A/N: ...and this chapter turned out really long, too, but I wanted to get all of this in. Features my interpretation of the infamous cave scene, Tom's first meeting with Dumbledore, and a trip to Diagon Alley.
"ʜᴇ ꜱᴄᴀʀᴇꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴄʜɪʟᴅʀᴇɴ."
"ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴇᴀɴ ʜᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀ ʙᴜʟʟʏ?"
"ɪ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ʜᴇ ᴍᴜꜱᴛ ʙᴇ, ʙᴜᴛ ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴠᴇʀʏ ʜᴀʀᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ ʜɪᴍ ᴀᴛ ɪᴛ. ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ɪɴᴄɪᴅᴇɴᴛꜱ... ɴᴀꜱᴛʏ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ..."
Chapter Five: Down the Rabbit Hole
-London, 1938-
Wool's Orphanage was a waiting-kind-of-place. It wasn't a home. No one lived there.
Even though it was full of children, it had the empty feeling of waiting-rooms and the hollow space that lived in Tom's chest.
Perhaps that was why Tom never made an effort to befriend any of the other children.
He'd seen other children come and go, of course. Usually, they came young, about a year or so old, wailing and wrapped in blankets, and the ones that were going to leave did so before their tenth birthday. At eleven, he was already too old to be adopted; Tom knew that he would stay there until either he ran away or he was kicked out. Running away was not an option; he had no money and nowhere to go.
Tom did not regard the inevitable day, most likely his eighteenth birthday, when he would be given one pound, asked to gather up his meager belongings, and told to leave, with trepidation. Rather, he wished that day would come as soon as possible.
Tom hated the noises.
Someone was always crying, or vomiting, or screaming; because that was what children did, and when you lived in a building with thirty other children, all of whom were mostly unattended to but the sick and the babies, the noise rose to truly deafening levels.
"HE TOOK MY TEDDY BEAR!" shrieked a little girl, about four years younger than Tom. "MUMMY GAVE IT TO ME!"
Other children had things; things that their parents gave them before they died, usually a toy or a blanket or some other ordinary trinket. Tom didn't have anything. According to the account that Martha had once grudgingly told him to stop him from pestering her about it, his mother had given birth to him right in Wool's Orphanage, and died right after naming him.
Tom, for his father. Marvolo, for my father.
So, his name, really, was the only thing that Tom Riddle owned.
Tom stared hard at the screaming girl, and imagined the sounds coming out of her mouth fizzling out to nothingness. The screaming began to dull to a whisper, and he held onto that focus, until there was nothing but silence in the room.
Strange, he's a strange boy.
He's weird.
Tom could hear them whispering, as a handful of older children strolled into the room and sat on the floor at the far end of the room. He eyed the dog-eared paperback resting on the floor beside someone's pale, bony foot, and crept closer.
"It's good," said the girl it belonged to. "Jack gave it to me — Jack from the flower shop, he gave me some flowers once an' said they weren't as beautiful as me."
"Oh, I wish I was as pretty as you. Boys never give me things."
"Look, there's Riddle," one of the girls was whispering. "He talks in tongues sometimes. D'you think he's possessed or somethin'?"
She giggled. Tom was close enough to read the book's title, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. His fingers unfurled, reaching towards it hungrily. He inched closer on his hands and knees, quietly, so that they wouldn't notice him.
"No, just crazy," said another. "And that's not nice, Emily. We shouldn't make fun of the less fortunate."
"What d'you mean, Mary? We're all orphans, and we're all poor."
The first girl, Emily, snorted. "Yeah, but Riddle's not all there."
Not all there.
Crazy.
Possessed.
I'm not any of those things! I'm special.
Still glaring at the copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Tom reached for the building fury — honed it — focused it — and the book burst into flames.
There was shouting — shrieking — Tom didn't register anything except his wild glee at achieving his small bit of revenge. He stood rooted to the floor, smiling slightly and admiring the chaos that was his handiwork until Mrs. Cole shook him out of his stupor, her hard gaze going from Tom to the charred book and back to Tom again. He opened his clenched fists, but he did not hold the charred matches that she was expecting.
"It was Tom!" shrieked Emily, her voice pleasantly high and hysterical, her (common, Tom thought) accent pronounced by her fear. "I'm tellin' you, Mrs. Cole! It was him that did it! Pastor Brown is right, he's got the Devil in 'im!"
"Go to your room," Mrs. Cole ordered finally. Tom knew that she felt he had done it, but there was no way to prove it. Besides, going to his room wasn't a punishment, away.
And just to be safe, Mrs. Cole added: "There'll be no supper for you tonight, young man. Sit and think about what you did to poor Emily's book, and by tomorrow morning, I expect an apology."
Martha woke Tom early the next morning, bearing strict instructions from Mrs. Cole to ensure that Tom's hair was combed neatly and that he'd washed behind his ears. He stood still, shivering in the cold April morning as Martha attacked the back of his neck with a wet cloth, all the while griping about the dirt.
"Now, you don't say nothin' unless Mrs. Cole tells you," she said sharply. "A Mr. and Mrs. Williams. Nice people, by the look of them. Wanted a clever child. A boy. Mrs. Cole thinks that you should meet 'em, somehow."
Tom mentally finished her sentence. Because she'd take any opportunity to be rid of me.
Still, it was a ticket out of the orphanage. It was this or seven more years. He had to try, but not because Martha or Mrs. Cole wanted him to leave. Tom had to try for himself.
Once Martha had succeeded in rubbing his neck raw, first, she took him by Emily's room, where he muttered a grudging, yet masterfully-delivered, apology (Emily, I'm sorry that I was jealous and set your book on fire. I hid the matches after so Mrs. Cole couldn't find them. I could have hurt you. It was deceitful of me. I'msorry and I sincerely hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive me.), then, Mrs. Cole ushered him into her office, where a neatly dressed couple was sitting. Respectable, the kind of people that Mrs. Cole would say that they should aim to be when they grew up.
"Hello," he said. He should look down. Mrs. Cole said his eyes scared people sometimes, and he wanted these adults to like him, didn't he?
"Mind your manners, Tom," she said, not unkindly. "Look at Mr. and Mrs. Williams."
He did.
"How old are you, Tom?" asked the man — Mr. Williams.
"Eleven, sir."
"Eleven's a bit old, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Williams. "We were hoping for a younger child."
Tom knew how it went. The older you were, the less likely it was for you to be adopted. He should have lied and said eight. But it might not have been believable. It was too bad that he was tall for his age.
"Is he well-behaved?" asked Mr. Williams.
"Yes," said Mrs. Cole, but her tone sounded as if she had swallowed an entire lemon. "And he's clever at his books."
Mrs. Williams pinched Tom's cheek. He frowned. He didn't like people touching him — not even smiling, perfumed ladies.
"Do you ever smile, Tom?" She turned to Mrs. Cole. "He's so dark and sullen-looking. We don't want a dreary child."
They should have been his parents.
He should have smiled.
Why should he need to smile!
He was special. He was better than everyone else, and that was why they couldn't stand to be around him.
Tom wrapped these thoughts around him like a prickly blanket until the next day, when Mrs. Cole announced that two children would be leaving the orphanage after the trip to the seaside.
He peeked into Room 29, and felt a tight squeeze of jealousy as he noticed the open trunk on the floor inside.
"Hullo, Tom!" said Dennis brightly, his blond curls bouncing lightly around his ruddy cheeks. "The Williams — they've adopted me! Isn't that wonderful!"
"Fantastic," snapped Tom as he turned away.
They should have been my parents, thought Tom as he stared out the window of the bus, filled with hollow despair as he once more resigned himself to seven more years. I'm special. I'm good enough. Why is it never me?
The cliff stood on the edge of the sea. Mrs. Cole was watchful, but she could not keep her eyes on every single child in the long, waving grass.
Tom headed off towards the edge of the cliff, planning to sit alone and mope. Maybe they would count wrong when they got back to the bus, and someone would find him sitting by himself, and finally see what none of the others could — that he was special.
"Hullo, Tom!" someone called.
He turned. Dennis and Amy were following him.
"Leave me alone!" he snapped. But they did not, instead following him to the edge of the cliff.
Maybe this is a blessing in disguise, thought Tom. The waves slammed against the rocks below in way that seemed strangely tempting.
He began to come up with an idea; one that filled him with a wild, strange joy that was not quite happiness.
Tom sat on the edge of the cliff, swinging his legs nonchalantly.
"Come sit," he offered, in an uncharacteristically cheery voice. "If you lean over, you can see the fish under the water."
They fell over the cliff, as Tom knew they would — and he shut his eyes and jumped with them.
He had only been intending for a bit of fun — just to dangle them right above the waves or the rocks so that they shrieked. But the cave halfway down the cliff opened up a whole new world of possibilities.
"That wasn't so bad," said Tom blithely as he shook the sea-spray out of his hair and looked around. He noticed with satisfaction that Dennis and Amy looked shaken.
Tom heard the faint hissing of snakes, the dry sh-sh sound as they glided over stone.
"We should call for help," said Amy, glancing at Dennis. "If we're late getting back to the orphanage, Mr. and Mrs. Williams will worry."
Something in Tom snapped, and he finally lost control of his anger.
"No one came for me. No one wanted me. I waited, longer than you! I've been here ever since I was born! I watched so many children get adopted, but never me. Why should you get adopted—"
"Tom-" started Amy.
Tom interrupted her, but his voice was a low, unnerving hiss.
"You can smile? Well, so can I. So can they!"
Sh-sh. Sh-sh. SH-SH. SH-SH!
Suddenly the hissing sound was deafening.
Amy and Dennis froze in shock and horror as a mass of snakes encircled them, moving in a horrible, hypnotized unison. Snakes as tall as a grown man, and thicker than a walking stick formed a solid wall of hissing mouths and flickering tongues.
And Tom controlled them. They coiled harmlessly around his feet, rose to follow the source of his despair and hatred.
SH-SH! SH-SH!
"You think you're better than me?" shrieked Tom, blind fury overtaking his senses until he could feel nothing but the overwhelming, sickening desire for revenge — and power, what was this strange and wonderful power?
SH-SH! SH-SH!
"You think you're clever?"
SH-SH! SH-SH!
"You think you deserve parents more than I do?"
Amy and Dennis did not respond. They could not. Not even when they were safely on the bus. The damage had been done.
And Tom did not feel an ounce of remorse. He could not.
In fact, the only thing he felt was a pinch of fury when he discovered that Mr. and Mrs. Williams were not disturbed by Amy and Dennis's muteness, but instead cooed and comforted them as they whisked the children away, disappearing forever from Wool's Orphanage.
Gone. But the hollow, empty feeling remained, and that night, Tom dreamed of a torn black curtain fluttering closer to the bed, and woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and submerged in the scent of his own fear.
Night after night, the nightmare of his illness returned in full force.
Mrs. Cole, Tom had decided over the past few months, was entirely too sharp. Amy and Dennis had been unable to recount the events in the cave — and she'd tried to get it out of them many times, Tom had crept downstairs at night and put his ear to the office door to hear her discuss her visits to the Williams' household with Martha.
He had gone too far, that time. He had to lie low for a while; ignore the screaming and taunts and everything else that irked him about the other children (inmates).
"Still not quite the same, the both of them," said Mrs. Cole. "He's done something to them. I don't know what, but it must have been horrid. The only thing Mrs. Williams has been able to get out of them is that they went into a cave with Tom Riddle."
One of those nights, curled up against Mrs. Cole's door, Tom heard something that he could not easily forget.
"An asylum," said Mrs. Cole. "One more incident, and no questions, he's going straight to an asylum. Whether he's a lunatic or possessed by some ungodly evil — I'll wash my hands of him, and good riddance. Terrorizing the other children — it's not right, Martha. I almost wish he would give us the excuse."
Every night since then, the black curtain was not the only figure in his nightmares.
Careful. Careful.
Tom leaned forward, staring intently at the marble in his hand. Slowly, the surface rippled a kaleidoscope of colors, deciding to settle on gold — the only spot of color in the otherwise grey room.
Suddenly, someone knocked twice on the door. Tom flew into a panic, hiding the marble hastily under the bed, snatching up a small, worn paperback lying on top of the wardrobe, and sitting on the bed. He stretched his legs out, opened the book, and pretended to read.
"Tom? You've got a visitor. This is Mr. Dumberton — sorry, Dunderbore. He's come to tell you — well, I'll let him do it."
I never have visitors. Tom was instantly on alert as the door creaked open, though he took care not to let it show.
His eyes narrowed in disapproval as he looked up at the visitor — a tall, thin man with auburn long hair and beard, wearing a plum-colored velvet suit.
This man was something strange and unknown, and Tom had a healthy and very robust fear of such things.
Tom sat up as straight as if his spine had turned to steel as Mrs. Cole shut the door with a click, leaving Tom and the strange man alone in the room. He turned to Tom with a slight smile.
Tom searched the man's face with a clinical gaze; but he could not make out any of his own features. Not a relative, then.
"How do you do, Tom?" the man asked pleasantly, extending a hand.
I must be polite. Mrs. Cole must have gotten him in to have a look at me, that's why he's dressed like that, to throw me off. He must be some kind of doctor. I must pretend to be normal... to be nice... to be hurt.
Tom reached out tentatively to shake his hand. The man smiled again (Tom did not like it, it was a very odd, knowing smile. He did not like the man's eyes either, they were too sharp, as if they were seeing through Tom's own eyes to his very soul) and drew up the hard wooden chair, so that he and Tom were nearly eye-level.
"I am Professor Dumbledore," he said, still gazing steadily at Tom. Studying him, as if he were predator and Tom prey.
Tom did not like being prey, and he did not like being studied.
"Professor?" Tom repeated, tasting the word and feeling utterly unconvinced. I must be careful. I can't let him take me away. "Is that like 'doctor'? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?"
"No, no," said Dumbledore, smiling. Tom really hated that smile; his fury was blocking out all reason, all — all of a sudden, the same strange kind of focus that had come over him when he was playing with his marble came over him. Pulsing, burning energy was building up behind his eyes, choking his throat.
"I don't believe you," said Tom, glowering at Dumbledore. "She wants me looked at, doesn't she? Tell the truth!"
He was breathing hard and shivering with effort, as if he had just lifted something heavy, and Tom knew, whatever terrible power he possessed, he had just used a lot of it.
Dumbledore looked just as unruffled as he had moment the moment he walked into Tom's room.
But surely...
"Who are you?" asked Tom. What had he done? He'd shown it, hadn't he? He'd proved what he could do, that he wasn't normal. And now, he would surely be sent to the asylum.
"I have told you," Dumbledore responded in an even tone. "My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school — your new school, if you would like to come."
Can't take me, can't take me, I'm special!
Tom leapt from the bed, backing away from Dumbledore. They all thought they could fool me, didn't they? But I won't go quietly, I won't, I won't!
"You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course — well, I'm not going, see? That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!" he shrieked. And that was the truth — all that they could say was that they had gone into a cave with him.
"I am not from the asylum," said Dumbledore patiently. "I am a teacher and, if you will sit down calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you—"
"I'd like to see them try," Tom sneered. Can't take me, can't fool me!
"Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on calmly, "is a school for people with special abilities—"
"I'm not mad!" he shouted, as if the volume would make it true.
"I know that you are not mad," said Dumbledore. "Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic."
Tom stopped dead.
A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.
"Magic?" he repeated, his voice escaping his throat in a hoarse whisper. Of course... what else could it be?
"That's right," said Dumbledore.
"It's... it's magic, what I can do?" he asked, thinking of the marble... commanding the snakes in the cave... the strange fog that had come over him as he hung Billy's rabbit.
I have to impress him, thought Tom. He has to know I'm good enough, that I'm special.
"What is it that you can do?"
"All sorts," he breathed, barely able to believe it, his entire being trembling with excitement as the realization of what he could really do dawned on him. And I've only scratched the surface. When I'm as old as Dumbledore, I should be able to do a great deal of strange and powerful things.
"I can make things move without touching them," he explained eagerly, a sharp, hungry smile spreading across his face. "I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."
The strength in Tom's legs had gone; he stumbled towards the bed and sat down, staring at his trembling hands, the hands that could be capable of so much greatness.
"I knew I was different," he whispered to his own quivering fingers (each one a weapon in its own right). "I knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something."
"Well, you were quite right," said Dumbledore. "You are a wizard."
There was a name for it — what he was; he, Tom Marvolo Riddle, was a wizard.
"Are you a wizard too?" he asked, staring at Dumbledore as if seeing him for the first time.
"Yes, I am."
Tom reached again for that strange, intense power that had rushed through him before — magic.
"Prove it!"
Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts—"
"Of course I am!" Tom could not imagine a reality in which he wouldn't take the opportunity to leave Wool's Orphanage.
"Then you will address me as 'Professor' or 'sir.'"
Oh. I must impress him, I must be polite. And if there are other teachers at this school, I have to do the same.
Tom arranged his features as pleasantly as he could, and said, in the most polite, sweet voice that he could manage:
"I'm sorry, sir. I meant — please, Professor, could you show me — ?"
With a small nod, Dumbledore drew a thin wooden stick (a wand) from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at Tom's wardrobe, and gave the wand a casual flick.
The wardrobe instantly burst into flames, and Tom leapt to his feet, howling in fury and turning to Dumbledore, intending to rip the wand out of his hand, and then—
The flames vanished, leaving the wardrobe in its original, shabby state.
Fire that doesn't burn.
Magic. Real magic.
I have to learn it.
The wand, that was how he did it. That's what I need.
"Where can I get one of them?"
"All in good time," said Dumbledore. "I think there is something trying to get out of your wardrobe."
Tom listened. He could hear a faint rattling sound coming from the wardrobe. My things! He's going to take them! They're mine!
"Open the door," said Dumbledore in a chastising tone.
Tom threw him one searching glance, then tentatively crossed the door and opened the wardrobe door. Sure enough, his secret box was shaking and rattling.
But how?
Magic.
"Take it out," said Dumbledore, and he obeyed, clutching the softened cardboard between his hands. "Is there anything in that box that you ought not to have?"
Tom hesitated, then gazed at Dumbledore once more. There must be a kind of magic that gets into people's minds, he must know everything... I have to learn it and how to stop it, but for now, there's no good lying.
"Yes, I suppose so, sir," he said.
"Open it," said Dumbledore.
His hands shook as he emptied the box of its precious contents; a yo-yo, a silver thimble, and a tarnished mouth organ, all his.
"You will return them to their owners with your apologies," said Dumbledore calmly. "I shall know whether it has been done. And be warned: Thieving is not tolerated at Hogwarts."
Tom stilled his anger at the suggestion of such a demeaning task. He breathed in slowly, and out equally slowly. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly even.
"Yes, sir."
"At Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, "we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have —inadvertently, I am sure — been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to allow your magic to run away with you. But you should know that Hogwarts can expel students, and the Ministry of Magic — yes, there is a Ministry — will punish lawbreakers still more severely. All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws."
"Yes, sir," said Tom, putting his things (he'd stolen them, fair and square!) back in the box, where they belonged.
I suppose I've got to have books and things for school. And a wand, like his.
"I haven't got any money."
"That is easily remedied," said Dumbledore, drawing a leather money-pouch from his pocket which Tom eagerly took. "There is a fund at Hogwarts for those who require assistance to buy books and robes. You might have to buy some of your spellbooks and so on secondhand, but—"
"Where do you buy spellbooks?" he interrupted, staring disbelievingly at a heavy gold-colored coin. It can't be real, solid gold, can it? How much could this be worth? At least fifty pounds.
Tom had never dreamed of holding so much money.
"In Diagon Alley," said Dumbledore. "I have your list of books and school equipment with me. I can help you find everything—"
"You're coming with me?" asked Tom, looking up. He did not like the sound of that at all; Dumbledore judging every misstep Tom made, every little infringement. Besides, he didn't need help. He could do everything on his own.
"Certainly, if you—"
"I don't need you," said Tom, drawing himself up to his full height. "I'm used to doing things for myself, I go round London on my own all the time. How do you get to this Diagon Alley — sir?"
Dumbledore quirked an eyebrow, but acquiesced and withdrew an envelope with Tom's name on from his pocket, and told him exactly how to get to the Leaky Cauldron from the orphanage.
"You will be able to see it, although Muggles around you — non-magical people, that is — will not. Ask for Tom the barman — easy enough to remember, as he shares your name—"
Tom bit back the bile rising in his throat at the constant reminder that he was not as special as he wished to be.
"You dislike the name 'Tom'?"
"There are a lot of Toms," he said dryly.
Should I ask?
If not him, then who else would know—
—I don't need a father! He's dead, anyway.
I'm only curious. Curiosity is not a weakness.
"Was my father a wizard? He was called Tom Riddle too, they've told me."
"I'm afraid I don't know," said Dumbledore in a low voice.
"My mother can't have been magic, or she wouldn't have died the way she did," Tom mused. Magic can stop people from dying, can't it? "It must've been him. So — when I've got all my stuff — when do I come to this Hogwarts?"
"All the details are on the second piece of parchment in your envelope," said Dumbledore. "You will leave from King's Cross Station on the first of September. There is a train ticket in there too."
Dumbledore got to his feet and held out his hand again, clearly intending to leave.
I must impress him. Tom was unsure if his efforts had been sufficient.
As he took Dumbledore's hand, Tom leaned forward. "I can speak to snakes," he said in an eager whisper. "I found out when we've been to the country on trips — they find me, they whisper to me. Is that normal for a wizard?"
Something odd — frightened, that made Tom smile — flickered across Dumbledore's face.
"It is unusual, but not unheard of."
Dumbledore stared intently at Tom, his blue eyes twinkling fiercely. Tom gazed back at him with equal intensity.
"Good-bye, Tom. I shall see you at Hogwarts."
"I'm going out, ma'am," said Tom on the very next day. "To buy my things for school. Professor Dumbledore told me where to go."
Mrs. Cole gave him a hard look, clearly weighing up the advantage of not having to worry about Tom doing anything to the rest of the children for a few hours with the possibility of him running away.
"As you wish," she said finally. "You are to be back by five o'clock. No dawdling."
"Yes, ma'am."
It was raining, when he went out. Tom thought of going back in to ask Mrs. Cole if he could borrow an umbrella, but decided against it. Besides, the money Dumbledore gave him was in coins, not bills, so it wouldn't get ruined.
Tom walked quickly, spurred by childish impatience, excitement, and his hurry to get out of the rain. By the time that he reached the Leaky Cauldron, his hair was plastered to his forehead, and his soaked clothes stuck uncomfortably to his skin.
Yet, Tom stood outside the pub, marveling that the people around him could not see it at all. He could, because he was special.
Finally, he opened the door and stepped inside. It sounded noisy, and looked just like any ordinary pub — but no, ordinary pubs weren't filled with people in brightly-colored robes and pointy witch's hats with wild hair — and was that a real dwarf, like the ones in The Hobbit?
Suddenly nervous, Tom stepped up to a kind-looking woman in coral robes.
"Excuse me, ma'am," he said carefully. "Professor Dumbledore told me to ask for Tom, the barman?"
The woman's face lit up. "Hogwarts this year, dearie?"
Tom nodded, then gaped in awe as she pulled out a wand from the folds of her robes, and waved it over him. He stepped back in surprise as he felt a warm, soft wind through his hair and clothes, then realized that he was completely dry.
"You don't want to catch cold," the woman continued. "My name is Tabitha Longbottom, my son is starting the same year as you. What's your name, dear? I'll tell him to look out for you."
"Tom," he said. "Tom Riddle."
A faint flicker of confusion passed over Tabitha Longbottom's face, but it was gone before Tom could puzzle out the reason behind it.
"Let's take you over to Tom, dear, shall we? Would you like me to accompany you to buy your school things?"
"I can manage on my own, thank you," said Tom, much more politely than when he had asserted the same claim to Dumbledore. Tabitha smiled and left him in the care of Tom the barman, who nodded, smiled fondly at the boy, and led him out behind the pub, which frightened Tom (nothing good happens in alleys, he'd seen girls crying with their skirts pulled up, dead men with bloody faces and knives in their necks, and frozen, wide-eyed children's corpses).
But to his surprise, the barman took out his wand (that was what he would buy first, Tom decided) and tapped a few bricks in the wall in front of them to reveal a glimmering, glittering street that seemed to Tom more like El Dorado than any earthly place.
"Welcome to Diagon Alley, young man," the barman said encouragingly.
"Thank you, sir."
Tom screwed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and stepped fully into the wizarding world. After breathlessly inquiring of the nearest passers-by where he could purchase his very own wand, Tom set off running (who cares for dignity when there is power to be had?) towards a small, dusty-looking shop — Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.
"Cedar and unicorn hair. Ten inches, supple."
The wood felt like stone in Tom's hand. Cold and unresponsive, just as the other fifty had.
Ollivander shook his head vehemently.
"This will not do. Not do at all. Very odd. Most unusual."
Ollivander looked very hard at Tom, who stared back at him without blinking. The pile of discarded wands was nearly up to the ceiling, and Tom was beginning to wonder if one would choose him at all. If he was wrong. If Dumbledore was wrong, and he wasn't special.
The thought was almost too painful to bear.
"Ah, I have a suspicion," said Ollivander, looking around the shop as if searching for something. "I might usually be wary of putting such an instrument in the hands of a child—"
Tom bristled, barely managing to conceal his sneer.
"—but it seems that a wand of restrained power will not do."
Ollivander disappeared into the recesses of the shop, shuffling boxes around. Tom waited, curling his fingers into the hem of his jacket and holding his breath in anticipation.
"Ah!" Ollivander cried as he emerged from the stacks, triumphantly waving an old, battered box. "Here it is!"
Tom leaned closer, unable to restrain his curiosity as Ollivander lifted the lid, revealing a long, gracefully-carved wand made in a deep, burnished wood the color of caramel.
"Thirteen-and-a-half inches long, yew with a phoenix-feather core. Slightly yielding."
This array of attributes meant nothing to him, but as Tom closed his fingers around the wand, a rush of energy nearly knocked him off of his feet as the small room filled with blinding light. He stumbled back in surprise, still clutching the wand.
Without a doubt, the wand was his.
"This is a tool, Tom," said Ollivander. "Not a toy. This wand more than many others."
"Why is that, sir?" asked Tom, turning the wand in his hands and looking at it curiously. The sense of raw, true power made him giddy.
Ollivander seemed to hesitate.
"The wand of yew is reputed to endow its possessor with the power of life and death, destruction and creation, which might, of course, be said of all wands…" He trailed off. "I suspect that you, perhaps more than your classmates, might feel a particular draw or affinity towards the Dark Arts."
"And what does that mean?"
Ollivander waved his hand dismissively. "Nothing of great importance. The witch or wizard best suited to a yew wand might equally prove a fierce protector of others as well as self-consumed and destructive… You're a boy with no name of consequence, no allegiances in this world, in this coming war that may well consume us… Your future is yours, Tom."
Ollivander's gaze became very intense. "I expect great things from you, Tom," he said softly.
"I won't let you down, sir," said Tom, turning to face him from the threshold of the shop. "How much do I owe you?"
Ollivander seemed to have forgotten the matter of payment. "Seven Galleons — those are the gold ones," he said, smiling kindly.
As he left, running his fingers over the smooth, warm wood of the wand, Tom wondered what he could do with it. It was a special wand, wasn't it? Like him. He was special, too.
Spells! There were spells, of course. Spells in books, like the ones that he needed to buy for Hogwarts.
Tom reached into the small pouch of coins that Dumbledore had given him. Nearly all the gold coins — Galleons, Ollivander had called them — were gone. The silver and bronze must be worth much less, and he still had books, and a uniform, and cauldrons and things to buy.
How could he possibly afford that?
Tom stood in the middle of Diagon Alley, surrounded by a ridiculous amount of splendor and feeling uncomfortably drab in his grey, patched and threadbare clothes.
There is a fund at Hogwarts for those who require assistance to buy books and robes. You might have to buy some of your spellbooks and so on secondhand.
Everyone would know that he was poor. Surely, most people had new things.
But it couldn't be helped. Somehow, he thought stealing from a magical bookshop would be beyond even his abilities. Tom swallowed his pride, and marched into Flourish and Blotts, the bells on the door jingling insultingly behind him.
"Excuse me, sir?" he asked the man behind the counter. Tom glanced around him to see parents and students alike milling about the shop, none of whom were paying attention to him. "Do you have any secondhand books?" he finished in a whisper.
The man gave an understanding nod. "First year at Hogwarts?"
Tom nodded.
"Excellent. They're in the back — please give me a moment."
He disappeared in the back of the shop, and returned with a stack of books.
"Five Galleons, please."
Tom suppressed his smile — he knew what those were, thanks to Ollivander — and handed the man five gold coins, lamenting how few remained.
He repeated the process until he had everything from the list, wrapped covertly in brown paper so that Mrs. Cole wouldn't question the nature of his school supplies, or what kind of school Hogwarts was.
Tom only had a single bronze coin left over — a Knut, which in the wizarding world, apparently, was worth next to nothing.
"You can trade that for a shilling," someone pointed out.
So, with an infinitely more useful coin clutched in his hand, Tom left the Leaky Cauldron at four o'clock, and made a slight detour on his way back to the orphanage, choosing to visit Winstanley's Bookstore & Stationers on Vauxhall Road, which he frequented on the days that Mrs. Cole let him slip away. It was quieter than the orphanage, even though it was near a train station, and Mr. Crompton let him read the newspapers without buying them sometimes.
"Ah, young Tom!" said Mr. Crompton as he came into the shop. "What can I do for you?"
He slid today's newspaper across the counter, and Tom stared at the enticing headline for a moment, but tore his gaze away.
"I'm going to a boarding school," said Tom slowly, tucking the packages under his arm and fingering the shilling as a swell of anticipation warmed his chest. "D'you have anything I could write in — something with blank pages, like a diary?"
It's the diary! T. M. Riddle's Diary, a.k.a. the source of all evil!
Endnotes:
I'm terrible at exchange rates and inflation, so apologies to anyone reading who's old enough to have used shillings, because I have no idea what they're worth.
One pound in 1945 is about 40 pounds today, which is probably about 65 U.S. dollars. This exact amount isn't based on any historical fact, it just seemed like a reasonable amount of money for an orphanage to give the kids they kicked out, although it sounds really small in today's terms.
I imagine the cave was where Tom learned that he could speak to snakes — evidence of his heritage from Salazar Slytherin, which is why he keeps the locket Horcrux there.
And OK, The Hobbit just came out only a year before the events of the chapter, but I can totally imagine Tom borrowing (cough, stealing) it from a bookstore.
Voldemort's wand is pale in the movies for the eerie factor, but yew actually has a medium-tone color.
The next chapters (6 and 7) will introduce the beginning of the first year for Harry, Tom, and Ruby. (Which I'm particularly excited for!)
What do you think of this portrayal of Tom and Mrs. Cole? I've seen a lot of very negative portrayals of Mrs. Cole, and mine is more neutral and very implacable/stern. I kind of see her as the Muggle version of Dumbledore.