for licenseartistic - Sept. 07 - Six Impossible Things

Dec 27, 2007 22:55

Title / Prompt: 9/07 - Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. --Lewis Carroll
Character: Tom Riddle, the boy who becomes Voldemort
Warnings: mention of violence
Pairings: none
Your character's fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 359 per WordPerfect
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Tom Riddle -- if I did, he'd have decent motivations.
Crossposted to licenseartistic

At the age of five, he spoke with a snake. It was just an unassuming little snake, in the garden of the family who thought they were going to adopt him, but it was a snake nonetheless. Little boys weren't supposed to speak with snakes, especially not in their own language.

At the age of six, they had a brutal winter. The dorms were freezing, and one of the boys had already died from pneumonia. On his birthday he was too cold to even sleep. He finally drifted off sometime during the night and woke up the next morning to a cozy fire burning in the fireplace -- flames giving off wonderful heat, even though there was no wood there to burn...

At the age of seven, one of the other lads' pet rabbit bit him. In a completely instinctual reaction, he made the poor furry bastard fly across the room and snap its back against the wall. Of course, they accused him of throwing it. He was struck, and then again for lying. Good little boys did not destroy their friends' pets.

At the age of eight, the boy who owned the rabbit and his best friend cornered him in a cave while they were on a trip to the seaside. The two boys were found, half-drowned, hanging upside-down with their heads half under the rising water inside the cave. No one mentioned that there was no rope either of the boys were hanging from, and nothing for anyone to tie a rope to, besides.

At the age of ten, he was attacked by one of the older boys. Attacked, and hurt in ways that never appeared on any doctor's records. There were other incidents, but the older boy seemed to develop an uncanny streak of bad luck -- he fell down the stairs and broke his arm; he slipped on rough gravel and cut his knee badly enough that even when it healed, he still limped.

At the age of eleven, a man came to the orphanage to speak with him and told him he was a wizard, and suddenly all the rest of it made sense...
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