Hogwarts: a school of Witchcraft and Love (Tom Marvolo Riddle x F!reader)

Introduction

Remarkable. Remarkable. Remarkable. It was another word used for strange things, odd things, things that were out of place, only it was coated in politeness. The man sitting beside him on the small creaking mattress was insistent on using that one word to describe him. Tom Marvolo Riddle was remarkable and apperently, so was his visitor.

"Prove it," he ordered, after having just explained how different he was from the other inhabitants of London's Wool orphanage. They couldn't make objects magically float into the air, or speak with reptilians. None of them could. They weren't special at all.

The month was August, the year 1938. Tom Riddle had just watched the man who introduced himself as Albus Dumbledore set fire to his closet, and if he wasn't the stoney-faced child he was known to be, perhaps surprise and even delight would have made a debut on the stage of his face. Maybe the man was not lying when he promised he wasn't here to take him away to a psychiatry. But no, all Tom did was stare at his wardrobe with a non-affected expression, the only sign visible that it did something to him being the twitching of his slim fingers folded neatly onto his uniformed trousers.

"So you see," Dumbledore smiled warmly at him. Tom didn't smile back. "There are all kinds of people of our kind who go to Hogwarts. We would very much like to have you there—if you want to go. It would be a shame if you decide not to, I will say, for you are the youngest candidate we have ever invited to the school. Remarkable talents deserve recognitition, wouldn't you agree?"

Remarkable, there was that word again. Tom had to admit to himself that he didn't mind hearing being called that as much as what the other grown-ups or even the kids at this wretched house called him. A freak. A weirdo. Outcast. All because he could do things that none of them could.

They were normal. Ordinary. The children of his age were quick to stop picking on him when Tom showed them exactly what he could do, even when he was only nine years old. He reminded them of what he could do every day until they feared him and left him alone, but at times, he wouldn't even stop even when they were cowering in fear.

Of course he wanted to leave this awful place. He'd been wanting to since the day his brain developed the ability to desire anything at all.

Tom's intense gaze raked over the professor's fading auburn hair, then met his sparkling clear eyes. What if all of it was an act? A ruse? What if the man was only behaving decently to trick him into going to a school that could be even worse than the orphanage?

"What about (Y/N)?"

The ocean blue eyes he stared into shone brighter at once. It was the first time since his visit that Albus Dumbledore detected any signs of interest from the boy other than in the aspect of being a wizard. Dumbledore brought his large hand up, then brushed down over his beard where he held it. "What about the girl?"

"Is she coming too? She's special like me." Tom's gaze roamed towards the wardrobe that was no longer on fire, and didn't show any residual scorch marks whatsoever. "She's special like us," he emphasized.

A crinkle formed on the adult's forehead before Dumbledore slowly rose from the bed and once again strud around the room where the boy spent most of his time. It was a lot emptier than he would have expected from a young child. No framed pictures of relatives, no plushies, dolls or figurines. Only a stack of books laying on top of a barely-intact desk, above which hung a single drawing pinned against the wall by a black thumb tack.

The man stepped closer towards it, his eyes twinkling with curiousity as they followed the bright lines of red, blue and green on the paper. They were the only splashes of colour present in the room which had a noteably dark and depressing atmosphere.