Tom Riddle & Getting Dirty
Tom Riddle's brand of curiosity is morbid. Only and always. He wondered what the inside of a rabbit looks like and -- next thing you know -- his hands are red and Billy's crying. He washes them before the matron can see and kills without witnesses, but everyone knows it was him anyway. Later, scolded and hungry, he wants to think that it wasn't worth it, but that would be a lie, like the whispered cries of “it's okay" the new, ragged children exchange among themselves late at night. A lie, just for oneself, that's what’d that’d be.
It was worth it. Because now he knows.
It gets worse when his magic sets in, tingling only and always just under his skin. It is constantly ready to strike. And when he feels things too strongly -- and he feels things too strongly all the time, an all-or-nothing kind of guy -- it crackles, smooth and swift. Things break and people get hurt just because he wants them to.
It feels powerful. Almost feels special, but he's not dumb enough to assume that he's the only one. Powerful and almost special. That's how he feels.
The matron tells him, when she's beyond drunk enough to remember later, that his entitlement makes her sick. "You think being cruel and smart makes you better than us, but you're a dime a dozen. Just another corrupt politician in the making, only worse, because you recognize the sick in you and have long ago embraced it. Your arrogance and curiosity, Riddle? They will get the better of you, on God, and on the day that they do, I'll cheer. I'll laugh. You'll keep digging when you should've put the shovel down, and all you'll get is dirty. Only and always. Every time."
Tom at the time dismisses it. Thinks the only "dime a dozen" here is jealousy. He's spiteful (only and always, every time) so her foreboding is, in turn, just motivation. "I'll show that ragged old bitch corrupt," he said.
But Tom now, Headboy at Hogwarts, a corrupt politician no longer just in the making, thinks that she is not entirely wrong. Sitting across from Harry Potter in his section of the Hufflepuff table (often called the "Melting Pot"), once again lost in the pursuit of knowledge, willing and able to spill blood to get it, Tom thinks that she was right about one thing.
All he's getting is dirty.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Whenever he was still living at Wool's, an orphanage filled with children who have experienced death first-hand, who all reek of it, he was, at first, more of an outlier. One of the girls cries about watching the light fade from her mother's eyes. She doesn’t want to be next, and she feels shitty about that, because her mother's DEAD and here she was, worrying only about herself, and isn't that just fucked up, and she cries and cries and cries. And Tom Riddle does not quite get it.
Why feel terrible over worrying about yourself? You should be your first priority. Shame is secondary and pales in comparison. And what, he wonders, so young, is so scary about death?
He even, to this little girl's horror, asks her that. "Everything dies someday," he says, flippantly, like it's no big deal, like this is not the worst possible person to be saying this to. "When we rot, we become part of the dirt. Worms and plants and maggots will feast on us and give them life, because life, you know. It's always gotta come from somewhere. Only then the soil becomes fruitful again can new life spring from it. Why do you look for uncertainty where there is none?"
Mrs. Cole smacks his knuckles with a ruler, like she’s trying to beat the idea of Death being a Very Real and Fearable Concept into him, but he doesn’t get it then. He gets it three months later, though, when the idea struck him to push Jimmy Smith, a boy who had done him no wrong, had never bothered anybody, down the stairs.
It wasn't malicious. He just... wanted to see what would happen. Nothing wrong with that, is there? He's not a politician in the making, he's a scientist. Nothing wrong with that!
But there was. Something wrong with that, I mean. Because Jimmy, who didn't do anything to hurt anyone, who hadn't pissed Tom off like some of Tom's later casualties, hits his head on impact. He dies instantly.
Tom is surprised about how quick it happens. One second, he's alive, breathing. The next, he's...
And he hadn’t done anything wrong, that's the thing. He was in the wrong place, wrong time, and that's it, and now he’s dead.
Wrong place, wrong time. That's how easy it is. That's how easy it is to die. That's it.
He leaves the body at the end of the stairwell. That he just tripped and fell is later assumed. Because Jimmy was good. No one had any reason to hurt him, let alone kill him.
It is a really unfortunate accident.
But Mrs. Cole knows better. She smacks his hand until his second knuckle breaks. "You're a demon," she said. "You've got everyone else fooled, but not me. Never me. I can smell the Hell on you." It's one of the few things she's good at, seeing past his exterior. That, and drinking.
From then on, Tom feared death. He lays in bed at night and, although he doesn't cry, he feels exactly like that little girl, terrified he'll be next. Jimmy's dead and I'm worried about me, he thought, but there's no shame in that, because of course he's worried about himself! Jimmy's already dead, what's he supposed to do about that, huh? Focus on the living, right? And Tom, he's fucking living!
He prioritizes himself. Every time.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Hagrid, a tall and wide man, an ugly wand in hand, gives Tom a reason behind his "powerful and almost special" feelings. "Yer a wizard, Tom," he says, thick accent hardly audible through his even thicker beard, but Tom gets the message anyway.
"A wizard," Tom repeats, wonder in his voice. Then he pauses a moment, brows furrowing, and says, "How long have you -- Hogwarts, I mean -- known?"
Hagrid scratches his beard awkwardly. "Yer name's been on the list since before ye were born! Ye've got Hogwarts in yer blood."
It's not as reassuring as Hagrid thinks it is. "Why am I just being told now?" he says, not trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He has so much catching up to do, so much to learn about the world he was supposedly invited into. "I'll be alienated from my peers," he settles on, "not knowing about the wizarding world as much as people who have grown up with it."
Hagrid dismisses his concerns. "Plenty of students grow up without magical influence. Ye'll be fine," he says, and Tom's sure he will "be fine."
But Tom's not one to settle. He doesn't want to be fine, he wants to be the best. Harassing the groundsman about it won't help, though, so he nods and listens to his explanation of how to get to Diagon Alley and how to access the orphan's fund and all that. Before he leaves, Hagrid adds, "Oh, and I'm supposed to mention, 'cause Dumbledore told me to, not because it applies to you, or anything, 'cause ye seem like a rather nice kid--"
"Suppose to mention what?"
"Eh... Violence against other students is unacceptable."
"But of course," Tom says.
And now he's interested in who Dumbledore knows that can read the future.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
He hears about Harry Potter from eavesdropping. It's a skill he developed at Wool's, a rather vital one. If they do not think you can hear them, they speak like you cannot.
He is getting his robes fitted, slightly counting out how much money he'll have to spend afterwards and frowning at the results, when a blonde boy comes in, surrounded by those who are probably more fan than friend. His robes are new. Much more sophisticated than Tom's and he has to bury the magic sparkling from his hands, envy overcoming him.
"... blind as a bat, that's what father says, and he's an orphan--"
"Poor boy," says one of the other boys.
"Sure," says the blonde. "And so he's lived at Hogwarts most of his life."
"I'm so jealous," a pug-faced girl says, sounding whimsical.
"Even though he's an orphan?"
"Especially because he's an orphan." There's a chorus of laughter.
So there's the option to remain at Hogwarts? Tom would have to look into that. Being free from Wool's would be ideal.
"Heard he's starting classes this year," said a chubby boy. "What house do you think he'll get into?"
"He's a Dismantalist," says the blonde. "Rejects the Ministry, the Church of Merlin, and Pureblood society as a whole."
"A Gryffindor, no doubt. Thought Harry Potter could do better."
"You thought Harry Potter could do better? The boy's hardly a threat, Goyle. He's not good at anything really. Just average."
The blonde nods. "Completely unremarkable."
Purebloods. Tom's heard about those. He hopes he's one, too, but until he knows for sure, he can just lie. Who'd know any different? At any rate, he knows what he doesn't want to be. Or associate with.
Dismantalists.
Because this blonde boy is practically dripping with cash. Because his friends and/or fans are huddled around him and he knows that feeling -- knows what that's like.
That's power. And if Tom wants that for himself... then it's time to climb that social ladder.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Between his first and sixth year, Tom had thought only once about Harry Potter. His name had been called, and he'd wandered up there, self-assured walk and eyes so striking, they almost hurt to look at. Seven seconds. That's exactly how long the Sorting Hat had sat on his head before calling out, "HUFFLEPUFF!" Tom had glanced at the blonde boy from the store, who he later learned was Draco Malfoy, sitting at the Slytherin table, but it seemed he'd completely forgotten the prediction he'd agreed with days before.
Completely unremarkable, after all. Even when whispers of "fighting Snape" and "stealing magic" circulate, Tom batted no eye.
Tom had been sorted into Slytherin, of course, and made friends with Draco, Pansy, who was the pug-faced girl from before, though he never said that to her face. Anyone rich and important in the social hierarchy, he knows and is on pleasant terms with.
Except Blaise Zabini, who found himself at the Hufflepuff table most evenings, though Tom didn't let that bother him. He had dug his own social grave. Let him lie in it.
He had excelled in class and outside it, granting himself the position of Prefect in his fifth year and the highest OWLs in decades. He had researched immortality and how to achieve it, though the results were not good pertaining to his sanity -- Horcruxes, really? so he decides to keep looking. He had figured out his heritage. And, Merlin, that one took a long time, and finding the Chamber of Secrets took longer.
He'd stood in the opening for some time. Eventually, he closed the door.
He could not afford to get caught in a ruckus while there. Right before I leave, he decides, I'll open it.
Here, he's powerful. Here, he's more than "almost special." He's a fucking prodigy and everyone and their god damned mom knows it.
He's not allowed to stay at Hogwarts over the summer, but the Malfoys take him in and Tom decides that's better. Everything here is better.
But then there's seventh year. Everything stays the same -- he's appointed Head Boy and gathers recommendations for the Minister of Magic like he gathers love letters -- but everything isn't the same. Because there's Harry Potter.
On one of his nightly patrols, he turns the corner and standing there, after curfew, is the Hufflepuff boy. Tom searches for a name and finds one -- though it's been years since he saw them, he knows those eyes anywhere, even if the green looks faded and weary.
He opens his mouth to call out to him, to ask him what he's doing out after hours, to remove points, but he stops when, from the ceiling, a hand descends.
It looks almost ghostly, so Tom almost assumes that it is ghostly, another resident of the tower he did not know about because, really, there's so many of them. Almost. Because it almost looks ghostly, and it definitely looks Godly.
Tom values no one more than he values himself -- priorities, remember? -- yet, at that moment, standing before this hand, larger than him and larger than life, he has the urge to kneel. Worship.
Harry Potter is facing him, looking up at the hand. He looks...
Tom furrows his brows. He looks entirely unfazed.
Suddenly, his eyes glow. Like holes oozing bright pink and his entire posture changes. Sick yet resigned lovey-dovey look shades his face. He does not look... himself. And Tom realizes that's because he isn't himself.
"Go home," Harry says and his voice sounds weird, too, like it's not used to the vocal cords.
Tom hears another voice and though he can't see where it's coming from, he knows it belongs to the hand that feels like God. "I will. If you join me."
"Let him live."
"He is hardly living, dear. His mind is mush. Yours will be, too, if you resist dispersing much longer."
"Then my mind will become mush."
"Dear--"
"Go home," he -- no, she, it feels like a girl, like a woman and her husband who happens to be a God, like a run-of-the-mill old fucking married couple -- says again.
"I will return," says the hand.
"Do not." It is said with all the love in the world. With... all the love a mother has for her child--
The hand does not respond. Harry stands in the hallway a moment longer and Tom takes the moment to hide behind the corner again, catching his breath, eyes wide and blown, a grin so large it hurts on his face.
Harry, or whatever spirit or spector is possessing him, turns around and Tom listens to his fading footsteps with glee.
There's something to learn here. Something to know. Familiar greed and curiosity builds up in his chest, alongside caution. Dealing with God -- for he's sure that's what it is -- is dangerous. Is it worth it? That's the usual question except this time...
This time, he's not quite sure the answer. But he's not quite sure it matters, either.