Penpals

Fandom: Harry Potter

Genre: Friendship/Romance

Main Characters: Harry Potter, Tom Riddle Jr., Hermione Granger,

Pairing(s): [Harry Potter/ Tom Riddle], [Remus Lupin/Sirius Black], [Hermione Granger/Fred Weasley]

Rating: T

Summary: What if Harry had a pen pal as a child another boy who was all alone. Harry makes friends with the young Tom Riddle as their letters bounce through time to the one they needed the most.

DISCLAIMER!: I own nothing or Harry never would have ended up with Ginny.


A/N: EDITED! I'm slowly going back and editing my old chapters. It will mostly be me applying fresh eyes to old chapters and tweaking them as I go. The story points shouldn't have changed but there may be new details added


CHAPTER 6:

Hi Tom,

This is me.

Harry

.

.

'Harry's a girl!' He thought looking at the picture that had arrived with his letter. The picture showed a soft-faced youth with either an exceptionally large shirt or an ill-fitting dress belted at their waist. The child in the picture was small and lean sitting on the ground beside a flower bed. But one thing confused Tom about her picture. Her picture was in vibrant color.

He had never seen one in such color before. It must be something new he decided but he was pleased with it, the color showed him her almost glowing green eyes that sparkled behind her large spectacle frames. She had a smile on her face was just contagious, it made Tom happy inside just looking at it. Here was proof that the person he was writing was real. He didn't even care that Harry was a girl instead of a boy. She was real, and she was just like him- and she wanted to write him. He wanted to reward her for what she had given him and what she represented.

'A fair trade.' He suddenly thought. She had given him proof that she was real so he would do the same.

.

.

Living in an orphanage in a lower end area there were very few chances for pictures to be taken of him or any other of the inhabitants. In fact he was quite sure that the only pictures of him that even existed were the photo taken at his school and the photos kept with Mrs. Cole's adoption registry.

He'd never be able to cut his own picture from the school photograph without someone noticing but Mrs. Cole kept extra copies of their pictures in case prospective parents wanted them.

Sneaking past the matron's notice had never been something difficult for him in fact it was disappointingly easy. Mrs. Cole didn't want to notice him any more than he wanted her to.

He orchestrated an argument in the yard that would require her presence to dissolve. That gave him his chance to get what he wanted. All it took was a simple 'he said, she said' sort of phrase to Billy and Dennis and the two boys were at each other's throats before lunch.

While the matron was busy with the fight he slunk into her office and began looking through the files for what he wanted. The folders were labeled with their names and had their most current adoption photo clipped to the covers. All the other children tended to look happy and cute in ways that made them look even younger than they actually were. His own was as different as night and day from theirs. Where they were feigned happy smiles with newly missing teeth his was flat and unemotional. It didn't make him truly look older but it didn't give him the air of innocence and joy that got the others interviewed either. Dark hair, dark eyes, and pale skin contrasted sharply in the grey and black image. All together he looked like a solemn little ghost more than he did a seven year old little boy.

It was not a good picture but it was what he had. Hopefully Harry would appreciate it all the same.


A/N: Yes, Tom thinks that Harry is a girl. No, he is not actually a girl. But Tom is now under that impression. The summery is not a lie. If you have no interest in this story would you kindly not leave reviews saying such. Thank You.

Also from now on when we are on Tom's side of things Harry will be referred to as 'she' because that is what Tom believes.

Fair warning; unreliable narrators will be fairly common as this goes on. What they think is happening may not be what actually happened.