Riddle Me This

The Eight Installment

In the summer preceeding my fifth year I did not return to the Orphanage right away. The ministry driver was easily tricked into leaving me, the knight but called for and paid with by money given to me by the ever obliging youg Orion Black and the trip to little Hangleton made.

I was going to meet my Uncle Morfin Gaunt.

What I found was pathetic and dissapointed me. What he told me was humiliating and angered me. An injustice had been done to my mother, whom I at this point could only assume was not much better than her blithering brother, which had to be righted.

She should have never been allowed to love a filthy muggle, let alone one as lowly as my namesake, who fufilled everything I thought about him upon meeting my father.

Tom Riddle - the real Tom Riddle becasue I was no longer going to carry his name, ashamed of it, even. Had been furious upon seeing me, he sent me away and I left. I returned to the house later, with my uncle's wand, invisible to the muggles. I watced my father and grandparents for a long time, the information from Professor Slughorn reeling over and over in my brain - a Horcrux. I held a diary - given to me for my sixteenth birthday by Victoria - tightly in my fist as I killed them all, one after the other. They slumped over dead. I knew the spell to contain the torn portion of my soul in the book and cast it.

I felt it then, the tear in the very fabric of myself. It was a profound, unplesant feeling and made me doubt my choice, but it was done, and when it was done I felt no different which had surprised me - I thought the feeling of immortality would be something more tangiable.

I looked at the plain black book, the pages now were empty, and my name 'TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE' was etched into the back cover.

I'd returned my uncle's wand to him, invaded his mind and erased the memories of me, gave him memories of killing the Riddles, took the family ring from him, and left Little Hangelton behind me.

My beeing two days late that summer did not seem to bother Mrs Cole, but Victoria had noticed and wondered where I'd gone. I told her a fraction of the truth - that I'd met my father. I told her how he didn't want me, what sort of man he was. As summer continued I found myself obsessiong over that book, my horcrux, it was hardly well hidden sitting in my otherwise empty box of precious things in the bottom of the wardrobe.

She was observant and asked about the ring on my finger, and I told her about my mother and uncle, the sort of unhinged person he was and who I thought she was, what she'd done to my father and how the horrible man had left her to die. Victoria seemed troubled by the story, and even, upon its completion or part thereof tried to console me - 'That is horrible Tom, I'm so sorry.'

I figured her sympathy would be for my poor mother, but I was confused that she was sympathetic to my father, understanding his fright of me.

"Your mother forced herself on him, Tom, I cannot imagine being violated in a more complete way - to have the choice of who you love taken away." Victoria said, and this I didn't understand.

"Put yourself in his shoes for a moment," She continued, though I did not want to do this, the man was less my father and more my first victim. "That poor man."

I still didn't understand her sympathy and she endavoured for me to understand. "Is there anyone you love?" She asked me and I frowned at the question - love made one weak, as proven by my dead mother and father now. I thought of the people at school and how my affection for them only went as far as their use. Then I thought of the girl in front of me. She was a Black and it was evident in her pale complexion and heavily lidded dark eyes, wild, wavy black hair and high cheekbones. She was beautiful, but she was weak, my companion in the summers who'd I'd been excited to see and who I would worry about.

"Not even yourself, Tom?" She asked sadly. I shook my head.

"I love you," I said and the words sounded thick and out of place coming from my mouth. She blushed, a reaction that caught me off gaurd, Victoria so rarely blushed. She leaned forwards, I knew to kiss my cheek again, like she'd done scarce few times but each I'd found endeering, enjoyed even and purpousefully I turned my head so she would touch her lips to mine.

It was brief. Short and sharp, enjoyable. "I love you too, Tom." She whispered to me, and the words did nothing for me, though I could pretend they had in the aftermath of her actions. Her closeness was enough to make me feel something beyond friendly affection for her.

Three days before the first of September saw Victoria moved to a permanant bed in the small school Infirmary. I'd been the one to help her from the bed in her room and move her to her chair. I carried her down the stairs, for the first time noting in truth how small and weak her body had become. She rested her head on my shoulder as I carried her, and even though the chair was waiting, carried down by Miss Murdock, I ignored it in favour of keeping her close. I spent those three days with her, talking, she would smile and seemed happy to see me on the day I was to leave for school, but I was far from it. I held my box of precious things, the diary inside. It had been bothering me since I arrived at the orphanage. I didn't want to take it to Hogwarts, not with my plans next year, I also didn't want to leave Victoria.

"Tom are you alright?" She asked me, reaching out to touch my face. She was laying in bed and I was sitting on the bed beside her.

"I will miss you," I told her, and her smile warmed my heart.

"I will miss you too, Tom." She said and on an impulse I leaned forward and kissed her. She seemed surprised but delighted, and this kiss lingered, still sweet, enjoyable, not the frantic grabbing of the kisses I'd seen at school. When we parted I'd brushed her cheek with my had.

"I love you." She said again, I did not reply, only gave her my box. Her denemour changed. "What is this?" She asked. I smiled to her.

"It is apart of myself, apart of my very soul. I murderd my father, Victoria for his hateful ways, and this part of me broke away. I've kept it for you." I said to her, a slight lie, but she refused to take the box.

"TOM?" Mrs Cole shouted, meaning the car was waiting.

"Victoria please, I want you to have it-" I began, but she shook her head.

"That is evil, Tom." She told me in no uncertain terms.

"TOM RIDDLE YOU WILL BE LATE!" Mrs Cole called again, I didn't have time to explain, to make her see, that she understood was the most imortant thing to me.

"I can explain," I urged, "Write to me," I left the box with the book inside, she had to understand, I held her face between my hands and kissed her again, short and sharp, like the first we'd shared, though now she was fighting me and I was desperate.

Then I left her for the year.