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Twist of Fate	By : gpsassi Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Voldemort Views: 3342 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created and owned by JK Rowling and various publishers. I do not own Harry Potter. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
AN:

This chapter has a very long 'Alice part', but it's needed to set the background for things that will affect Tom and Harry, so it was necessary.

The last, very short part will be a full scene in the next chapter. I just had to do it like this or the chapter would have been way too long.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

Part I: Chapter 3

The wide commercial London street was bustling with activity, motorcars rolling by at a sedate pace among delivery wagons pulled by horses, as matrons went around doing their shopping, maids carried out their task of buying supplies and food from butchers, bakers and grocery stores, and young couples and families strolled about eyeing window displays.

In the midst of it, Alice was herding the children of St. Jerome's Orphanage in their monthly expedition into commercial London. As she gazed at the passers-by with their bags of purchases, she felt a bout of cheerfulness.

England's economy had began a slow recovery; there had been a rise in employment levels in recent years, mostly in the South, where lower interest rates had spurred a house building boom, which in turn spurred a recovery in domestic industry. Apparently, the Great Depression had ended.

Alice didn't understand much about Economics, so the explanations in newspaper articles had flown over her head. But she did know that England was starting to do well, since her own sister had found employment as a maid for a well-to-do family and her brother was working in a shoe factory at the outskirts of London. And it was evident too, since people were now on the streets, spending again.

"King George V inaugurates the opening of the Queensway Tunnel beneath the River Mersey, Forty-one squadrons are added to the Royal Air Force as part of a new air defense program," was shouting out a boy, standing at the corner of the intersection of the bustling streets, waving newspapers in his hands and with a stack of them by his side. "Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald assures that the Four-Power Pact signed last year by Britain, France, Germany and Italy still holds and ensures peace and stability in Europe… Read it all in The Daily Herald!"

Alice stopped for a moment by the boy's side, plucking out a couple of shillings from her apron's pocket and counting the necessary amount before handing them over to the boy.

"Thank you, ma'am," said the boy politely, giving her one of the newspapers, before he started reciting the same news in a loud booming voice, once again.

As the children animatedly chattered, laughed and giggled around her, Alice quickly opened the newspaper to the section of International News and found the article she had been looking for.

It wasn't often that information regarding Germany could be found, and the articles that did focus on the subject were usually short and hidden away among other more cheerful matters of international politics and trade.

The British Government didn't seem to be particularly concerned about what was happening in Germany – at least, they didn't appear to be in front of their citizens.

However, Alice had her misgivings. She had been following news regarding Germany, and what she read had increasingly alarmed her for the last couple of years.

Two years ago, in 1932, the National Socialist party –or Nazi for short, and a right-wing party from what Alice understood - had gained almost forty percent of the votes in the German Parliament, called Reichstag or something of the sort. Then the party's leader, a chap called Hitler, had been appointed as Chancellor by the German President Hinderburg.

Not long after, the Chancellor Hitler had announced that his party's prime goal in foreign policy was to secure living space for the German race – that had perplexed Alice a bit, making her wonder just what that entailed.

Then, a fire had broken out at the Reichstag, supposedly caused by the Communist Party. As a result, that party, which was the second largest one in Germany, had been banned, giving the Nazis a clear majority in government in the following elections.

After this, matters seemed to worsen.

An Enabling Act had given Hitler power to make laws without consulting the Reichstag for a period of four years, Trade Unions were banned –which wasn't a good thing in Alice's opinion; England had its problems with Unions but Alice's brother had told her that if it wasn't for his Union leader at the factory, his salary wouldn't be enough to feed him- and they had started burning books which were considered to be 'un-German'. This latter seemed most atrocious to Alice, who loved books so much when she could afford them.

Moreover, later, all political parties except the Nazis were banned, Germany withdrew from the League of Nations –this had caused some anxious stirrings in England's political circles- and shops owned by Jews were vandalized, apparently because Jews were un-German and sought the ruination of non-Jews and the country as a whole.

Alice had been flummoxed by the latter. She knew several store owners and shopkeepers who were Jewish and she found nothing wrong with them. They stuck with their own, but they were smart merchants and friendly, and didn't overprice their wares and were honest and fair in all their dealings – they even gave credit.

Up until all these news, Alice had felt indignant or angered but not overly concerned. After all, the Prime Minister said that nothing was wrong and that the Germans didn't have intentions of causing any conflicts.

Her uneasiness had started three months ago, when she had been out buying supplies for the orphanage.

She had taken little Harry with her, who liked to accompany her while she went around the neighborhood's shops. The boy simply loved being outdoors and in the streets, where the children playing outside their homes cheerfully waved at him and invited him to play with them, or the passing-by women cooed at him and petted his hair.

Most of the orphanage's children were looked down upon by the people in their neighborhood –most thought that orphans would end up being thieves or something of the sort- but little Harry was always the exception. He had charmed everyone since the first day Alice had taken him out.

That day, she had visited Mr. Hutchins' small convenience store, which sold groceries and all other sort of things.

Robert Hutchins, or Bob Three Fingers as he was called since his pinky and ring finger were missing from his left hand, was an amiable man in his mid-thirties, nearly ten years her senior. And Alice had to admit, she had been secretly fascinated with him since the moment the man had moved to their neighborhood and opened up a shop.

He was very handsome in a roguish way, with his dark curls and sky blue eyes, but also very intriguing.

From what she knew, he had worked up North in a coal mine when he had been a mere boy and then he had taught himself how to read and write –something she admired greatly. When he was in his early twenties, he worked in a factory, not only becoming a supervisor but also a Union leader. But for some reason, he had left the North and had come to live in their neighborhood five years ago.

Rumors said that he had opened his shop with money he had stolen from the owner of the factory he had worked in; that his employer had caught him red-handed and that they had fought, with the employer somehow cutting Mr. Hutchins' two fingers before Mr. Hutchins managed to escape.

Others said that Mr. Hutchins had led a Union revolt in the factory and that in the fight between workers, armed policemen and the employers, he had killed the owner of the factory and thus had needed to flee down South, to London and the orphanage's neighborhood.

Even more vicious tongues said that Mr. Hutchins had seduced his employer's wife, that the husband had found out about the illicit affair, finding them in bed, and that he had taken a shot at them, but Mr. Hutchins had moved quickly to take the pistol from the man's hand though the shot had nevertheless blown out two of his fingers.

And some, those who didn't like him at all, mostly some men of the neighborhood who saw how their wives longingly sighed at the mere sight of Mr. Hutchins, said that he was a Communist. The man did disappear several days a month, going who knew where – they said that it was to secret Red meetings in central London.

Nevertheless, Alice didn't pay attention to such rumors. What mattered was that Mr. Hutchins was a good man; his prices were fair and his wares of good quality, he never tried to cheat any of his customers, and he always went around giving children candies or bread for free.

They had become friends of sorts, as much as an unmarried young man and woman could be friends without causing scandal. The man apparently had a well stocked library at his house behind the shop, because he constantly lent Alice books and novels whenever she went to his store.

"Are you here for Mrs. Agatha Christie's latest novel, Alice?" had said Mr. Hutchins that day, smiling at her the moment she and little Harry stepped inside his shop.

Alice had felt herself blush faintly at that, but she had soon shaken her head. "Not today, Mr. Hutchins, I still haven't finished the last one I borrowed from you." She awkwardly cleared her throat, as she continued, "I'm needing a sack of beans and wheat, and two pounds of potatoes."

Mr. Hutchins smiled at her again, in that gentle way that always made her heart beat faster and something flutter in the pit of her stomach, before he went about gathering what she had asked for.

Alice had to chide Harry when the boy started playing around with some pans on a shelf.

"Oh, let the little fellow have his fun. He does no harm," had said Mr. Hutchins as he settled the sacks on top of the counter, making little Harry beam at him.

Mr. Hutchins had shot him a grin of camaraderie, as if he was a playmate and little boy himself, and added as he pointed a finger at one corner of the store, "I've just received some new toys. You can have your pick, Harry. I'll lend the toy to you for some months if you take good care of it."

"Really?" breathed out little Harry, his emerald eyes going wide as he gazed at the man worshipfully.

"Really," said Mr. Hutchins, his grin widening in a sort of fond and conspiratorial way.

"Thank you, Bob!" piped in Harry, before he dashed to the corner and started tinkering about with wood blocks, tin soldiers, toy motorcars and the like.

"Mr. Hutchins, you're too generous," started saying Alice, "You really shouldn't-"

"The child has no problem adressing me by my first name," interrupted Mr. Hutchins softly, waving a hand, good-naturedly dismissing her comment, as he pierced his kind blue eyes into hers. "When will you start doing the same, Alice? We've known each other for five years, after all."

Alice felt herself blushing from her cheeks to the tip of her ears as she stammered in an abashed, meek murmur, "It's – it's not proper-"

"Who would know? There's no one around," he said, gesturing at the shop, before he gently smiled at her. "And it would please me, Alice."

She felt herself flushing even more. And she hated that she couldn't stop doing that in his presence; she was twenty-four years old and she had to look like a silly little girl to him when it happened.

So Alice managed to raise her head and meet his gaze, and she nodded jerkily. "Alright – Robert."

Mr. Hutchins shot her a wide, gorgeous smile, his eyes glinting with… was it affection? Alice didn't dare hope, she knew that he could have any woman he wanted and most men weren't interested in girls like her.

She was well educated, far above most in the same station in life as hers, and she didn't have any money, she was just a caregiver in a run-down orphanage. She was pretty enough, she supposed; she had seen men eyeing her with interest, but they didn't want a young woman who read books and had her own opinions and who didn't wear nice dresses.

Some of it must have shown on her face because Mr. Hutchins then said quietly, as he intently gazed at her, looking uncertain and a bit nervous which puzzled her, "Say Alice... I know you're a smart lass, and I've recently seen you buying newspapers… Are you interested in what's happening?"

Alice stared at him in befuddlement. "With Germany, you mean?"

He nodded, his expression turning grave as he said in a low, hushed voice, "Would you like to know more? About things most people aren't aware of? If I showed you, would you keep it a secret?"

Now mystified, Alice vehemently nodded, wondering what the 'secret' was. Well, whatever it was she would take it to the grave with her. Even if Mr. Hutchins suddenly burst out that he had indeed killed his employer in the factory, she didn't think she would tell a soul.

Mr. Hutchins eyed her closely once more, and then seemed to decide that she could be trusted. In a few seconds, he had locked the door of the shop, turning around the sign hanging on the window so that it displayed 'Closed' and then grabbed her hand and pulled her around the counter, opening a door which led to the backroom of the store.

Once they made their way through piles of boxes and rows of shelves, he led her through another door which made them enter a small sitting room. Alice's eyes widened since they were now evidently in his house, and she began feeling a bit uneasy. She didn't think Mr. Hutchins would assault her, but still, it wasn't right to be alone in a young man's house. If anyone found out, she would be ruined.

But she didn't have time to protest before Mr. Hutchins had already led her into another room, and all thoughts about silly propriety rules fled from her mind as she caught sight of all the things in there. And she stood frozen, gaping.

There was a small printing press and piles and piles of pamphlets, and numerous posters on the walls, and shelves filled with books, the names of some authors ringing a bell: Marx, Lenin, Engels, Trotsky… and other names she had never heard of before.

She swirled around to stare at him, with both uneasiness and a bit of fearful anxiousness, and stammered, "You're a – a –"

"A Communist?" said Mr. Hutchins, looking at her with a bit of amusement. "Yes, I am. You've certainly heard the rumors." He chuckled at her expression and added amiably, "But fear not, I'm not about to launch a world-wide bolshevist revolution and 'steal people's private properties', as some say about us. We don't want that, you know. Well, perhaps some do want an armed, global revolution, but I'm not that kind. I'm a Marxist and a Leninist, I just dream about a better and fairer society."

He turned around to point at one of the walls, and Alice, still fretful and apprehensive, followed it with her eyes to see a poster of a man with a bushy mustache and a stern face, looking quite intimidating. There were words in some strange language written on top and a big X crossing the man's face – a face she now remembered having seen in some newspaper article.

"And I'm certainly not a Stalinist," continued Mr. Hutchins, his voice now grave. "Sergei Kirov has been assassinated, you know? He was popular, he was a threat. Stalin has launched massive purges against political dissidents, conducting rigged show trials and then having them executed or imprisoned in Siberian gulag labor camps. Bukharin, Rykov, Kamenev, Zinoviev... all gone."

Alice hadn't the foggiest idea about what he was saying. She had read a few things about Russia in newspapers articles, but not much. She had never taken a particular interest in it. And certainly none of those names rang a bell, except Stalin's.

He turned around to gaze at her, a sad tone in his voice while his face looked angered. "He's disposed of the top political tier of Lenin's times. Trotsky was exiled, he's fled to Mexico, some rumors say. If only he could go back to Russia… He was meant to be Lenin's successor. He's an intellectual, you know, not a blood-thirsty butcher like Stalin…"

He shook his head and trailed off until he remained silent. Alice nibbled on her bottom lip, before she armed herself with courage.

Mr. Hutchins had indeed revealed a great secret to her; something that could easily ruin him if she spread word around about what the man had in his house.

She had never heard good things about Communists, they were widely feared, but she trusted that she had not been wrong in her opinion of Mr. Hutchins and she couldn't censure someone for his ideals when she actually knew so little about them.

And even if they were wrong ideals, as long as they didn't hurt anyone, then she wouldn't judge. She liked to believe that she was an advocate of the freedom of thought and speech, after all.

And to repay Mr. Hutchins' trust in her, she could at least show some interest. And indeed, she was quite curious about a small picture of an Asian man in his mid-thirties that hang near the poster of Stalin. She had never seen an Asian man before, it was quite a novelty.

"And who's he?" she whispered, taking a few steps to look at it more closely.

"That's Mao Tse-Tung," replied Mr. Hutchins, as he eyed the picture with a critical and pensive expression on his handsome face. "He's a young Communist leader in China, not very well known outside of it except in Communist circles. We've been hearing many things about him lately. He helped establish the Soviet Republic of China in the mountainous areas in Jiangxi, he's created an army called the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China. A modest but effective army, guerilla-like. And he's undertaken experiments in rural reform and government, and provided refuge for Communists fleeing the rightist purges in the cities."

He shot her a glance as he continued in a secretive, hushed murmur, "From what we've heard, Chiang Kai-shek, the Chairman of the Kuomintang government, surrounded them with his army, and they've been forced to retreat from Jiangxi. They intend to march to Shaanxi in the northwest of China, if rumors are to be believed. It's nearly a six thousand mile journey - it will take them a year at the very least. But Tse-Tung is gaining adherents, some of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China are defecting to his side. I've read some translations of his writings… Some say he's a young promise, others that he's ruthless and unscrupulous. It remains to be seen whether he'll be another Lenin or a Stalin, or if he'll succeed and have any impact at all."

Alice blinked at him. He might as well be speaking Chinese to her. Not only did China seem to her like another planet, but the names of the places and the terms he used were utterly foreign to her. She had only grasped a few things. A Lenin or a Stalin, that was basically it.

Nevertheless, even though she had always known that Mr. Hutchins was her superior intellectually, she did feel ashamed for knowing so little. She had only been interested about Germany, because it concerned her. Now she realized that much more was going on in the world, and she vouched to take an interest and start reading more about those matters in the newspapers.

Mr. Hutchins saw her confused expression, and chuckled. "Well, I didn't bring you here to bore you with my ramblings. This-" he approached the small printing press and started gathering pamphlets "- is actually what I wanted to show you."

"My fellows and I believe it's our duty to divulge the information that we've been receiving. We correspond with Communists in other countries, even with some who're German and have been hiding whilst trying to do something from within, and with left-wing Jew intellectuals in America – some of them received letters from relatives or acquaintances in Germany who somehow managed to get the letters across the border."

Mr. Hutchins paused to shoot her a grave and apprehensive glance, as he murmured, "And Alice, it's much worse than what the newspapers say or what is known by the politicians here. In Germany, they're not simply vandalizing shops owned by Jews, they are outright persecuting them. And not only them, but Poles and other Slavs that live in Germany, gypsies and political dissidents as well as the clergy, and people with physical or mental disabilities, and homosexuals-"

A strangled, sort of shocked cough stuck in her throat, and Alice flushed to the tips of her ears in embarrassment.

Mr. Hutchins eyed her weirdly, before a look of understanding crossed his handsome face as he said gently, "You do know what a homosexual is, right? Men who love men-"

"I know," mumbled Alice, still feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

She did know, she had heard rumors about people like that, but no one had openly spoken about it in her presence. It wasn't polite conversation, and much less something which was discussed with young women.

It seemed unnatural to her that men would like other men. Men were made to be with women. But then, as she usually did when she analyzed an issue, she placed herself in those people's shoes and admitted that if someone had the audacity to tell her who she could or couldn't love, she would tell them just where they could shove it.

And one of her favorite playwrights was Oscar Wilde. She had read about him, how he had died a decade ago, in poverty and rejected by society, after he had been tried as a sodomite and sentenced to two years of imprisonment and forced labor, a term which he had served before exiling himself to France.

She couldn't afford to go to the theatre but she had certainly bought his published plays whenever she managed to save some money. The man had been a genius, and if someone like him had been a homosexual, well, then it couldn't be that bad.

His plays were all the rage now. People still had an ill opinion of him -not enough years had passed to make them forgive or forget that Wilde had been a homosexual- but that didn't prevent them from enjoying his work. And Alice had always thought that was quite hypocritical and also very unfair.

Nevertheless, discussing such matters still made her feel discomfited and embarrassed.

Mr. Hutchins cleared his throat, now looking uneasy given her reaction. Seeing this, Alice damned her own foolishness. She didn't want to seem less in his eyes.

And truly, if such an extraordinary man as Mr. Hutchins could be so liberal thinking and open minded, and actually treated her like an equal by openly talking about such matters with her, then she would at the very least rise up to the occasion and behave like a mature young woman.

With determination to prove her worth, she pulled a self-assured and composed expression on her face, giving him a tentative smile as she said quietly, "I apologize, I didn't mean… I appreciate that you speak freely with me. Please continue."

Mr. Hutchins shot her a pleased smile and nodded, before his expression turned grave once again. "As I was saying, those people are being persecuted. Some are taken for 'interrogation' by the Gestapo and are never seen again, while most have been forced to leave their homes and are being reallocated to the poorest areas of some cities, all bunched together in small quarters. And the areas are being closed off from the rest of the city in question, by walls and barb wire – they're… well, like areas turned into prisons, with horrible living conditions and little to eat. Ghettos. And..."

He trailed off, before he suddenly took her hands into his, his expression turning into one of sorrow and pained impotence, as he murmured, "And we've recently heard that trucks have been seen leaving the ghettos. Trucks with people in them, Alice - to transport them to other cities or the countryside, supposedly. But they're never seen or heard from again. We wonder… We wonder where they're being taken and what's happening to them."

Alice's eyes grew large and she breathed out anxiously, "What do you think is happening?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Hutchins, deeply frowning as if angered with himself for not having more reliable information, dropping her hands. "I truly don't know. No one seems to know."

He shot her a glance, as he added in a mutter, "But I fear the worse. Stalin uses labor camps, so it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to think that Hitler might be doing the same. Yet… even from labor camps one hears news once in a while about the prisoners there. In this case, we hear nothing."

Alice frowned, confused and perplexed, but she was yanked away from her puzzled inner thoughts when Mr. Hutchins suddenly dropped on her hands a bunch of pamphlets, as he said, "It's all there. Read it but make sure to burn them after you're done with them. I don't want you to get into any trouble because of me."

He paused, before he shot her a piercing glance as he added, "And believe what Winston Churchill is saying."

Alice nearly gaped at him. No one paid attention to Churchill nowadays.

She remembered that he had been deeply involved in politics when she had been a young girl, serving in several posts in the government.

However, the man had started in the Conservative Party, then his own constituency had effectively deselected him, and so he became a member of the Liberal Party, and then he jumped back to the Conservative one. Later, he had created an independent one for himself before going back with the Conservatives once more. Afterwards, he had been given the cold shoulder by the members of his party and he had exiled himself from politics for several years.

A man like that was clearly unreliable, and only loyal to himself. And they said he was an alcoholic and an ill-humored, cantankerous man with barely any manners at all. Moreover, he was accused of being a war-monger.

Churchill had just returned to the political sphere last year, giving only one public speech regarding Germany that no one had taken seriously.

Mr. Hutchins wryly smiled at her expression. "Oh, I don't like him, personally. I think he's an Imperialist Fascist in many of his views, especially regarding India and Gandhi..."

Alice blinked at him with a smigden of confused wonder. Gandhi? Wasn't that the tiny man going around starkers preaching about having a nonviolent revolt to gain his country's independence? And it was most improper for a man to present himself nearly naked, and India was the crown jewel of the British Empire, after all. Everyone was mighty proud of that. In the newspapers articles she had glanced at regarding the matter, the journalists always seemed to treat Mr. Gandhi with condenscension, ridicule, and scorn. Though it seemed Mr. Hutchins had an all together opposite opinion regarding the issue.

She was yanked away from her puzzled musings as Mr. Hutchins continued.

"...But we have a fellow who works in the Ministry of Defense and he believes that someone there is passing Churchill top secret information, and that some others in high positions in the government are too. So when Churchill said last year that Germany is rearming, contravening the Treaty of Versailles, then I believe he's right." Mr. Hutchins paused and pierced her with his sky blue eyes, his expression grave as his voice turned firm, "I don't believe it because he's the one who says it, but because his informers clearly have some evidence of it. And they're troubled enough, and courageous enough, to leak the information to Churchill even if it means losing their jobs. People like that, I trust."

Alice had left the shop feeling very perturbed, with sacks of beans, wheat and potatoes under her arms, the pamphlets stuck in her apron's pocket, and with little Harry trotting by her side, bubbling with excitement over his new toy.

And now, as she perused the articles in the International section of the newspaper in her hands, she found out that the German President Hindenburg had died and that Chancellor Hitler had combined his own post with that of the President, and was calling himself a Führer – whatever the word meant.

Well, according to a tiny article, it seemed to mean that the man had given himself totalitarian, absolute power. The man had become a true dictator, there was no doubt about it this time.

None of it bode well.

But, another article said that Prime Minister MacDonald insisted that the Four-Power Pact held true, and that there would be no armed conflicts in Europe.

It was all very confusing, with politicians reassuring the public, saying all was well, and some dissenting voices like Churchill's arguing against, and then what she had read in Mr. Hutchins' pamphlets...

However, surely things couldn't worsen even further. No one wanted another conflict after the Great War. It had been a carnage; so many millions had died and it had left them all sinking in an economic depression.

If Germany tried anything, surely the other European countries would stop them. And she had faith in her own government - she had to.

And thus, she inwardly reassured herself once more, as she had been doing lately quite frequently, and she folded the newspaper.

Glancing at the children, she didn't miss Tom's gaze fixing on the newspaper before he quickly looked away, and Alice had to conceal a smile.

The boy was now seven years old, but he had taken an interest in matters outside of the orphanage for the last couple of years. The boy had been barely five when Alice had one day seen him eyeing the newspaper she had been reading while she watched the children play.

Of course, Tom had simply given it a look of covetousness -and almost hunger, she would say- and then glanced away with an expressionless mask on his face before anyone could notice. But Alice had noticed, and she had felt extremely proud.

Nevertheless, she knew him well so she hadn't openly offered the newspaper to him. Instead, after she was done reading it, she had left it lying at the small table in the kitchen before going about with her daily duties in the orphanage. An hour later, when she returned to the kitchen, the newspaper was gone.

And thus, she had been 'lending' newspapers to Tom for the past two years, never seeing them again but knowing that the boy read them at night in the room he shared with his brother. For a boy so young to take an interest in world-wide matters and to even be able to understand newspaper articles, it was a wonder and a prodigal feat.

Ever since then, she had started giving him private tutoring classes after her usual lessons with all the children, teaching him subjects in levels well advanced for his age. Tom had never thanked her for it, and he was always quiet during their lessons; attentive but curtly polite, speaking spare few words to her.

But Alice was rewarded in her own ways when she saw how Tom further improved by leaps and bounds. And to her great satisfaction, it trickled down to Harry.

Harry was by no means dumb, he could be quite smart when he applied himself, but the problem was that the small boy could barely sit down for two minutes straight when she taught the children.

He was so full of energy and playful eagerness, that one minute he sat still, intently listening to her words, and in the next second he was fretfully squirming on his seat, eyeing some toy left on the floor or gently pulling on Amy's pig tails to make the girl giggle or doing some other mischief.

One day, it had all changed.

Alice and the children had been in the orphanage's small playroom; she had been reading a fairytale to the children, but that day Harry had barely left his brother's side. While Tom was seated crossed legged at a corner reading a book, as usual, Harry was next to him, playing by himself with the tin soldiers with missing arms or legs that Alice had found in a dumpster in the streets.

Then, a roaring sound was heard coming from outside. And as frequently happened, Harry instantly leapt to his small feet and dashed to the window, pressing up his nose against the glass, staring with wide, fascinated eyes at the motorcar which rolled by.

"I want to be a mechanic!" he excitedly announced to the whole room as he turned around to face them, his green eyes especially focused on Tom, as if wanting to see if his words met with his brother's approval. "I'll make lots and lots of motorcars and I'll-"

"Mechanics only repair motorcars," interrupted Tom curtly, briefly lying down his book on his lap to give his brother a stern look, "they don't make them, you idiot."

Scrunching up his face in pensiveness, Harry cocked his head to a side. "Who do, then?"

"Engineers," said Tom shortly, picking up his book again with the clear intention of ignoring his brother and resume his reading.

"Then I'll be an ingini!" chimed Harry cheerfully, as if that settled the matter and it was already an accomplished feat.

Tom shot him an irritated look and clearly enunciated, "En-gi-neer."

"Yes, that," chirped Harry with a wide grin, nodding his head.

Tom rolled his eyes, before he settled his book on the floor and rose up, taking a few strides to reach his brother, towering over him as he said in a contemptuous and mocking tone of voice, "Don't make me laugh. You, an engineer? You're a halfwit. You could never be one-"

"I'm not a halfwit!" burst out Harry in indignation, glowering up at his brother, puffing out his chest and standing straight, as if attempting stretch himself up to be taller and be able to match his brother's height. In the next second, he seemed to realize it wasn't enough and apparently decided to cheat by standing on his tip toes, glaring up at the still taller boy.

"Yes you are," sneered Tom scathingly, ignoring his brother's antics - who had began precariously swaying as he lost his balance and ended up on his flat heels again, pouting. "During lessons you barely-"

"Harry has a short attention span, that's all," interjected Alice from across the room, not liking when Tom undermined the little boy in such ways. Harry worshipped his brother and Tom could be so vicious and mean to the smaller boy sometimes.

She soon shot Kathy a glance, who was mending a pair of children socks by her side, and gave her the book she had been reading from. As Kathy continued reading the story out loud for the other children, Alice approached the two boys standing by the window.

Shooting her a narrow-eyed, annoyed dark look, Tom rounded on her as he drawled in a bored tone of voice, "Exactly, he has the attention span of a gnat. So how do you propose he studies to become an engineer?" He arched a sarcastic eyebrow at her. "Would we be tying him down on a chair and gagging him, so that he actually listens and pays attention instead of jumping around, babbling constantly?"

Alice chuckled and savored the feeling of having Tom speak more than three words together to her. Oh, she didn't delude herself. Tom only conversed with her when they were with Harry – he tolerated her for Harry's sake, because Harry liked her, and nothing else.

But she treasured these moments all the same.

"He'll be more mature in a couple of years," she said gently, shooting little Harry an encouraging smile, "and I'm sure he'll be able to be quite studious then, if he wants to."

"I wouldn't hold my breath," muttered Tom, casting his brother a disparaging look.

"But I want to make motorcars!" piped in Harry, with a mutinous and stubborn expression on his small face, his lips pouting out. "And I will, you'll see! And I'll drive all around the world and –"

"Do you?" said Tom slowly, his voice low, as he eyed his brother with a thoughtful and calculating glint in his dark blue eyes. Alice didn't know what crossed the boy's mind, but in the next second he seemed to come to a decision, and he added coolly, "I'm going to start teaching you, then."

At that, Alice's eyebrows shot to her hairline and little Harry gawked at his brother. Tom merely gave them a self-satisfied smirk and returned to his corner, with Harry silently trailing after him in the next second, still looking bewildered and shocked by his brother's unexpected generosity. Though, in the next moment, little Harry was already biting down on his bottom lip with dread, no doubt realizing that his brother would be a tough teacher and that it would actually be no fun at all for him.

That night, brimming with curiosity, Alice couldn't help spying on the boys when she was making her nightly rounds and heard their voices coming out from the parted door of their room. She covertly peeked a glance inside, seeing the two boys sitting crossed legged on Tom's cot, facing each other and with a book between them.

"I won't have a fool for a brother," Tom was saying sternly, giving Harry a harsh look, as he trailed a finger over the opened book. "It's embarrassing. You can barely read and your writing is atrocious."

Alice had felt a little bad for Harry at that. The boy had been only six years old then and at that age couldn't be expected to read and write well; the other children who were one or two years older than Harry didn't either. But it seemed that Tom had decided to apply the same high standards he set for himself, now on his brother.

Harry was biting on his lower lip, an indecisive expression on his face, as if battling between saying something to defend himself or to admit Tom's words as the truth. In the end, he hung his head low and peered at his brother through his eyelashes, and then simply nodded.

"I'll be teaching you the same Alice has been attempting to get through your thick skull during all these years, and much more," continued Tom in the same tone of voice. "This time, you'll pay attention and you'll learn." He shot Harry a most ominous look at this, his gaze fixing on Harry's forehead. "If not, you know what will happen."

Alice frowned when little Harry winced and rubbed his scar, but she put it out of her mind as they continued.

"From now on, you'll not be allowed to play until I'm satisfied that you've fully learned the lessons of the day," said Tom sternly, though at Harry's horrified expression he mellowed his tone of voice as he grabbed his brother's shoulders. "Listen, I don't expect you to become an engineer. I don't expect you to have to work at all-"

"What do you mean?" piped in Harry, looking thoroughly confused. He played with the hem of his tattered shirt, giving his brother an uncertain glance as he said in a small voice, "We're poor, both of us will have to work-"

"Not you," interrupted Tom curtly, before a gleam sparkled in his dark blue eyes and he jumped from the cot and onto his feet, looking at some point in the distance as if envisioning a glorious future for them, his voice turning excited. "I have it all figured out. We'll leave as soon as we turn fifteen-"

"Leave here?" gasped out Harry, his emerald eyes wide. "But it's our home!"

"Home?" spat Tom, his lips twisting as he rounded on Harry, fury crossing his expression and making his face turn dark. "What, you enjoy wearing second-hand clothes and barely having anything to eat and being looked down for being in an orphanage-"

"No," snapped Harry, setting his jaw in a stubborn expression. "But I don't mind it." He bit on his bottom lip and added in soft voice as he peered at his brother, "And I like Amy, Eric and Billy. And I like Alice very much. I would miss her. She's like our mother-"

"She's not our mother, or a sister, or anything to us!" snarled Tom, his handsome face contorting with anger as he glared down at Harry. "And do you like Jenkins too, eh?"

Harry hunched his small shoulders and murmured in a tiny voice, "No."

Alice, still eavesdropping on them, had winced, feeling her heart ache. Besides Kathy and her, there had been two other caregivers: two widowed, sour old women who had little patience with the children and yelled at them rather than take the time to improve the children's manners in a gentle and sympathetic way.

Nevertheless, the two women hadn't been that bad; one had ended up doting on Harry and the other was merely indifferent to all children. Regrettably, one of them had suddenly died of a stroke and soon after, the other had retired to live with some niece in the countryside.

Given the orphanage's increasingly limited funds, only one person had been hired to cover for their absences. An old acquaintance of Mrs. Sharpe's: Tom Jenkins, a bitter cantankerous old man who hardly lifted a finger if it wasn't to box some ears, slap some heads, or roughly manhandle any child, for reasons so petty like the children being too loud.

Mr. Jenkins and Mrs. Sharpe were as thick as thieves and often spent their days sharing cups of gin in Mrs. Sharpe's office. The matron's vice had worsened with the years, and so had her temper. Moreover, the two of them were of a similar frame of mind when it came to the children, and corporal punishment had started being used, with Mrs. Sharpe's permission and encouragement and executed by Mr. Jenkins' vicious hands.

Since then, Alice had often found bruises in the shape of meaty fingers on some of the boys' arms and shoulders, especially on Harry and Tom. Mr. Jenkins seemed to have developed a hatred for them in particular.

But there was little Alice could do about it; Mr. Jenkins didn't use a belt on any of the children or punched them or caused serious injuries like cracked bones. The corporal punishment he doled out was permissible by English law and was applied by most schools, public and private both. It was brutal and savage in her opinion, but not many thought the same as her.

"Exactly," bit out Tom, still glowering at his brother, "so we'll leave when we turn fifteen. At that age I can find employment as a bookkeeper in a shop. They won't mind that I'm not of age when they see that I'll accept lower wages and when I prove that I surpass everyone in intelligence."

He pulled himself to his full height and continued fiercely, "Why do you think I study so hard? I can already write, read, and do numbers better than any adult, and by the time I'm fifteen I will already have learned as much as I can about accounting and trade. That ought to suffice, in the beginning. With a job, I'll be able to afford a small room for us in some cheap residence while I save as much as I can."

Harry gaped at him, his green eyes large and startled. A small frown crinkled his forehead when he whispered quietly, "And what will I do?"

"Cook and clean, and house-keeping stuff," replied Tom nonchalantly, before he shrugged his shoulders dismissively. "With the rest of your time you can do whatever you please."

"Clean? Cook?" said Harry, scrunching his nose with dislike. He then glowered at him and groused out, highly miffed, "Why do I get to do those things and you get to be the grownup?"

Tom scoffed and irreverently poked Harry's forehead with a finger. "Because I'm brilliant and you're not, you little twit. And you're too small and will probably still look small when you're fifteen. " He shot him a large, smug smirk, and added, "I bet that when I'm fifteen, I'll look like eighteen."

Harry shot him a dirty look, crossing his arms over his small chest and huffed, making the unruly locks of hair of his fringe stick up. "Fine, and then what?"

"Then, when I've saved enough money, in a year or two of work by my estimates," replied Tom solemnly, like an emperor ruling over his subjects' fate in life, "we'll go to America."

Gawking at him and wide-eyed, little Harry breathed out, "America?", as if someone was telling him he would be going to the moon and beyond.

"Oh, I know they're going through a rough patch at present," Tom said calmly, shooting him a superior smirk, "but it's said to be the land of opportunity, isn't it?"

Then he clicked his tongue with irritated exasperation when his little brother looked nonplussed and clueless. "Well, it is. And as soon as I'm there, I'll know what to do." His smirk widened as he continued with supreme self-confidence, "I'll easily make a fortune, I know it."

Clearly jittery and worried, Harry played with the hem of his shirt as he nibbled on his bottom lip, glancing at his brother anxiously. "I'm not sure, Tom-"

Tom instantly narrowed his eyes at him, and demanded harshly, "Do you trust me?"

It didn't even take a second for little Harry to adamantly nod his head repeatedly, though he still looked fretful and uncertain about his brother's plans.

Tom seemed to relax and his lips quirked upwards, his expression content and satisfied as he sat down on the cot by his brother's side. He wrapped an arm around Harry's small shoulders and murmured quietly, "You'll see. I'll make a fortune, and I'll buy for us a great house and you'll have all the food and toys you could ever hope for, and we'll travel."

He shot his little brother a knowing smirk when Harry's eyes brightened at that. "Oh yes, I promise that we'll travel the whole world and we'll have all the adventures you want, and we'll see lots of strange places. And I'll keep studying and making more money, and I'll take care of you and we'll never have to worry about money or food or anything else again."

"Alright," said little Harry, beaming a wide joyous smile, as if the mere mention of faraway places and exciting dangerous adventures had clinched the deal for him.

As she saw the two boys curling up together on the cot to have their night of sleep, Alice had left, feeling highly perturbed.

She couldn't, in all consciousness, allow the boys to leave before they turned eighteen - the age in which they would be forced to leave the orphanage anyway. God knew what would happen to them if they left when they weren't legally adults, especially Harry who had such beautiful features and was still small for his age.

She shuddered when she thought what vicious and malevolent men could do to a boy like him. She wasn't ignorant about the cruelties of men and especially about what happened to boys and girls in reduced circumstances who had no adult to protect them.

At best, Harry would be abducted to become one of the many small-framed chimneysweeper boys who usually died at a young age due to starvation, since their 'owners' kept all the money they earned, rarely fed them and had them living in appalling conditions. And at worst, he would be nightly sold out for wealthy men's pleasures. And Tom wouldn't possibly be able to prevent any of that, as much as he tried; he was still a boy himself.

Yes, she would have a word with Tom and show him that there were other paths he could take. The boy was very independent and also very suspicious and scornful of adults and any form of authority, but with a mind like his he could easily win a scholarship for a good university.

Indeed, Alice thought that the boy could easily end up in Oxford itself. It might not be the straightest road to assured fortune and success but at least it was a relatively safe one. America! So much could go wrong for the boys there…

Nevertheless, the immediate consequences of that day of a year ago were that Harry diligently spent three hours of every day in his room with Tom, learning everything his brother decided to teach him. And in her lessons with the children, Alice had noticed the vast improvement Harry had made in reading, writing, and his numbers. It was evident to her that Tom managed to get through his brother much better than she could ever hope to.

She knew Harry would never be as brilliant as Tom -Tom was a prodigy after all- but the child would be well prepared when the time came for the boys to attend the public school in their neighborhood.

As all of St. Jerome's orphans, they would be attending as soon as they turned twelve. Though Alice had already decided that she would visit the headmaster of the school to have Tom skip several grades.

It would separate the two brothers but they would still be together at the orphanage, so she thought it was best since she would be doing Tom a great disservice if she didn't.

Furthermore, after what she had heard that night, she was already looking into scholarships that Tom could apply to – she would do everything in her power to see him go through good schools and university, and none of that risky America nonsense.

Pulling out of her musings, Alice glanced at the children now with her.

Billy Stubbs still looked sullen because he had to leave his rabbit behind. Puffy the Bunny had been the orphanage's pet for three years and was much loved by all the children, with the exception of Tom who looked irritated whenever his brother played with Billy and the rabbit. But all children adored it, especially when the little animal made its frequent bids for escape and hopped all around the orphanage, the children shrieking with laughter and giggles as they gave chase to the poor bunny.

Her gaze soon zeroed in on Tom and Harry, the latter who was now eyeing the window display of a nearby pastry shop with large, longing eyes.

Suddenly, when Tom shot her a covert, calculating glance, Alice winced. The boy had been doing that for the past three months, and she knew why. It had been her own fault, her own careless absentmindedness.

That day when she had returned from Mr. Hutchins' store, she had instantly read the pamphlets in the orphanage's kitchen while Kathy was in the backyard with the children.

Abruptly, Kathy had called out for her, asking her to bring iodine and some bandages from the house, since Eric Whalley had scraped his knees whilst playing. Hurriedly, Alice had stuck the pamphlets inside the newspaper, hiding them and with every intention of burning them when she returned.

Alas, after tending to Eric, when she got back to the kitchen, the newspaper was gone.

Tom hadn't said a word to her about it, but she knew that he had found and read the pamphlets, and she was aware of the troubles he could cause for her. He had since then been shooting her brief, sly glances that sometimes chilled her spine. As if he was indolently holding a scythe with which he could behead her if the whim struck him.

She glanced away from the boy, reassuring herself that there had to be an ounce of regard that Tom held for her, and then gazed at Harry who was by the taller boy's side.

Alice had to hide an amused smile when Harry's eyeglasses slipped to the tip of his small nose, before the boy pushed it up again.

The eyeglasses still looked as enormous on his face small as the day when she had bought them for him, three years ago. They were large, made for an adult not a boy, since she couldn't afford to buy new frames every year. She had to save money just to have the lenses changed every once in a while.

Thus, the eyeglasses covered the upper half of Harry's cheeks up to well pass his eyebrows, making him look even more adorable than ever before, not only because they were huge but also completely round.

"I want glasses like the funny man's!" Harry had chimed that day at the store.

Alice had chuckled at that.

In their neighborhood, there was an old man who had been an operator of the reel projector in a movie theater in London. He had retired, taking with him several reels of black-and-white silent movies which the cinema had no use for, along with a broken projector which he had later repaired himself.

The old man gladly invited the neighborhood's children, along with those of the orphanage, to his house a couple of times a year, putting his reels and projector to good use. More often than not, they all watched Charles Chaplin films.

But that day when they had gone to buy the eyeglasses, the children of the orphanage had watched a movie which had been released in the cinemas three years earlier, a Marx Brother's motion picture called Monkey Business. And Harry had laughed and giggled and clapped his hands the most. The 'funny man' was Groucho Marx.

Tom hadn't been happy about it, but as much as he told his brother that he looked ridiculous and stupid, Harry had mulishly refused to have any other eyeglasses but those. It was thus that Alice still chuckled from time to time when she gazed at Harry wearing his funny man's eyeglasses.

Finally, Alice clapped her hands twice, making all the children immediately surround her, looking up at her eagerly, knowing what was about to come.

"You have fifteen minutes of free time to look at the shops you like." She brought up a finger and gave them her best stern look. "Remember, you cannot cross the street or go beyond this block. Now go have fun and be polite."

The children happily cheered, earning some looks from passers-by, not all the glances friendly or sympathetic. And in the next second they were scampering away, already entering their favorite stores.

Alice could only give them a couple of pennies each from her own earnings, so there wasn't much they could buy except a candy or two, but most of them were simply content by admiring toys or, in the girls' case, dresses and hair ribbons.

Little Harry had instantly grabbed his brother's hand and was pulling him towards the pastries and candy shop he had been eyeing previously, before he gave Tom any chance to complain.

When they reached the window display, Harry felt his mouth watering as he stared at all the wonderful cakes, sweets, cookies and piles of chocolates of all sorts with pieces of almonds, strawberries, cherries and other confections, amidst colorful little boxes and ribbons and laces and similar decorations.

"You're such a glutton," said Tom contemptuously by his side.

Harry peeled his gaze away from the heavenly sight and shot him a glance. Utterly befuddled, he cocked his head to a side. "A what?"

"You like to eat too much," explained Tom barely restraining his irritation and already making a mental note to start forcing Harry to read a dictionary from front to back. The extent of his little brother's vocabulary still left much to be desired.

Harry blinked at him, wondering what could possibly be wrong with that. He was so hungry most of times that there could be no such thing as having too much food, in his opinion. And he rarely felt full with what they were given at the orphanage.

"You're getting fat," sneered Tom, his lips nastily twisting upwards, "and everyone will stop liking you because of it."

Harry's small brows furrowed as he glanced down at himself. He saw nothing but his too big shirt which hung low over one of his small shoulders, baring it, and his pants which he had to tie with a rope. He poked at his sunken belly and then huffed as he shot his brother a glower.

"I'm not fat. Besides, I'm-" To his mortification his stomach decided then to let out a loud grumble and he felt the tip of his ears turning pink as Tom shot him a mocking look.

But then he decided that it actually proved his point, and his eyes became large as he pleadingly peered up at his brother, as he said with a little whine, "I'm hungry, Tom."

Tom narrowed his eyes at him, crossing his arms over his chest as he gave him a cold, uninterested look. "What does that have to do with me?"

Little Harry shuffled his shoes on the ground, glancing at the small white cards around the assortment of sweets and chocolates which had a list of prices, and then glanced at Tom, and back, as he opened the palm of his hand to count the few pennies he had there.

"I don't have enough to buy anything," he started in a small, cajoling voice, shooting his brother another plaintive glance, "but if you lend me some of your money-"

Tom let out a loud disparaging scoff, looking down at him as if he was dealing with a brain-damaged idiot. "You're out of your mind if you think I'm giving you my allowance so that you can stuff candies down your gullet-"

"I just want a chocolate bar," said Harry softly, doing his best to look utterly miserable and despondent. "I've never tasted chocolate-"

"Neither have I-"

"And I've heard it's very, very good," continued Harry quickly, his green eyes widening with hope and helpless need – he had discovered that his brother sometimes liked when he peered at him like that, as if Tom was the only person in the whole world who could provide things for him and he had no one else to turn to or who could possibly care for him. He made his eyes grow even larger for that very same purpose, as he added in a tiny, mournful voice, "And I just want to taste it once. Just once, Tom. I'll even share half with you-"

"I'm not interested in tasting chocolate," sneered Tom scathingly, giving him a suspicious, narrowed-eyed look. "Besides, chocolate bars are a luxury, they are expensive. I would have to give you all my pennies for that-"

"But I'll pay it back next time Alice gives us some!" said Harry vehemently, rocking on the holed heels of his worn down shoes as he tugged on the hem of his brother's shirt. "Please, Tom, please…"

Tom clenched his jaw, clearly another refusal about to come out, but then his expression changed as he gave Harry a calculating and assessing glance.

His dark blue gaze trailed from the tip of his brother's small tattered shoes, up the skinny legs and grey knee-length pants, to the small hips, waist and chest, passing over the exposed bony left shoulder, to the thin neck, and then the face, with the delicate jaw line, the plush, pouty pink lips, the small button nose, the delicate rosy cheeks, the long black eyelashes framing those almond-shaped, large emerald eyes, and those ludicrous humongous glasses, to the tip of his wild messy hair – even the latter, made adults smile fondly.

And the whole picture always caused admiration and bedazzlement in strangers' expressions, and marveled sighs and soft, gentle cooings, making them look as if they had been enchanted by some forest sprite, if such things existed. Which didn't, thankfully; with his little brother he had enough. Gratefully, the world was a rational place.

The corner of Tom's lips curved into a large smirk, his eyes gleaming darkly. "If I do you the favor of getting you a chocolate bar, then you'll have to do me a similar favor in return."

Immediately, Harry became alert, straightening out his back as he skewered his brother with a suspicious gaze. Nothing bode well when his brother had that look in his eyes. "What do you mean, exactly?"

"Just that," said Tom coolly, shooting him a superior look. "Those are my terms. Do you agree?"

Harry shot him another glance, nibbled on his bottom lip, and then glanced at him again. He would regret it, he knew, but he was just so hungry and he so longed to taste chocolate once and for all. Eric had tasted chocolate once and he wouldn't stop yapping about it and he really wanted to know if it was as good as his friend boasted about.

"Fine," he grumbled at last, giving his brother a dirty look before he extended an open hand. "Gimme your pennies."

"Oh no, you won't be needing them," drawled Tom arrogantly, looking entirely too pleased with himself, with a sly expression on his face which Harry didn't like one bit. Tom spread out his own hand, as he added commandingly, "Hand over your glasses."

"What for?" burst out Harry in alarm, his eyes widening as he instinctually grabbed the sides of his glasses with his small hands.

They were his most precious possession, and he greatly took care of them since he knew Alice couldn't afford to buy him new ones; he always took them off and put them someplace safe before he played around with the other children of the orphanage.

"Do you want a chocolate bar or don't you?" bit out Tom impatiently, his expression growing angered.

"If you break them, I'll make you feel sorry," Harry promised darkly, glaring at his brother with all his might as he carefully withdrew them from his face and gently placed them in Tom's hand.

"You're more liable to break them than I am, little twerp," shot out Tom with a sneer, sliding the glasses into the front pocket of his pants. Then he unceremoniously shoved his brother forward, pushing him towards the shop's door. "Get going, we don't have much time left and you still have to repay the favor after this."

Without his eyeglasses, Harry could still see things; they were blurry but it wasn't that bad, and if he squinted really hard he could even read words. So it wasn't any trouble to yank open the door and trot inside. And soon, he stopped wondering and worrying about what his brother was up to, as his gaze travelled over all the shelves loaded with boxes of all kinds of sweets and confections. It was paradise; even the tingle of the doorbell sounded like angels chiming, to his ears.

He barely paid attention to the matronly woman who was behind the counter, who simply gave them a distracted, cursory glance as she continued stacking some cookie jars on the shelves behind her, evidently having deemed them harmless and as just some little boys wanting to buy a couple of candies.

Meanwhile, Harry was utterly enthralled by everything in sight, to such point that he was caught off guard and unprepared to react in time. Utterly unexpected to him, a foot shot forward from behind him, tangling with his own, and with a cry of surprise and alarm, little Harry went crashing forward, flailing his small arms.

He hit the floor hard and slid forward a few feet; clothed bum sticking in the air, his knees scraped, his elbows aching under the weight of his body, with his jaw throbbing and his tongue hurting awfully – his teeth had bit down on it with the force of the crash.

"Oh my God, little brother!" cried out Tom looking dismayed and terribly concerned as he rushed to Harry's side. "Are you well? Are you hurt?"

The shopkeeper by then had swiftly turned around, gasping when she saw a small, skinny boy sprawled on the floor, the boy's brother, apparently, panicking. The woman instantly went around the counter in order to reach them, as she murmured worriedly, her gaze fixed on Harry, "Oh my, oh my, poor child…"

Tom crouched by Harry's side, with his back turned towards the woman as he tucked a hand under his brother's belly. He pinched the skin there and twisted, hard, as he hissed out into Harry's ear, "Cry, you idiot."

Little Harry didn't need any encouragement; everything hurt, and his brother kept twisting with his pinching fingers, and it seemed to burn there, and his eyes were already watery and tears soon started to roll down his cheeks.

In the midst of the pain, he felt confused and dizzy, and he glanced at Tom with an extremely betrayed and hurt look in his eyes, but he could barely speak, his tongue felt swollen and thick. His brother twisted again, and Harry gasped and let out a sob, wanting nothing more than to kick his tormentor away, but he couldn't move, his knees hurt so much.

"I'm so sorry, ma'am," babbled Tom, ignoring any looks his brother shot at him, as the shopkeeper knelt by their side looking flustered. "He's so clumsy, he never looks where he's going and he constantly trips and-"

"Oh no, no, the floor must have been slippery," said the woman, as she gently and very carefully turned Harry face up, her eyes widening when she saw lovely emerald eyes filled with tears, the boy's beautiful face in pain, as little sobs escaped the pouty lips. Her heart ached in her bosom at the mere sight of it. "Oh you poor sweet boy, Rose will make it all well, you'll see…"

She started crooning softly as she plucked out a handkerchief from her apron and started dabbing it on Harry's small face. "Do you hurt anywhere, child? Just nod or shake your head if you can…"

As the woman fussed and kept rambling and tending to Harry, completely focused on him, Tom stood up and backed away against the shelves, one of his hands hiding back, while his other clenched and unclenched at his side as if with apprehension, his face the picture of concerned anxiousness and helplessness, as if he could do nothing but watch the woman take care of his little brother, he himself hoping for the best.

A couple of minutes passed by, Harry merely answering to the woman's gentle solicitousness as best as he could, feeling some of his aches slowly fading away while his tears subsided and his head began to clear.

The woman helped him to stand up, still looking terribly concerned and Harry finally spoke, his cut, heavy tongue making him stumble with the words, "I'm gud, thak yo. Relly, I'm ph'ine."

The shopkeeper tenderly patted his head as she said softly, "What did you want to buy, dear child?"

"Oh, nothing, ma'am," interjected Tom then, his tone sweet and polite, reaching them and shooting Harry a very worried look as he wrapped an arm over his shoulders, protectively. Harry twitched but remained silent and still. "We only wished to look around." He hung his head low and added in an abashed mumble, "We have no money, you see. We're from an orphanage. Forgive us for-"

"An orphanage!" cried out the woman, bringing a hand to her ample bosom as she looked at them pityingly but also with a warm-hearted expression on her face. "Oh you poor boys... And there's nothing to forgive, nothing at all!"

She instantly swirled around and made her way towards her side of the counter, clattering with jars and boxes until she fixed two small paper cones with a few candies in each, handing them over to Tom with a gentle smile on her face. "Here, for you and your brother."

Tom widened his dark blues eyes as he held the cones, gazing at them in awe, as he whispered reverently, "Thank you, and for helping my younger brother-"

"Hush, hush, I did nothing," said the shopkeeper, shooting Harry a tender look. "I hope you come into the shop next time you're around these parts."

"We certainly will, ma'am," said Tom, beaming a gorgeous smile at her. "Thank you again."

The woman looked thoroughly entranced by them, delighted and pleased as she watched the two boys leave her shop; such polite and breath-taking handsome boys – the younger one in particular, such sweet beauty- and they were orphans at that. If not for their clothes, who would have guessed given their manners and comeliness.

Tom dropped his arm from Harry's shoulders the second they left the store and couldn't been seen by the shopkeeper any longer, pulling his brother's glasses from his pocket and distractedly offering them back, not sparing his brother a glance as he gazed at the people in the street.

The glasses were swiftly taken from his hand, and Tom clicked his tongue when he saw that many of the children were already back with Alice. "We have no time left. You'll have to repay me next month-"

Abruptly, he was forcefully yanked by a small hand fisting his shirt, and before he could gather his wits, he was aggressively pulled into the small alley at one side of the street.

His eyebrows shot upwards as he stared at his little brother, who was shaking with fury, his emerald eyes flashing, his teeth gritting. Promptly, Tom pulled a nonchalant expression on his face and arched an eyebrow at him.

"You z'ithead!" spat Harry furiously, seeing red as he shoved Tom against the wall with all the strength he could muster. "I cou'd haff brok'n a bon'!"

Tom snarled when his back hit the wall and he took a steadying step forward, but then he was pushed again, and again, every time he tried to steady himself.

By the fourth time, when a flying small fist came towards his face accompanying the shove, he pushed his little brother back in return, as he snapped angrily, his eyes narrowing, "Do you really want to come to blows with me? You'll be left in much more pain than you were before, that I promise."

Harry had stumbled a step back, still glowering at him with a hateful look in his eyes, and Tom pulled himself up to his full height and added coolly, "Besides, you wouldn't have broken any bones when I made you trip. You're resilient and you heal abnormally fast."

Shooting him his darkest glare, Harry then sniffled and rubbed his small nose with the cuff of his sleeves. The place where his brother had pinched him and squeezed and twisted still ached painfully and he pulled up his shirt, seeing a dark violet and blue bruise already forming. He purposely exposed it to his brother's sight, throwing at him a poisonous and accusing look.

"It will be gone in a few hours," said Tom utterly unfazed. "As I said, you heal quickly."

Harry spoke at last, when his tongue had stopped throbbing and no longer felt like an impediment for his speech, "So what? It doesn't mean you can hurt me when you like!" He glared up at his brother. "You should've told me what you wanted to do, you should've asked-"

"Your nattering is getting tedious, little brother," interrupted Tom in a bored tone of voice, before he shot him a wide smirk and dangled the two paper cones in front of his nose. "Here, your reward, brat."

Fuming, Harry shot out his hands and yanked the cones away from his brother's hands, promptly unraveling the papers and sticking the four candies in his pocket, as he groused out darkly, "Candies wasn't what I wanted-"

"And this," interrupted Tom smugly, plucking out a large chocolate bar from his pants' pocket.

Little Harry's eyes widened and he froze, staring hungrily at the bar as he breathed out, "You filched it… From the shelves? While-"

"While 'Rose'," said Tom scathingly, his lips twisting with disgust, "was tending to you like a flustered mother hen." He shot him an arrogant smirk as he taunting waved the chocolate bar in the air, way above his little brother's reach. "Do you want this, eh? Do you?"

With flash-like reflexes, Harry leapt in the air and instantly grabbed the chocolate bar, giving his brother a little push – just because he was still highly miffed- as he then proceeded to ravenously peel the wrap away.

He broke the bar in half and stuffed the largest piece into his awaiting mouth, very quickly, just in case his brother attempted to steal it from him. Then his eyes fluttered shut, as he savored the explosion of sugary sweetness that burst in his palate, letting out a joyful sigh – it was all that Eric had said and much, much more. He had died and gone to Heaven, little Harry thought happily.

He slowly opened his eyes and worshipfully gazed at the other half left, as he carefully broke it into smaller pieces, soon sticking one of the small squares into his mouth, twirling his tongue around it. As soon as he swallowed, he frowned, looking from the chocolate squares in his sticky palm to his brother, and back.

Finally, he shot his brother a stern and accusing glance as he piped, "You stole. You shouldn't have, it's wrong. Alice says so-"

"When will you stop parroting what that stupid woman says," bit out Tom acidly, narrowing angered dark blue eyes at him, "and start thinking for yourself?"

"I do think for myself," snapped little Harry, squaring his small shoulders as he glared up at him. "I know – I know that stealing is against the Law too, so there!"

"Do you actually think I care two straws about that?" sneered Tom contemptuously, looking down at his brother as he towered over him. "I'm not stupid enough to get caught. I don't care about laws or Alice's or anyone else's rules of conduct, understand?"

Harry shot him a glower. He understood but he didn't agree. Nevertheless, he had more important matters on his mind – namely, to satisfy his sweet tooth. With a wide toothy grin, he munched down the remaining couple of small chocolate squares, his pink tongue flicking out to lick the traces of it left on his lips.

"You're such a little hypocrite," hissed out Tom as he watched what his little brother was doing with a mix of abhorrence and wry disgust, "you have no compunction in gobbling down the chocolate and you go preaching about the wrongness of stealing-"

"You stole it, not I," pointed out Harry sensibly, as he began licking the smudges of chocolate left in his sticky palm and fingers, very much like a little kitten contently licking its paws, purring with satisfaction.

Tom scoffed, but before he could continue saying anything nasty, Harry dropped his hand from his mouth and shot him a grave frown, as he intoned, "And I know you've stolen other stuff. Eric's mouth organ, Billy's yo-yo, Alice's sowing thimble…"

He trailed off as he remembered the day he had discovered his brother's 'treasure box'. A week before, he had gone into their room and he had seen Tom sitting crossed legged on his cot, a cardboard box on his lap as his fingers caressed whatever was inside, his expression one of glee and self-satisfaction. The moment Tom had noticed Harry's presence, the boy had swiftly closed the box, rolling on the cot to give Harry his back as he pulled the sheets over himself and the box he hid.

Naturally, after that, little Harry had used all available time in which he was alone in the room to search for the mysterious box. He had finally found it in the depths of their wardrobe, in a corner under piles of hidden newspapers which had been mutilated with scissors, apparently articles being clipped off from them – those newspapers were another thing.

Harry had wasted no time in opening the box and he had been dumbstruck by what he found inside; mostly, presents that the other children had received for some of their birthdays one year or other, and which had promptly disappeared, none in the orphanage having any clue of who was the perpetrator of the crimes. Though Kathy did shoot Tom suspicious dark looks once in a while, Harry wasn't blind to that.

But he still didn't understand why Tom did it. His brother couldn't possibly be interested or value any of the things he had nicked. And Harry didn't like that his brother was stealing; all the children had cried when their things had gone missing and Harry didn't like to see his friends cry. And he especially hadn't been happy when he had seen Alice's thimble inside the box.

"You dared…" snarled Tom, his expression ominously darkening with mounting fury as he took a threatening step towards him. "…you went through my things?"

"We share the same wardrobe and your cardboard box was there," snapped Harry as he squared his shoulders, his expression utterly unrepentant. "It's not my fault if you left it lying around. I was curious so I peeked inside." He pierced him with his emerald eyes and demanded sternly, "Why do you do it?"

"It's none of your business," spat Tom glaring down at him, his spine and shoulders stiff.

Little Harry cocked his head to a side, eyeing him with puzzlement, his brows furrowing. Truly, there were many times in which he didn't understand his brother at all. "You steal Alice's newspapers too-"

Tom swiftly interrupted him, sneering at him scornfully, "She thinks she's being so smart. She leaves them behind on purpose, you dolt." And without pause, he loomed over his little brother, skewering him with eyes narrowed to slits, as he hissed out in a low, menacing tone of voice, "You better not be thinking about telling anyone about my box-"

"I'm no tattle-tale!" piped Harry with indignation, feeling deeply insulted as he pulled himself up to his full, yet still short, height. And then he added simply, as if it was self-explanatory, "Besides, you're my brother."

Momentarily stumped, Tom stared at him; clearly Harry's sentiments of implicit and unwavering loyalty to a brother something unexpected and foreign to him. Then his lips slowly curved upwards into a wide smirk, his dark blue eyes gleaming with pleased satisfaction.

However, all positive feelings he was holding for Harry at that very moment soon vanished when his little brother flapped his gums again.

"I want you to give them back," said Harry with a stubborn expression on his face, his small jaw tightening. He nibbled on his bottom lip pensively, as he added, "You can leave them under the old couch in the playroom. It could look as if Puffy had been stealing them to make a nest or something." He then shot his brother an uncertain look. "Rabbits do that, don't they?"

"I'm not returning them," snarled Tom venomously. "They're mine now-"

"You don't use them, you just stare at them!" bit out Harry accusingly. "And it's not right. Alice was so sad when she 'lost' her thimble, you know. It's made of silver and it's expensive." He shot his brother a mighty glower. "It was her mother's, one of the few things she has left of her."

Tom scoffed loudly, shooting him a bored look as he said coolly, "Do I look like I care?"

Harry glared daggers at him, before he thought quickly and then shot his brother a nasty grin. "Fine, then see if I return the 'favor', as you called it. I've had my chocolate already, after all."

And with that, he spun on his heels with every intention of leaving the alley and go back to the street to join Alice and the other children.

Instantly, a hand landed on his small shoulder, squeezing hard, and he was forcefully swirled around to be confronted with Tom's furious face, the taller boy hissing out, "We had a deal, you little urchin, so you must uphold your end of the bargain-"

"Says who?" chirped Harry, toothily grinning at him.

"Me!" snarled Tom, his rage mounting when Harry shot him an utterly unimpressed glance. He forced himself to rein in his temper and then superiorly smirked at him, as he added pointedly, "And surely Alice says that deals can't be broken, right? It's a matter of honor or some such thing-"

"She does," interrupted little Harry, his grin widening vindictively. "But I must 'think for myself', don't I? And I'm thinking…" He made a show of humming pensively, tapping one finger on his chin. Then he shot his brother a glower and snapped, "That you can stuff it!"

Tom's fingers sunk into Harry's shoulders, making the smaller boy wince even as he was already rubbing his scar which had started to throb painfully.

"I'll return the thimble," gritted out Tom as he if he had to make an unimaginable effort to push those words through his teeth.

Feeling quite cheerful and pleased with himself, Harry beamed and said eagerly, "And the other things too-"

"Just the thimble - take it or leave it!" spat Tom harshly, his tight jaw clenching with infuriated vexation.

A mutinous expression crossed over Harry's small face for a moment, before he deflated and grumbled, "Fine." He shot his brother a look full of apprehension, and added, "What do I have to do to return the favor?"

Tom dropped his hands from his little brother's shoulders and gave him a smug smirk, as he said smoothly, "It worked quite well, didn't it? You 'tripping' and crashing on the floor, averting attention from me as I nicked the chocolate bar." His smirk grew larger as his dark blue eyes gleamed. "I want us to do the same thing, only in a bookstore next time. I won't trip you, you can just stumble on some shelf or something like that – I don't want you whining to me about how I 'hurt' you."

He shot Harry a sneer at this, before he continued, his voice now turning eager and excited, "I'll be able to tuck a book behind my back, under the waistline of my pants, if it's small enough. And we can take turns. One month you decide what you want and which store to hit, then next time I choose, and so on. Alice takes us to different commercial areas often so we won't be caught and no one will suspect."

Gaping at him, Harry stared with wide eyes, before he swallowed thickly, finding his voice as he whispered, still shocked, "You're talking about stealing again. Stealing every time Alice takes us out." He frantically shook his head. "I won't steal, Tom!"

"Ah, but as you pointed out before," interjected Tom, giving him a superior look as his lips twisted upwards, "you won't be stealing, only I will."

Furrowing his brow, Harry shot him a dubious glance. "But I'll still be your accop- accomp-"

"Accomplice," bit out Tom impatiently. "Yes, you will." He then pierced his little brother with livid, smoldering, narrowed eyes, and spat, "You can't refuse. You had no scruples about eating your chocolate so you can't refuse now. It's the same thing."

"I dunno…" trailed off Harry uncertainly, shifting from one foot to the other as he fretfully played with the hem of his tattered shirt. He bit on his bottom lip and peered up at his brother anxiously. "What if we get caught, what if the shopkeeper doesn't care when I fall, what if-"

"They will care, because of your face, and your eyes," snapped Tom briskly, glaring at him with annoyance. "They are…" His lips twisted with disgust and he spat harshly, "Pretty. And when your eyes are all watery and teary they make the adults' pathetic little hearts melt. Get it?"

Harry stared at him. And ever so slowly, his pouty lips curved until he was toothily grinning. "I know."

Momentarily dumbstruck, Tom stared back at him. Then his eyes dangerously narrowed, piercing the small boy, as if wishing to painfully dissect him to see his insides and all his inner thoughts.

Utterly unfazed, Harry merely broadened his grin roguishly. Really, what did his brother think? He wasn't that thick. Over the years he had seen how the grownups reacted to him; he would have to be blind and stupid not to notice.

And he had learned stuff being around Tom; like how Tom became all polite towards Alice when she was giving him private lessons, and how he sweet-talked to strangers to get things he wanted when they went out, just like what had happened a few moments ago with the shopkeeper, Tom being all nice and innocent…

Well, little Harry had come to understand that what his brother did was acting and that he manipulated people like that. And thus he had known that his own weapons were his so-called adorable good looks and, particularly, his eyes.

He didn't use the tactic often, only sometimes, and it always worked, especially if he cried and looked helpless and vulnerable. Why, it even worked on Tom and his brother never seemed to be aware when he purposely used it with him.

Little Harry inwardly grinned devilishly at that thought.

"So you knew…" muttered Tom trailing off, still skewering him with his gaze. Then he scoffed loudly. "You little imp."

"But it doesn't mean that I want to do it," snapped Harry instantly, crossing his arms over his chest, then huffing. "And why should I be the one who falls? That hurts. We should take turns-"

"It won't work if I fall," hissed out Tom, looking just as stubborn as his little brother. "I'm not 'cute'-" he said this with evident stoic pride "-only you are. So you have to be the one who falls."

Harry scrunched his nose, not at all pleased, before he mumbled, "Fine, I'll think about it, then."

"No," bit out Tom angrily, narrowing his dark blue eyes at him. "You must agree now, and commit to it and-"

"HARRY - TOM? HARRY?" Alice's panicked shouts reached their ears at that moment, the woman evidently having been searching for them for some time.

Harry shot his brother a toothy grin and made his bid for escape, trotting out of the alley with a cheerful skip to his steps.

His brother soon followed after him with a darkly vexed expression on his face – but that was just fine, Harry wanted Tom to seethe and simmer for a while, it was only fair since his brother had been so mean to him that day.

Eventually, little Harry did cave in to Tom's relentless insistence, and cajoling, and threats. And the Riddle brothers soon perfected their act.

For the following four years, shopkeepers and owners all around London would be puzzled when they discovered that one or two of their wares had gone missing. They would ponder about bad management or thieving customers or even shop attendants who filched at their workplace.

But they would never think about the two orphan boys who had visited their shop except to remember lovely tearful emerald eyes amidst beautiful features which mesmerized and captured their hearts and dark blue eyes in an elegantly handsome face which made them let out a fluttery sigh.

That night, as Tom reread his collection of newspapers clippings about Germany and the Nazi ideology, as he pondered about the happenings in the world, as he darkly smirked when he eyed Alice's Communist pamphlets, and as he gazed down at his little brother who was sleeping curled up beside him, he came to many conclusions and some decisions.

Many of them were based on what he knew about his little brother, who had proven to be just as special as he himself was. Indeed, three years ago, and a couple of months after Tom had hurt Dennis, Harry's special abilities had burst forth. The boy had been five years old.

Musing about this, and about what he knew loomed in the near future for England and Europe, Tom felt too restless and excited to be able to sleep. And he decided to take a stroll around the corridors of the orphanage. It would help him clear his mind before attempting to rest again.

That night, in his wanderings around the orphanage, what he would overhear and then would be told, would shake him to the core, the consequences of it being many and profound throughout the years.
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Twist of Fate