Chapter Text
Wool's orphanage was drab and grey as usual. It was nestled in the heart of the equally ashy grey city of London, where an air raid siren wailed outside.
All around the building, children were abandoning their wartime rationed lunches — no meat, no butter, no dairy, no eggs, no sugar — and scrambling after Mrs Kettle to rush to the nearest bomb shelter, just in case the Germans were coming for London again.
Fourteen-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle, however, kicked his feet up on the desk in his room, savoring a meat hand pie he'd stolen from the Hogwarts kitchens last year and charmed to last the summer.
It was still the perfect temperature, not too hot, not too cool. The buttery crust flaked perfectly as if it had just been baked. The meat was hearty with big chunks of beef, and the gravy was thick and perfectly seasoned. He relished every bite slowly, as if showing off to an audience that wasn't there, and when the last bite was gone, he licked his fingers clean with meticulous care.
Only then did he draw his magical cloak around his shoulders — the one he had proofed against fire and falling stone. Let the siren shriek, he thought to himself. Let the bombs fall. Tom Marvolo Riddle was protected by a Muggle-proof cape, and nourished on food meant for kings. He belonged to a castle of floating candles and stone walls thicker than any bunker. No Muggle war could touch him.
A knock came at the door.
"Tom?" Lucy's voice called from the other side.
She always checked before she walked in, even though the door didn't have a lock. It was maddening when Mrs Kettle barged in on him, but no less irritating to have to grant permission every time Lucy knocked.
"Well hurry up then," Tom said.
Lucy stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. The siren still wailed outside, and below them he could hear the last of the children stumbling toward the shelter. Lucy crossed the room without a word and, as usual for an air raid, sat down on the floor beside his bed.
Tom never understood why. She claimed it was because she didn't want him to be alone, but he suspected it was because she didn't want to be. Not that the shelters were lonely. They were usually packed with obnoxious children and so many people that the air always became stuffy and hot. Whatever the reason, though, she always chose him over safety.
He stretched the cloak wide enough to cover himself and his satchel and pulled out a textbook he had just purchased at Diagon Alley describing methods for magical locking charms which Professor Bellwether had written himself. Tom didn't need to buy textbooks anymore, he could simply borrow them from the library once he was back at school and spend the 'orphan stipend' money on more interesting extracurriculars. But as he cracked it open, he looked back over his shoulder at Lucy.
He pretended to find it tiresome but… she always chose him.
Tom set his feet down from the desk and stood from his chair. After a good stretch, he collected his things and sat down on the floor next to her. He pulled the cloak wider and draped it over the both of them. She looked at him and smiled softly, but didn't say anything. She just put her head on his shoulder while he read his book. He could always trust her to let him read in peace.
The siren keened outside, unanswered. Down in the shelter, the children would be crammed together, sweating and shrieking. Here, under the cloak, there was only stillness and charms.
She didn't leave, even when the siren outside faded into silence and the all-clear sounded. It wasn't until Mrs Kettle came back, muttering about "hoping they weren't doing something inappropriate," that Lucy finally stood and went to help tend the younger children.
Tom waited until her footsteps faded down the hall before drawing his satchel onto the desk. Inside was a neat stack of parchment envelopes, already creased from overhandling. He laid them out in order, each marked with the seal of a different Ministry of Magic.
He had written to every one of them in the last year requesting information on any wizard by the name of Riddle: Britain, France, Italy, America, even the smaller ones in Prague and Oslo and ones as far off as China. Every reply had come back the same.
No such wizard listed.
He spread the letters out in front of him, like evidence at a trial, and 'Riddle', apparently, was both prosecutor and accused. The empty answers stared back. He read the words again, as if they might change the more he looked. They didn't. His peers were always prattling on about blood. Pure-blooded wizards had better magic. The "lesser sorts" could only imitate it. Tom sorted and stacked the letters neatly, aligning the corners until they were perfectly straight. If there were no wizards named Riddle, then what did that make him?
He wasn't a Mudblood.
The word curdled in his mind. He refused to believe it. He wasn't lesser, and so there had to be another explanation. The idea was absurd. Magic like his didn't come from nothing, he thought to himself. If the records were empty, then the records were wrong. If his name was missing, then he would make it mean something. There would be no blank spaces next to the name 'Riddle' when he was finished. The world would remember it and he would carve it into history so deeply that no one would ever forget it, not even in centuries to come.
But for now, he stared at the top letter, addressed to him, and all he could see was Tom Riddle: No record found.
Nobody.
Nothing.
Tom wasn't nothing. He never would be.
Tom was decidedly not spiralling internally when a tap on the window interrupted his thoughts. He opened it to find an owl pecking impatiently, clutching a letter in one claw. The regal little bird preened proudly and dropped the envelope onto his desk. It was pink and smelled like a floral abomination, which meant it was from Antigone Selwyn. He broke the seal — of course Selwyn's family had their own ancestral seal — and flipped open the parchment.
Mr Thomas Riddle,
Tom sighed. His name wasn't Thomas. It was just Tom. But of course Selwyn didn't know that.
It is with the warmest anticipation that I extend to you an invitation to our summer gathering at the Selwyn summer estate. On the twenty-third of August, our family will be receiving select company for an evening of music, conversation, and celebration, etc. etc.
Tom didn't bother to hide his condescension. No one else was here to see it. Selwyn was so self important, always going on about which powerful, politically connected, pure-blooded families came to her summer estate, (distinct, of course, from her family's other seasonal estates). The letter went on to describe how to get there by Floo or by broomstick. Selwyn had to know that Tom had access to neither at the Muggle orphanage, though. And the twenty-third was the next day. She probably thought this was some kind of clever slight, wrapped in a cloyingly perfumed envelope.
Tom, however, took it as a challenge.
Getting there was no small feat. Tom had to buy a train ticket to the countryside with the proceeds from selling his old Hogwarts textbooks and changing the money from Sickles to pounds. From there it was an hour-long hike along the road. He walked most of the way wearing his shoes and clothes from the orphanage — it was a hot day, and he didn't want his nice clothes getting dirty. Once he was close, he found a secluded spot just off the road and changed into his nicest shoes and clothes from his satchel. Unfortunately, the nicest thing he had was his Hogwarts uniform. It would stand out, but it was better than the tattered, too-small, patched-up clothes from Wool's, and it would mark him as a Slytherin. He might not have the name, but even the Sorting Hat knew his blood was pure enough to be in Slytherin.
Then again, was it?
He shook the thought away. Now wasn't the time. He was a Slytherin. He was talented, a great wizard in his own right. One day he'd be the one holding galas at his summer estates, and Selwyn and her family would be begging on their knees for an invite.
At the gate, Tom checked his hair in his pocket mirror. Even though the mirror had stopped sneering back at him since the end of last year, all that meant was that he was back to his normal level of not-liking-his-own-reflection. And so it had been months since he'd really looked. Combined with a whole year of avoiding mirrors, he hardly recognized himself. Objectively, it wasn't bad. His cheekbones had defined themselves. His hair had become wavy, and now fell just so even without effort. He was good-looking. Handsome. Striking. Magnetic even.
For a moment, a cold unease crept along his spine. He knew this face. He had seen it before, as it twisted into a more sinister shape in that cursed mirror at Hogwarts. The boy in the glass was beginning to look like the one in the other mirror, the one he refused to think about, the dead one he had promised himself he would never become. He'd started having dreams about it, not facing it down like he had at Hogwarts, but from behind its red viscous eyes…
He shook his head. Deterioration happened to other, lesser people, not to Tom Marvolo Riddle. He adjusted his collar. He smoothed the wavering strand again. It curled back the moment he let go.
The white gravel drive of the Selwyn (summer) estate led through an ostentatious wrought iron gate, adorned with the Selwyn family crest. Beyond that, the path arced in an unnecessary loop around a fountain. Of course, the fountain was a marble statue of the Selwyn patriarch and matriarch. Water poured from their outstretched wands and into the pool below. It was so vain as to be absurd.
"So you can cast the water-making spell," Tom muttered under his breath as he passed. "I suppose that puts you at a second-year level, in my book."
The house itself was an unnecessarily large and ornate white mansion. It was certainly larger than the orphanage, which had fifty rooms, even though the only people who lived there (and only during the summer) were Selwyn and her parents. Guests drifted up the path, some landing on broomsticks on the impractically massive lawn. Tom adjusted his tie, raised his chin just so, and entered, cool and composed as always.
Inside he was greeted by a perfectly manicured performance of power and politics. A massive chandelier hung over a room filled with well-dressed (that is to say pretentiously dressed) cravat-wearing aristocrats in their finest robes. Tom paused long enough to notice that the chandelier was not hung from a chain, but suspended magically midair, rotating lazily like a constellation. A self playing piano sung a melody from the corner, where a single House Elf Apparated in, carrying a plate of hors d'oeuvres. The guests all spoke in the low, self-assured tones of people who never doubted their place in the world. Every now and then a witch or wizard would pause to assess him. Tom straightened his shoulders and walked forward. He belonged here just as much as — no, more — than any of them. They didn't see it yet, but they would. He would make them see it.
"Oh, Riddle, darling," Antigone Selwyn said sweetly as Tom approached. She looked surprised to see him. "I… didn't think you would make it, given—" She didn't finish the thought under Tom's icy stare. She knew better than to insult his 'circumstances'.
She swept him through the throng with the air of a hostess, stopping before a pair who could only be Lord and Lady Selwyn. Her father was tall and severe. Her mother was elegantly dressed, with pearls around her neck, but none of the trappings could paper over the fact that her 'smile' was little more than an ugly sneer with a little faux upturn at the end.
"Lord and Lady Selwyn," Antigone said smoothly, "may I present Tom Marvolo Riddle — Slytherin House. The one I told you about."
'Lord Selwyn' made no attempts to hide the fact that he was assessing Tom. He eyed him up and down, a haughty sneer on his face that looked as though it was simply his default expression. "So. You are the prodigy we've heard so much about. Riddle, is it?"
Tom knew that tone. There was a question underneath it. 'Are your parents sufficiently pure, or should we spurn your filthy, mixed self from our noble company?' Resentment coiled up in his chest like a waiting snake.
"That was the name I was given at the orphanage, sir," he said. It wasn't his favorite story, but it was better than telling this man that he didn't know if his father was a Muggle. He would let them fill in the blanks with whatever they wanted to see.
"How… unfortunate," Lord Selwyn said, turning his nose up slightly.
One day… one day Tom would be a King Cobra and even all the other snakes would fear him.
"It is as grandfather said, though," Antigone cut in. "'Like sire, like son'. That is simply how it is, is it not?" She eagerly patted her father's shoulder. "Did I ever tell you, Tom has unofficially passed his O.W.L.s already?"
Lord Selwyn raised his eyebrow at that. "In your third year?"
"Second year, actually, sir," Tom corrected, trying very hard not to look smug about it. O.W.L.s weren't taken until the end of fifth year, but Bellwether had him run the gauntlet over a year ago.
"You must have excellent blood in you," Lord Selwyn concluded with a nod. He probably thought he was exuding some kind of sage wisdom. "Talent like that never comes from poor stock."
Is that all parents were? 'Breeding stock'? Perhaps Tom wasn't missing out after all.
It doesn't matter what blood is in your veins, you vainglorious bastard, Tom thought. You'll bleed to death just the same as any Mudblood.
"... Of course, sir," Tom replied coolly instead.
Professor Slughorn swept in like a storm from the south. Tom should have figured he would be here, given all the wealthy, well-connected aristocrats present.
"Riddle!" he cried, clapping Tom on the shoulder. Tom flinched at hearing his name. He was beginning to hate the way everyone said it. "Oh, Balthazar, I see you've met the genius of Slytherin house. A right miracle this boy is. Ah, Tom, let me introduce you to Mr Malfoy. Ah but, here's Mr Greengrass, the imminent expert in magical maladies at St Mungos. Mr Greengrass, allow me to introduce you to Mr Riddle."
Tom wasn't sure who took greater pleasure in parading him around the party, Antigone Selwyn or Professor Slughorn. Tom mentally cursed himself for allowing the low-class London accent to creep back in over the summer. Time spent around a gaggle of orphans would do it. Perhaps Selwyn had been right after all, proximity to the worthless really did rub off. He did his best to school his accent back into the King's English, especially given whom he was meeting.
Slughorn introduced him to a number of lawmakers, Ministry officials, and Aurors from all the big name families he had seen on the Sacred Twenty-Eight list. There were the Averys, the Blacks, the Carrows, a Crouch, the Malfoys, the Rosiers, and the Rowles among others. Slughorn even gave Tom a brief introduction to the Minister of Magic Spencer-Moon himself. Spencer-Moon was the only one who didn't wrinkle his nose at Tom's surname.
But even as Slughorn and Selwyn tried to outdo one another in recounting his brilliance to anyone within earshot, Tom felt a particular kind of weariness, being alone in a room full of people. Praise washed over him like noise — pleasant, useful noise, but noise all the same. Tom suffered the tragic curse of standing apart from everyone else. Genius was a lonely thing, it seemed. No one walked beside him. Not even Lucy truly broke the solitude. She was simply there, though only in the way that a lamp was there: you didn't think about it unless it flickered.
By the end of the 'gala', Tom was growing nauseous of his name, to the point that it was almost revolting having to say it out loud. Every time, it was a reminder of his place — or rather, the place all these insufferable, pretentious, dim-witted aristocrats thought he belonged in. He would show them, though. It would take time, but he was patient. Tom Marvolo Rid— he — was always patient.
He spent the train ride back writing a ranking of all the people he had met in his diary. The ink sunk into the page and disappeared as he wrote. He listed them from high to low, based on how much they'd disrespected him, how likely he was to curse them one day, and whether or not he'd be willing to let them be his dancing pet monkeys when he finally had his way of things.
Tom tapped his quill on the page, and then wrote:
If that is what a family is, I fail to see the appeal. Everything was gilded, yet strangely hollow, as though the house were a stage set rather than a home. The people inside behaved the same way. If that is "family," they may keep it. I will create for myself something far better, founded on merit and power rather than accidents of birth. I do not require their traditions or their approval. And I certainly do not require sympathy.
Still, I wish I could take the name Riddle from their mouths and shove it down their bloody throats. If I cannot find my wizard father, then I see no point in bearing his name. Why should I keep the name of a man who contributed nothing to my life? Why should I keep a name that marks me as weak? I am quite capable of making a new one, one that will erase all trace of him.
Then, he wrote out:
Tom Marvolo Riddle.
If 'Lord Selwyn' could be a pretentious arsehole, then so could Tom Marvolo Rid—
Tom.
"L…o…r…d…" Tom found each of the letters in his name. He smirked.
If he wanted a name, a better name, a new name for the powerful young man he was quickly becoming, he would just have to make one. Of course, if he wanted to keep the same powerful Arithmantic profile, he couldn't change any of the letters. It would have to be an anagram. He tried one out:
Lord… Dread… No, he thought, there weren't enough 'D's for that.
Lord… Evil… No, that was absurd. Besides, he wasn't evil. That's what Dumbledore always seemed to assume, but Dumbledore had a head full of stuffing.
Lord Vile Oat… Hardly better. What sort of Dark wizard introduced himself as porridge?
Tom huffed. This was going to be harder than he expected.