His Glowing Reputation

“Good evening Professor Dumbledore - Professor Dippet. You wanted to see me headmaster?”

“Yes, we did. Take a seat Riddle” said Dumbledore gravely.

Riddle obeyed, going towards one of the comfortable chairs in front of the headmaster’s desk, and Slughorn followed to sit beside him. Dumbledore moved behind Riddle putting his aged, creased hands on the back of Riddle's chair.

Dippet patiently began, “Now, Tom considering that you are a prefect as well as a great student, nobody here is angry with you. Neither is anybody here against you. What shall be done is for your own welfare."

For some reason, Dippet nodded at Dumbledore because Dumbledore had advised him to say exactly that.

“Yet what Professor Dumbledore told me is very important, Tom. And so, I would also like to hear the truth from you.”

“The truth about what, sir?” Riddle dared to interrupt, cautiously.

“I’ll let Albus explain.” Dippet motioned to Dumbledore to speak.

Dumbledore moved to face Riddle from the side of the desk.

“Tom, you have no doubt lied repeatedly when I’ve questioned you on occasion regarding your whereabouts. When you were late for my class, I knew it had to have been for a reason. Why don’t you tell us exactly what has been preoccupying you?”

Riddle did not answer immediately. He grasped his hands around the armrests, the knuckles whitening.

Riddle said with a dry-sounding innocence, “That was the first time I was ever tardy, professor. It was only an honest mistake." He glanced surreptiously at Dippet. He wanted the headmaster to think he was a typical good boy, as it works so well for his image.

Dumbledore sighed exasperatedly. Seeing he was not going to get anything out of the boy, he addressed the headmaster, “Yes, Tom Riddle has exemplary behavior and is obedient to authority....However, there is an underlying issue at stake and it must be looked at closely, for it is much more serious than Riddle being late for my exam. I still think, he may have a hand in the chamber incident, yet I do not think there is any good that can come by caning the boy. I already know such a punishment will fail to get any confession out at all.”

“Caning?!” Riddle exclaimed, startled. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t know that was an option at Hogwarts,” he added with forced objectivity.

He silently recalled when he was a first year and had asked a prefect what happened to rulebreakers for less severe infractions, because certainly there was something other than expulsion, as Dumbledore had warned him of in the orphanage. Riddle had thought at the time that Hogwarts might enforce physical discipline. In Wool's Orphanage he had read about another British public school called Eton. He was happy to hear from the prefect that he could rest assured that he wouldn’t be caned at Hogwarts as long as he was reasonably obedient.

“Yes, well in your case, Riddle there can be no other option. I don’t wish to sully your perfect academic record, as detention would be put onto your record. But a caning will not tarnish it,” Dippet said reasonably.

Riddle gulped down his disapproval at these words. He would soon as not be punished at all! He didn’t deserve it!

Riddle eyed Slughorn next to him, growing irritated. For Slughorn looked nervous, sweat trickling down the man's forehead and much too weak to defend him. He scowled at Slughorn who continued to not say anything.

Headmaster Dippet got up rather quickly and went to a cabinet. He returned with a rattan type cane that had a hooked handle, 12 ounces, thick, yet slender too.

Tom gritted his teeth, he wasn’t exactly scared of the pain, more the humiliation.

Slughorn voiced passively, “I think it’s best if you stand up, Tom and take it like a man.”

Riddle stood rigidly and stared appalled at the headmaster solemnly holding the cane.

“I'm sure this shall prove an effective deterrence in the future. And you won’t be the first student caned since I’ve been headmaster," said Dippet in a comfortable tone, that clearly conveyed he had no qualms about corporal punishment. "Yet since Albus issued the detention it proceeds logically for the responsibility to be delegated to him.”

Dumbledore firmly answered, “No. I don’t believe in manhandling any student, Armando. Even if I never liked Tom Riddle, I do not believe in the cane.”

Dippet looked over to the Slytherin head of house. Slughorn's rotund frame was slouched back in the chair, looking much too apprehensive to fulfill the task.

“Tom, I shall ask you once more.…Confess to the information regarding what Dumbledore claims you know about the Chamber of Secrets and I shall not punish you at all.”

Riddle put his hands behind his back,an unconscious sign of dishonesty, “I have nothing to say, as I am not involved in the chamber incident...”

Knowing he was in for a rough time no matter what, Riddle in the heat of the moment added rudely, glaring only at Dumbledore, "And who would know better than myself what I've been doing?"

Dippet chose to ignore the condescending tone directed at Dumbledore. “I do believe you, boy. But Professor Dumbledore says he's aware you know something. And apparently, it's effecting your schoolwork. As your headmaster, I shall not tolerate this. Hopefully, a good, proper caning will prevent the distractions, which may I remind you, threaten your academic standing, (You were considerably late for an exam)...." Dippet had paused and then added rationally, "Do you think it better for I to cane you for dishonesty, rather than have you in detention for the same?”

Riddle did not answer at once, but looked down at the floor for several moments. Finally, he looked up and answered stiffly, “…I suppose it’s better than detention, sir for that would hurt my reputation.”

Dippet concluded, speaking in a mildly pleased tone at the boy's decision, “Very well, then. Disrobe and bend over that desk there.” Inwardly, Riddle held back his irritation for it greatly annoyed him to detect Dippet was pleased to hear he had agreed. For this was something Riddle believed he was being coerced into.

Dippet pointed with the cane towards one of the desks, a little larger than typical, the size of a square table.

Riddle couldn't make a move. He felt enraged over the situation. It licked and burned white inside him. Impulsively, he roared, “But I should not have ever been given a detention in the first place!….I don’t deserve any kind of punishment!”

It was said in the most commanding tone, and it shocked the three men as well as the portraits watching.

“Incorrigble venom, young man. In my day, it would be six of the best!” sneered the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black, as several other former heads sneered at the schoolboy's blatant disapproval of the headmaster.

Dumbledore suddenly sprung forward, electrified. Riddle’s outburst had struck a cord with his feelings for the real Tom Riddle he had met in that muggle orphanage. He took the cane from Dippet’s wiry hands. Armando smiled faintly, glad not to inflict this personally onto his favorite pupil. He hadn’t really wanted to, and he was afraid he would have been soft on the fifth year.

Dumbledore strode over to the table Dippet had mentioned, “The rules do indeed apply to you, Riddle. Unfortunately, there is no punishment I could give to take that darkness out, but maybe I can extract some of the defiance....

“Disrobe this instant, and come here, Tom.”

Riddle lazily unclasped all the silver fastenings at the front of his robes and stood in his muggle attire. He was still wearing a blazer, that would protect him from the worst of the blows that were sure to cut into his delicate skin.

Dumbledore sternly ordered, “The blazer comes off as well.”

Young Voldemort did so, throwing both his robe with his wand and other items contained inside, along with the blazer onto the chair. He did not drag his feet, though his insides felt like lead, as he went towards Dumbledore waiting. He went slowly, erect, clearly trying to be dignified.

He eyed the cane with strange malevolence for a second, before lowering himself as Dippet had instructed. Quite the opposite from being nervous, he was calm, and Dippet thought the boy was very brave. However, Riddle only complied to the bare minimum, hardly bent over at all.

Slughorn, meanwhile, stood up and went to observe with the other two men, despite his reluctance to watch.

“Riddle you are more than capable of knowing to bend over further,” the Deputy headmaster, Dumbledore said, with an edge, irritated.

“It will all be over soon, Tom. Just do as Professor Dumbledore says,” coaxed Horace Slughorn sympathetically.

Riddle pushed his waist forward, ignoring Slughorn. He was finally against the surface of the table, and his entire behind was salient at the edge. He supressed a shudder as he felt Dumbledore's hands on his back. Dumbledore lifted Riddle's crisp white linen shirt from where it was tucked in under his pants, so that it came out, and then he left it turned up. Riddle felt anger knowing that his plain black suit pants were to be the only coverage along with threadbare briefs.

Riddle inwardly seethed at the submissive situation, one that he had never envisaged he would be placed into. Yet here he was, the man the Wizarding world would one day know as Lord Voldemort: a schoolboy about to get the cane in the headmaster’s office and not just from any old teacher, but that freak, Albus Dumbledore!

“You will count each stroke, after each one, Tom. Likewise, it will be very painful, but you must not get up or move. Is this clear?”

“Yes, professor,” Riddle responded colorlessly.

“Thank-you,” said Dumbledore politely, but crisply. Dumbledore was glad the boy was finally willing to cooperate to the inevitability of the situation.

Dumbledore stalled a moment, measuring the distance. He was going to apply as much force as he could muster without magic. Tom was quiet, his face perfectly blank. The complete lack of fear was truly startling to the men, but there could be no doubt Tom Riddle did not believe he deserved it at all.

Riddle gripped his hands over the desk, and clenched his teeth. He was determined not to give Dumbledore what he believed would be the pleasure of knowing it had hurt. He was well aware it would be terrible pain, and Riddle was determined not to let it show in his bodily response.

He felt the cane brush against the backside, somewhat teasingly and then there was a snake-like hiss.

Tom blinked and felt the crashing sting of the first blow, right at the spot Dumbledore had measured out.

“One, sir…” he mumbled, actually embarrassed, color rising up his neck into his pale face.

He felt Dumbledore mark where the next would go, hearing a tap as it went against him. Riddle’s insides coiled with expectation.

Whoosh. Dumbledore had drawn up the cane and then it started accelerating in a swing towards Tom Riddle’s raised buttocks.

Crack! “Two, sir” he whispered the second after it struck. His reaction was none that any of the three teachers had ever seen before with corporal punishment, it seemed Riddle was immune to pain.

Riddle could not sit with the fact of getting four more, as he was sure he was getting six of the best. He thought, as Dumbledore briefly tapped the cane lightly again, his backside was already stinging in waves and even worse, it was starting to feel like his skin was burning.

Whoosh. And at the thought of the sensations, the third stroke came with another crack, and he paused a second and then said obstinately, “Three, sir.”

Riddle had the urge to rub his hands back there to relieve it. But he knew not to try, and as the terrible rattan cane impacted his seared skin for the fourth time he yelled from sheer anger, mainly directed towards Dumbledore, “Four sir!”

He wished Dumbledore could end it, but the idea of mercy was not in Riddle's mind, to him that option could never be done. He would never beg for it to cease. He felt Dumbledore laying out where the next cut would go.

Whoosh. Crack! “Five sir!,” he yelled as yet another stinging blow landed on the exact spot the fourth one had been.

Riddle’s breath remained eerily calm, as Dumbledore prepared for another smack, which was to be on the most sensitive area.

With a mighty swatting crack it impacted just below the buttocks at the edge of the thighs where it hurts the worst, “SIX, SIR!”

He jumped up thinking he was done with the chastisement, but Riddle felt a hand squeeze at his back, between the shoulder-blades and Dumbledore saying calmly, “One more, Tom.”

Dumbledore raised the cane expertly, poised at an arc, in a way that only someone like he could deliver. The final blow whooshed downward and hit Riddle's flesh diagonally, so that it went across all the other stripes that were surely on his bottom.

“S-seven, sir” he somehow whispered, his voice constrained and controlled, so that it seemed like he wasn't experiencing pain.

The silence filled the circular room now that the horrible interlude was over, so that the ticking of a grandfather clock rang clearly.

Dippet tried to help Riddle to stand up straight, but he resisted, instead recovering on his own.

Greatly agitated, Riddle turned around to face the three of his teachers, hands in fists at his sides, mouth set in a thin, grim line, desensitized.

He continued to feel the burning, fiery sensations in intermittant waves, that was gradually wearing off to an intense glow. Riddle's dark eyes rested on his head of house, who wasn’t looking in his direction. Slughorn, he knew had been too upset to watch his punishment in progress.

“Did you learn your lesson, Riddle?” Dippet asked mildly.

For an instant, Riddle's expression went from blankness to pronounced hardness, and his hands went clapsed behind his back again. He wished he could admit how he wasn't the least bit abashed and had not learned a thing from the ordeal and never could. How nothing would prevent him from doing whatever he desired. But did he want to go through that humiliation again, eventually? Of course not!

“Yes, headmaster" Riddle expressionlessly assented.

“You will then be honest.... and hopefully I won’t have you in here for another caning.”

“No, sir. No. Never," he ennunciated clearly and he meant it.

Riddle's dark eyes peered, narrowing at Dumbledore, daring to look at the man who had beaten him. He was going to pay for this, one day. It just gave Tom another reason to want to kill him. He saw that Dumbledore had a look of great sadness upon his face. Riddle couldn't stand to look at it, for Riddle couldn't stand crying or even a remotely morose attitude.

Dumbledore surveyed Tom through his half-moon spectacles. The Transfiguration teacher was realizing he had made a huge mistake. It had been pointless to have used corporal punishment on such a dangerous wizard, even if he was still a child. Afterall, nobody else at Hogwarts had an inkling of an idea of the cruelty Tom Riddle indulged in. The end result of the harsh discipline was surely going to develop Tom Riddle's enmity towards Dumbledore even more and what was more, Dumbledore speculated it would cause Riddle to inflict even greater harm onto others.

“You may go then, Riddle,” Headmaster Dippet said casually, pacing back over to his desk, after handing the handsome boy his robes and blazer.

Riddle pulled on his other clothing, Slughorn and Dumbledore in his wake. He hoped he wouldn’t have to talk.