Tom’s Midnight Garden
Tom Riddle was an angry boy. He hated being in the children’s home. The stupid old coot of a headmaster had returned him back there every holiday. He detested the place and had tried to weedle his way into remaining at Hogwarts, but without success. He had resented that Dippet had insisted that he leave his wand behind at school. He had tried to magically recreate a substitute one but had failed at every turn.
In his third year at Hogwarts He spent any spare time from his regular studies in the library but studying wandless and other magics. He had persuaded an older student , (Not in Slytherin house) to give him the password to obtain access to the part of the library that was restricted.
A Polyjuice Potion came in quite handy, as did some hair he had tugged out when he extracted the password. A little manipulation of the Muggle sort always caught out the Pure Blood boys. A fist in the back and a handful of hair whilst muttering into his victim’s ear of what he would do to him unless he complied.
His research had taken longer than he had envisaged but had decided to wait till he was safely away from Dippet and Dumbledore’s clutches to experiment further.
His privacy at the children’s home was limited, they had put him into a dorm room with three other boys. He had then changed to practising his wandless magic at night in the garden.
It was during the Easter break that Tom realised he could manipulate some simple wandless magic spells. He had to concentrate hard but he managed to get a football to move along the grass.
Slowly over the two weeks holiday he improved every night. He had managed to change the trees so they shivered and changed colour and he even managed to get a bush to uproot itself and walk off into another better corner. He had laughed uproariously.
The day before the Easter Egg hunt he had set up a couple of simple spells to go off, when hehe was safely out of the way and that no one could blame him. The staff always placed the eggs in the grounds in the same places every year. He knew the drill.
The screams from the children when they had reached for an egg and the bush had grabbed it back out of their hands to dump it back down on the ground again was just spectacular to tom. He was standing in the company of the Board Members of the Orphanage and on his best behaviour with his hands wrapped around a glass of lemonade.
He was smug as no one could blame him as he was nowhere close to the children and in good company who could vouch for him.
That night with the moon out Tom wandered around at Midnight smiling. He had transformed all of the garden in one horror of a place that would be a nightmare for most children but to Tom it was him using and manipulating his own magic wandlessly. the more he did it the better he seemed to be.
He returned to Hogwarts with a beaming smile on his face and never minded at the end of each term when he had to hand over his wand prior to heading back to the Orphanage on the Hogwarts Express. He knew he was going back to his very own ‘Midnight Garden’ where he could create creatures of his own and could leave booby traps to be sprung when he returned to school.
Tom just loved his new skill of wandless magic and knew when back at Hogwarts when his wand was in his pocket he would be able to become even stronger. He would need to hunt for a new secret Garden at Hogwarts and he started to laugh!
Tom Riddle was on the rise and he would not stop till he got what he wanted - and that was power and control over all witches and wizards!
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