Title: Pen Pal
Author: Nekoanima
Summery: What if Harry had a pen pal as a child another boy who was all alone. Harry makes friends with the young Tom Riddle as their letters bounce through time to the one they needed the most.
DISCLAIMER!: I own nothing or Harry never would have ended up with Ginny.
A/N: so what's been happening to Tom while Harry's been going through heck.
While Harry was put through trail after trial and faced nightmarish monsters throughout her school year Tom's was mostly peaceful.
His hardships didn't come from monsters to be faced. They came from the other children. While some like Abraxaus were more polite about dealing with him, others such as Avery were far more common.
The older years were too composed to sink to verbally assaulting him, instead they would sneer down their noses at him like one would a particularly stupid dog. his own year was not so kind, they sneered at him, mocked him and made many a degrading remark.
Then there was Alephard Black. Whom not a single Slytherin knew what to make of. He was a tall aristocratic boy, a pureblooded Black, he never did a single thing that was expected of him. He kept trying to talk to Tom all the time, making a nuisance of himself. He would purposely come over and sit with Tom even though he had made it very clear that he didn't like anyone. Tom had no interest in making friends, the only one he needed, the only one he would ever need, was Harry. As long as he had her no one else would ever matter. They would sneer and insult him and he would merely get even.
After learning what his house mates considered him he began looking up spells. A great many of them were merely defensive for protecting his person and his belongings. But some, an increasing number, were meant for getting even or 'influencing'. The best part of all his new spells was that not a one of them was in a book ranked below fourth year. No one would ever expect a first year to not only know them but to be capable of using them. His favorites were the ones that prevented others from knowing what he did.
After Avery's incident on Halloween many became more weary of him with Avery's cautious looks being aimed his way they gathered who had tormented him. None of them could prove that he was the one who had done it but they were all Slytherins for a reason, they were observant.
Given Dumbledore's reaction to his gift of conversing with snakes he didn't share his most prized ability with his year mates, there was no need to add anymore fuel to the fire his presence had set.
In his classes none of the teachers could say an ill word about him. He was skilled in all of them and the few he wasn't he became so. The only teacher who never praised his abilities was Dumbledore. The old man didn't like him in the slightest, that burn was only worsened by the fact he would blatantly lie to everyone's faces about it. Dumbledore showed absolute favoritism to his own Gryffindor house while he hardly ever awarded any Slytherin points. And while Tom could answer every question he ask correctly the aged transfiguration professor never gave him a single point.
After he had gotten into researching better protections for his trunk Hogwarts became terribly dull. After practicing so many advanced spells the first year material was beyond easy for him. The truth was that Harry's letters were the only bright part to break up the monotony. Her little quirks gave him ideas of what to look up and those ventures would keep him occupied for a time. Harry really had no idea how wonderful she was for him.
Tom was quite sure that without Harry he would have been board to tears. He didn't socialize like others and he had no interest in any sport. So he had far to much spare time even after allotting time for doing his homework. He wrote all of his findings and opinions on them in the little journal that Harry had given him. He had magically expanded the pages so that even though it was still small the pages would never run out. It would always look like he had barely started writing a few pages in when he had volumes of notes and scribbles detailed in it.
When she mentioned playing Quidditch Tom had briefly looked up the sport, but as it involved broomsticks, which seemed to have a mind of their own when it came to him, he decided against it. In their flying class Tom had discovered that brooms had personalities and most of them really hated his. This would lead to the broom he was on bucking and swaying and all around trying to dislodge him. When he finally rolled on the ground he decided that flying was not for him.
When Harry had first told him about the troll he looked them up. He had found a plethora of information about them most of it all saying the same thing though. Trolls were big stupid and dangerous, and they shouldn't be approached. For a first year girl to have faced one and stunned it spoke volumes about his Harry.
After she mentioned Nickolas Flamel he looked up the alchemist. And found far more interesting things from that.
When Harry had finally contacted him after the mirror incident he researched the mentioned mirror in depth hoping that there were no ill side effects from it for his friend. After finding none he was relieved.
The baby dragon had irked him, but diligently he looked up the creature. He didn't particularly care for dragons after reading what the library had to offer. They all seemed like far to much work for minimal results. But he had written Harry and told her of his findings just the same.
And now the creature in her forest, Tom was at a loss for what to do. Nothing he found was either clever enough or quick enough to catch and kill a unicorn. What ever it was Harry saw that night was truly terrifying. If it could hunt down a unicorn and kill it for its cursed blood then it could very easily have hunted down a little girl. No matter how fast Harry was a human would never have had a chance against that beast. He was thankful that the centaur had saved her as it had.
There were many times when Tom wished he could be with Harry on her adventures if for no other reason than to keep her safe. But that would also mean that something interesting was happening so all the more reason. If he was with Harry he didn't think there would ever be a dull moment. Six years was a long wait to have until he could finally meet his friend. But he knew that the best thing in the world was one that was well anticipated, he couldn't wait till he could finally meet his friend fact to face.
In the end it would all be worth it.
A/N: Tom's such a cute little psycho.
