The Boy Who Cried Wolf

4 - The Fall at the Beginning

(TW - slight violence, slight gore, vague descriptions of child abuse.)

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In the Winter of 1926, Merope Gaunt birthed a son. He was doomed to his fate from the moment he was conceived; created from a lack of love, through the influence of a love potion. Named Tom Marvolo Riddle, after his Muggle father, the son was placed into the care of an English orphanage, his mother dead.

Orphanages in the early 20th century were unpleasant places. Quite often, they were run on abuse and neglect, and Wool's Orphanage fell into this stereotype. Children stuffed into miniature box rooms, fed insufficient scraps of food, and raised without an ounce of care, they were typically not happy children.

Tom Riddle was one of these unhappy children. From as far back as his conception, he had been fated to be a loveless and unloved boy, causing his early childhood to be no less than horrific.

To start, he despised the matron; a thin, lanky woman with angled features and deep-set eyes. Her uniform was permanently stained with either food or mud, her usually greasy hair always topped with a frilly nurse cap. She peered down at children with badly-concealed disdain, always making Tom wonder why she worked with infants if she despised them so much. Due to his tendency to disobey, Tom was usually the main victim of her violent outbursts, resulting in stinging cheeks or bruised limbs. The older he got, the more he dreamed of gouging out her organs and watching the life leave her eyes.

The other orphans were their own problem. Nasty little brats, they took enjoyment in tormenting young Tom, stealing what little belongings he had and mocking him to no end. It filled him with an insatiable anger, one that demanded vengeance.

Improvement came when the snake appeared.

It had been a cold winter's day, not long before his ninth birthday, when a small garter snake found itself on the outside of his window. Observing it, he started when it spoke, and when he understood.

Tom told the snake how life in the orphanage was. He told the snake how he desired to burn the dreadful building to the ground, how he would smile at their charred agony. The snake, influenced by the only human that had ever understood it, gave in to Tom's whims.

The boy brought the garter snake inside, concealing it in the sleeve of his ratty, worn sweater, as he chose his victim. There were so many children that he believed deserved suffering, but for now, he had to decide on one. In the end, he chose one girl that had left a spider in his bedsheets on more than one occasion.

As she sat on the carpeted floor, playing with malformed dolls destroyed by use, Tom subtly dropped the garter snake into the back of her dress. Taking a step back, Tom watched in glee as she screamed and panicked, the snake biting her as many times as it could before intervention arrived. The matron managed to grip the snake and remove it as the girl began to screech, creating a scene on the floor.

Tom watched with fury as the matron dropped the snake and stomped her murderous heel on its head, killing it. The fact she would ever dare to commit such a thing brought a raging anger into his gut. Not that she killed a living animal, but because that animal was practically his. How dare she?

It was then that Tom learned he was not normal. He had received a significant beating for his actions, leaving him black and blue everywhere, as he was locked in the box room beneath the stairs. Rage and the need to hurt someone burned angrily in his gut as he brought his knees to his chest, staring into the darkness surrounding him and willing improvement.

In line with his thoughts, there was a small click of a latch, and the door creaked open. Tentatively, Tom stood, just to learn that there was nobody around to have let him out. He had done it.