Red

Chapter One: Amy

He had always been entranced by the color red. The color of fire, the color of blood. It had always drawn him in, reaching out to touch the Gryffindor banners, clench his fist on them as they turned to ash in his mind. As they all would turn to ash one day.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But not for him. Never for him. The thirst was like a red thing inside of him, the thirst for vibrancy, for life. So it made sense that the ones who attracted him, those who drew his eye, were always imbued with that same color: red.

The first was little Amy Benson, twit, with her red hair in plaits that stuck at haphazard angles out the sides of her head. She was eight years old and he was nine. Almost ten, he reminded himself, almost ten whole years he had spent in this place where no one was kind to him and nothing acted the way it was supposed to. But sometimes, Tom thought, his mouth curling up at the corners, he could use that to his advantage.

Like the silly boy with the rabbit. Billy, his name was. The boy's, not the rabbits. Tom didn't know the rabbit's name. And he didn't care. Tom had never had a rabbit, and besides, the blood looked much prettier dripping down from the ceiling to form a small puddle on the floor than it did inside the rabbit, where no one could see it.

The rabbit's blood looked like Amy's hair. Not her hair in the day, when it was closer to orange, but her hair at night, when he stood over her bed at the orphanage and she sighed in her sleep and Tom wanted to rip every hair out strand by strand.

So when they went to the beach, which wasn't a real beach, he took Amy's hand, even though she pulled away, and drug her down to the shore that wasn't a real shore. Dennis Bishop, that fool boy who always stuck his nose in where it didn't belong, insisted on following them, and by the time they reached the cliff face, it was too late to make him turn back.

So Tom ground his teeth together in frustration and told both of them to hold tight to the rope around his waist, and he lowered them all down in a way he couldn't really explain to himself, with the things that didn't work the way they were supposed to, but worked well enough for him.

And in the cave it was dark, and Dennis cowered in the corner while Amy sat huddled on the bare rock and black water oozed and swished sinisterly some yards away. Tom stooped to unbraid her plaits, and she shuddered at his touch but did not pull away, although the fear in her eyes was a tangible force.

Tom pulled his fingers through her hair, combing it with his nails, but he pressed too hard, he had never known when to stop pressing, and blood seeped out her scalp. Tom felt it, gritty and slick, and he rubbed it into her smooth hair and he laughed.

"Now," he told Amy. "Now it will be red all the time."

But she only started whimpering and wouldn't stop, and Dennis screamed, and it was all quite annoying, really, so he took them back up to the rest of the children, where the matron was waiting, worried and scared.

He left the orphanage not long after that, and when he came back that first summer, Amy was gone. Tom never knew what had happened to her, but it didn't really matter.

He never saw her again, but he remembered her hair for a long time, and every time he thought of it, it only woke in him a thirst for more.

xXx

A/N: So, love it? Hate it? Somewhere in between? Tell me what you think; I'd love to hear.

Next chapter: Myrtle.