Content warning: Implied rape and sexual assault, mild graphic violence.
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1944
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Tom had known he was superior to the people around him from a very young age.
It was something that was as much a part of his identity as being Special and magical, or being British. Which wasn't something he thought of often, but he did consider Britain and the English language superior to any other in the globe; he respected the power and might that produced empires, and what modern empire could rival Britain's?
(He did make it clear that respect for the British empire and her imperial hegemony was different to respecting the monarch or the institution of the Crown. Anyway, there was only one crowned head Tom would ever respect... There was a bit of a delay with acquiring the crown in question, but that was a separate issue entirely. And no, that paper crown that he'd slipped between the pages of his diary as a bookmark didn't count.)
He was superior, but for the first time in his life, his inherent superiority was openly acknowledged by people who recognised themselves as a rank below him, or as his grandmother would have termed it, his lessers, a group of people who couldn't help being what they were, and were best treated with gentle, if corrective, authority. (Mary Riddle called this moral guidance, and an obligation of the upper classes; Hermione would have called it frank and categorical paternalism; Tom called it for what it was, which was unwelcome meddling.) This was different from the way his dorm mates treated him at Hogwarts: there, his superiority came of having established himself as more powerful, more capable and skilled than they were. They deferred to him because he'd taught them to; he'd earned it of them, and from them.
Respect garnered from Slytherin classmates or the readers of his articles—that was not the same deference that was given him—due him—for the status of his name and blood, which he had experienced upon arriving at the Riddle House. The former was cultivated. The latter was expected.
Here, Tom was a Riddle, and that meant something in the village of Hangleton.
Here, unlike Hogwarts, people touched their caps or ducked their heads in his presence. They called him 'Sir', and their being his elder did not diminish the fact that they considered Tom their better. If he was coming down the stairs while a maid with a basket of laundered pillowcases was going up, she stepped to the side and allowed him to pass, without his having to say a word—without her expecting that he drop the obligatory 'Pardon me' and 'Thank you' combination that was engrained into the psyche of every commuter on the London Underground.
It was a strange and almost heady experience. It was the kind of thing a man could get used to, and, once he did, find it enjoyable. And once he had become accustomed to it, he would find it hard to let go of it, to ever contemplate the notion of going without; the dignity of Man would henceforth be prioritised below the comfort of The Man.
There was a word for what it was: Privilege.
Privilege was getting to ride in the back of Thomas Riddle's Rolls-Royce with Hermione, while Frank Bryce hitched up the wagon to drive Mrs. Willrow and the maids down the hill to the village church, because the petrol couldn't be spared for the likes of the servants. Privilege was having a cushioned bench reserved for his family, his surname carved in scrolling letters across the backrest.
The Christmas morning service from the Little Hangleton village parson was as boring as it had been in the chapels of London. Tom, who had inured himself years ago to dreary lectures about things he found neither useful or interesting, quickly arranged his expression into one of earnest attention. Beside him, Hermione listened with equal attentiveness, although that didn't stop her from nudging him with the point of her elbow if she caught him snorting when the parson said something he found particularly amusing.
"One should never fear he that might kill the body but cannot kill the soul," the parson recited from the pulpit.
The sermon had so far touched on the difficulties of the past years, but offered hope that Britain would prevail in the current war. There had been a moment of silence dedicated to the many local boys who had enlisted in the army, leaving their families behind—and some of them, permanently bereft. One of their number, recalled Tom upon hearing the sniffling of the maids sitting on the pew behind the Riddles, had been his father's valet.
"Rather, one should fear he who has the power to destroy both body and soul..."
It had been seven years since Tom had last sat for a church sermon, and in coming today, he had ascertained that he had not been missing anything in the intervening time. In fact, he was reminded why he'd hated going to church in the first place: the old ladies.
When he had lived at Wool's, the matrons herded the children to church once a week, not just to have Reverend Rivers add a bit of a spit-shine to their grubby souls, but to peddle the orphans in front of a congregation of prospective families who might like the look of one of them. That was what church was: a customer-base containing plenty of good Samaritans, Christian families who believed in the virtues of charity and goodwill. But there was a limiting factor to making the sale: the matriarchs of those families who wanted to ensure the quality of the children, picking and prodding at them the same way their spindly, arthritic fingers felt up the aubergines and rutabagas at the market.
This time, Tom wasn't paraded around and prodded like grocery produce—as if his grandmother would let any of the old ladies try, although some of them did eye him up like they were thinking about it.
His grandmother hovered by his side, introducing him to Mrs. Swindon, Mrs. Perrin-Andrewes, Mrs. Hutten, and Mrs. Branthwaite, ladies of local significance, which he could tell they were by their dainty, lace-trimmed gloves, fur stoles, and glossy pocketbooks.
"This is the boy, then, Mary?" they twittered to each other. "Oh, how darling. He looks just like—"
"Shhh, Bernadette!"
"Are we not meant to talk about—"
"No!"
"But—"
"Wait for them to leave!" one of the women hissed.
"My father didn't attend today, madam," said Tom helpfully. "If you were wondering."
This was one of the things Tom had learned to dislike about the tiny village. In Little Hangleton, one was allowed no privacy, everyone was acquainted with everyone else, whether they liked it or not, and the gossip circuit was a closed loop where decades-old news was recycled ad infinitum, because nothing else happened that was worth talking about in this quaint Yorkshire backwater.
"Oh, we weren't wondering about him," said a lady, Mrs. Swindon. "We're ever so pleased to meet you; Mary has just been impossible these last few months, after she got the news from London. In all my years, I'd never seen her so rattled. Why, we heard she had to rescue you right out of the poorhouse!"
Tom's grandmother spared her a brittle smile. "It was an orphanage, and a thoroughly respectable establishment, Edith, dear."
"And a respectable sixteen years, wasn't it?" put in Mrs. Perrin-Andrewes, tutting in disapproval. "I could never have let my Wallace out of my sight for that long; even seeing him off to school each September is a trial." She gave Mrs. Riddle a sidelong look. "I admire your fortitude, Mary. You've borne it rather well, all considered."
"It bears repeating that his mother was the cause of the whole quandary," said Mrs. Riddle stiffly. "I'd never have countenanced it—had I a choice in the matter."
"His mother!" gasped Mrs. Bernadette Hutten, her gloved hand rising up to her mouth. "Is it true that she—"
"She has passed from this world, for better or worse," said Mrs. Riddle, cutting her off. "May God rest her soul."
"Amen," said all the women in unison.
"Pardon me for intruding," said Tom. "But did you know my mother?"
He could feel the clawed fingernails of his grandmother's hand digging into his forearm, but he ignored it.
"Oh, darling, did we know her?" said Mrs. Branthwaite. "Everyone knew her. She and her family... Well, I'm sure you've heard tell of it, but they certainly were the funniest sort of people in the whole of the dales."
"I hear the son still wanders about the woods doing who knows what," Mrs. Swindon volunteered, fanning herself with her hymn book. "I've told our Irving not to take his hounds past the east ridge; the last time they went out there, his spaniel bitch died!"
"You are such a prima donna, Beryl," snapped Mrs. Perrin-Andrewes. "She was bitten by a snake, not eaten by the tramp's son."
Mrs. Riddle cleared her throat. "I'm sure Thomas has brought the motor around to the front by now. Have a happy Christmas, everyone."
Seizing Tom by the elbow, she steered him away from the ladies and out of the front door of the church, where the Rolls-Royce was gliding majestically up the snow-dusted path up to the front steps of the church. He could see Hermione through the windshield, sitting in the front passenger seat and looking down at the dashboard, but when she saw Tom and his grandmother at the top of the steps, she waved at them.
"You oughtn't to listen to them, darling," said Mrs. Riddle, brushing a sprinkling of snow off Tom's shoulder. "I don't imagine that I shall ever forgive your mother for what she did to you. Leaving you in London—not a word to anyone—oh, Tommy, dear—" She squeezed his arm. "We would have come for you had we known. But you've done nothing wrong, nothing at all. It's not your fault she comes from such..."
She sighed, falling silent for a moment or two. "You should know that her lack of respectability is no reflection on you. You're a Riddle, of the North Riding Riddles, and those harpies would do well to be reminded of that. But once they have, no one will ever forget."
On the drive back to the Riddle House, his grandmother pointed out the gravestones behind the churchyard, the Little Hangleton cemetery. It was the place where his ancestors had been interred for the last two-and-a-half centuries, at the foot of the hill overlooked by the great house.
"You were born in the south, Tom—nothing we can do about that—but we'll make a northern lad of you yet, won't we?" said Tom's grandfather, chuckling. "The last thirty years, half our neighbours have sold off and moved to the city. Couldn't keep up the houses; too much work, not enough money. But we Riddles have stayed right here in the valley. This is our home, and one day, it'll be yours. Won't just be by law, or name." He pounded the steering wheel with a fist. "It's in our blood and bones."
With a faint sense of unease, Tom catalogued the tone of their words and associated mannerisms—not the words themselves—to fall under the definition of affection.
Deference was something he was familiar with; he'd learned the meaning of servility in the past week. Envy was something of which he had intimate knowledge, dissecting the differences between himself and everyone outside the gates of the orphanage and finding that he came up short. In recent years, it was what other people felt upon seeing him, rather than the other way around. And spite was a constant in his life, as ubiquitous to his everyday experience as air and magic.
Affection—this form of it—was tremendously alien.
It was different to admiration, which he'd basked in at the Hogwarts Duelling Club whenever he débuted a new spell that cleared through the ranks until he had, once again, risen to first. It wasn't the unrequited longing of the Third Year girls who peeked at him over their magazines at the breakfast table, trying to keep their staring from being too obvious. Their emotions were simplistic and shallow, not so much directed at him, but externalised symptoms of someone else's lack of personal fulfillment.
This was different. It was somehow... less hollow.
The closest comparison he could draw was how he'd felt in the Grangers' house in the summer before Fourth Year, curled up with Hermione on the sitting room sofa after dinner, the murmur of the wireless in the background, and the minted raspberry coulis from Mrs. Granger's dessert of baked apple meringue lingering on his tongue, tart and fresh. He'd been warm, well-fed, and he'd just gotten his new school textbooks; in that moment of contentment, he'd thought that the world, war aside, could be a pleasant place. Once certain conditions had been met, naturally.
It wasn't the same thing as he was feeling now, with the Riddles, but nevertheless, it was strange. Strange and troubling.
He was still thinking of it by the time the motorcar had chugged its way up the hill and into the garage. Thomas and Mary invited him inside for tea and chocolate as a prelude to their Christmas luncheon, but Tom demurred. After the service, the fussy old ladies, the impending Christmas festivities, and the return of his grandmother's camera—if that thing could fit in her handbag, she'd have carried it everywhere and taken it to church—he wanted some time to himself.
The Riddles' garage (two motorcars, a carriage draped in white dropcloths, and an empty space where Bryce had taken the wagon), opened out into a paved courtyard behind the house. The tradesman's entrance was marked out on a sign by the kitchen, adjacent to the small awning that sheltered the household dustbins and vegetable scrap, the latter of which was carted out twice a week and fed to the tenants' pigs.
With the Riddles and Hermione returned to the house and the servants having their half-day off to fraternise with the villagers, the courtyard was quiet; the clump-clump of his feet on the snowy flags seemed to echo off the high stone walls, as if there were two or three people marching in step, instead of merely one. The only other sound that broke the stillness was the whinny of a horse from the opposite side of the yard. The stables.
Tom had never seen the stables. In fact, his only experience with them was Old Ab's goat shed, which had been converted from stables built in the old days when winged horses were a common method of magical travel. Since then, improvements in enchanting had made broomsticks and Floo fireplaces a much faster alternative, on top of being quieter and less trouble to store. These days, the only people who still kept horses were wealthy estate holders like the Malfoys, who used them for sport and entertainment, and not for transport.
(Reading about them in the Care of Magical Creatures textbook had made Tom curious about them—it was said that magical horses, Thestrals in particular, were more intelligent than the wingless Muggle breeds, in the same fashion that wizard-bred owls were cleverer than wild owls. He wondered what the inside of their minds looked like, compared to the intelligence of an Acromantula. Tom's own Acromantula was the brightest of all the animals he'd studied, but it wasn't a mammal; he'd found that it was possible for him to interpret only a tiny fraction of its sensory perceptions.)
He supposed that similar economics applied to the Muggle world. The London broadcasters had urged people to euthanise their pets as a merciful alternative to leaving them at home during air raid evacuations—and it was sensible, too, as pets weren't allotted a ration and there was only so much meat to go around for the human members of a family. Owning hobby animals was now an immense luxury, although he had his doubts that the Riddles would ever indulge proletariat sensibilities in the name of the war effort, and let their horses pull a plough or be butchered for meat.
The inside of the stable was eerily familiar, a long row of stables opposite a wall of leatherware and tack hung on pegs, and a big pile of baled hay and burlap sacks at the far wall, two pitchforks buried in the stack, tines down. Tom realised that he'd seen the same rafters and haylofts in one of the paintings outside his father's bedroom. The wooden structures in the painting were golden and bright, a summer scene with a horse (Prince Selim) peeking its head out of the top of the half-door. In reality, however, the wood was greyed with age, and the light, where it filtered in through doors closed to keep out the snow, was thin and feeble. The stables themselves were empty too, with only one horse in residence, whose name on the feed-bin proclaimed it to be named "Wellesley".
Wellesley, a grey horse with a black mane, came over and dangled its nose out of its stall at Tom's approach, snuffling at his upraised hand. Tom felt the horse's bristly whiskers scrape against his open palm, and though he recoiled internally at the sensation—in the year he'd had the Acromantula, he'd never once touched it with his bare hands—he kept his hand steady and guided the horse's muzzle down until he could look it in the eye.
The confirmation came within the first minute or so: Muggle horses were rather dull creatures.
The horse's eyes were spaced so far apart that it had trouble keeping the figure standing in front of it in focus; to Wellesley, Tom smelled and looked about the same as its regular handler, and with the poor depth-of-field and lack of colour vision, it couldn't see any reason to panic or kick the doors and walls of its stall, its standard approach to expressing disapproval. Or boredom. Or anything else, really. Wellesley, for the limited thinking that a horse was capable of, thought it was fun to kick the stall walls, because that drew the attention of the handler and often resulted in being moved to a new stall closer to the tasty haystack.
It wasn't much different than what Old Ab's goats were like: the horse was fed, watered, walked, and cleaned on a daily basis. There wasn't as much herd interaction as the Hogsmeade goats, which was a clan of female milch animals and a single stud billy. The other horses in the stables were female, and Wellesley was a castrated male—Tom's discovery of this detail made him shudder. The Acromantula's being so different from mammal biology was a point in its favour. The pain it felt never fully translated to Tom's senses when he cast Crucio while observing its mind; sympathetic pain was only an echo brushed off in the name of scientific initiative.
In the midst of his decision to rank domesticated working beasts at the bottom of his list of interesting specimens, Wellesley's thought patterns began to shift, from a restive drowse to sudden alertness. Its ears pricked up and it lifted its muzzle from Tom's hand, forelegs drumming against the inside of the stable door.
A distant bark echoed off the rafters. Wellesley whinnied.
Attentiveness, the flavour of Wellesley's instinctive response, anticipation with no tinge of concern or alarm.
Tom withdrew his explorations from the horse's mind, wincing at the return of his binocular vision, and the colour that burst like magnesium flares across his sight, almost overwhelming him with the rush of sensation, his eyes all at once discerning the shadow of blue in the snow by the stable door, the threads of brown striation in the faded wooden struts that held up the roof, the pink skin beneath the stiff grey hair at Wellesley's lip and nostrils. He shut his eyes, pressing his hand—not the one that had touched the horse—over his eyes, until he was sure he'd acclimated himself to being in his own body.
He had just about sorted himself out when he heard the hush-hush of hay stalks swept off the ground, and the clop of iron-shod hooves striking the floor.
A dog, slender and long-legged, bounded past the corner of the stable, skidding across spilt hay, its toenails clicking. It hesitated, backing away from Tom, ears lowered, a low growl rumbling from its chest.
Tom straightened up and eyed it warily, sliding a hand into his coat pocket for his wand.
Slowly, he drew the wand out, keeping his gaze on the dog, picking out the details of its appearance: a smooth-furred coat of white and splotched brown, a thin, whip-like tail, a sloped back. It wore a leather collar with a gold-plated ring buckle around its neck. Not a stray dog, then, which would be starved and mangy this deep into winter. This was a well-kept pet.
The tap of hooves diverted his attention, as a handsome bay-coloured horse turned the corner, tossing its head.
Tom noticed the man on its back a second later.
Of course it would be him: Tom Riddle, the Elder. His blighted father.
The man noticed him in turn, gloved fingers pulling on the horse's reins in a signal to halt. His features shifted from one of repose, then one of astonishment, and finally to abject displeasure, his mouth tilting down and his nose lifting up as if his horse had just dropped a sloppy mound of poo right on top of his polished jackboots.
The horse shifted from foot to foot, as if sensing the tension in its rider's bearing. Its foreleg pawed at the ground. The dog trotted over to the horse without turning its back on Tom, still growling.
"What are you doing here?" said Tom's father curtly, looking down at him from the horse's broad back.
"I live here," replied Tom, scowling. "I don't need a reason to go where I like."
"You live here," said the other Tom, nostrils flaring—in stark resemblance to Mary Riddle. "But this is my house."
Tom's fingers tightened over the handle of his wand.
"Wh-what's that?" asked the other Tom, his gaze darting down to Tom's hand. "No! Don't you dare point that thing at me—"
One of his hands dropped from the reins, going to his hip, and suddenly Tom found himself staring up at the gleaming muzzle of a revolver.
Tom raised his yew wand. A strange sensation swelled in his chest, as if someone had put him under the vascular constriction spell; he could hear his heartbeat thundering in his ears, and his muscles tensed as they did when he stood on the duelling platform and Merrythought was counting down from three; he could scarcely draw breath—he felt his vision narrowing to a small circle of focus: the gun pointed at his face, and the man pointing it, pale and white-lipped in pure, reciprocated terror.
"You're just the same as she was," the man breathed, sweat glistening on his forehead, "I knew it—there wasn't a doubt in my mind. You've taken Mother and Father in; they refuse to hear a word against you. But I, I won't be taken in—not again, never again!"
"What are you talking about?" snapped Tom, stepping sideways and finding the barrel of his father's revolver following his movements.
"You know what you are!" shouted Tom's father, and his knee jerked, urging the horse to retreat, to put distance between its rider and Tom Riddle. "You can't hide it, not from me!"
Tom tried to make eye contact with his father, but the man's eyes were wild and rolling in panic; the horse, too, was spooked by the anxious atmosphere, fidgeting from foot to foot and pulling at its bridle, but Tom the Elder maintained his seat with a firm grip of the knee and a tight hand on the reins.
He got only glimpses of the man's thoughts, the briefest of vignettes, colour and shadow and impression blurring at the edges into an incomprehensible jumble of noise.
A dirt path on a summer day, chirping birds, a wavering green canopy casting cool shadows in the afternoon heat. The warmth of a horse's barrel between his legs, a glass of water refreshing him as he dabbed moisture off his brow with a monogrammed kerchief.
A woman's touch, soft arms supporting his weight as he wobbled on the path, watching his sorrel stallion trot merrily off and away, tail flicking to ward off flies, reins dangling loose over the sweat-foamed withers.
A spoon pressed against his mouth, ladling lukewarm soup past his chapped lips. The morning light blinded him, lifting a darkness that had fallen over his senses; it revived faculty and memory; he raised his hand to the spoon, adamant on feeding himself, and the light glinted off a golden band encircling the fourth finger of his left hand...
"Stop it!" roared Tom's father, and the shout roused his horse, which reared and kicked until it was brought back under control, dancing in circles on the stable floor. The dog barked; the gun trembled.
Tom took his chance.
"Expelliarmus!" he cried, his left hand—not his wand hand—raised. Intent, willpower, visualisation—
The gun flew out of his father's hand, flying off behind him, ten feet, twenty feet, until it buried itself in a pile of feed sacks.
His father gave a wordless shout, and for a second, they stared at each other, father and son, two empty hands lifted in the air, but Tom still had his wand—his fingers curled around it, his shoulder twitched, and then, without any conscious thought, the white stick of yew levered itself up, up, up—
Tom the Elder wheeled his horse about, spurring it into a great leap that glanced against a stack of hay bales, toppling them over. The dog followed, howling; it dived into the feed sacks and retrieved its master's gun, while Wellesley brayed in distress, kicking against the wooden stable walls, adding a rousing counterpoint to the headache that beat with ferocious enthusiasm from the inside of Tom's skull.
Tom lowered his wand.
For a few minutes, he stood in the middle of the stable floor, grasping for the black sky that appeared so easily before him when he wanted to drone out Dumbledore's amiable anecdotes and twinkling eyes. His heart quietened as he seized control of his emotions, his thoughts, and his temper.
He'd just performed magic in front of a Muggle. The official consequences didn't bother him so much as what it meant to have lost his secret advantage. Yes, he'd done it because who wanted a gun pointed at their face? But in doing so, he'd revealed his hand; he'd broken what Muggles understood to be the natural rules of the universe. He hadn't wanted Hermione to help Frank Bryce—their worlds were meant to be separated for good reason—and now that the illusion had been demolished in front of his father's eyes, Tom felt as if he were losing control of the situation.
His father would have to be Obliviated, as soon as possible. Muggles, and that word was articulated in Tom's mind with disdain, didn't understand magic, or what it meant to be Special. It wouldn't do them any good if he and Hermione were outed as unnatural; he didn't pay much attention to Professor Binns, but he knew enough of magical history to comprehend that the Statute was upheld for a purpose.
But... something stayed his hand, made him hesitate to chase his father down immediately. Whatever did the man mean by his words?
You know what you are!
His father had reacted with anger and fear at seeing Tom's wand.
Not confusion or puzzlement, or even bemused interest.
You're the same as she was.
A few more minutes passed.
Tom pocketed his wand, brushing the hay off his coat and trousers.
No owls appeared in the sky; no message arrived from the Ministry, warning him for unlawful use of underage magic.
When he returned to the house, his grandmother had set out a platter of mince pies and iced biscuits, an accompaniment to the hot tea and creamy cocoa.
Six days left, thought Tom, joining Hermione on the sofa and listening to her prattle on about a Christmas charity drive for the local children. Then I'll go and find out what he meant, and no one will be able to stop me.
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Midnight in the Riddle House was marked by the chiming and clanging of dozens of mantel clocks, carriage clocks, and longcase pendulum clocks. The noise, annoying as it was on a regular day, concealed the pad of Tom's footsteps as he tiptoed out of his room, closing the door behind him. His wand tightly gripped in his right hand, he made his way to the South Wing, holding his Disillusionment Charm steady, even as he felt his fingers twitching in anticipation.
Tom Marvolo Riddle was officially seventeen years old.
There were no rainbow sparklers to mark the occasion. An engraved pocket watch had not been presented to him on the hour of ascending to his majority. No owls would arrive to his breakfast table, bearing an iced cake and a bottle of wine or firewhisky that his family had put away at his birth, just for this occasion; he had seen several classmates receive such birthday gifts earlier on in the year, and had been offered his share of cake slices in the Slytherin Common Room.
Not that any of it mattered to Tom.
What really mattered was that magic and independence, the two things he valued above almost everything else, were now his to exercise at his own discretion. No Ministry intervention, no threats of expulsion, no Dumbledore to look at him in pre-emptive disapproval down his crooked nose.
The lock on his father's door unlocked with a silent tap of his wand.
The drapes, like the last time he'd seen them, were closed, but the room wasn't dark. The lights were on, the wireless over the fireplace—the interior architectural arrangement an exact mirror of his own room—was switched on, tuned to an orchestration of baroque string, the filler music played in the late night and early hours when there was no proper programming on the broadcast schedule.
Tom turned his gaze to the bed. Bundled under the covers was a formless lump, one hand sticking out from beneath the sheet. On the nightstand was an empty glass and a dark brown bottle, its paper label proclaiming it to be 'Nerve Tonic — relieves exhaustion, for a sound and restful sleep.'By the bottle was a spoon, with a liquid of syrup-like consistency dribbling from the bowl and beading on the surface of the table.
He stepped toward the lump under the blankets, wand raised.
The floorboards squeaked; the lump shifted. The blankets stirred and produced a low groan.
"Who's there?" groaned the man, his voice rough with sleep. "Mother? Is that you?"
Tom flicked his wand and cast a silent spell.
Stupefy!
The blankets went still.
Shuffling forward cautiously, Tom approached the bed, casting a Silencing Charm on it, and for good measure, on the squeaky floorboards. On the bed, his father lay slack-jawed in unconsciousness, waves of dark hair tumbling over the pillow. For a moment, Tom stared down at the other Tom, noting their similarities—and their differences.
Tom's superiority to the other children at Wool's had been apparent from early childhood. He grew straight and tall—thin for his height, but that couldn't be helped—while the other children were short, scrawny, or bow-legged. His teeth came in without crooked angles or gaps; his voice deepened without warbling and his skin remained clear and smooth, untouched by pockmark and blemish. In the last few years, his popularity amongst his fellow students had grown, and he regularly fended off invitations to group projects or outings in Hogsmeade. The boys of the Duelling Club might have admired his wandwork, but the girls of Hogwarts admired him for his appearance; he found it immensely shallow of them, but he couldn't discount their usefulness when it came to seeing who had been lent supplementary textbooks for an independent project, from a professor's private collection.
Tom supposed he ought to be thankful to his father, a man slumped gracelessly and drooling over his pillowcase, for these blessings.
Despite being a few years from forty, Tom Riddle Senior had aged well. He had the same clear skin, sun-darkened over the cheeks and the bridge of his nose, fine wrinkles tracing the corners of his eyes and the sides of his mouth, but the lines weren't deep and his flesh hadn't sagged like that of the working men and women of South London. Still as striking as a picture star: there was no wonder that the local ladies of Hangleton thought of him as the finest man in the valley.
Leaning over the bed, Tom peeled back the man's eyelids with his left hand, watching for any sort of response. The eyeballs flickered back and forth in reflex, but the man himself remained still and unseeing, his chest rising and falling in steady rhythm.
Gusts of sour breath wafted over him. Tom winced, bending over his father's face. He inhaled slowly, relaxing his grip on his wand, allowing the thumping beat of his heart to slow and settle to an even pace; his body relaxed. His thoughts wandered, drifted, and strayed from an observance of his own perceptions and into the realm of something less familiar...
By increment, he was drawn into the misty dreamscape of his father's mind, the memories sweeping him up with the warmth of high summer and the merry jingle of riding tack.
.
.
The new stallion, Cirrus, was finally broken to harness, chestnut coat lathered with sweat from taking the packed dirt trails of the valley at a hard gallop. It was an exhilarating ride; at one sharp corner, Tom's heel had slipped the stirrup, but in the end he'd kept his seat and let the horse have his head until he'd bled off all his energy, and now—together—they took the trail at a sedate pace, both of them panting and glistening with sweat.
The girl was bent over the weeds in her family's garden. Not much to look at: where the fashion for the modern lady was sleek finger-waves and a Riviera suntan, this girl was pale and mottled of skin, her dark hair in priggish braids pinned to the back of her head. Her clothing was grey and shapeless, more like a charwoman's shift than a young lady's dress, the only concession to femininity in the glint of a gold chain around her throat. Otherwise, there was nothing about her to tempt Tom into giving her a second glance, not like Cecilia Banbury—now, that was a woman!
Tom remembered having seen the girl around in the village now and again, but she didn't live there, not as one of their tenants. She was a member of that queer freeholder family who lived on the far edge of the dale, ne'er-do-wells who had caused trouble on more than one occasion when they got roaring drunk and set off fireworks in the woods.
Cirrus jerked the reins and came to a stop; Tom only just held on to them, nudging with his knees to prompt the horse into continuing down the path.
Tom clucked his tongue, leaning forward to press his weight on Cirrus' withers. Cirrus stamped his feet and pulled at the bit, but refused to move.
The girl got to her feet, brushing the dirt off her apron and tucking her tools into the front pocket. The wooden handles clacked together as she scurried over to Tom and Cirrus.
"D'you need any assistance?" she asked, and like the other girls who lived in the village, she couldn't stop herself from staring at him, and Tom felt his breath catch when he saw her strange dark eyes aligning in his direction, first one, then the other.
She must have noticed his expression, for her face fell in disappointment.
"No, thank you; I'll have him moving in a minute," said Tom, tearing his gaze away; it would be appalling for anyone to catch him looking at the daughter of the local tramp, even if it was out of profound horror. "He's just a tad difficult—new to harness, you see. Have a good day... er, Miss."
He needed to get Cirrus turned around, then he could get the horse back in the stable where the groom could cool him down. After that, Tom could go for a bath himself, sponge off the sweat, and get himself ready for a dinner with Cecilia, the prettiest girl in Great Hangleton.
The tramp's daughter hadn't stopped staring at him. It was really getting uncomfortable, but he supposed it would be more uncomfortable to be stuck with that face on a permanent basis.
Her plain features hardened by the slightest degree.
His—their—memories began to blur together after that, each scene muddled into the next, and chasing them was like catching snowflakes on his tongue in the winter—he saw the briefest glimpse and then it was gone, melted away on contact and giving way to great stretches of darkness. The darkness was complete; it was muted and soft and strangely devoid of sensation, like a dream, a drunken reverie, but it was one in which he was submerged with no means of exit. Occasional pinpricks of light broke the darkness, small clues that reminded him that he was a real person, and not a figure created by his own scrambled imagination.
His name. Tom Riddle.
His home. The Riddle House, Hangleton, Yorkshire.
There were moments in time—although time had become a vague concept to him; he registered the light and dark of a passing day, and the changing of the seasons in the ambient temperature, but he didn't dwell on it—rare moments in time where he rose up from the deep, ascending to the surface like a breaching whale. These were the moments when he possessed the greatest awareness of his own self, at the notion that there was a self, and that self was named Tom Riddle.
Tom Riddle was a person.
Tom Riddle loved horses.
Tom Riddle loved the scent of sweet clover hay, beeswax saddle soap, and the sharp menthol burst from a freshly uncorked bottle of horse liniment.
Most of all, Tom Riddle loved Merope Gaunt.
That last one seemed strange to Tom Riddle, who was sure that he didn't like Merope Gaunt, the village tramp's daughter, crooked eyes and crooked teeth and a crooked little stick that she pointed right at his forehead—
Tom Riddle loved Merope Gaunt.
There was nothing in the world that he loved more than Merope Gaunt.
Merope Gaunt was the light of his life. She was better looking than Cecilia Banbury; she was a better cook than Mrs. Willrow; she was better company for a ride in the dark than any of the coursers in the family stable.
Yes, Merope Gaunt was the centre of his existence.
There was no Tom Riddle without Merope Gaunt.
There was no Tom Riddle—
No Tom Riddle—
Only darkness—
Tom clawed at the darkness, resisting its power, struggling against it as it smothered him with his own weakness. He had spent so long immersed that he'd begun to hate the deadened sensation, the impotency of his body, the hermetic silence enclosing his mind, stifling him even as he screamed and railed at his own inexorable helplessness.
His mouth moved to cry out, and a low moan slipped out through his convulsing vocal chords.
The darkness began to recede.
A warm tickling feeling curled around his toes. That was strange—it felt warm and wet, and then... hairy?
Tom felt himself returning to his own body, and as he was thinking of the growing itch at his foot, he was struck by an eruption of pain, sharp and sudden and eye-watering, as if someone had just stabbed him in the ankle with a butter knife.
The darkness dissipated.
When his vision returned, he saw Merope's eyes staring down at him. Dark eyes, brown as beetle shells, uncannily penetrative. For some reason, those eyes were set in a reflection of his own face.
Was this a dream? He couldn't tell.
He reached under his pillow, feeling for the cool metal barrel, the six-chambered cylinder.
It was there.
It was a clear confirmation to the reality of his situation.
.
.
Tom tore his way out of his father's mind, not caring to be gentle about it. The images scrambled together as Tom's consciousness fell back into his own body.
His wand hand trembled, but not out of anticipation, but disgust. Stomach-churning disgust, visceral revulsion, sickened astonishment.
His skin felt hot and feverish; the combination of his revulsion, the memories in which he was the subject—the participant—the headache that came of tearing through another's distant recollection without regard for delicacy, and spending too long immersed while his own body was relegated to an empty shell, awaiting his return—all of it converging at once almost made him retch onto the Oriental carpet.
How much of it was a dream?
He had rarely practised his talents on unconscious subjects. When he used the Acromantula for his experimentation, he'd cast a Full Body-Bind before looking into its eyes—and it wasn't an issue, because spiders had no eyelids. Here, he had Stunned his father into unconsciousness instead of binding him. Binding him would have stiffened his body to the point that his eyelids would be stuck shut, and then there would be no way to maintain eye contact. With the Stunner, the body remained pliable, manoeuvrable. The mind, however, lapsed into the subconscious, and while he avoided having to deal with a constant, bewildering influx of new information, memories in this state lost their clarity of organisation, their sense of internal chronology.
But that had no effect on the vividness or verisimilitude of the memories. As he had peered into his father's mind, the man's consciousness began to overlay his, until their two minds became indistinguishable, and he felt each pulse of his father's heart thudding in his own chest.
His head still swam, making sense of the memories, detaching himself from the sensation of being the first-hand observer. This was the first time he'd explored so deeply into a human mind, and it was different from a spider's tactile perception, or even a horse, whose limited consciousness revolved around its basic needs and its primitive social instincts.
But there was one thing that he latched onto immediately:
His mother, the dark-eyed woman in the memory, was none other than a witch.
An incompetent witch at that, snaring his father through magic and potions, then Obliviating him multiple times when he'd tried to reject her advances. They were shoddy, amateur Obliviations that repressed the conscious mind but left the subconscious mostly intact: the memories had returned in the form of the dreams, and leaked into the waking consciousness upon encountering familiar, recognisable stimuli.
The mind-based magic had lacked delicacy and skill; even in the memories, he had seen the witch's—Merope's—wand movements and incantations lacking conviction. In the Healing textbooks he'd read, it was said that fumbled memory alteration—or even too many Obliviations in too short a time—risked long-term damage and personality alteration.
A moan issued from the crumpled blankets.
"M-Merope..."
Tom blinked, his vision still bleary, and focused on the man stirring on the bed.
Their eyes met.
Tom lifted his wand. Although his mind still felt as if it was swimming in treacle, he began the incantation for a Full Body-Bind, as it appeared his Stunner had worn off rather quickly.
"Petrificus..."
"Nooo," groaned Tom's father, his eyes bloodshot, trying to push himself upright.
"...Tota—"
Before Tom could finish the incantation, a large shape rocketed out from under the blanket, barking madly.
Like being hit by a Knockback Jinx from the far end of the duelling platform, it pummelled into his chest and then he was driven down to the floor, his wand clattering out of his hand.
The air was driven out of his lungs; Tom was pinned to the floor, dazed and unable to draw breath, unable to call out for help.
The pain came after—first, the sharp pain of his chest, a heavy weight pressing down on him. Then, the dull throb at the back of his head where he'd smacked it on the carpet.
Pushing the pain aside, he made an attempt to lift his arm, and with great effort, he reached for his wand, which had landed a few feet away. But before he could grab it, the weight on his chest gave a rumbling growl.
That stupid dog.
His eyes narrowed in concentration—continuing to ignore the pain for later, later, anything but the present—forming the visualisation, he thought the incantation: Accio.
The wand hurtled into his open palm just as the dog leaped for it and grabbed on to the other end, teeth scratching against the polished yew, pulling it away from him, like a game of Fetch turned into a Tug-of-War.
Without second thought, without consideration about performing magic in front of a Muggle witness, or anything else but the thought of getting himself out of the current situation, Tom acted in his own defence.
Diffindo!
Blood sprayed in a broad arc, hot droplets falling against his face and the collar of his pyjama shirt, bitterly metallic against his open lips, a rain of red spattering over the floor. The body of the dog slid off the end of his wand, its brown and white coat squelching on the soaked carpet.
Distantly, Tom watched as his left hand rose up to swab the blood out of his eyes, and then his right hand lifted the bloodied wand, like peppermint stripes of red on white—
Crack!
Once again, Tom was shoved back down onto the floor, and this time, the pain of it was worse than the last. It was merciless—it was excruciating—it radiated from his hip in a nexus of heat, the worst pain he'd ever experienced in his life; he imagined himself to be not a man, not a human, but a vessel for this all-consuming pain, so intense that it stripped him of awareness for everything but the heights of purest agony. Searing waves tore up through his nerves and shuddered beneath his flesh; his spine bowed in reflex, his body curving and quivering and gasping for breath, choking for air as blood dried tacky on his cheeks and foamed pink on his lips and chin.
Tom Riddle Senior raised his handgun and pulled the trigger.
Tom gripped his wand and closed his eyes.
P-protego—
In a delirium of pain, he imagined himself pressing his nose against his bedroom window at Wool's, watching a storm that had swirled in from the North Sea, heavy black clouds hovering over the city like the fist of a sky god, crackling with lightning. He had seen hail rattle against the windowpanes, chunks of ice fallen from miles up, smashing on the glass, but he himself remained safe and warm on the other side—
Crack!
Five shots were deflected by Tom's non-verbal Shield Charm, and then the cylinder spun empty.
Biting his tongue—his ears rang with the echo of gunfire and his pelvis must be shattered; he'd tried to roll himself over and felt the unsettling sensation of something shifting inside—Tom murmured one last spell, Imperio. With that, his father fell back onto the bed, tossing the gun aside, forced into a deep sleep that would repress recent memory and blur them into dream, the most Tom could do when he couldn't summon up the mental direction for a thorough Obliviation. Immobilisation would do for the moment. He didn't know how long the spell would last, cast in such a half-hearted way, but this would have to be enough for now.
He drew a shallow, rattling breath, the pain immured in a box in the back of his mind, guarded by empty space and black velvet and sheer force of will.
Charms.
He needed to cast several charms, to tide him over until he got access to a Healer or Mediwizard.
Charms were the easiest, requiring precision and focus over outright magical power. He cast them, mumbling the words through his sticky lips. Cooling Charm to numb the heat. Featherweight charm, Levitation, then a charm to siphon and scour and a Drying Charm to clean himself up. Not as good as a proper bath, but it would keep him from leaking a trail of blood onto the floor and down the hall. Sticking Charm to press a scrap of fabric from his trouser leg over his broken hip, holding down the pressure and stemming the blood.
He was shivering by the time he'd cast the charm to reduce his heart rate, arm twisted at an awkward angle to point the tip of his wand to his chest and form the pattern, the same one he'd used on Nott in the dorm bathroom a year ago.
Somehow—likely a monumental exercise of willpower—Tom dragged himself to his feet and half-stumbled, half-floated himself to the door, leaning on the walls every few metres to catch his breath.
One step. Then one step more. One more; he could do it.
He repeated those words to himself, over and over, drowning out the shooting bursts of pain that made each step an agony.
Soon—or not so soon; he hadn't been paying attention to the chiming of the clocks—he left the South Wing, passed the atrium, still decorated with spruce sprigs and tinsel garlands from Christmas, and entered the North Wing of the house, which contained his own room.
His room—and Hermione's.
Hermione.
Her name became his new mantra. His new goal.
A destination.
When he arrived to her door—finally—he smacked his open palm against it, once, twice—
The door opened. Hermione stood in the doorway in her nightgown, yawning and rubbing her eyes.
"Tom, what are you—"
Tom swayed against the door frame. "Pelvis broken. Losing blood. Need Healer."
Hermione guided him to her bed, and he lay on her pillows, absorbing her scent as she fluttered around him, tossing warmed blankets over his body, shoving a cushion under his legs to elevate the wound, bombarding him with questions that he couldn't be bothered to answer.
"Tom? I've sent for help; it'll take a few minutes... What happened to you? Do you want anything to drink? Tom..."
He closed his eyes—
Hermione slapped his cheek.
"Don't go to sleep!" she scolded him. "You have to stay awake."
"I'm fine," Tom murmured. "Just resting my eyes. You'll fix me up soon; I trust you."
"I—" Hermione began, but then there was a strange pop from behind her, as if someone had just uncorked a bottle of champagne. Well, why shouldn't they? It was his birthday.
Tom couldn't lift up his body or even turn his head to look. Not that he wanted to. The charm that lowered his heart rate—reducing the blood loss—decreased the oxygen circulation of his body and drew a veil over his thoughts, dulled his usual acuity and perception. He found himself wondering if this was how Avery or Mulciber felt on a regular day.
She whirled around, then he heard her say, "Finally! Come on, we have to take him to St. Mungo's. You've been there before, haven't you? Amity, that's your name, isn't it?"
A familiar voice said, "She can't speak. Father bound her with a silencing collar to protect our family secrets." Then, adding in a muttered tone, "And he thinks elf-speak is annoying to listen to."
"How... how awful!" Hermione cried. "B-but I suppose it means she can't go and report this to your father, can she? And she can take us to the hospital? Hopefully someone there can treat this kind of wound."
There was a rattle of stoneware, and then the other voice said, "She says yes. Here, you ought to put this poultice on him to hold him over for the moment."
Something cold was poured over Tom's burning hip, rendering the area gratefully numb. He sighed and turned his face into the pillow, breaths coming a little easier.
"Thank you," said Hermione.
"I'm not doing it for free, Granger. There's a cost to this."
"I can pay," Hermione said quickly. "I don't have the galleons now, but if you take me to Gringotts in the morning, I can exchange them—"
"Not that kind of cost." There was a pause. "He'll owe me a life debt."
Hermione didn't reply.
"You don't know what they are, do you?" said the voice. "Huh. Well, we can settle that after. Take his wand and hold his arms down. Apparition isn't the most comfortable thing with this many people. Come, Amity, take us to St. Mungo's."
The blankets were removed, and Hermione leaned over him, her curly hair tickling his nostrils.
"Mmm, Hermione," said Tom.
"Shh," she whispered, and her hands closed around his wrists, her palms warm against his chilled skin. "Ready?"
"Ready," said the other voice.
"Hold on, Tom. We'll have you back to your usual self in no time."
"To our eternal regret—" the other person said, but Tom heard no more as he was, without warning, thrown out of the bed and onto a cold tiled floor, which would have hurt had Hermione's arms not held him and broken his fall before his hip touched the ground.
Hermione lowered him down, then brushed his hair out of his eyes, leaning in close. She pressed her cheek against his sweaty forehead.
"Mrs. Riddle will be upset if you miss the birthday party," she sighed into his ear.
Tom closed his eyes, a thin smile cracking the crust of dried blood on his cheek. "Then let her eat cake."
"Insufferable," remarked the other speaker in a snide voice.
"Oh, shut up," said Hermione, holding Tom tighter in her arms.
.
.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
He pointed the wand very carefully into the boy's face: he wanted to see it happen, the destruction of this one, inexplicable danger. The child began to cry: it had seen that he was not James. He did not like it crying, he had never been able to stomach the small ones' whining in the orphanage—
"Avada Kedavra!"
And then he broke: he was nothing, nothing but pain and terror, and he must hide himself, not here in the rubble of the ruined house, where the child was trapped and screaming, but far away… far away…
"No," he moaned.
The snake rustled on the filthy, cluttered floor, and he had killed the boy, and yet he was the boy…
"Bathilda's Secret", Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
.
Tom, why do your plans always backfire?