"Where did you disappear to?!"

Harry glanced up at the furious, accusing voice as the door to their compartment slammed open, revealing a rather irate looking Malfoy. His eyes narrowed slightly.

"Onto the train, apparently, seeing as I'm here," he replied, dryly. "Why, what did you and your parents imagine would happen? That I'd get attacked by Death Eaters and almost killed?" he offered pointedly.

Malfoy's jaw clenched.

"He told you to stay put with us. We would have protected you."

"Guess I protected myself just fine," Harry returned. "I'm not his follower. I don't have to listen to him."

"Yeah," Ron said. "Harry doesn't want to hang out with you lot, and, whatever else has happened, it doesn't stop you being a git."

"I'm trying to keep my family safe and your stupidity could get them killed! Or have you forgotten the last mess you caused that almost made him snap my spine!" Draco hissed.

Harry paused at that, eyes widening a little with realisation. Of course. Draco had his own family too, to look after. They had to deal with Tom and Tom's psycho-ness too, and, unlike him, they weren't in any place to get out any time soon either.

Draco was born into this; he'd never had a choice.
He glanced at Hermione. Ron was still glaring. Harry wetted his lips.

"I-" he composed himself. "I apologise. I didn't mean to cause unnecessary trouble for your family." Ron stared at him, aghast.

"Why the hell wouldn't you want to-" the redhead began. Harry shot him a look, before glancing back at Draco once more. This could go horribly wrong, and he really didn't want to lose Ron as a friend, but it was very clear that his situation had changed and with Bellatrix and whoever else against him or whatever Bella was, he could probably do with as many allies as he could get.

"I mean, not that time at least. Tom can be a complete twat, and so, maybe..." he hesitated, before holding out a hand. "Truce?"

Draco scrutinized him closely, lips thinning, eyes equally uncertain. Harry was starting to feel like an idiot with his hands out. Was this how Draco had felt on their first meeting? The possibility of rejection was utterly intimidating.

"I suppose we can do a truce." Draco accepted his hand, albeit suspiciously, and maybe that made him the better man. He didn't know.

"Thanks," Harry said, shaking firmly, before letting go. "Not that I'm suddenly a muggleborn and muggle hating bigo-person. But, I mean, I think we both have bigger things to worry about now than bickering with each other?"

"How Slytherin of you," Draco stated, the corners of his lips curling a little.

"Well, the hat did consider putting me in Slytherin," he smirked. "And I've been stuck with the Slytherin Heir all summer."

"You were almost put in Slytherin?" Ron demanded. Harry rubbed his eyes.

"Yeah. But I wasn't. I was Gryffindor. I chose Gryffindor."

"Slytherin doesn't mean evil, you know," Draco said, in a sniffy tone. "It just means we value ambition, cunning and determination."

"In other words," Ron started, face starting to turn puce.

"Ron, please!" Hermione bit out. "We have enough fighting, don't we? Harry's not trying to say we're all going to be best friends, but to fight Riddle, or whoever else, and keep our feet, we have to stick together at least a little bit. Harry's right, we have bigger things to worry about."

Ron's jaw clenched mulishly, and he continued to glower at Draco, before just nodding, tightly, and looking away with a sullen expression.

Harry took that as a good sign. It wasn't total acceptance, but..well, he supposed Ron was at least trying, or at least compromising fractionally.

Draco nodded too, once, eyeing Ron with distaste and glancing at Hermione, before very quickly away, lips pinched.

"Right. Well - don't do something so stupid again, right Potter?"

"Right."

Malfoy left again, and Harry wasn't sure if the air felt awkward or not. A little. Ron was still staring out the window, with a somewhat grumpy expression.

"So, um, exploding snap anyone?" Harry offered, quietly. "Ron?"

There was a silence, heavy and oppressing.

"Ron, c'mon..." Hermione murmured. There was a sigh, before Ron turned around again and smiled, a little tightly.

"I'll deal. And you can fill us in on what happened on the platform and who that bloke with you was."
Harry grinned.

Sirius couldn't believe his misfortune.

He thought the return to Hogwarts would finally be his opportunity to escape Riddle's clutches. He would have found Harry, revealed himself, and started undoing the poison Voldemort had inflicted on his godson.

He'd underestimated the Dark Lord's possessiveness, and desire to be the single influence on Harry's life.

He eyed the insane bitch in front of him, and would honestly have been happy if he'd never seen her again.

"Well, well, if it isn't my ickle cousin," Bellatrix cooed, brandishing her wand. "Finally seen the light?" she smirked. "Or should I say the dark?"

His hackles bristled, and in one quick movement he'd transformed, striding forwards to attack, before the shackle-leash around his throat yanked him back. Lestrange giggled, clapping her hands together with delight.

He'd been dropped off at Malfoy Manor only minutes after Narcissa and Lucius had left, leaving him alone with this bitch.

He didn't think the Malfoys had been looking for a new pet, but, apparently, he couldn't be trusted alone. Ironically, Sirius would have been happy to even have Snape here, to help him.

"Never," he growled. "And this situation won't last. Voldemort will be destroyed."
No, this wasn't the right approach. Not with Bella. She'd only laugh at him more. He gritted his teeth.

"Do you really want his attention focused on Harry instead of where it should be? On the cause?" he paused. "On you?"

"I have a plan," she crooned.
He really didn't like that sound of that.

"Don't hurt him," he bit out. She pouted at him, mockingly, eyes cruel and wild.

"I don't think you're in any position to tell me what to do, blood traitor. How is it you got out of Azkaban?"

"I'll tell you, for the next time you get locked up for good, if you let me go," he returned, sharply.
She just threw her head back and laughed, before wandering away.

"Let you go? But us Blacks have to stick together, yes?" she said.

The irony was bitter in his mouth. Together in that he wasn't going to be allowed to leave...and yet, if he had followed such tradition and not abandoned his family, he would have had far more help here.

This was going to take some planning.
But he would escape. And then he would find Harry.

Harry stared, wide-eyed, at the staff table.

There was a small talk about the attack on the platform, and a reiteration of safety rules and...and he couldn't stop staring at the staff table.

The man from the platform was there, the man who'd saved him, which could have been enough of a surprise for one night. It was the second new face which gave him a bloody heart attack.

Professor Binns' chair had always been empty at meals, as he was a ghost and couldn't eat...and now...

Tom.

What. Was. Tom. Doing. At. The. STAFF TABLE!?
Harry's eyes flicked to Dumbledore, before back to Tom, and...he didn't know how he felt.

On one sense, he felt trapped in and stalked, suffocated, on another, he was almost glad that Tom was there and it was too much to compute and who was the other man and what was Tom teaching?

Dumbledore spread his arms for silence.

"I am...pleased to inform you that we have three new teachers joining our staff this year," the Headmaster began, inspiring even more whispers. Harry didn't want to listen to them, though he heard snippets like "he's rather shabby looking, isn't he? What's he teaching?" and "Merlin, the young one at the end is gorgeous..." "who's the third?"

He particularly cringed at the latter. He knew Tom was handsome, he supposed, but that didn't mean he wanted to hear it and - he didn't know. It felt weird, to hear people talking like that about the Dark Lord - the Dark Lord who had kidnapped him and been his guardian all summer.

His mouth was dry. He wanted to run up to the table and scream in Tom's face and demand explanation, but Hermione kept a hand tightly on his knee to keep him stewing in his seat, and another one clutching Ron's hand tightly.

Tom's eyes moved over him, and though his lips didn't move, Harry could picture the smirk there, and the gleam in the other's eyes, even if he wasn't close enough to see it.

But he knew Tom well enough to know that he was radiating smugness. His jaw clenched.

"Firstly, due to the retirement of Professor Grubby-Plank, so he can spend the rest of his life with his remaining limbs, the Care of Magical Creatures post will now be taken by our very own Rubeus Hagrid," Dumbledore announced. Harry's eyes lit up, as he clapped so hard his hands went numb, with the rest of the Gryffindors, whilst the Slytherins looked sullen. He saw Tom shoot a glance down the table, remembered that even if he hadn't killed Harry's parents, he'd got Hagrid expelled.

Harry's insides twisted at the thought, feeling a surge of guilt at the reminder of Tom's cruelty. Dumbledore was continuing.

"The second - Professor Lupin," he indicated to the shabby man, the man who'd saved Harry's life. "Who will be our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher."

"That's how he knew how to fight so well and protect you on the platform!" Hermione whispered.

Harry clapped loudly once more, among more polite applause, studying Lupin carefully. He looked gentle and kind, the exact opposite of Tom at the table who looked bold and powerful.

It was funny, but, at least on the surface, it looked like Tom should be the the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and Lupin looked like he should be...something else.

What was Tom then? If he was in Binns' chair...no way.

"And this," did they notice how Dumbledore's eyes and posture hardened? "is Professor Riddle, who has taken over from Professor Binns teaching History of Magic."

The clapping was far more enthusiastic this time, and Harry huffed.

He was starting to figure out what he was feeling - irritation!

Did he have to listen to a Tom-is-wonderful fan club all term long now? That, and this was suspicious. What happened to plans of Dark-Lordiness and World Domination? Tom was obviously plotting something; he just didn''t know what. He would find out though.

He was definitely seeing Tom once the feast was over, and he stabbed a piece of pork moodily as the feast appeared.

Ron was fuming next to him too, all of the Weasleys were, and how had Tom even got the job?

Smug bastard.

Tom wasn't even remotely surprised when a small hand grabbed the back of his new shirt and waistcoat, but allowed his brow to furrow. He did think he looked rather dapper in his new clothes, and didn't want Harry wrinkling the material.

"Tut tut. First night, and you're already breaking the rules, child," he sighed. "I might have to give you a detention for that, Mr Potter."

"Oh, you're just loving this, aren't you?" Harry growled. "How the hell did you manage to get a job at Hogwarts?"

"You don't believe that I would make a good teacher?" he returned innocently. Harry scowled.

"That's not the point."

"Then what is?"

"You're stalking me!"

"I'm looking after you," Tom countered, with a small smirk."I'd hardly be a good guardian if I didn't."

"Other people's parents seem to manage leaving the kids alone for the school year. Not that you're my parent, despite your creepy tendency towards confused family sentiments," Harry said.

Bless him. He didn't much like the familial references though, as he certainly had no intention to parent. Mentor, perhaps, as much as it served his own aims to do so. For now, Harry could do with learning some subtlety.

The other students around them were watching them curiously, craning their necks to try and see the connection between the Boy who Lived and the History Professor. He quietly grabbed Harry's wrist, dragging him to an area of a little more privacy.

"Go to your dorms," he instructed, to the students, aiming the words pointedly at a gaping prefect, who quickly started hustling the students along.

"As always, Harry," he replied finally, "nothing is done for one motivation alone. You're just...the icing on top of the cake? That is the saying, is it not?"

Harry's unimpressed, unamused expression merely made his eyebrows arch, and so the boy turned to studying him carefully instead - clearly trying to figure out these motivations.

"Is something hidden in the school? Or are you...I don't know...recruiting," Harry's head tilted, before his expression soured. "Speaking of plots. People trying to kill me at the station, you bastard!"

"You were perfectly safe," he said, calmly, somewhat amused.

"Didn't feel like it when one of your-"

"Harry. I taught you spells for a reason," he said, pointedly. The boy stared at him, with an annoying blankness, before seeming to realise what he meant.

"Oh!" Harry cast a spell to avoid people from eavesdropping on them,and he allowed himself to nod with approval.

"Now, by all means continue on explaining how you weren't perfectly safe, and how this didn't work out in your benefit. Unless you wanted a repeat of the treatment I heard you received in your second year? Perhaps you got attached to being the Heir of Slytherin?"

"No! Of course I didn't," Harry growled. "That's not the point! Why didn't you tell me what you're planning?"

"Because you're a thirteen year old boy commonly known as the saviour of the light, because I didn't feel like it, because the whole thing wouldn't have been even remotely realistic if you knew it was coming, because it was not supposed to be necessary for your protection to tell you, as you were not supposed to run off from the Malfoys out of whatever petty quarrel you have with junior-blond?" he offered. "By all means, pick one. I'm told students like multiple choice questions nowadays. Easier to digest. Less thinking involved."

"Stop insinuating I'm stupid!" the boy snapped.

"Stop asking questions before even giving yourself the opportunity to think about it properly yourself with a modicum of common sense then," he returned, dryly. "Valuable life lesson. You can't rely on other people to do your thinking for you. Speaking of, don't think for one second you can slack off in my class."

"I still don't understand how Dumbledore could possibly allow you to teach," Harry muttered, though there was less bite this time.

"Because Binns is a terrible teacher, even in my time, and mysteriously vanished off the face of the earth only a few hours before the start of term feast. He didn't have much choice in the matter."

Harry looked like he wasn't sure if he should be horrified or reluctantly impressed.

"Yeah, well, you're a terrible guardian if you're so obsessed with that, because if it wasn't for Professor Lupin then I would be dead!"

His amusement immediately vanished.

He would need to research this man, if he had a connection with Harry already. Moreover...

"How convenient that a teacher would be at the station," he murmured. "They so often travel on the train, after all."

Harry's eyes narrowed.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing...I'm merely amazed at such a remarkable coincidence seeing as I cannot recall a single instance when a teacher has traveled on the train with the students," he said, lightly.

"Maybe Dumbledore was smart and rightly suspicious that you'd try something," Harry challenged, folding his arms. "He is the Defence teacher after all."

"Yes," he drawled. "I'm certain there can't be anything else involved in this, especially considering previous track records on the reliability of Defence Teachers at this school."

"He saved my life."

"He wouldn't have had to if you did as you were told."

"I wouldn't have done so if you could stop being such a prat!" Harry glared at him for a second, and he studied him impassively in turn, before Harry was shaking his head. "Dumbledore, the Light Side, always keep stuff from me and I hate it. I thought you were different. That you understood. Guess I was wrong!"

Harry marched away from him without further comment, heading towards the Gryffindor Tower no doubt, and a small smirk blossoming on his lips.

Fascinating.
Harry's manipulation skills were improving already. He was shaping up very nicely - Tom was sure that trick of guilt, and playing into his desires to have the boy at his side, would have worked on anyone who wasn't as well versed in deceit as himself.

Excellent. Quite excellent, and just a little bit adorable.

"I'll see you at my class bright and early, child," he called after the boy, hearing him huff. His smirk broadened, before vanishing just as quickly as he headed towards his new quarters to unpack the meagre belongings he'd brought with him.

Time to do some redecorating, and to sort out his office.
Had he mentioned he'd always rather liked the thought of being a teacher, in a way?

Of course, he couldn't tell a thirteen year old boy, with debatable loyalties, information about the Dark Side, but it was an interesting issue to consider.

He could use this.