"Mister Riddle, please demonstrate the proper wand technique to the class, if you'd be so kind."
Tom feels a swell of pride as he catches on right away, despite having been caught staring out the window for the third time that class period. Let it not be said that Tom Riddle was startled by a teacher, of all things.
Professor Dumbledore looks at his student like he is not fooled, but he lets the behavior slide and continues with his lesson.
Tom tries to pay more attention, he really does, but when that blasted letter is burning a hole in his trousers pocket, there is no way he can give his full focus to a simple matchstick-into-a-needle transfiguration.
After only twenty more minutes of suffering, finally class is over and Tom is free to leave – he packs his things mechanically, mind still on that piece of stationary and ink in his pocket.
"Mister Riddle, please stay behind. I would like a word with you."
The professor's voice is not angry or even demanding, but Tom feels a surge of irritation in his chest at the unexpected (not really) demand. He truly wished to return to his dorm room and counsel with Ari about how to proceed.
"Yes, Professor?" He is unfailingly polite, mask firmly in place.
"Please, sit." The wizard conjures a chair before his desk, and the first-year seats himself before watching his Transfiguration professor with dark eyes. The – something in them that peeks out and frightens the girls seems to be trying to manifest itself, but Tom stomps on it and twists it back into its little safe box, locking it with a smile and a blank fog.
He waits patiently, attentively, and Dumbledore takes a moment to admire the singleminded dedication the boy shows in keeping his persona.
"Mister Riddle, I could not help but notice you were a bit – distracted today in class." Dumbledore's cornflower blue eyes twinkle, and he offers the student a piece of candy. Tom recognizes it as a Muggle lemon drop, the kind he used to steal from the street children when he was younger and fed up with his father.
Needless to say, the boy refuses.
"I apologize, Professor. It will not happen again." He makes a move to stand, but Dumbledore motions for him to stay where he is.
"I understand you have been having trouble at home?"
Tom stills, and for a moment the older wizard is reminded forcefully of a striking cobra.
For just a split second, the wizard who had dabbled in his own darkness and fought the darkness of others, travelled farther toward true greatness than anyone in the last few centuries and returned still joyful, he felt true fear at the potential glimpsed in this small, eleven-year-old boy.
It was something in the eyes, he would later muse. He would not consider, not even in his deepest thinking, the striking resemblance between this young boy and another he knew, long ago.
"No, sir. My family is fine, sir." And then that split second is gone, and Tom is just a student again, sitting in a comfortable chair before his professor's desk.
Dumbledore smiles gently at Tom.
"You can tell me, Tom. I promise, I will keep your secrets."
Something stirs in the boy's expression, but he tamps it down with a vengeance and Dumbledore cannot decipher what it was.
"Thank you, sir. I will remember that." Tom Riddle looks for all the world like a proper student, attentive and adoring, wide-eyed and innocent. Intelligent, Dumbledore muses. But he is not in the habit of performing Legilimency on first-years, no matter how concerningly dark their eyes are as they daydream in class, so he can do nothing more but smile gently at the boy and shoo him off to his common room.