The Hanged Man

Disclaimer: Of course I don't own any of J.K Rowling's characters... but who wouldn't love to!

I unfolded the roughly torn scrap of parchment and examined it for a moment; whilst Binns' droning voice merged into a great torrent of irrelevance, my world snapped onto the curly ink on the uneven surface between my fingers. The tactile sensation of fibre, a thousand tones and inflections interwoven into that short query. There came a surge of emotion so intense I tightened my grip, loathing myself for this weakness, driven by an insatiable need for understanding and control…

That is how I am.

I have been told that my hair, full and black, sweeping in waves over my forehead, is beautiful. My eyes, a yawning depth of crystalline grey, described the same. But this face, chiseled as if by a master artist- so it has been described- causes as much agony as the wounds of ignorance that bleed inside. The wretched, dirty blood of my father poisons my veins. I look like he did once. His death was a step towards purity, the unimaginable heights of immortality to which I seek the ultimate refuge. I seek it alone; how can she understand it, not even the tiniest fragment of it… I looked at her, meeting her gaze.

"Tom?" She whispered across the desk of her friend, a simpering Hufflepuff I vaguely recalled from brief moments in History of Magic class. The girl who slipped the parchment under the table was a wide-eyed Ravenclaw, with straight gold hair and a face so easy to read that I indulged her for a moment.

"What is your name?"

Inwardly I laughed as the shock registered on her fair features, Binns' dogged narration of witch burning washing over us. I didn't need to listen, having already scanned the amazingly dull book and tucking it into my cloak.

"Don't you… don't you remember me from Tuesday evening? W-when you…" This time I couldn't suppress my contemptuous smirk. Her small outrage, mixed with fear of social derision, was indeed quite amusing. I could still sense her yielding to my physical magnetism. It was such a dull class, else I would have simply forgotten she was there…

Leaning back, I brushed my gaze across the backs of quietly dozing students. Above and apart from them. Always alone.

"Oh yes." My smile widened at her relief. The pleasure was greatest when they faltered under my manipulations, enticing them into comfort and their vacuous idea of safety. " I kissed you, didn't I?"

Again, the spark of joy lit her eyes. "So will you-"

"-If you think," I continued calmly, withdrawing my wand and stroking the wood with long fingers, "that I would have Muggle-born filth such as yourself on my arm… you are very wrong."

I turned my head away, stretching my shoulders as the tired routine of stunned gasps and thunderstruck expressions ensued. I didn't bother to look; already her existence was waning in its presence amongst my thoughts.

Class ended, and I gathered up my books and paused, examining a quill that had broken. Again, that disgust of my heritage, flaring up like savage venom… Tom Riddle, the boy with nowhere to go without Hogwarts. Tom Marvolo Riddle, robbed of Slytherin's noble ancestry by a-

"Tom?"

There it was again! Wave after wave of shame, unrelenting. Bile rose in my throat but I crushed it, turning to stare at the sharp blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore.

"A bit late to be lingering in this classroom so close to dinner time, isn't it?" His tone was light and friendly, but I felt the weight behind it. One day you will speak my true name, and I will show you the breadth of my abilities, beyond what you could ever comprehend.

I looked at him coldly, moving towards the door and brushing past him. "My quill, sir. I was wondering what broke it." My voice was clipped with the charm of a prefect, perfectly inconspicuous, completely false. I wondered how his gentle expression might change under the curse I discovered only a week ago, when the Slytherin common room was empty but for me and the pages of a restricted section book.

Avery caught up with me as I strode along the corridor towards the Great Hall. Outside, rain thudded dully in time to the rumble of chairs and conversations emanating from the vast room, and no doubt a seat would be left for me amongst those who called themselves my friends. I felt the brush of a spider web on my cheeks and stopped, looking around the mellow stonework for the tiny insect.

" Er, V-Vol-?"

For some reason I didn't want to hear that oaf speak my self-constructed name. "What?" Aha… just by that portrait of the hanged man…I see your little black legs… you cannot hide from me…

"The snake egg you wanted; we- we got it from Hogsmeade!" The eagerness to please irritated me, but I continued to stare at the spider in silence.

Avery shifted uncomfortably. "I, er, just left it in on your bed in the dorm. If you want me to show you I can-"

"No."

"Oh. Okay, I'll just wait for you at the table shall I?" He bent his head and hurried away, his cloak rustling.

My head was aching as I reached for the spider and delicately scooped it up. "What will I call my snake?" I breathed softly, watching it scuttle over my palm helplessly, unable to find a release from the cage of milk white skin. "Do you think you can escape me?" I didn't expect an answer, of course.

I never have.

A memory stirred, the Muggle orphanage and its tattered few books… a story of a mongoose and a wicked cobra, bound to avenge that which was stripped from her, seeking the destruction of others.

"Nagini," I said softly, and knelt; the spider slipped between my fingers and was gone.

That night, after the hushed mutters of the others in my dormitory had ended, I arose. Moonlight faltered in at the window, casting the room in ribbons of silver that nestled in my hair. I could never sleep as they could. I cannot let the night steal away the vital moments of my consciousness, I will not willingly enter the twilight deserts of nightmares and appalling dreams.

My reflection shimmered against the blackness of the grounds beyond the castle, and I looked at myself numbly, feeling nothing… just emptiness coiling inside my chest, around the place where the pulse is born and for me is unreachable.