Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter.

cold.

It's winter yet again. Frost strangles the life out of every last blossoming flowerbed and every green shard of grass; dead, emaciated leaves flutter down from vacant tree branches.

Tom likes winter. He likes it a little more than any other boy should.

It wasn't because there was a great feast, or because back at the orphanage, sometimes he got a present, when money was good. It wasn't because it's the season for wishing and love – love, how trivial, he could almost laugh at it – no, it was not. The cold snow reminded him of hot chocolate when he was young. He never tried it, but he liked the idea of trying it. Negligible matters, it's not that either.

Frost and cold wind and snow and ice - it made people hurt.

The very same people who hurt him.

Everything dies, and grays and ages. Tom likes the fact that the sunshine is cut to a minimum, and that the meandering trees outside become naked and desolate with the absence of olive leaves and birds. He likes to watch the world die around him; he likes to watch the sky go from a splendid cerulean to gray. Snow covers every last inch of the earth. He doesn't spend his winter days down in the common room. No, Tom likes to watch the earth wilt.

Sometimes, he makes his way up to the Astronomy Tower. His pale hands are almost blue, frozen to the railing, but he holds on, taut grip. He watches torrents of bitter snow assault each other in frozen rages, and happy groups of teenagers down below, small like ants. Happy was nonsensical. What was it? A bit of love and compassion? Mirthful laughter and – what did you call them? – oh, right. Friends.

Tom had experience with 'friends'. Henry Hornby, the little boy at Wool's Orphanage, the little boy that Tom made 'friends' with. The little boy that snuck into Tom's room later in the night, and stole his jumper, the only one without holes in it. It had been a cold winter. Tom made sure it was colder for Henry, he made him hurt.

"Oh no, it looks like Henry has frostbite. Somebody locked him outside. Who would do such a thing?"

Friends were liars.

They lie to you. They don't love you.

Friends were dispensable.

You don't need them to be special.

So Tom pities the groups of friends way down below him, so small they look like ants.

Tom likes to step on ants.

On other days, Tom sits in the courtyard. Today's a day like that.

He sits on a bench, alone. Snow covers his shoulders and his hair. He's shivering, quite cold. Tom doesn't mind.

He stares into the light snowstorm, vacuously conscious that someone is passing by.

"Hello, Tom," says a girl with long red hair, and an adequate smile.

His eyes come back into focus.

"Hello."

Filthy Mudblood talking to me, saying my name and scampering all over it like it's trash, she's filth, she's grime, she's –

"Why are you out here all alone?"

Don't speak to me, you disgusting creature of dirt and rubbish, repulsive child of barbarians –

"I'm always alone."

She moves a little closer to the bench, Tom moves a little further down.

Disappear, you rotten child of filth and –

"No, you're always with those brute friends of yours."

Tom smiles mirthlessly to himself. Friends. He then waves her away, and starts to walk back to the common room.

Down the corridors, there's laughter and jokes. He hates it. Tom hates laughter, and jokes, and pranks. Children used to laugh at him, joke about him and prank him. Stained, revolting, uncouth, barbarous Muggle children.

"Look at him! His only friend is a stupid snake!"

"You're a freak, Riddle!"

"Nobody likes you!"

"Who would want to be friends with you?"

Dead leaves sit on the window ledge outside, orange and russet, hidden away from snow. They remind him of Halloween. He hated Halloween. Something about putting candles in cut up – broken – pumpkins distressed him.

"When something's broken, it stays broken. It doesn't glow."

"It's just a jack-o'-lantern, Tom. It's supposed to glow!"

"I don't like it. It's supposed to be dead, isn't it?"

The children stared at him then. They stared at him a lot. They called him names, they said he was weird – a freak, a mutant, an oddity – Tom was just special; he knew it all along, too. He sees thing differently than everyone else.

Taunts echo in his head. The unpleasant, tumultuous laughter. Anger starts to build up inside of Tom, and he breaks into a run. He won't lose it here, in front of all these people. They'll whisper about him. It'll make him weak.

Just like in the orphanage.

"Tom can do strange things. He's weird. I don't like him."

"I heard he's a bastard, his skank mum's dead."

Whisperwhisperwhisperwhisper.

He runs around a corner, then another. He almost bumps into a pack of girls, dressed brightly in their regular clothes. It's unreservedly sickening, a sneer graces his pale, attractive features – features that derided him, he would not have chosen his contemptible Muggle father's looks if it had been up to him – and he blinks twice, indifferent. Happiness is nonsensical.

Clothes of rich, effervescent colors — green, like the grass that should be dead. Blue, like the skies that should be withering to gray and redandpinkandpurpleandyellow like flowers that aren't frostbitten — and Tom hates it. Winter is the season Tom tolerates, for the lack of color makes him feel truly at ease. But there's bright coloured clothes, bright faces and bright smiles, and he damns it all to hell.

He doesn't need love or happiness. Such foolish people.

"Looks like you're still not going home."

"Nobody's ever going to want to take you, Tom."

"You're a little freak. Why would anyone want you?"

The bright faces remind him of the families that came into the orphanage. The clothes remind him of the brightly coloured backs of shirts he would watch through the windows, a mother, a father and a brand new addition to their home, who would also eventually wear a nice, brightly coloured shirt. He always watched cynically, until someone new stepped through the door. Some days, Tom wanted a mother and a father. Some days, he cursed them for leaving him in such a wretched place, full of Muggle children, and Mrs. Cole, who always smelt of sherry and something particularly strong.

They made Tom hurt.

It was his fault. Dirty Muggle father, left his mother with nothing and a child, his silk-threaded heart full of ice and greed. He was a disgusting, pitiable creature. The kids at the orphanage were revolting, disgusting little monsters, with dirtyhandsanddirtyfaces.

Muggles are dirty, immoral creatures. They should disappear.

Tom would find them one day. He would teach them, he would show them little magic tricks. Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop asked him why he was such an oddity. Billy Stubbs thought he was a freak.

Dirtydirtydirtydirty.

He reaches his dormitory and sits down on the bed. It's almost time for sleep now, and the air in the dungeons of the Slytherin house is cold-blooded. He begins to shiver when he removes his robes, though he doesn't mind. Tom likes the winter. It's when the cold doesn't bug him.