Simulacrum

A/N: This segment takes place during Tom's final year at Hogwarts. Enjoy!


Pictogram

All he had built up over the years was one, big, elaborate hoax to convince himself that he was actually not, in fact, a monster.

It was working astoundingly well, as all pretty lies do, when denial becomes more than just a friend, the two are so close that denial might as well be a member of the family—if he had any family left, which he doesn't, he's taken care of them, one might say, in the euphemistic way that one could also say that Tom Riddle is a genial young man with the best intentions and can be trusted with one's deepest, darkest secrets, instead of a monster.

To anyone who looks on the surface, he is the epitome of the hope of the nation; a kind, helpful, academically talented youth with no trauma, no inconsistencies, and no skeletons in the closet. A monster, he is not.

Monsters are green, ghoulish creatures that hide under children's beds and only come out at night, and solely exist to scare and torment others.

Tom Riddle, on the other hand, also wears green, yet does none of those other things at the risk of being identified as such. It's never sat right with him, that others can't see his art for what it truly is and resort to brutish name-calling in order to justify their separation from him in a genus-and-species type of way.

He is the rescuer—(but what if they don't want to be rescued?)—If they cannot see his intentions then they are blind, and he is the one who shall lead them (like he intends) and it's really a shame that they have to be so stubborn about change.

The word evil was tossed around more than once, and it almost makes him angrier than when he's called monster, but this one he can let go, if he's in the mood to do so, because if the contemporary calls themselves good, he will gladly claim the opposite title (And they are not good or evil, but simply wrong). His indulgent moods are not known to last very long.

Everyone who has ever called him a monster has died, and they did so in the most gruesome way imaginable, because if they want a monster then a monster they shall receive.

Besides, the common perception of monsters is that they are also ugly and grossly overweight, and Tom prides himself on the useful tool that is his beauty (He was not always beautiful, which annoyed him, because he was worried for a moment that it might be more difficult to contradict his supposed monstrosity without physical beauty, but when he turned thirteen that all changed, thank goodness).

He is beautiful on the outside, that serpentine seductive beauty that screams, Look, but don't touch. Maybe his beauty will detract from the smoldering, walking sin that is Tom Riddle, on the inside.

(There is one good thing about the possibility that he may or may not be a monster, because monsters live forever, that much is common knowledge, and Tom is terrified of the prospect of dying, so would becoming a monster really be all that bad?)

He has no shame, that one. Pride (well, obviously, he thinks), Greed, Envy (he admits later), Gluttony, Wrath and Lust (on more than one occasion, each).

Sloth is the easiest of them all, for that is what he is doing now. The synopsis is startling, when he finally gets around to thinking about it:

Knowing that he spoke like a monster, lived like a monster, reminded him that that was what he now was. Maybe he had always been one.


A/N:

1) The original intent of this piece as a whole was to provide a kind of character-sketch for Tom, and I think this segment showcases that best.

2) Please review?