A/N: Okay so, finals are done and I'm trying to get caught up on roleplaying and thesis and Christmas stuff, but since I had nothing to do at work today, I spat this one out. I may or may not get another one out this weekend, if not, it be next week for sure.
I've headcanoned Harry as being a parselmouth even without Voldy's horcrux, and when I imagined Tom cursing in parseltongue, I knew it had to be put into the fic, because go figure Harry is the only person in the school who knows all the naughty words that Professor keeps hissing.
Also, yes, Sirius sneaks out of Grimmauld place at night in his animagi form. This was mentioned because it is relevent.
When he would get really frustrated, Tom generally cursed in parseltongue. Why? None of his students could hear him or understand him. Except for Lilith, but she did the same thing so it was fine. And partly because of this habit of his to break off into parseltongue, everyone, ever the incoming first years, knew who he was, and that he was a parselmouth.
"I swear by Merlin's sagging ball sack-" Tom snapped off in parseltongue, pulling two first years who'd come to blows apart. "Ten points from Slytherin and Gryffindor for fighting!" He snapped viciously, "And no, Mr. Malfoy, I don't care who started it or why it was started, you both," he said, holding onto Weasley and Goyle by the robes, "Will serve detention tonight with me."
"But professor! Goyle called Granger a-" Weasley protested loudly.
"I don't care what who called whom, you should have fetched a professor instead of decking the boy!" Tom snapped and turned to catch the sight of the rest of the first years lingering in the hall. Weasley's friend, Harry Potter, who was damn near the spitting image of his father, was staring at him with a look of awe and confusion. Not that he really understood why he was looking at him like that, but he wasn't really paying attention to anything but keeping Goyle and Weasley from jumping on each other again.
"Did he really just, you know?" He heard Potter asked Longbottom, who gave him a weird look. In fact that caught Tom's attention because while the muggleborns might have no prior knowledge of him, Riddle was certain James would have told his son anything and everything about Hogwarts.
"Dad said he was a parselmouth," Longbottom replied with a shrug and Potter's face scrunched up in confusion. "But he said-"
The light bulb went off in Tom's head and he turned to stare at James and Lily Potter's son with a truly confused expression. "Mr. Potter, can you understand what I am saying right now?" Tom asked quietly, hissing out the words slowly and clearly.
"I- yeah, why?" Potter said, his brows pressing together in confusion. Tom could audibly hear his jaw drop as he stared at the Potter heir.
Harry Potter was a Parselmouth.
Tom honestly couldn't remember the last time he wanted to hex someone this badly. Madam Umbridge had squeezed herself into a spot at the staff table, earning confused glances from the students and irritated ones from the rest of the staff. Luckily, she wasn't that close to himself, only two chairs down, closer to Severus and Aurora. She seemed to be either impervious or straight out ignoring the hostility of the staff around her. No matter what any of their "personal" opinions might be on Albus, Harry or the Voldemort bit, none of them liked the idea of the ministry becoming involved at Hogwarts more than it already was.
Albus waited until most of the Great Hall was filled, all the students splitting their attention between the food before them and the toad woman in pink. Tom reclined slightly in his chair, watching as Albus rose slowly to his feet, drawing the attention of everyone in the hall.
"Good evening! Hopefully you've been enjoying your first week of classes! Before we all become immersed into our meal, I'd like to make an announcement." Turning to gesture in Umbridge's direction, down the staff table, the toad stood, though that did little for seeing her, given how short she was.
"Madam Umbridge will be joining us for the semester at the request of the Board of Governors, and will be evaluating the staff and their classes. She'll likely be in a few of your class sessions and will ask your questions about your tutelage here at Hogwarts, so please answer honestly." Albus ended his little bit and began to take a seat once more, the students looking at the new "staff" member, or whatever they would be expected to call her. But the toad hadn't sat down and letting out an annoying clear of the throat before putting on a fake grin to the student population. Staff didn't exactly add on to Albus's speeches, so the entire hall turned to either glare at her or stare at her with puzzlement, save some of the more polite staff, such as Albus and Filius, Pomfrey and the like, who straightened and gave her a small half smile, staring at her as though they were delighted to hear her little speech.
"Thank you, Headmaster," Professor Umbridge said, "for those kind words of welcome." The way she spoke made Tom's hair stand on edge, and he turned to catch Harry's eyes in the crowd of gold and maroon on the far side of the Hall.
Umbridge cleared her throat again with a loud, "Hem, hem," and then continued on. "Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say! And to see such happy little faces looking back at me!"
Forced to wonder how long he was going to have to listen to this, Tom resisted the urge to sink lower in his chair and instead focused on all the reasons he could not set her pink cardigan on fire. He would be fired. He'd be arrested. He'd likely never have a chance at helping the Order defeat Voldemort and he'd likely never be able to find a way home.
Despite this, he still tensed up in irritation when she cleared her throat, yet again, and continued on in a breathy voice, the complete opposite of the voice he'd heard earlier that afternoon. Luckily, even the Slytherins, who'd been looking rather smug about the entire thing, now seemed to be bristling with irritation at being addressed like small children.
"I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all, and I'm sure we'll be very good friends!" Another throat clear and some of the students were now trading glances and Tom wanted to gesture in Draco's general direction and blame it all on him. To be perfectly honest though, it wasn't likely to any fault of Draco. With the speed Lucius and Fudge had gotten approval from the Board, Tom had no doubts Lucius had been planning to do this all along.
"The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance." Gone was the breathy, high-pitched tone. Suddenly she sounded like a harsh school marm discussing something with her pupils. "The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the Wizarding community must be passed down through the generations lest we lose them forever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished, and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching."
She paused her speech and turned to bow to the professors on either side of her, but all she received was cool glares and one or two polite nods. Tom grabbed the bridge of his nose when she gave yet another "hem, hem," and continued on in her blasted speech.
"Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress's sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation …"
Students began talking then, quietly, but loud enough to make a slight buzz in the hall and in an effort to not strangle the woman, Tom, let his gaze fall to them. Clearly most of them simply took the woman as a joke while a few others were shooting worried looks and speaking quietly to classmates with serious looks on their faces, aware what this would mean. "
… because some changes will be for the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgment. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness, and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."
Tom almost groaned with relief when she finally sat down. He hadn't been that distracted from another adult since his school years. He brought up a slow clap when Albus started up. Given how few students had actually been listening, it took a few long moments for the applause to fill the hall.
As the clapping quickly died off, Albus took up his own plate, signalling the rest that it was time for dinner. Tom found himself lacking an appetite and instead pushed the food around the plate for a few moments before pulling one of his books out. Dinner went by without any other incident and he managed to polish off half of his plate without feeling ill about it.
It was only Wednesday, and the week wasn't near done yet, but instead of pacing around his quarters in anxiousness, Tom threw some of the floo powder into the fire place. If the ministry was putting Umbridge in to watch the professors, he had little doubt that they were watching the floo network as well. Instead he stepped into the fire and called for the Leaky Cauldron.
He had enough waiting to look into the soul bit, even though it'd only been a few days. A few days were a lot, considering there was a man with bits of his soul spread every which way and the sooner he figured out the bigger picture the sooner he might get to go home. He apparated from the Cauldron to Grimmauld Place, and let himself inside.
However, much to his surprise, it was silent in the house. He doubted Sirius was asleep and yet was unable to located him when he poked around the Black home. Had he slipped out? Not that he was supposed to, given he was a wanted criminal and Albus and Remus has specifically told him he wasn't supposed to leave Grimmauld Place. Then again, the man was an animagi and if he was out in his dog form, he'd be safe from authorities, but likely not Death Eater.
"The filthy mongrel isn't home," came a voice behind him, and Tom let out a loud noise of distress. He'd forgotten about Kreacher, the decrepit house elf that belonged to the Black family. When he'd regained his composure he nodded his head.
"Is there any chance you'd know where he is, Kreacher?" Tom asked, looking down at the old elf.
"Blood traitor tells Kreacher to stay in the house until he gets back," Kreacher said with irritation and a bit sullenly and Tom nodded with a sigh, "right."
While not the most stable, Sirius was a grown man and had the right to make decisions (even if they were horrible decisions) on his own, and Tom sympathised with the fact that he was locked up in the ancestral home all day every day with no escape or reprieve. So he slipped into the library, and left Kreacher to whatever it was he'd do while Sirius was gone. Skipping the first shelf, which he and Sirius had already ransacked, he began diving into the rest of the shelves, ignoring the chimes of the clock as the night began to slowly tick by.
The Black Library, like many libraries within older British Wizarding families, held many interesting books, not all dark magic. Grimoires and diaries with self invented spells grabbed his attention for a few moments to skim over, but then he was back to the task of looking through any and all book for any mention of soul magic. Piles began to stack up around him as the night work one, organized by general topic of the book, but only two books thus far had held any mention of soul splitting magic, and one of those refused to mention the process, though it had provided him with the official term.
Horcrux. Ghastly word. Now his search expanded to include that as well as soul splitting, though the search was slow going. The second book he found mentioned something about the storage of the parts of souls, which made sense given the diary. Clearly that had been it's vessel, though he was confused as to how one killed a soul housed in an inanimate object.
It was around three in the morning when Tom realized he could hear something, or someone, in Grimmauld Place and the library doors opened to reveal Sirius. Kreacher must have said something to him about his presence, because the younger man did not appear to be on the defense about his house being occupied. The ruffled man took a seat in one of the high backed chairs and and looked about at the mess Tom had made of the library.
"How long have you been here?" He asked, picking up one of the books from a stack.
Tom paused and threw another book into the stack for hexes and curses before turning around to shrug at the man. "Around ten, I believe, so four or five hours."
"And you didn't run off to Albus when you realized I wasn't around?" Sirius asked with a smirk, "Knew I liked you."
"While it was highly irresponsible, you are a grown man who is allowed to make his own mistakes and decisions and I have no right to take that from you," Tom said, flipping through another book. He was barely done with half a quarter of the library and the floor was already covered with books. Waving his wand, the books slid back into place on the shelves in their new order he'd given them, save for a few he'd pulled out for himself to peruse.
"I just took a walk around London," Sirius muttered quietly, then cleared his throat (which made Tom twitch just a bit) and continued on in a normal tone, "Still looking for things about soul splitting?"
"One of your books gave it a name," Tome said with a nod, pointing to the stack of books he'd pulled out for himself on a nearby table. "Horcrux, s was the fragment of the soul is called. Apparently they generally get stored in a vessel of some kind."
"How and why would someone want to split their soul?" Sirius asked, reclining back in the chair and watching as Tom ripped more books off the shelf.
"Not too sure on the how, but apparently the why is because when your soul is stored elsewhere, you can't be truly killed." Throwing a book onto the floor to mark the placement of a pile, he raised his eyebrows. "Sound familiar?"
"So, you think Voldemort split his soul?"
"Actually, Albus and I think he may have done it several times over, which apparently is not recommended for one's mental health." Tom said with a mock sigh.
"And do we have any idea where any of these vessels might be?" Sirius asked.
Still pouring over the book in his hand, Tom reached into his bag and chucked the destroyed diary in Sirius's direction. "That's one right there, Harry got it without realizing what it was in his second year and stabbed it with a basilisk fang."
"And, how exactly did he get a hold of a basilisk fang?" Sirius demanded, looking up from the journal with worry etched on his face.
"From the basilisk he killed in the Chamber of Secrets." Toms aid matter-of-factly, not really thinking about the fact that Sirius might not have known about all of his Godson's adventures before they'd met.
"I- what?" Sirius asked a bit shrilly.
Tom blinked and looked up and shrugged, "Ask him, that's what I did." Turning back to the book, Tom threw it onto another spot on the floor and moved onto the next book.
"Wouldn't you have some idea what he'd make his vessels?" Sirius asked, quickly putting aside the fact that Harry had killed a Basilisk.
"We don't hold the same values, Voldemort and I. The diary must have meant more to him or was just his first attempt that actually worked, because I rarely wrote in my diary. There's the Gaunt ring, but there's no way to know if he had actually wanted the ring given his disdain of the Gaunt home and how he let it continue to rot."
"The Gaunts?" Sirius asked, standing up and joining him in pulling books off the shelves.
"Our mother, Merope Gaunt, direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin." Tom explained offhandedly. "Hmm, besides that, I'm not quite sure. I value my pocket watch that Albus gave me, but given Voldemort and Albus here aren't close, he wouldn't have received one." Silence descended on them as they continued working and Tom knew stayed up this late was a horrible idea, but he knew he wasn't going to be able to sleep.
"What about an animate object?" Sirius asked a few minutes later, breaking the silence.
"The book said inanimate," Tom said.
"Yeah, but Harry mentioned once about this snake that Voldemort always keeps about. He sees it when they share visions and it was there with his all last year."
"Putting part of your soul in another being can't be a very practical thing. They're easy to kill." Tom reasoned.
Sirius went quiet again and Tom sighed as the clock struck four. "I should probably head back. I'll just apparate to the gates." He grabbed his bag and shoved the books into it.
"I'll keep looking tomorrow and send you a message if I find anything." Sirius said, walking Tom out of the library.
"You don't have to-"
"I really don't have anything better to do." Sirius reminded him.
"Right, that's fine then. Thanks."
"Nah, we're even, just don't tell Dumbledore I've been leaving," He said, clapping Tom on the shoulder.
As one could expect after only getting a couple hours of sleep, Tom looked like death the next morning, a large mug of black coffee in his hand, large dark circles under his eyes and his hair ruffled up in all the wrong places. The students steered clear of his path as to not knock the mug from him as he climbed the stairs back to his classroom the following morning after eating a few bites of food and fetching his drink. His first class, bless their blithering souls, was his second year Hufflepuff and Slytherin class.
A line of young bleary-eyed students had already formed outside the door to his classroom and they shuffled out of the way so he could unlock the door and let them all into the room.
And he would have been fine if the Slytherins and the Hufflepuffs had kept the volume down and simply gone over the shield spells and then cover some of the magical creatures that he would have taught them in their first year had he been around.
But no, his day couldn't have been that simply. As the class settled down, what came through his door but the horrible pink toad with her simpering "hem hem!" Tom resisted every inclination to hex the woman and throw her down into the Chamber to rot because he was supposed to be the good Tom Riddle, not the one who went around murdering people simply because they were utterly and intolerantly infuriating him.
"Hello Professor Riddle!" She said in that high-pitched falsetto voice that made him want to strangle owlets. "Did you receive my letter this morning? I attached it to the door."
Tom blinked and looked at the door, which was still propped open, the unopened parchment still stuck to the door. He'd completely missed it, though he was unsure if he'd missed it on accident or on purpose. The rest of the students were shuffling in their seats, clearly aware that their professor was not in a good mood and that the glares he was shooting at Madame Umbridge probably meant they should stay quiet and out of the way.
"As you can see I did not." He answered quietly, taking a sip from his mug.
"Yes well, the Minister wanted me to be prompt in my teacher evaluation," She answered with her sickly sweet voice and as she walked further into the room, Tom was made very aware of the sheer height difference between him and her. He gained some sort of twisted pleasure in watching her crane her head up to look at him as she approached. "You do not have an objection, of course?" She asked, the tilt on the sentence implying it to be a question.
"Of course not, Madame." He said curtly. And with that he dismissed her existence and began pretended she didn't exist. Out of the corner of his eye he could see she had taken a seat in the back corner of the class, watching all the students in front of them. She glanced at the paired students and made a few scribbles on a clipboard she pulled from within her robe.
He took another long gulp of the bitter coffee and straightened, raising a hand to run it through his hair now that he was awake enough to care about such things. He'd skip the shield spells, given what he'd remembered of Umbridge and her view on the "practical application" of spells in class.
"Given the year prior your professor did not go over any of the magical creatures I would have expected, we'll spend this class going over some of them, the habitats one might find them in, their prey or what they thrive on, and how to defend yourself against them." The Hufflepuffs deflated more visibly than the Slytherins, who were giving looks at Umbridge. There was a clattering of noise as students began pulling out parchment, quills and ink. "Please take adequate notes because I will be assigning presentations on certain creatures to each pair to do presentations on in class. I'll pass out the details of the assignment next class."
No groans echoed the room and instead he received a few nods. Besides the scribbling and scratching of the quills on parchment and his own voice, it was quiet in the room. Occasionally a student would raise a hand to ask a question about what he was explaining, but for the most part, the class was quiet.
"- Therefore it's unknown if the Bean Nighe is native only to Scotland, but it is far more common for a Grim to be spotted in the English moors."
The class was drawing to an end and everyone was getting restless, so he was surprised when one of the Hufflepuff girls raised her hand. "Do the grim's really protect death? How do you know if it isn't just a black dog?"
"My grandmother saw a grim and she died later that day," one of the Slytherin boys mumbled.
"It's been proven to have once been a real creature," Tom confirmed, "though it's speculated to have shape-shifting abilities. As to if they're still around today, there's no certain answer." He paused and pulled out his watch. "Right, bell will ring in a few minutes. For reading I'd like you and your partner to go check out some books on wild magical creatures and start deciding on ones you might like to do for your presentation and next week I'll hand out a paper with all the details for the project. Class dismissed." The chairs scraped on the floor as the students began clearing out and he froze and tensed up something horrible when he heard a loud "hem, hem!"
He turned slowly and glowered at the woman. "Yes, Madam Umbridge?"
"I have a few questions for you, if you would Professor Riddle," She said in a mock-happy tone. "It will only take a few minutes."
Tom looked at his watch and then nodded. "As you wish, Madam."
She held up her board gleefully and Tom folded her arms across his chest.
"Now then, you were just hired for this position, correct?" She asked, quill poised.
"That is correct." Tom replied with a drawl.
"And it was Professor Dumbledore who offered you the position?" She asked as she wrote something down on her clipboard. Due to their extreme height difference, Tom was able to see the words "Unkempt, lectures informally" and "obviously new to teaching position."
"And what was your occupation before this?" She asked, oblivious to the glare Tom was giving her or the way he was tightening his grip around his pocket watch.
"Private tutor for families." He answered shortly.
"Here in Great Britain?" She asked sweetly as she made another note.
"No, America," he replied crisply.
"And were you recommended to Dumbledore?" She frowned, making a note again.
"I had applied for the position once before when I was younger." He said with a small smile. She might had believed it to be reminiscent of an earlier time, but it was really about the fact that this part was indeed not a lie.
"Well, you'll receive the results at a later date." She said, turning on her heel when she finished writing, and walked out of his classroom. Tom reached up and rubbed his brow.