Eh. Not much to say here, I didn't plan on writing this but I needed to write something and I think it worked out ok. I might do some other boxes in later chapters but it will stay 'complete' for the time being. I've got a load of unposted stuff that I'll put up over the next few days, if anyone cares.
It's hard to track down any remnants of Tom Riddle's past that don't have any connections to his time as Lord Voldemort.
TMR
Harry visits the Gaunt house and digs around for anything that could go in the box. There wasn't much to begin with though and now it is barely standing upright so he gives in. He snags a vine from the garden of the Riddle house though.
It is strong, tenacious but when he pulls it out it comes easily – as though it wanted nothing more than to leave this house behind.
TMR
Next he goes back to where the orphanage used to stand. Dusty bricks and construction plans. New buildings, new life – he wonders if the muggles can feel the difference. He takes a handful of dust from the floor and drops it into the box.
As much as the young Riddle hated the place it had still shaped large parts of him.
Harry moves on.
TMR
Diagon Alley.
He recreates the wonder he first felt on arrival but tries to fit darkness into his view. He fails miserably as anyone would expect. He stops at Borgin and Burkes' instead and takes six galleons out of the till; he replaces them with his own of course.
Maybe if Borgin had brought the locket for its true value Merope would have lived, and none of this would have happened. Maybe.
TMR
He avoids going to Hogwarts for the longest time and instead hangs around Kings Cross on the first of September. He finds the stub of a ticket on the rails once the train has left.
TMR
Still putting off Hogwarts he finds a street-seller whose wares include phoenix feathers. It isn't Fawkes but still. Better than nothing.
He buys a mouth organ too.
TMR
Finally he goes back to the castle. The repairs are over, everything's back to normal –
Except it isn't of course –
He goes into the Slytherin common room, searches for something that might have stayed the same; he grabs a tie, a forgotten piece of homework and a prefect badge, then leaves, glad to be gone.
TMR
Lastly he decides that being descended from Slytherin was probably something Riddle was proud of and tears a page detailing his life out of a history book.
TMR
A vine, dust, six galleons, a train ticket, a phoenix feather, a mouth organ, a school tie, some homework, a prefect badge and a passage from a book.
Life is very short.