Searching for Snakes

Harry woke up face down on another pillow, and fleetingly he feared that the wish had never been granted and the whole thing was a dream--The Great Gatsby, but this time he was just the Great Moron. Fortunately, his senses crept back and he noted that the pillow he lay on was indeed not the pillow he was used to. No, this one was not a scratchy fabric but rather a smooth linen.

He breathed in deeply and turned over. Bad decision. Harry was immediately blinded by the setting sun, its bright rays streaming in through the window. If he squinted, he could make out the outlines of a bustling city outside. He had really teleported elsewhere! In his head, Louis gained a full 10 goodwill points.

Giddy with happiness, Harry sat up and adjusted his glasses to look around the room. It was rather plain, he noted disappointedly, containing but the bed and a lone chair.

 “Hello?” He tried, expecting nothing. The door burst open so quickly and with so much force that Harry almost jumped out of his skin and backed up against the metal headboard.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” He repeated, heart thudding his throat, fingers clenched in tight fists around the sheets.

“You’re awake,” The woman noted, ignoring his reaction. She wore a floral beige dress and appeared to be rather large, not larger than Uncle Vernon but large nevertheless. “What’s your name? You an orphan?”

Harry calmed his erratic breathing and rationalized the situation. He wasn’t with the Dursleys anymore-- this was a fresh start, a new person! He felt a hot flash of anger at the lingering effects of living at the hand of their abuse. “I’m Harry Potter. I…” He briefly considered what to tell her. He hadn’t even thought about giving her a different name and he fleetingly wondered if that was dangerous. “Yes, I’m an orphan,” He concluded.

The woman sighed loudly and stared at him with a mixture of loathing and exasperation. “Of course you are,” She turned to the ceiling and muttered “And I told them that we were packed full like a can of war sardines but no!” before looking back at him pointedly. “Well, welcome to Wool’s Orphanage, finest establishment in London!” She cackled to herself. “I’m the director of this shithole, it’s Mrs. Cole to you,”

She beckoned for him to follow her out of the room and Harry did. The orphanage was probably the oldest place Harry had ever set foot in, which was an accomplishment considering his elementary school classroom had been built in 1950. It was a dark and gloomy place, with crumbling gray stone walls and water-stained stairs.

She led him up the nearest flight and stopped in front of the last door along the corridor. It was the only door without a scatter of chalk graffiti. She knocked sharply and then pushed the firmly shut the door open.

“Tom!” The room was gray like the rest of the orphanage and distinctly bare of any personality. Harry’s only experience with a bedroom was Dudley’s, and on the few occasions that he had seen it, it was always littered with hundreds of toys and posters of his latest obsession. One lean boy sat on the cot to the right, writing furiously in a book.

Said boy turned around slowly, putting a marker in whatever journal he was keeping and shutting it. “You have a new roommate,” Mrs. Cole pushed Harry into the shadowed room and laughed again. "Tom might be a bit of a psychopath but he'll treat you well. Just make sure you lick his shoes before bed." Harry's eyes widened a fraction at the words, whirling around at the slam of the door behind him.

Tom stepped towards him, his eyes entirely void of anything but the mildest of pleasantries. “Tom Riddle. Pleased to meet you,” He spoke, voice smooth and certain.

Harry’s eyes widened, noting how different the boy seemed from anyone else he had met his age. This Tom Riddle, slightly taller than his own height, wore the trademark fraying clothing with a confidence that made him appear far superior to anyone else. His hair, a deep brown, was perfectly combed—so opposite to the untamed mess of black locks that Harry sported. When Harry didn’t respond immediately, those maroon eyes narrowed slightly, almost imperceptivity had Harry not been searching his face.

“Oh, right, Harry. Harry Potter,” Harry spoke, outstretching his hand. Tom took it, his grip firm and minutely painful. The hand retracted almost seconds afterwards, and then Tom gestured to the bed opposite his.

Harry walked slowly to the cot, a smile curling at his lips at the familiar scenario. Another thin mattress, another threadbare blanket, only this time he had a companion! So what if Tom was a psychopath? Harry had spent the first eight years of his life living with the scum of the earth! Harry looked to Tom, hoping to converse before bed, but was sorely disappointed to find that the boy had already disappeared underneath his blankets.

The days passed, and still Tom refused to say more than the occasional distant, blunt answer to his probing questions. Harry’s wishes for a friend quickly disappeared down the drain and he stopped trying altogether.

Weeks passed, and Harry slowly adjusted to a new routine. Each day was the same: wake up, do whatever chore he was assigned for the day, then spend the days trailing Tom or reading beside him. Mrs. Cole proved to be a kind old woman, even if she didn’t really show it. Despite her abrasive ways and frequent mumblings of "those goddamn Germans" (low rations, "the Germans!", child fell down the stairs, "those cursed Germans!") she never beat him nor made him cook meals, and to Harry that was enough.

Months passed, but no one came to adopt any of the children. According to Ms. Cole’s increasingly vocal complaints, the war had stifled what she called her “orphan economy” and “no one’s coming for kids when they’re leaving for overseas and scrounging around for food like the rest of us.”

On a rare occasion, some rich benefactor would come around to offer them gifts and candies. They would all line up in the foyer to receive their gifts and then obsess about them together in their rooms.

Despite the close community among the children here, Harry quickly realized that the other orphanage kids avoided Tom at all cost and couldn’t help but wonder why. Mrs. Cole had claimed he was a psychopath, but to Harry Tom was just an introverted loner. Because they shared a room the kids avoided him too, leaving Tom as the only other companion, a "companion" who would also ignore his presence. There just wasn’t anyway around it—the reality was that Tom had virtually zero interest in talking to him.

Nevertheless, Harry didn’t regret the wish he made. The orphanage, scarily enough, was marginally better than his home with the Dursleys. As days turned into weeks, he read far more than he ever had in the elementary schools, back then where he could only focus on what underhanded blow Dudley would deal to him,

The local library supplied the orphanage with new books every week as a charity project, taking back the old ones and adding the new to the little bookshelf outside of Mrs. Cole’s room. The books were far too advanced for the general child audience of the orphanage, but Harry devoured everything that came in, getting better at inferring what certain words and phrases meant as he went. Ms. Cole had informed him that the books used to be closer to their age range but they had long since lost the ability to be picky since the war. Once, Machiavelli's The Prince cycled through and Harry noticed that Tom never returned it. Now he was convinced that Tom was a psychopath.

Tom read most of the time, except in the unusual cases where he disappeared and no matter how hard Harry searched, he couldn’t find him. Harry mostly spent that time searching for snakes. After his wish had been granted, Harry’s cynicism that Louis was a reality decreased to about 50%. And 50% was chance enough that he would try to prove it.

It had now been close to three months and Harry still hadn’t found a single snake, talking or otherwise. Now, ankle deep in the mud pit that the orphanage garden had become, a product of the recent rainstorm, Harry pulled aside plants looked inside bushes for a familiar slither.

“How is this even possible?” Harry groaned to himself, a habit he had picked up over the months of having no one to talk to. “There has to be one single snake in this garden,” He peered inside the compost bin just to be sure and sighed when the only thing remotely snake-like was a coil of coffee grounds. “It’s been a year, come on!”

And indeed, a year had come and gone. Harry was now 10, and no closer to finding anything remotely close to Louis's wit. They had probably all gotten scared off by the distant bombs and gunshots.

Tired and caked in mud, Harry decided to call it a day. He trudged out of the garden and began the slow trek back around to the front of the orphanage, except suddenly, a blaring alarm split the usual silence in two.

Goosebumps erupted down his pale arms as the orphanage, and its surrounding businesses, erupted in chaos.

Parents screamed for their kids and raced down the street, and merchants and business owners alike began ransacking their own stores for valuables. Mrs. Cole appeared at the doorstep, carrying two infants and leading the ten kids of the orphanage in tow, and began briskly walking out the front gate, issuing orders to the oldest kids.

She quickly spotted Harry, wide eyed and frozen beside the compost bin. “Harry! Come quickly, there’s to be an air raid! We’re going to the bomb shelter!”

Harry’s legs thawed and he raced to her side. It began to sprinkle again, and fat raindrops burst up and down the pavement. “Mrs. Cole!” He yelled over the roar of commotion and the blare of the alarm.

“Harry! Get in line!” She snapped.

Harry nodded with fear, legs stiff as he followed the other orphans out of the gate. They plodded on in two lines behind Ms. Cole, following the stream of panicked people to the shelter.

They stopped walking after five minutes, stopping with the crowd of people slowing down to go underground. The shelter was in the London Tube-- this district wasn't afforded the luxury of having actual "air raid shelters" as some of the better areas had.

Harry looked around to see where Tom was, head swinging left and right along the orphans to spot a glimpse of that familiar brown hair and regal poise. He became increasingly more panicked when he realized-- Tom wasn't here.

Dread, cold and creeping, welled up his spine and sent hot flares a realization crawling down his nervous system. Tom wasn't there!

“Mrs. Cole! Where’s Tom?” Her face froze for a moment and then she shook her head wildly and continued down the stairs.

“It’s too late for that boy! There’s no time to spare!” Harry stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her receding figure. He was pushed to the side of the street by the orphans running after her, and he landed hard on his knees, scraping them badly. But all he could think was Tom. Tom! Where was he?

The rain transformed into a downpour, and Harry got to his feet quickly despite the sting of his wounded knees. He wasn't a hero, but he couldn't leave him. He would find Tom, and they would survive.