Disclaimer: All the characters are owned by the amazing J.K. Rowling, and I do not make any money of this.
I am a Dutch thirteen-year-old, so don't be too harsh on my use of the gorgeous English language. I'm sorry for any errors, and if you find one, feel free to correct me.
Tom Riddle had always found Minerva Mcgonagall particularly satisfying to watch. Especially when studying, with her spectacles sliding down the bridge of her nose slowly and with an impressive pile of books in front of her.
He didn't like her, no, not at all, but something about the way her dark eyes seemed to devour the letters on the pages of any book intrigued him. How she scratched her chin when she didn't understand something and how she then stood up and started looking for more books on the subject, only to try and understand everything she was reading.
Tom had never met someone so desperate for knowledge, so determined to absorb all the facts in the countless books she read.
It was interesting. She was interesting, in a way.
Again, he didn't particularly like her, nor was he in any way desiring to conversate with her, but he liked watching her study. That he couldn't deny. He liked studying her, how her facial expression changed every once in a while, how her delicate fingers dipped her quill in the black ink to scribble something on the parchment lain out in front of her, how she traced sentences in a book with her nail, how her eyes narrowed when she discovered an error in the heavy book on the dark, oak library table in front of her.
To Tom it was like watching a film.
Every once in a while one of her black locks would slip out of her braid, into her face, and then she would put it behind her ear and turn back to her book or her essay not due for another two weeks. It went automatic, as if she didn't even notice what she did. Sometimes Tom thought that he could Avada someone right next to her and it would go unnoticed. At least, by Minerva.
But then that repulsive Hornby girl would stride into the library and Mcgonagall would turn her head sharply, following the girl with her eyes. On these moments Tom would almost laugh at the clear expression of loathing on the girl's face.
Then Tom remembered that as the heir of Salazar Slytherin the behaviour of a simple Gryffindor girl shouldn't make him laugh, especially if the girl in question was a mudblood-lover like Minerva Mcgonagall. And then he would look at her with the same look of resentment on his face and stride out of the library, angrier at himself than at her. He liked no one, especially not the filthy half blood that he just turned his back to.
Within months she would crawl at his feet, tears running down her pretty little face, with the agony of the Cruciatus curse fresh in both her bones and flesh, and the nail now tracing the words in the book would be broken from scratching the floor in excruciating pain. Then he would allow himself to laugh. She would be scratched and bruised to the very core, and she would lose that brilliant mind of hers first, and then her pathetic little life.
Because he was dependent of no one. He was Lord Voldemort.