Serpentine [T.M. Riddle]

Don't Touch Him. (Part II)

"I don't want tea." Tom cuts in, watching his father clumsily attempt to serve and offer it to the two of them. "I want answers."

With a sharp intake of breath, the man spills the tea in his cup on the tray, on the floor. His body language is closed and awkward and he looks nothing like the young boy within Morfin's memories. In the still photos on display on the mantle. There's no boyish charm, no confidence, no ego. Tom's father is a broken man. Did his mother do that?

"Answers..." His voice responds, low and whispered. "... Is... Is your... Is she...?"

"Dead." Tom cracks his jaw, patience thin. "She died giving birth to me."

Sincere shock. Bemusement. Disbelief. Tom can't say he doesn't disagree, until now, he didn't think something as ridiculous as childbirth could take out a strong, capable woman (much less a witch), and yet...

His father's shoulders relax, just the slightest. He lets out a slow breath. "Dead." Said like he doesn't believe it. Like he's processing being told of his terminal illness or an unavoidable meteor coming towards Earth.

He doesn't look back at Tom but rather stares at his feet. "Are you...like her?"

Tom's nostrils flare, "Like what."

Ximena's hand on his again. He relaxes his fist. Clears his throat. Presses his lips together. Answers. "Yes."

Fear again. He's so tired of it. He's imagined his father's face for so long and not once has it had fear on it. Not in his imagination. Was it so much to ask for pride? Want? Care?

Briefly, he wonders what he would have done if Ximena's reunion with her father had gone similar. Would he have tried to comfort her the only way he knows how?

"Did you know?" Tom demands, his emotions rising, "Did you know she was with child when you abandoned her?"

There's something he can't read on his father's face. It flickers between anger and regret. Confusion and disbelief. Tom hates it. He wants the security of a firm black and white answer. The knowledge that he's allowed to despise the cowering man before him.

"No."

His wand flicks out, and as if on instinct, his father recoils. He knows what it is, or at least what it can do. That it has power. That it's more potent than any fists or guns. Tom lifts his father's chin. Forces eye contact.

...His father's mind is so full of pain and hurt, that it makes Tom almost retch. It almost makes him want to snap right out of his head and curl up somewhere dark to hide. It is all of Tom's darkest days and all of Tom's grey days. All of his lonely days, all of his hopeless days. Every single one of those terrible, awful, no-good days rolled up into a single mass. Too heavy to lift. Too large to avoid. All this he finds within his father's head. His memories.

Tom Riddle met Merope one summer's day when he fell off his horse. He was six and already riding on his own–his own pony, rather, but Father promised to get him his own mare when he got just a little bigger. He was six years old and he fell off his horse and a snake was approaching him. Then it wasn't.

That girl. She's a little older than him. Terrifies him. She's too quiet, too skinny. A wraith in a fairytale. She spoke to that serpent, he swears it! He runs right home and tells Mother, but she doesn't believe him. Tells him to be kinder to the rabble because they are so much less fortunate than them, and it's their job as nobles to take care of those below them. Lesser than them.

In another memory, he is sixteen. Home from boarding school and enjoying an afternoon ride on his favorite horse, Cleopatra. She is there, suddenly, still older than him. Still terrifying. He knows her brother and father, the tramps, have been taken away. He's not sure if she has any form of income. If she's come asking, begging, for help. Money. A job. Mother's words echo in his head. But there's just something about her eyes. Too blue. Too cold. He can't look at them. He doesn't want to.