Memento Mori

by xst4rg1r1x

Summary:

The Life and Times of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Notes:

Some things to keep in mind while reading:

—This fic will not be fun to read. It's not meant to be. It's dark, and it is relatively disturbing.

—This fic is a series of events in the life of Tom Riddle, and so the timeline is not linear.

—This is written in first-person from Tom’s point of view, so remember that he is an extremely unreliable narrator.

—Please remember to read the tags, because there are mature themes that I wouldn't want to surprise anyone with. However, most are only heavily implied. The childhood sexual abuse, for example, is an observation made by Tom and is only briefly touched on. It's not graphic, and it's stated very little, but I had to tag it because it is such a heavy topic.

—This is heavily inspired by canon; and because of this, I based my creative freedom on the books. The dialogue from the beginning scene is taken verbatim from The Deathly Hallows. However, I certainly do not condone or support the author, because of her world views. My social media accounts are open to all, however you may identify. Saying this, you can find me on Tumblr @xst4rg1r1x, or TikTok @xst4rg1r1x. I'll respond to any questions or comments you have. If you just want to say hi, that's fine too. I'll say it back.

 

Dedicated to myself, because I am the target audience. Tom Riddle is not a popular muse.

Chapter 1: The Fallen Angel

Notes:

This fic is split seven ways.

All around us there are eyes. The faces blur together; there is only me and The Boy Who Lived. We orbit each other, yin and yang, snake and stag, good and evil.

 

“Before you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think about what you've done…” There are screams. My snakelike lips twist a smile. “Think, and try for some remorse, Riddle…” 

 

Have remorse, Riddle, the boy tells me. But I don't know what that feels like.

 

“What is this?” I say, seething. I hate him for all that he is.

 

“It's your one last chance,” says the boy, righteous and brave. “It’s all you've got left… I've seen what you'll be otherwise…” Broken, not even a fraction of a soul, eternal agony. “Be a man… try… try for some remorse…”

 

Do you even feel, Tom?

 

“Avada Kedavra!” I say at the same time the boy shouts “Expelliarmus!”

 

Our spells collide with a bang to rival the birth of a new universe. It seems as if time stops as the great wand arcs through the air, catching the sunlight that streams through the broken windows. The universe holds its breath. A hundred pairs of eyes follow the wand as it spins into descent.

 

They say that dying is as quick and simple as falling asleep. Perhaps I had just been tucked into bed.

 

I remember. 

 

I am made of memories.

 

Every night before bed, they make us say a prayer. It is the last thing that echoes through my mind.

 

Now I lay me down to sleep

 

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

 

And if I die before I wake

 

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

 

---

 

I am four years old when I watch a child die for the first time. He is six, and coughing so violently with the influenza that his little body shakes. He coughs and coughs until he can cough no longer, and someone prays over the small body as they wrap it in bedsheets and carry it from the room. I watch from my own sickbed, where I am plagued with the same illness that took his life. I am sure that I will die. 

 

The only book in the orphanage is a battered old Bible with a peeling leather cover. During my time in the sick ward, I read about the son, the father, and the holy spirit; I read about the mother Mary, and the father Joseph. I read about the creator, and I live as his creation.

 

There is a hand-written note on the inside. Memento Mori, the note written on the inside of the Bible in Matron's cursive reads. Remember death. At four years old, I am struck with a sudden revulsion. Why is it we worship the dead, when the living are all the more divine? I am here; I am breathing; I am alive. I know in my heart that I will be great. I know as much as I know the Earth revolves around the sun that I am meant for more than the orphanage. I am meant for more than terrible food and a lumpy mattress in this smog-covered town.

 

I don't perish, and I never fall ill again.

 

Through a set of iron gates, the orphanage is a grim, square building surrounded by high railings. There is a concrete courtyard we play in with weeds growing through cracks in the stone; many of the boys have scraped knees because of it.

 

At playtime, the girls sit together in little groups playing clapping games, or skipping rope near the iron gates. There is a chant they sing.

 

Witchy witchy burn at the stake

Witchy witchy see no evil

Witchy witchy bake a cake

Witchy witchy hear no evil

Witchy witchy eat the snake

Witchy witchy speak no evil!

 

The boys run around, playing tag and shoving each other, laughing and shouting. Sometimes I am asked to play, sometimes I am not. For the most part I am not. For the most part, I do not care. When it is playtime I do not join any games. I sit by myself and read in the little secluded corner behind some bushes that I have claimed as mine. Occasionally, I clatter a pair of dice I'd inherited from an older boy on the concrete until I roll snake eyes.

 

London is bustling and alive. Sometimes I put my finger in the crease of the page I'm on and watch the businessmen in their suits, the ladies in their skirts and shawls, the policeman on his horse; the fortunate little girls and boys in expensive pinafores and trousers, soft cloth dyed pretty colors instead of the scratchy grey tunics the orphanage children wear. They look upon us, in our scratchy grey tunics, with distaste. They have the faces of parasites and rats.

 

When I get to be a bit older I visit the local library located between the butcher's and the candy shop. If I find a coin on the ground, I buy a sweet to savor in my mouth as I crack open a fresh book. When there are no coins, I bat my eyelashes at the seller and he gives me a sweet anyway.

 

The library is small, and dusty, and it smells of mothballs and lemon tea. The scent of lemons sticks perpetually to the worn rugs and the spines of books whose titles have long since been rubbed away. The rows of wooden shelves bend under the weight of ancient yellowed books; of dragons and knights and princesses locked in high towers. Tales of dead men and beautiful women.

 

I wouldn't rather be anywhere else. It is my sanctuary. I saunter inside shaking rain from my dark hair, and the old Greek librarian at the front desk makes the ancient sign against evil. I am seven. I am no devil. 

 

In the alley between the butcher's and the library there are rats. Cyanide is put out once a week, and on Sunday the rats’ bodies are collected. Some say that the rats are what the butcher grinds into sausage, because sausage comes fresh on Mondays. At the orphanage we are fed porridge for breakfast every day, so it does not concern me. 

 

It is Sunday, and as I always do I walk the short distance to the library after church. I pass the alley, and I stop. I turn to face the dumpsters, with the rotted meat and flies swarming above the metal bins; the dead rats scattered along the brick walls; and the cyanide, which is plentiful. A cornucopia sparkling white on the ground like diamonds.

 

It is still early; the butcher has not yet collected the rats, and the street is quiet. It is within my power to claim the poison, and dissolve it in the lemon tea the librarian drinks every morning. She leaves it on her desk to cool while she shelves books. I think about how her mouth would start to foam; she'd choke, and gasp, and eventually fall; I think about death. I wonder if the books would cease to smell like lemons after she is gone.

 

In the end, I do not. I stand at the mouth of the alley for a long time, biding my time, thinking it over. It is the stench of the rotted meat that eventually drives me away.

 

On Monday I start school. The older girls herd the littlest boys and girls along the path to the red brick building. The oldest boys run ahead to torment the fortunate boys and girls, because they can. I walk a little ways behind the group; a fourteen-year-old by the name of Betty tries to clasp my hand; I jerk my hand away. I have never liked touch.

 

The teacher whose name I don't care to remember teaches us how to read. C A T, she slowly and surely spells out on the chalkboard. The bell rings for lunch break, and I follow like a lamb to the courtyard, which is cement and has weeds growing through cracks in the stone.

 

It is not enough. It is never enough. I am the greatest of them all, infinitely so. More so than the girls who play clapping games and skip rope at playtime, slim white wrists blurring prettily; more so than the boys who run circles around each other, screaming indignantly and throwing stones. In the end, they will all have worms eating their flesh.

 

I know things, because I notice and I listen and I bide my time. I know that Matron has an affair with the cook on weekends. I know that the man who runs the bar down the road has been to jail for coaxing a teenage girl into his basement. 

 

I know that there are men who sneak into boys’ beds at night and leave in the early hours of the morning. Holy men, who lead Bible studies on Sundays. Men with wives and often children around the same age as the boys they make cry. I know this because I often read late into the night, and I hear the noises through the walls. I know that those nights haunt many of the orphanage boys and girls. They have dead eyes and flinch whenever a man comes too close. 

 

The second time I witness death I don't see it as much as I do hear it. I am six years old. There is a man at the foot of my bed. A holy man, who leads Bible studies on Sundays. I watch the moon through my bedroom window as his cold hands slide down my body.

 

He leaves. His shoe is untied. 

 

I hear it all over the sound of my own heavy breaths. There is a heavy sound, a crash, and then silence. I hear the wet gurgle of death, the sound of air leaving his lungs. 

 

It is ten-year-old Martha Thomas who finds the body come morning. She screams, and wakes the whole house up with her wailing. I throw my pillow over my face, thoroughly irritated. If I do not sleep while I still can, I will have purple beneath my eyes for the better part of the day.

 

I eventually give up trying to go back to sleep. I leave my bed, standing on shaking legs to make my way to the landing. My room is right in front of the stairwell; to my left, I see a white-faced Matron herding curious boys back into their rooms. She does not notice me. The floor is cold beneath my feet. 

 

There is now a policeman at the bottom, and he is examining the broken body. I think that the body does not look so holy in death. 

 

That day our daily activities are forgotten completely. I venture to the parlor to read; the rest of the children are outside, talking in small groups. They are speculating, I am sure. Was he pushed? someone asks. No, someone answers, surely he tripped. I see Martha, huddled on the lumpy armchair, with a blanket thrown over her shoulders and an untouched cup of tea before her. She holds her cloth doll to her chest; its yellow yarn hair is stained red. Her wide blue eyes have not moved past the painting of our holy father above the fireplace.

 

We attend the funeral later that week, in borrowed dress blacks that scratch at our skin and make our collarbones itch. I think about Martha, and the look in her pale blue eyes as she remembers. The look of death, the smell of it. 

 

I remember too. The look of death, the smell of it. And yet I feel nothing. I had figured out long ago that people, unlike myself, have the ability to feel for others. I do not feel, not in any way not concerning myself. 

 

Once, when I am eight, after we witness a dead stray in the road, I am asked if I care. 

 

Do you even feel, Tom?

 

These are my feelings, I want to say. This is all that I am.

 

Now I am here, standing before my fate.

 

“Avada Kedavra!” I say at the same time the boy shouts “Expelliarmus!”

 

The wand arcs. Sunlight sparkles. The universe holds its breath. 

 

The last fraction of my soul breaks, a dark angel cast from the heavens as it was the on day I was born. I am suspended in midair, a magpie with clipped wings. Snakelike eyes widened in fear, I fall, and the room erupts. I am no longer here to see how the Wizarding World rejoices in light of the Dark Lord fallen. My soul combusts, divinity spilling like sunlight upon the dreary dusk. I die exceptionally well.

 

Notes:

Tom Riddle is a horrible human being, but he is also just that: a human being, with flaws and complexity and a backstory that this fic explores. Like Murderous Thorns, this was not written to excuse any of the actions portrayed or the person he becomes. It was written to explain, because he is so interesting to me. There is nothing I love more than a complex character I can break down and inspect in order to put words to the workings of their mind. I could seriously yap about him and how he came to be for hours. I guess this fic is me doing just so.

Chapter 2: The Snake and the Rabbit

Notes:

“Your beauty never ever scared me”
—Ghost, Mary On A Cross
His beauty does scare me.

My first trophy is a thimble. I take it from the finger of the first Matron, the one who would swat the back of my head whenever I so much as breathed too loudly around her. When I am five she suffers a fall in the kitchen. I am in my room at the time, reading, when I hear her screams. The rest of the children are playing in the courtyard; I am alone in the house. Because I cannot focus on my book with the racket, I mark my page and make my way to the kitchen, where I see her crumpled on the linoleum. Blood stains the chopping block.

 

From the finger that is now bent at an unnatural angle, I pocket the little silver thimble. It sits in a cardboard box in my closet for a long time, a token of my greatness. No one believes her when she speaks vivaciously of the small boy who'd robbed her as she bled out, and she is gone soon after.

 

We are taken to the seaside for our yearly outing, and it is here that I win myself trophies. The sky is overcast when we arrive. The water is churning and grey, lapping at the sides of the cliffs and eroding the rock. Etched into the cliff sides are a number of small caves, as dark as eyes. I like the beach, because it's a break from bustling London. I like the sea spray in the wind, and the pebbly sand beneath my shoes. The salt in the air makes my dark hair curl at the end; I see my reflection in the water, and like it too.

 

Matron tells us to be back to her within the hour, and then the time is ours. The older boys instantly race to the seashore. They will return with wet shoes and socks. The girls walk the perimeter, arms around each other's waists and gossiping in hushed voices. The littlest children middle about, toeing at puddles and drawing in the sand.

 

I am ten years old. Dennis is eight. Amy is seven. It is easy to lure them into one of the dark caves that sit along the seashore. Come, I say, perhaps we'll find treasure. 

 

They follow me like dogs.

 

Dennis blows his mouth-organ the whole while we walk. The sound bounces around the cave walls, hollow and empty. My thin leather shoes slip on the mossy rocks as we travel deeper into the darkness. Soon, only the faint light of the grey sky far behind us illuminates the stone.

 

We eventually stop when Amy starts to cry that her feet hurt. “You're such a baby,” I tell her. She looks up at me, teary eyed, and I feel nothing. Something twists deep inside me, a serpent coiled around my heart with no beginning and no end. 

 

Their screams echo off the cave walls. I make them hurt, because I want to.

 

From their limp bodies I take my deserved trophies: from Amy’s skirt I take a yo-yo, and from Dennis's back pocket his little brass mouth-organ. I turn the prizes over in my hands, considering. Copper and brass, silver and gold; tokens of my greatness. A smile twists my serpentine lips; I feel… not happy, but something. And that is enough. 

 

“But Mrs Cole,” I say when she confronts me later that night, “I didn't do anything to them.” I didn't do anything to them they didn't… deserve.

 

“We have multiple witnesses saying that they saw you take Amy and Dennis into the cave, Tom," Matron says, crossing her arms over her chest, a frown furrowing her forehead.

 

“We were just exploring, that's all!” I say with an easy smile. My eyes are cold. “They slipped on the wet rocks. I told them not to climb so high, but they insisted on it. I knew you'd be mad, Mrs Cole, they should have known better.” Her mouth tightens in a line. I bat my eyelashes, and look very much the angel. 

 

I know that I am handsome. I have a face that makes mothers swoon and old men nod at me in the street. I have dark hair and dark eyes, pale skin and a strong jaw. I am tall for my age. I am used to getting what I want.

 

“Tom,” she says softly. A look of understanding crosses her face. I grit my teeth. She tries to remain neutral, but I see how she looks at me. Devil child, Matron calls me under her breath when she thinks I can't hear her. Great, I call myself. I am ten. I am no more the devil than anyone.

 

I am seven when I find that I can make strange things happen. Before Dennis and Amy, it was a rabbit. In the week before Christmas, I argue with a boy older than I by a year, Billy, who is especially dull. He does not know how to read or write. He does not know anything at all. It sickens me to know that such people exist. That people so ignorant and foolish reside on this planet, in my town, and in the house. That the scum of the Earth inhabits the rooms next to mine. They take the forms of librarians and orphans and holy men, but they are all the same to me. They all have the faces of rats and parasites. 

 

I comfort myself with the thought that they will all end up the same: beneath the dirt, with worms crawling in.

 

In the shed outside Billy keeps a rabbit as a pet. He'd found it a year ago in the road, a pitiful little thing that trembled as it looked upon its dead mother and siblings, meshed beyond repair by the carriage that had trampled them. The rabbit now resides in a metal milk crate full of straw, fat and happy and useless. 

 

Late on Christmas Eve, I venture outside in the cold. Snow crunches under my feet, and falls from above to coat my eyelashes. My warm breath fogs the icy air. It is utterly quiet, but if I listen close enough, the sound of the church choir carries in the wind to reach my frozen ears. They sing of the mother Mary and the birth of her divine son. They do not sing of true greatness. They sing of lies. 

 

It is dark inside the shed. I reach around blindly for the light chain; I find it, and pull. The dusty yellow bulb illuminates the space, cobwebs and all. 

 

The rabbit is an ugly thing, with brown fur and beady black eyes like a crow. It looks up from the lettuce it's chewing, curious. Waiting. Useless. It stares at me, and I stare back. My head tilts as I consider the animal. It does not move; its nose twitches, perhaps in understanding. Then again, perhaps not. It is prey. It does not know anything.

 

The rabbit becomes something beautiful under my hand. There is something so inexplicably right in the way its bones break and flesh twists to spout blood.

 

From its disfigured body, a serpent is born.The snake curls around my heart, a protective cage. I shall never be the rabbit. I shall never be the prey. 

 

The church bells ring, echoing twelve times throughout London. It is Christmas. 

 

In the morning Billy finds the rabbit hanging from the rafters of the shed. I wish it were him hanging instead. 

 

Notes:

I have a hankering for mac and cheese.

Chapter 3: The Professor

Notes:

The dialogue between Tom and Dumbledore is taken verbatim from The Half-Blood Prince.

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“What does a liar do when he's dead? He lies still.”
—The Batman

I am eleven when I find that I can talk to snakes. 

 

We are in the countryside for our yearly outing. The tall grass stretches out around us, a sea of gold, and beyond that is farmland. A little stream runs through the field, and beside it I sit, levitating stones with my mind.

 

The snake whispers through the tall grass, as quiet as the breeze and deadly as poison. 

 

Its jaw opens. Its fangs glisten. 

 

Stop, I command it.

 

The snake stops, pauses where it had been about to strike; it is so close I can reach out and touch it. Scales blink like eyes, drawing me in. I am transfixed. 

 

Slowly, I extend my arm, waiting for something I am not sure of—

 

“Tom!” Matron cries, rushing forward to grab me. I never heard her beside me. I squirm in her grasp, wanting to see what else I can make the snake do, but amidst the commotion it has slithered away.

 

My eyes narrow. I have never before been so angry.

 

“You ruined it!” I shriek, wrenching my arm out of her grasp. “You ruined it! You ruined it!”

 

“Tom!” Matron gasps, taking a step back. 

 

“You ruined it! You ruined it!”

 

There is a silence: that which comes after storms, when the clouds break for blue, and only the sound of rain dripping from gutters calms pulses racing. 

 

My chest is heaving. Matron's eyes are wide. She is afraid. 

 

I am forced to my knees that night; penance must be paid. The demons must be rend from my soul, for it is demons that make me so angry. I hold the cross around my neck and wish to rip it from my flesh. The father stares down, extending his hand, as if I can grab it through the oil paint. If I could, I would bend his fingers until they break. 

 

By the time I’m grabbed by my collar and sent to my room, my knees are red and aching and the chain around my neck is a noose. What brings me peace is the fact that they are made of wax, and I am the bloody sun. They will fall to me. Metal can melt too. I will bide my time, a snake hidden among rabbits, and when the time is right I will strike. 

 

The bells chime midnight. Light spills in from the cracked door of the kitchen, and the sound of hushed voices. I crouch at the top of the stairs, listening.

 

Devil child, the holy men call me.

 

Great, I call myself.

 

The light expands, and Matron steps through the door. 

 

“Go say your prayers, Tom.” She shuts the door.

 

I lie in bed, looking up at the moon through the open window. The look of death, the smell of it. A cold breeze washes over me; I shiver. 

 

Father, I have sinned.

 

Silence. 

 

Now I lay me down to sleep

 

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

 

The look of death, the smell of it.

 

And if I die before I wake

 

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

 

Later that year, a man comes for me. He wears flamboyant velvet robes that clash horribly with his auburn hair. He arrives on a slow Sunday morning, when the milk carts drive their rounds and dead rats are collected by the butcher. I am in bed, reading.

 

“I am Professor Dumbledore,” the man tells me. I look up; my dark eyes flicker up the man, down him. 

 

“Professor?” I repeat warily. “Is that like ‘doctor’? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?” A sudden heat rises in me, like hot coals I feel in my chest.

 

“No, no,” Dumbledore says, smiling.

 

He thinks I am mad.

 

“You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? ‘Professor’, yes, of course—well, I'm not going, see? That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!” I never did anything to them they didn't deserve. 

 

“I am not from the asylum. I am a teacher and, if you will sit down calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you—”

 

“I'd like to see them try,” I sneer, hating him. He has the eyes of a snake, and a holy facade.

 

“Hogwarts,” Dumbledore continues, as if he has not heard me, “is a school for people with special abilities—”

 

“I’m not mad!” I say angrily.

 

“I know that you are not mad. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school for magic.”

 

Silence. 

 

“Magic?” I whisper. Devil child.

 

“That's right.”

 

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

 

“It’s… it's magic, what I can do?”

 

Forgive me father, for I have sinned.

 

“What is it that you can do?” He gives me a searching look; his bright blue eyes seem to flicker in the dim light.

 

“All sorts,” I say excitedly, remembering. “I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them.” The snake stops, pauses where it had been about to strike; it is so close I can reach out and touch it. “I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.” They follow me like dogs.

 

I am trembling. Everything, everywhere, all that I am; it all leads to now, where my life will finally change for the better. I yearn to be infinite with every fiber of my being.

 

“I knew I was different,” I say, almost a whisper. “I knew I was special.” I have always known.

 

Dumbledore smiles. Calm. Cool. Collected. A liar. He is not so different from I. He talks, and I answer. I know I do, because I am aware of every minute change in his expression. But my mind is far away, in a dream where I am great, the greatest of them all.

 

When doubt begins to grow in my chest, an ugly beast, I ask, “Please, Professor, could you show me—?” I need to be sure. I need to see it. I blink, and suddenly my wardrobe is on fire. Rage wells up in me, hot and heavy, and I yell in surprise and anger. In light of the sparks, I am positively murderous. 

 

Then, as soon as it had started, it ends. Not even smoke remains; all that there is is a faint rattling sound coming from inside the wardrobe. My heart fills with dread. I bring out the box, because I must, and although I think of an excuse there is none. 

 

“Is there anything in that box you ought not to have?” Dumbledore asks.

 

The air grows cold. “Yes, I suppose so, sir,” I say stiffly. The thimble. The yo-yo. The mouth-organ. Fragments of souls. But have I not won them of my own cunning?

 

I don't want to give them back, but I promise him I will. I lie. 

 

Notes:

I'm sorry for the long wait, I had such bad writer's block while finishing this chapter, I don't know why. I'm glad it's finally out.