After successfully managing to bypass both Peeves and the Caretaker's blasted cat despite not having the Marauder's Map on him at the time, Tom was relieved to finally have made it down into the Dungeons of the school. He found his way through the darkness, passed the cavernous now empty room where the party had been held and down another set of stairs before finally arriving outside the thick wooden door of the office of Severus Snape.
Here he paused and carefully pressed his ear to the door. Straining his hearing to the best of his abilities through the thick wood, he listened for even the faintest of sounds. The twitch of black robes. The scratch of a quill. The sound of footsteps against the stone floor.
But no sound came.
Steeling himself with a deep breath of cold, dank air Tom reached out and turned the tarnished knob. Pushing the heavy door open as slowly as he could. Inching it outwards. Slowly. Slowly. Mindful to do everything he could to prevent the thing from squeaking and disturbing the occupant of the adjoining bedroom.
He could not afford for the former Potion's Master to catch him.
Once the door was open wide enough to fit him through, Tom slipped inside and repeated the arduous process of closing it without a sound. That done with and now submerged in silence and darkness he closed his eyes and focused, using his memory of the layout of the space to find his way through it in total darkness while a small part of him hoped and prayed that nothing had been moved since the last time that he'd been there.
Tom let out a soft sigh of relief when his fingertips made contact with the coarse surface of the Potion Cabinet's wooden door. After briefly checking for any alarms of protective spells, he unlocked the door and stepped up into the enlarged space beyond. Closing it behind himself with a quiet click, he pulled off the cloak and stowed it away.
"Lumos." White light flooded the narrow space, reflecting off of the countless jars and vials of ingredients.
He knew that he didn't have much time to spare. The longer that he was there the greater the chance became that he would be caught. Tom's gaze scanned the shelves at rapid speed. Examining labels. Tilting vials. Shifting bottles.
Over the soft clatter of glass as he sifted through the supplies and shoved what he needed into the pockets of his robes Tom caught the sound of footsteps heading towards the cabinet.
Shit! Grabbing the last of what he needed and shoving it all hastily away he hissed "Nox!" to extinguish the point of his wand and threw the cloak back over himself, knocking over a few vials and containers in the process, just as Snape wrenched open the door with his own wand held high.
His glittering black eyes fell on the mess of ingredients now scattered across the floor and he stepped up into the cabinet, stalking forwards and forcing Tom to press himself against the shelf beside him in order to avoid being bumped into. He didn't wait for the other man to process what must have happened and leapt from the cabinet, landing on the floor with a clatter of jostled glass vials and tearing out the door. Throwing it wide with a grating shriek that echoed through the surrounding darkness.
"Potter!" He heard snarled from behind him, but Tom didn't stop. He darted up the stairs and through the Dungeons, well aware that his feet were visible and that the sounds of his running footsteps were a dead giveaway of his position but he hoped that the shadowy corridors would be enough for him to get away.
Tom was no an athlete by any means but the laborious responsibilities heaped upon the older wards of Wool's had left him in considerably better shape than most wizards, so he was able to take yet another set of stairs at a full sprint without even slowing down. Unfortunately for him this didn't prove to be the advantage that he'd hoped it would.
The former Potion's Master was fast and in a great deal better shape than his appearance would suggest. He caught the hem of the invisibility cloak just as Tom crested the stairs, causing him to catch his foot on the stone and go down hard. The breath left him in a painful whoosh as his chest met with unyielding floor. Ribs creaking ominously and vision exploding with little balls of colored light as the contents of his pockets, including his wand, went flying.
Thank Circe that glass is spelled to be unbreakable. Managing to rip the cloak free of the grip of his pursuer and grab his wand he summoned the stolen ingredients and bolted again.
"Get back here, Riddle!"
Fat bloody chance! He snorted, stuffing the pilfered goods back into his pockets as he rounded another corner only to be forced to skid to a stop almost immediately. "Miner-I mean-Professor McGonagall."
Blast it all.
"Out wandering the corridors after hours, Thomas?" her voice was sharp and her gaze suspicious. "You are not a Prefect anymore, a fact of which I shouldn't have to remind you, and unlike Horace Slughorn I do not allow the students of my House to freely haunt the school at night as if they were just another of Hogwarts' ghosts. Mr. Potter's habits are rubbing off on you."
"Hard for them not to, with how close we are." Tom did his best to smile despite still gasping for air from his fall. "I apologize, but I couldn't sleep and thought a nice stroll might do me some good. I understand if you must take points, but please do so quickly; I'm feeling very tired now."
"Stealing from my personal stores deserves a far greater punishment than the mere docking of points!" Snape snarled as he rounded the corner behind him. "I did not have the time to examine the shelves for exactly what he took, but judging by the amount of vials that came out of his pockets when he fell it was a good deal. I would suggest-."
"Thomas may have been a Slytherin once, but he is a Gryffindor now and as a member of my House, Severus, the responsibility of punishing him falls to me. Not you." Tom was delighted to hear the same snap aimed at Snape as had been at him and smirked. "However, given his history and who he is I think this matter goes beyond the both of us. I'll be taking him to see the Headmaster."
The smirk slid right off his face. Taking him to Dumbledore, was she?
Stealing isn't tolerated at Hogwarts, Tom.
So much for becoming an Animagus.
"I will…accompany you." The former Potion's Master drawled with a sneer. "Given who he is, you may find yourself in need of…assistance if he tries to resist."
Well aware that he had absolutely no say in matters and no hope of using words to skew things to his benefit enough to get away, Tom allowed himself to be swept along to the Headmaster's office. Given that it wasn't all that long after the fall of curfew he wasn't surprised to find Dumbledore wide awake and sitting behind his desk when they walked in.
"Good evening, Tom. Minerva. Severus. What brings the three of you into my office at this hour?"
"I encountered Thomas while he was out wandering the corridors not far from the stairs down into the Dungeons." Professor McGonagall told him. "He was fleeing pursuit by Severus who claims that he caught him stealing from his Potion Cabinet."
"My 'claim' can be fully substantiated by the simple act of checking his pockets!" Snape spat.
"Tom." The Headmaster said, motioning to his desk. "If you would please empty your pockets for me?"
"…" Tom stepped forwards reluctantly and reached into the pockets of his robes. "Yes,Professor."
He pulled the vials of ingredients free and set them, one by one, atop the desk in a neat row.
"Adder's Fork, Bat's Blood, Powdered Dragon Horn, Fireseed and Nightshade." The aged wizard said, looking over the items. "This is all?"
"It's everything that I took from the Potion Cabinet, Sir."
"But it isn't everything that you've taken, is it?" Tom didn't answer. "I recall Professor Sprout mentioning an attack on her Mandrakes a while back, though only the leaves were damaged. In your haste to leave Greenhouse Three without being seen, you neglected to be gentle when you picked them." He lowered his eyes. "You've been pursuing the ability of an Animagus, Tom?"
"…Yes, Professor."
"You are aware that doing so without alerting the Ministry of Magic is illegal?"
"My mere presence in this timeline is illegal, so even if I wanted to pursue the skill through legal avenues I couldn't. As you well know, seeing as you're the one who orchestrated Harry's foray into my time in the first place. Professor."
A small smile found its way onto Dumbledore's face. "A fair point." He allowed. "You came to have interest in becoming an Animagus only recently?"
"I did."
"Might I ask how?"
"Between a certain story regarding his father Harry told me, and the revelation that we might end up facing off with werewolves I figured it might be useful."
"So you plan to use it in the war?"
Tom nodded. "I do, Sir."
"Very well, Tom. Given that you've all but completed the process already I will allow you to take the final step in becoming an Animagus. On the condition that I, and through me the Order of the Phoenix, is made aware of your other form."
"Of course, Professor."
"And should you find yourself in need of something in the future, I must request you ask for it rather than resorting to stealing it when you think someone isn't looking."
"I'll do my best, Sir."
"I'll let you go, then, as that Potion is known to take a while." Dumbledore said, nodding to him. "Good luck."
"Thank you, Sir. Goodnight."
Gathering the ingredients together and once more returning them to his pockets Tom left the office and threw the cloak over himself again.
Moaning Myrtle was nowhere in sight when he arrived in the out of order bathroom and opened the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Sliding down the shoot and cleaning himself off again at the bottom, Tom quickly made his way into the antechamber before summoning a cauldron and filling it with water.
Given the flooding which had taken place in the Chamber, he had to set the cauldron on the lip of the Portcullis in order to light a fire underneath it. He sat there beside the cauldron for almost three hours, adjusting the heat of the flames from time to time, adding ingredient when called for and stirring the mixture whenever necessary. The ultimate product was a wholly unappetizing brackish brown color and smelled of a mixture of rubber and burned hair. Tom could only assume that the hot contents of the beaker in his hand would taste like liquefied nightmares.
Still not the worst thing he'd ever done in the pursuit of power.
I really hope I don't end up regretting this. It wouldn't do well for me to wind up stuck halfway between man and whatever my other form will turn out to be. He had to push the image of his counterpart's serpentine face from his mind before reciting the necessary incantation. "Amato Animo Animato Animagus."
Before he could think better of what he was about to do Tom threw the potion back and swallowed. The scalding liquid tasted even worse than it had looked and smelled and burned his throat as it went down. The burning sensation quickly spread through his entire being. Over his skin, through his blood and into his bones.
Tom gasped at the sudden sharp pain and doubled over on himself, every fiber of his human form screaming to resist whatever change was being forced on it. It took every ounce of his will to prevent his own resistance, latching onto the source of the pain instead of reeling away from it like his instincts demanded.
His skeletal structure was the first thing to begin to change. Bones and joints cracking and popping loudly as they resized and realigned themselves. His chest rounded outwards. His hips and shoulders shrunk and angled slightly inwards. His fingers shortened and his feet lengthened, nails curving into claws as his legs contorted and forced him down onto all fours. His face pushed itself outwards, handsome features transforming into large eyes and a narrow muzzle filled with sharp teeth. His ears migrated to perch atop his skull and a long tail sprouted from the base of his spine. His skin tightened over morphing muscles, stinging as if pricked by thousands of needles as his clothing was replaced by thick fur.
With the surprisingly painful first transformation over with at last, Tom slunk out from under the pile of robes which had caved in around his now much smaller body and shook himself out before looking down at his reflection in the water which covered the floor.
I'm, familiar dark blue eyes blinked back at him from a canine face covered in black fur, a fox.
It wasn't what he'd expected. At all. But judging from how badly it had hurt to merely have his limbs shrink and reshape he supposed he should be glad that he hadn't had to lose them entirely.
Not to mention that a serpent was a rather inconvenient other form to have when your enemy was a Parselmouth.
Human to animal transformation done with. Now, let's make an attempt at the reverse. It was a bit more difficult to reverse the transformation without the Potion leading the way for him, but after a few minutes of trying he managed to shift back.
Already the change was beginning to become less painful.
So it is true what they say about the clothing of an Animagus, he thought as he straightened up. They fall off when they shift and reappear when they turn back.
"Tempus!" Opening the summoned watch to check the time, he grinned. "Just past midnight: still plenty of time for a little bit of fun to see just what my new form can do."
He was admittedly pushing his luck by doing it but the front doors of the Castle were only a few corridors away from the door of the out of order bathroom and so Tom left the invisibility cloak tucked safely in his pocket and simply made a break for it.
The snow from the previous snowfall had mostly subsided from the grass by then but the night air was still bitterly cold. Tom dropped off the side of the stone stairs of the Castle and into the deep shadow below. Locating the mechanism of the shift with relative ease this time, he dropped to his paws and dislodged the red and gold tie which had attempted to wrap around his back paw with a quick shake of his hind leg. The slope of the large hill seemed much steeper from his new perspective and the distance between him and the edge of the Forbidden Forest's dark trees seemed almost as if it were miles away.
He revealed sharp fangs set deep into black gums in the closest approximation of a smile that a fox could manage. Let's see how fast I am in this form. Just how long it takes for me to reach those trees.
Tom coiled down and bolted from the shadows where he'd left his clothes, racing down the side of the hill. The cold night air rushed through his dark fur. The grass and snow gave beneath his paws. He yipped excitedly and leapt as high as he could, lost his footing on the landing and went rolling down the remainder of the slope. Righting himself quickly and dislodging white flakes from his coat, Tom glanced around to assure himself that nothing had seen the rather embarrassing tumble and then proceeded the rest of the way to the forest's edge.
In his human form, the Forbidden Forest would have seemed to be nothing more than a monolith of darkness and silence but now with the senses of an animal he could see and hear everything around him so much more clearly. The blackness of night was, in fact, made up on millions of different shades of violet and blue all mixing together to form a tapestry of shadows. The colors of the trees and undergrowth surrounding him were muted and seen through filters in cold hues but were still very much detectable as there.
And silent was now the last word that the trees rising up before him brought to mind.
The leaves whispered to the wintery wind and the trunks moaned the story of countless years in a language long since lost to understanding. Insects scratched from behind bark and amongst gnarled roots and beneath rocks. Bats and owls and other nocturnal animals hooted and chittered as they fluttered through the air. Something unseen but, judging by its footfalls and breathing, considerably larger than he was moved in the undergrowth nearby.
Not a werewolf, the moon wasn't full, though exactly what if could have been he had no idea. And it was that fact more than anything that gave him pause on the forest's edge. His ears swiveled and his nose twitched, sifting through the smells of ice decaying plant matter and the hidden treasure troves of squirrels, in an effort to discern its identity but all for nothing.
Only when almost certain that the mystery creature had moved on did Tom trot cautiously forwards into the trees. Stopping every few moments to check his surroundings again before proceeding further. Picking up more and more speed until he was running again. Leaping from thick snarls of gnarled knotted roots. Weaving around large moss-covered boulders. Sliding through the narrow spaces beneath the lichen-riddled corpses of fallen trees. Steering well clear of the entrance to a hollow lined with webs and passing cautiously through a clearing full of Centaur before finally coming to a shallow pond.
Picking his way across the gravel scattered bank Tom approached the water's edge and found the pond to be clear and blackened by surrounding night. With only the thought of his thirst in mind, he bent his head to drink.
Lapping up water was a great deal harder than your standard house pet made it seem.
Merlin, he thought, narrowing his eyes at his reflection in the water. I'm going to have to work on this if I ever want to make any use of this form, at least as far as spying would go. I fox terribly!
But he couldn't exactly sit by and allow an oversized puddle to get the better of him.
It can't possibly be that difficult! I just need to… he dropped further down onto his forelegs, get the right angle or something. That's all. Not difficult. All I'm doing is sticking my tongue into the water for God's sake!...And somehow use it like a spoon. Why did I have to wind up with the world's most embarrassing drinking problem?
Something moved in the corner of his vision and he looked over. A number of small, darkly colored shapes were moving slowly through the cold water only about half a foot away from where he stood attempting to master what should, in all honesty, have been a very basic skill.
Fish.
It would have been a mundane and entirely uninteresting observation under normal circumstances, but some predatory part of his brain which wasn't quite so easily agitated in his normal form lit up bright red at the sight of the small creatures and before his rational mind could catch up to his instincts he'd pounced. The fish scattered in all directions and he chased wildly after them through the shallow water, snapping his jaws in an unsuccessful attempt at catching them, soaking his coat and sending water flying in all direction.
I don't know what the bloody hell I'm doing, but this is fun. The last fish narrowly escaped his teeth and made a break for the safety of deeper water. Up to his knees in the pond, Tom trotted to a stop and shook himself out in an effort to dry off. I'm just glad that Precious isn't out here with me. I'm sure I'd never hear the end of this from him.
Just as the thought occurred to him he felt eyes on him and whipped around with his teeth bared and hackles raised, not knowing what he might potentially come face to face with and ready to turn back at a moment's notice should he discover that he needed his wand. But the instant that Tom caught sight of what was staring at him he relaxed and rose from his crouched posture. Gazing warily at him from across the pond was a deer. Or, more accurately, a stag. Its fur coat was reduced to almost black in the darkness and its wide antlers, sharp bone bared in the absence of velvet like the winter-stripped branches of the surrounding trees, glinted a soft silvery hue in the minimal light which managed to make its way through the cloud cover and trees.
Judging him harmless, the much larger animal proceeded delicately to the edge of the water and lowered its head to drink. He stood there in the cold, dark water and watched it go about its business there. Remaining perfectly still as it finished its drink, raised its head once more to look at him, then turned away and melted back into the surrounding trees.
The thrill of his new form's speed and grace and the annoyance of the basic skills he'd have to relearn in order to believably pass as an animal melted away. Replaced by a pointed desire to return immediately to the dorms, crawl beside his lover and hold him until dawn.
He couldn't leave the forest behind quickly enough.