escape, the man grinned as his arms and hands were left free to roam his prize. Merope blanched, the scene all too familiar, the hands on her arms, on her breasts, on her back all too reminiscent of another…

Ahead of her Tom had paused and spun round, his dark eyes taking in the scene seriously, his young body trembling violently. In the depths of his pupils a cold green flame flickered into life.

Merope screamed as his grip increased on her skinny arms. In one rough movement the tramp slapped her face, cutting the sound off.

'Not a noise, whore, or afterwards I kill you and the whelp.'

Merope instantly fell silent though tears leaked silently from eyes. The tramp's face cut right into her line of vision, only a few millimetres from her own, a sort of squashed, red crumpled face, with pale cloudy eyes and pupils that were not whole and circular, but seemed to drip past the iris, like runny ink.

Her breath grew ragged in dread as one hand took both of her arms in its grip while the other reached down for her skirt…

And then something happened.

Suddenly the man's wide grin of triumph was changing before Merope's eyes. His tight lips stretched into an unmistakable grimace of pain, and as his hand pulled away from her skirt, she could see why.

Thick white maggots and red tapeworms were biting their way out of the skin of his wrist. Chewing their way through the tissue and bone that held the limb onto his arm with a bloodthirsty intensity horrific to watch.

The holes where they emerged from within the flesh were lined with red and blood stained the bodies of the swollen parasites.

The tramp's mouth opened, a large 'O' of speechless horror. He staggered away from Merope in a dizzy manner, his wide white eyes fixed unblinking on his wrist that was slowly being eaten away. The smell emanating from the stump of his arm was sickening; Merope clamped a freed hand to her face, her stomach lurching.

With the final sound of a ripping tendon, the mutilated limb fell heavily onto the forest floor. With a dull thump, the unconscious body of the tramp fell beside it, the man's face still frozen in silent agony.

Behind the fallen Muggle, Merope could see her Tom still shivering although his face was losing its serious, concentrated look and his eyes were no longer burning with the curious green fire that earlier alighted them.

Instead a look of pure terror and revulsion was washing over the boy's face.

Merope felt her breath catch and her eyes grow moist again. Her poor boy… her poor, terrified, strong little boy…

In a heartbeat she had stooped to her knees and was embracing her trembling son tightly, muttering words of comfort in his ear, stroking his hair rhythmically. She felt him resist at first, clenching his hands and setting his jaw in an unnaturally severe way. Then he relaxed, abandoning himself to the shock and confused emotions that engulfed him.

Later that evening on their way back to the Dalphon, Merope suddenly realised that where Tom had buried his face in her shawl, there remained a damp patch of wet tears. In all his years, it was the first time Merope had known her son to cry.

A few weeks after the incident, Tom began to ask questions.