Disclaimer: Its mine!!! All mine!!!! mMwuhahahahaaaaaaa!!! I wrote it all!!!!!!!! I AM JKROWLING!!! I am also a Great Big Liar. Get over it.

'Where have ye been, y'stupid little boy?' hissed old Mrs Higgins, grabbing the bedraggled boy, who stood sullenly in the doorway, by a sodden arm. Tom, resigned to the forthcoming lecture, didn't resist, and allowed himself to be dragged, dripping, into the house.

House was not the best way to describe the place. It was a building. People lived in it. But it wasn't a house. A house was a home. People loved you, and wanted you, and didn't go and die on you in a home. Your mothers didn't hang around to give you stupid names, then went and popped their clogs. Leaving you in some crappy Home where nobody loved you, and people threw stones at you. Mothers didn't die when you were at home. And people loved you, at home.

This wasn't home. This was a Home. The dumping ground for unwanted and generally stupid children, damaged children who nobody loved.

'Sorry, Mrs Higgins,' mumbled Tom, hanging his head in mock shame. 'It wont ever happen again. I'm ever so very sorry, Mrs Higgins.'

'Aye. Ye always are. But that don't stop ye, does it?' Mrs Higgins shook her head, and muttered to herself as she dragged the miserable boy to the 'play' room. 'Now, get along in there and don't start any fights, please.'

Tom silently shrugged, closing the door in the old ladies irritable face.

Silence greeted him. Dark and narrowed eyes, full with grudging fear, followed his every move from the closed door to the moulding sofa. Tom sat, and stared at them all. Each pair of eyes cast down, breaking contact from his icily questioning Stare.

Tom smirked. He still had it. At school he may be the underdog, with stones thrown at him and his heard forever thrust down the toilet, but here he ruled the world. Power was great, and tom had power. And all the children knew it.

'You're wet,' murmured a soft voice in his ear.

'Clever girl,' snapped tom, spinning around to stare defiantly at the small and shockingly skinny girl who had just spoken.

'I know,' snapped back the girl, wondering what she had done in her past life to be cursed with a best friend whose tongue dripped pure sarcasm.

'Isn't it amazing?'

'Yes.'

'Good,' tom sighed, and stretched out on the sofa. It creaked ominously, but nobody cared.

'You,' breathed the girl, whose name was Lucy Evans, into tom's ear. 'Have a letter.'

'A... letter?' Lucy smiled at the sight of tom riddle, usually the master of snap backs, gawp at her.

'Yes, a letter,' she carefully reached into the pocket of her tattered summer dress, and drew out the offending article. Tom stared at it, holding it with trembling hands.

'A letter. I've never had a letter before,' he whispered, slowly pulling out the letter inside. It felt strangely heavy, and parchment like. Lucy watched him closely, as he quickly scanned the page. It was astonishing to see how many expressions one could pull off in under 10 seconds, but soon tom settled for chalk white and wide eyed.

He slowly folded the letter, and glanced at Lucy.

'Come with me.'

'Why?'

'I…' tom took a deep breathe, pulling Lucy to her feet. 'I have something important to tell you...'