Tom Riddle

"I think no one understands Harry Potter better than I do. In life, we always faced all kinds of disasters—perhaps sudden bad news, perhaps prolonged, numbing torment." On August 4, Chen Yang walked out of the cinema after watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and spoke animatedly to his friend beside him. "But we had to keep our fighting spirit high. It wasn't just hope for a better future, but an attitude of refusing to compromise—we might live in the gutter, but we still needed to look up at the sky."

His friend held a popsicle stick between his teeth and nodded blankly at him, as if he had just heard some profound maxim of life. "But how are we supposed to get out of the gutter..."

"For example, right now, I think I can be a hero!"

He suddenly ran into the middle of the street. Reflected in his friend's shocked eyes was a scene: a semi-truck loaded with steel pipes swerved sharply toward the roadside, terror filling the driver's eyes. The tires scraped against the road, kicking up clouds of dust. A stunned child stood in the middle of the street, still holding a wand handed out by the cinema, while his ordinary friend, ordinary from childhood to adulthood, flung off his backpack and sprinted toward the child.

Our protagonist grabbed the child and ran wildly toward the other side of the road, but he lost his balance from moving too fast. The trailer, thrown forward by the semi-truck's emergency braking, crashed violently into them. He shielded the child in his arms, took the blow to his back, and flew toward the roadside.

Not long after, his friend ran over anxiously and saw him staring blankly at the sky with unfocused eyes. That patch of blue was the last thing he saw.

Crying, mad laughter, screams, blinding red, and scorching air overwhelmed his senses. Am I in an incinerator? I could clearly have been saved. Chen Yang wanted to cry out for help, but he found that he could not speak, and his body would not obey him either. He could only wail like a baby.

Soon, drowsiness swept over him like a tide. Amid shattered walls and ruins blazing with Fiendfyre, a woman in a black dress hurried through an alleyway. A tiny infant lay curled in the basket hanging from her arm, sleeping soundly.

On July 30, 1938, eleven-year-old Nelson sat on the roof of London's West City Orphanage, watching the children below sing and dance around a bonfire. The scent of roasting meat drifted over to him. "My aunt often brings me food anyway. These good things should be left for the real orphans..." He swallowed. "Still, it smells so good..."

Even in this corner of the city packed with children, the clouds of war still hung over the orphanage. Even the Never-Setting Sun Empire, the largest empire in the world, could only let the children at the orphanage eat roasted meat made from scraps from meat-processing plants during holidays. The gentlemen from the neighboring district, who used to come around putting on airs, no longer came either. They were busy calling on the public through newspapers to remain rational and not fear war, while secretly scrambling to buy property in former colonies across the ocean and purchasing annual passes from Dutch ferry companies for their entire families. They had probably long since prepared to flee at any moment.

"Those gentlemen can't even be bothered with keeping up appearances anymore... At least we used to get fish soup once in a while." Nelson muttered listlessly.

"That's right, Nal. They really disgust me." Nelson jumped when Tom suddenly flipped over and landed beside him, nearly rolling off the roof.

"Tom, why aren't you down there eating?" Nelson looked speechlessly at his roommate, then added, "No one in the royal family has a birthday this year. If you want another good meal, you'll have to wait until next year."

"Eating with them disgusts me too." Tom was a handsome boy. His black-jade hair was casually combed back, and he had a tall, slender frame. The fingers bracing him against the ground were long and well-defined, clearly suited to holding a pen. His face was pale, even sickly so. In truth, aside from the children born dark-skinned, most of the orphanage children had that same pallor. But unlike the others, who looked like consumptives, Tom resembled a young nobleman who simply disliked exercise.

Nelson looked up at Tom. Tom's eyes were like black jade as well, his pupils reflecting Nelson's image. What a handsome youth! Soft, light-gold hair fell to his shoulders, and his figure was likewise tall and upright, radiating health. His features were gentle, and he always wore a smile, as if everything in the world could bring him heartfelt joy. Light gleamed in his sapphire-blue eyes. What a dashing young man!

"If you don't like eating with everyone else, you could bring your food up here," Nelson suggested.

"Not interested. Besides, if we brought food up here, Mrs. Cole might beat us to death. But there's something you should be interested in. I heard Germany is recruiting people with special abilities worldwide. If we went, we might even manage to become officers." Tom spoke excitedly. This concerned their greatest secret: both of them were "gifted people," capable of moving objects through the air, speaking with animals, and summoning flames. It filled him with confidence and ambition. "With a starting point like that, our abilities would be enough to make us people who truly held power."

"You'd only be dissected as a lab rat." Nelson retorted weakly. He understood perfectly well that this was not some special ability. It was magic. They were in a world of magic.

That was right. This was the world of Harry Potter, and the abilities they possessed were magic. Tom was the infamous second-generation Dark Lord of the future, Voldemort—Tom Marvolo Riddle. As for their protagonist, he was Chen Yang, who had tragically died in that car accident. Yet in the midst of that tragedy, Chen Yang had finally lived up to his understanding of the core spirit of Harry Potter before his death. He might have been ordinary in life, perhaps even good for nothing, but the instant he rushed into the road, he fulfilled his courage and became someone else's hero. After all, the hymn of humanity was a hymn to courage.

After spending several bewildered years there, he finally understood that he had arrived in Europe before World War II and become a child named Nelson Wiltening Williams. This kind of possession was perhaps the most common form of transmigration. His unusual memories made Nelson exceptionally precocious from childhood, setting him apart from the other children and drawing the attention of another boy at the orphanage who did not fit in with anyone else: Tom Riddle.

When Nelson first learned that the person living upstairs shared Voldemort's name, he had refused to accept it. That absurd feeling reached its peak after Tom privately showed him his unique "talents." He could only accept the cruel truth—he was a Muggle in a magical world. But when he once tried to save a drowning cat and the cat flew out of the water, he understood that in this cruel world, he too had become one of the fortunate ones. He had the aptitude to become a Wizard!

Childhood bonds were easy to form, and such friendships were often pure and lasting. According to the plot, Tom would display his magic and power to the other children in the orphanage in ways ordinary people could not understand, and later become a Dark Magic practitioner. But was Tom not also a victim of cold violence? His lonely environment had shaped his awkward personality, while his magical abilities made his self-protection sharp... even terrifying. Nelson believed that no one was born a Dark Lord. "It is not our abilities that determine who we are, but our choices." He had always kept Dumbledore's warning close to his heart.

Tom quickly became Nelson's confidant, someone he could talk to about anything. Even the most powerful Dark Lord would not crave solitude as a child. Even the Death Eaters, though they were his servants, would be called "family." Nelson often "recited" positive quotes to Tom, which always left the young Tom puzzled. Tom also frequently shared his ambitions with Nelson: "becoming an aristocrat," "becoming an officer," "becoming prime minister," and so on. Nelson was relieved that Tom did not have ambitions such as "becoming the Dark Lord," but he remained vigilant at all times. He could sense Tom's pursuit of power and strength in those dreams, as though it were an innate ambition. That tendency only grew stronger as Tom's dreams became grander. Perhaps Tom did not want to become the Dark Lord only because he did not yet know magic existed.

"Why do you want to become an officer? You'd have to train every day, go to war, and endure the wind and sun." Nelson tried to persuade Tom to abandon the idea of becoming a warmonger.

"Our talents are naturally suited to taking things held by mediocre people." Tom argued with the self-important logic of an adolescent. "Those mediocre people hold high positions yet accomplish nothing. They disgust me."

"That makes you a villain. Why not think about becoming a hero instead? Like Superman?"

"Superman? What's that?"

"It's a comic that came out last month, an American superhero. I'll give you that copy of Action Comics later."

"Where did you get an American comic?"

"Didn't you notice? There have been more and more Americans on the streets lately."

At that very moment, while the two sat on the roof discussing comics and dreams, an unexpected visitor arrived at the orphanage. He had long auburn hair and a beard, wore an elegant purple-red velvet suit, and carried himself with a light step despite the faint sorrow hanging over his handsome face. He held a wand in his right hand. He was Albus Dumbledore.

Albus Dumbledore knocked on the orphanage door and nodded politely to the young woman who answered it. "Good afternoon. I have an appointment with a Mrs. Cole. I believe she is the matron here?"

The assistant nodded in a fluster and called out Mrs. Cole's name. Mrs. Cole's reply soon came from inside the building.

Before entering, Dumbledore stepped back a few paces from the doorway and looked toward the roof, where he spotted the two boys watching him. He winked at them and smiled.

When Nelson saw Dumbledore, he understood that the wheels of history had begun to turn. No, history's Broomstick had begun to fly. A gentleman like me will probably end up in Gryffindor, or maybe Ravenclaw? he thought happily.

Tom clicked his tongue disdainfully. "What kind of taste does this man have? The color of his suit disgusts me."