Archive of Our Own

Tom Riddle looked at the waif in the hospital bed. The only survivor of a house fire, but he was being treated for hypothermia and dehydration rather than smoke inhalation. He'd spent the night of the fire hidden in a corner of the garden, between a fence and a garden shed.

Right now the six year old boy was feigning sleep, but Tom had seen the flinch when Tom had sat down beside his bed, and every bit of him was alert. Ready to take off, despite having an I.V. in his arm.

Tom decided to play along. Let the child decide when to initiate contact. All of his information from the neighbourhood and school system said the boy was mute, but able to keep up in school. And Tom always had work he could do. He pulled out his laptop and worked quietly until he noticed the boy finally opening his eyes. Watching.

He sat up and pointed to Tom with a question in his face.

"My name is Tom Riddle. I'm here to look after you."

The boy bit his lip, his face a question.

"You remember the fire last night?" Tom asked.

Harry nodded.

Maybe others would have been gentler about it. But Tom didn't think children needed coddling. They responded better to truth than any amount of euphemism.

"The fire killed your aunt and uncle and cousin," he said. "You're the only survivor."

There. A flash of something that might have been pure satisfaction, immediately overtaken by an exaggerated expression of sorrow.

Tom slid a notebook and pen across to Harry. "Can you write or draw what you're thinking?"

Harry hesitated, before picking up the pen and spelling out slowly, the tip of his tongue sticking out between his lips.

orfanads?

"Orphanage?" Tom Riddle said, long skilled in reading kid scribble. "No, we don't have orphanages anymore. We have foster homes, where you'll live with a family who will take care of you."

Harry's face shut down. He seemed to think this was a worse outcome for himself.

And no surprise, based on his appearance. His lab results hadn't come back yet, but he looked as if he hadn't ever eaten well. One wrist looked as if it had broken and not been set correctly when it healed, and there had been two Child Social Service reports opened on him in his five years with the Dursleys. Both closed sooner than Tom would have.

If this was how he had been treated in a family who was 'supposed to take care of him' then he would be suspicious of another family.

"While you're here at the hospital, I'll be the adult who makes decisions for you."

Harry wrote on the paper.

why?

"Because I'm a social worker. That's my job."

Harry shook his head in frustration and tried again.

why me hosipi hir?

"Why are you in the hospital?" Tom interpreted.

Harry nodded.

"You were in the cold so long that you needed to come to the hospital to warm up. Then they discovered that you haven't been getting enough food and water, so they'll be running tests to see how to make you healthy again."

blud?

"Yes, the Doctors and Nurses will be looking at your blood. That will tell them what kind of help you need."

He pointed at the IV in his arm.

"That's to give you more liquid into your body. You weren't getting enough before."

no shit

Tom knew exactly what that was. A test. Would Tom yell at him? Punish him? Hit him. Instead, Tom gave a huff. "If you can spell shit, then you can spell blood. It's b-l-o-o-d."

Harry looked at him.

"I want you to write it down, so you'll remember how to spell it next time you need it."

Harry sulked for a moment, before he spelled out the word.

blood. happy?

"Let's go through the rest of the words on the page." Tom got out a new notebook, and on the outside titled it 'Harry's Spelling Workbook'. On the inside he wrote the words 'here, hospital, orphanage*'. "Orphanage is extra credit. You don't have to remember it. Here and Hospital are required, along with blood."

why?

"Because you communicate with writing, and you need to be able to spell properly."

you won fors me TALK?

It took Tom a moment to parse that. "No, I won't force you to talk. I will expect you to communicate, and I'll make sure you have help to do that. Even if all you can do is a thumbs up or thumbs down for yes or no, or flat hand for 'I don't know'. Can you do that?"

i ges so.

Tom added the words 'won't, force, and guess' to Harry's spelling list.

Harry drew an angry face with mean eyebrows, and pointed at Tom.

"Very clever. You think I'm mean, but you don't want to get anymore spelling words."

Harry gave Tom a thumbs up.

"I'll make you a deal. I'll write down all the words you misspell, but you only need to learn five every day. Is five too many for you?"

Harry looked at Tom with a fierce expression. Challenge accepted.

I can do five.

Tom was already writing the boy's assessment in his head. Intelligent. Driven. Eager to prove himself. Is used to being considered learning disabled because he is mute.

Then there were the parts he left out. Emotionally unconcerned with his relatives deaths. Joked about being deprived liquids. Expects to be treated badly in any setting. Challenging his newest guardian to see how much he can get away with.

He gave Harry some colouring books and workbooks. Harry ignored the colouring books and word games, and played with logic puzzles and maths problems.

An hour later, his associate Granger arrived with a prepared rucksack of three sets of clothing in the boy's size, a set of trainers, and a plushie owl. He wasn't surprised that Harry looked at the owl as if it was some sort of alien artefact suddenly teleported onto his bed. He also wasn't surprised when he saw the boy clutching it to him when he finally went back to sleep.

"Granger," Tom said, after he was sure the boy was asleep. "I'd like to transfer this case over to you."

"Oh. Why? I mean, that's fine. I can take him on, but he seemed to have a rapport with you," she said.

"I want to foster him. All the carers who could take him for an emergency placement have kids already. I think he'd do best in a one on one setting," Tom said.

"You've taken kids before, right? Already done the home assessment?" Granger checked.

"Emergency placements, usually just a few days," Tom said.

"I'll put this down as short term. Would you be willing for it to become his permanent placement?"

Tom checked with himself. He'd gone into social work to keep what had happened to him from happening to other children, and this one was the most like him he'd ever met.

"Yes, if that's in his best interest," Tom said. But he knew it would be. The child had been twice orphaned. There was one Dursley left in the world, and Marge Dursley had loudly proclaimed she would have nothing to do with the boy. He had no one who wanted him.

They spent the next few minutes transferring over the child's files to Granger, and then she took it upon herself to order Harry an ipad with communication software, which Tom had already thought of. "Is there anything else he'll need?"

"I'll take care of him," Tom said softly.

He thought of Harry's clothing, that he'd already had destroyed on the basis that the smoke smell was too strong. Oversized t-shirt. Oversized trousers. A belt with extra holes punched in it to cinch around the boy's tiny waist. Day clothes, not pyjamas. 

If Granger asked, he'd say the child was found in an oversized t-shirt. 

Tom would never mention the book of matches, half used, that he'd found in the trouser pockets. He'd slipped them out before taking the clothes to be incinerated, and later given the matches to someone in the smoking area. 

He was already sure it wasn't suicidal. The boy didn't show the signs. But if he had a monster inside him, then he needed a monster to guide him, and help him grow safely. Harry could have been caught this time. At his age, and with his disability, it could have led to him being put in an institution, where that keen intelligence would wither away. But with Tom's care and guidance that would never happen.

After all, no one had ever found the body of Professor Slughorn.