Author's Note: For those of you about to embark on this fic this is a side story to the heavily AU October and so while some characters like Dumbledore, Grindlewald, and Tom you know the OC Dumbledore's referring to will be a mystery unless you've read that fic. Given that this is mostly about Dumbledore's thoughts on the OC I'd highly recommend you reading the original October (or at least part of it) before coming to this fic. But really you can do what you like.
There was something of Gellert in Tom Riddle.
Perhaps most would consider it to be the charm, both wore those pleasant smiles but Tom Riddle's was so false and so forced, Gellert had always had charisma. No, it wasn't the charm, instead it was the ruthlessness; the ambition. Gellert didn't always look like that, they had had dreams back then in Godric's Hallow, but sometimes there would be that cold look in his eyes and he would say, "We can do it, Albus, we can really do it. We can change the world, you and I together."
That expression never left Tom Riddle, there was only the coldness, the detachment and looking at the world as if it was a machine to be fixed rather than a place to live in.
He had thought, meeting that pale boy in a muggle orphanage, that Tom Riddle would be his most troublesome student. And even now, distracted though he was, he would occasionally glance at the boy who had hung a rabbit from the ceiling and wonder what was running through his head.
He had not considered that there would be someone far more unnerving, the Hufflepuff Azrael, seemingly unaffected by everything around him as if the world was not even a machine but a lurching and somewhat amusing toy dancing outside of his window.
The boy shouldn't have been attending Hogwarts, there would have been news of him at the very least, Hogwarts pulled from the British population and while the odd expatriate or two would find his way into the mix they were known beforehand. He had never heard of an Azrael, his initial thought was it sounded Hebrew or perhaps Arab, but it wasn't until later in a bit of odd research that he ran across the name not as a surname but as a title. Azrael, Izrail, the obscure name of the angel of death; and it was strange how fitting and terrible this name was for the boy. However when he was eleven and first entering school he was only a small child with an odd name.
He couldn't say precisely what it was about the boy that troubled him, this small pale child with eyes that were far too green for comfort, there was nothing that called his attention on its own only small little things that added together. The boy didn't seem like a boy, perhaps that was it, not simply too intelligent like the Riddle boy but rather divorced from his age entirely, as if his body was only a mask that he wore for others' comfort.
Unlike his dislike of Tom Riddle he was not alone in this feeling of discomfort around the Hufflepuff. "He's always staring," The Defense Professor had stated in the staffroom one morning, "And it's not that usual student stare, attentive or bored, I'd call it ennui if anything… Suffocating boredom, like he's watching everything fall to pieces but can't bring himself to care."
A prodigy, certainly, his wandless abilities proved that much but no one breathed a word of praise unless it was forced out of them. Tom Riddle was the shining student instead and it was left unsaid in tense silence that Tom was only the second best of the class if all things were fairly considered. As it was no professor had a desire to consider things fairly and place Azrael at the top of the heap.
This never seemed to bother the boy either, looking at him Albus could see that he knew he was superior, knew he was more gifted but he never asked for points or looked discouraged. Tom Riddle was far more expressive in his dislike of Albus, sneering when points were not awarded, as if he deserved them but the Hufflepuff did nothing. He was perfectly indifferent to the house point system and to the school in general.
Instead the boy would look at him, as if seeing through him and into him all at once. As if he, Albus Dumbledore, was laid bare before him and somehow found lacking. And with no movement of his fingers, no sight of a wand, he would produce increasingly difficult transfigurations as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
Too much magic, Albus wanted to say, the boy had too much magic to be natural. Children did not possess that kind of ability, Tom Riddle and his wandless tricks at the orphanage should have been the limit, children should not be able to progress beyond that. And yet he did, inexplicably he did.
In the boy's first year he'd summoned the boy to his office, to discuss his missing wand. He'd been dressed in his Hogwarts robes, wearing his yellow and black tie just like a usual student, but underneath were his oddly cut foreign clothing that marked him as something other than European in spite of his pale skin and green eyes. He'd walked in with that cool confidence, seeing the room and not seeing it all at once, looking far older than any eleven year old or any wizard for that matter, and had taken a seat across from Albus' desk without even a word.
"Professor," He finally acknowledged when Albus did not say anything in greeting having been studying his paperwork.
"Ah, yes, Mr. Azrael. I've asked you to come in today to discuss your work."
A quirk of the lips, not quite a normal expression as his eyes remained flat, but a glimmer of humor could be found, "Is there something wrong with my work, professor?"
"No, not in that respect, simply that I think this joke has gone on long enough." Albus had said grimly, being a Gryffindor himself he had always liked practical jokes, and most times he tolerated them if they were all in good fun but something about Azrael's missing wand bothered him. As if it was a joke none of them quite comprehended, as if it extended beyond them, was somehow more significant than any of them would realize.
If there was a joke in Azrael's wand then the joke was on them.
"Joke?"
Impatiently he interrupted, "Your missing wand, Mr. Azrael, the travelling wand. I've heard it's taking a tour of Europe and while that's all very grand it would be best if you find it or a replacement in order to continue your schoolwork."
The boy eyed him for a few moments and again Albus felt as if he was being dissected in front of him, pulled apart and stitched back together by those eyes, and that the boy found him terribly lacking, "You would have me bring it to England?"
"I would have you do your schoolwork properly."
Another pause, a flicker of some unknown expression on that pale face, and then, "It is a thing of destruction, Professor Dumbledore."
His words hung in the air for a moment or two like smoke, obscuring Albus' vision, and for some inexplicable reason he felt the boy was somehow referring to Gellert whom he had not seen since that fateful day of Ariana's death. Words like that should have been funny or else nonsensical, but they weren't, instead they were filled with shadows.
"Regardless, wizards need their wands, Mr. Azrael."
Again that odd smile, as if unintentionally Albus had made some sort of a pun, "I will be fine, professor Dumbledore. I am quite self-sufficient."
He did not ask out loud, "Is that all, sir?" But it was in his expression; and so Albus had let him go and had not asked after the missing wand again, always having that feeling that he was still missing the punchline of a dark pun.
Tom Riddle he understood, he had seen something of Tom Riddle before, but the student Azrael he did not and no matter how time passed and how he grew that would always bother him; that this student was unfathomable and somehow out of reach, outside of Britain and perhaps wizardry altogether.
He watched as he and Tom Riddle grew closer over the years, until it would be odd to see one of them in a class without the other, and yet even with that sliver of human contact the boy was always so distant so divorced from Hogwarts.
He did not belong in these walls, that was the conclusion that Albus had irrationally reached, and he could not bring himself to refute it.
Author's Note: Let's face it, Tom's a bit biased, to normal people Azrael's pretty much that creepy kid in the horror film. Written for the 500th review prompt by aliengirlguy asking for a fic from Dumbledore's perspective that maybe explains why he doesn't like Harry. This will also be covered in a while in October but it's good to get some Dumbledore direct thoughts as well.
Thanks for reading and reviews are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.