"I'm sorry, would you rather still be referred to as Voldemort in this new body?" Dumbledore is still sickeningly calm.
Too many thoughts are rushing through Tom's head at once. How does Dumbledore know? Did he let something slip? Did he overhear Tom talking to Draco, or worse, talking to his death eaters? And what did Dumbledore mean when he said he got exactly what he wanted when Tom had stood up about Gryffindor unfairly winning the House Cup? Tom has no room to think about what to say to Dumbledore, what to do, how to escape.
No, no he has to stay calm. It's not that bad. Just act confused. Dumbledore has no proof of anything.
"At a loss for words, are you?" Dumbledore says. "That's unlike you."
"I… I don't know what you're talking about," Tom tries.
Dumbledore continues to talk as if Tom hadn't just said something. "So, how long have you been in there? Since Harry defeated you as an infant? Later? Earlier, even?"
Tom just stays silent. There's nothing… nothing he can do. This is the end.
"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me, Tom. No one will know you're not really Harry Potter. They won't even know it was you who let your followers out of Azkaban. Just stay out of trouble and I won't tell a soul," Dumbledore promises.
"You're free to go now," Dumbledore indicates to the door, and Tom slowly and unsteadily backs out of the room.
The exam results are released and as expected, Tom is the top of his year level with Hermione following in second. Hermione doesn't hide that she's jealous of Tom, or maybe she's just really bad at hiding jealousy.
But Tom doesn't care about any of it. There are bigger problems at hand right now.
Lots of people, of course, are still looking at Tom weirdly because of what he did at the feast, and he gets into another fight with Ronald that Hermione has to split up again. But only Tom's points ended up being given to Slytherin (yay, he still managed to earn his true house some points), which meant Gryffindor still won, so the Gryffindors have no reason to be too mad at him.
And then just when everyone is finished packing at the end of the day and is waiting on the first floor to leave, another problem appears. There's an announcement that Sirius Black is in the castle and had tried to get into the Gryffindor common room whilst everyone was downstairs. Well, it's not really a problem, it's only Sirius.
Everyone who catches the Hogwarts Express (which is most people) now has to stay at school in the great hall, because it's easier to protect them here than on a narrow train with no safe exits if the train is moving.
Hermione is stuck to Tom again, because for some reason she still thinks she can protect him, and she elects to sleep in the sleeping bag that she drags over to sit right next to Tom.
The teachers then go off to write to parents and search the castle, whilst the kids pretend to sleep.
The next morning, the teachers announce that the school has been searched, and Sirius Black is nowhere to be found, so everyone can proceed to the Hogwarts Express which has just been called and will be arriving soon.
Whilst they're at the station, waiting for the train to arrive, Tom spots some human-shaped movement out of the corner of his eye.
He stealthily steals Ronald's rat, Wormtail, and pockets him. But now he's lost sight of the moving human-figure, so he has to go in about the direction he saw it, to the edge of the forest, and look around for it, his hand on his wand.
"Heya, Harry!" someone says brighty. Tom looks up to see that it's Sirius, the person he'd seen out of the corner of his eye.
Sirius' long black hair is still dishevelled as ever, but he looks much cleaner now than those rotting in Azkaban.
Tom instantly raises his wand at him, but Sirius doesn't seem to care.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. But um, hi, I'm… Sirius. And I'm your godfather, Harry," Sirius explains.
"That's what someone about to kill me would say," Tom says darkly.
"Um… no? At least I hope not? But don't worry, I'm not a murderer, Harry, and I would never betray your mother and father. They were my friends."
"Prove you didn't kill Pettigrew and the others, then," Tom demands.
"Well, I can't. Not yet. Sorry. But please trust me."
And then Remus Lupin comes along behind Sirius and hugs him from behind, kissing him on the head. Then he notices Tom and he smiles.
"Oh hello! You must be Harry, then. It's so good to see you." Remus moves so that he's beside Sirius now, and Sirius wraps his arms around him.
Tom just glares at the both of them, and pokes his wand out more, jabbing it in the air threateningly. He growls at Sirius, "I'll tell Dumbledore you're here, murderer."
Sirius lets go of Remus and puts his hands in the air. "Woah, woah, don't worry, I didn't kill anybody. And actually I think I probably can prove it. Pettigrew is here with Ron I think, as his pet rat. It's hilarious. So just… lower your wand. You're safe. I wouldn't hurt you, Harry."
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Tom says.
"I can vouch for him," Remus suggests.
"Yeah no offence, but seeing as you're so close, you would obviously defend him even if he was lying, so whatever you say is worthless," Tom says.
Remus looks a bit hurt, so Sirius gives him a comforting kiss on the cheek.
Tom looks to Sirius for his answer now.
"I guess you don't know I'm telling the truth. But why do you care? I saw you break into Azkaban to break out actual murderers. Unless that was a hallucination, but seeing you there was what made me decide to escape, so I hope it wasn't just a hallucination. Actually no it doesn't really matter either way, because I was very happy to see this guy," Sirius says, leaning into Remus more.
Remus looks shocked at hearing that Tom had let some murderers out of Azkaban, and reaches into his cloak for his wand.
Tom doesn't even bother replying, it's simply much easier to just, "obliviate", and now Sirius has no memory of Tom in Azkaban and of saying what he just said, and Remus has no memory of hearing that. So now there's only one person who might leak the secret out. Dumbledore. But that's an entirely different problem.
Sirius and Remus look quite confused for a few seconds, but then Sirius blinks and turns back to Tom, who's decided to put his wand away. "Sorry, what were we talking about?"
"You told me Scabbers is Peter Pettigrew," Tom explains.
"Right, yes. So… Do you believe me? Please say yes," Sirius says.
"Sure, I mean, why not?" Tom couldn't care less what happens to Sirius, so he's given up on the mask of an innocent child scared of some guy accused of murder.
"Oh great!" Sirius beams, and then launches into hugging Tom tightly.
Tom just stands there, staring blankly over in the direction of Remus. And then Sirius finally lets go when he realises that Tom isn't hugging back.
"Oh, sorry, I just got a bit excited there," Sirius laughs awkwardly, and connects himself to Remus again instead. "So, but, um, I thought that since I'm out now and if we can get Pettigrew and show that he's alive, I'll be free, and I am your legal godfather, do you wanna, you know, be adopted by me and live with me and Remus maybe if he agrees as well?"
"No thanks. I have my actual family and you are a complete stranger," Tom says simply. But adoption doesn't sound like too bad of an idea. The Dursleys are horrible and he'd only stayed with them over the Christmas break so far. Perhaps he could get the Malfoys to adopt him…
"Oh," Sirius says sadly. "That's okay, I understand."
"Now you should go before someone, or a dementor, finds you. And I'm weird like this, I carry rats around with me, and ah," Tom digs Wormtail, who had been trying to bite him for the past few minutes, out of his pocket. "I present you your ticket to freedom. Unless of course you decide to kill him instead in revenge, and you'll have to be on the run forever. Either way, I really don't care."
Sirius gratefully takes the rat, and then quickly leaves with Remus.
The Summer Holidays are finally here. Tom had forgotten at first, but as soon as he remembers, he goes and asks the Dursleys if he can be adopted by the Malfoys.
"I'll live with them and you'll never have to see or even think about me ever again," Tom is explaining.
Petunia looks worriedly at her husband for a second. "Well… I suppose that could work…"
"Of course, I'm not entirely sure how magical adoption works, so I'll have to find that out. I'll also have to ask the Malfoys if they would even be okay with adopting me, and adoptions probably take a while to process, so you'd still have me for a while. But hopefully I'll be out by the end of the holidays."
And so it's settled. The Dursleys let Tom let Hedwig out just this once to ask the Malfoys (and obviously they accept), and to ask the Ministry for adoption papers.
"And you, Harry?" Vernon says.
"And I what?" Tom says lamely.
"What will you be doing when Mr and Mrs Mason arrive?"
"...I'll be in my room," Tom says.
"Doing what?" Vernon prompts.
"Making no noise," Tom says slowly.
"And?"
"Look, do we have to do this?" Tom snaps. "I'll be out of your hands soon anyway, what's your deal? And it's not like I'll forget what I'm supposed to do if I don't say it."
"I don't care. Just do it."
Tom inhales sharply. Just a few more days here. Hopefully. "Alright. I'll be in my room. Making no noise. And pretending I… don't exist." Okay that was a little bit too high-pitched at the end, wasn't it? Oh well, Tom will just blame it on the puberty voice cracks.
"Good," Vernon says.
"Alright, so now that that's settled, why don't I go upstairs and practice?" Tom runs off as quickly as possible.
"Ah!" Tom yells a bit when he sees a house-elf sitting on his bed, after he'd gone up to his room when Mr and Mrs Mason arrived.
"Ah!" the house-elf yells back and then slides off the bed to bow lowly at Tom. "Dobby is sorry about that, Harry Potter, sir."
Tom takes a step closer to get a better look at him. "Hey… you're the Malfoy's house-elf, aren't you?"
The house-elf nods. "Dobby has come to warn Harry Potter not to go back to Hogwarts this year."
Tom glares at him. "And why not?"
"Dobby cannot say exactly, sir. But there is a plot to make terrible things happen at Hogwarts, and Harry Potter must not go back," Dobby continues, his eyes wide.
"Yeah, that's not going to happen." Tom pulls out his wand and makes Dobby teleport back to his home, and then writes to the Malfoys telling them to tell their house-elf to not go visiting Tom again until he actually lives with them.
Tom gives the letter to Hedwig and asks her to be as quick as possible so that the Dursleys don't find out Tom let her out.
And then he realises that he just performed underage magic. Damnit. Doing underage magic was so much easier back in the days when he didn't know he was a wizard and he could do it to his heart's content. But it's fine, the worst that can happen is he'll get a warning, because after all, it's not as if he'd done it in front of muggles or anything.
And a warning delivered by an owl is exactly what he gets, straight over the heads of the visiting muggles. Whoops. Guess the Dursleys probably aren't getting a holiday home in Majorca now.
Finally, finally, finally, Tom has been adopted by the Malfoys and is living with them. He- he has real parents now. And a real family. Of course, it's a weird situation to be in, seeing as his new family also will obey his every command and literally call him their lord, but still, it's a nice, warm feeling, to finally have an actual family. Lucius and Narcissa are his parents, Draco is his brother, Bellatrix is his aunt, everything is wonderful, even if it is a little bit awkward with the son-leader family-servants dynamic. And Tom kind of feels like just being a kid for a bit.
Tom even got Harry's name changed to Harry Malfoy, to further separate himself from the Harry in Tom's original timeline. And that, too, feels wonderful.