Mending Broken Things

At age ten, Tom knows what he is good for in the eyes of his guardians at Wool’s Orphanage and knows that it is nothing.  

Tom has always hated the orphanage. It isn’t the constant noise or hand-me-down clothes that never quite fit. It isn’t even the other children who either fear him or ignore him as if they can sense something lurking behind his calm, careful gaze. No, Tom hates most the feeling of being trapped—trapped in this drab, lifeless place, surrounded by people too stupid to understand him, too dull to challenge him.

He learns early on to rely only on himself and to trust in no one. People lie, cheat, and manipulate—so Tom lies, cheats, and manipulates better. They want to control him, so Tom controls them. He has power— real power , unlike their so-called god and angels—he just keeps it hidden. He can make things happen. He can make people pay for what they do to him.

He doesn’t need anyone.

So why is it that, lately, he feels like something—or someone— is watching him?

It starts a few months after his birthday. He’s staring at himself in the cracked mirror above the orphanage’s grimy sink, as he often does when he wants to think. His reflection has always fascinated him—those sharp, angular features and dark eyes that never flinch from anything. There is something different about him, something that has his teachers whispering to each other in harried voices and the matron avoiding him whenever he’s in the same room. Something others can sense but can’t name. He isn’t like the rest of them. He just knows it.

But tonight, as he stares into the mirror, something else is staring back.

Tom blinks. For a fleeting moment, his reflection isn’t his own. It’s only a blur, a shadow behind the glass, but it’s enough to make Tom recoil. The image vanishes as soon as he steps back and off the stool, now too short to view the glass. With a huff and a brisk shake of his head, he scrambles closer once more. But whatever had been there is well and truly gone, leaving him staring at his own pale face again.

What was that? A trick of the light? Maybe the mirror is even more warped than he thought. Maybe he hasn’t been eating enough, not that there’s enough to eat to begin with… Tom brushes off the encounter as a one-off illusion.

But it happens again. And again. And again. Sporadically, never predictable, and always out of the corner of his eye—a dark shape, hazy but there, like someone is watching him, looking back at him through a veil.

No one else ever sees it. The other children are oblivious, too preoccupied with their small, meaningless lives to notice the strange shadows in the glass. But Tom notices. Tom always notices things. And this is driving him mad.

There is no logical explanation for what he sees, yet each time the figure appears, there is an unmistakable pull in his chest, as though something was trying to connect, to make itself known.

It’s infuriating. 

He stops looking at himself as often, finding the feeling too disorienting. But when he does look, he finds himself searching for it— for him.

One morning, while washing up before breakfast, Tom finds himself once again in front of the mirror. 

The other boys are roughhousing behind him, shouting over who gets the first pick of the gruel they call a meal, but Tom keeps his eyes trained on his reflection. The boy looking back at him is himself, just as it should be. 

He looks away to run the faucet, catching water on a small cloth and letting it dampen slightly before quickly turning off the sink—lest the matron shout at him. As if Tom was foolish enough to waste water and get caught—he wipes the cloth against his cheek and stills when his image flickers. It’s something beyond the glass.

Tom twists around. The other boys are gone, and he’s alone in the bathroom. It can only be one thing, so he twists back just in time to see it.

For the briefest second, there is a figure—a flash of green, some messy dark hair. The image is so fleeting, so faint, that Tom still can’t be sure if it’s real or just his imagination.

He leans closer to the mirror, his heart racing. But there’s nothing now—just Tom’s rosy-cheeked reflection and an embarrassing face that he wipes at particularly hard with the damp cloth. When he peeks out from behind it again, the confirmation of his stupid reflection as it always is, leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

What is happening to me? His fists clench at his sides.

“Tom,” the matron’s words nearly startle him, “you are taking much too long in here, young man. Hurry along to breakfast now.”

He nods sweetly and watches her frown with a coiling glee in the pit of his stomach. It quickly sours when he notices her gaze flit from his face to the mirror and back before she pitters off. Tom stills, pins and needles crest up and down his body as a feeling so dreadful takes hold of him. Did she see something? What will she do to me? Does she know?

No one can know. No one can ever know.

Months later, on a grey, dreary day, someone comes from Tom.

He is sitting alone in the orphanage’s main room, flipping idly through a tattered book he has long since memorised. The sudden knock at the front door is loud enough to startle all the children in the room.

Tom can sense the matron’s nervous energy from across the hall as she speaks to someone at the door. She looks flustered, almost afraid—an expression Tom is all too familiar with. Whoever the visitor is, they are important. And they are talking about Tom.

Some time goes by, and he fills it by pretending to read and hatching an escape plan in his head. He doesn’t like the feeling of this—his feelings are usually quite right. Eventually, a tall man with auburn hair and strange, piercing blue eyes enters the room. He’s dressed oddly in what looks like an old-fashioned suit with a cloak draped over his shoulders in bright, outrageous colours. His eyes sweep over the room before landing on Tom. It must all look rather bleak to this colourful man.

Stepping closer, he asks, “Young Tom Riddle, I presume?” Whispers from the children break out. His voice sounds calm, nearly pleasant. But something is hiding in it, cautious yet keen, something that suggests he knows exactly who Tom is.

Tom’s defences rise up immediately. He stands, pushing the book aside. “Who are you?”

“My name is Albus Dumbledore,” there’s a moment where the man seems to consider his words, “and I’m here to speak with you about your future, Mister Riddle.”

Tom narrows his eyes. A strange feeling of delight fills him at being addressed so formally, but it’s curtailed by far more pressing concerns. My future? He glares at old Mrs Cole; did she finally call the doctors? Has she caught him staring at the mirror for too long again? Or is this all Billy’s fault—finally complaining just enough to push them into action? “What about my future,” he demands.

The man grows more pensive. He casts his eyes around the room and returns to Tom’s furrowed stare, raising a brow of his own in return. “It would be best to have this conversation elsewhere—your room, perhaps? The matron informed me that you room here alone.” 

Tom scowls. He despises the downright accusal tone he can hear catching the man’s voice. Whatever she has said, Tom will make her regret it. Instead of replying, he takes off down the hall and up the stairs, throwing an occasional glance back to be sure the man is following. Once they enter Tom’s room and he’s sat down on his bed, this Dumbledore finds it private enough and speaks again.

“I have come,” he says, walking closer. He pulls out Tom’s single desk chair and takes a seat, “to offer you a place at a very special school.”

Tom stiffens. He knew something was off about this. There’s no way he’s got some special invite to some special school—his grades were outstanding, but the teachers often accused him of cheating. And there’s no one to put in a good word for him. This has to be a trick, something to get him to come willingly!

“If you’re with the hospital, you needn’t lie. Tell the truth!” Tom makes sure to put extra into this—the same extra he uses to get out of trouble and make people listen. He can’t stop them from taking him away, but he won’t go anywhere blindly.

This finally puts a slight and pained frown on the man’s face. He sits upright. “ There is no need for such a tone. It is not a hospital—Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is a place of education for people like you, Tom, for people with gifts. Though, we call it magic.”

“Magic…” Tom whispers. That worm of doubt doesn’t stop its wriggling—he had always feared the day would come when someone would realise he’s more than different , that he isn’t normal before he’d be old enough to protect himself. “And… you’re saying there’s other people like me? Enough for a whole school’s worth? All magicals?”

“Why, yes, Tom. Of course.” The question almost puts a smile back on Mister Dumbledore’s face. “You are a wizard—as am I.”

Tom’s breath catches somewhere in his throat. He didn’t expect this. Of all things, he can’t have ever guessed something like this.

Then—this man must know something? He has to know something about the strange things that have been happening, about the reflection, about him - his family.

“I knew it!” Tom shouts, overcome with joy. “The others all act strangely around me, but I knew I was different.  I can speak to snakes, and I can make the other children hurt when they’ve wronged me. I can do so many magical things—of course it’s magic!”

Mister Dumbledore’s slight grin disappears. His gaze shifts, eyes glinting with something sharper, something more intrusive. The air in the room feels all the more colder. “Yes, I had heard something of the sort… and that’s not all I suspect you’ve been up to, is it?”

As always, Tom’s joy is fleeting—snuffed out by a simple gaze. Was this man on their side, too? Even though we’re the same?

Tom’s heart pounds. His face falls neutral, betraying nothing, but inside, he feels the familiar rise of anger—at being watched, at being seen too clearly, at being let down. “What do you mean? And why should I trust you anyway? Prove it to me!”

Dumbledore passes Tom a small, humourless smile. “Your caretaker informed me of your proclivities to take that which does not belong to you,” he said, removing a thin stick from his cloak’s inner pocket. And with a slight swish and a quick flick, Tom’s entire wardrobe goes up in flames.

“Hogwarts does not condone theft, Mister Riddle. Do keep that in mind if you decide on attending.”

Long after Dumbledore leaves, Tom sits beside the soot-less scattered belongings of his fellow orphans—items that are his by right—and feels almost numb.

He clutches the letter with a list of materials, a gilded train ticket, and a small bag of coins to his chest like a lifeline. Like his breathing depends on it. He stares at all the trinkets he has to return and feels nothing but bitter and hollow. On wobbly legs, Tom stands up off the floor and catches the night sky peering down from his solitary window. Could he put everything back before they all woke up?

His eyes drift downwards, and Tom catches a now familiar glimpse of green, there and gone in a blink. His face gazes back at him, pale and startled. He realises—

He didn’t ask about the reflection.