Hello everyone! Yes, I've started a new story, haha. This story has a lot written for it though, so don't worry ^^.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, only the plot for this story.
Tom Marvolo Riddle, for that was the little boy's name, and he knew it well since it'd been shouted at him since he could remember, looked out of his bedroom window as the rain continued to fall.
He watched as a mother grabbed her child up off the ground to hold them as she ran for cover from the rain. He wrapped his arms around himself as his nose scrunched up. He didn't understand why he lived in an orphanage. It was quite clear that no one was going to adopt him. No one wanted him, not even the people he lived with. The sisters usually sent him off to his room or time out, leaving him alone, even though the other children were the ones at fault. Most of the time anyway, Tom was just the one who was always caught. Even when the others were caught, they never received punishment as he did. It was as if everyone hated him.
That was all right though; he hated them too. He hated them so very, very much, and they would pay.
His own mother had abandoned him, so what did it matter if he abandoned everyone else in return. No one wanted him. It was blatantly clear. He was one of very few boys who was never even considered for adoption.
Most children weren't at the orphanage for more than a month or two.
Tom, on the other hand, had been here his whole life.
His whole, miserable life surrounded by filthy humans who called him devil's spawn because he could speak to snakes. A freak because sometimes things just happened to be a little bit too coincidental for their liking.
Surrounded by the worst, he would bet, mankind had to offer. People who had power over others and were too weak to control their nature. Their sadistic, brutish, harsh nature.
The young man sighed as he pulled his cloak's hood further, shadowing his face as he sat in The Leaky Cauldron, people watching. It was such a different time now. So many happy, carefree people who acted like nothing had ever been wrong, as if no one had died. As if hundreds hadn't died.
People did die; some of his closest friends were some of those people, people who had been loved ones; his loved ones.
Snape had been right for once; his uncanny ability to run into every situation with unprecedented odds had gotten people killed. People like Hermione and Ron. He wouldn't name anyone else; it was too hard to accept the first two, much less anyone else.
It was odd, he knew for certain that without Mrs. Weasley, he wouldn't have made it through Ron's death, nor Hermione's, even though he thought most of all she would have been the one to accuse him the most out of everyone.
She hadn't though, she'd accepted it and him, and that was something Harry knew couldn't be replaced. Every time he thought back on it, he wondered what it would have been like to have Lily, to have his own mother.
Maybe if Voldemort had had a parent, things wouldn't have turned out as they had.
He'd had the Dursley's, and no matter how bad they were, he'd never really had time to stew on things that bothered him. From Dumbledore's memories though, Tom had had time. Lots of time, time that was spent in hate-filled thoughts. Maybe it could have been different.
As the green-eyed cloaked man watched the pub, a wistful smile settled on his face as he dropped a few coins onto the table before leaving.
He couldn't just continue on like nothing was wrong though. He had a Horcrux inside him, something that could bring his nightmares back into motion. He didn't want Voldemort back, but he also didn't want to lose that piece of soul he could feel, throbbing inside him as it pulsed with his own, writhing against it. He'd had it there all of his life, he'd feel empty without it, he knew that.
He also knew that he wanted to change how things had turned out. That was the question though, had Tom been born evil or had he become such without lack of a role model or mother?
If not a mother, what difference could a father make? Harry asked himself as he left The Leaky Cauldron before apparating to Grimmauld Place. They both needed someone, and while he hated Voldemort, maybe he could prevent that. He knew, with an instinct he'd developed at the Dursley's, that Tom needed someone just as badly as Harry had needed Hermione and Ron as friends during their Hogwarts years.
There was a soft knock on his door as Tom closed his eyes and groaned to himself quietly.
"I didn't do it, whatever the other boys told you, I've been in my room all day!" Tom told the person on the other side of the door. He sighed again after a few moments of silence, figuring the person had gone away.
"You must be really used to getting in trouble." A male voice spoke amusedly.
Tom jumped at the sound, scampering across his bed and away from the voice. "Who are you?" He asked the older man with narrowed eyes.
"I'm Harry Potter; I'm here to adopt you."
Suspicion immediately entered Tom's countenance. "Why would you want to adopt me?" He asked quietly, his eyes narrowed.
"You know, I really don't even know that myself, yet." Harry answered idly with a quizzical look on his face.
"You don't…know?" Tom repeated slowly as he looked at the awkward…teenager in front of him. "You don't even look like you're an adult! You can't adopt me."
"Hey, hey! I'll have you know I'm seventeen. In the Wizarding World I'm an adult, and since you're a wizard this rule applies to you. I can adopt you if I please."
"Wizard?"
"I know you're smarter than that, Tom, really now."
Tom's eyes only narrowed again before he nodded sharply. "I suppose."
"So, do you want to go now or stay here?"
Tom stared at Harry as if the green-eyed man had grown another head before shaking his own to clear his thoughts. "You're a wizard?"
"Wand and all," Harry answered impishly as he twirled the holly between his fingers. Tom's eyes widened marginally, and a small smile graced his features before he nodded. "All right then, grab your stuff before one of those scary ladies figure out I'm here."
"Wait, are you kidnapping me?"
"Not technically, all the paperwork and stuff is done if someone ever comes looking for you, but no one here at the moment thinks you're supposed to be here. To them you were adopted almost a week after you were born. Less problems this way."
"Magic?" Like I'll believe that, he's probably just making fun of me, just like everyone else. Is he really going to kidnap me so obviously? Tom thought.
"'Course." Harry answered, "Do you want me to pack your things?" Not that it seems he has much, was the lingering thought.
"There isn't that much…"
"I didn't ask that,"
"Yes, then."
"'Kay," Harry murmured before summoning Tom's things before shrinking them.
"You don't act like an adult," but I've never really known any adults, and surely none like him, so it's not like I'm a fair judge.
"Well, what's an adult supposed to act like?" Harry asked quizzically, turning to face Tom with a small frown on his face.
There was silence for a moment before Tom answered: "Responsible."
"Hey now, hey now, I'm very responsible. I just prefer not to walk around like I have a stick up my arse." Harry smirked slightly at Tom's look. It looked like the young boy was warring between agitation and amusement. Agitation seemed to win out, however, as he scowled at the older man. "How old are you anyway, Tom?"
"I'm eight, I turn nine-"
"On the thirty first of December," Harry continued, grinning impishly, "I know."
"If you know my birthday, why don't you know how old I am?"
There was a longer silence as Tom's things finally settled together on the boy's bed before Harry spoke, "What's today's date?"
"July fifteenth, nineteen thirty four." Tom answered quizzically. What is with this man? He doesn't even know the date? Is he crazy? I hope not, that would end very badly.
Harry let out a whistle as the date settled in before he gathered Tom's things and shrunk them so he could put them away. I wonder if we'll even get along…
"Well at least I know when my birthday is." He murmured idly.
"When?"
"Two weeks, I suppose. My birthday's on the thirty first of July."