The older I get, the more I think about the early years of Tom Riddle aka. Voldemort. Now that I’m in my mid-twenties, I find it hard to believe that an eleven-year-old child could be irredeemably evil. I know that children can be cruel or callous, and they are capable of causing other children harm, even severe, irreparable harm. But writing a pre-teen off as evil, instead of giving him the adequate resources to learn how not to be evil, that is just irresponsible, and I don’t know if this is an in-story mistake on Dumbledore’s part, or a writing mistake on JKR’s part.
Anyway, little Tom Riddle was fucked up and amoral but not necessarily evil, and he became evil in his teenage years, during his Hogwarts education. He opened the Chamber of Secrets and committed his first murder at the age of sixteen. (When I read the book at the age of nine, he seemed like a grown-up, now he strikes me as incredibly young.)
I was thinking about things that could have turned him back around, that could have shown him another path, taught him the value of ‘house-elves and children’s tales, love, loyalty and innocence.’ And an image came to me, an image so sharp and beautiful that I know for certain that I will never be able to do it justice.
All that it would take is a minor coincidence, a small flaw in the plan: he tries to frame Hagrid for opening the chamber, but he waits too long, and Hagrid has already gotten rid of Aragog, smuggled him safely into the forest. So Tom improvises: he lures Hagrid down to the chamber with rumours of a magnificent beast, and plans to leave him there to be stared to death. He’s already forged a sheaf of stupid notes with the stupid oaf’s stupid handwriting that will tell everyone that Hagrid was the one terrorising the school until he lost control of the basilisk. (Of course this change of plans means that the chamber will be discovered and there’s a good chance the serpent will be killed. A pity, but not a catastrophe: he loses a useful stronghold and a weapon, but the serpent might kill some people before it’s brought down, and the discovery of the Chamber will strike fear into the hearts of the Mudbloods. Not a bad outcome.)
So he leaves the chamber, drops a few hints to the overgrown idiot, (pretending to befriend him was pathetically easy), and follows Hagrid down the chute with a few minutes of delay.
He expects to find a dead body and a bored basilisk. What he finds instead is this: the basilisk rearing up to the height of fifteen feet, with the oaf standing right in front of him, not running, not moving, with both his arms held up. His eyes are shut tight – he must be smarter than Riddle thought he was – and he’s talking. It’s not Parseltongue, it’s just plain English with a thick Yorkshire accent, saying things like ‘look at you, little darling, what a wonder you are, what a beauty, won’t you come down here, sweetheart’? The basilisk coils and shifts, it sways its head from side to side, then bends its enormous head downwards. Riddle is certain that it is going to strike, that it will sink its venomous fangs into that stupid, trusting oaf. But the basilisk bends down, bends even lower, and butts its nose into Hagrid’s hands. The oaf keeps talking, murmurs ‘that’s right, sweetheart, you’re a good girl’ as his oversized hands pat the scaly snout, the huffing nostrils… the closed eyelids. Hagrid opens his eyes, and gets to look the basilisk directly in the face before it swings around, slithers away and coils up in the other corner of the chamber.
Hagrid laughs, too loud, too high, a little hysterical, and by now Riddle sees that he’s shaking, his legs are so unsteady that he can hardly stand. Glancing around, he spots Riddle, hiding too carelessly in the doorway, and beckons him over.
‘You were right.’ He says breathlessly. ‘This place is amazing!’
And that is the moment Riddle realises there are lots of powerful things in the world he did not yet know about. If he wants power, real power, he needs to learn more, and it starts with this boy, this oversized, shabbily dressed boy with his stupid snakecharmer’s grin.