A/N: Hey there! I hope everyone is doing alright. Oh! FYI, My word processor uses a British English dictionary, so some of the spelling for a few words are a little different. My apologies for those that aren't use to it

Chapter 4: Christmas Eve

Tom arrived with Rosette at the Riddle House around four in the afternoon. He stood outside and looked at his house with apprehension. The dilapidated house was hardly suitable for a normal human being, let alone a little girl. Had he known that he'd have company over that he wasn't going to murder, he would have made the Death Eaters make the place look more presentable.

"You'll have to excuse the run-down look…I'm still thinking of ways to fix it up," he lied, knowing that this house was never in his priority list. He could at least fix up a couple of rooms to make her feel more comfortable. "I'll make sure you have a bedroom, bathroom, and study aimed to your liking within a few minutes."

All she did was smile and nod, still overly excited about having a sibling. Tom knew she would hightail it out of here if she knew that he was behind the destruction of Kingsbridge. He made a mental note to Obliviate her and modify her memories of that afternoon as soon as possible.

As they entered the house, Tom could hear the voices of the Death Eaters in the main room. He successfully and quickly invaded their minds and told them to be quiet and make themselves scarce for the next few days. They were more than happy to take the cue to leave.

Tom carried Rosette up the stairs and stood in front of three doors on the right side of the floor. "Let's get your bedroom in order first. What's your favourite colour?"

"Dark green!" she replied happily. Tom had never felt so proud of someone in his entire life. A true Slytherin. He tapped his wand on the middle door and the old door changed from a brownish grey to a green so dark, it was almost black. "Ooo!" she squealed.

He told her to close her eyes for a moment. When she did, he opened the door to the new bedroom and gently sat her on the large, green canopy bed. He then told her it was ok to open them. When she did, he had feared he had done something wrong because she started to cry.

"Rosette? I'm sorry! For whatever I did! Please don't cry? I can redo it!" he said full of worry as he took out his wand.

Rosette dried her eyes and gave him a small smile, "No, it's just- This is what my room looked like when papa and mummy were still alive. It's so perfect. Thank you, Tom."

Relieved, he nodded and began on her bathroom and study. They were also decorated with a dark green theme. Her quarters absolutely screamed Slytherin Princess, which she was. Just as he exited the study, he saw a long scaly tail slither into Rosette's bedroom. He was instantly filled with panic. Nagini, if you eat her, so help me- But, the site that greeted him was far from what he expected. There on the ground lay Nagini, circled around a smiling Rosette with a sleepy Apep on her head.

"Tom! You never told me about Nagini! She's such a beautiful snake!" the girl gushed as she gently petted the large snake. Nagini looked absolutely content.

"You've had a long day. Why don't you and Apep take a quick nap?" he suggested.

Rosette did indeed feel a little tired. Today's events left her feeling drained and a nap sounded great right then. She agreed to sleep for a bit while Tom took care of some business. She and the lizard quickly fell asleep. Tom quietly walked over to the bed and took a peek into her mind at what she had witnessed that day. Pondering to himself, pulled out his wand. He decided that it would be best to erase their memories of the Death Eaters and replace them with a fake memory of him swooping in to save the day and adopting her on the spot. He also erased the memory of her asking to owl the orphanage. That would just ruin things.

After getting settled, Tom felt that it would be a good idea for the two of them to get better acquainted with eat other. He quickly tidied up the rest of the house to make it look presentable before she came bounding down the stairs. He had conjured up two couches, figuring she would sit across from him, due to them just meeting earlier that day. But lo and behold, she plopped her tiny self right next to him.

"A-ah ok," he began, initially startled by her boldness, "I guess we have a lot to talk about, right? We know that we had the same mother, but that's it. So, why don't we talk about ourselves for a bit?" He waited for her affirmation. She simply nodded and smiled. "Right, then…I guess I'll start first. Well, my name is Tom-". For someone that had no problem with slaughtering humans, Tom sure was uncharacteristically nervous and careful of what he told Rosette. For some reason, he didn't want her to not like him. It was odd. Usually, he could care less about what others thought about him. He would just kill them anyway, but she was different. "Tom Marvolo…" He chose not to reveal his last name just yet. Just in case she happen to find a Daily Prophet with "Tom Riddle" printed in it before he was ready to tell her everything.

"I grew up in a muggle orphanage because our mother decided that going to wizard hospital to have me would have been too much work. I was told that she left a bloody mess and probably died after she left. I guess that wasn't the case. So, I stayed in the filthy place with the rest of the muggle larvae until I was old enough to go to Hogwarts." Rosette could tell that her brother maybe, just maybe had an aversion to muggles.

"Oh! Can you tell me about when you were at Hogwarts?" she asked eagerly. Hearing what school would be like from someone that actually went would finally satisfy her curiosity. Tom scrunched his face at this. He had been an undercover terror while in school, opening the Chamber of Secrets, murdering his father and his grandparents, and harming a few students.

"Hmm…Well I was a Slytherin. I had a great time. Class wasn't very hard..." He continued to tell her about his school days, being very careful and leaving out pretty much everything interesting.

Rosette's face fell while listening to Tom's bland recount of his school days. Utter disappointment took over by the time he finished talking.

"Tom, that was boring. I hope my days are better than yours, or else I'll be really upset. I guess it's my turn! Well, I was born, and I lived with my papa and mum. My papa was a Ghanaian wizard. Uh...he didn't go to Hogwarts. He went to some all boys' school in Nice, France. Then he moved to the U.K. and met mum, and they had me in Kingsbridge! I was an only child so I usually got what I wanted, but I never really wanted much." Rosette recapped her short childhood with her parents in full detail. Her life sounded very nice, but he was confused as to why her parents killed each other, so he decided to ask. "Because mum said she was bored with us and wanted to start a new life without us," she frowned, remembering the moment that her parents died, "I didn't know she didn't like us anymore. We didn't mean to upset her. She told papa that she was going to kill me after she killed him and then she was going to leave because we were tying her down. Papa and I never cast a binding spells on her, so I don't know what she was talking about, but it makes me sad," she said as she started to cry. Tom for once, was ashamed of the type of person that his mother was. So I've murdered a few people. Whatever. This however, is terrible. Our own mother. Tom snapped out of his hypocritical thoughts, seeing that Rosette was crying her eyes out. He had never comforted a person before but she was in dire need of comfort, so he awkwardly pulled her into a gentle hug and held her for what seemed like an hour.

Rosette was soon back to her cheery self, badgering Tom for his lack of Christmas décor.

"It's Christmas Eve and you don't even have a tree! You are failing miserably at Christmas-ing!" she exclaimed are she wandlessly conjured a small colour-changing tree. "There! That's much better!"

Meanwhile, Tom was flabbergasted at her display of wandless magic. She had conjured a tree without words or a wand, and even got it to change colours.

"Rosette?"

"Hmm?"

"Did your parents teach you wandless magic?" He thought that was surely the only way she could have learned.

"Nope! I learned it on my own. It's easy! Can't you do it, too?"

"Ah, yes but It gives me a headache so I choose not to," he lied. He was embarrassed, being outdone by a seven year old. But even advanced wizards and witches had difficulty performing wandless conjurations, WITH words. What an extraordinary child. He looked back up to see her flicking at the tree, creating little sparkles wherever they landed. He watched as she continued to decorate the tree for a while.

"Do I need to add anything else? I feel like it's missing something," she frowned. Something was off. As heavily decorated as the tree was, it still didn't feel like the one at the orphanage.

"Perhaps," Tom gently picked her up and held her close to the tree, "It's missing a star? I don't have much experience in the matter, but Christmas trees usually have something on top, am I correct?"

"Oh! Yeah!" She pointed to the top of the tree, making a golden star appear out of thin air, and causing Tom to frown at her choice in colour.

"Gold? Are you sure?" he asked.

She giggled, knowing full well why he was questioning the colour of the star. "Yes, I'm sure."

Tom sighed, knowing that arguing would be silly. He decided to let the star be, for arguing over the colour would not be worth ruining the evening. Tom had spent Christmas alone for the majority of his life. In fact, to him, Christmas was just another day. He had no idea why people bothered to spend their time covering the town with blinding lights, snogging under ugly little berries, wearing hideous sweaters, being disgustingly civil with everyone…It never made any sense. He was often called a "Scrooge" (whatever that was) by the other students while he stayed at school during the Christmas break, just because he refused to participate in any activity they suggested, especially that "Secret Santa" thing he accidentally agreed to once. Spend money on something to give to a random person? And then receive some random gift in return that he thought was of lesser value? No. If he gave someone a bag of dried pixies, he expected something of equal value in return, like a couple of dragon scales. Not a bloody pair of extremely uncomfortable wool socks with a matching pair of equally uncomfortable undies. The entire idea of the holidays meant nothing to him, up until now. For in front of him stood a little girl, beaming at her tree that she decorated. Happy because she would finally be able to have Christmas with a family member again. Was this what he had been missing all this time?

Tom suddenly realized something. Presents. Oh Merlin, he didn't have any presents for her. Children loved presents, right? Then another thought hit him. Forget the presents! There hasn't been any food in this house for ages! Wait, I have ham sandwiches… that's what little girls like, I think. I'll have to send one of them to the store -

His thoughts were interrupted by Rosette's giggles coming from the kitchen. "You're right! Nothing but sandwiches! Tom, you can get sick if you only eat one thing all the time. And as for presents," she came back into the room and grabbed his hand, pulling so he would sit against the tree. She then tapped the top of his head, making several silver bows appear on his head, "Having a brother is the only present I need," hugging him tightly.

Two emotions infiltrated his core. One was tremendous stupefaction. She's a Legilimens?! At such a young age?! He would, without a doubt, need to work on his Occlumency to keep her from his…less than child-friendly thoughts. The other emotion was something new. He felt warmth in his chest that was both scary and comforting. What is this? Tom slowly wrapped his arms around her. She was so little, so warm, and not afraid of him. What would she think of him after she learns who he was and what he did? He didn't want her to know about his life by anyone else's mouth but his own. I'll tell her one day. But, today I want to keep being her present.

After listening to her babble on about jelly beans, Apep, and a weird treat called a "Twinkie", Tom decided that it was time to shut her up with some sandwiches. Good thing she liked ham. He was surprised at how much she ate. She must not have eaten all day. Sometime, after nearly choking because she tried to talk and eat, Rosette suggested another Christmas activity.

"Carols?" he shouted incredulously. The Dark Lord, Voldemort, does not sing!

"Yes! We haaaave to sing them! Please? Please? Pleeeaasse?" He feared if her eyes got any wider, they would roll out of her head. The Dark Lord will sing this evening, then.

Tom actually enjoyed the silly little songs, especially the "Rudolph" one. But, apparently he could not sing very well. Rosette made it very clear that he sounded like what rotten milk would sound like if it could "bark", as she put it. In retaliation, Tom waited until she started singing to point his wand at their glasses of water and shatter them, blaming it on her "off-key, cat being stabbed with a quill" singing.

The two joked and laughed until eleven p.m. Rosette had fallen asleep with a sandwich hanging out of her mouth. When Tom tried to remove the soggy sandwich, she stirred and sleepily batted him away, saying that she was still eating it and was only stopping to take a break.

"Likely story," he chuckled. After asking her over and over, he finally got her to give up on the sandwich and carried her to bed.

"Hmm…I'll have to get her things to wear. I'll just send a witch out to do it. The last thing I need is for people to see me buying little girl's underwear. I'm a Dark Lord, not paedophile," he muttered

He placed her in her bed next to her sleeping lizard, who had probably been asleep for hours already. Lazy thing. He looked at Rosette one last time before closing the door. "Good night, Little Sister."

Tom went to the room where he held meetings and summoned five of his followers around midnight. There were things that needed to be taken care of before Rosette woke up. When the five Death Eaters appeared, Tom went back to his Voldemort self.

"There are some things I need to have done by tomorrow morning. First, I need my kitchen fully stocked with food, for there are two new residents of the Riddle House. I will not yet divulge their identities, but just know when I introduce her, she will be treated with the utmost respect," he was surprised to see them paying such attention to him. No, staring at him. He continued, until he heard one of them giggle. He turned around to see one of the newer recruits horribly trying to shake any evidence of him giggling earlier. The other four quickly scooted away from him, knowing things would not turn out well for him.

"Kindly explain to me what you find so funny," Tom commanded icily.

Unfortunately, the thing that recruit thought was so funny were the bows that Tom had forgotten about in his hair. Tom figured it out and groaned quietly, but did not remove them. Instead, he sent a well-aimed Crucio at the recruit's chest and continued with his instructions, daring the other four to even think about being amused at the sight of the bows. He told them that they also needed to get a junior potions lab station, high levelled tomes, and a few teddy bears so he could decide which one to give her. He then told the two female Death Eaters present that he needed a full wardrobe of simple but pleasant clothing.

Looking down at the recruit, he realized that he had "forgotten" to end the curse. The bloke was beginning to froth at the mouth. Tom lifted the curse and told them all to get out of his sight. He expected them to acquire everything by six in the morning. He decided to go to the living room and sit on the couch. Nagini slithered into the room as well and made her way onto the other couch.

"You failed to bring me a meal, so I was forced to eat a cat that got too close," she grumbled. Tom merely shrugged his shoulders, still thinking about everything that transpired that day.

He turned to face her, "What do you think of her?"

"She is a very nice child, and already so powerful. But, like I said, she is nice. Have you thought about how you plan on telling her that you kill for fun? I doubt she will want to have anything to do with this."

"I fear you are correct. But, I could care less if she joins or not. As long as I remain "Brother" to her. And I don't just kill for fun. It's to make the world a better and cleaner place."

They both sat in silence for a long time until Nagini spoke again.

"There is no doubt that you two share the same blood. You both smell almost the same as each other, though she smells slightly of roses, while you just slightly smell...bad," she snickered.

A/N: Thanks again for reading! :D Feel free to favourite, follow, and review.