"It would be best that you wake up now, Harry, if you plan on eating breakfast."
A warm gentle hand shaking his shoulder slowly coaxed him back to consciousness and when Harry opened his eyes it was to find Tom leaning over him. In the odd brackish light of day which spilled in through the dormitory's windows the Slytherin Prefect was already fully dressed and ready for the day, black robe smooth of all wrinkles and emerald lapels folded back over his chest once more decorated by that jewel like badge. This was the first time that Harry had given himself any real leeway in which to examine the young man who would one day become Lord Voldemort. Even the night before while in the Great Hall he'd been too busy ignoring him, and then to surprised when he finally had looked, to properly take in the creature before him.
The echo from the Chamber of Secrets was truly put to shame by the intensity that was Tom Marvolo Riddle. Even being near him when he was calm and relaxed as he was now-King of his domain-was like being next to a building strike of lightning. The aura of sheer power, currently kept under strict control, was enough to make his skin flush with gooseflesh and though it was nowhere near as turgid and dark as it had been in the graveyard it wasn't quite pure either. His dark eyes, just as they had the night before, devoured him as he slowly set up in his bed. His short wavy hair-the glossy deep brown of a Brazil nutshell-was kept carefully and exactly in place.
He was the stark opposite of him, all wrinkled barely fitting clothes and disheveled untamable hair.
"Breakfast," Harry said thickly, still mostly asleep. "Right. Breakfast." He rose from his bed and abruptly froze, staring in surprise at the trunk which had appeared overnight.
Tom, who had gone back to rummage briefly for something within the confines of his own trunk, looked up at him in confusion at his involuntary intake of breath. "What's wrong? Never seen a trunk before; can't imagine how that would be when you clearly must have brought it with you from your home."
There was a slight trace of bitterness in the way that he said your home.
"Yeah," he amended quickly, "yeah I did." The contents of the trunk were an exact replica of his own in his own time, right down to the layer of wrappers sweets and old underwear littering the bottom. His robes-the crimson lapels of Gryffindor replaced by Slytherin emerald-his quills and ink, his coin purse and his books. Charms. Care of Magical Creatures. Transfiguration. Defense Against the Dark Arts. Potions?
Right, Severus Snape couldn't possibly be the Potion's Master in 1942.
"Hey, Tom." The dark brunette's head immediately snapped around to look at him. "Who's the Potion's Master here at Hogwarts?"
"The Potion's Master? That would be our Head of House: Horace Slughorn. An… amicable enough man." He said. "Why?"
"My Potion's teacher refused to continue to teach me unless I got in O in the class. I only got-."
"A T?"
Harry threw his pillow at him; Tom, laughing like a hyena, held up an arm to fend off the feather-filled projectile.
"I got an E, you Pratt!" He snapped. "What did you get?"
"An O. All Os, actually." Tom grinned like the Cheshire Cat and tossed the pillow back to him. "I do have an image to keep up, after all."
"Of course you do." He grumbled, pulling his robes over his shoulders. Forgoing even so much as attempting to tame his hair Harry simply ran a hand through it. "You sound like Hermione."
"Who's Hermione?" He took a slight and almost threatening step forwards. "Girlfriend?"
"Girl friend, yes. But not my girlfriend; as a matter of fact I don't even have a girlfriend at all."
"Mmh." The other put forth helpfully. "Why not? I can't imagine you'd have over much trouble, what with those eyes of yours." His own had once more darkened to black. "Sweet Salazar, so very vibrant!"
"My-?" It clicked quite suddenly and, against his own best efforts, he felt himself beginning to color. Voice jumping upwards half an octave in surprise. "A- Are you flirting with me, Tom?"
How had things escalated so quickly?
The much taller young man was prowling towards him. Closing the small distance between them with only a single fluid stride. "What would you do if I were to tell you that I was?"
He was-? But he-? Why would-? Why was Tom leaning towards him?
"I-I-?" In absolute confusion his mind went utterly blank: his eyes focused in on the pair of lush pale lips which were Rapidly. Coming. Closer.
"Oi, if you two aren't going to kiss come to breakfast!"
Tom straightened up instantly and whirled around, pupils contracting to very near slits in a dangerous glare. "Avery!" Something hard and likely made of glass-if Harry had to guess he would say it was an inkwell-went flying across the room and exploded against the opposite wall in a massive splatter of black.
"Watch your temper, Riddle!" Cackling wildly, Avery-having not managed to catch a good enough look at him Harry couldn't be sure if he was the same Avery from his time our a predecessor-dove down the stairs and out of sight.
Tom growled, reaching up to run a hand swiftly through his hair. "Git." He hissed.
Still entirely confused over what may have just almost happened Harry, semi-dazed, found himself very much happy that Avery had come in when he had as the brunette was now forced to busy himself with vanishing the ink from the wall.
After the last bit of ink had disappeared from the wall Tom turned to glance back at him over his shoulder. "Ready to go, Harry?"
Harry nodded silently at him, still not entirely trusting himself to speak after his near brush with…with what, exactly? A kiss? A cruel trick was much more likely, considering who it was. Tom kept careful pace with him as they left the Slytherin common rooms and surfaced from the dungeons of the castle before making their way to the Great Hall.
It was still just as Harry remembered it being; crowded, bright and raucously loud. The green and silver table was already nearly filled to bursting and creaking underneath the weight of all the copious amounts of food crafted by the house elves in the kitchens. A pair of girls were laughing loudly and aiming sharp elbows into each other's ribs. At the end of the table closest to the doors a group of third years had started a food fight. A delicate touch of Tom's hand on his wrist led him to the far end of the table and, quite abruptly, pulled him down onto the bench to his left side.
"Eat." He commanded, grabbing a bit of everything around them and piling it high onto the plate in front of Harry. "You're thin."
No detail would ever be allowed to escape Tom Riddle.
Pumpkin juice nearly sloshed on the tabletop beside him when the newly filled cup was set down with a decisive thump.
"Fancy the new fish, Tom?" A ferret-faced man with black hair snickered from across the table and to the left of them.
"I fancy power, as you know, and at least so far as I am concerned am a capable judge of those who are truly capable of producing it and those who simply," his gaze rested on him with pointed leadenness "aren't, Lestrange."
Two other boys snickered.
"Mulciber, Nott, be quiet!" The pair jumped in their seats as if burned and fell silent with such stark immediacy that it almost seemed as if a silencing jinx had been cast upon them. "Where is Avery today?"
"Probably off somewhere on the other end of the table with that seventh year girlfriend of his."
"You're sure, Rosier?"
The other shrugged his shoulders. "Sure enough." He grunted. "Why?"
"Because he needs to be made well aware of the fact that I do not appreciate this morning's…" His eyes briefly flicked to Harry who had buried himself in his scrambled eggs, "interruption."
The Raven inhaled his eggs in surprise and immediately began to choke. Tom didn't miss a beat or even so much as hesitate to thump him on the back, saving him from suffocating but sending his glasses flying into a nearby bowl of porridge in the process. The dark brunett sighed, shook his head and plucked the visual aid from the pale gray sludge before Harry could fully grasp what had happened. Shaking out a napkin with a swift flick of the wrist he cleaned the lenses before replacing them on his face with a surprising amount of gentleness.
"You're a mess." He chided with a cluck of his tongue.
"Real mother hen, this one."
"All the blood heading southward affecting your ability to think, Riddle?"
"I thought that I warned the lot of you to bite your tongue!" He snarled, instantly silencing them once again. "Oh, look. Here comes Professor Slughorn with the schedules now."
The man called Professor Slughorn was preceded by his impressive girth, the buttons down the front of the waistcoat he wore threatening to burst off and go flying-like deadly projectiles-across the room. His hair was short, just beginning to thin and straw blonde. A gingery-blonde walrus mustache rested on his upper lip below a pair of watery gooseberry eyes.
"Ho-Ho, Tom! Truly a man of your word, taking the new student under your wing so completely. Inviting him into your exclusive crowd."
"What can I say Professor, he is a dove amongst ravens."
"You and your quoting of Shakespeare!" He chuckled.
Tom smiled. "He was a half-blood. And though predominantly aimed at Muggles I consider the content of his plays worth reading. At least for leisure entertainment." Once more that hand was on his shoulder. "This, Professor, as I'm sure you know is Harry Potter. He'll be in your class, despite 'only getting an E on his O. '; with how nervous he was acting I guess that he got a T and he called me a Pratt because of it."
"Ho-ho!" The Professor laughed again, his large belly jiggling with the motion. "He has fire, this one. I can clearly see why you like him." Handing them each a schedule he said "I look forward to seeing you in my classroom, Mr. Potter."
"Thank you Sir."
As Slughorn walked away, Tom leaned over to peer at the paper in his hands. Glancing swiftly between Harry's schedule and his own. "Looks like every class you have we have together, aside from Charms. And you have a free period during my Arithmancy class."
"And where will you be while I'm in Charms?"
"Muggle Studies." The grin which spread across his face at the raven's look of shocked surprise was wolfish and feral. He leaned in until his lips were nearly brushing the shell of his ear when he spoke, hot breath raising the small hairs on the back of his neck. "Knowing your enemy, knowing what they've done to your predecessors and would do to you, makes it so much easier to do what you have to when the time comes. About Muggles, at least, if not more Gellert Grindlewald is right."
Harry barely managed to suppress a shudder at the sultry tone; for some reason that still escaped him the Dark-Lord-to-be had turned up his charm to full blast. No. No, don't let him fool you. Don't listen to him. You came here to change him not for him to change you!
He could only imagine that returning with not only a still dark Tom Riddle but as he himself a convert to the Death Eaters would not go over well. Not to mention that he had no doubt it would cause the breakout of a three-sided war as not only would they be fighting the Order of the Phoenix but Voldemort as well as Harry highly doubted Tom would simply stand for his future-self ruling the wizarding world.
Because that Voldemort wasn't him, really.
Perhaps this matter was more convoluted than he had bargained for.
Tom rose from the bench and straightened his robes. "Well, we should be going. We have Transfiguration," the sneer in his voice was audible, "in 10 minutes. Professor Dumbledore," again with that strained over-politeness reserved for those he didn't like, "doesn't much appreciate students who tarry."
"Tarry, he says."
"Oh yes, best not to tarry."
The pair snickering boys bolted before Tom had a chance to grab them.
"Are you really going to let them run off?"
"I am. I'll get them back tonight in the common room, provided I remember."
"You'll remember."
Tom smiled, and though outwardly pleasant evident malice simmered just beneath. "Yes," he said, "I'll remember."
Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to feel the least bit sorry for those in the way of the building storm that was the brooding brunette currently sweeping through the halls before him with sure strides of long legs.
The Transfiguration room looked only marginally different in 1942 that it did 50 years in the future under Professor McGonagall. The most astoundingly contrasting thing in the room was Professor Dumbledore.
As he had been in the memories Harry had seen in the pensive the younger Dumbledore had a considerable degree more hair than his present self all of which was the same ginger color as Crookshanks' fur. Harry couldn't quite manage to suppress a snicker. Tom looked over at him and raised an eyebrow as they took their seats at the table near the front-left side of the room.
"What?"
"Nothing, really. It's just that his hair is the same color as Hermione's cat."
Tom's laughter was purposely loud so as to draw the attention of his least favorite Professor.
"Something funny, Mr. Riddle?" Dumbledore asked, though his curiosity was edged with something else.
"Nothing, Professor. Harry was telling me about his friend's cat is all: hardly of any importance to be informing the whole class."
"Oh, yes we've a new student to our school." The crescent-moon glasses and knowing blue eyes were still very much the same. "How did you do in your Transfiguration O.W.L.s, might I ask?"
Harry shrugged. "Well enough, Sir."
"Good. Good. I'd like to speak with you a moment after class today, if you wouldn't mind."
Had he done something wrong without realizing it? Harry didn't think so. "Of course."
"Never you worry Mr. Potter. It won't take long."
As Dumbledore turned and walked away back to the front of the room Tom made a face and muttered "Twat."
"You have a problem with Professor Dumbledore, Tom?" Harry asked him innocently, already knowing the answer well enough.
"A problem with him? Yes, I do. He's had it out for me since the first day we met, when he came to give me the letter inviting me to attend school here. Every other teacher sees me as an angel among men-why wouldn't they, I'm a genius and the heir of one of the most prodigious bloodlines to ever have existed-but he disagrees."
And there was the paranoia he been warned about. And the overinflated ego.
"Why would he have it out for you?"
"Because I'm like him. And because I know what he really is."
"What he really is?"
"A manipulator; someone capable of pulling strings to make others do as they please without them realizing it." Tom hissed like a serpent, dark eyes fixated on the older man is he coiled down in his seat almost as if preparing to pounce. "Look at him, sitting up there behind that desk. Thinking himself so noble!"
Dumbledore serenely ignored the mutinous glare the brunette was sending him and started class.
"As I'm sure all of you remember from your first year the school of Transfiguration magic has four subcategories of ascending difficulty." He said. "Perhaps our new student can remind us of what those are?"
"Oh," Harry distinctly remembered Hermione beating both him and Ron over the head with the answer to that exact question, citing the potential for it to come up on their theory O.W.L for the class. If only he could call them to mind. "Transformation, Vanishment, Conjuration, and, uh…"
"Un-transfiguration." Tom supplied from beside him, just barely loud enough to be heard.
"And Un-transfiguration."
"Very good, Mr. Potter. 10 points to Slytherin." He said. "Un-transfiguration is, indeed, the most difficult of the four subcategories of Transfiguration magic but as it is your N.E.W.T year I figured that each and every one of you were up for the challenge. Ms. McGonagall," Harry had to stop himself from whipping his head around in alarm, "please assist me in passing out these teacups."
Blonde but no less severe than her future self, Minerva McGonagall rose from the table where she'd been sitting and began passing out the cups at an illustrious pace. Harry noticed the Prefect's badge pinned to her robes as she set two down at their table.
What may have been cautious pity was in her eyes as she looked at him, tsking and shaking her head as she walked away again. Tom scowled.
"These are the teacups which the now-second years were able to transfigure from mice before the end of last year's term. Your job today will be to un-transfigure them back into mice. Begin."
"Oh, please. At least present some sort of challenge." A precise flick of the wand in his hand and the mouse-turned-teacup-turned-mouse made a mad dash for the edge of the table. Harry jumped in alarm when Tom's hand came down with a loud thump, rattling his own teacup and pinning the mouse down by the tail. Using his forefinger and thumb he lifted it from the table and held the struggling creature aloft. Watching it squirm and squeak in discomfort with a disturbing level of amusement.
He opened his mouth to ask that he put the poor thing back down but before he could the mouse went flying out of Tom's grip, across the room and into Dumbledore's waiting hand.
"Well done, as always, Mr. Riddle. Though I must ask that, in the future, you refrain from mistreating my teacups."
Tom folded his arms and reclined in his chair with a derisive snort. Harry turned his attention to his own cup. Well aware of the other's eyes resting heavily on him.
After 20 minutes of struggling he managed to make at least some headway in un-transfiguring the teacup; it now looked less like something out of which to drink and more like a concave shoe brush. He looked over in annoyance at the sound of the other's snickers.
"We can't all be 'geniuses', Tom."
"Such visceral," the dark brunette said with a false tone of hurt before reaching out abruptly to take his wrist. "Angle your hand more like this; it cuts down on unnecessary wand movement. Transfiguration's more scientific than Charms, you can't just swing your wand around like a baboon brandishing a stick."
By the end of class his teacup still looked more like a piece of China than a rodent but it was a start.
"Potions is next."
"I'll catch up with you, Tom. I have to…" Harry trailed off and glanced over towards the desk behind which Dumbledore sat as the room quickly emptied out.
"Oh, right." Tom frowned in distaste. "Well, I'll wait for you outside. Try to hurry. The dungeons are on the other side of the castle after all."
He left the room. Harry made his way hesitantly over to the desk.
"Have I done something wrong, Professor?"
"Wrong? No, no. Have a seat; I'll try not to take up too much of your time as I'm sure that you have other classes you need to be getting to." Harry looked around quickly and pulled up the nearest chair before sitting down as instructed. "Time. Such a fickle thing, would you agree? Very ordered. Very fragile. Quite easy to disturb. Which is why temporal magic is so closely monitored; even the slightest risk of a paradox could land the unwary in Azkaban for life." He picked up a dish full of round yellow candies and proffered it to him. "Lemon sherbet?"
"Uh," Harry had to take a moment to recover from the stark juxtaposition of magic which could potentially land one in prison for life and screaming yellow candies before being able to answer, "no thank you, Professor."
Dumbledore shrugged, set the bowl down with a clunk and picked one out for himself.
"I'm sure that you're wondering why I would feel the need to speak with you about it? The simple explanation is that I recognize that ring." He pulled a carbon copy of the ring from underneath a stack of papers and showed it to him. "I made this my seventh year, merely to see if I could, and never did get around to registering it. Though I would hope I made a few tweaks here and there before giving it to you as it's rather rough."
"I…uh…"
"No need to panic, Harry. I merely hope that I sent you here with good reason; be mindful not to let that ring out of your sight."
"I will, Sir."
"Well, I wish you luck in why you're here and if I'm correct about your goals than you, Harry, are going to need it. Now I think you ought to be getting to your potion's class."
Harry left the room, rounded the corner and ran straight into the person who'd been standing just beyond it. Not Tom, as he would've expected, but McGonagall.
"Sorry," he apologized quickly. "I didn't see you there."
"It's fine," her voice was almost a snap. "I've been waiting for you Potter: we need to speak and there's sure to be only a short window of time before he comes back. You need to listen to me."
"He?"
"Tom!" She informed him crisply. "You're new. You don't know what he's really like, and I'm sure that he's done nothing but present himself as some manner of Prince Charming. That isn't true. He's Cruel. Vile. Manipulative. Rather much like a snake, really." McGonagall looked around quickly as if to assure herself the subject of their conversation wasn't lurking just out of sight in the shadows. "You need to be careful."
He knew full well that he was all those things and more. More so than she did, at least at current. "Why?"
"Why? Because he's obsessed with you; Tom Riddle looks at you like a Niffler looks at a trinket! He's never done that before and I can't possibly fathom the reason that he would start now! You need to be careful-."
"Typical goodhearted Gryffindor. Don't you have enough Prefectural duties on your plate already, Minerva, without poaching from my House?" Tom's smile was outwardly pleasant but his voice was glacial and his dark eyes promised pain. Harry couldn't prevent the shudder of fear that swept through him at the sight of it and had to commend his future Professor for only slightly wilting before the cold front which seemed to have scoured the hall at his arrival. "Come along, Harry. We're bordering on being late."
"Right, Potions Class." He glanced at her briefly and said "it was nice talking to you," before starting to walk away.
As if to reassure himself that he'd stolen the raven away from conversing with another Tom gripped his shoulder briefly as Harry passed him by, glaring darkly at McGonagall for another moment before following doggedly on his heels.
