Archive of Our Own ^beta

It ends the way it was originally supposed to.

Merope Gaunt dies due to her son.

But this time he is seventeen years old, closer to eighteen than a mere twenty minutes old and still covered in afterbirth.

Tom removed the pillow from his mother’s head after the deed was done. Her face was lax and no longer tense, but her walleyes still somehow looked panicked. He set the pillow back on his bed tiredly; there wasn’t a mark on it.

Almost as though she hadn’t fought at all.

Getting up silently, the springs of the bed barely creaking as he stood on the damp wooden floor, he took his only pair of semi-formal robes out of the wardrobe. Cashmere. Second-hand of course, and almost instinctively brushed them down with his hands.

A matter of routine.

They had lived in muggle London for so long; one of them with the only magical capabilities being her potion making and the other with the trace still on his wand, that it didn’t occur to use magic to straighten out the creases and remove the smell of mothballs.

Not for his muggle loving mother.

Instead, he got the iron out and with practiced hands, ironed out his suit using only the low lighting streaming in the window. The streetlamp outside a constant illumination, now enabling him to not alert any passers by that there was something wrong inside the building.

The world was silent, bar from the slight hiss as he pressed the material mechanically. And he felt nothing for Merope, but from the lingering tentative traces of her fingers as she had tried to touch him.

He lit a cigarette distractedly, flicking the ash on the carpet that he hated. He held it between his lips as he straightened out the lapels of the robe. Perhaps he would go up north to visit his father whilst he looked for a new place to live.

He would arrange the burial tomorrow.

#

From a very young age, Tom knew there wasn’t something quite right with his mummy. Not only physically, but in her head.

She was ugly and bedraggled, alone in the world but for Tom. And she clung to him fiercely in a clingy manner that even as a baby he had found too much.

As soon as he was able, he was scrambling away from her. On all fours, then on two wobbling legs. Doing his own thing and maintaining a healthy distance from everything. He had taken a liking to playing with the neighbour’s toys and tormenting their cat.

For as long as Tom could remember, they had lived in a small, rented room in a shared house in the back end of London. He didn’t know when his mother had taken up there, but for the grace of Mr Dudley who had felt pity for a widowed new mother, as that was what she had claimed when she had been looking for lodgings.

The house was damp and depressing with mouldy wallpaper and poor plumbing, and a shared toilet with all the other residents, but it was a roof over their heads and all Tom had ever known.

And though they had to share a bed, he was young enough that it didn’t bother him, even when his mummy would pull him in too close to her enveloping him with her body.

The other young mothers tended to avoid Merope, and when they spoke to her and of her, they spoke with pity in their eyes. A cruel pity.

For they also had nothing; no money, no husbands, and several neglected children but they still had marginally pretty faces.

Tom, however young he was, had an instinct for those kinds of things. The interactions that these women thought they were bring subtle in, that Tom was too young truly understand.

And in many ways, he was a little too young to understand what the exact issue was. But he could tell these women did not like his mummy.

He didn’t really like his mummy either. She was a bit mad, cloying and weak.

But she told fantastical stories.

She spoke of magic and ancient blood lines.

And Tom began to appreciate that they weren’t actual stories to her; she was too stupid, too short-sighted to have made them up.

Mummy didn’t have any friends, and often waxed lyrically about his father who had abandoned them. That was mummy’s fault. She actively mentioned it all the time.

By the age of five, Tom had done away with any facsimile of love he held for his mother. ‘Mummy’ had become ‘mother’ overnight.

He understood the not-so-quiet women in the shared house that they lived in now. They openly speculated how such a handsome boy could have come from an ugly wretch like Merope.

That if Tom even looked one iota like his father, Merope must be absolutely filthy to have had him even once.

Tom didn’t know what that meant. Mother was certainly not the cleanest of people. She did not keep the room in a state that Tom approved of. But that surely wouldn’t have appealed to his father?

Mother was the reason his father was no longer there. Tom certainly doubted most of the things that came out of her mouth, but not that.

Tom also knew Mother spoke the truth about magic, as he had seen it himself when she had finally taken him to the wizarding world.

Even if he couldn’t afford to buy anything in Diagon Ally or Knockturn, he had seen enough to know it was real.

He had also seen the way that people sneered and scowled at his mother as she walked through, trying to beg for money.

And Tom was ever the quick child; smart as a whip and driven by a hunger that his mother could never understand, nor hope to.

Mother knew this world that she could not truly be a part of, and the people sneering at her knew that too. A person who was as weak as his mother was, and so clearly inbred, belonged in the wizarding world.

Mudbloods, he would learn later, never came to the wizarding world looking like her or being so magically poor.

Tom came to understand very quickly that Merope was the consequence of fanaticism.

He asked her where they were from. Who were they?

To learn that he was of an old and pure, pure bloodline was relieving for a child so attracted to status as he was. He was not just some cockney, bastard child. He was the descendant of an old line, one of the founders at the school he would one day attend at that. Tom at first was scathing about the story, for his mother had that inclination of making things up as a negative aspect of her character.

But there was proof; he could speak to snakes.

A rare trait his mother flinched from and wouldn’t engage with, but Tom loved it.

For London, there were a striking number of snakes around their neighbourhood.

Magic was real, and Tom belonged to it.

He could make things happen if he wanted them too. He broke Anna’s arm for badmouthing his mother. All the way from the otherside of the house.

No one knew it was him, of course. They feared Merope herself had done it. Afterall, she was the one who looked like a witch.

And Tom, her beautiful changeling son, who she must have stolen from a beautiful couple somewhere.

Pathetic muggles.

The fellow flea-ridden children of the house liked Tom… well enough. They were weary of him and his often-unprovoked viciousness, but he learned to hide that quite quickly and misplace the blame onto his mother.

Even then, Tom quickly begun to distinguish himself from them. Maturing quicker and outpacing them intellectually.

He began to long more and more for the wizarding world, craving the expansion out of these four muggle walls.

But mother could never afford to leave. She had got a job - a poorly paid job - making potions for years. One to keep them afloat but still needing to share a room, and a bed.

And remaining in muggle London.

At seven, Tom craved his own space.

Mother laughed at him, telling him he was only a child and she had had to stay in a house not much bigger with her father and brother for years.

When Tom mentioned meeting them, she grew quiet and cold. Her bony hands smoothed over his cheeks, “You look so much like your father,” she remarked, her gaze lingering on his eyes and lips. “They’d beat you to death for having such a muggle face.”

Indeed, Tom knew from the whispers, from the books, from all the resources he could connive his way into looking at whilst his mother slipped into the backrooms of Knockturn, that he did not look like a Gaunt.

Not like any Gaunt in history.

The Gaunt’s looked as though they had stopped one step back on the evolutionary scale. Brutish and crude.

Thick fingered. Broad-faced with pronounced foreheads.

Tom, despite being young and rounded with minimal puppy fat, already had the face of an aristocrat.

In this instance, he was grateful for his mother. For her odious appearance gave some credence to his claim to the Gaunt name. No matter how much they sneered at what the line had been reduced to, no one ever disputed her claim that she was a Gaunt.

And fortunately, it seemed no one really interacted with the Gaunts at all, having written them of as mad animals.

Tom was the new start for the Gaunt family.

For Tom had no use for the name Riddle.

Being a Gaunt, and only being a Gaunt, gave him some leniency and latitude when it came to social niceties.

They never mistook him for some mudblood. Muggleborn children under eleven any wizarding place were never seen, but he could well have been the runt of some mudblood whore in their eyes. At first.

Everyone knew the Gaunts were mad, broke and savage.

They expected him to behave like a brute.

And so, when he turned up in Knockturn Ally scruffy and dirty, it was acceptable for him. (Except it wasn’t and Tom hated it.) He was not so different to the Gaunts’ at that young age either. Filthy hair and skin because of limited water resources and muggle London’s polluted air. Unwashed clothes because Merope was often too weak to make a good job of it.

Tom did not blame her for that so much when he grew up, but when he was a child, he despised her for it. For her laziness.

However, Tom had been raised knowing who he was, even if his home was in a rough muggle neighbourhood in London. He had snakes flocking to him if he so desired, and so when he headbutted young Malfoy, shattering his nose with the force of it, he sneered at the fallen boy, “I’m a Gaunt, actually.” Before setting five snakes on him.

The Malfoy family were furious at the behaviour, but ultimately knew their place. Tom was a descendent of Slytherin.

The Gaunts were the old stock, their twisted and corrupted blood meant they were mostly untouchable.

They also didn’t have a knut to give to make the problem go away. It would be a worthless endeavour to make a mountain out something that could be fixed with the flick of a wand.

Tom was blatantly a smart and cunning child, the current head of the Malfoy family could see that. Not cunning enough yet by any stretch, but very obviously a boy would be devious.

He was the personification of his ancestor’s house. And undeniably so, for the snakes danced around him and enjoyed coiling at his feet in Knockturn.

So, the young Abraxas Malfoy was reprimanded of his manners, and told to apologise for inciting violence against the young Gaunt heir.

Tom began to get a taste for power and authority.

It was one thing to tell his mother what to do, to insist she leave him be. Let him wash in peace, let him sleep on his side of the bed…

But to cow someone of worth? Well, he could not wait to get to Hogwarts.

#

At eleven, Tom got to meet his father. Tom Riddle Sr was rather taken with his son, once he got over the fear.

It was ironically Professor Dumbledore who arranged the initial meeting.

The professor had come to their small room with Tom’s Hogwarts’s letter and sat gingerly on the edge of the only chair the room had to offer.

Tom and Merope had sat on the edge of the bed, Merope pressed against Tom as if she could protect him from the real world.

Dumbledore eyed the only bed with something akin to concern, adjusting his glasses calmly.

Tom had started to make Merope sleep on the floor of the room. He was too old for them to be sharing a bed, and they could not afford to buy two separate ones nor get a small cot for one of them to sleep on.

He also knew it was not normal for them to be sharing a bed at all, so he had stopped it. Forcibly.

Tom smiled, excited when he saw the Professor. Perhaps he had come because the heir of one of the schoolhouses was finally returning to Hogwarts? Tom was not aware that this was standard procedure from what the other wizarding children had said to him.

Merope settled her hand on the back of Tom’s neck, squeezing gently. He tried not to scowl at the contact. His shoulders grew tense.

“We do not normally come to visit wizarding families, but seeing as your neither your mother nor her family, have attended Hogwarts for many generations, we thought it best to drop by when we received your letter of acceptance, Mr Riddle,” Professor Dumbledore said with a slight smile. He rested his cup of tea on his knee.

Tom had made it for him. Merope couldn’t do anything correctly, and Tom had realised the muggle-soft fools of the wizarding world had liked to see humbleness.

Tom needed no validation that he was special from this man, but it paid to give the right impression to the deputy head teacher.

So, despite the flash of fury that accompanied the use of that muggle name, he ducked his head and said plaintively, “Please, sir. I go by my mother’s name, Gaunt.”

The professor gave him a considering look with his sharp blue eyes. “Our records still show you as Thomas Riddle.”

Tom tried to not let his hands fist in his trousers, “My mother’s marriage was never annulled and my father has had nothing to do with us since before I was born.” He looked at the bridge of Dumbledore’s nose, “I want no attachment to him or his name.”

Merope had been very upset about that when he first told her but had accepted his choice after some choice words from Tom reminding her of their misfortune.

The professor made a considering and appropriately sympathetic noise to that. “Perhaps we can facilitate and meeting between you, if you have not met him. Your father is a muggle, correct?”

Tom frowned and Merope looked hopefully towards the strange man in his bright, burgundy suit.

“Muggles can find us hard to understand, even fear us, but that does not mean they are bad people. Perhaps some mediation is in order,” Dumbledore continued, taking a sip of his tea.

Merope opened her mouth, the gushing sound of her delight bubbling in her throat when Tom’s hand grabbed her knee, digging in a little.

“I don’t want that, sir. My mother and father did not…part on the best terms,” he tried. He did not want anything to do with that muggle.

Why would Dumbledore do this?

Perhaps it was explicitly because Tom was a Gaunt? Did he think Tom was the same as all the others before him? Did he want to mellow Tom out towards the muggles?

Merope closed her mouth with a click, disappointed. She shot Tom a hurt look.

Dumbledore looked between the two of them, and at Tom’s painful grip on his mother, “Mrs Riddle, could you spare me a moment alone with Tom, please?”

Merope looked all flustered before getting up to leave, Tom’s fingerprints stark red marks on her leg as her skirt shifted. She smoothed out Tom’s hair, although it was perfectly combed.

He tried not to scowl too much.

The door closed softly behind her, and Tom knew she would be lingering at the door, eavesdropping.

“Now, Tom – may I call you Tom?” Dumbledore asked, shuffling forward. At Tom’s terse nod, he continued, “I do not wish to speculate on what happened between your mother and your father, or even how you may feel about that, but if you do wish for some reconciliation then I would be more than happy to help. It might be good for you to meet your father. It never hurts to broaden our connections.”

Tom’s feet were only just brushing the floor, even sitting on the mattress that was almost entirely flat. He stared at them contemplatively.

He had seen enough reactions from adults and children alike to know that his vehemence against muggles was both pleasing and equally displeasing depending on who he spoke to.

He knew Dumbledore was considered a muggle-loving fool by some, and an up-and-coming person of standing by others.

Tom had had a lot of practice playing with people.

He knew it might be best to accept the professors help, instead of burning his bridges before he even got to school.

“Wh-what if he doesn’t like me?” he asked his knees, meekly, “My mother scared him. She’s never said as such, but I- I think she kept him with her through coercion.” He fiddled with his shirt sleeve.

Dumbledore’s hand settled on his shoulder, and Tom jumped despite himself.

The room was really too small, Dumbledore hadn’t even had to get up to reach him.

“I’m sure he will not hold any fault or quarrel he may have with your mother against you,” Dumbledore said kindly. He tactfully did not remark on the squalid environment Tom was subjected to. Nor question the only bed and the hastily folded cot.

When the professor left, Tom was sure that was the last he would hear of it, that his father would refuse, and Tom would look all the better for having accepted the meddling old man’s advice and help.

But he was wrong. And before he knew it, Tom was in the village of Little Hangleton and meeting his parental family.

Who were rich.

His father had a haunted look about him, and refused to speak to Tom beyond greetings at first. But he began to warm as Tom affected some of his own mannerisms back to him. Tom never gave an inclination to his father that he might have the same skills as Merope, even spoke disdainfully about her to his father.

It was remarkable about much that made the elder relax.

And Tom, never particularly inclined towards pity before, began to understand how a muggle might feel powerless compared to a wizard.

It was thrilling.

But Tom felt cowed by seeing that look of terror upon his own face. Muggle this family may have been, but they were minor aristocrats in their own right.

It was very confusing to see how lesser beings lived when they were rich and had everything they could need.

Especially when Merope and Tom lived in a shithole, and despite Merope being a witch she could do nothing to change it.

How could both his parents disgust him?

One for being born an animal and the other for acting like one.

Tom’s grandmother loved and doted upon him. He played up to her, occasionally shy and bashful, but incredibly bright. His grandfather thought he was a chip of the old block and encouraged Tom to help himself to the many literary works in the library.

Merope was never allowed to come for these visits, and Tom was glad for it.

She did not fit in with the picture of the perfect family that Tom made with these muggles. He didn’t like them, much like he didn’t care for any muggle… but he found he did not despise them.

How could he when he saw the house that would one day be his? The money that would be his?

How could he hate what he could use so effectively?

When he saw the shack that his mother had come from, and the terror of a man who lived inside it come scowling out?  

Was this the true cost of blood purity above everything else?

Muggles were muggles, but flushing the pure family line with filthy muggle blood had made someone as brilliant as Tom.

Muggle blood had renewed the Gaunts completely.

Even though the Riddles adored Tom, Merope and her son were still the shame of the family and it was with great relief that mother and son remained in London. With the filthy little Gaunt family shack remaining with only one grotesque uncle in it, the village had almost forgotten about their existence in the past decade.

That being said, the Riddles began to send money to Merope every month for Tom. They offered to speak to the family’s alma mater, where all the men had been educated for years so that Tom could retain a place there.

If it wasn’t for Hogwarts and magic, Tom would have been inclined to accept it. But he had a far more illustrious future planned for himself.

Tom spoke well for a child raised in the slums of London, but there were some words he had only heard other cockney children say. He did not know how to pronounce them any other way, and the wizarding children he had been exposed to were not the type to help him hide any uncouthness.

His grandparents gave him a look of such pity, it was as though Tom had exposed a grotesque scar to them instead of mispronouncing a word.

They paid for elocution lessons instead.

He had a few months before school began, and now all the disposable income he could ever need. Tom could turn himself into a new person in next to no time.

Tom made sure Merope gave all the money to him. Merope had never had money before, and she looked at the piles of shillings and crowns like an orphan being offered fresh bread.

Tom was more pragmatic about it. Setting money aside to cover the rent in their new small flat with separate bedrooms, the food, the bills. Some for himself of course, for it was Tom’s money rather than hers.

Merope was stupid with that kind of money, inclined to buy frivolous things with it. Pretty dresses and jewellery.

The kinds of things that she never really had, and unfortunately could not compliment her.

She would stroke Tom’s face, lingering inappropriately at his lips and cheeks. “Tell me I look pretty, Tom?” she would ask, breathily.

“You look very pretty, mother,” he would dutifully tell her, wooden and bored with it. “Have you cleaned the flat today?”

“I was too tired,” she said, leaning in to press her nose against his hair.

She took in greedy puffs of air, smelling his shampoo and Tom let her for a few moments. He was used to this increasingly despicable behaviour for many years.

The lingering touches, the looks, the way she would ask him things.

Tom wasn’t one to initiate touch, but he would accept it. He had seen enough mothers to know Merope had always been overly affectionate, but it had changed now to become more inappropriate.

The coddling should have stopped years ago, but even for an affectionate person, there was a desperation to her that was unsettling.

Merope let out a reedy sigh, her body relaxing into his and he reared back to avoid further contact with her body.

He stood up sharply. “I have some prerequisite work to complete, Mother,” he said, pushing her shoulders away from him until she took an incredibly reluctant step back.

It was bizarre to have this much money and not live in luxury, but Tom wouldn’t allow it. He needed to invest it. He needed to get himself some property once he was off age. The Gaunts needed to return to society. To lead it. To be the old, pureblood again.

#

Tom was sorted into Slytherin. Of course.

And the children who he already knew, welcomed him with frosty politeness. As they always had. Eyed his brand new, pristine robes from the best tailors with unsubtle interest.

Professor Dumbledore had rewarded Tom for his efforts - his enthusiastic and entirely genuine review of his muggle family - by changing Hogwarts’ records.

For the first time in centuries, a Gaunt was attending Hogwarts.

And he was a stunning return to form. Brilliant at all his classes, ambitious as any snake and a large cunning streak that was minimised to appear coy and school-boyish rather than anything too cruel.

His classmates, his entire house, were interested in Tom. For he was untouchable.

By name, nature and blood.

And those who stepped out of line were subject to increasingly violent and brutal missteps.

His heritage was open speculation, and Tom was deliberately vague about it, letting them draw their own conclusions as long as they did not come too close to the truth.

His mild-mannered disdain for muggles put him in a firmly safe category within the house. Not so fervent that he was to be scared of, but someone who would one day get the job done for re-establishing the correct order of things.

Tom had never blamed his mother for picking a muggle. She was the ugliest woman he had ever seen, and no wizard worth his salt would have ever fallen for her, love potion or not.

But cattle? You cannot blame cattle for being cattle.

And at least Merope had picked a pretty one.

Tom was a beautiful child as a consequence, and nothing like the Gaunts of old. Nothing like his hideous mother.

He was a return to aristocracy and opulence.

A truly deserving pureblood heir.

For that’s what he hinted he was, some bastard offspring from a new, nobody pureblood who did his mother a favour. Someone who’s blood was not dirty, but nowhere near as pure as the Gaunt’s.

Someone who had only been in the wizarding world for a few generations, in comparison to the his family who dwarfed even the Lestranges’ in longevity. This allowed the new to improve the old without bringing in dirt to the line.

The other old families could believe and accept that.

Accept that his noble mother had lowered herself to improve her bloodline. Who could see purity having gone too far and made the ultimate sacrifice.

For all Merope was not a good-looking woman, Tom could allow her the deception of being smart and a martyr to boot.

Merope barely left their new home, that was above a corner shop. She had never liked the stares and the looks she would get when she was out in London. However, she was used to it.

But Tom didn’t like it, found himself with a flush of mortification up his neck every time he caught looks or heard whispers of disgust. So, she stayed at home where she could not embarrass him.

For she had begun to fear his temper, his spite and his demands. For he may have looked like Tom Riddle Sr, but he had many traits from her side of the family too.

Tom Riddle Sr had been arrogant and dismissive, but he had also been quite soft and easily led.

Tom Riddle Jr was rather the opposite, for he was born hard and cold and took half of Merope out with him. She would never have another child.

#

As with most things, knowledge, experience and desire came to Tom early and easily.

A cruel arousal dogged him, and he experienced it with every act of violence and control he committed.

The way animals would whimper at him. The way his housemates would do the same.

The heat of blood. The smell. The taste.

He also started to understand his mother and her fascination with his looks. Could see himself through her eyes.

He was beautiful. Even as a scrawny teenager, he was better looking than most his peers. Bar the Black family. He could play the child still well enough but affect enough maturity to pretend to be a bit older too.

The war had made things difficult, and Tom had missed most of the first evacuations whilst at Hogwarts. He had not felt so inclined to leave London during his first summer, despite Merope’s worrying.

Summers after his second year became more difficult. At least he had his own room he could sleep in, but with the commencement of the Blitz, Tom began to consider his grandmother’s pleading letters to come stay with them in the countryside more seriously.

It did not help that the walls were thin in the house. He could hear Merope during the night, moaning his name. High-pitched and needy.

This was not something he had not heard before, not something that hadn’t happened when he had been in the same bed with her.

But he understood it now.

He shut his book, late night studying ruined as he was disturbed by the noises. But of course, it wasn’t him she was thinking about. It was his father.

With whom he shared a name and a face with.

And he looked more and more like him every day. His face was rapidly maturing. His father remarked on it. His grandparents remarked on it.

He was the spitting image of the man and was looking less childlike each day.

He was only in London for a few weeks per year, but the pitch black at night, the constant looming threat of an air-raid was grating. Merope was beside herself with fear and took to holding his hand excessively and forcing him to endure her company, pacing restlessly throughout the night. Tom barred his door.

In the summer of 1943, when Tom was sixteen years old, Merope seemed to lose her mind completely.

Returning to London for summer was always a chore, but at least the bombing had mostly stopped, even if the war was in full swing and fear was still high.

It was the summer where everything blew up and became overtly unhealthy instead of insidiously so. Bombings to Merope’s irritatingly fragile nature and her continued isolation had rattled what was an already dangerously empty mind.

Merope collected him from the train, fortunately on the muggle side of the station, wearing irregular clothes that were too large and garishly bright. She hugged him fiercely, pulling his face down to kiss both his cheeks.

“What are you doing, Merope?” Tom hissed, pushing her back. He righted his trunk next to him, hastily glancing around to make sure no one he may have known from school had seen the spectacle.

“Coming to meet you, darling,” she said, as though he had asked a stupid question. She looped her arm through his, “I couldn’t wait for you at home. Not these days. A boy needs his mother.”

Tom felt two spots of colour developing on his cheeks and he quickly pulled both her and his trunk along, trying to keep a rather fixed smile in place. He had a reputation to maintain. Tom bunged her in a taxi hastily before loading his trunk and sitting in the front with the driver who made boring small talk all the way back to the flat.

Tom paid him quickly, internally wincing at how little money he had left after this year at school. Despite Tom’s aggressive savings and continued support from his father and grandparents, money was still tight.

Tom had had to spend a lot of money on books; and even more money on illegal books researching methods of longevity.

His library record at school was clean as a whistle, and no teacher knew what he was researching when he could have his own copies of the more restricted books.

Not even Dumbledore suspected him. The man highly praised Tom’s transfiguration work and often enquired about his father, especially now with a full-scale muggle war enveloping the continent.

Tom found him easier on the palette than Slughorn, who was cloying and overt with his favouritism.

Both had their uses.

But he knew neither could be trusted to know what he was really studying.

Immortality appealed to him in an abstract way, but many wizards had fallen trying to attain that. And desperate as Tom was for the glory and the majesty that would come from being the most powerful wizard in history, the question of how so many great wizards in the past had failed stilled Tom’s hand.

Horcruxes initially seemed like a good idea, until he realised very few wizards wanted to split their souls and from those that had, no one had succeeded in attaining true immortality.

Tom knew he was able to do it.

But for it to be so unpopular even amongst dark wizards raised some prominent questions.

There was no real need for immortality, not just yet. Tom was young. He had no need to prove himself; there had never been any doubt to his claim of being from Slytherin’s line. Job opportunities were already lining up for him.

Marriage prospects, opportunities to study abroad.

Tom was already seen as an idol.

Once the flat door was closed behind them, Tom saw the mess of the living area; Merope untidy and dirty as she had ever been.

But there were piles and piles of clothes and shopping bags everywhere.

“Merope,” he barked, a sliver of panicked worry coursing through him, “what is all this?”

Merope flushed, “I bought some new clothes, Tom. I needed them!”

Tom could perfectly well see had bought new clothes.

She had cleary used much of the money sent to them on the items. She probably had even gone into the secured savings that Tom had never bothered to put into a bank to fund her shopping.

Hundreds of pounds. On very expensive dresses and pearls.

Tom needed that money! Now, more than ever.

He couldn’t ask his father for more. Not without implying he was not in control of his mother.

When most people in London were on the strictest rations imaginable, Merope had effectively raised a massive flag to say they had money in the house.

Most locals would not try anything, for although Tom was only here for the summers, he had accrued a reputation for callous violence and retribution since they had moved there.

He stroked the fine silk of one dress; it was an ugly powered pink. Merope had stilled, admiring her collection and not quite realising anything was wrong yet.

“Perhaps the time I have been away has been too much for you,” he said contemplatively. “Have you been socialising?”

Merope spun in her dress, the plastic clinking of dress jewellery irritating as it was tasteless. “How do I look, Tom?” she asked, coquettishly.

“Ridiculous,” he spat, “We do not have the money for you to be doing this!”

She looked disheartened, pulling the dress taunt over her thin body, “But doesn’t it flatter my figure?” she asked, plaintively. “Can’t I at least keep one?”

He glowered at her. She did not need new clothes, the ones she had were respectable and well-made. He would not have his mother in anything else.

The dresses she had picked were gaudy, attention grabbing instead of the more modest garb that she should be favouring. He could see her legs, slightly bowed from rickets, and covered in hair.

She was not well-maintained or pretty enough for such clothes.

A slight vein of cunning flashed through her eyes, and Tom, ever attentive to such things caught it with a healthy amount of caution.

“Please?” she hissed, in a rare use of Parseltongue.

She knew he liked Parseltongue, she had seen him be indulgent and playful with his snakes in the language.

He could hear her through the walls, he had no doubt she had heard him in turn. Him alone, him with his experimental partners.

She knew exactly how he felt about Parseltongue and what it did for him.

Tom sneered at her.

His own mother trying that with him.

He contemplated striking her, but that was unseemly.

Tom hadn’t heard a female Parselmouth actually speak before. Merope refused. She listened. She responded to his comments or his questions, but always in English.

From his limited reading resources – for their money only stretched so far, females were a rarity. Didn’t last long. Breed them quick and young before they died. Almost exclusively in childbirth.

Tom didn’t know how his mother had survived him, but he knew it had been a close thing. The orphanage had allowed them to stay for nearly a month after his birth. They had wanted to send Merope to the hospital, but somehow, she had resisted and recovered enough to not be on death’s door within a week.

It took her much longer to truly recover and then not entirely.

But Tom believed that was an excuse.

He turned on his heel, “Put it back with the other clothes and I shall deal with it. You have plenty of fine dresses befitting of the last female of the Gaunt line. Wear them.”

He returned the dresses the next day.

The two women behind the counter looked alarmed at the sheer amount of clothes he gently placed on the counter, wrapped back up in brown paper, as carefully as Merope was able to.

One was young and blonde, with her makeup a little too heavy. Tom would estimate her only a few years older than he was. Her big eyes razed his face curiously. The elder had a hard look about her and barely glanced up, “We don’t take returns,” she snapped.

Tom smiled at them, his charm having been sharpened to a fine blade, “Please, madam. Let me explain the situation. I am hoping we can work something out about this unfortunate…problem.”

Instantly, her back straightened as she took in the way he spoke, contrary to the more casual way he was dressed.

He sounded like he came from money, even if he didn’t always dress like it. His clothes, more fitting for East London were jarring to his crisp, enunciated English.

His father went to Eton. Tom could have gone himself.

“My cousin bought a lot of very pretty dresses from you last week,” he began, and saw a sliver of recognition in her face. “She was only supposed to get one for a party and seemed to…forget herself.”

The blonde made a noise of sympathy, “Very easy to do here.”

Tom begged to differ, but he doffed his head in acquiesce. “My cousin. She’s a little…queer,” he said, with an embarrassed grimace.

The two girl’s faces lit with remembrance and understanding.

They instantly knew who he was talking about.

Merope, as always, made an impression. Tom had long ago stopped identifying her as his mother to strangers. He could not bear the looks of how did you come from her… come from that?

A cousin seemed the easiest explanation that allowed familial connection enough for him to intervene and progress with damage control, but not so close as to feel the shame.

He allowed the light to catch the ring on his finger, the hint of cufflinks under his suit jacket. “It would mean a great deal to my family, if this time, you would accept a return of these. I am sure we will be shopping here again. The quality of your clothes is quite stunning.”

The brunette set her pen down in her ledger, “And who are your family? May I ask?”

Tom smiled. As if this muggle would know all the families that shopped here.

It was fortunate that the Riddles did order clothes from here. His grandmother favoured their dresses, his father and grandfather often had custom made suits.

It would make sense for Merope to pick this shop. One she must have known when his father was under her bewitchment, when he bought her pretty dresses and told her she was beautiful.

“The Riddles, from Little Hangleton. My grandmother loved your last season. She has a rather fetching dress in burgundy. It nice that you cater to both the older lady and the young.”

Perhaps the name rung a bell for the woman, or the ease in which it rolled of his tongue. She closed the ledger, “This time, we’ll allow it,” she conceded, and with a sharp nod the blonde girl she waltzed off.

Of course, they would allow the return, a smile such as Tom’s was never to be turned down.

Tom hated muggle shops like this. With vain, arrogant little girls with nothing between the ears to even keep him marginally entertained. He maintained the slightly fixed smile for the girl now beginning to unpack the many dresses.

She smiled at Tom, a little hint of pink crawling up her neck, disappearing under the mountain of chalky makeup she was favouring.

Tom eyed her nails. Her nailbeds were scrubbed raw. To clear away the dirt that tended to build up on them. Especially when working in a shop like this.

Reputations were to be maintained.

But her nails were much like Tom’s own during the summer.

Merope didn’t seem to respond to dirt or damp or anything like that. Tom abhorred filth and couldn’t bear being in the flat when it was unclean.

Tom always fixed his own nails the moment he was back on the train to Hogwarts. Tidied them up with a few spells and no one realised he was on his hands and knees cleaning whilst he was home.

He smiled at her conspiratorially, a little bashful and leaned in a little more, effecting a softer accent. “Thing is, my cousin didn’t just spend her money or her savings on this. My Ma would kill her if she found out that she took our savings too.”

The girl flinched, blinking at him owl like, “You’re not as posh as you let on then?” she asked, a tone of brassiness in her voice now.

“No, we’re a bit…disconnected from the family. Keeping our cousin out of a home…y’know?” he shrugged, “Money’s tight.”

The girl melted in an overtly visible softening of her features, “That’s awfully kind of you to keep her out of one of those places. You hear things,” she shook her head, “terrible things.”

“I know. That’s why we can’t let her go. It’s why my Ma can’t buy fancy clothes. She lives like a real person now. It’s all I ever knew. Growing up we never had money, had to work for every penny. Ma saved that money for when Jules needed any medication.”

The girl made the appropriate sympathetic noises, and began to tally up all the items of clothing; the gloves, the hats and accessories.

Tom seethed to see how much Merope had bought with his money.

Merope had spent well over £100; a small fortune really.

But all was well, and the money was returned. Probably with the exact notes and coins Merope had used. Even the rich didn’t spend money like this during the war.

Tom filed the money away, tucking it into his suit pocket. “Thank you – sorry, I never caught your name?”

“Babs. Call me Babs.”

What an awful name, he thought. “Babs. Thank you for your help. It’s nice talking to someone who understands. Surrounded by all these nice things but unable to have it.”

Babs scoffed, clearly disagreeing with him. She definitely wanted more from life. She wanted money and contacts.

She wanted to meet some rich bachelor in this shop, Tom would wager.

“Perhaps I could take you out sometime? Seems a waste of a beautiful summer evening to not be out with a beautiful girl.”

She gave him a coy look, he was not what she wanted long-term. But Tom knew a goer when he saw one. And he was feeling petty. How dare Merope do this to him. Make him beg for their money back? …Try to seduce him in his native tongue?

“I have a break in 20 minutes if you want to have a smoke out back?” Bab’s offered.

Well, then. If he wasn’t going to be out any money at all, why would he refuse that?

He smiled, patting his pocket full of money, “Sounds swell.”

They got halfway through a shared cigarette before he kissed her. She let him.

Tom never ceased to be amazed at how easy muggle women were. He doubted this one was untouched. She knew what she was doing when she kissed him. It was only for Tom’s many conquests that he could keep up.

He saw the bruises on her wrists, and as he pushed up her skirt, on her inner thighs. He wasn’t going anywhere that no one hadn’t been before.

She was nearly twenty, in a bad relationship that would end in marriage when she was eventually knocked up.

What a terrible future for such a pretty slab of meat.

She was almost trembling before him. But, of course, he could pick it out from her mind – she had never seen a boy quite as attractive as him.

He knew what he was doing. He had been experimenting with others for years. He ran this fingers up her leg, gently applying pressure to the bruises to make her hiss.

Maybe she liked pain?

To his surprise, his fingers came back bloody, but then he realised why.

All the better for him, he did not want a half-blood bastard coming back to haunt him.

So, he decided to ruin her, make every other time with every other man be compared to him. He could be generous when he wanted. He could be generous to ruination if it so suited him.

And it did.

He returned home to the flat late, smelling of the pretty muggle girl and sweat. He wiped his blood-stained fingers against his trouser leg, sucked the blood away from his teeth and sat heavily at the kitchen table.

Tom picked up the kitchen towel, scrubbing at his fingers and then his face before tossing it at his mother’s feet.

Merope looked terribly upset as he dumped the crumbled bank notes and change on the table. “I got it all back,” he said, with a sharp edge. He counted it out, sliding a few shillings across to her. “Until you learn to control your spending.”

“Thank you, Tom,” she murmured, picking up the coins and letting them clink together. She looked at him mournfully. Her bottle thick glasses stared at his swollen lips, rumbled shirt and bite marks at his throat, “You take such good care of me.”

He grunted, putting the rest of the money into his pocket. “Run me a bath, will you?” he asked. He wanted to wash filth of the muggle off him. It was fun whilst he was doing it, but the feel of her now was cold and sticky. He adjusted his trousers.

Maybe next time a girl who wasn’t on the rag.

That rest of summer turned out to be one of the most trying. For it seemed that Tom’s blatant sexual exhibitionism had inspired Merope to try harder to provoke him.

Wearing inappropriate clothing, reaching out to touch him. Her gaze like acid, trying to get into the bathroom whilst he was in the bath.

She tried to grab at him once, inflamed with passion and delusion.

With a snarl, he slammed her up against the wall, pinning her with his knee as she squirmed. She ended up half straddled on his knee as he pressed into her. “What do you want from me?” he hissed at her, banefully. She looked up at him fearfully, but her pupils were blown.

He lowered his head to her level, pressing his forehead against hers and hissing.

Parseltongue.

Their birth right and yet, Merope so often refused to use it, to speak it. To showcase her specialness, that transcended her looks and her stupidity.

What a disgrace. An ugly disgrace.

She whimpered. Terrified.

…His knee was wet.

He dropped her suddenly, hissing trailing off.

He prayed for the first time in his life. He prayed that she had wet herself.

He knew she hadn’t.

Tom swallowed wetly, sneering at her before storming out of the flat. The cheerful call of the muggle shop owner trailing off when he saw the black look of anger over Tom’s fair features.

He got drunk that night, and that wasn’t like him. Not the epitome of class he pretended he was; but he was in a muggle pub in the middle of muggle London, so what did it matter?

It was clear he was underage, but they kept supplying him with pints at his request when he waved a couple of pound notes at them.

He hated Merope. He hated her. She was unfit to bear his name.

To soil it in her filthy mouth.

He ordered another drink.

He brought home a girl that night, cheap and pretty. Almost a dead ringer for one of the girl’s in Little Hangleton that his mother so envied.

Why Merope had told him that was baffling. Even when she was drunk, she knew Tom’s nature. For he may have had his father’s face, but he had his maternal uncle’s and his grandfather’s cruelness.

They were loud coming into the flat, and Merope hid in her bedroom, as she always tended to do when Tom had company over – which was exceptionally rare, except for when he was conducting muggle business.

He decided he would fuck the muggle in the main shared area; their living room, kitchen and dining room all combined.

He let her suck him off in the living room, loudly, obnoxiously. She wasn’t amazing by any stretch, but it was enough that he caught sight of Merope out of the corner of his eye. The woman flinched at the sight of that bobbing head, Tom spread out on the sofa, half dressed, and hair done exactly like his father’s.

She darted away and softly, almost silently closed her bedroom door. And that would not do.

He fucked the girl on the kitchen table, bodily throwing her on the shoddy piece of furniture and knocking half the cheap cutlery on the floor, the scattering of tin and plastic dismally loud at the late hour.

She was noisy, this muggle bint, and clearly enjoying herself; which Tom would allow.

The repetitive screech of the table legs against the floor, and the worrying creak as the cheap wooden legs bent and tried to separate from the top was a litany that wouldn’t protect Merope’s ears from the girl’s cries.

But Merope wouldn’t be listening to her. That he knew. For she would be insanely jealous of the girl, but she wanted to hear Tom. She wanted to hear him finish. What his breathing would be like, what he might say…

So he held it all in, silent as he could be.

For any sound Merope could use later would mean he hadn’t won.

In a fit of pique, he snatched one of the many hanging pieces of clothing from the earlier wash. Grabbing the girl’s hair, he pulled her head back and stuffed the item of clothing in her mouth, “Shh, darling,” he whispered to her, stifling a cruel chortle, “You’ll wake my mother.”

Later when the muggle was asleep, still hanging off the table, Tom lazily pulled her skirt down to cover her up. He was a gentleman after all.

He considered what to do with her, even contemplated killing the girl.

As he moved further into the world of wizarding politics, he couldn’t have his teenage pastime of fucking muggles come up. But that would soon be over. He would be seventeen by the New Year and would have to consider the future of the Gaunt line.

He picked up the chewed-up fabric he had stuffed in the girl’s mouth, shaking out the creases.

He had to stop himself laughing at the sight of it, at what he had unintentionally grabbed in his haste to ensure his mother could hear the protest of their furniture, the slap of flesh against flesh instead of the girl’s delightful moans.

His mother’s underskirt.

Now stained in places with bright red lipstick and teeth marks.

There was a creak as his mother finally emerged from her room.

She gasped when she saw the state of the living room. When she took in Tom, standing there with her stained slip and his cock out.

“Did I tell you that you could leave your room?” He asked her blandly, making no attempt to cover himself.

She stood paralysed for a minute, eyes trailing Tom’s form in an indecent fashion before catching herself and turning away.

“Oh,” he called out, “This is yours.” He threw the material at her. It failed to stay in a screwed-up ball, catching an invisible wind; it fluttered to her feet.

She hastily bent down and grabbed it off the floor. She saw the stains, the creases. Her eyes darted back to the girl on the table, spend now meandering down her leg in visible manner.

Merope scuttled off, clutching her ill-gotten prize.

Breakfast the following morning was an awkward affair for Merope. The girl didn’t seem to care whether she stayed or not but gratefully took some toast and joined Tom for a cup of tea. Merope glowered and shifted in her chair several times, uncomfortable.

There were two handprints on the table, stark as day.

Tom’s handprints were elsewhere.

There was a lingering odour to the room. Unmistakable.

Tom lit a cigarette, took a sip of his tea cordially, and smiled about the table as though they were all friends having a casual catch-up.

His head throbbed dully, but he would not ask Merope was one of her drafts. He did not want to give her any ideas. He was meeting Malfoy and Rosier later that day. He would purchase some potions in Knockturn before doing so.

Tom needed to collect his school supplies for his sixth year at Hogwarts. The year he would become a legal adult in the wizarding world. How he was looking forward to it.

His father had been speaking to Tom about purchasing him some property in London for his eighteenth birthday.

He would have to visit the old man soon.

Plus, his grandfather had apparently ordered some very expensive gin from the continent and wanted all three of them to try it together.

The future was bright for Tom… as soon as he dealt with the blight in London.

#

Merope had always insisted trying to meet Tom at the station each summer. Each year, he told her no.

After the previous year, he had hammered the point home fiercely with harsh words. It seemed to have held when he arrived at King’s Cross and could not see Merope anywhere. Tom returned home late in the evening, the summer heat leaving his clothes tacky and uncomfortable.

He was not looking forward to seeing his mother. Now more than ever. The last summer had been hellishly tedious, if only for the fact that he shouldn’t have to put his mother in her place constantly.

When he dropped his trunk by the front door and started to shuck out of his suit jacket, Merope appeared in the doorway to the living room, tea towel in hand.

“Oh, Tom,” she gasped when she saw him. She stared at him agog, looking shocked.

Tom could appreciate that she might notice a difference after not seeing him for nearly a whole year. The likeness to his forebear only increased with every passing month, and now he was nearly graduating Hogwarts.

Fully grown if only needing to fill out a little more.

Merope blinked dazedly at him, and Tom knew she didn’t really see him. She saw his father.

Did she even remember that she had a son?

None of his school mates asked about his mother, the long-hidden Ms Gaunt who was as ugly as Knockturn’s hags and just as lethal with a potion. No. They knew better than to ask.

And yet begrudgingly, every year Tom moved home with her to keep up appearances. He found her wanting eyes unsettling.

A mouse stalking a cat.

“Mother,” he greeted briskly, business like.

Dinner was tense and quiet, with Merope gushingly his name breathily, trying to grasp his wrists as though to assure herself he was real. He shook her off.

That night he slept poorly on his terrible bed; hands folded over his stomach as he stewed on what to do with her.

His sheets were crumpled and unwashed since last September.

They smelt like his mother.

She had been sleeping there. Doing who knows what there…

He stripped the bed in a fit of pique and remade it in the middle of the night with old stale sheets that hadn’t been washed well. He would have to sort those out in the morning and take them to the laundromat.

He lay awake for hours.

The next day, Merope insisted on serving him breakfast. The porridge smelled amazing. Better than any food Merope had ever served before. It smelt…like his own cologne, like that dead animal on the street, the heat of fresh blood.

He blinked sedately at Merope, who was watching him with anxious anticipation.

Amortentia.

Really?

Really, Merope? This is how you ensnared my father? He wanted to ask.

He smiled at her, stirring the porridge consideringly. The scrape of the spoon against the cheap tin bowl loud. “Could you get me a glass of water, please?”

He didn’t even know if the potion would work on him.

Tom had never really felt a facsimile of the emotion that others seemed to, what could the potion truly do to him?

He didn’t want to try it. He couldn’t risk any effects. Especially with lusting after Merope. He would keep the bloodline pure, but not that pure.

Once her back was turned, he vanished the porridge, and sent the gentlest of Obliviates to Merope. She barely paused in getting him his glass of water.

“Did you enjoy it?” she asked, picking up his empty bowl.

“It was lovely, thank you,” he responded politely. He smiled at her guileless face, watching her trying to catalogue his reaction. The infatuation that would slowly start to reveal itself when he fully took her in.

Her face shuttered when nothing happened.

“I have to be off. I need to run some errands today. I think the bathroom could do with another clean. The mould is back,” he said instead, standing up.

He picked up his jacket loosely, deciding to check upon his little drug mules all scattered across both sides of the Thames. He threw a cruel smile at Merope, more a flash of his teeth than anything that could be considered genuine.

That night, he lay in his small, uncomfortable bed staring at the ceiling. The blanket was too thin and full of holes, and he hated it all; more than he could possibly say.

The door creaked as it opened.

So, this was it. He could hear Merope’s unsteady breathing. Her staggering gait as her bare feet slapped against the floor.

Merope slid into bed next to him, her tiny hand splayed across his chest as she nuzzled into his neck.

Tom lay there, stiff as a board and for the first time in his life, unsure of what to do. There were rules in both wizarding and muggle society about this kind of behaviour.

Tom had not expected this, but perhaps he should have. Merope had never been so forward before. Always wanted, but from the distance, too scared to speak up.

Too scared to act, to take.

But she had tried to give him a love potion this morning.

Still, this was remarkably bold.

Merope was a useless witch, but a witch none the less, and one more than capable of duping men into doing what she wanted. So desperate for affection and love that she was a serial doper. All shallow replicates of Tom Riddle Sr.

Her cloying and inappropriate affections had transcended into this. With her own son.

She kissed him gently, and the smell of her sickly breath was nauseating. She refused to ever get those rotten teeth sorted. He slowly sat up, her fingers catching on the buttons of his muggle pyjamas.

Tom’s final year of Hogwarts was coming up and he had begun looking for marriage options. Druella Rosier’s father had reached out to him. Wallburga Black had even made some overtures herself.

Tom had options.

He was rather sick of playing husband to his mother.

He turned his head to look at her. Her attempt at seduction. Tom had no issue with the prospect of keeping the Gaunt line pure, but there was too little new blood there.

Tom may have even considered a sister if he had one, but even then, it was too similar. Too soon.

They needed pure blood, not familial blood.

Merope had always been an embarrassment to him, ugly and stupid. Even last summer he had been so caught up in his anger at her that he had been brash and uncouth.

She made him act like an ingrate, not the Gaunt heir.

Tom had cooled down now. He was more reptilian than he had ever been before.

Merope was stupid because she needed people so much; to the point she ignored their lies, and their blatant disgust at her appearance.

Tom carried the Gaunt name.

Not her.

He turned himself, bracing his body over her. She looked at him in surprise, her features brightened in happiness for a moment, before Tom pressed his thin pillow into her face.

He had moved so quickly; she hadn’t seen it coming.

She barely struggled, almost like she wanted it to be over.

But then again, as her hands weakly struck against his forearms and her small feet kicked at his legs, perhaps she fought with all she had. Which never had been much.

The struggle was making him hard, and it was an act of will to fight that down. To not be aroused by this act.

Not for his mother. Not for her.

She slapped and slapped at him, her bandy legs kicking out and nightgown revealingly high as she attempted to get away.

But eventually she stopped.

The hands grew slow. The bony feet slid across the covers, unable to lift again and there was a weak squeal from under the smothering material.

She was holding his wrists.

Trying to pull him away… futilely tugging at wrists she could not fully wrap her hands around.

…

And then just holding them.

Her nails never pierced the skin.

There was the sharp smell of ammonia in the air as Merope wet herself.

The fluid began to soak into the knee of his pyjama bottoms and still Tom held the pillow down. There was a spider crawling across the windowsill, which Tom couldn’t help but feel was very odd to see at this time of the year.

Someone was arguing outside, the smash of a bottle as it was thrown. Coarse yelling.

A soft, retiring sigh and even the gentle hold slipped from him.

Nothing.

Just the yelling of some idiot muggle outside that could be heard through the thin, single-paned glass.

The ticking of the clock drew Tom’s eye.

3:33am.  

And so, Tom was the last Gaunt.

He released the pillow. Proceeded to prepare his mourning robes. Considered collecting his family ring on his upcoming visit to his father.

And with the early summer morning light just beginning to climb into the window, Tom opened his latest text on horcruxes.