DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter, its characters, plot and other trademarks are owned by J.K. Rowling, Warner Brothers and affiliated companies; not me. This is just a work of fanfiction.
I have a newfound addiction to Camila Cabello's songs. Go buy her new album. You won't regret it! I was actually miffed OMG, Crying in the Club and I Have Questions weren't included but the songs that actually made the cut were equally damn good.
P.S. Dedicated to Christinabeal10, for reminding me to update. I owe her and you people that. I really am sorry (both for not updating and keeping quiet). I'll update as soon as I'm able to.
P.P.S. I changed its title to 'Acidic' and even, um, PLEASE DON'T BE MAD PEOPLE! made a companion novella titled 'Chemical.' Ohmigosh. I'm dead.
CHAPTER 3: A SNAKE AND HIS SCALES
Tom smiled at his cereal as the jar of milk poured its contents into the bowl. Perks of magic, he smirked as the jar finished and promptly floated back to stand still on the table.
Last night had been — Draco Malfoy was right — banging. The Rumelt girl's eyes widened in delight when he approached and did every possible thing in order to please him.
And please him she did. He almost forgot his earlier altercation with the mudblood as he remembered Leandra Rumelt kneeling in front of him; she stripped him of his trousers and used her delightfully wicked mouth to —
He noticed someone glaring back at him and he scanned the Great Hall until his eyes landed on the Gryffindor table.
Ginny Weasley was looking at him with pure loathing. And then she turned her lofty blood traitor nose from him and sat at her house table with her friends and housemates.
What was it? His eyes ventured from the redhead to the bushy-haired brunette with distaste. Had the mudblood witch gone tattling about him to her friends? His gaze swept across the rest and his brows furrowed.
Tom put down his spoon and pushed his cereal bowl away. Her pets Potter and the Weasley boy didn't seem to be glowering at him. If anything, the two buffoons were laughing together at something probably pointless and inconsequential. Just like the rest of Hogwarts.
He gritted his teeth. So what was it, then? Was it...his spine straightened and the utensils in his vicinity vibrated and hovered milimeters above the table. He saw Malfoy and Zabini glance at him with terror.
Good. People should be terrified of Tom Riddle. Not glaring at him like some foul piece of dirt stuck under the soles of their shoes.
If Ginny Weasley wanted a repeat of what happened in her first year, she would get it.
The dark-haired Slytherin stood as the owls swept in to deliver their mails and packages. A thick, rolled up newspaper landed with a thud in front of Nott and he leaned down.
"May I borrow this?"
The boy nodded and shrank away from him. Terrified. Good.
The man on the front page looked the worse for tear but he was still smiling. Still glorious in his capture. He peered up at Tom inside his dank, dark room with Dementors floating in the background under the words Exclusive Interview with Dark Wizard Grindelwald.
Tom laughed. Oh, how amusing. Who was Rita Skeeter and how much courage did it take her to interview the dark wizard that had terrorized the Wizarding World for most of his life?
He walked for the two double doors, newspaper tucked in his arms and grin on his face. He greedily flicked towards page five, where several moving pictures of Grindelwald from his late teens to his Nurmengard captivity shared a spread of two pages with the text.
A snippet caught his eye.
RITA: A trusted source told me that you and Dumbledore were good friends?
GRINDELWALD: [chuckles]In a way, yes. We were close.
RITA: Like brothers?
GRINDELWALD: Brothers? Hmm...why don't you ask him?
Huh. So Dumbledore, for all his hoity-toity about kidness, used to be chums with one of history's darkest wizards? Figures. He always knew Albus Dumbledore couldn't be trusted.
When he first laid eyes on Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, eleven-year-old him initially thought Why is he wearing an outrageous outfit? and then, It doesn't matter; finally, finally, he was free. He would be saved from the atrocious orphanage and its equally atrocious orphans.
The very same orphans who told him he was nothing without his circus freak of a mother. That maybe she chose death rather than have him.
That maybe his father was a drunkard or a criminal. Maybe his father was Slenderman, which explains his weirdness.
As if they had a mama. As if they had a father. As if they weren't all missing parents.
"B is for bastard Tom, his mama didn't want him, his papa was a drunkard, his mother a circus freak..." the other children chanted and sang like a crude choir. He didn't want to be the child of a circus freak. He didn't want to be Slenderman's son nor that of a drunkard's. He just wanted his mama and his papa.
They could be plain, poor and boring. As long as he could be with them.
But no. He couldn't be with them. He couldn't even be away from Wool's; he had to return every summer and if he didn't grovel enough and did extra work for the professors, helping them arrange supplies, clean stockrooms and cauldrons and whatnot, he wouldn't be able to ask them to let him stay at the castle every Christmas break.
Food was scarce at the orphanage. Safety was also almost non-existent.
Little Tom had cried everyday to sleep as the taunting gave way to physical hurt. They would hit him whenever their matron Mrs. Cole and the orphanage staff, weren't looking. Billy Stubbs, most especially. That right hook of his...those fists...
But he got him, didn't he?
Tom realized he was different from everyone else when his hurt and his tears gave way to rage. He'd had enough of crying at night. Enough of hiding in his room. Enough of taking the blows, spit and scratches as if there was no other choice.
One day, filled with so much hatred it choked him, he wished for something bad to happen to Billy's rabbit. Billy had been telling the others in the dining room, as if he wasn't there, that Tom should join the circus.
The others laughed. A little girl and a boy sitting not far from him looked at him with pity. He didn't want pity. He wanted them to do something. He wanted them to help him.
They didn't do anything save for averting their eyes.
"Maybe the clowns missed you, eh, Tom? Billy snickered. His pet rabbit made to hop off the table but he grabbed it with two fat hands by the neck. The animal's eyes bulged. "Since your mum ran away, you could be a substitute. Can you even dance, Tom?"
He kept on eating his porridge. No, he couldn't dance. And he didn't want to. The spoon shook as he raised it to his lips.
"But if they get tired of you, they would just feed you to the lions." The bully roared and the other children joined. Tom covered his ears and turned to them. He saw the poor animal. Then he looked at the girl and the boy, who scowled at Billy.
Maybe they could be friends. Maybe he could convince them to stand up to Billy.
He saw them leave, their soup half-eaten. Tom wanted to follow them but maybe later. Billy and his gang would just tease him for being a coward.
He would wait. He could say something to Mrs. Cole but the last time he did, Billy was so furious Tom didn't leave his room for more than a month until he was coaxed out of it by a doctor.
The other children were camped outside his room when he came out of the office.
"Tom," Billy sang. He stiffened but the boy paid him no attention. He was busy throwing the rabbit back and forth with his friends. "They will lock you in the madhouse, won't they? That's what the doctor's here for."
"No." He didn't almost hear himself answer. He winced; answering back usually resulted in a black eye.
Thankfully, they were still playing with the rabbit. Poor rabbit. If the animal had facial expressions similar to that of a human's, Tom was sure it would be green from wanting to puke, just like in the cartoons.
"Oh, they will. That's what happened to Donald. They locked Donald up."
He didn't know who Donald was. He didn't want to be locked up. Instead of answering, he went straight to his room and slammed the door shut.
Billy would be angry but he didn't care. It felt good and made him smile a little. His smile grew wider when he saw the book peeking from under his pillow. He had snuck the martial arts book from the local library they visited three days ago.
Tom had been practicing. He'd been learning. The proper way to land a jab, the weakest parts of a person's body, how to put enough enery and force into your knuckles, those kinds of things. One thing Billy and his cronies cannot beat him at was intelligence. He was smart; they were not.
Such idiosyncrasies...he grinned, amused at his boyhood antics. He got them back. All of them. Billy Stubbs. The stupid muggle boy's friends. The orphanage staff. Even Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson because they chose to look away.
Turned out, he didn't need the book on karate that much. He was much powerful than that.
Fighting back was the way he survived. But he didn't want to just survive. He wanted to be the most powerful so nobody could ever hurt him again.
He didn't need his parents. Especially if they were plain, poor and boring.
What he needed was knowledge, power and influence. If he had all three, people would never hurt him again. They would learn to fear him. They would worship him.
No. He definitely didn't need his parents.
Tom slipped into an empty broom cupboard and started reading the interview from the top.