A/N;

I have no idea why this chapter appeared. I sat down to write boggart on the bus and got this instead!

Thanks to those who reviewed.

Guest, Tom is warming up to Buffy. He is still bad but not a killer or split his soul yet. Bad boys are nothing new to her.

Gary, thanks for saying you love it. I think they are a couple who will snark a lot when they interact. Plenty more fun to come.

PebblePeak, I have worked a way for Buffy to get the boggart out. Tom has surprises to come. As have Buffy when a well known character turns up at the orphanage.

The Rival

"Ello, mate!"

Tom Riddle winced at the raucous voice. He placed the plate he'd been drying down on the worktop and turned to face Robbie, the grocer's boy.

Robbie was a tall and very gangly eighteen-year-old whose bad squint in one eye kept him out of the army. He had a mop of unruly carrot-coloured hair, a face full of freckles, and a massive Adam's apple. Robbie was also extremely friendly and well-liked by most people. Tom wasn't most people.

"Where do I put 'em?" Robbie asked, gesturing with the box of vegetables he was holding. his eyes darting around the kitchen.

Tom's eyes narrowed, suspecting that he wasn't looking for a place to set his vegetable box down but for Buffy. He'd seen the boy mooning over her like a gormless oaf.

"Just put them over there, if you would," he replied curtly, pointing towards the pantry door. He watched the boy stomp across the kitchen in his large work boots and when Robbie turned to face him, Tom pasted on his most friendly and open expression. "It's Robbie, isn't it?Would you like a glass of water? It's rather hot today and it must be thirsty work delivering all those boxes."

"Oh, ta. I wouldn't say no."

Tom rinsed a glass, filled it with cold water from the tap, and then passed it over with a friendly smile.

"Would you like me to fetch Martha?" he asked solicitously, drying another plate and watching Robbie gulp the water down and then wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. "She's about somewhere. Buffy normally deals with drying the dishes, but I've taken over her chore while she's changing to go out."

"No, me Dad sends a bill at the end o' the month." Robbie paused and then went an unfortunate shade of red that clashed with his orange hair. "Are you friends wiv Buffy? Only I told me Ma about her and she said I could ask her to tea on Sunday."

'"Oh," replied Tom, looking down at the plate he was in the middle of drying. Although he'd expected Robbie's interest in Buffy and encouraged him to confide in him, the coil of hot anger that writhed inside his gut took him by surprise.

Ask her to tea? An image of Buffy smiling at Robbie and accepting his invite almost had him losing control of his magic.He sucked in a deep breath, pulling in his magic and anger and burying it in a place deep inside him. Now was not the time to lose control. He needed to remember the lessons the older Slytherins had taught him.

His face kept carefully blank, Tom put down the plate and asked, "Do you think that's wise?

Robbie's face became stony, Tom quickly added. "I am sure Buffy would leap at the chance...only..." His expression turned from open and friendly to questioning and concerned. "Would your mother really want the daughter of a murderer in her house?"

"Ehh?!"

"Oh, please don't say anything, or let it put you off." Tom lowered his voice, "Buffy seems a very nice girl to speak to, It's her mother who is a bad lot."

"She's a murderer?" Robbie looked stricken.

"It's why she's in here," Tom explained, letting his voice become lower and convincing. "They didn't know I was in the corridor but I overheard Mrs Cole and Martha talking about the case. Her mother brutally stabbed her husband to death in a fit of jealous rage. Apparently, he'd been having a torrid love affair with a well known Hollywood actress called..." Tom cast around for the name of an actress. It had been ages since he'd bothered with Muggle movies, but, like creating a potion, the details were important. "Um, I think it was Joan Crawford."

"Blimey!"

"Shh!" Tom looked around the kitchen as if worried someone might be listening in. Then he beckoned for Robbie to come closer. The gangly boy obediently shuffled over.

"The way Joyce Summers tried to dispose of the evidence of her crime," said Tom, "was truly awful."

Robbie's eyes widened and his gigantic Adam's apple bobbed up and down in his throat. "What," he croaked, "what did she do?"

"She used acid," replied Tom. "Her husband had a barrel stored as he was a movie director and he used it for, erm, filming. Buffy's mother dragged her husband's body into their garage, threw his body into the barrel and left it until it dissolved. Then Joyce took Buffy and caught a ship over here to escape the scene of the crime. The police caught her, brought Buffy here, and put her mother into a lunatic asylum."

"Whoa," Robbie had gone pale. "It's like something out a film."

Tom nodded. "It is a Tragedy. Poor Buffy, she pretends her mother is in a normal hospital, but she really isn't. It's a place for people who are criminally insane and a danger to society."

"Insane?" repeated Robbie. His large Adam's apple bounced up and down as he gulped. "Me Ma will go mad 'erself if I take 'er 'ome."

Tom gave him a knowing look. "Best not. You know what they say... The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree."

Robbie placed the empty glass on the counter. "Yer right there. Thanks for the warnin'. It just goes to show, dunnit, you never can tell."

"Exactly," said Tom, a smirk on his handsome face. "It's always the most innocent and charming ones you need to watch out for."

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