This fic was written for The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season 8, Round 1 :) I'm the Keeper for the Wimbourne Wasps! So for this round, my archetype was Caregiver, and I chose the weakness (selfishness) as my inspiration!

content/trigger warnings for: Tom Riddle (yes, he's his own warning), obsessive behavior, possessive behavior, and implied racism/xenophobism.

1,439 words

Their name has been written on his collarbone since birth.

It's a long name. Written close to his chest. Across bone and heart. Written in quick, sharp, sleek letterings that makes him think of someone more interesting and Special than the muck around him. It is a name he hasn't encountered in any capacity. One looked at with pity everytime he was bathed by a caretaker. Tom's smart enough to know that foreign names aren't well liked, because those with them are never adopted. At least, not for the right reasons.

He's four when he realizes that the caretaker is pitying his soulmate. Not him. He learns to bathe himself soon after.

It's not unusual for Tom to do everything himself. In fact, it's more strange that it took him this long to learn. It was the only time he got human contact outside of physical bullying. That too, however, stopped once he figured out how to fight back without his fists. Yes, Tom has always been Special. Even down to the name on his flesh.

In the hour his mother had with him before her death (before she left him, abandoned him, forsook him), she had apparently commented on his soulmark and wept—joyous that he had one. That there was someone out there for him. Her son. Only him. Someone who would die for him. Kill for him. It's a conversation he's imagined more than once. He's had time to set up a stage for it. Directions, cues, asides to the audience. It's how he separates himself from the event in question.

In his mind, it is always raining, of course. Thunder booming so loudly, it almost drowns out the wails of his mother's labor. Only his cries would be powerful enough to cut through the storm (nevermind that he's been told he didn't cry when born). The rain pelting hard on everyone in London, trailing down the face of his poor, pathetic mother, resembling tears and sweat. Hardly given a second to breathe—and he would be handed to her, swaddled in whatever spare cloth they had (sometimes it's a coat, other times a blanket).

His mother would then scream, "My son! My darling son! He has a bond—a person!" And here, Mrs. Cole would reach out to try to take him away from his mother's arms.

"Be careful," she'd say, because Tom would only have been a few seconds old and already being held tightly and haphazardly in the cold rain.

And still, his mother would be weeping. Warbling her triumphant discovery, holding him tight because she knew he was stronger than that. Than her. "Someone who is all his! Who will follow him to the grave and mourn for him! His wand and shield!"

Mrs. Cole says that she was rather far gone towards the end, and Tom would have to reluctantly agree; surely she meant sword and shield.

As far as anyone knew, his mother didn't have a soulmate.

It's stupid to think that he needs one, or would even want one. A person to bond his life to. A person to share his things with (his things that he's worked so hard at keeping for himself). A person that he supposedly needs, even though he's never needed anyone. Never will. For as long as he lives. He swears by it. By the skin on his back, the blood in his veins, the teeth in his mouth. He is his own weapon. His own defense.

...But it's exciting, isn't it? To have something that's all yours. That no one else can take away. Steal away. As easy as he steals the objects away from the other orphans. This is something permanent. This ownership. This twisted dependability. Someone out there is his. Not stolen or inherited, but as his as the air in his lungs and the sweat on his brow. Maybe his damned mother was onto something. He was born into this world owning one thing, and that thing will die being owned by him. That kind of dependability is impossible to find among the common people. He'd be lying if he said he doesn't appreciate the idea. The principle behind it.

He wonders where his name is on their body. Somewhere public? Around their throat? Across their face? Their mouth? For all the world to see? Tom Marvolo Riddle. In bold writing. In elegant script. So that no one can mistake them for their soulmate.

The thought comforts him.

Though comfort is perhaps the wrong word for it. It's something he thinks about over and over when he lays, unable to sleep, staring at the ceiling of his small room. Something he thinks about when the other children keep him from eating. When he extracts his revenge on them. The same way the Matron runs her thumb over her pendant necklace when she's nervous, Tom runs his thoughts over a person he's not even sure he'll ever meet. Nothing more than a security blanket. One he'll easily discard one day soon. One day coming. Any day now. But not today. No, it's too soon. Too soon.

Alright, so maybe it does comfort him, but he refuses to admit it. After all, it would make him no better than the other orphans who were lucky enough to have soulmates. At dinner, the older ones tribble over what words or symbols they have imprinted on their bodies, or what dreams they shared the night before. They get more and more excited when one orphan's timer on their wrist reaches fifty-six hours. When, on an outing, one suddenly freezes upon making eye contact with a stranger, and everyone knows what's going on. It's a collective celebration. To have found the person that's supposed to complete you.

Tom knows better than to be envious of them. Because he's the only one with a guarantee. The only one who has a name. Not their first words to each other, many of which were mundane and forgettable. Not a matching symbol, which could be easily hidden in most cases and could be faked. Not a timer on his wrist, which told him absolutely nothing about the person in question. He's not even envious of the one orphan who dreams with their soulmate, because eventually when their dreams go black, it's clear that they would have been better off not personally knowing them before their death.

"It's okay Billy, it's okay." They coddle, knowing as they speak that they are lying. How could that pathetic pill of a boy possibly recover from no longer having the one thing that makes him unique? From losing the one person that's guaranteed to love him? Tom, at least, has his abilities and his wit about him. He can tell when people lie to him and he can speak to snakes. No one else around him can do that, so if the name on his collar ever disappears…

He scoffs at the thought. As if he would ever allow his soulmate to die. Fate or God or the Universe saw them fit enough to be given to him, but it will be by his own will that they stay given to him. Even if they're kilometers apart, continents apart, Death will not be powerful enough to sever the tie that is rightfully his (not powerful enough to slay him, he's living forever. Just like Peter Pan). Tom Riddle takes care of his things, and his soulmate is one of them.

Over and over his thoughts run over them. A person who somehow exists yet doesn't. Who doesn't have a face to their name. A personality. A soul. He's tried running his fingers over the name itself at times, but he never manages to actually touch it. There's a sacred sort of discomfort that comes with that territory on his body. Almost as if it didn't belong to him. Ridiculous. But he doesn't force himself to do it. The closest he's gotten is tracing the letterings with his eyes as he stares at it in the cracked mirror hidden in his wardrobe. Committing the strokes and loops to memory. The areas where one would have to lift a pen, and the spots where the owner of the handwriting added their own flair.

He tries writing it himself sometimes. On scraps torn from newspapers and propaganda pamphlets. With ink from the fountain pen he stole from Mrs. Cole, with crayons taken from another child, with whatever he can get his hands on. They're all burned afterward. Because the only place that name should belong on is himself. Because it belongs to him. Him only. Mine. Mine. Mine.