The Child Who Became Voldemort

Alone he sits in a darkened corner. He's small - as small as small can be - and his face is deathly white. From the small stains of moisture upon his cheeks anyone can see that he's been crying, and each time a person passes by he hides his face in shame.

*

Tom was never much liked by any of the boys in his orphanage. They were all older and bigger than he was, and they didn't need a 'little runt like him' tagging along behind them. Tom was sat on the windowsill, his twig-like legs folded beneath him, and he was quietly observing the boys having a game of football in the yard below before it happened. They were using a tattered leather boot that old Sam Jig had left behind when he ran away two nights ago as a football.

"Good old Jiggers!" they shouted each time someone scored a goal. "He was a good'n, he was!"

The goalkeeper (whose name was Mike) was enjoying his part as the storyteller as he regaled them with the tale of Sam Jig's escape.

"Must of took some guts," he mused, his face full of admiration. "Slippin' out the window and climbin' down the drainpipe like that - and all with old Kilter on his tale!"

"Kilter never caught him though, did he, Mike?" said another. "Never even came close!"

"Still out there on his trail, I'll bet." A boy named Matt chipped in.

Tom was looking away now. His body had stiffened at the very mention of Mr Kilter's name. Until then he'd been completely absorbed in the game - too absorbed, he scolded himself. It was stupid to let himself get sucked in by such trivial matters, and it wasn't as if the others would ever let him join in, anyway; he was different, they said, too different. They didn't like his pale skin and piercing stare, which made them feel uneasy whenever he was around. Tom shook his head and turned his attention back to the game.

"Good old Jiggers!" Mike was laughing as he held up the leather boot by the laces and examined it. "All too well for us he had big feet!"

New bouts of laughter greeted this, and Tom was just considering whether or not to allow himself a smile when he felt a heavy hand come to rest on his shoulder.

"What are you doing, Tom?" Mr Kilter said.

"Nothing," said Tom.

"Nothing, Tom? Well, maybe you were doing nothing - and I suspect you weren't - but, even if you are telling the truth, you'll say 'nothing Mr Kilter' in future." The man sighed like a kindly grandfather, feeling weary and worn after a hard days work, but his face didn't resemble that at all.

He had grotesque, reddish skin, and the thick blackness of his moustache and eyebrows clashed horribly with it, making him look like a wild pig that had been slowly roasted on an open fire and was just beginning to turn to charcoal. He stretched forth two sweating hands and lifted Tom into the air with ease. As soon as Tom felt his feet leave the safety of the windowsill fear took him.

You should've ran, you fool, he told himself, you should've ran. Now that Mr Kilter's burning hands were wrapped around his rib cage he was powerless.

To his surprise, Mr Kilter set him on his feet. The burly man took Tom's place upon the windowsill, which was wide enough even for him to sit on. He stretched his legs and raised his thick arms up high before yawning and fixing his hands behind his head. As the man looked down upon him, smiling like a contented spider with a fly caught securely in its web, a strange rage began to bubble in Tom's stomach.

"Now, Tom," said the spider to its prey, "Mr Kilter's got a funny feeling that young Thomas isn't telling him the truth." He leaned forward so his face was inches from Tom's. He could see that the boy was trembling. He smiled. "You know what it is we do with liars here, don't you, Tom?" he whispered.

"Yes, Mr Kilter," Tom muttered, his small voice barely audible.

"And you wouldn't want any of those things to be done to you, would you, Tom?" Mr Kilter paused and waited for Tom to reply, but no sound came from the child's lips. Tom's gaze was focused upon the area just below Mr Kilter's neck, and he was muttering something unintelligible beneath his breath, trying to control his anger - or fear, as Mr Kilter would have preferred it. For some reason that he couldn't explain, Mr Kilter began to feel slightly uneasy. He didn't like the way the child was looking at him at all - it was almost as if he was seeing through him rather than just looking at him. Nevertheless, he continued as before. He'd had a bad morning in the office; there was still no sign of the runaway, Sam Jig, and he was in a foul mood.

"Right then." Mr Kilter changed tact in an instant. His voice was brisk now, brisk and accusatory. "It's not right for you to be spying on the boys like this. You're plotting something and I wont allow it. Last time I let you away with a warning but now that you've chosen to repeat your crime you need to be punished."

"Crime?" Tom gasped, losing some of his fear in the midst of his incredulity and waving his arms in disbelief. "Spying? I was just watching them play a stupid game of football - where's the crime in that?"

"Language, Tom," Mr Kilter said steadily.

Tom opened his mouth to reply, and his half formed sentence still hung in the air when, without warning, Mr Kilter drove his heavy hand squarely into Tom's jaw. The boy was knocked to the ground and stars shone before his eyes as blood oozed freely from his nose. He could taste its salty flavour upon his tongue. Tears welled up in his eyes but he forced them back as he concentrated on the piercing pain on the left side of his neck.

He tried to lift himself from the floor but his muscles were numb and wouldn't respond. There was no adrenalin to keep him going. Tom was stunned. He hadn't anticipated this at all - normally there was some kind of build up - something to warn him about what was coming - but this had arrived straight out of the blue. Poor Tom wasn't used to being unprepared. The only real thing upon which he prided himself was on his ability to think slowly and delicately - with a precision so precise that no calculation could ever fail to resemble future truths. That way he could anticipate future events and nothing ever surprised him. But now Tom was shocked - shocked and shaken and sick.

Mr Kilter's boot, all black with a silver buckle, thudded the ground in front of his face. Tom's heart began to race. He took deep breaths in an effort to calm him self but it didn't work, and with each new breath came a shot of ice-cold air to his brain. He needed more time to prepare - to close his emotions - but time was another thing he didn't have. Right now he was laid bare and his thoughts and feelings were free to roam as they wished.

He glanced at the towering black figure above him, topped with that hateful red skinned face. He panicked.

"Mr Kilter, please-,"

The man laughed: a low, rumbling sound, unforgiving and full of dark pleasure.

"Scared, Tom?" he said, his mouth stretching into a curling sneer. He kicked his boot hard into Tom's soft stomach - once, twice, three times. Tears of shame ran down the boy's face.

Mr Kilter lifted him. Through his tears Tom could see blurred objects whirling past his vision. Caught in the mist of his hazy world of fear he felt the bone of his ankle knock into something hard and wooden. He cried out. Mr Kilter laughed louder and louder until the sound roared in Tom's ears and echoed through the halls of his tiny soul, where no cruel voice should have been allowed to go.

Red-hot anger licked Tom's insides but it was small - almost insignificant until Mr Kilter smashed his back into cold concrete. Then it exploded. Young Tom couldn't contain it. He opened his mouth and screamed louder than he ever screamed in his life. The terrible sound echoed through the room. This wasn't anything like Mr Kilter's deep-throated, nasty laughter. This was far, far worse. It was high-pitched and mirthless and it chilled Mr Kilter to the bone.

He sprang away from the child as if shocked by some invisible force but, like a rabbit caught in headlights, he didn't dare tear his gaze away.

Tom's frail and battered body had slipped to the ground. His legs were scrunched before him and still he roared, letting out that terrible, cruel sound that spoke of fear and sadness and unsurpassable rage. Mr Kilter could see the blood, which he himself had let loose only moments ago, shining red upon the boy's teeth.

The sound went on until the Tom's breath was spent, and Mr Kilter might have sagged with relief if not for the thing that happened next, which was far more terrible than anything he could have imagined.

One moment Tom's eyes were locked with his, and they glinted with malice, and the next the boy was inside his head. There was no way that he would ever be able to explain it, but neither would Mr Kilter ever be able to forget its truth. He couldn't have prevented it.

His world went black and then a thick red mist enveloped him. It was powerful, far stronger than he, and he knew without a flicker of doubt that it meant to suffocate him. The mist transformed into a spiral and he realised with horror what it was. A snake. Cruel and unforgiving, it was, with gleaming eyes of red. He keeled over, helpless as it wrapped itself around his heart. It squeezed - tighter than tight - and the pain was horrific. Thick silver needles were piercing his lungs and heart over and over; causing him to contort and making him retch. His breath caught in his throat and he wished more than anything for the world to go black again - for it to end.

The snake loosened its grip slightly, and Tom casually began to flick through Mr Kilter's thoughts and memories. He drank the man's fear like wine. Young Tom really was quite amazed by himself. He was reading this man, who had once appeared so solid and strong, and had instilled such fear within him, like a book and, what's more, it was easy. Initially it had been his fury that spurred him on, but now he was enjoying himself. You could almost say he was having fun.

Mr Kilter spluttered and sobbed and begged for mercy but Tom didn't care. He felt no pity. Mr Kilter was nothing but a peasant - a worthless slave with no rights of his own - but Tom was a Lord. The cold floor surrounding him became a magnificent throne of padded velvet and he felt dark silks of the finest quality brush cold against his skin. He realised with delight that it wasn't the throne that was magnificent - but he. Lord Tom Marvolo Riddle - a man who was the epitome of power and magnitude. People feared this man so strongly that they dared not to speak his name (which, as a matter of fact, didn't sit quite right with him, but that was no great matter - names could always be changed). He felt fantastic and full to the brimming with pride.

Tom was examining a memory involving a pretty woman who laid stretched out in a coffin with her hands placed neatly on her stomach, which appeared to be proving painful for Mr Kilter for his hands were cast about his face and he was crying, "Julia! Julia! No! Please don't leave me here! Not now - come back." when someone knocked on the door.

The spell was broken.

A group of boys burst into the room, and cried out in alarm at what they saw. Mr Kilter, his hair bedraggled and riddled with sweat, lay sprawled upon the floor. Tears ran freely from his eyes, which told of unspeakable terror beyond belief. On catching sight of the boys he waved his arms helplessly, with the air of a child who'd lost its way. Fresh tears came to him as he slurred.

"A snake!" he said with utmost conviction, pointing wildly at Tom, who sat silently in the shadows. "Terrible! Terrible! And he did it. He made Julia come back and let her die again! It was awful, so awful ... so afraid...." he began to mutter incoherently to himself.

And then, suddenly, he jumped up, pushed past those who blocked the doorway and bolted into the corridor outside. He ran away, shouting and jabbering like a madman. He dashed out of the buildings grounds and into the street outside, all the while running faster and faster with the fear of God still pulsing strong in his heart.

He never returned.

*

Tom found that, the next day (and for all the days that followed until the time came that he left the orphanage for good) he had gained a newfound respect amongst his fellow orphans. They didn't exactly extend to him the hand of friendship - on the contrary, they shunned him more than ever - but neither did they bully and taunt him like they used to. Some even came to admire young Tom Riddle (it must have taken a lot to get rid of old stinker Kilter) but, whether he held some kind of admiration for him or not, each boy was as much in awe of Tom as the next. When new boys arrived the first thing they would ask about was him; the pale skinned, mysterious boy who always stuck to the shadows, peering out at people with knowing eyes that made them rub the backs of their necks and shift uncomfortably within their seats. They would never admit it, (especially the butch, hard-looking young men who had been through hell during their lives and had the mental scars to show for it), but the overpowering, near-on intoxicating feeling that came over them whenever they felt their eyes drawn into those that resided within that wan and pallid face was one of fear, and the boys who'd been unfortunate enough into stumble into the dorm on that day to find Tom and the raving Mr Kilter were the ones to feel it worst. For it was they who were the first to glimpse the little figure of Tom, clinging to the shadows as usual, and it was they who'd seen the delirious, exhilarated expression on his face.

Back then he'd been fresh from his first taste of power, and the feeling of what it was like to feed of the pain of another still rushed with great vivacity through his veins. Just then the boy looked more full of life than they had ever seen him. His very skin seemed to glow and his eyes were alight with wonder and greed. But there was something else in those eyes, something that the orphans couldn't dismiss as the joy of having gotten one over on a man you despised. It was dark - darker than the blackest night - but it also glinted with a silver that was sharp as knives. Looking upon those terrible balls of glass, which acted as the windows into the twisted halls of Tom's soul before he'd thought to draw the curtains, they were convinced of his nature. In those eyes they had seen but a spark of fire compared to what would eventually grow into an overwhelming blaze that would come to rule within the man that thousands of people would one day fear to name, but it was enough. Deep and mirthless and unforgiving but also full of thick, rich pleasure, it was evil. Tom Riddle was evil.

*

Two weeks later, when Tom was seated in his usual hiding place, upon the windowsill with the curtains drawn behind him, something very strange happened. He was in a reasonably fair mood at the time. The yard was empty below him and the grass glowed a luscious green in the midday sun. Beyond that, over the tall, red brick wall that enclosed the orphanage grounds, the tops of the lorries and vans, which buzzed steadily along the main road, were visible. Their brightly coloured coats shined brilliantly, and Tom was following the progress of a yellow van when he caught sight of a large dark shape zooming out of the sky towards his window.

That morning he'd listened to a report on the radio that was giving details about the progress of a war in some country he'd forgotten the name of.

"It's a bomb!" His mind screamed as he threw the curtains aside and dived away from the window. He landed on the floor with a thud, grazing his knees on the rough carpet, but he didn't bother about it. He remained curled up in a ball on the floor, his hands shielding his head. He waited.

Ten seconds went by. Twenty more. Another thirty. One minute. A small tap came from the window.

Beginning to feel slightly foolish, Tom looked round, and seated upon the ledge outside the glass was, of all things, an owl.

"Wow," he gasped and, acting upon some impulse that wasn't at all founded upon the grounds of sensible logic when you consider the sharp claws and beak of an owl, he crossed to the window and opened it.

The creature flew in immediately. It soared across the room, passing four beds before finally coming to rest upon Tom's pillow. It ruffled its feathers importantly.

"How did you know?" asked Tom, half expecting an answer and moving closer. He could see a small crest embedded amongst the silky grey feathers. He stretched out to touch it but the bird chirruped loudly and he withdrew his hand, suddenly aware of those sharp talons and that black, shining beak.

"What?" he said, and to his amazement the bird obediently stretched out its leg. There upon it, secured by a thin red line of thread, was an envelope. Tom began to untie it, wondering if the owl was a gift, but the moment the envelope came loose it flew away, soaring out into the open sky.

Feeling disappointed, Tom turned his attention back to the envelope. He tore of the surrounding paper and took out a tiny piece of parchment. Written upon it was a short length of beautiful scrawl, written in an emerald green ink that sparkled and glittered in a way that other ink didn't. It looked wet, but that couldn't be possible, for the owl must have travelled for some time before arriving at his window.

His brow furrowed, Tom began to read and, as he did, his thin lips formed a smile that grew wider and wider. He marvelled at the fact that, if he'd received this letter but two weeks and a day earlier, he would have dismissed it as nonsense. But now he had a certain memory to recall, and the wonderful clarity of that was all the proof he needed. He knew with an absolute certainty that everything the letter spoke of was real, and as he reread it for the first, and second, and third time, a great sense of excitement grew within him.

"Dear Mr Riddle," it began. "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Term begins on the first of September and we greatly look forward to your safe arrival. Please find enclosed...."