Father was drunk.

The slight stagger, the reliance on a cane that'd been oft used to whack stray dogs and children, the florid cheeks glazed with sweat, all allayed quite clearly that Thomas Riddle was infused, once again, with a few too many shots of whiskey — and today, on early January 1st, 1934, an accompanying anger at his wayward son.

They walked back to Riddle House (Mary had desired the car for her return from London) cold air carding fingers through Tom's hair, eyes stinging, breath sharp. Thomas grumbled, spitting under his breath all sorts of diatribes about the gentry of Greater Hangleton, the pissy liquor Francis Bettenhurst had bragged about, Marvin Gaunt and that dirty bloody whore —

"— why did you do it?" he demanded suddenly, grappling Tom's collar in a clammy hand, filling the air between them with hot, heady breath. Amidst the dark trees, Tom heard hissing, spitting of the vile and reviled, their cracked laughter and chipped smile. In spite of the cold, sweat slicked his skin and his hands shook as he freed himself from Thomas with a shove, trying to remain indifferent.

"You saw her — her daughter! Why did you do it, son? Why —" Father repeated the sentiment a few more times, gradually settling into a mutter, then a whisper, then jaded silence. Tom placed a hand on his back and they walked on, the very top of Riddle House glimpsed from above the trees. The hill was a struggle for old, ale-soaked Thomas, one accompanied by much heaving and coughing, perhaps crying, if the wind and his pride had permitted it. His tirades ended, thankfully, and by the time they reached the gate of the house, the car parked inside, Tom summoned Saira to take him.

Music from the party wafted in his head, some Italian ballad doubtless about the agony and ecstasy of love, the lingering taste of lemon cream and vomit on his tongue. He strode aimlessly about the garden behind the house, gazing up at the stars, the endless black of night, envisaging the day his father slipped into the grave and Mother followed, perhaps a decade after, and the house became his alone: vast, polished, empty. The winter wind whistled shrilly, cuffing his ears, pressing through his thick coat, and he wondered if somewhere, she sat smiling and weeping with her cursed child, its crooked eyes and drab skin like all of them, watching in silence as its mother cried over a father it would never meet.

There was no border like death, after all, and Tom had enough hope, enough fear, still to believe that the child in her blackened womb had never existed, in that daisy soft corner of London, a witch and her snakes and lovesick Tom Riddle.

He sat on the grass, wet blades prickling through his trousers, arms crossed on his knees as he closed his eyes. Tonight of all nights he harkened back without fail to years past, to her, and what a strange name he'd always thought hers, picturing at the root of her ancestral tree some hunched, waxen man, eyes as flinty as his long, yellowed nails and chanting something low, beard entwined with snakes and lizards.

He'd been too arrogant then, to see what stood right in front of him, naked beneath the grimy robe of poverty the Gaunts had never been able to shake; how he'd fallen! How his pride had paled in the face of ruinous regret!

A waning crescent hung small and bright in the velvet night, painting the Earth a wash of dilute silver. It made his skin tingle, nails heavy on his fingers, hair weighing down his head. He pondered on if he'd drunk tonight, downed a whiskey or two as Father had encouraged. It was half past one. Tom hadn't drunk in seven years.

He stalked back to the house.

*

In the kitchen, Dot offered tea, milk, juice — Tom ignored it all in favour of a half-filled pitcher of and a glass from the very back of the cupboard. Satisfied, he snagged as well a scarlet apple from the sack. He was upstairs and about to climb further to his bedroom when he spotted Mary sitting on the sofa with Austin, the driver.

"Tom," she called, before he could go on. "Have you eaten, dear?"

Tom raised the apple in response. Mary frowned, and he wondered at her manneguin-in-the-window beauty, which his young friends used to admire, much to his past self's mortification. She was dressed like a starlet at a shiny, urban gala, gleaming in the soft light of the chandelier. It occurred to Tom that even he could not remember her precise age. "Do have something else, dear."

"Of course, Mother."

Just then, he noticed Austin's odd stare, when usually he eyed the ground, skirting searchingly about Tom's face. He looked away when their eyes met. A mumble cut the air, but neither he nor Austin nor Mary had spoken — no, the noise had come from a vague shape near Austin's shoulder: a small head with hair dark and tousled.

Mary sidled a glance at him — yet another lingering stare, and he'd received plenty every day of the years past.

"Who is this?" he asked, hearing his voice as if through water, over the thrum of his dreadful heart, approaching footsteps of ever loyal misery.

Mary stayed silent, Tom felt his stomach plummet beneath her pale eyes — eyes he hadn't inherited, for Mary had told Thomas, 'I hope it's a boy, I hope he looks like you.'

"Mrs. Riddle?" the sleepy voice spoke again: a child's, small and soft. A sharp pain cut through Tom's chest upon hearing it.

Mary only nodded, smiling ruefully, lashes batting — that hurting, fond she used to give him as a boy. Tom thought again that he had yet to meet a woman who did not prove a vixen, a sly, conniving serpent, servant of Janus forcing him to choose, except Cecilia: young, clever, lovely Cecilia.

Cecilia, dying just as lovely as he'd always remembered, no more the porcelain doll leering from atop a shelf, for there lay no beauty in death, and no perfume existed that could mask the scent of a dead mother's blood.

The figure turned, the world stilling as eyes (his own eyes) roved hungrily over his face. Tom heard the pitcher shatter on the floor, porcelain and water pellmell at his feet. The boy flinched but did not blink, just gazed with those shrewd eyes into Tom's own — eyes he had not inherited from his mother, for both were pinned on Tom.

I hope it's a boy, I hope he looks like you.

Tom ran.

Mother called after him — this time, he ignored her, leaping out of the door, through the gate, into the wintry dark. A bicycle lay abandoned in the street down the hill. Tom snatched it up and rode off. Within minutes, he'd passed the sign declaring: Greater Hangleton, 1 mile, lungs threatening to collapse, mind in a muddled, fear-ridden bind.