Among Muggles
"Don’t let the Muggles get you down, Tom. Write us!“ Alphard Black said, giving the other first year a wave and then walking away to greet his parents. He was the last Slytherin first year to part from the station, and now only Tom was left. Clutching his small luggage he stepped through the passage to the muggle station.
A nurse from Stockwell orphanage was to fetch him there, but he couldn’t spot her yet. He was wearing trousers and a shirt which he had transformed during his year at Hogwarts, he had done this to nearly every piece of clothing, making new ones out of worn ones. It was not actually a spell for first years, but a sixth year Slytherin had borrowed him her transfigurations books.
Maybe it was because of the new clothes, or the fact that he had grown quite a lot, but Tom Riddle looked changed. The nurse didn’t know him at first, throwing critical looks at the groomed and handsome boy.
“My, my, you’ve grown a lot. Let’s get home,” she said, with a clucking of her tongue. They stepped out into the streets of London, into the customary rain which Tom hadn’t missed at all, and took the subway to Vauxhall and Clapham South. Muggles, he thought, Muggles all around. He watched the woman while she was not looking at him, and he assessed the people around him with cold rationality. They didn’t look any different from wizards except for their clothing, they didn’t talk or move differently ...
Were Muggles really lower beings than wizards? The only Muggle he explicitly hated was his father, and his father was dead, the nurses had told him when he was still little.
“So how did you do at the boarding school?” The nurse asked him.
“Well,” he answered.
“What did they teach you?”
“... a lot.” He wasn’t allowed to talk about magic, much less do magic. He would go on pretending to be nothing but a Muggle. He couldn’t even tell the kids off who insulted his mother. The nurse looked frustrated at his curt answers and fell silent as well.
Finally the reached Stockwell, the narrow 19th century facades and wet streets. It had stopped raining. They walked trough the doors of the orphanage and an unsuspected wave of nausea hit Tom when he recognised the single tree in the court, the creaky, worn stairs, the group of boys squatting in the yard. Some of them looked up, taking him for a new arrival. They walked past the school building when suddenly some boy roughly his age pointed out of the window at him and a group of others gathered behind him. Tom looked away.
The nurse helped him carry his things inside his old dormitory and then went away. He sat down on his bed in the dormitory, those empty, cold rooms which were the complete opposite of the elegant, welcoming Slytherin dungeons and waited for the unavoidable.
In the end, they came, when lessons were over : the boys of his dormitory, a year older than when he had last seen them and alien to his eyes. How plain, how stupid their freckled faces, how dull their eyes and hair. Their clothes, their gawking looks “ he saw himself a year ago in them and it repulsed him.
“It really is Tom Riddle!” the boy who had pointed his finger at him called out with a nasal voice. “He’s back!” A child Tom didn’t know, probably a new one, looked confused.
“Who’s that, Jerry?” the little one asked.
“Tha’s old Tom Riddle, he’s been ‘ere until last fall. Bin coming from the loony bin. Tom o’ Bedlam we’ve bin callin’ him.”
“Didn’t want you, eh?” another one of then sneered. “Look at the fine clothes. Wanted to be a little lord, eh?”
“Where were you?” a smaller one demanded.
“I went to a boarding school,” Tom answered stiffly.
“Liar! No Stockwell kid goes to a boarding school! I bet you only ran away!”
“Maybe he was back at the loony bin for a while,” the first one snickered. They all joined in the laughter. Tom bit his lip. He knew his wand was in his pocket, only a small movement of his hand away. But he knew he would be expelled if he used it. And not going back to Hogwarts was as good as dying. He tried to turn out their laughter, to ignore their shoving hands when he walked through the hallways. He sat in silence during meals, and read all his books until he knew them by heart. It’ll get boring for them, he told himself. They’re just envious. They’ll forget me if I don’t react. And in six weeks time I’ll be back at Hogwarts. Back among wizards ...
Info : 'Tom o' Bedlam' is a traditional song about a man from Bethlehem hospital (a kind of love song, actually, I think). Sorry for the pause between updates, I had this chapter written for a long time, but forgot posting ...