A/N: This is a somewhat historical drama, not an accurate portrayal of World War II, although I do try to make the odd chapters feel of that era. As such, please note the historical inaccuracy on the timing of the London Blitz, which ended in May, not September 1941.
This was one of my favorite chapters to write, even though it took me forever (and the most research-heavy since the scarlet fever chapter), so I hope you like it!
In which Tom Riddle experiences the timeless throes of teenage angst, is tired of the Blitz, invents a shitty supervillain name, and learns how to smoke and cheat at cards.
"ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀꜱᴛ ᴇɴᴇᴍʏ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ꜱʜᴀʟʟ ʙᴇ ᴅᴇꜱᴛʀᴏʏᴇᴅ ɪꜱ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ."
Chapter Fifteen: London Bridge is Falling Down
-London, 1941-
Tom Riddle waited for Death.
The blackout curtain fluttered against the window, and though it frightened him, he knew that it was one of the few things keeping him alive that night. Behind it, the sky glowed as red as the fiery pits of Tartarus.
The bombs screamed. Screamed like souls being tortured.
The docklands must be on fire. And it would burn for days. If he survived the night, the morning would be blanketed in smoke and ash.
The anxious wails of the other children in the orphanage bled through the walls.
He had crawled under the iron bed, his cheek pressed against the cold, dusty floor, shivering and waiting for judgment to be served.
He was a wizard, for God's sake! And a powerful one at that. But his wand was locked in his trunk, and though he could get it out, what good would it do?
Professor Merrythought taught them how to protect themselves from the Dark Arts, not tonnes of German explosives.
It was an inhuman, awful sound. They ground, deadening and furious, as if trying to tear the very fabric of the sky.
Tom curled up into a ball, his knees pressed against his chin and his breath coming out in short pants as he listened to the horrid, determined, hungry sounds of bombs tearing and chewing into buildings and the deafening booms of anti-aircraft guns.
Then came the heart-stopping, savage crunch of stone, glass, and probably bone being torn into bits.
Heaven and earth shuddered under the assault. Atlas might give up on holding up the world at any minute.
I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive.
He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears, loud and scared and staccato. But how much longer would his heart beat? He found himself desperately aware of his breathing, marvelling at how his lungs knew to take in more air just as his body began to strain with the lack of it (but how much longer, it would surely end, and perhaps tonight.)
If a bomb hit the orphanage tonight, the dust would kill him. It would coat the inside of his lungs, and he would struggle, helpless, for breath. He might crawl to his trunk, manage to get his wand, but Tom had no idea how to heal himself.
He would die.
The fear was a tightness in his chest, as if the bed had already collapsed and fallen on him.
There was a flash of light outside the window and then the smell of smoke — incendiary bombs.
Tom had read the pamphlet about them — they were meant to set whole buildings on fire.
Fiendfyre, he thought, laughing hysterically, wrapping his arms around himself.
No, he shouldn't laugh. They would hear him. They would come.
The Underground was closed that night, and above the ground, he was as helpless as a newborn rabbit buried mere inches in the soil, easy picking for determined wolves.
He squirmed, but even when he shut his eyes, the sense of having a target on his back did not fade.
The bombs had stopped. The air had gone silent.
Someone knocked on the door, and Tom whimpered, fearing he was dead and the Reaper had come for him.
"Tom?" came the muffled voice. "Get up, Tom!"
Mrs. Cole.
He was alive. Cold, shuddery relief spread out across his chest — he crawled out from under the bed and slunk towards the door.
"Mrs. Cole?" he whispered as he eased the door open, afraid to speak louder and alert Death of his existence. "What happened? Are we going to the shelter?"
"The street is on fire," she said curtly, turning and gesturing for Tom to follow her. "The fire brigade cannot handle it on their own."
"Are we going... out?"
Mrs. Cole did not answer; instead, taking him by the hand and dragging him after her.
Never before had Tom Riddle felt so exposed. The air smelled like fear and tasted like burning poison, stinging with petrol and iron.
Hell itself must have descended on the East End. The bombing had moved away, now; Tom counted the one-hundred and twenty seconds behind each round of ungodly, soul-shattering noise.
The red, apocalyptic sky hung low over the small mob of people gathered in the street. The full moon was lit golden, and Tom finally understood why there was so much fire.
The heat was furious. Like an angry dragon. And it was burning him up, eating him. Tom felt its breath on his face and ears and down his neck.
A man in a steel hat — an air raid warden — was passing around buckets of sand and water.
The starving flames leapt from building to building; if they didn't put them out now, the street would be reduced to ash by the time morning came.
Somehow, he found that the repetitive movement stilled the helplessness, the trembling of his nerves. Barely breathing, his eyes locked on the fire in front of him and his vision shrunk to a point. The hiss as the flames fizzled, little by little.
His fear made him tireless. Every muscle, every nerve devoted to staying alive.
No longer defenceless, but instead fighting against Death. Destroying it.
As the red sky dulled, he saw bodies come out of the rubble. Pale and blue-lipped, covered in dust.
That could have been him.
Tom remembered Death smelling like phlegm and antiseptic.
Apparently, it also smelled like soot.
He walked down the street, marvelling at the unfamiliarity of it all. The stones sparkled with glass, and it crunched underneath his shoes. A warm wind blew.
The air was still thick with smoke that stuck to his throat and made him cough. Tom had heard the firemen talking about the different kinds of fires at the docks. Pepper fires that made your lungs burn with each breath. Rum fires, all torrents of flaming liquid, pouring forth from warehouses and exploding like unholy volcanos. Paint fire, all white-hot flame that coated the air with an acid sting. Rubber fire was the worst, they told him. Belching awful black clouds of smoke that loomed down and threatened to choke any mortal to dared to step into its grasp, it had to be fought from far away.
What kind of fire would he make?
Tom glanced in the direction of the docklands and saw a cloud of menacing black smoke — taller than a mountain — wider than a dragon. It made London Bridge look like a child's toy in comparison. It must have been Death itself.
The cataclysmic aftermath was heart-stopping. Surreal. Houses torn down to their very foundations, chewed away by hungry bombs, and the contents spewed out like flotsam and jetsam. As if they were all afloat, drifting in a sea of destruction.
The fire was gone, but the dragon lingered. It would return tonight.
"You there!" called a man standing on top of a mound of what had once been a house, his hand raised like a visor even though there was no sun. "Yes, you!"
"Sir?" asked Tom, stepped closer and frowning. What now?
"You look like a strong lad." No, I don't, my arms are much too skinny. "I'll give you a shilling for an hour's work."
"What do you need?"
The man lifted a plank that was much too heavy for him, grunted, and let it fall.
His left leg dragged strangely, and Tom understood why he was here and not on the front.
"My wife's wedding ring," said the man. "She left it in the living room."
Tom followed his gaze to a housewife in a sensible grey-blue dress further down the street, who was sitting atop the ruins of another house, wearing red lipstick, and drinking a cup of tea. He glanced further down the street and saw two men bringing something human-shaped and covered in a white sheet out of the wreckage.
Business as usual, then.
"All right," said Tom, deciding that a shilling was worth more than the scolding when Mrs. Cole and Martha saw him covered in soot.
He carefully climbed up the mound of planks, cinder blocks, and the remains of the furniture. Vaguely, Tom wondered what kind of pile the orphanage would make. He imagined piles of splintered, rotting wood and the remains of the iron beds on top of the cold, dusty bodies of unwanted children.
If only I could use magic, thought Tom bitterly. This would take a second.
He bent down to retrieve a thin piece of wood and imagined the correct wand movement. Accio ring.
Better not. I might do something by accident.
Tom sighed, chucked the piece of wood away, and lifted one end of the plank while the man lifted the other.
The man shrugged and gestured at the ruins around them. "Aerial mines, last night. Come down on a parachute and blow everything around — what don't they bloody think of?"
Tom tried to make a sympathetic face in response.
"I bought this house after Majorie and I were engaged," said the man, shaking his head as he glanced over at her once more. "We were married in nineteen twenty-four — how old are you?"
Tom eyed a bit of painted pottery sticking out from the dull-coloured debris.
"Fourteen, sir," he said, wondering if it would fit in his pocket.
"Ah," said the man. "Good age. I remember being fourteen. Say..." He stopped, and pulled a photograph out of his pocket, then beckoned Tom over.
The photograph wasn't too old, but it looked worn around the edges as if it had been taken out and looked at many times.
"This is Maisie," he said, pointing at a smiling girl who looked about eight, "and Freddie." A boy of about Tom's age, who was smiling too.
Tom leaned over, despite himself, to have a better look. The man and his wife were in the picture, too. The four of them were high above an unfamiliar, grey city, with tall buildings rising in immaculately neat blocks.
"That's not London," said Tom. "Where is it?"
The man smiled, tucking the photograph back into his pocket. "Good eye, young man. That is New York City."
"Where are they now?" asked Tom, sifting through the remains of the closet. "Your children?"
The man's eyes looked misty. "Not here, thank God. They've been sent up to the country to stay with their grandparents; since the draft started. Maisie sends letters once a month, but Freddie's at that age, now..."
"Do your parents work at the docks?" he asked Tom.
"No," he said, and the cinder blocks in his hands felt heavier, so he threw them to the side. "I haven't got any."
He blinked, and something lay sparkling in the debris, a slim silver band with a tiny, shimmering emerald.
"Here you are, sir," said Tom, straightening up and brushing the soot off of his clothes.
As promised, the man gave him a shilling, and Tom went on his way back to Wool's Orphanage (with the bit of bright, chipped pottery in his pocket).
He squinted through the fog, crouched on the edge of the steps, and watched a group of younger children playing. Skipping giddily and holding hands — how could anyone be so blissfully unaware?
"Ring around the rosies, pocket full of posies. A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down."
Somewhat appropriate for playing amongst the ashes of buildings that had been blasted to bits last night, if a bit macabre.
The afternoon was quiet.
Absentmindedly, Tom scratched his name into the dust staining the street black.
T-O-M M-A-R-V-O-L-O R-I-D-D-L-E
"I am"
Who was he?
Tom didn't want his name anymore. The only thing he truly owned had been ruined — made worthless.
He frowned at his name, written in the dust, and scratched out each letter with the stick: The 'I' from Riddle, the 'A' from Marvolo, and the 'M' from Tom.
What was left?
T-O M-R-V-O-L-O R-D-D-L-E
Lord. That amused him.
Actually, Tom quite liked it.
"I am Lord"
T-O-M R-V-O-D-L-E
He frowned, trying to make sense of it.
Something in the first four letters caught his eye.
Mort. Death. He'd been around Abraxas long enough to hear him spouting off in his poncy schoolboy-French.
And it seemed fitting to claim his greatest fear as his own name. To own it. Master it. Master Death.
"I am Lord Mort"
Lord Death. Perhaps a little too on-the-nose.
V-O-D-L-E
That didn't look right.
VOL DE
De meant 'of,' didn't it? If he was sticking with the pseudo-French, he might as well.
"I am Lord Vol De Mort"
No, thought Tom. Voldemort.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around. It was Martha.
"Broom," she said, shaking the object at him. "Sweep."
Tom barely held himself back from rolling his eyes as he took it from her.
"All of it?"
"Yes," said Martha, a bit impatiently. "Before it rains."
Tom stifled a harsh laugh. Before it rains. Yes, if anything could be counted on, it was the rain — a steady drizzle was always lurking somewhere in the future.
If only he had his wand; then he could Vanish all the debris in the blink of an eye. But he did not.
Swish. A black plume went up.
Now that he was fourteen and one of the oldest children remaining at the orphanage, he was expected to help. Tom didn't know the first thing about taking care of children, and he didn't want to.
"Get out the way," he snapped at the kids playing in the soot. "And don't fall. I'm not in the mood to bandage anyone's scraped knees later."
(Though he knew with complete certainty that within an hour's time, he would be kneeling in front of some bawling seven-year-old and trying to swab their scabby knee with surgical spirit while they kicked and thrashed.)
He, Tom Marvolo Riddle, top of his class, so powerful that the older students and the professors whispered about him, sweeping soot and debris in front of an orphanage.
Abraxas would laugh. He would enjoy it, that arrogant twat.
Even the Muggle-borns, who were mostly above the poverty line, could piss off to the country.
He, and he alone, was stuck in the East End of London and risking being blown to bits every night. The government had started to distribute shelters, but Wool's Orphanage didn't exactly have a garden to bury them in. So, nearly every night, they got into a line and shuffled down the street to huddle in the Underground amongst shrieking babies and old men playing cards while they went on about the first war.
Mrs. Cole would turn the radio up for Churchill's addresses (apparently, right after Tom left for Hogwarts, he'd been around to have a look at the destruction for himself). He remembered a particularly rousing one from last year.
"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender—"
Oh, fuck off, you fucking toff.
Of course, the newspapers all came out raving about it. Not only that, but Mrs. Cole had gone and gotten a bloody placard of Churchill to hang in the hallway, so now Tom had his jowled, angry face glaring down at him whenever he went out, like the sneering portraits in Dippet's office.
(What next? A framed photograph of King George over the toilet?)
There was a loud yelp, and one of the stupid kids tripped over a stray cinder block and tumbled onto their front.
"I told you so!" said Tom, glaring at the crying child. As I expected. Why don't they listen?
He chucked his broom away and marched over.
"Get up!" he said, grabbing hold of a skinny, soot-smeared arm and yanking the kid to their feet. "The rest of you, stop doing whatever that was!"
"Now sit still," Tom ordered, depositing the child on the steps of the orphanage, unscrewing the cap off of a bottle of surgical spirit that Mrs. Cole had instructed him to bring outside for that purpose, and tipping a few drops of the liquid onto a bit of cotton wool.
Apprehensive of the telltale sting of alcohol, the child jerked away, and Tom narrowly avoided being hit in the nose with a flailing limb.
He grabbed a pale, bony foot.
"Hold. Still."
Using the child's foot as leverage, Tom held the leg still and made a fresh attempt with the cotton wool. A few minutes of squirming, shrieking, and crying later ("I'm not bloody torturing it!" he'd shouted at multiple passers-by), Tom was triumphant; the surgical spirit applied and the bandage on.
Just as he got up, about to go attend to his unfinished sweeping, the sky opened up.
It began to drizzle.
The children pushed past him and ran inside, but Tom remained on the steps, staring out at the street apathetically as the rain began to come down harder.
His shirt stuck to his skin; his hair plastered itself to his forehead. Just like the day he'd first gone to Diagon Alley.
He watched the ashes turn into a black river, creeping like ink down the piles of debris.
There was something cathartic about watching Death being washed away. Tom imagined the rain ridding him of his mortality, too, like the waters of the River Styx.
"Tom!" someone shouted. "Get inside!"
What now?
He turned and went up the remaining steps, wrenched the door open, and stormed inside.
"Look at you!" snapped Martha, glaring at him. "Drippin' filthy water all over the hallway — you come back and clean that mess up!"
"I'm going to change," said Tom in a monotone voice, trudging up the stairs towards Room 27. His clothes were uncomfortably wet against his skin; maybe he should have gone inside — he might catch cold now.
Well, if he was ill enough, Mrs. Cole and Martha might let him stay in bed a bit longer than usual.
There was only one change of clothes hanging in the wardrobe, other than the shirt and trousers that he was supposed to wear to church, trusting that the building didn't get blown to bits between now and Sunday morning. It hardly qualified as 'Sunday best' seeing as even after Martha had taken out the seams, the hem of the trousers was still several inches above his ankles. He'd grown a good half of a foot since his first year at Hogwarts and hadn't had new clothes since because money had been tight, and then, rationing.
Dinner, as usual, was a dismal affair. Tom hadn't seen an egg or a piece of fresh fruit since he left Hogwarts. Bread was about the only thing that wasn't rationed; that and whatever bland vegetables went into the thin, watery broth.
"You think if the Jerrys invade, they'll bring bananas?" he asked glumly.
The glare that Mrs. Cole shot him assured him that it was unlikely.
"What're bananas?" asked one of the younger girls. She had recently lost her two front teeth and taken to projectile spitting as a professional sport, as well as kicking the other children in the shins.
Pleasant girl. Tom rubbed his leg, wincing at the memory; apparently, he'd pulled her hair on accident (all right, it hadn't been a complete accident).
Peter, who was one of the oldest other than Tom, winked at her. He was stockier than Tom; the added muscle probably came from hauling vegetables for the greengrocer. Tom preferred to stay in, sulk, read his textbooks, or go for 'walks' to avoid his chores.
"Long yellow fruit that are curved like a telephone and grow on trees in the East Indies," he explained portentously.
"You're lyin'," said the girl, wiggling yet another one of her teeth with her grimy little fingers. "There en't no such thing."
At this point, Tom wondered if she was going to have any teeth left in her head.
"Be quiet and eat your dinner," said Mrs. Cole curtly. "Some children haven't any food; never mind bananas."
Someone further down the table shrieked, and they all turned.
"Mrs. Cole! He put a bogey in my hair!"
Tom gave a long-suffering sigh and leaned forward to rest his head on the table. To top off all the annoyances, he could no longer use magic outside of school unless he wanted a harshly-worded letter from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, a trial, and likely, expulsion from Hogwarts.
It wasn't like anyone would be there to plead his case (that of slowly unravelling sanity).
He was completely and utterly out of control.
"How's that poncy school, Tom?" asked Peter, chewing thoughtfully.
Tom did not lift his head from the table.
"Fine," he ground out, a pang of longing stinging his chest. "I don't go to a poncy school."
"Boarding schools are always poncy," said Peter.
Maybe Hogwarts was a poncy school, but Peter was really too full of himself. He didn't know anything, not like Tom did.
"Got a girl there?"
The girl with the missing teeth giggled.
Tom finally lifted his head to glare at Peter.
"Why," he began, "would I have a girl?"
"Dunno," said Peter, shrugging. "Just talking."
He glanced towards Mrs. Cole, then, assured that she was otherwise occupied, turned his attention back to Tom.
"Everyone thinks you're—"
But, thankfully, before Peter could finish, Mrs. Cole cleared her throat loudly.
"Quiet down!" shouted Martha from the other end of the room, shaking a finger at them.
So, they were back on schedule again. It was dark outside, which meant the last train had gone, and it was time to shuffle down the street to go sleep in the Underground (which had been closed last night for some kind of repair).
There was a strange pattern to it. Over in one corner was a habitual sort of nursery, where the younger children played, and the mothers took turns watching them. Down by the other side were a group of men playing cards and smoking, and further down, some people had gone to sleep (he was supposed to be one of them).
Tom tried to ignore the mouth-breathing and snoring around him and pulled the thin blanket over his head to shut out the faint light of people's lanterns. It didn't do much good.
Sleeping was impossible when everywhere he turned, he saw the Reaper, and the sky shook constantly. When Tom closed his eyes, he saw fingers made of bone dripping blood ripping at his throat.
"Excuse me," said someone, reaching over him to retrieve their hat, which was hanging on a hook above Tom's head. "Sorry, did I wake you up?"
Earlier in the night, Tom had inspected the coat hanging below it, running his fingers down its seams to check for lumps (that was how you knew if clothing was well-tailored, according to Araminta). The fabric was rich, lush, and heavy. Expensive.
"I'm not sleeping," said Tom, dropping the pretence and pulling himself into a sitting position. He curled his fingers against his palm and wished for his wand. "What are you doing?"
If the other person was taken aback by his rudeness, it didn't show.
"Cards," said the man. He tracked Tom's glance at Mrs. Cole. "Would your mother mind?"
"She's not my mother," said Tom. The light was dim, but he could tell that the man's gaze was appraising. Trying to decide if he belonged to anyone.
"Say," said the man. "Do you know how to bluff, er..."
"Tom. Tom Riddle." He paused, fingering the shilling from earlier. "I'd like to learn... But I don't have any money."
"We don't play for money. Watson," said the man, holding out his hand and folding his coat over his other arm. "Also Tom — Thomas, actually."
"Nice to meet you, sir," said Tom, getting to his feet. Firm grasp, he reminded himself. He swallowed, grasped the man's hand, and ignored the discomfort.
Another Tom. A reminder of how common he was.
Tom glanced back at Mrs. Cole and followed Watson towards a corner that was more brightly lit than the rest and steeped in the heavy, almost-herbal scent of cigarettes.
The man patted his shoulder, and Tom forced himself not to flinch, pinching the bridge of his nose to contain the shudder.
He quickly introduced Tom to the others clustered around the lantern; an assortment of boys too young for the draft, men too frail and old to fight, and men too rich to get their hands dirty with their own blood.
"It's quite simple, really," Watson explained, as someone began to deal from two packs of dirty-looking, dog-eared cards, one with red backs and one with blue. The sky shuddered. The bombing had begun. "It is a game of deception; you endeavour to get rid of your hand. Burns, who is on the immediate left of the dealer, must call aces; I must call twos, you threes, and so on. Now, here is the wrinkle — if, say, it falls to me to call sevens, and I have none, I may lie. If Richards—" He nodded at an old man sitting on the other side of Tom and grasping the cards with veiny, mottled fingers "—suspects me of duplicity, he will call 'Bluff!' — then, the cards will be revealed, and if I am found guilty, I must take the entire pile. However, if I am suspected wrongly, Richards must take the pile."
Watson paused, raising an eyebrow.
Tom splayed his fingers against the hard (probably filthy) stone floor, tried to still the anxiousness as the ground shook above them and wondered what Abraxas was doing at this moment. Wondering if the orphanage had been blown into splinters.
Here he was, floundering in the filth of a crowded Tube station — Abraxas was right, he must stink of it.
Tom thought of his wand, locked away inside of his trunk. What if it had been turned to dust? What would he do without it?
"I understand," he said quietly, wishing he'd snuck the wand down with him, regardless of the danger of temptation. "Thank you for explaining."
(But what better opportunity to practice his Legilimency?)
"You look anxious, son," said someone.
Tom shrugged and slipped his hand inside his pocket, this time reaching for the ouroboros ring. While bored in his room, he'd discovered that if he spoke Parseltongue — that was the name of the language of snakes — its skin would shimmer, and it would move, the snake eating its tail at the exact speed that its body grew.
He understood what Slughorn meant, now, about eternity, after pestering Nicholas Flamel with questions last year (no one but him was interested, and Dumbledore ended up physically dragging Flamel off mid-conversation, to Tom's extreme frustration). Immortality, and why the ouroboros symbolised that. The untiring passing of time meant nothing to the ring or to Dumbledore's Fawkes. They were eternal. Safe from Death.
The sky shook again, and he cringed.
Watson nudged him.
"Threes, Riddle," he said genially.
"Oh. Sorry."
He picked up the pile of cards, his fingernails dragging against the dirty ground (there must be filth under his nasty fingernails).
Tom squinted at the worn cards in the weak light. He had a hand of seven cards (the most magically powerful number). Two face cards, an ace, but no twos.
The others were watching him. Hawk-like. Like Abraxas, waiting for the slightest mistake.
I can't get away with more than one.
He shrugged, rolled his shoulders back, and exhaled. Then, Tom leaned forward casually, placing the king of spades on top of Watson's card.
"Is that a cheat, Riddle?" called a boy of about his age.
Tom quirked an eyebrow.
"I didn't realise this game was called Interrogation," he said quietly. "Either it is, or it isn't."
Tom regarded the boy carefully. "Honestly, it wouldn't set you back much if you're wrong. Three cards aren't hard to come back from."
"Oho!" said Watson, in a way that reminded Tom strikingly of Slughorn. "A bit silver-tongued, this one is!"
The others laughed, and he smiled. The game moved to Richards.
Muggles' minds were easier for Tom to worm his way into, and when Richards put his card down, Tom was ready to pounce.
"Er, cheat," he said, taking care to look unsure of himself. Richards scowled and collected the pile, to the others' great amusement.
By the time it got to Tom's turn again, he had the appropriate card — a jack of hearts.
He ran his finger along the top nervously, chewing on his bottom lip, and glanced guiltily at Watson.
"Um, your go," he said, looking at Richards, but failing to hold eye contact.
"Cheat!" called the boy who had called on Tom first.
Tom smiled bashfully, revealed the jack of hearts, and pushed the pile towards him.
He liked this game.
"Fancy a smoke?" asked Watson, after the game had ended and the cards returned to their owner. Tom nodded as if he was used to it. He had never smoked before. But it looked intriguing.
Carefully, he turned the small, dry tube of paper in his hands, squinting at the label printed on it: Woodbine.
A faint whirr made Tom turn his head; Watson had lit his cigarette.
"Here you go," he said, handing the lighter over to Tom and giving him a critical glance. "Breathe in while you light it. Inhale through your mouth, not your nose."
Tom nodded, unnerved that this-this Muggle had read him so quickly. Was it so obvious that he was uninitiated?
He wedged one end of the cigarette between his teeth and lifted the flame to the other end.
Tom inhaled and nearly choked, flinging his arm over his mouth to muffle his cough, and Watson laughed. His mouth tasted bitter.
His head buzzed. The feeling was slightly nauseating but not altogether unpleasant.
Tom tried to remember how he'd seen other people smoke.
He tried again, putting the cigarette to his lips and inhaling gently. This time he didn't cough, and when he inhaled the smoke in his mouth, a warm blanket enveloped his lungs. Like how some people said embraces felt. Relaxing and warm.
The feeling persisted even after he exhaled. It tasted awful, but it felt good. Before Tom realised what he was doing, he put the cigarette to his mouth again.
The cigarette made him feel sick, but the sense of anxiousness from earlier was gone. The paper was warm between his lips, and he felt comforted. It was heady. Dizzy. Light. Pleasurable, even.
"Where'd you get a name like Tom Riddle?" asked Watson, perhaps not unkindly. Tom winced and tried hard to remind himself that the man was only a Muggle, and amongst Muggles, his name was only a curiosity. Not a shame. "Reminds me of Oliver Twist."
"I've read it," said Tom, rather harshly. It didn't help that their origin stories were much the same.
Please sir, I want some more.
And like Oliver, Tom always wanted more. More than a filthy Tube station, more than having his power overlooked and being called Mudblood at Hogwarts.
He glanced up at Watson. "My father gave it me, if you want to know how I got it." My filthy, abandoning Muggle father, who left me with his face, his name, and his dirty blood.
Watson raised an eyebrow.
Tom continued. "I s'pose you got your name from a book, too?"
He didn't intend for his voice to rise to a shout, but it did. Watson put his own cigarette to his mouth, inhaled, exhaled, and laughed.
"Touché," he said.
But then, something clamped down painfully on Tom's ear and twisted, and he yelped instinctively. It was a familiar pain, though he hadn't felt it in a while — Mrs. Cole's index finger and thumb.
"Out of bed past eleven!"
What bed? thought Tom.
With the other hand, she slapped the cigarette away.
"And smoking — look at you — covered in filth—" she seethed.
Well, she and Abraxas could agree on one thing.
Watson cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. "The situation is entirely my fault, ma'am. I enticed the young man into wrongdoing."
Mrs. Cole clicked her tongue and attempted to haul Tom to his feet by the ear. Grudgingly, he got up.
"Withstanding temptation is a virtue," she said curtly. "His school clearly does not believe in discipline. Spare the rod and spoil the child — that's what I say."
If you met Pringle, thought Tom, you might disagree.
He sighed. He had been getting sloppy with avoiding punishment as of late.
"School?" asked Watson, raising an eyebrow and staring between Tom and Mrs. Cole curiously. "I hadn't... hmm..."
And to Tom, "Hold out your hands."
It wouldn't hurt too much. She couldn't have possibly thought to bring the cane down.
Besides, the humiliation would sting more. He saw Watson look away
Stifling the shame, he put his hands out, palms flat and facing towards the dirty ceiling.
The ruler hovered high above. Tom tensed, preparing himself for the sting.
The hit smarted and burned, and he sucked in a breath.
Ten. She usually does ten.
It came down again.
Why wasn't I more careful?
Again.
I wish I had my wand.
But Tom kept his eyes fixed on the floor, afraid of giving away something rebellious in his expression. His hands felt as numb as if they barely belonged to him. His head was still buzzing from the cigarette.
The ruler came down again, and this time, the ground shook. Fear cut through his chest like the Reaper's scythe.
Why am I here?
The war.
No, but why am I here?
Because of his abandoning Muggle father. How dare he — how dare he get his mother pregnant and get himself killed? Or worse yet, piss off and leave them?
It stung more than the ruler ever could.
"Now, off to bed with you," said Mrs. Cole. It seemed that her anger had cooled off; she looked slightly ashamed of losing her temper in public.
Watson nodded at her. "Good night, ma'am."
Tom lingered a second.
"Thanks," he said, at first not quite sure why he lingered.
Watson looked like he was in his late thirties, with dark hair and eyes. A similar build to Tom, but more filled out.
He mouthed the word under his breath, barely moving his lips. Dad.
Watson must think he was crazy.
No. It was just a coincidence. Just another Tom. Another — another filthy Muggle.
Besides, Tom didn't want his filthy Muggle father, did he? He was destined for better and greater things.
"Good night," said Tom. Watson reciprocated, and they went their opposite ways.
Tom crawled back under the blanket, pulled the ouroboros ring out of his pocket, and whispered to it.
If he shut his eyes tight, he could hear the snake whisper.
Finally, the sound lulled him, not to sleep, but close enough, breathing quietly and deeply. He could not possibly sleep while Death loomed above him, hungry and wailing for appeasement.
The anxiety that had settled to the bottom of his stomach like a stone had not entirely dissipated.
Endnotes:
Tom, at fourteen, is the average age people left school in the early 1940s. At sixteen, he could join the forces; at eighteen, he could be drafted.
Woodbine cigarettes were first produced in 1888 and are still made and sold today. The brand was cheap and popular amongst the working class in Britain in the early 20th century, and with Army men during the World Wars.
They are unfiltered, and high in tar (a filtered version was manufactured, but it never got popular). Nasty stuff. (Don't smoke, kids.)
The card game is B.S./Bluff/Cheat.
A shilling in the early 1940s, according to the internet, is about three pounds (or about five American dollars). However, you could buy a lot with it back then (higher purchasing power) - so, I suppose it's not bad to entice a kid into an hour of manual labor.
Hitler reportedly hated red lipstick. It would have been hard to come by in Britain during the war, so let's assume Majorie's a bit of a makeup hoarder.
In December of 1940, fire bombing began - firemen, women, and messenger boys worked together to put out the flames during the night.
The actual Blitz was eight months long; More than 40,000 British civilians were killed in the Blitz, and 1.5 million Londoners were left homeless. The East End was heavily bombed due to its strategic position, and Churchill did actually go to visit.
Also, we now have a fully, set-in-stone and finalized chapter list for Year One! (Which should take us up to Chapter 35)