A/N: So, I know I said Chapter 3 would be long, but I decided to swap 3 and 4. The events corresponding to the first book are going to swap between the twins and Tom's POV leading up to to the events of the first chapter (that means next chapter will be from the twins' perspective).

"ᴛᴀᴍᴘᴇʀ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴇᴘᴇꜱᴛ ᴍʏꜱᴛᴇʀɪᴇꜱ — ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴏᴜʀᴄᴇ ᴏꜰ ʟɪꜰᴇ, ᴛʜᴇ ᴇꜱꜱᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴏꜰ ꜱᴇʟꜰ — ᴏɴʟʏ ɪꜰ ᴘʀᴇᴘᴀʀᴇᴅ ꜰᴏʀ ᴄᴏɴꜱᴇQᴜᴇɴᴄᴇꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴏꜱᴛ ᴇxᴛʀᴇᴍᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀᴏᴜꜱ ᴋɪɴᴅ."

Chapter Three: Red Death, White Torture

The only thing left of Tom other than his soul was his mind, and Tom Riddle's mind was not the nicest place, to put it lightly.

Everything was white.

Tom had never imagined white could be such a miserable color, but now, he loathed it even more than the grey walls of Wool's Orphanage.

There was no sound. No color.

If he had any representation of a body inside the diary, he couldn't see it, and nor did it cast a shadow in the horrible, empty prison of his own creation.

He stared — or, did something akin to staring, because he didn't have eyes anymore — at the white surroundings until he felt his mind buzz with the same vast nothingness.

It felt like forever.

An abyss should be black. That would be better. The emptiness wouldn't be so cutting, so searing.

"Who am I?" he wanted to ask, but he didn't have lips, or a tongue, or vocal cords. He couldn't speak.

He. I think I'm male? I don't really know...

If only he could close his eyes, then maybe he could remember; but he didn't have eyes.

How long have I been here? Have I always been here?

Horcrux.

Yes, that was how he got here. A Horcrux, whatever that was. It had been painful... there had been colors, the bright, poison-green color of a snake, the darker green of the tie he remembered knotting around his neck, curtains... a bed? Someone laughing, liquid of the same color bubbling aggressively.

Who am I?

Green. He clung onto it. Green was important to him.

Green green green.

Was that his name? Green was not a name.

Tom!

My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. I was born in Wool's Orphanage, London, on the last day of the year nineteen twenty-six.

I am sixteen years old. I am a wizard. I go to a school called Hogwarts.

He had to remember, remember all of it. No matter how much it hurt, because someday, someone might find the diary. Someone might free him from this whitewashed version of Hell, and if they did, Tom had to be ready.

It was a Tuesday.

Faint daylight streamed in through the windows of the small, empty chapel, tainted by the grey smog sticking to the air.

Only four people were present: a severe-looking woman in a faded brown dress, a solemn man in a heavy, well-made coat, a little boy of about nine years wearing a grey tunic, and a widow, heavily veiled in layers of black lace.

The little boy, Tom, got up silently from the pew and drifted towards one of the windows, staring up at the cloudy, ashen sky. His chaperone, the woman, closed her prayer book, got up, and followed him.

The widow turned ever so slightly towards Tom, and he caught a glimpse of her face behind the lace veil. He stared at her and did not look away, eyes wide and curious, shining over-bright in his small, pale face.

"He's been touched by the Devil," said the widow, throwing back her black mantilla as she prayed to the small statue of the Virgin Mary, her rosary beads jingling. The weight of her grief made every word sound ominous to Tom. "Look at those soulless eyes. Unholy child, spawn of Lucifer—"

"That's quite enough. You're scaring the boy," Mrs. Cole said firmly, placing her hands on Tom's shoulders — an odd reaction, given that the woman was not prone to emotional outbursts. But this widow was clearly foreign, and even though Mrs. Cole silently agreed that something about Tom had been not quite right since the day he was born, she certainly didn't need to be reminded of it by a woman who needed to go back to her appallingly lazy country.

Tom had, in fact, gone completely rigid.

The widow glared, but replaced the lace veil, and turned around.

"Estos protestantes," she muttered, then went back to praying in Latin.

The man had gotten up too, striding over to the window to meet them.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" he began, turning to both of the women — first the widow, then Mrs. Cole. "I believe your son may be ill. I am a doctor, you see…"

"He's not my son," said Mrs. Cole stiffly, as if the very idea of reproduction offended her. "I am the matron at Wool's Orphanage."

"Nevertheless—"

All three adults looked down, startled as Tom began to sway on his feet, glassy eyes sliding closed as he toppled forward.

When Tom woke, he was barely breathing, his limbs stiff and unresponsive. His skin was burning, unbearably hot, and covered everywhere in little red bumps that felt like sandpaper. It hurt.

He tried to swallow, but that hurt too.

All that he could hear was the sound of other children crying. Tom squinted and saw a blackout curtain fluttering against the window beside the bed. He imagined it twisting into a dark robe around the shoulders of the Grim Reaper, that Death was surely coming for him now, reaching for him with terrible, mangled fingers, blood dripping from bone.

"The ward is full," someone said quietly. "That's the last bed."

"Where?" Tom managed to rasp. This wasn't the orphanage, wasn't Room 27. Where was he?

"Tom," someone said quietly — a kind voice, a man's. The sense of dread retreated. "You're very ill, Tom. You're at a hospital, and nice people are going to take care of you until you get better. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he said, though he didn't. "Am I going to die?"

There was a pause. He wasn't supposed to ask that question, was he?

"No, Tom," said the man. "Get some rest now."

He heard the man get up and walk away — heard heavy footfalls recede down the ward, and the faint sound of him kneeling down by another child's bed to whisper similar platitudes.

A man with a comforting voice. A father. There were no men at Wool's Orphanage, only Mrs. Cole, and Tom certainly didn't think of her as his mother.

And it didn't matter. Tom didn't need to be taken care of. He didn't need parents, he'd never had them and he didn't need them, not since his mother died the day that he was born.

He didn't need another Tom Riddle, anyway. There were enough Toms. Too many.

Perhaps, Tom should have felt comforted, as the nurse patted his arm and smiled sympathetically; but all that he could focus on was the fluttering curtain. Now he could see Death, as the sounds of crying and sniffling dulled around him, as the room seemed to darken with the Reaper's presence (if he hadn't been so scared, Tom would have noticed that the sun had only gone behind the clouds).

Comfort wasn't something Tom needed. He'd never been afraid of monsters before; never shirked from dark corners or shadows dancing across the walls or shapes cowering under the bed. He liked spiders. Sometimes, he would let them crawl on him, and if he concentrated hard enough, he could make the spiders play dead or roll over on their backs.

Billy Stubbs had called him a monster once, when they'd argued. The next morning, Tom had gotten up before anyone else, while it was still dark outside, taken the rabbit that Billy was so fond of, a silly, white fluffy thing, up to the attic, and hung it.

He hadn't been intending to. Tom hadn't sat there and planned it. He just had to do it. In fact, he hardly knew what he was doing as he climbed up the rafters, the warm, fuzzy rabbit struggling in his hand, its heartbeat quick and frenzied against his palm. Nor did he know how to make a noose. No one taught him.

All he could think was punish Billy, he was mean to me, how dare he, I'm special. Tug. Loop. Knot. He had gripped the rafter between his knees, hard enough to leave welts, but it was worth it as he felt the rabbit stop struggling in the noose. Billy deserved it.

But as the fury burned out, he was sitting cross-legged and looking up at Billy Stubb's rabbit, its stupid ears drooping as it spun slowly, the grey twine knotted around its neck, as the room filled with morning light.

There was a black curtain in the attic too, fluttering against the window. The dead rabbit had been fascinating, and Tom had wanted to keep it in the box in his wardrobe, where he kept all of his secret toys. But it wouldn't fit, and it would stink. Dead things smelled. So, he left the rabbit, shutting the door and creeping back into bed, unable to sleep as he waited with glee for Billy's reaction.

"Well, it didn't hang itself from the rafters, did it?"

Tom remembered staring unrepentantly back up at Mrs. Cole, his face a mask of feigned confusion, but internally singing, he got what he deserved, stupid Billy, stupid rabbit. And Billy's crying; that had been music to his ears.

"No, ma'am. I don't see how I could have gotten up there, ma'am."

Tom squeezed his eyes shut to block out the sense of the Reaper staring down at him from the window, the bony fingers reaching for his tightening throat.

Special, special, I'm special. I'm better than them, that's why they can't stand me, that's why they're scared of me, that's why they hate me. You can't take me, I'm special.

"Can't!" Tom whispered hoarsely, and the curtain flew off of the rail, as if a gust of wind had blown across the ward.

The Reaper hung over Tom for weeks; threatening and ever-present. First, his skin began to peel; he was covered in itchy, horrible flakes, and pulling at them only made it worse.

Tom would whisper to the curtain as it slammed against the window, black and menacing. He convinced himself that he could see a specter inside it.

"Leave me alone! Go away!"

Nurse Smith seemed to be disturbed by the increasingly mangled state of the curtain; but Tom couldn't have done that. He couldn't even sit up in bed.

"He talks to things that aren't there," she would say to the doctor.

"That will be the hallucinations, Nurse Smith. Not uncommon with severe cases of fever, especially amongst children."

Of course, Tom had destroyed the curtain, breathing hard and glowering at it until it ripped. But by the fourth week, Tom didn't have the energy to lash out at the curtain, and it remained undisturbed on the rail.

The fever went all the way to his heart. He lay in bed, nearly paralyzed for what felt like an eternity, in a haze of pain, exhaustion, and fever.

Sometimes, the doctor would come and press something cold and metal against his burning skin and listen to his heart, his breath; the result would always be head-shaking and a worried look exchanged with the nurse.

Every breath was stabbing, searing pain, but he forced himself to breathe in, breathe out; spurred on by the fear of what would happen to him if he stopped. The Reaper was watching from the window.

"Tom?" asked a voice. Tom turned his head in its direction. His head hurt so much that he didn't even want to open his eyes to see the man who was speaking to him.

"I don't know you," he said, swallowing to numb the pain in his throat, but that made it hurt even more. "Are you another doctor?"

"No, Tom," said the voice. "My name is Pastor Brown."

"So I am going to die," Tom choked out. "That's why you're here!"

"Calm down, my child," said Pastor Brown. "Let us pray. Pray for the safe passage of your soul between this world and the next—"

"I don't want to go!" Tom shouted. "I want to stay! I want to live, please!"

But already, the pastor was speaking, and each word felt like the heavy call of a stone bell, ringing out the end of his life. The Reaper, the Reaper was smiling down at him, his awful scythe descending towards Tom's neck like a guillotine.

"No! No! No!"

Strong hands were pushing him down. The Reaper.

"No! No! No! Don't take me! Please!"

"Tom, dear, calm down, you'll tire yourself out. It's only me. Nurse Smith."

Needless to say, Pastor Brown did not return to Tom's bedside.

"That boy does not need medicine," he said as he left. "The child requires a kind of saving even I cannot provide."

Whether Pastor Brown was right or not was unclear, because Tom's condition worsened drastically. His world became a blur of delirium, with only rare flashes of awareness. The rest of his waking hours were consumed with colorful, fever-driven hallucinations filled with a sense of despair.

It was a graduate student, visiting from Oxford and with a keen interest in medicine, who came up with the idea of penicillin upon meeting Tom.

"Good morning," said the student briskly, pulling up a chair. "How do you do, Tom?"

Tom turned his head. It was one of his rare moments of clarity, though he was unable to open his eyes. "Not… very… well," he managed to say.

Three words, but for Tom, a tremendous undertaking. He forced himself to stay lucid; he wanted to hear what the student had to say.

"How long has he been here?"

"Seven weeks," said the nurse. "Wouldn't you like to see—"

"Thank you, Nurse Smith, but I think I'll stay here with Tom. I'm a student, you see," he said, and this was directed at Tom. "Not quite the sort that you are at school. I am a grown-up kind of student, one who gets to choose what I might like to study. And what I am studying currently, along with many clever people, is scarlet fever. We are trying to understand how we can make children like you get better faster."

"Mr. Gardner? From Oxford?" This was the doctor. "I have been looking all over for you."

"Streptococcus pyogenes is a bacterium," the student was saying, though this was all gibberish to Tom.

Horrid, garish colors began to swirl behind Tom's eyes.

"Perhaps, if—"

"We've done all we can for the boy, and even so, he may not last the night," said the doctor. "I agree, it's an unfortunate case, but he leaves no parents to grieve him. No family."

"What kind of reasoning is that—"

"The reasoning of an experienced doctor, not a young man full of ideals. Good day. Nurse Smith, come with me, please."

That left Tom and the student alone in the far corner of the ward.

"Listen," said the student in a low voice. "Don't tell anyone what I am about to say. There is a very clever man named Alexander Fleming, and he discovered a thing called penicillin. We believe it may kill the things that have made you ill — the bacteria — and help you get better. Would you like to try, Tom?"

"It will… stop me… from dying?" he asked, barely able to believe it. The black curtain fluttered weakly.

"It might, Tom."

"Then.. try…" he gasped. "Please… try…"

Tom felt the bite of a needle press into his swollen skin, then nothing. Suddenly, he felt very, very sleepy.

Tom fell asleep; real, restorative, restful sleep, not the sweaty, pounding terror of fever dreams.

Tom's recovery was almost like magic. First, he was sitting up in bed and looking around in the morning; then, he told Nurse Smith that he felt quite hungry. By the end of the week, he could take a few tentative steps, holding onto the bed.

The doctor looked down at him critically. By now, the ward was nearly empty. The scarlet fever epidemic was over.

"It's like nothing I've ever seen before," he said. And to the nurse, he muttered, "Odd boy, isn't he?"

"Tom," he said, "the matron from the orphanage will come for you today. Nurse Smith will help you dress."

Then, without another word, the doctor was gone.

"Come, dear," said the nurse. "Lift your arms up, there's a good boy."

Tom obeyed, letting her pull the white shirt over his head. It was much nicer than any of the clothes he owned; crisp and although probably second-hand, it did not have the threadbare look of the few things he had hanging in the wardrobe.

"Where are your things, dear?" asked the nurse. "Did you bring any toys?"

"I don't have any," said Tom, thinking longingly of his secret box back at the orphanage, a place that he never thought he'd miss. But even though he knew that his mother had died, long ago, in one of those grey rooms, this hospital reeked of death more than any other place ever could.

I wonder if there's anyplace on Earth where no one has ever died.

I wish I could go there.

"Why?"

"We ought to have them burned if you did. Turn around now, Tom. You must look neat for Mrs. Cole."

Nurse Smith began combing his head back with a wet comb. She was not gentle.

Tom glared at the curtain as she left, patting him on the head, straightening the collar on his shirt, and telling him to be a good boy.

"One day," he whispered to the black curtain, "I'll kill you. You're never going to come for me again."

And for good measure, he concentrated on the curtain with all his might, and the Reaper's robes disintegrated into dust.

Then, he turned and walked out the door of the empty ward.

A/N: Thank you for reading! I have a Tumblr now (sk1fanfiction, also linked in my profile), where I'll be posting fanart for this fic and the Blood of Peverell series, and ... stuff... I'm just figuring it out right now. But I just posted fanart of Tom recently, so please take a look if you'd like!

Oh, and Tom's personal version of hell is inspired by white torture, which is an actual, incredibly inhumane form of psychological torture that's unfortunately used in many countries today.