Archive of Our Own

I.

On their very first day together, Tom Riddle showed who he truly was. Retrospect made it all too obvious.

But Mr. Blake Clifton was an incorrigible optimist, and too easily fooled by the kittenish stare bestowed to him by his porcelain tempter.

“There Tom is,” said the matron. She jerked her head toward the corridor. The fair boy was whizzing swiftly by on. The matron’s attendant returned with him, and the rest—in due time—was history.

“Tom, I believe you’ll recall this is Mr. Clifton.”

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Tom,” said Mr. Clifton.

Mr. Clifton had taken note of the boy, passingly, upon laying eyes on him in late November. He was alone in the courtyard, shaded beneath the canopy of a nearly-leafless chestnut tree. At a glance, he was nothing. A slip of a lad; poor, skinny, and common. He would have been a nobody, if it was not for that face—that face! A dollish thing, with big, black eyes and a tiny nose, stippled red at its tip by the unfavorably cold midday winds. The matron—noticing Mr. Clifton’s interest and misunderstanding him entirely—chastised the child to return indoors. Like an obedient pup, he scurried. He slid past, blankly, and darted in the direction to the boys’ dormitories; and as he did, his frayed jumper grazed Mr. Clifton’s knuckles, leaving him ever more curious.

In the following days, the prickle on his fingers lingered. He was but a boy; it was ill. But repression was of no use to him or anyone. Once rattled, he was a cork-stopper in a bore. Soon enough the complicated feelings evolved into vicious lust. He pleased himself regularly to thoughts obscene and disreputable. Though a man of 31, and under great pressure to marry (for he was the last heir of J. Williams Wool), Mr. Clifton found nothing in common with women. Men were not much more satisfying. Since returning from Selwyn, he bedded only nubile, svelte males at the cusp of manhood, and it seemed with each, year his tastes veered younger.

After his encounter with that curious orphan boy, the wiry, pubescent fairy-boys in Covent Garden basements could only barely sate him. His image—a lucid vision—spawned in a near corner of his mind. Prematurely long limbs, dainty and fresh; the hairless mound, the bare bones of his clavicle protruding with his ribs. The pearly skin stretched taut.

Mr. Clifton met his boy again, and in earnest, weeks later. It was Boxing Day. Announced the week prior as the newest chairman of the Wool Charitable Trust, Mr. Clifton was there—an esteemed guest —to distribute Dinky planes and Pedigree dolls to the children. The unusual boy made an even greater impression on him. Mr. Clifton had to know from whence such an odd and appealing child had come. He inquired with the matron over brandy and gingersnaps. “Tom Riddle,” he recalled, as it was an easy-enough name to hear once and never forget. What was he like? Were his relatives nearby? Had he been here for long?

If taboos were rendered by divine mandate then surely fate would repel him from what he sought. Yet it was on the contrary. Her responses were most favorable. Mr. Clifton was without a choice at all—he was meant to return.

In the matron’s office, the boy looked up, weary. His gaze shifted between Mr. Clifton and the matron.

“What is it you want me here for?” he asked urgently. “You can’t listen to what Billy says. He’s a liar. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Dear lad!” Mr. Clifton chuckled and patted Tom’s shoulder (a teensy knot of bone). “You’re not in any sort of trouble. Do you remember what it was we discussed, when I was last here?”

He nodded. His response was slow. “Planes, it was. Sir.”

“That’s right! And engineering, as it were, if you’ll recall fully. After our conversation, I went home thinking  you had to be the cleverest lad I met in a good long while. Do you know,” he regarded the matron, “Tom here could explain to me how rotary engines work?”

She looked at Mr. Clifton, surprised, then smiled after. “Could he?”

“It’s because I read all about the war,” blurted Tom. He spoke with sudden animation. “We haven’t got a lot of books about it, but one of them’s got a whole chapter on how the fighter planes work, about the dogfighting and the aerial bombings. I remember all of it. I can tell you anything.”

“Is that so?” asked Mr. Clifton, engaged. “I wonder. Can you tell me what a synchronizer gear is?”

Fevered with a red tint, Tom nodded vigorously, and rambled.

His elocution was abysmal, the undersides of his fingernails caked thickly with grime. What a lively child he was! Speaking with little pause, with a curiously commanding voice. Tellingly—though Mr. Clifton pretended not to notice—each time he spoke, the matron leaned forward, with an air of apprehension. But again that was a matter of retrospect. No man could be faulted for seeing in him what Mr. Clifton so falsely saw.

—

Mrs. Cole was perplexed. Knowledge was no use for Tom Riddle. He could carpenter or assemble parts or perhaps work the docks—but he was no engineer-to-be. A man of Mr. Clifton’s status knew that as well as she did. He nevertheless invited Tom to accompany him to the factor for an educational tour.

Thusly assumed: Mr. Clifton intended to benefactor Tom Riddle. Mrs. Cole pinched his arm, hard, before sending him out. For a boy to whom no good thing had ever happened, this opportunity was rare and golden; he was to be on his best behavior.

II.

The boy petted the velvety plush of the cab’s interior with both hands. He did so as if the upholstery was an exotic furry animal, and he was a toddler on holiday: part curious, part skeptical. Mr. Clifton did not ask if he had ever been on holiday—he knew the child would cite the annual day-trip to Broadstairs, pitiful trip that was—but he did wonder aloud if it was his first ride inside of an automobile. Suspect black eyes wavered. Then smally, he nodded.

“No. I haven’t before. Sir.”

Oi ah-vent: this was how he said it. Mr. Clifton chuckled. The darling boy! His lot did speak queerly. Coming out his tiny mouth, being uttered by the pinkish, chapped lips, in that pure and untouched voice, the offensive sounds were nothing of the sort. A newborn feline’s scratch was never too painful after all.

“I’ll bet you know how they run though. Is that right?”

“Of course I do… sir,” he added. He had dimmed demurely for the small addendum.

“How about it then? Care to explain to me?”

“It’s loads of things going on. Most important part of it all is the engine, I should think. It burns petrol to spark and power the gears and – ”

Suddenly the boy gasped. The car’s steady rattling ended with an abrupt stop, and they were tossed forward before falling back against the seat. For a long moment the boy blinked and stared forward emptily. He did not pick up from where he left off even after many minutes more passed.

He was crossing his arms and peering out the window. They passed a hat shop, the tobacconist, a café. “We’ve gone well past the factory, sir.”

Mr. Clifton smiled. “Quite right you are, Tom. Winston,” he called to the driver who slowed in acknowledgment. “I believe here should be close enough. We’ll take no longer than an hour, if that.”

On the side street, once Winston was out of view, Mr. Clifton took the boy’s baby-soft hand into his much larger grasp. His dark brows cinched, but he did not shy back. Mr. Clifton tightened his grip and smiled down upon him before pointing up.

“Can you read that sign there, Tom?”

The black eyes turned upward to the wooden sign. “Exeter Emporium,” he read, stalely, without a pitch of comprehension. “Is it a… shop?”

“Indeed it is! It’s a clothing store, to be precise. The matron told me you turned eight very recently. I thought a boy your age ought to have in his possession slightly more grownup attire.”

The tailor—upon prompting—briskly stripped the boy of his coat and jumper, and stood him atop a stool before a mirror, then left for his tape.

A frivolous nymph he looked up there! The boy applied pressure to his cheeks, pinched his arm, tousled his trim-cut black hair

“You alright there, Tom?”

The boy turned about to Mr. Clifton, sheepish, as if he’d forgotten he was there. He was not smiling or expressing himself much at all. This irritated Mr. Clifton for reasons he could not quite place in the moment.

“We haven’t got big mirrors like this,” he said, turning his attention back on his reflection. On the perfectly gaunt vessel his soul possessed. “I’m tall.”

“You are,” agreed Mr. Clifton, for it was true.

Though he was tiny, objectively, for eight years old, he was well above average, even compared to well-fed boys; among his own kind, he was an outlier standing a full head above.

In Darwin’s theory, there was an exception to inheritance. Mr. Clifton wondered what it was called but could think of no single word or concept. He recalled however that this exception was the difference between the spawn and its spawners—a random change, favorable or otherwise, which separated son from mother and father. Mr. Clifton assumed such was the case with Tom Riddle. The lower classes very rarely turned out a boy who was clever, let alone so well-made. Even the tailor remarked on his exceptional good-looks as he wrapped the boy’s chest and declared his circumference 23 inches; his waist a mere 21. These numbers stirred Mr. Clifton. He excused himself for a smoke in the fresh winter air. Upon his return the boy was fully dressed in a single-breasted tweed suit a shade of brown. To finish the look, the tailor placed a newsboy cap atop his perfect head.

“I can have this?” asked the boy.

The expression on the boy’s face as he greeted his reflection was most unexpected. He was blank and wide-eyed in awe. He pulled at the fabric, straightened his hat.

“Of course,” said Mr. Clifton.

“Really?”

His disbelief encouraged Mr. Clifton’s smile. The boy smiled back.

La Grande Boucherie accepted them without reservation. Such was Mr. Clifton’s privilege—and for this short while, the boy’s too. At every artefact and detail he laid eyes on, he gaped. The restaurant was an endless hall and so white it glistened, sustained by pillars trimmed with gold. The chandeliers were long dangling fixtures beaded with jewels. They became of special interest to the boy who asked what their purpose was, as if the design was a matter of pragmatism. His commentary on the impracticality of Escargots de Bourgogne was similarly childish.

“The chef could of course pull the body from the shell,” explained Mr. Clifton, as he jiggered the small fork into the fleshy body. “But that would rob us of the pleasure of doing so.”

“I see. It’s for fun then.”

Meticulously, as if it were a matter of performing a task, the boy picked out each of his snails, and after, he ate adult’s serving of boeuf bourguignon, then all of his soufflé. Midway he looked ill. He could barely even keep his side of the conversation. The fare at the orphanage was always meager, but worse in recent years, if the matron was to be believed. Standardly the children each received a single slice of bread, thinly layered with marmalade; a stew of cabbage and meat trimmings for lunch; and for dinner, drippings and a clod of bread. Mr. Clifton did not doubt the boy had eaten in this sitting what he would normally eat over the span of three days.

“Your son has an excellent appetite,” said the garçon, as he retrieved the last of their plates. His accent was not French but something more barbaric and slurred. Mr. Clifton smiled at him as if it weren’t so.

“A growing lad ought to have,” he said cheerily.

The garçon eyed Mr. Clifton’s half-eaten plate, then regarded the boy directly. “Didn’t get it from your father, did you?”

“I—suppose not, sir.”

The boy had looked wide-eyed, as if he thought he should reject it. Such an ability to deceive was an important quality for such a boy to have, and it endeared Mr. Clifton all the more to him.

The boy seemed endeared too. On the ride to the factory, he chatted with less reservation and fewer pauses. Most of all, he wanted to see the hydraulic press in action. “They’ve got oil in them to make the pressure between the pistons. What’s called force is what makes the metal bend... It can press the metal sheets together for making skins... Skins are what there is on the outside of the fuselage and the wings, you know.”

Mr. Clifton wasn’t all that sure what he meant; in truth, it all bored him. But still, his lifelong exposure seeded in his mind several words which—though he could not quite explain in the total absence of context—he could repeat with some semblance of fluency.

“And I’m sure you could tell me how the fuselage is manufactured?”

“Of course I can!”

In the return ride from the factory, his enthusiasm was not abated, but tenfold. He had spoken at length to the assemblymen who found his fascination with their work quite precocious. When not looking upon the small beauty, Mr. Clifton’s sight shifted to the workers. Malformed chins, teeth brown-black with rot. Half-cut stubble sticking crudely out of greasy pock-marked skin. How terrible such men were. The stench of them was a heavy, foul scent reminiscent of spoiled dairy; of mildew. The very beads of sweat they perspired were received—in Mr. Clifton’s mind—like sewage runoff. It was jarring to see the boy’s future in contrast to his current precious self.

Whatever he would one day become, however, he was, for now, a boy.

“I would have liked to seen—”

Mr. Clifton placed a hand on his little fatless thigh. His rambling ceased. He peered down then up. He looked at Mr. Clifton; Mr. Clifton did not return his gaze.

“As you were saying,” encouraged Mr. Clifton.

He carried on, albeit more quietly. Occasionally he repeated his gesture—glancing down and up again as if expecting Mr. Clifton to acknowledge his mistake—but he never fully stopped until, at the sharp, sudden break of a corner-turn, Mr. Clifton’s hand slipped. His palm went further up. The boy dared not to expel his touch. He simply sat there, impassive. Mr. Clifton cupped him fully. Under no other intent could his action be mistaken. The car stalled at the curbside of Wool’s.

“They won’t let me keep this,” said the boy, quietly. “My clothes. It’s not allowed.”

“Nonsense. An exception shall be made.”

“You’ll tell Mrs. Cole?”

“I shall.”

“And you’ll—” He rubbed his left eye. “You’ll come round again, won’t you?”

Intently, Mr. Clifton raised his hand. He touched his knuckle to the boy’s small pointed chin. The boy did nothing at all. He boldly held Mr. Clifton’s gaze.

“I shall,” Mr. Clifton promised. “But for now, you best get going.”

Without another word, the boy nodded then left down the courtyard into the grim off-red dwelling; the only home the boy had ever known among staff who did not care whether he lived or died. Fate behaved peculiarly. The boy deserved better. He supposed all children did. Perhaps.

—

Miss Margaret—a nursery attendant at Wool’s, approaching her sixth year of tenure—giggled at the sight of Tom in his rather adult tweed attire. He looked old for his age usually, but the formality of the wear rendered him smaller and littler. His hollow cheeks burned an angry red when she called out.

“You can’t go round wearing that, now can you, Tom?”

“He said I can,” said Tom quickly. His stance was wide. “He said he’ll have an exception made.”

“Who was that then?”

“Mr. Clifton. He said he’ll tell Mrs. Cole. You can’t take them from me.”

Miss Margaret frowned. His clever brown eyes darted between each of hers.

“They’re mine,” he carried on, severely. “Nobody else can wear them. He got them tailored just for me.”

“But what are they for?” she pestered. “You know you can’t wear them around here, whatever Mr. Clifton says.”

“Then I’ll keep them on my bed,” he bargained. “And I’ll only wear them out. But you can’t let anyone else take them. He doesn’t want anyone else having them. He said he’ll be upset if he sees it. He can have people sacked, you know.”

She yanked him by the soft cartilage of his ear. He stumbled forward, then froze. A faint outline of muscles showed where his jaw was clenched.

“To your room. If I see you before supper, I’ll take you to fetch a switch. Is that what you’d like?”

Tensely, he shook his head. Two curt shakes.

“Good.” She released his ear, then—with a gentler touch—held onto his arm. “Now get this off and tucked away. You don’t want the boys having a go at you, do you? No, I should think not!”

Later Miss Margaret found Mrs. Cole alone in her office, squinting. Paperwork was spread haphazardly on her desktop. She took a long swig of her gin before noticing her visitor.

“Christ, girl,” she admonished. “You scared me. What is it? And get straight to the point.”

Miss Margaret closed the door behind her before speaking. “Yes, ma’am. It’s about Tom Riddle.”

“Lord help us all…”

“It’s nothing like that, ma’am. I was only wondering. Does that Mr. Clifton plan on adopting him?”

A stray look crossed Mrs. Cole. It passed, and she put her head down again. “I’m not privy to Mr. Clifton’s plans. But he has at least taken an interest. He seems to think Tom has potential.”

“I see, ma’am. That’s all I wanted to know.”

“Yes, well. I don’t want to hear you asking about it again. Am I understood?”

Miss Margaret nodded. “Of course, ma’am. Of course.”

III.

“Riddle!”

Tom snapped his book shut and straightened his back. Beside him, a couple of girls giggled. Mrs. Cage tapped her pointing stick in her palms, the blunted edge bobbing up and down, her small eyes in slits as she regarded him.

“Look sharp, Riddle,” whispered Billy. He sat in the desk adjoined to Tom’s own, and only Tom could hear him speak. “She doesn’t like you much.”

“Riddle,” she repeated (as Tom remained quiet, staring), “care to explain what’s so interesting, it cannot wait for my lecture to end?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cage,” he said simply. “I’ll put it away.”

She struck her pointing stick on the chalkboard. Dust puffed off the surface of it. “Best see that you do. And if I catch you again, you’ll be sent to the headmaster. Is that what you’d like?”

“No, ma’am.”

Into his school bag, he carefully slipped his book. He minded the edges so that they would not fray; the cover and the pages were still in such pristine condition they were sharp to the touch, though he’d read it from cover to cover several times. Last summer, Mrs. Cole—sorting through the book donations—had placed it in the pile to be sent elsewhere. He found it by chance. It was sat by the entrance in a big brown box along with many other adult-looking books Tom took the afternoon to finger through. He wasn’t a fool and he knew he could only reasonably hide one, but it was not a very hard choice to make. The gilded lettering read Machine Tools. On the bottom center—impressed into the deep green cover—was the angry face of Vulcan, god of fire. But it was not a book about myths.

The title page inside read:

MACHINE TOOLS

Commonly Employed in Modern
Engineering Workshops

by

JAMES WEIR FRENCH B.Sc.

Later down the page it mentioned this was the second edition. Tom tried not to mind it; he was quite accustomed to lacking things he wanted. But he wondered—just how many volumes were there? And what would it cost to acquire each of them? A man like Mr. Clifton could surely procure the whole set should he have an appetite for engineering. Tom was quite sure he didn’t. He didn’t seem to actually know very much—but a man with money didn’t need to, he could pay for other people to know stuff. Tom wasn’t sure how he felt about it. It stirred something in him that made him mad without a clear reason.

Tom of course wasn’t mad at Mr. Clifton. The very idea stirred his stomach foully (the finely pressed suit hiding between his sheets and his bedspread; the promise he soon return and take him on another ride). Mr. Clifton didn’t know about mechanics but he likely knew about other clever things, and there were many topics Tom didn’t care about at all. He hated baby stories and books with people kissing and books about things that happened a long time ago. Mr. Clifton probably knew all about French and Latin—they learned about those things in boarding schools, places far off in other parts of England where boys with parents were sent to learn other languages so that they could speak to people who couldn’t speak English. Tom sometimes heard people speaking French and Latin in Trafalgar and strained his ears to carefully hear if he could somehow comprehend them. For all that he would like to ask Mr. Clifton if he did know French and Latin, Tom also knew that he couldn’t. What if Mr. Clifton found his stupidness shameful? What if he no longer wished to be Tom’s friend?

The passing thoughts consumed his attention. Mrs. Cage had called upon him twice, and he hadn’t realized. Only when Billy poked his stomach—which made him clench and reel his fist—did Mrs. Cage’s hateful glare catch his attention. She was smacking the stick against her palm again, but quicker than before. The grin on Billy’s face was smarmy. His snaggled front teeth jutted out; they were slimy with spit. Mrs. Cage had her brows raised up the wrinkles of her forehead. Suddenly, in a red-flurry blur, he swung. He struck Billy squarely on his shoulder with almost all his strength.

There were gasps before the class went silent. Mrs. Cage cried for him to meet her in the corridor. He breathed until he was sure he would not cry, then followed her out: his mouth a tense flat line, his eyes wide and dry.

The headmaster clapped his rear with a strop and had the secretary run a note over to the matron (a three minute walk across the street and down the adjacent alley). He rued his decision to strike Billy through the rest of the school day; he didn’t know why he even did it! He could’ve more easily found him on the walk back to Wool’s! Billy Stubbs—though not an orphan—lived there because his terrible mother led the kitchens. He was the boy Tom hated most in town. He was a tell-tale and a bully; he pushed and shoved and spat at the other boys whenever he was certain an adult was not looking, and yet, at first opportunity, ran straight to the nearest adult to confide whatever misdeed he judged Tom to have to committed, whether true or not!

But that was not what he even hated most about Billy. Most offensively of all, he was in possession of a bunny rabbit which he oft used to persuade the other children to ignore his ugly behavior. Tom despised the bunny with all his heart. It was not even cute! It was fat and brown-gray with large, floppy ears like an elephant’s. The beady black eyes stared stupidly forward while it chewed on whatever leaf a child stuffed before its long whiskered snout.

After school, Tom did not return straight to the orphanage. So long as he was in his school-things he was not required to pay the bus fare. He darted up the stairs of the double-decker and got off near Camden Lock—far enough from Wool’s that he could be sure no one would recognize him. If he was not discreet with his actions he would have to account for his special abilities; and he could not.

There were certain things Tom could do which he was quite sure no one else could. He once or twice thought he should ask others, but he was scared. An odd niggling feeling in his tummy just made him know he ought not say it, that it was somehow perverse and profane. If anyone could be told, it would be Mr. Clifton, but Tom was not sure that was a wise choice either. The last time he saw him—one month ago now—he only wanted to ask Tom about odd topics. He nevertheless hoped to see him soon again.

In Camden Town the air felt cooler than it had in Lambeth. He knelt to pull up his woolen socks as high as he could stretch them beneath his trouser legs. The streets here did not bustle so horribly as they did near Wool’s. Two great brown steeds galloped by, dragging a carriage of old ladies in colorful dresses; behind there was a motorcar stalled by a pedestrian man in a suit like all the men wore.

Tom for once did not wish he was dressed more smartly; it did him well to look uninteresting and common. As he rose to his feet he came eye to eye with a bright red sign cattycorner him.

Delight Your Day with CRAVEN “A”

He was inspired.

The high street was busy enough. He stood wedged between two shops on the stoop of a plain padlocked door which seemed to go nowhere. Several men passed before—spotting the red-white box corner peek from his target’s coat pocket—he waved his hand curtly. For seemingly no reason at all: the bloke plunged forward, letting out a startled cry as he splatted on the pavement. Tom broadly grinned. A couple stopped to help the bloke back to his feet (“Dear me, I must have lost my footing!”), but, in the second before he was upright again, Tom waved his hand; and the box tumbled out onto the pavement. Tom gasped.

What a bang-up job he had done! His face went hotter as his smile got wider and wider.

“Oh, sir,” said the woman, touching her husband’s arm and pointing at the ground, “you seem to have dropped something.”

The man patted his pocket and chuckled. “Goodness, I am a mess today, aren’t I?”

Prickles irritated the back of Tom’s neck as the man returned the cigarette box back into his pocket. Those were supposed to be his now. He wanted to have them. When the next bloke with a pack in his pocket passed, Tom slapped the air with intent, and the geezer fell straight back onto his bum. He too realized his box had fallen out before he carried on down the way. On his fifth attempt Tom tripped the man twice—once so that he fell on his knees, and again so that he stumbled back, barely catching himself. The bloke spun around, evidently confused, before righting his top hat and speeding off in the opposite direction he had been going. Tom pounced the box of Craven “A”s. He stuffed them into his trouser pockets then promptly scrammed.

Fags! He was so clever to think of it. He smirked the entire ride back to Wool’s. Fags were far cooler than a bloody bunny rabbit. How they all envied Timothy Jacobs and Archie Whalley—the oldest boys in his dormitory—as they smoked through a gap in the window at midnight as the others could only watch with lips clamped shut. Tom was quite sure there was nothing special about fags as such. Archie’s brother, Eric, convinced Tom to suck on a half-smoked one he scavenged from the gutter, and it was a sour foul taste he could do without forever. But their rarity and adultness nevertheless made them something of a delicacy, and it was something that blighter, Billy Stubbs, would never procure. He was a coward and he didn’t have the guts.

As Tom entered Wool’s, he spotted the backside of Mrs. Cole: a long thin rail with a plait down the back of her neck. Her appearance, though always undesirable, did not dampen his excitement. He had forgotten all about the note that was sent to her until she turned about and set eyes on him. Realization snapped him in the face like an elastic pulled too taut.

“Tom Riddle! You know bloody good and well you should’ve come straight home, after what you did. Into my office, now! And what on earth—what’s that you’ve got there in your pocket? Oh, for heaven’s sake, Tom!”

—

A girl of nine giggled behind her hand. “D’you see that, Amy? Riddle’s got himself in trouble again.”

“He’s always in trouble,” said Amy. Amy was a willowy fair girl who stood a head shorter than her companion. As she spoke she swayed.

“It’s because he never had any family at all. Did you know that?”

Amy pulled her mouth open with two fingers before giggling and returning to the conversation. “He hasn’t even got an aunt or nothing like that?”

“No, he hasn’t got any family. He was born here. He killed his mum coming out of her. Billy told me! His mum had him here.”

The two girls stood in silence. Brightly, Amy shouted, “TAG!” and sprinted toward the courtyard.

IV.

Two months passed between Mr. Clifton’s third and fourth visit to see Tom.

The third visit—like the second one before it—was brief but pleasant. Winston drove the pair of them to the same café where Tom was treated to (deceptively filling) sweet breads called éclairs  and canneles. He felt foolish to discover during his second visit there that these were French items, and that Mr. Clifton not only spoke French himself but was also aware Tom could speak only English.

Fortunately Mr. Clifton seemed unconcerned by this and commented only that Tom had a “handsome flush” about his cheeks. (Tom later surmised he meant they got red, but could not workout what was meant otherwise.)

Uncertainty in the things Mr. Clifton said, by now, was not remarkable to Tom. Mr. Clifton frequently made queer remarks to which Tom could form no appropriate response. Tom believed they were meant as compliments, as Mr. Clifton praised his every action. And for that reason and irritating and childish and horrible thought recurred in Tom’s mind every night and every morning and intermittently throughout the day to shock him with a wave of nasty feelings; it was the shock that sometimes stabbed him in stupid moments—the short red-haired boy, alone like Tom was, midday in Piccadilly, nearly stepping out into traffic when a man lunged his arm down and scooped the boy into a hug; how George Blackburn called “Daddy!” as the dusty overalled man scuffled into the courtyard and cried as he grasped the stupid boy, like he was something precious and special when he was anything but. Tom scraped his teeth together not at the memories (irrelevant, pointless) but at how his own mind went in stupid, no good, balderdash directions.

In bright hours, on rare afternoons when the sun was out, Tom was a smidge more fanciful and tolerant of these silly notions. He had heard that fathers sometimes took their sons to do fun things, one on one, like attend the cinema or have a bite at a café even. But then again this was according to Billy, and Tom did not trust him at all.

The fourth visit began differently than the others. Each of the other times, Tom met him in Mrs. Cole’s office first, and it was always on weekends. This day was not like the others at all. As he walked the pavement, he was thinking about Mr. Clifton, about whether he knew about Eindecker aircrafts, planes deployed by the Germans in their war against England. The sun sat low in the slate sky; it was warm, and he was in his uniform shorts for the first time that year. The black saloon car teetered down the road with its gray bug-eyed headlights and the unmistakable sequence pinned on a sign on its front.

“Tom,” said Mr. Clifton through the open window, “please, my boy, come in, come in…”

He was behind the wheel himself—alone. When Tom popped up the backdoor’s handle, he insisted he instead go to the other side opposite his own.

“Are you alright, sir?” asked Tom once settled.

Mr. Clifton had no cap on. His hair was a mound of peanut-brown curls gelled severely at the hairline. He didn’t have an overcoat either, only a thin white undershirt, tucked into beltless trousers. Normally he was dressed properly and looked quite old. Suddenly Tom was aware he was perhaps the same age as Miss Margaret.

“Ah, well…” he sighed. “I suppose I’m well…”

Tom fiddled his book bag’s strap, and searched for a question. The ceaseless rickety sound of tire against the gravel was unpleasant to hear. “Are we going to the café, sir?”

“No, Tom. Not this time.”

“The factory?”

It wasn’t so. The motorcar bucked as they mounted the Westminster Bridge. Dull brown water from the Thames rippled all around; the great white eye of the clocktower leered over all from its high place. When Tom was smaller he thought King George lived inside of there so that he could see everyone.

“I’m afraid we have some rather serious matters to address, Tom.”

Tom gripped his elbows. His stomach had immediately turned. Mr. Clifton probably didn’t want to be his friend. And of course Mr. Clifton did not want to be his friend anymore! No one had ever liked Tom before.

“Just take me back then,” he managed to grit out. A furious tear fell from his right eye. He rubbed it with his wrists in a brisk gesture that would not make it obvious. “You haven’t got to say nothing about it to me. I knew you didn’t like me the whole time.”

He squeezed his eyes shut to subdue the awful crybaby tears forming. When he opened them again, he saw—through the wet blur—Mr. Clifton was looking at him with his mouth open.

“That’s preposterous, Tom,” he said emphatically. “Utterly preposterous!” He struck the dashboard.

“Then what is it you’ve got to say?” Tom bit back. He was not preposterous; nothing he ever said was preposterous. He was brilliant and clever. He wouldn’t be made to think himself stupid for inferring logical conclusions.

“Tom—you! God, you poor naïve thing.” He briefly moved his hand from the gear stick onto Tom’s bare thigh, and squeezed.

Tom shivered oddly at his contact on the skin there. The fingertips of the matrons sometimes scraped him, passingly, as they scrubbed him with the dreaded tough wet rag. That was all he ever felt. His eyes fixed on Mr. Clifton’s hand. The broad palm was beyond the width of his entire leg. The fingers, on which there were small prominent blond hairs, was not far from expanding the entire length of the bone from hip to knee. Tom had always felt that he was big; it panicked him that he was not.

“What the hell,” mumbled Mr. Clifton. He touched the center of the windshield then—with a hiss—pulled away. A brown-orange circle no larger than a pence coin had appeared from nowhere. “It’s been burnt…” He stuck his head outside the window but apparently saw nothing of interest, and continued driving with an eye on the peculiar tarnish.

Startled, Tom did not look at any glass at all. His leather shoe straps engaged him instead. Nothing was said until Mr. Clifton parked on a curbside.

“Come on, Tom,” he instructed. “I’ll explain inside. Come,” he repeated when Tom’s head had remained down.

Apprehension built inside of Tom when he saw the large pointy building set behind a brilliant green garden. He could imagine no use for it.

Mr. Clifton—having walked along the straight pavement pathway—glanced over his shoulder. “Tom? Why is it you’re standing there? Come along.”

“No.”

“‘No?’” he repeated with affront.

“No,” Tom said again. Though he was not sure, he was stubborn. He thought of Eddie Finch luring him to the cleaning cupboard and locking him there for the night. He loathed to be confused. He loathed to be misled. “You haven’t told me what this place is for.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Clifton. “I’m sorry, Tom. I see. I didn’t mean to scare you. This is my home. I wanted you to talk with you somewhere safe, you understand.”

The tone of Mr. Clifton’s voice was suddenly quite warm. His round shaven face looked down upon Tom with a wince and a smile.

When Tom crossed the threshold into the house, he was met by a scent like licorice. On a console to his right was a lamp with tassels hanging off its edges. He touched it with the point of his finger; it felt like the yarn he darned his socks with. Mr. Clifton waved him forward and called his name. Tom stepped circularly as he followed. He was curious about everything and wanted to see it all. Wherever he looked there were patterns. Beneath his feet was a brilliant red rug with several blue circles that—upon closer inspection—he realized were actually flowers connected by golden vines. And on all the walls there were purposeful grooves, straight and swirly and square, embossed like stamps.

“Here we are,” said Mr. Clifton as he fell back on a sort of couch with plush green fabric. He patted the space beside him and held Tom by his shoulder when he was settled. Distracted by the bookshelf holding hundreds of titles he could not quite workout from the distance, Tom did not think to look at Mr. Clifton until he cleared his throat emphatically.

“I didn’t mean to upset you earlier.” He stroked Tom’s shoulder as he spoke. It was odd yet somehow calming. “I know it must have all been very sudden for you.”

Tom twisted his lips and said nothing.

“You see,” said Mr. Clifton, “I was quite startled myself. I was visiting Mrs. Cole this morning to inquire on the topic of your future, and it appears plans have been made to transfer you elsewhere... Due, she said, to a recent incident...”

All of Tom’s skin pricked up. His words burst out of him.

“Billy’s a liar!”

“Tom—”

Shaking his head, clenching his fists, Tom hopped up and stomped his foot. “It’s not true! He always makes up lies about me! How could I have set his bloody conker on fire? How could I have done that? He didn’t have any proof!”

Mr. Clifton clasped Tom’s waist. Tom went entirely still.

“I believe you,” he said, gravely. “But you have to understand – only lunatics start fires. You must understand how this looked to the matron. They want to put you in the asylum.”

That horrid word startled tears out of Tom. He shook his head. “But I didn’t do it!”

How could he have? He had no lighter; he had no matches. The ability was his secret and they could not prove it on him. Mrs. Cole did not even punish him on the day it transpired. It was a week ago now, and he was sure it was behind him by the evening of the following day.

“She didn’t even get me for it,” he rambled. He wiped snot on his arm. “Mrs. Cole didn’t. She’s mad.”

A most peculiar action made Tom stop crying at once. In a single movement, as if he weighed nothing at all, Mr. Clifton lifted Tom onto his lap. Tom wriggled to get off; it was abnormal, only little babies were allowed to be held. Mr. Clifton splayed his hand over Tom’s chest to keep him in place.

“I presume you don’t want to be transferred to the asylum.”

Tom recoiled. “Of course I don’t!”

The asylum—on the street opposite of Wool’s—was not a place he knew a single thing about except that it was for lunatics. Lunatics! The white-eyed old freak who fell onto the streets screeching that the Devil had come for her; the bearded, tar-covered bloke bent forward permanently like a crowbar who screeched at Tom and Eric Whalley that he would burn them in their ‘ickle beds’. The coppers had come both times to take them back to the asylum from which they’d escaped.

“I’m not mad! I don’t belong there!”

“And I shan’t let them take you,” whispered Mr. Clifton. He placed a finger on Tom’s lips to hush him (a gesture for which Tom restrained the urgent violent desire to snap through the bone like a crocodile). “I,” he said softly, touching Tom’s cheek, “will ensure you’re taken care of … as long as you’re not lying, that is.” His eyes hardened.

More tears fell. Tom shook his head wildly. “I’m not lying!” Mr. Clifton looked at him plainly. Tom’s heart was painfully erratic in his chest. “You believe me, don’t you?” Tom pleaded.

Slowly, Mr. Clifton leaned in. Tom was dumbstruck. Gentle lips pressed onto his own, and remained there. Mr. Clifton had shut his eyes and could not see that Tom’s own were wide with shock. The hot breath tasted odd in Tom’s mouth; it reminded him of hard candies, but it was not pleasant. A sudden wetness on his bottom lip stirred him back reflexively. Mr. Clifton opened his eyes and—after assessing Tom for an expressionless moment—chuckled.

“I do believe you, Tom,” he said. His lips curled into a soft smile. “And I think you’ll find my faith in you to be very, very advantageous. Do you know what that means?”

Tom’s cheeks warmed. He felt embarrassed to not know. “It means that… it means that that you can advance me,” Tom contrived. And to his own surprise, he came to understand: “You mean that you give me an advantage. You’ll help me, help make sure Mrs. Cole doesn’t send me to the asylum.”

“God,” he breathed. He brought his lips again to Tom’s and sucked a whiff of air through his nose. “You’re such a clever boy, Tom. If I could choose it myself, I’d take you to live here with me.”

A thwarted gasp stuck spit in Tom’s throat. He coughed several times into his hand.

“Shh,” Mr. Clifton cooed. He petted Tom’s head—a movement like how the other kids petted Billy’s stupid bunny rabbit: with the back of his knuckles, very gently. “Do you think you would like that, Tom? To come live here with me?”

At the same time Tom felt chilly, he felt unbearably hot. His entire body was shaking. He was as confused by Mr. Clifton’s statement (which seemed to serve no purpose) as he was by Mr. Clifton’s actions (these things Tom could not comprehend). But he knew to live with Mr. Clifton would be a dream come true; except that his truer and stupider dream was still within him, and it fell out of his mouth like he was vomiting.

“Except if my dad comes. He could still come to find me. It could be he didn’t know where my mum went to.”

“Sure, of course,” said Mr. Clifton, patting him. “If your father were to come, you would live with him, naturally. But in his absence, which would you prefer? To be with me or to return to the orphanage?”

“You,” said Tom, bringing his fingers to his own lips, where a tingling feeling lingered strangely. “I don’t like the other kids, they all irritate me… And the matrons are always mean to me, no matter what I do. You’re the only one who’s nice to me.”

“How could I not be? You’re such a good, clever boy…”

While speaking, Mr. Clifton touched the sensitive flesh of Tom’s thigh and traced up until he was underneath the fabric of the shorts. The thrill put Tom in a daze. Ripples of nerves and awkward squiggles and cold jolts all over: it was as if his whole body was being touched, and not only his leg. He could not make sense of why Mr. Clifton was doing this; he somehow knew he could not ask him why. Mr. Clifton’s jagged breaths became louder and louder as he drew closer to where Tom knew he ought not to touch. (If caught touching themselves there the boys were forced to dip their hands in bleach. Punishments for boys who touched girls there were severer. It was wicked, they said.)

Yet Tom watched Mr. Clifton proceed without feeling anything at all. He may have not even been there at all if not for the occasional direction with which he blank complied (“like that” and “squeeze harder” and “now slower, dear”).

“You’re such a good boy, Tom,” he said into his ear, before, as if in parting, he kissed him there. He leaned back until they were no longer touching for the first time in an hour. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Ten minutes later they were in a dining area. The table was made of a solid glossy wood that Tom circle with his pointer finger while Mr. Clifton prepared biscuits and tea. The first two times he attempted to speak to Tom, Tom did not say anything; he broke a biscuit in two and set it back onto the plate, and glanced overhead where a five-bulbed light fixture dangled. The light burnt holes into his vision when he looked away, blinking.

“Oh, Tom, I just remembered. A locomotive exhibit is opening in Piccadilly soon. They’ll have the world’s oldest tramway on display, I read. And some early schematic of something called a Bessemer converter? I rather thought you might like to go with me.”

“Bessemer process…” said Tom vaguely. Words flashed into his mind. He could nearly read them again. “It blows air through the pig iron so that all the dirty parts of it are separated out when it's molten. Because the pig iron isn’t pure enough to be processed, it has to have the other elements taken out of it…”

He dipped his biscuit into the warm tea and fed it into the side of his mouth before swishing it back with a mouthful of the soft-tasting brew. He bounced a little in his seat. His muscles were eager to move.

“It sounds to me like you really would like to see it then,” said Mr. Clifton brightly.

Tom nodded.

“Brilliant! I shall get you for it. It should give you an opportunity to wear my gift. Would you like that, Tom? And don’t just nod—use your words, darling.”

After staring into space for the length of time it took to breathe deeply, twice, Tom nodded and said, “Yes, sir. I would like that.”

—

“He’s lucky I don’t go and have a piss on it. The way he acts.”

“You’re not the one who’s got a room with him, Billy,” muttered Eric. He nervously glanced at the vent. Bits of fabric stuck out from the bottom where they’d stuffed the cover back on.

The idea to put Tom’s posh outfit into the vent in the far corner of the room had seemed smart until Eric realized how dusty it was inside of there. He was not sure whether it could be cleaned when it was removed—for Tom was unusually clever and would surely see it there, if he did not bully the information out of Eric first. Billy had a way of displacing the fear Eric felt when he was alone with Tom.

“Riddle’s a squit. I wouldn’t ever be afraid of him. Not even if I was living here with you lot.”

“He does stuff when other people aren’t here,” said Eric quietly.

Billy waved his hand and made an amused noise. “Let him try and have a proper go at me. I’ll have him down in a minute flat.”

Half-believing Billy for the moment, Eric laughed. The imaginary image of Tom pinned down by Billy was funny and pleasing; for as long as Eric had been at Wool’s, Tom often refused to play nice and join them playing. He somehow thought he was above them all even though he was completely without any family at all. Billy had both his parents and loads of toys, and he never pretended he was too good for the other boys. And he had a bunny as well.

Happily, as other boys zipped in and out grabbing things from beneath their beds, Eric and Billy marched around the room pretending to be guards at Buckingham, then soldiers in the trenches blowing up Germans with pillows they pretended were guns. Eric did not think about Tom Riddle again until Billy’s mum swung round to pick him up.

And then Eric could think of nothing but Tom Riddle. He retrieved the stupid poncey suit and—while sitting fearfully in the loo—plucked off the last speck of lint.

V.

Halfway into June of ‘36, Mrs. Cole, accompanied by no less than thirteen small children, would enter the dining hall and find Billy Stubbs’s beloved pet bunny dangling off the rafters by a single strand of yarn.

In the year preceding the discovery, Tom Riddle had earned himself a place on each of the matrons’ radars. He was always a strange and noteworthy boy, but, to the best of her ability, Mrs. Cole had tried to keep it to herself—perhaps for her own sake as much as his. When first she saw the blanket floating above his cradle, she was sure her sleep deprivation had got the better of her. Looking back, she decided there may have been a strong draft. But surely a draft could never pick the whole of the boy up, and yet something had. In the wee hours of the night, when he was approaching two, she plainly watched him fly. From the second story, he had leapt out the window and flew down to the pavement, as lightly as a feather, straight onto his small bare feet. Years later, when lice spread, he cried in vain that he did not want his head shaven; and the next morning awoke with a full head of hair. He said he wanted a blue car—not a red one—when the toys were distributed, and, just as he said it, the color had changed. Like magic.

Regardless: Mrs. Cole had no choice but to tell the other children to stop their lying when one or another came crying that Riddle had “made the pudding float” or “tripped Miss Margaret” with his eyes alone. Just as she had no choice but to tell Billy Stubbs she couldn’t possibly punish Tom for something she couldn’t possibly blame him for doing. The rafters cross-beamed just beneath the apex of the vaulted ceiling. They were required to call in the fireman, no ladder in the orphanage could even reach that high up. She knew it was Tom who’d done it—it could have been no one else.

But she lived in two ways about the matter. Consciously she believed Tom Riddle was a normal albeit troublesome little boy and—beneath the surface—she fully knew he was anything but.

Mr. Clifton’s involvement was something Mrs. Cole initially hoped would improve Tom’s relations with the other children. If anything: he declined. If the children’s’ statements were to be believed, that was.

“Riddle spilled everyone’s milks all over the table!”

“Riddle’s turned the pictures all wonky!”

“Riddle made Tilly bleed! All he had to do was look at her, and now her nose won’t stop bleeding… and he took her yo-yo and won’t give it back! Really!”

However, the milks had turned themselves back up; the pictures looked completely normal; and while Tilly’s nose did go on bleeding through the night, she was better by morning, and her yo-yo—which, according to all the children, Tom had demanded her hand over and stuck straight into his pocket—was nowhere to be found in any of his belongings.

What was Mrs. Cole to do about any of it?

Anthony Richmond’s eighteenth birthday opportunely fell the day after the bunny rabbit incident. Mable Jenkins, who was due to inherit it, was a weak-willed girl who made no complaints when Tom Riddle was given the room instead.

“He may not be the oldest,” explained Mrs. Cole, “but he has been here longer than you, dear.”

To her surprise, Tom did not react when she informed him he was to have his own room. He merely wrapped all his things inside of his quilt and slung it over his shoulder like a tramp, and followed her there. She supposed if she really thought about it, it was quite in character for him to make no face and spare no extra word. He thanked her, perfunctorily, and went inside. She was lucky to not see much of him for the remainder of the month.

—

“That night, and for many nights after,” read Miss Margaret, with cheery enthusiasm in her words, “the Velveteen Rabbit slept in the Boy's bed. At first he found it rather uncomfortable, for the Boy hugged him very tight, and sometimes he rolled over on him, and sometimes he pushed him so far under the pillow that the Rabbit could scarcely breathe.”

The children sat around her chair in the shape of a crescent moon. Some sat on their knees; other crisscrossed. Amy Benson was the youngest among them. She twiddled her pigtail with both hands and rocked from side to side while paying no attention to the story.

In the far corner of the room something queer caught her eye. The only thing hanging on the wall was a round wooden clock—but it was doing something funny. Both the big hand and the little one were spinning rapidly round the wrong way. She nudged Ruby beside her and pointed.

“That’s not right, is it?” she whispered.  

Miss Margaret was oblivious to the small controversy that spread among the children. She was reading heartily and without pause.

“It’s Riddle,” whispered someone. “Look at him.”

Amy did. He sat very near to Miss Margaret (on the righthand side where she held her book and likely could not clearly see him). He was holding his knees to his chest and glaring straight at the haywire clock.

“And so time went on and the little Rabbit was very happy – so happy that he never noticed how his beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier and shabbier, and his tail becoming unsewn, and all the pink rubbed off his nose where the Boy had kissed him.”

Everyone—including Miss Margaret—startled when the clock-face cracked open with an ear-splitting clang.

VI.

One year to the day before Tom finally strangled that hideous stupid rabbit of Billy’s, he accompanied Mr. Clifton to the cinema. It was around their fiftieth meeting since their introduction on Boxing Day of ‘34.

“You’ve grown so much,” he remarked. Winston was driving, and Mr. Clifton was in the backseat sitting near enough to Tom that their legs were pressed together and his arm slung around his shoulder. Tom rested his head on his chest. “I’m amazed these trousers still fit you. I could almost swear the fabric stretched—but that’d be impossible, wouldn’t it?”

“I should think so,” said Tom quietly. The doors rattled loudly. Tom was asked to speak up a second time.

“I’m sorry, Tom,” said Mr. Clifton, lowering his head so that Tom’s lips faintly met his ear. He clandestinely toyed with the button of Tom’s shorts. “Say again?”

Though no more certain of his intentions than he was when it first happened, Tom was no longer nervous when Mr. Clifton touched him. In fact—he liked it. He nuzzled his head against Mr. Clifton’s chest for it was a movement always rewarded with praise.

“You’re a such a good boy, aren’t you, son,” he purred.

A pearly glint of pride warmed inside of Tom. Weeks ago he had asked Tom if he would be alright with being his son. The matter of adoption was not simple for an unmarried and well-to-do man like Mr. Clifton, but it was doable; he had assured Tom months ago that the paperwork was well underway.

Endless futures awaited Tom with Mr. Clifton as his ‘advantage’. Mr. Clifton had begun teaching him the fundamentals of Latin and promised to move onto French soon (Tom had lost some interest upon discovering nobody spoke Latin and it was a sort of entertaining academic pursuit with few applications in the real world). French was spoken all over by many people, like Americans across the Atlantic and the black-skinned people who lived in Africa.

On the tall globe setup in his smoking room, Mr. Clifton, puffing occasionally from a long pipe, pointed at all the places he had visited. Tom knew all there was to know about transport and yet had not ever fully considered it was possible for a person to have visited so many places. The train ride to the countryside had always felt such an impossibly long amount of time to simply sit and watch the landscape pass him by. But Mr. Clifton had sat inside of plane for twenty hours to attend a conference in Rhodesia with only small stops for fueling as they flew along the route. The two of them had established a straightforward routine for Mr. Clifton to regale Tom with tales of his travels: in afternoons, normally on weekends, he would take Tom to an activity (zoos and exhibits and restaurants) then bring him to his home where their time would divide between lessons and story times and displays of affection. Queerly Mr. Clifton insisted it was regular for fathers to share pleasure with their sons—Tom doubted this was true and often at night thought himself in circles wondering what it was they were doing, and why.

Tom thought about Mr. Clifton night and day, and found even his most favorite books less exciting than the mere prospect of their visits.

Inside of the cinema they always sat the furthest in the back of the mezzanine. Tom sat on Mr. Clifton’s right leg, draped his knees over his chair’s opposite armrest, and clasped his arms around his neck until they became too tired to stay up. The movie had a title he did not care for (“Oh, Daddy!”) and starred a woman who was meant to be attractive to the men of the film but whose fat, crooked, drooping nose reminded him horribly of Mrs. Cole. Rarely ever did Tom enjoy the picture shows, which did not seem to have a purpose at all except to display old people making idiotic faces as they discussed very boring topics that caused his attention to wither in and out.

Mr. Clifton entertained him more. He would sometimes fondle him over his shorts or arrange Tom so that his behind pressed firmly on the hardened appendage inside of his own trousers. The fluttery, tingly wave this sent down Tom’s extremities was always uniquely and oddly pleasing.

“Such a good boy you are,” whispered Mr. Clifton as—hours later—he sat Tom on the spine of his long black couch. He inclined his neck, and kissed Tom on the lips. Their tongues flitted by, wetly, until Mr. Clifton pulled away and unhooked his belt. “The world—” He brushed his fingers through the hairs on Tom’s forehead. “The world is wrong about so very much.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Tom consoled, though he did not really know why.

“No, Tom,” he said, lowly, “it’s I who should be sorry.”

For six full weeks, Mr. Clifton did not come get him.

Where the memory of Mr. Clifton should perhaps have faded during these intermissions, the opposite happened instead; he creepingly became the one sole thing Tom could think about at all. Everyone else was unbearably annoying to him. Dennis Bishop—a little one who was once again crying during the night that his stomach ached with hunger—grated Tom’s nerves down, and he could not think his actions through before they had transpired.

“I told you to shut up,” said Tom, lowly, as the boys around slept. His fingers clutched the weak column of the small boy’s throat. “I won’t be saying it again.”

The next day, Dennis squealed to the others. And Billy Stubbs, that flat-faced idiot who thought himself the self-elected protector of the weakest boys at Wool’s, shoved Tom in the courtyard as he was walking by.

“I’ll kill you, Billy,” he swore, as they tousled, throwing each other against the pavement. Tom mounted him and grabbed him by his collar. His eyes pierced into Billy’s for a long moment; and for all of a second Tom could see his own self, snarling, from above. Billy looked afraid of Tom for the first time ever. His blue eyes were stretched wide. “I’ll snap your bloody neck off you,” spit Tom, still.

Tom’s irascible mood did not vanish when—at long last—Mr. Clifton sauntered in just as Tom returned from Sunday service.

“When will the paperwork be finished?” asked Tom, imprudently, as he spooned his mashed peas around without once taking a bite. They were at a posh restaurant on Regent Street. An immensely fat lady was eating half of an entire chocolate cake. Her garish appearance was a convenient trap for his attention.

“Bureaucracy can be very tricky, Tom. Please be patient.”

Angered, Tom clenched the handle of his spoon.

The procession at Mr. Clifton’s house was routinized. Tom rarely reacted except to comply with the requested actions. The geometric patterns impressed upon the ceiling could engage his attention for hours if he needed. Before meeting Mr. Clifton, he struggled to dwell inside of his mind. He always itched to move and to observe and to test his abilities. The strange ways Mr. Clifton engaged with his body were, however, totally overwhelming, and he was paralyzed, but for the actual heart-tingling feeling of being touched.

A ricket sounded against the wall in constant repetition.

Distantly, Tom recollected that ginger boy in Piccadilly. His snot nose ran crustily over his top lip; he sounded babyish as he lisped the few words he spoke. He was not good-looking and he was not clever. If Tom’s own father knew where he was, he would have come for him. If he knew what he was like, he would have been so proud. Tom could remember everything he read, and no other child, boy or girl, could do that. Not in his class and perhaps not in the entire world.

He was special. The comfort of knowing this resounded in him until he noticed that the shadows projected on the wall beside him synced with each earful crick of the bed snapping against the wall. He hurt then and all night too.

Mr. Clifton picked him up the next weekend—but not the weekend after that. He was absent again for six weeks, then, on a Wednesday afternoon, rushed Tom into his motorcar while he was on his way to class. Mrs. Cole punished him without dinner because she did not believe he was telling the truth. When he met with Mr. Clifton again, three full weeks later, he did not acknowledge Tom speaking at all when he asked him why he didn’t tell Mrs. Cole. He asked about steam engines and Tom told him all he knew about them (and not for the first time). This selective loss of hearing came up again when Tom asked whether the paperwork was still in action. With his stomach painfully hot, he did not speak to Mr. Clifton until he was prompted to chat about—of all the bloody things—the state of the sweltering weather. In the eight week absence betwixt their next meeting, Tom floated a yappy stray bitch over a lamppost without so much as lifting a finger. He was so astonished he fell back onto his bum as the dog hit the pavement (dashing off, yelping). His stomach squelched and cried at the prospect of telling Mr. Clifton but Tom always held his tongue. He recalled, always, what Mr. Clifton told him all that time ago.

“I will ensure you’re taken care of … as long as you’re not lying, that is.”

–

Several times by now, however, Tom had learned he was the one who had been lied to by Mr. Clifton. The hot, white, sticky excretion was not an indication of “love”—it was meant for planting babies into women, and it was how they all came to be in the first place. The barefoot charcoal drawer by Lambeth Bridge told him, Eric, and Dennis as they scavenged for fag-ends. And apparently fathers were quite forbidden from doing such things with their sons; Tom had finally asked Miss Margaret whether it was normal, and she appeared so upset, he thought at first she intended to punish him. The call into Mrs. Cole’s office that evening gave him a start but was ultimately only a futile attempt to make him confess he knew where Tilly’s yo-yo had gone.

“She’s not even any good at it,” he said to Eric, who—sitting on the edge of his bed—was watching Tom spin the round body up and down the thread. “I can do loads of tricks.”

With a decisive throw of his hand, Tom unrolled it above him so that it stood straight up as if it was a balloon on a string. He kept it there by stare alone.

“I never saw nobody do something like that,” said Eric. He was inspecting it on his tippy toes. He stepped in too close and Tom could smell his filthy breath.

“Stand back,” he commanded. “You stink.”

Eric returned to his bed.

“I’ll bet I can do tricks nobody has ever done before,” said Tom, reeling the yo-yo back, inch by inch. When he unfurled it again he let it hang, and looked keenly at it.  “I’ll bet if someone had this wrapped around their neck too tight they wouldn’t even be able to breathe.”

“But they’d put you in jail for that,” said Eric quickly.

Tom raised his brow at him. “What are you on about?”

“If you wrap that round someone’s neck, and they died, they’d put you in jail for it.”

“Well—” Tom snorted. “I reckon if they caught who did it.”

There was a brisk knock on the door. Then came in Mrs. Cole. Tom hurried the yo-yo beneath his pillow.

“Come with me, Tom.”

Tom’s his head snapped to Eric. Eric, with a clueless vacant expression, did not seem to know why he was being called upon. He looked sincere. Tom nodded in acknowledgement—and gave him a look he knew communicated what would happen to Eric if he dared to touch Tom’s yo-yo.

“If we may have a few minutes alone,” said Mr. Clifton to Mrs. Cole when Tom arrived in the office.

He was in his winter coat with a briefcase in his right hand. Shocked to see him at Wool’s—for he never once before came so late—Tom kept himself coolly at arm’s length.

There was a suspicious look about Mr. Clifton. He leaned against the chair and tapped his foot. Horrible lurches squealed inside of Tom but he did not show it. The door shut behind Mrs. Cole, and Mr. Clifton shifted. He fell onto one knee and held his arm wide.

“Come here,” he said quietly.

“You never come at night.”

Mr. Clifton waved his hand. “Just come here, Tom.”

A reluctant second passed. Urgently, Tom went to him, sat on the knee propped there and hugged him around his neck.

“There’s a good lad. Getting heavier, aren’t you?”

“I’ll be ten next month.”

“Two digits… that really is something, huh? Listen—” He put a hand on Tom’s chest. “I came to tell you some bad news. I won’t be in London for quite some time.”

Tom did not move his numbing face one bit. He kept his eyes steady too.

“Before I left, I wanted to give you this.” From out of his breast pocket he pulled out a small leather-bound book. In bright gold letters on its front: The Elements of Mechanical Engineering. “And be careful how you hold it,” he lowered his voice, “I added an extra present in there for you as well.”

Whatever was in there—Tom didn’t care at all. He emptily took the book and held it languidly at his side.

“Chin up, lad,” said Mr. Clifton. “It won’t be forever.”

When Tom did nothing, Mr. Clifton took him by the chin himself. He tilted Tom’s head up until his pale bloodshot, eyes were all he could see. And Tom knew—if he really let himself focus—he would see through them, to the other side. But he did not.

—

Archie Whalley did not like Tom Riddle—nobody did. But nevertheless, he stirred out of his half-sleep to scuffle over to his bed in the dead of night.

Several boys were still awake; it could be understood by the decisive ways their bedsteads shifted with movement, how they coughed their throats clear of phlegm. Sometime after the lights went out, a child’s sobs broke open the silence. It was not too uncommon. It would not have been curious at all had it been any of the boys but Tom Riddle.

It wasn’t like him. He was always queer with his emotions. He got angry and he got mean, and he could stay quite plain for days on end, but he was never one to whinge or cry.

“You alright there, Tom?”

Tom gasped as he tossed back in his bed. “Fuck off, Whalley,” he spat in a hiccupy whispered voice.

Bathed in a deep dark gray, he could just make out Tom’s distressed teary face. He was only Eric’s age; a pipsqueak.

“What’s it you’re crying for?” pressed Archie, undeterred.

“I’m not crying. I’ve got a flu.”

“You get into it with that kid again? Billy?”

“I told you to fuck off!”

The lights flickered and the door—which ought to have been locked for the night—opened and closed. Archie, panicked, looked around. The other boys had all gotten to their feet in a start. Only Tom was in his bed: breathing heavily with angry tears stained down his red cheeks. He roared a boyish high-pitched grunt. All three bulbs hanging from the fixture shattered.

And for the whole day proceeding, Wool’s Orphanage was without power.

VII.

Tom was riding the double-decker with his crisp pound note secure in his left pocket when a middle-aged man sat in the empty seat beside him. Disdainfully, Tom took in the man’s profile (blue-eyed, sandy-haired, thick forehead wrinkles penetrated by sweat). As the bus bucked and juddered his leg occasionally hit Tom’s own and the unwanted contact badly chafed at Tom’s nerves. The man pulled the lever to stop at Hyde Park and carried out on his way. Briefly, Tom considered following him.

‘Not worth it,’ he assured himself.

The man had a gimp leg. He walked with a cane. Better targets awaited Tom in Kensington.

He spent the afternoon tripping suited men as they ambled past him. So honed were his abilities, Tom could send a man, swiftly, into traffic without so much as a twitch of his muscles.

The age of ten suited Tom marvelously. He was almost entirely free. Though never one to limit him, really, since moving him into his own room, Mrs. Cole hardly ever bothered to try and tell Tom what to do, so he came and went as he pleased. And his abilities were more than ever before—no one dared to cross him these days, not even Billy, the blithering powerless little bunny-less fool that he was.

Anyone who annoyed him paid for it eventually. Each night before bed he withdrew his keeps from their hiding place and placed them on the bed, side by side. Little thrills flickered inside of him as he ran his fingers along all the edges (the soft speckled curve of Anna’s thimble; the cold blunted edge of Michael’s mouth organ).

In school he never missed a single question. He was smarter than all his teachers and perhaps as smart as all of them combined. With the additional privileges given—now he was in his fifth year—Tom was allowed access to the library for the bigger kids where, in an lightly trafficked section, there were thirteen big thick books all about the weapons used in the Great War. At the rate he was going (for he was an exceptionally quick reader, perhaps quicker than anyone), he would be through them all by Christmas.

Tom knew that he was invincible. He could not, however, overlook the threats lurking in his midst. The matrons avoided speaking to him, and yet, when he was not making it clear he noticed them, it was on him that their eyes eternally lingered. As if attempting to catch him up to something they could use to incriminate him. He did not fear them nor anyone else. Should the occasion arise where he was forced to flee, his options were thus: kill those who sought him harm, then board a train bound for France. He kept his pound note on him, always.

On the fifth of December, as he came into the orphanage—chewing bubblegum—Tom was in high spirits. His coat pockets jangled with candies. He could, by murmuring, “Come to me,” make small items disappear from the places they were supposed to be, and appear in the palms of his hands. It was his newest ability, and he was eager to practice some more in his room. He turned the corner and bolted upstairs by taking two steps at a time. Carelessly, he threw open his door without assessing risk of danger.

The boy gasped. Mr. Clifton raised his hand in a calming gesture

“Tom, relax,” he said, “it’s only me here!”

But the boy was not mollified. He stood there, mouth agape, taking shallow breaths. He was not the darling poppit his memory served—he was a tall and scrawny thing, with a manlike face far too mature for the age he was.

He convinced the boy to sit with him on the bed. He put his arm around him and felt small bones beneath his coat. “It’s so lovely to see how well you’ve grown, Tom. Look at you!”

The boy shrugged him off in a snap gesture. His dark eyes were scrutinizing. “What do you want?”

Mr. Clifton scowled. “I came to see you. Can’t you tell?”

“You’ve got another reason.”

“Tom, I’m here to simply—”

“Tell… the… truth.”

He gritted out each word, one by one. And suddenly there was an odd and nauseating reverb in Mr. Clifton’s head. He held his temple and then shook himself alert. When he looked at the boy, rightly, he gasped. He was now standing in front of him with a bestial incensed expression.

“You came to make sure I didn’t tell anyone.”

Mr. Clifton chuckled forcefully. “Tom, goodness, I came because I care about you! Don’t you remember what good friends we were?”

“You’re a liar.”

The certainty in the boy’s voice was brutal and frank. Mr. Clifton snorted hotly. The kittenish beauty was no more; the horrible fate of all innocent nymphs was inevitable. The lank fair effortless beauty of a darling, lightweight thing, curled in his arms, with the unknowing doe eyes and pliable tight body. If only Mr. Clifton could have frozen him in time. Instead, he was being faced with a penniless cretin, the very likes of which gathered around his carriage reaching for spare change.

In retrospect it was all too clear what this child was: filth.

Wreaking and filthy. Still to this day his fingernails were caked with grit, his long proud mannish nose smudged by grease. But it did not matter how readily the child could regurgitate facts with his dastardly filthy lips. Why did Mr. Clifton think it mattered? He was filth. He would rot.

And perhaps all along Mr. Clifton knew this affair would end no more sweetly or charmingly than other unfortunate transactions with tarts who defied him as if it was their right. Perhaps this time he’d finally learn to not expect manners from those incapable of learning them. His lot learned only by force.

“Listen to me, you uppity louse.” Mr. Clifton rose to his feet and snatched the boy’s face. Hateful black eyes glared up at him. “I came here to play nice, but if you wish to make things difficult, then difficult they shall be. There isn’t a soul on this earth who gives a damn if you live or die. I can pay any one of these urchins a penance to cut your throat, and no one would so much as bat an eyelash. If you attempt to slander my name to the staff here, or anywhere else, they will have you sent away someplace you’ll never see the other side of. It would not even be hard for me; that is how little you or your word matter here. Am I understood?”

The child was shaking. He stepped back on trembling feet, his chin quivering. Remotely Mr. Clifton could see the cute boy he’d left behind. In the time since—burdened by the tedious requisite of his family to marry a woman he had no trouble impregnating—Mr. Clifton imagined Tom one thousand times. He was an annoying child but always sincere. Naked: he was divine. And the bittersweet melancholy of that memory—that lasting image of an angelic black-haired little doll with tiny elbows and a miniature nose—made Mr. Clifton feel generous.

“I’ll pay you five pounds, quarterly. I’ll send it in the post and tell the staff not to interfere.”

“Shove the money up your arse,” spat the boy, coldly. He was clenched up, blistering red. He reached in his pocket and then tossed something at Mr. Clifton’s chest.

A pound note fell feebly on the floor. It was the money he passed to the boy last year; he had not spent a cent of it. Instantly and blindingly livid, Mr. Clifton grabbed the boy’s collar.

Then everything faded around him. Not to black, but to white: a surreal heavenly opal-white shining resplendently with all the light there was in the world. A man was crying a horrible, loud, blood-curdling screech. Mr. Clifton blinked and realized it was he who screamed. He choked and sputtered and gasped. Pain beyond comprehension and beyond all recognition had shredded down every inch of his flesh, inside and out. Yet just like that—it was gone. He patted his person down and found no sign of in jury. The boy smiled awfully at him.

Mr. Clifton ran. In a letter he renounced his position on the board. He never returned to Wool’s Orphanage again.

—

Tom spent the month of December with never-ending fear of the day Mr. Clifton returned. Over time the fear became intermixed with sadness. His dreams, however idiotic and pointless, flooded his eyes with fresh warm tears he forced back inside of his ducts with shaky breaths. With the crumpled pound note, left behind in their penultimate encounter, Tom invested in the brass switchblade with which he would one day gut and gouge him. In the meantime it was additional security against hired assassins.

Once summertime came, Tom was feeling much calmer; he had even begun exploring the outskirts of London, where, in marshy waters, serpents lurked and were eager to converse.

By the time Albus Dumbledore came, Tom had let his guard down almost entirely.

“How do you do, Tom?”

The geezer stepped toward Tom with his age-marked hand reaching greedily forward. His freakish suit was the color of plum marmalade and velvety like fine upholstery. Tom forced himself to shake the man’s hand. He ignored the ill swell in his tummy. He put his hand in his pocket, on the handle of the blade.

Next, the geezer sat beside him without even asking if he could. "I am Professor Dumbledore,” he said, sounding merry and odd.

The fine hairs on Tom’s neck stood up. “‘Professor?’”A cold chill covered Tom. He felt his blood pulse. “Is that like 'doctor'? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?"

He pointed at the door. This Dumbledore smiled.

“No, no.”

“I don't believe you,” he told him, lowly. “She wants me looked at, doesn't she? Tell the truth!”

Into the man’s pale blue eyes—this evil color Tom did not like; this color he despised—Tom glared and pressed. But there was no pop; no thoughts, no sounds, no sights. Tom briefly smelled the briny ocean water of the cliffside.

“Who are you?” whispered Tom.

“I have told you. My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school — your new school, if you would like to come.”

Horrible dread built back its momentum. Tom shook his head. He shook all over. He leapt to his feet and stepped backward, toward the window. He could run. He would.

“You can't kid me!” he shouted. “The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? ‘Professor,’ yes, of course — well, I'm not going, see? The old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!"

“I am not from the asylum,” said Dumbledore. He looked meanly at Tom. "I am a teacher and, if you will sit down calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you—”

“I'd like to see them try,” threatened Tom.

“Hogwarts,” Dumbledore continued, “is a school for people with special abilities—”

Tom shook his head again. “I'm not mad!”

“I know that you are not mad,” said Dumbledore.

He spoke in his menacing calm voice that was making Tom feel worse and worse. It was as if a fist had grabbed his guts was twisting them around. His fingers twitched; in a single quick move, he could get the knife out. He could stab him and flee through the window. He could run for Paris yet.

Then Dumbledore spoke the words that would change everything. All that ever was would fade into irrelevance; every fear he held inside of him, past and present, would cower.

“Hogwarts,” said Dumbledore, looking over his spectacles, smiling slightly, “is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic.”