Response to u/GwainesKnightlyBalls on r/HPfanfiction

A spider with a grudge ruins Tom's life. So he tries to fix it, and ruins it even more.

"Well done, Tom," said Dippet as they followed the Ministry officials out of the Headmaster's office. "I won't be surprised if you win an award for this."

"Thank you, sir," said Tom. Even he could not have predicted how well his plan had worked.

Rubeus Hagrid - a fool, but a useful one, as it turned out - was led by two aurors out of the school and off the grounds, and Tom watched him leaving with a grin on his face that he didn't care to hide. There was no place in his future world for half-breeds, anyway.

He returned to his dormitory in a particularly positive mood, despite his plans with the Basilisk having to be put on hold. Mudbloods could wait.

When he opened the dormitory door, a strong wind hit him. The window was open, but no one else was there. He crossed the room to close it and was immediately pushed to the ground by something small and hairy and very, very angry.

Hagrid's spider was on top of him, holding him down with unusual force for a creature so small, its two dripping fangs targeting his face like something out of a nightmare. He reached for the wand in his pocket, but as soon as he made the movement, the spider latched onto his forearm.

One second was all it took. A burning, sickening pain shot up his arm and into his head. The spider let go and scurried out of the window, and Tom could have sworn, even through the blinding agony, that he heard the damn thing mutter "bastard!" on its way out.

By the time he was able to sit up properly the pain had spread throughout his entire body. He scrambled for his wand, which felt awkward in his left hand, and tried to call out a spell that would stop the venom's spread. But he knew it was already too late.

The veins in his arm had turned a sickening green color, and the two spots where the fangs had penetrated his skin were raw, red, and filled with pus.

He had no choice. He needed help.

He stood on shaky legs and stumbled out of the dormitory and down the steps. The two or three Slytherins in the common room stared at him as he lumbered past them toward the entrance, covered in sweat. But of course, being Slytherins, they did not offer to help.

Somehow Tom managed to make it the whole way to the hospital wing without being seen and without fainting, though he had to stop a few times to vomit. When he entered, the nurse - whose name he'd never cared to remember - immediately sat him on a bed and started fussing about, ripping the clothing off his arm and treating the bite with something that smelled like oranges and bad breath.

"What happened?" she demanded, performing some kind of spell over the gaping holes in his skin.

He didn't answer. In his distress he couldn't remember the proper name for the stupid thing that attacked him, and he wasn't sure how much he wanted to reveal. He also couldn't remember what he was even trying to hide in the first place.

"Tell me what happened," the nurse said again.

"Spider" was all he managed to get out.

She didn't bother to press the issue, most likely because she was so used to students being reluctant to reveal their idiocy to her that she no longer cared.

"The venom has curse properties, I'm afraid. The arm cannot be saved." She said it in such a matter-of-fact way that he didn't fully process it at first. She stood back a bit, her wand pointed directly at him. "Don't move," she warned, "or you'll lose more than just an arm."

Tom scrambled off the bed and onto the floor, barely able to stand. "What the bloody hell are you doing?" he yelled, backing away as best he could.

"Sit back down, child. This won't hurt if it's done right."

"Won't hurt? You're threatening me with amputation and I'm supposed to believe it won't hurt?"

"You must stay still!" she warned, her patience obviously wearing thin.

"No, there's- there's got to be a way to save it. I can't walk around with no arm for the rest of my life-"

"People have had to live with worse, Mister Riddle."

Before he knew it her wand was no longer pointed at his arm, but at his head. And then everything went black.

When Tom woke up he was lying in a bed, and the world felt strangely off-center. Slowly, the memories of what had happened crept back into his mind and in a panic he reached for his arm, desperately hoping it was there.

It wasn't.

He wanted to scream, to throw something, maybe curse the entire hospital wing until it was a pile of ashes, but he had no ability to move.

"Ah, you're awake," said the nurse, bustling over to check on him.

"Why can't I move?" he muttered in a weak voice, the very act of breathing the words feeling like too much work.

"I've given you a... well, let's call it a sedative. It'll wear off in a few hours. You are perfectly healed, of course-"

"I'm missing an arm. How the hell is that 'perfectly healed?'"

"I am referring to the remaining tissue, obviously. You will report back here every evening for the next two weeks for observation and exercise until you become accustomed to the change. We can, of course, requisition a prosthetic-"

"Please, can I just go?"

He did not wait for her to respond. It took every ounce of willpower he had to sit himself up, stand on the floor, and walk toward the exit. She did not fight him, but handed him more sedative before he left. She also gave him back his wand, which, in his left hand, felt horribly wrong.

This simply would not do.

Tom had spent almost every waking hour since he left the hospital wing researching, desperately looking for any way that he could restore what he'd lost. His homework lay forgotten, many of his classes were missed, and he wasn't bothering to eat most of the time.

The spider was an Acromantula, whose venom was largely thought to be of the common, mildly toxic, flesh-eating variety. Apparently the only way that the venom could carry any sort of curse was if the spider willed it so.

The fucking thing had cursed him on purpose.

But despite his efforts, his research yielded little information of use. There were no known potions that could reconstruct a missing limb that had been cursed off. Though, if he wanted to make himself think he had an arm (or three, or ten) there was something for that...

Not a single charm could do it, unless he was alright with having a semi-transparent ghost arm hover near his shoulder all day, for which no practical purpose could possibly exist...

It would do no good transfiguring something into a working arm, since there was no way to tie the nerves and muscles together so that he could control it...

After weeks of searching, he had concluded that the only way to change his circumstances was to go back in time, which happened to be, at that moment, impossible.

Time spells were funny things in that they didn't, technically, exist. It was a branch of magic that had always been around, but was highly neglected because most of the wizarding world knew that there were some things you simply did not meddle with.

Only high-level government authorities had access to anything that could manipulate time, and they kept any such items well-guarded. But Tom was confident in his abilities, and he felt that he knew enough of the theory to construct some kind of rudimentary time manipulation spell.

And he wasn't wrong. It took longer than he'd hoped, given that he had to steal ingredients, carry books, and test things one-handed, but eventually he'd managed to construct some sort of complicated, makeshift time travel ritual. There were only two missing components: the number of days of travel (which he wouldn't know until the moment he attempted it), and a unique ingredient that he simply could not get around using, which was the hair from a transformed animagus that was at least thirty-five years old but no older than fifty, and that was also a cat.

It was lucky, then, that one of the Transfiguration professors fit that description exactly.

Tom followed Professor McGonagall everywhere, obnoxiously, for days, and not once did she turn into a fucking cat. Granted, there probably wasn't much call for it in the middle of a school, unless it was for a lesson.

He even tried several times to sneak into her quarters to search for stray hairs, but when he finally infiltrated the place he learned with great disappointment that she was an incredibly clean and organized person.

Unfortunately, he had never said more than a few words to her, since he'd always had Dumbledore for Transfiguration, to his great dismay. He thought maybe he could approach her and say he was working on a project related to animagi, but it wouldn't make much sense that he was studying it, because he'd already taken the third year class in which that subject was taught.

Then a brilliant idea hit him, as they often did, during a fit of frustration, and suddenly he had a plan.

She was in her office, feeding the myriad animals she kept in cages for Transfiguration practice.

"Professor?" he said, putting on his best smile.

"Yes?" She climbed down from a ladder that led to a cage of parrots and turned to look at him. "Riddle, isn't it?"

"Yes, Professor. I was wondering if I might have a word?"

She looked confused. "Professor Dumbledore is your teacher for this subject, is he not?"

"Yes, ma'am, but I was wondering... well..." Play it nice and coy, he told himself. A bit nervous, a bit shy, but eager.

"Yes?"

"I was wondering if you could tell me how to become an animagus."

"I'm sorry?"

"I want to learn to be an animagus."

She looked him up and down with narrowed eyes. "May I ask why?"

Eager. Excited. "I have always wanted to do it, and I know all the theory behind it - I've been studying it in my free time for a while now - and I believe it is a beneficial skill to have on one's CV when applying for Ministry positions." He said all of this very fast.

"Well," she said, "it's a bit of an involved process, and there are quite a lot of forms to complete. But first and foremost, you're underage."

"I understand, Professor, but might the Ministry make an allowance for me if I was under your guidance?"

She sighed. "It's not unheard of. I'll see what I can do. Are you absolutely sure this is something you want to pursue? It takes a lot of work."

"I think so. Can you show me? Does it hurt?"

"No," she said, "it does not hurt. But there's no point in showing you until you have begun the process. If you begin the process. Mind you, I'm not promising anything. The Ministry is ridiculously strict about animagi."

"Thank you, Professor."

So close.

"Headmaster Dippet has granted you - and convinced the Ministry to grant you - special dispensation owing to your... impressive record and 'academic prowess,' as he called it. You will also be allowed to stay at the castle through the summer until the process is complete."

Tom was in McGonagall's office, having been called from his History of Magic lesson, and she was levitating a mountain of books beside him.

"Read these," she huffed, adding another three books to the pile, "if you haven't already. Report back to me when you feel you've gotten the gist of what will happen, and then we can begin preparations."

"Yes, Professor," he said, using his wand to float the stack of books out the door.

He honestly hadn't paid much attention in Dumbledore's class when they'd gone over animagi, and had no idea it was so involved.

Because Tom hated animals. Well, most animals. He had an affinity for snakes, of course, and he appreciated the magical properties of some creatures. But wanting to become an animal was like wanting to drill a hole in your head - it was useless, disgusting, and dampened your intelligence. What was the point?

Luckily, he did not expect to have to complete whatever insanely complex process this nightmare required, as all he needed was for McGonagall to transform just once in his presence.

If he had to get through a single "homework" assignment to reach that point, then he would.

It took three sessions with McGonagall before she finally transformed and he was able to slyly pick a few hairs up off the floor before leaving her office.

Unfortunately he'd had to keep a mandrake leaf in his mouth for the duration of those sessions, and thought it wise to continue to do so until he was sure the ritual had worked and he didn't have to keep up his feigned interest in being an animagus.

The ritual did not work.

Everything had been perfect. He'd had every ingredient he needed, every rune was drawn correctly, every incantation was said with precision. When the final step was completed the world had seemed to briefly shudder around him, but nothing else had happened.

And all the cat hair was gone.

And so, after a considerable amount of shouting, destroying things, and raging against the world, Tom returned to McGonagall to continue the ridiculous process of becoming an animal, which he felt no one should ever want to do in the first place because animals were stupid and useless.

It was not how he wanted to spend his summer at all. But, if he managed to do the time travel ritual correctly, none of it will have happened anyway. At least, he hoped.

Luckily McGonagall was so paranoid about getting the animagus thing right that she more or less did everything for him, and he only vaguely listened to her as she droned on about transformations and rules and markings and such.

"Spit it into here," she said, handing him a beaker full of a brown liquid that smelled like sewage and had a dead moth floating around in it. They were standing out on the grounds underneath a full moon, because the procedure didn't already have enough allusions to werewolves, apparently, and he was finally allowed to remove the disgusting mandrake leaf from the roof of his mouth.

"Now, the last step will occur during the next thunderstorm, so be ready."

"Yes, Professor."

Now that he was in the final phase, Tom felt he could press McGonagall to show him the transformation a few more times to "prepare" himself.

She conceded, and before they left the grounds, he had a new vial of cat hair.

The runes were redrawn, the candles lit. He said the incantation, and once again, the world shuddered around him. But this time, he knew he'd done it right, because a crack appeared - a thin tear in the fabric of reality. It buzzed and crackled with electricity and energy and the wanton breaking of the laws of physics.

And he jumped through it.

It was like being sucked into a thin, electrically charged tube. When he came out the other "side," or whatever it was, he hit the hard stone floor of his dormitory with a thud.

He felt distinctly lighter, and the world looked distinctly larger. But it didn't matter. He'd done it. The room was exactly how he'd left it that same night, the window already open, and the spider most likely hiding in the shadows. The only thing left to do was stop himself from entering the dormitory.

He stood up straight and immediately realized that something was very, very wrong.

He had two arms again, which was nice. But they weren't arms, exactly. And when he stood up he gained no height. And he couldn't feel his clothes anymore. Had the time/space hole stripped him naked?

But he wasn't naked, either. He was covered in thick black feathers. And then the realization hit.

He was a bird.

A fucking bird.

Somehow, his trip through time had triggered whatever animagus transformation McGonagall had been preparing him for, and he'd arrived in the past with one more arm and one less of everything else that made him human.

He yelled in frustration. A tiny, pathetic "caw!" echoed back to him.

Now, it was one thing to suddenly become an animal when you weren't expecting it. Jarring. Upsetting. A little nauseating.

But what infuriated him more than anything else was the fact that his animagus form was a crow.

Not a snake, or a Basilisk, or something equally terrifying and symbolic. No, the Heir of Slytherin had transformed into a small, useless black bird that sounded like it was screaming at the world when it spoke.

And to make matters worse, he had no idea how to change back. Why didn't he listen to McGonagall? What was it she had said about the transformations? He couldn't remember, because he'd stopped paying attention three sessions back, since he'd had no real intention of becoming an animal.

The door opened suddenly and in walked the younger Tom, a proper human, about to be attacked by an Acromantula with a grudge.

Tom did the only thing he could think of, and started screaming at his younger self and waving his arms - wings - wildly. The human Tom backed away in shock, clearly not expecting a small, annoying bird to accost him so violently in the middle of his dorm.

But it had done the trick. The Acromantula took its chance and leaped from the shadows, and human Tom had just enough time to retrieve his wand and blast it away.

He threw the dead spider out the window and turned around to look at the bird that had saved him.

...and pointed his wand at it.

Because Tom Riddle hated animals.

Well shit, Tom thought to himself, realizing entirely too late that there were probably worse things that could happen than losing an arm.