Chapter 7
Tom POV
He had better things to do, but on a bright Sunday when he could have easily done his assignments, or relaxed, he had to accompany Abraxas Malfoy to the quidditch pitch for the Slytherin tryouts. He had struck a deal with Malfoy, a quid pro quo. He would introduce the blonde to the Ravenclaw chaser Maxine Auclair, and in return, Malfoy would invite him to the Christmas gala his family hosted. Maxine was a Ravenclaw prefect who he had worked with, and like most women, she was not unaffected by his looks, but he was not interested in the raven-haired girl. But apparently, Abraxas was interested, and he had dangled the carrot of the gala invitation in front of him, and the prospect of networking with the high-profile dignitaries that would no doubt be in attendance, Tom had been unable to refuse.
Abraxas already had a pure-blood fiancé, but he wanted to dally with Auclair. Tom did not take guarantee for any relationship between the two, but within 10 minutes of being on the ground, Tom had introduced Auclair to Malfoy, and put his charade in place.
"Miss Auclair, I'm sorry to interrupt you with the tryouts today, but I urgently had to inform you about the change in our coursework. As you know, we had been assigned the work on anti-unlock charms, but Professor Ronen has now assigned an independent essay to me, and that's why I realize I wouldn't be able to work with you. And, that would leave you partnerless, and my friend, Abraxas also hasn't finalized any partner for the Charms work, and he agreed to help me out with this. If this is alright with you, Mr Malfoy could partner with you for the work."
There wasn't much Auclair could do at that point to refuse partnering with Malfoy.
His business was already concluded here. Abraxas had run after him when he had almost reached the benches. "Thanks Riddle. I owe you one."
His irritation at the blonde seeped through him, yes, the idiotic blonde owed him.
With a concentrated will, he invaded Abraxas' mind with a pain-inducing Legilimens Dolor. "Indeed you owe me Abraxas. I have had to pull my influence to get you to partner up Auclair. If I don't have a copy of the invitation by tonight, the pain you're feeling now would seem like a child's play".
With a sneer on his face, Tom was about to leave Malfoy doubled over with pain near the highrise benches, but the whistling noise of a bludger caught his attention. A practice bludger had gone off the mark, and now it was heading straight to the benches just opposite him. It would still take some time to get to those benches, but his attention was unassailably on the short frame of a bushy brown-haired girl who had clearly not caught on that a rogue bludger was headed towards her bench. He was not sure when he had whipped out his wand, but in the split-second before he cast the blasting curse at the bludger, his being rang with the resolve Not Hermione, she would not be hurt.
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The Past
Tom POV
He was always told by his father 'you’re lucky'.
His father used to mention it without rancour, almost off-handedly, ‘You’re lucky we didn’t leave you at the orphanage with your mother’.
As the young Master Riddle, he was expected to be impeccable. Till the age of 9 years, he had thought his manners were not polished enough, and that is why his own father never gave him the affection he craved from him, despite playing the piano well, despite being an exemplary student in the muggle school he had attended prior to Hogwarts—it was only the lukewarm acknowledgment from his grandfather that kept him going. His grandmother was mostly bedridden—megrims and other lady troubles ailed her—at least that’s what he had gotten out of the servants. He had more conversation with the family Butler, Mr. Jacobs, than he had with his actual family.
He had always been a bit odd. Things broke around him when he suppressed his anger too much—a rope cutting into the kid’s wrists who refused to hand over the cat’s cradle to him—a toy blowing up which was not given to him—but most of all, he realized he could talk to snakes. Once Billy had been making fun of his pale complexion, calling him names like, ‘the charity case of the Riddles’, and they had been out on a forest camp—he had inadvertently set a snake upon Billy. All these incidents were never pinned upon him, but he knew inherently that he had caused it, that he was different.
He knew never to talk to his father, for only vitriol came out of that man’s mouth. His grandmother was also out of the option, and though his grandfather was the decent one, he couldn’t alienate the one person in the family who didn’t disapprove of his very existence.
He had gotten the information out of Jacobs—his mother’s family lived at the edge of the town, where the houses were not so good. He just had to go there and maybe then he could get some answers—was his mother also ‘different’ like him. He had been told that his parents had fought, and that's why his mother had been found in an orphanage where she had gone. She had died birthing him. He had never really received any true information about the relationship between his parents, and how exactly his mother ended up at an orphanage—and he likely never would get those answers.
The one benefit to his existence being regulated by the servants was that he could always influence them—get late night snacks from the cook, or get out of school day on a pretence of a stomach ache—they gave in to his wishes easily. When next the sample fabrics for some dresses had to be brought to his grandmother, he had pestered their butler Jacobs to take him to the market. He had enough money to reach the end of town—and he had figured out a crucial piece of information—his mother’s name was Merope Gaunt—this he had come to know after heckling Jacobs constantly for the past 3 years.
Thus, a 9-year-old, confident that he would find the answer to all his problems, reached the Gaunts’ house. The place was dilapidated, and small, veritably tiny compared to the Riddle Manor. But he had met his other grandfather, his maternal one. Marvolo Gaunt had a sunken appearance, and he had given little Tom only a beady eyed stare.
Marvolo Gaunt had only said, “You’re that handsome one’s son. The one Merope mooned over. They have some wealth, at least marrying well was the only good thing that squib did.”
When Tom had asked if he could have anything of his mother’s, a harsh laughter had stopped him cold.
Tom had not tried to meet his mother’s family again—Marvolo’s words were indeed true—while he did not get love and affection at the Riddle Manor, he lived comfortably.
It was the murmurings of the servants that gave him the news—the Gaunts were no more. Morfinn Gaunt, his mother’s elder brother had killed his own father in a drunken fit and was now in a jail. The only perplexing thing was that nobody could tell which jail he went to—and it was years later when he joined the wizarding world that Tom understood that Morfinn had been sent to Azkaban.
It seemed tragedy was to strike twice—in a rare instance of coming out of her room, Lady Riddle had expressed the wish to attend the spring ball at the Masons—another well-to-do family of the town. The carriage taking the Riddles overturned and Lady Riddle and her son, Tom’s father, were killed on the spot. Lord Riddle sustained heavy injuries, and it seemed he would not make it—but he pulled through, with a scar across his right temple, and a slight limp, Lord Riddle made it out of death’s door.
The Gaunts’ news had not jostled Tom one bit—he had barely known them, and he didn’t particularly care. He was to some extent also indifferent about the death of his father and grandmother. But he cared about Lord Riddle, his grandfather, and the months during his grandfather’s treatment, Tom had come the closest to praying for his recovery.
These incidents happened in the tenth year of his life. In the eleventh year, things changed drastically for him—his grandfather received his Hogwarts letter.
“Tom, do you want to go to this place?”, Lord Riddle had asked him.
He had been given a week to decide—he could either go to Cambridge, or to this place. He had chosen Hogwarts. For the first time, it had felt that a missing puzzle piece was finally in his grasp—he knew why he was so different, it was clearly because he was a wizard.
His grandfather had not been enthused by his choice, but he had allowed him to go, on the condition that Tom, now the only heir to the Riddle inheritance, learned to manage the estate and accounts during the holidays. Thus, for the first time, Tom got the attention that he had earlier craved. The only downside was that he was recognized after the deaths in the family.
But he took to the challenge of Hogwarts, and learning estate management skills during the break, in his stride—his ambition to leave a mark on the wizarding world flaring with each year spent at Hogwarts.
Hogwarts was a home away from home, here, he readily got the recognition, the respect that he wanted—yet, whether at Riddle Manor, or at Hogwarts, he couldn’t shed his ‘good boy’ image. He could never slip up, for who would want him if he wasn’t the best at what he did—there was still something missing from his life, and he drowned that small nagging void, by delving into all the ancient magical arts—it was done quietly, of course. Accessing the restricted section was no problem, he got Old Sluggie’s permission slips easily. Just like his ability to speak with snakes, his skill at legilemency was also rare in the wizarding world. He had started brushing people’s minds by accident in his third year, and a year later, legilemency had become almost second-nature to him. He did not delve too deep into others' thoughts, not because of any respect for their privacy, but because a deep intrusion could be felt by people. Whereas, the gentle skimming of surface thoughts required little effort and went unnoticed by most people, and so he usually stuck to his surface scans.
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The Present
He had reacted without thinking. The urge to protect Hermione had been upon him before he could even consciously think. Since he had started his legilemency, he regularly brushed people’s thoughts. From his legilemency, he knew that the girls who fawned over him never really saw beyond his perfect image.
But Hermione was the one girl he had shown some of his true colours to—and she had not run away. He liked her—she was not just another girl fawning over him—she was ambitious, and just as dedicated to mastering magic as he was—yes, she had more scruples than he had, but he knew she could be lured to break rules with logic that appealed to her sense of justice and fairness. Though he himself had harmed her before, he had now decided to not deny his growing feelings for her—Hermione Granger was going to be his.