Series - A Honeyed Poison
Chapter II - Grey Days and Red Nights
Tom Riddle was sixteen now, and the concept of "I am Lord Voldemort" was fairly well accepted within his inner circle. In the past two years, his inward life had taken on a much different feel to it: a culmination of his ambitions impending.
It was 1942... the Muggle world was firmly caught up in the War, something that he was administered large doses of over the summer in London. The reverberation of German Luftwaffe engines, dull, far off explosions and sirens were a common sound plaguing the night hours. So far, the scanty wartime provisions and air raid drills at Central Kiplington Orphanage had been little more than an annoyance to Tom, but his admiration for Kaiser Hitler did not extend to allowing his own life to be so casually exterminated by a stray bomb. He had to guard himself to never let this idolatry slip or his patriotic British fellows would have skinned him alive, no questions asked. Patriotism was entirely wasted on the young Tom.
But the long weeks in shell shocked London had not been wasted by any stretch of the imagination. He had gritted his teeth and stuck through the pain of living entrenched in the worst of Muggle society. Tom had cleverly excused himself from nearly all functions at the orphanage and a significant number of community meals as well. He had spent the time alone in a much forgotten corner of the dark, creaking attic, studying and contemplating. Occasionally he excused himself from duty and entertained himself with some of the less dark of wizard literary works and listened to some dusty Muggle records on an old player, most of them classical. It was mildly amusing to himself that he bothered trying to become well-rounded.
However, the vast majority of the time was occupied with his nose buried in "borrowed" Hogwarts Restricted Section library books (which were technically not supposed to be lent out over the summer). Tom also exhausted many hours gazing out the rippled window at the grey, damp street in a silent state that would have appeared nearly insensible to the observer if they were not aware of the gears in his mind turning frantically in feverish thought. The wardens took no notice of his frequent absences and, if anything, were grateful for the lack of supervision and care that he required, otherwise occupied with the younger, more dependent children as they were.
As much as Tom detested life at the orphanage, it did supply him with such time for contemplation as he would never have at Hogwarts. He never let himself slip on his academics and was one of the most impressive model students that was enrolled in the school of witchcraft, in the eyes of the faculty anyway. He had been promoted to prefect at the beginning of his Fifth Year, a responsibility that he did not exactly revel in but found to be to his better advantage in many cases when trying to win over the trust of teachers. In most instances, this was a brilliant success and even the professors who were not exactly partial to Slytherin had nothing but praise for the young man. But Tom could never afford to let his guard down in Transfiguration class or anywhere where that damned Dumbledore may be lurking. It was perfectly obvious that the old man didn't have any faith in Tom whatsoever... Tom never let on, but it greatly unnerved him: the pale, knowing gaze of Albus Dumbledore.
The two months away from the magical world seemed more dreamlike to him than any time he had spent in the infinitely more bizarre paranormal wizarding world. He felt as though he walked in a trance the entire time. He ate and slept little and grew paler and thinner, his face becoming more angular by the day, it seemed. This past summer he had spent perhaps twelve hours a day in the poor house's attic and his chief concern had been the mastering of the Unforgivable Curses. They were not much elaborated on in his Defence Against the Dark Arts class and so he was forced to rely on his own inborn sense of the art and the reference of books. For a few weeks he had practiced on the scrawny mice that skittered about the dreary corridors of the orphanage until he had mastered them fairly well. Mice, he reminded himself, were, nonetheless, not human beings and carried not the strength nor natural resistance of a human mind. When he ventured outside at dusk or at dawn, depending on how the mood took him, he would attempt the curses on alley cats and old mangy dogs.
Tom finally reached his first great breakthrough in the form of Ivy Douglas. She was a slight, white wisp of a thing, a girl of no more than eight or nine with lacklustre flaxen blonde hair, thin pink lips, and weak bones. And she had the consumption. Ivy coughed pink-tinged mucus at night, wandered about with haunted eyes downcast, wrapped in numerous white shawls, and ate only when the nurses begged and bribed her to. Her parents had died a couple of years earlier in the Blitz and she had no known relations. Ivy rarely spoke, but she had an unfortunate habit of trailing after Tom.
The nearly imperceptible patter of her delicate, often bare, feet had interrupted Tom in his meditation more than once. She would stand there, a few feet away and partially concealed by old, mouldy crates, looking at him with watery, unreadable eyes. Sometimes he would let her stay there and ignore her, other times he would shoo her back down the steps and away.
There was a specific instance late in August when Ivy had ventured to within a foot of him and extended her hand and touched his arm. Tom had stared back, deep green eyes meeting faint blue. He backed up a little, conscious of her disease. What do you want? he had asked. She did not answer, but simply sat down on the unfinished, worm-eaten floorboards, legs crossed and white nightgown and shawls spilling on the floor all about her like a shroud. Tom Riddle had then conceived a new, exciting, and slightly frightening idea. Tom turned it over in his mind for a moment and allowed the novelty to overthrow the fear. He dug among the pile of parchment leaves and books beside him and produced his yew wand. Now just stay silent... he had murmured as the little girl watched curiously. Tom took her hand in his to make sure she did not run off. He couldn't help but note its chill boniness. He levelled the wand a few inches from her pallid face. Imperio.
Ivy's eyes had widened for she must have felt the effects of what Tom himself perceived as a wild mental rush of power. Their wills fought for only a brief few seconds and then Ivy seemed to go limp, both physically and spiritually. Tom could probe everything within her consciousness and memory and knew that, had he wanted to, he could have rearranged it according to his wish. He felt horribly elated in this fresh experience.
Blink. She blinked. Stand up and turn in a circle. She rose on spindly legs, strangely puppet like, and turned, head lolling and arms sagging lifelessly at her sides. Tom felt a suppressed laugh bubbling up inside him. He'd have to order something that she would normally never think to attempt or else it wouldn't be a real test. Jump up and catch hold of that pipe. There was a thin, rusting pipe that was suspended somewhere about six feet from the floor... a girl of her stature and weakness could never have done it. But Ivy let her head roll back on her neck, looking at the high pipe with dead eyes. She bent her knees, slowly, and leapt desperately, arms outstretched as if she saw something wonderful and unattainable just out of her mortal grasp. Tom was dumbfounded to see her fingers brush the pipe and grasp it with an almost mad fervour. She swung limply from the pipe, her feet dangling nearly her own height from the ground. Suddenly Tom recalled the steam that often rose from that pipe... it was a hot water duct. He scrambled to his feet in a rush and lifted her down, examining her raw, pink hands. She had never cringed though the metal must have been close to scalding.
Tom had taken her to the steps of the attic and thus ordered her, not yet releasing her from the spell: Go down and show a nurse your hands. Tell her that you accidentally touched a radiator. Go about whatever you'd normally do today until I tell you otherwise. Don't tell anyone what happened here.
For the last week of the summer holidays that Tom had remaining he experimented with Ivy Douglas, contemplating testing her with a few seconds of the Cruatius Curse but thought of all the noise if would make and changed his mind. For that week he had kept her under the enchantment constantly, only releasing her when it was time for him to return to Hogwarts. And after he had done so he talked to her for some time, warning her to never reveal anything about him or he'd subject her to things much worse than that. She had not spoken through the entire thing, only nodding and staring with her startled rabbit eyes.
Ivy Douglas did venture to inform her caretakers of her experience, but it was only after Tom had left for school. It was in the midst of one of her more ghastly coughing fits and it was sadly deemed that the tuberculosis had taken her mind and made it unsound. She died three days later, but Tom was not to know her fate for he never returned to Central Kiplington Orphanage.
Meanwhile, Tom Riddle had been granted with yet another spark of genius and before he went to Kings Cross Station he had paid a dire visit to Vauxhall Road and there purchased a diary, entering into a new era of his life. He returned to Hogwarts a different person that year, leaving the grey, rainy days and barraged, red nights of London behind.
*** I didn't really intend for that story to turn out quite so depraved, but I just wanted to show the level that Tom has risen to (or sunken to, however you want to look at it). He's got a very, very sick mind even at this age (although you can still see a few glimpses of conscience here and there...) . Poor Ivy. : (