Chapter Text
1.
Reincarnation was not the most pleasant journey for Tom Riddle. Considering his history as a half-blood orphan, Hogwarts educator reject, and after one too many regrettable decisions made on his end, a parasite that lived and breathed garlic and tears behind someone’s twice-damned turban for at least a year, Tom Riddle simply knew he had been through quite a lot.
His pain tolerance was furthermore twice that of an ordinary wizard or witches’ whereupon disappearing limbs and cruel hexes were the norm. Admittedly, during his more academically curious phases, being a vivid pursuer of the Dark Arts contributed to quite a large chunk of that tolerance too. This was because Dark Magic, when handled poorly, hurt like a bitch whenever even a single syllable went mispronounced.
Tom had been through it all: hunger pangs, the fear of a bomb siren going off while he slept in a bed a size too small for him; the disdainful and disgusted looks of peers who were his age and older, picking a fight with a boy who had never eaten more than stale bread and thin soup for his entire growing years. He had discarded that weakness in due time, of course, but some things stayed even if he attempted to stow them away with the wonder that was magic. Occlumency was a fix-it only if he knew what the problem was and was willing to face it. He was not, never in this life or the next, but at least his expertise in Legitimacy made him feel better about himself by a good margin.
Tom had said it once and would once more, reincarnation was not the most pleasant journey for him. Although if anything, he was surprised he remembered anything of it at all. He was well aware that a majority of his soul was destroyed beyond recognition and belief – well, his belief, anyway. Tom had not anticipated at least half his problems coming in the form of another half-blood orphan, but they unfortunately did. He would make a terrible risk analyst.
Reincarnation was like a violent push and pull, an up and down, a back and forth. It was the freezing and burning of what pathetic semblance of consciousness he had left from drifting timelessly in a dark and blank space without any concept of the past, present, or future. Tom wouldn’t say he was exactly happy feeling like nothingness itself, but it was better than whatever torture he was going through at the moment.
He felt like a piece of bread before it was baked. Tom was the dough under whoever’s hands that kneaded him into a shape they liked. Once upon a time, Tom had believed that death meant a gravestone protruding from the earth with barely a blade of grass to grow on it, of being forgotten by people he could give a rat’s arse about; he had feared that unimportance. It seemed he needed a little trip back to the wheel of beliefs so he could turn it anti-clockwise and remake a fundamental fact he thought he was sure about in his entire life; he feared death now because it hurt like bloody fuck.
Tom came out of his mother’s womb bawling because words were suddenly lost to him, and he held his pain in for far too long while in that dark, unknown space before he was suddenly attacked by whatever higher beings existed out there. It was after he wrangled his emotions into a semblance of maturity that he realised that his bread metaphor was rather apt: Tom had compared himself to bread, but it didn’t mean he actually expected to be baked.
If he must continue on with the metaphors of bread and everything related, his luck with the bakery was utterly shite. His mother this time round was very much alive, however she was also very much incapable of taking care of him and off Tom went, to his second run at an unknown place that was (grudgingly) admittedly, much cleaner than Wool’s Orphanage.
Tom never saw his mother again the moment he closed his eyes after birth.
His caretakers were thankfully tolerable. Tom forced himself an angelic baby whereupon meant he only cried when he had to, and simply staved off his irregular bursts of emotions by thinking well and hard about Harry Potter who must be living a life full of glory and fame the moment he felled Lord Voldemort. Such thoughts only made him wildly enraged that he was practically rolling in his bed when no one was looking. Still, it was better than crying; he was above crying since he turned six in his past life.
The familiar faces and bodies garbed in white from head to toe treated him with careful respect and politeness. They came when called by his cries, but otherwise stood eerily still by the door that was designed in a way Tom didn’t recognise. It was like the panels of it were made from paper framed by wood. His room for that matter, was also in wood and structured perfectly contrasting against Tom’s knowledge of most architecture across Europe.
The white garbed men wore clothes he could only guess belong to those from Asian descent. Specifically what nationality, Tom knew fuck all. His main base of studies remained in Europe, so his knowledge was shamefully limited. Regardless, the language was foreign and so was the fashion. Tom was obviously fated for a different future in this life.
Reincarnation was not a foreign concept to him. He was aware some religions believed in that sort of practice. Only, he was the last person to read into how the afterlife worked because he planned to skip the dying bit of life altogether. Tom had ambitions of immortality, and in a way, it was fulfilled, he could theoretically ride the same bucking horse of world domination again.
He contemplated the idea sceptically though. Was he even in the same world anymore?
Because on one fine day whereupon Tom’s caretakers deemed it appropriate to take him out to bask in the sun for the first time, Tom caught a glimpse of creatures he had to squint twice to believe they had appeared at all.
The creatures hid beyond the wall of a beautifully maintained courtyard of beautiful artificial rivers filled with koi fish. There were bonsai trees that looked freshly pruned, and a narrow bridge that connected one part of the land to another. The whole place screamed serene, and Tom squirmed in discomfort. Everything was too clean, too bright, he felt like he did not belong here.
The deformed… thing easily distracted Tom from his initial thoughts. It looked like a Christmas pudding experiment gone wrong. The brown blob had four eyes and a set of bat’s wings which made little sense to have. Puddings went on plates but this one was flying. It was unlike any creature Tom remembered studying during Hogwarts. He gargled a sound and lifted his weak chubby arms to point. Only Merlin knew how old he was; Tom was keeping as much count as one did when they slept for 18 hours a day.
His expressionless caretakers – because their faces were covered by a rectangle cloth from the nose down – looked alerted though unafraid. They reached their hand out and formed a weird gesture before a wave of something easily disintegrated the pudding creature from the face of the earth. It squealed like Abraxas did in the presence of oh-so-fearful butterflies and faded into dust.
Tom frowned. That was not magic.