Look Death in the Face

The small gas lamp beside his bed cast shadows across the new diary in Tom's lap. Around him dozens of boys slept, the only sound their even breathing and the odd snore.

Tom couldn't sleep. Partly because he was hungry - after spending most of the year at Hogwarts and getting used to the amounts of food available there, Tom was always hungry when he was back at Abbey Home - and partly because he was feeling anxious. He would return to Hogwarts tomorrow, and frankly, he couldn't wait to be on board the Hogwarts Express again.

Tapping the pencil against his lips - and how odd was it to be holding a pencil again after writing with a quill for the better part of the year - Tom thought about what he would write in his diary.

It had been a Christmas present, his only Christmas present, from Abbey Home, funded by Pastor Hughes and his church.

He supposed he could write about his life at Hogwarts. If any of the boys at Abbey Home ever happened to read it, he could brush it off as a fictional story. He had plenty to write about his life as a wizard.

Just as Tom put his pencil to the blank paper, the air-raid alarm sounded. A high-pitched sound that penetrated every inch of his body and went straight through his bones.

Around him, everyone shot up and stumbled out of their beds in blind panic. Tom grabbed his wand, which he kept under his pillow at night, and then quickly reached beside his bed to extinguish the gas lamp. No need to give those bloody Germans a clear target, after all.

"To the basement," someone shouted through the darkness, and Tom headed for the door, picking up one of the hand-dynamo torches they kept there for emergencies.

Inside the hallway it was pure chaos; boys bumped into each other as everyone tried to get to the staircase as quickly as they could, the few hand-dynamo torches not enough to lead the way.

Then another sound joined the piercing thrill of the air-raid alarm. The faint motor stutters of German bombers soaring through the sky.

They were close. They were far too close.

Tom urged boys in front of him to move already, shining the torch down the steps only to see a chaotic mingle of pyjama-clad bodies obscuring the way, and Tom felt the first shivers of panic tingling inside his chest.

"Stay calm!" he shouted over the urgent voices around him. "Stay calm, and move down quickly but orderly."

Suddenly the boys fell silent, and Tom held his breath as he listened to yet another sound joining the alarm and airplane noises.

A sharp whistle, increasing in volume very, very fast.

"Move!" Tom yelled, pushing against the mass of bodies in a desperate attempt to seek cover from the bomb he could hear falling from the sky. "Move, move, move!"

And then the world shook around them, the night's air thundering into explosion somewhere far too close to Abbey Home.

Tom fell to his knees, as did most of the boys around him. He pushed himself up, dragging two of the smaller ones up as he went and leapt the rest of the way down the stairs, jumping over a few boys who hadn't got to their feet yet.

The basement was dark and crowded with trembling boys, some screaming, some crying, and some completely silent. The bare room was hardly suitable as an air-raid shelter, but it was all they had and it would just have to do. Tom raised his torch, urging boys deeper into the room while more filled in behind him.

They could still hear the faint shriek of the alarm and the rotors of airplanes spinning, but none of them were able to hear the whistle of the bomb before it struck. The room shook around them, plaster falling from the ceiling. Tom raised his torch again and noticed a large crack growing in the old cement above them.

"Out!" he shouted as the whole ceiling started to fall apart. Sharp pieces of brick crumbled down, a rough tearing noise echoing around them. "Out, get out!"

And then half the ceiling caved.

Before he knew what he was doing, Tom raised his wand and yelled: "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Some boys looked at him dumbstruck as Tom hovered the largest part of the ceiling above them with his outstretched wand. He wasn't able to prevent the small pieces of debris from hitting them, and when those came falling down the boys in the room started pushing their way out.

A large brick hit Tom on the side of his head and then his shoulder, and a smaller one cut across his face.

"Get outside, on the street!" he yelled, trying to concentrate on the levitation spell while he felt blood dripping down his face. "Outside, now, all of you!"

The boys around him scattered away much more quickly than they'd entered the room. Tom gritted his teeth, fighting the buzzing in his head so he could keep the ceiling from burying them all alive.

When the last boys ran out, Tom looked around and noticed a limp body lying on the floor. Keeping his wand raised, Tom stumbled across the debris towards the boy. He was forced to drop the torch when he kneeled down, so he could wrap his arm around the boy's thin waist and lift him off the floor. Edging back to the door, Tom dragged the boy with him and only when he'd stepped out of the basement room and was halfway up the stairs did he lower his wand and end the spell.

A loud rumble echoed through the darkness and Tom could feel dust and small parts flying up around him. Gripping the limp body tighter, Tom climbed the stairs as fast as he could, and hurried out of the hallway, stumbling over debris until he walked out the front door and felt snow beneath his bare feet.

As he took in the sight before him, he concluded that this had to be what hell looked like, in all those stories Pastor Hughes told them during the Sunday mass.

The city was shrouded in darkness, save for the fires burning all around them. Tom turned slowly on his feet, and saw that Abbey Home hadn't been hit, but the bakery - the one Tom used to nick scones from - and a few houses around it, were gone, and all that was left was an immense crater, angry flames surrounding it.

The street was covered in parts of buildings and parts of people, the white snow tainted in grey and dark-red. The boys from Abbey Home stood huddled together in small groups, shivering in the winter's air as they were all only dressed in their flimsy pyjamas. And then Tom remembered the boy he was still holding, and he looked down, gently shaking the body in his arms.

The boy's head lolled to the side, and Tom saw that half of his face was gone, probably torn away by falling bricks in the basement.

Tom dropped the body, and took a quick step back, tightening his fingers around his wand.

The air-alarm had stopped, and the night was filled with pained moans and desperate cries for help. Tom walked onto the street, looking around. Pastor Hughes' church, a couple hundred meters down the street, was burning, the flames licking the ink-black sky as they rose.

As the adrenaline left his system, Tom started to feel the wounds on his face and body, and the cold seeped into him through the cut soles of his bare feet.

Tom surveyed his surroundings feeling oddly detached, as if it wasn't real and he was walking around in a dream. Or a nightmare, more likely. A woman lay on the ground, the snow around her head slowly coloring crimson, and a thought struck Tom.

He knew healing spells. He could heal these people. He also knew warming spells, so he could prevent the lot of them from becoming hypothermic. He also knew spells to put out fires.

Swallowing, Tom looked around again to see where he should start, which Muggle needed his help the most.

And then something collided against the side of his head, and Tom spun around on his feet to see an owl flapping in front of him, offering him a roll of parchment clenched in its beak.

Tom accepted it automatically, though he had no idea who could possibly be writing him. Malfoy knew not to send him owls while he stayed at Abbey Home.

His fingers trembled as he unrolled the parchment.

Dear Mr Riddle,

Ministry of Magic

Tom stared at the letter in disbelief, and then read it again.

He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe the bloody Ministry of Magic.

"Fine," he snarled at the letter as if it could hear him. "I'll just let them die then. All of them. See if I bloody care."

He ripped the letter up, once, twice, and then marched towards the nearest fire, stepping over a dead body and two severed limbs. He threw the pieces of parchment in the flames and silently watched them curl as they burned to ashes.

"Just let them all die," he muttered to no one, staring up at the starless night. "Let them all bloody well die."

He looked down and while he stared at the body of a young man, blood covering most of his face, he couldn't help thinking: That could have been me.

Slumping down in the snow, Tom buried his face in his hands and did something he hadn't done since he was four.

He cried.

------------

Their dormitory was still pretty much intact, but everything was covered in a thin film of plaster that had rained down from the ceiling.

Tom walked to his bed, cold and miserable, and sat down on the edge. Something stuck in his bottom, so he shifted to see what it was.

His diary.

He grabbed it, and dusted off the cover, thinking he had an entirely different story to tell now than he had last night.

He might even write it down once he got back to Hogwarts.

--------

"Merlin's beard! What happened to you?" Malfoy looked at him with wide eyes.

Tom dragged his trunk behind him, trying not to think if it was heavier or not than the dead body he'd dragged out of Abbey Home not even twelve hours earlier.

"A war," he said quietly, looking down. He knew how he looked. He'd seen his face in the mirror that morning when he'd tried to wash the blood away. His left eye was swollen shut, and there were several large cuts on his forehead, cheek and chin. Not to mention the bruises on this back and chest or the cuts on his feet.

"Sweet Salazar," Malfoy said, and put a gentle hand on Tom's arm. "Come on, I'll find us a compartment, and then I'll heal those wounds. Come to think of it, why haven't you healed them already?"

"Couldn't," Tom muttered, following Malfoy onto the train. "Can't use magic outside school."

Malfoy ordered two second-years out of a compartment, ushered Tom inside, and then spelled the door locked.

"Tell me what happened."

Tom sat down, wincing when his sore back rubbed against the seat. "A war. A Muggle war. The bloody Germans bombed us last night."

Malfoy looked confused as he sat down beside Tom and pulled out his wand.

"They're these things they drop from the sky, and they blow up whole buildings. Almost got us last night. Got a whole lot of Muggles, anyway."

Malfoy gave him a faint smile and gently cupped his chin. "Hold still, so I can heal it without it scarring. You don't want to walk around with a lightning bolt on your forehead for the rest of your life, now do you?"

Snorting, Tom gave Malfoy a smile in return, and then sat still as he felt the light tingles of magic touch his skin.

"Anything else that needs healing?" Malfoy asked after he was done with Tom's face.

Nodding, Tom pulled off his jacket and his sweater, and the sight of his bruised torso drew a shocked gasp from Malfoy.

"Muggles are insane," Malfoy said, touching the largest bruise on Tom's shoulder with the tip of his wand. "They're all bloody well insane."

"Yes, they are." Tom winced as he felt his skin heal. It wasn't a pleasant feeling to have your skin knit back together and veins closing under it. "A lot of them died last night."

"Anyone you knew?"

"Yeah," Tom whispered. "A couple of boys from the orphanage. But it doesn't matter. They were just Muggles, after all. I don't care that they're dead."

"Yeah, well, I'm glad you're okay," Malfoy said solemnly, rubbing the newly healed skin on Tom's shoulder with a warm hand.

Tom leaned the back of his head on the seat and stared up at the ceiling. "Me too."

They stayed silent while Malfoy healed the rest of Tom's body. After Malfoy was done, and Tom felt a lot better without all the cuts and bruises, he reached for his sweater and jacket.

Something fell out of his pocket as he put his jacket back on, and as he bent down to pick it up he saw it was the diary.

"What's that?" Malfoy asked, putting his wand away.

"Just a diary. A Muggle diary."

"You know, there are a lot of spells to magic books," Malfoy said. "You can do a lot of fun things with it."

"Really?" Tom looked at his diary with renewed interest. "I think I'll look some of those up when we get back to school."

-----------

A house-elf answered the door of Malfoy Manor, blinking up at Tom - no, he was Voldemort now. Tom was dead and buried - with wide, wet eyes.

"I'm here to see young Master Malfoy," he said, and the house elf gestured him inside.

The entrance hall of Malfoy Manor was impressive, Voldemort thought as he looked around, waiting for Malfoy.

He hadn't planned on seeing his friend again after they'd said their goodbyes on the Hogwarts Express a month ago. But as he'd gone through his meager possessions, to select the things he wanted to take with him on his planned travels, he'd come across something of a certain value.

"Riddle. Good to see you again," Malfoy said as he descended the massive staircase. "Although I hadn't expected to see you again so soon."

"It's not Riddle anymore," Voldemort said, giving his friend a sly smile.

"Oh, my mistake entirely." Malfoy gave him a light bow, and then put his hand on Voldemort's shoulder. "Lord Voldemort, it is a pleasure to see you again. What can I do for you?"

"I have something I want you to have," Voldemort said, letting Malfoy lead him into the sitting room.

Malfoy raised a curious eyebrow. "Have a seat."

Voldemort lowered himself on the couch and reached inside his robes. "I want you to have this," he said as he offered the diary to his friend.

"It's your diary," Malfoy whispered, accepting it and turning it over in his hands. "But why do you want me to have it?"

"Just in case I don't return." Voldemort looked down, studying the intricate pattern in the Persian rug beneath his feet. "In case I don't make it. That book holds part of me."

Malfoy stayed silent for a while, and then gave Voldemort a cheerful grin. "Don't talk nonsense. You're going to make it." He wanted to give the diary back, but Voldemort refused to accept it.

"I want you to hang onto it for me then. Until I return from abroad."

"Okay. I can do that."

"Thank you," Voldemort whispered, glancing up at his friend.

"You look good," Malfoy said conversationally, and then looked Voldemort up and down. "These are expensive robes."

Voldemort chuckled. "I've come into some money. As it turned out, the Muggle side of my family was pretty well off, and they didn't object at all to donating it to me before I killed the lot of them."

Malfoy's lips twitched up into a smirk. "Good for you."

"Well, I'd best be off." Voldemort stood up, smiling down at his friend.

"But where are you going to go? Do you have a place to live? You're more than welcome to stay here, you know that."

"I know," Voldemort said, cupping the side of Malfoy's face. "But I plan to travel for a while. Besides, I don't care where I live. As long as I live."

~~ fin~~