Chapter Four

It was late morning by the time Tom felt both rested and informed enough to leave the bedroom. Naturally, he couldn't watch an entire lifetime's worth of memories in a single night (even if that lifetime only belonged to a teenager), so he would keep going through the boy's memories for a few hours each night. For now though, he needed to make an appearance eventually, and he may as well do so before someone came to fetch him.

A trunk sat at the foot of the bed that hadn't been there the night before, so Tom assumed someone had gotten around to fetching Potter's things. He dressed, grimacing at the clearly hand-me-down clothing. It was bad enough wearing Potter's body. Did he have to wear these as well? At least the Invisibility Cloak was interesting. The Firebolt in the trunk made him grimace though, reminding him what he'd discovered about Potter's hobbies. He'd always found broom-flying to be uncomfortably inelegant, and he'd never given any more thought to Quidditch than to be thankful match attendance wasn't mandatory. That made Potter's status as Seeker problematic. How did he even see the Snitch with his eyesight?

Tom heaved a sigh and, setting aside the hundred and one problems he needed to address, left to find his way downstairs.

He was ambushed not two steps into the hallway by Ron and Hermione.

"Merlin, Harry, you're never up after me," Ron exclaimed as he reached toward Tom.

Tom jerked out of the way before he could stop himself. He didn't believe the other to hold malicious intent - he'd seen plenty of physical interactions between male friends during his school years and expected this to be something of that sort - but a lifetime without positive physical contact conditioned him to avoid others. It was fine though. After all, he had no intention of allowing either of these two back into Potter's good graces so easily. He'd reviewed the past year in the greatest detail, and was frankly offended that this boy thought he could act as though everything was fine between them.

"Harry?" Hermione's voice was small.

"I watched Diggory die in front of me," Tom said quietly. "And then Pettigrew used me to bring Voldemort back to life." He clenched his fists. Despite having been unaware at the time, the fact that Voldemort had tried to kill Potter - and thus him - infuriated him. Ignorance was no excuse. He would destroy the other, utterly and completely. "Then, I get sent back to muggles you both either know or at least suspect are abusive, and the both of you do nothing but taunt me in letters."

They both rushed to protest, but he cut them off. "Don't deny it." He pitched his voice higher, glaring at them. "Oh, Harry, we can't tell you anything in case Voldemort reads this, but we can say that we're together and doing secret things. And of course, we can't possibly talk to you about your feelings or make sure you're coping with the trauma you went through or let you know that we don't, in fact, have any information you might want that Voldemort wouldn't already have."

Hermione blanched, but Ron jumped headfirst into the confrontation. "What were we supposed to do? Tell you all the Order's secrets?"

Tom's grin was all shark. "Oh, know a lot of secrets, do you? Go on then, share. Voldemort can't intercept any letters here." He waited a moment as Ron spluttered, then let the smile drop. "Right. At most, you might know who's in the Order, but I wasn't asking about that, now was I? The information I wanted, you didn't have to give in the first place, and you should have just said so from the outset."

He turned to Hermione. "To be honest, I'm far more disappointed in you. Ron's already proven himself untrustworthy," he said, ignoring Ron's protests, "and I doubt the wizarding world knows the first thing about psychology, but you? You're the type of girl who cares enough about her friends to do what you think is best for them, even if you think they might hate you for it." He shook his head. "I don't believe for one second that you don't know leaving me alone like that was the worst thing possible for me. So why did you?" He continued, not giving her a chance to respond. "Oh, let me guess. Dumbledore, right? He told you how it was for the greater good, and you just turned off your brain and obeyed." Muggleborns. They were all the same.

Hermione swallowed nervously. "He's… He's a great wizard. If he thought it was for the best then…"

"Even great wizards can be wrong, Hermione. Defeating a dark lord doesn't make him all-knowing. I doubt he knows much, if anything, about muggles or their sciences. And besides all that, he's our Headmaster. That's all. He shouldn't have any say in where I spend my summers or what my friends and I talk about."

Ron butted back in. "Look mate, I get that you're mad." He shifted uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his neck. In what Tom assumed was a rare bit of introspection, the boy added, "I guess I'd be too." After a moment though, he blurted out, "But it's not like you can hold this against us forever," as though he had any right to demand anything of Tom. Or Potter, for that matter.

Want to bet? Tom had to bite back the words. These two were meant to be his friends. Whether he planned to keep them, they were the ones most likely to realize something was wrong, and so he needed to do this carefully. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "After what happened during the Tournament, I just… I really can't take much more. If we're going to keep being friends, I need some way of being sure you won't betray me again."

"Like what, Harry?" Hermione asked, tone pleading.

Time to set the bait. "I don't know. Are there… magical… promises? Or something?" He shrugged. "Just something that would give me a way of trusting that you really mean to be my friends and not just..." He shook his head and turned away. Before either could react, he hurried down the hall, down the stairs, and to the kitchen, following the sound of voices.

The kitchen was nearly full. If he didn't know this was the Order of the Phoenix, he'd have said it was nothing more than a breakfast club. Black shot him a small grin and a wave from one corner, where he was leaning against the wall discussing something or other with a serious-looking man in Auror's robes. In another corner, a pink-haired woman sat next to Lupin, who was staring into a cup of tea as though he held a Masters in Divination.

Molly Weasley - Mrs. Weasley, he reminded himself - greeted him cheerfully from the stove, and in short order had him set up with a full English breakfast accompanied by an admonition that he needed to eat more. He took that with some bewilderment and annoyance and started on the meal.

With any luck, Hermione would hit upon one of the more useful (and obscure) types of vows or contracts. So long as he was careful, he thought she could become a useful member of his new Inner Circle. She was intelligent, resourceful, and powerful. Her morals were in the way, of course, but morals were rarely immutable. Beyond that, he only needed to shake her faith in authority.

Ron, on the other hand, was probably a lost cause. He could be useful, Tom acknowledged. It was a rare person who had absolutely nothing to offer. The boy appeared to have only average magical power though, and was by all indications unwilling to put forth the effort to truly make something of himself. Add on his actions in Potter's fourth year, and Tom really wondered why Potter bothered with the boy. Until he learned otherwise, he filed the red-head away as not with his time or effort.

He turned his attention to the others at the table. How many of these people could he turn away from Dumbledore? How many were, like Black, becoming disillusioned with the man?

Speak of the devil…

Tom focused on his breakfast as Dumbledore entered, greeting various Order members with varying levels of overfamiliarity. The pink-haired woman, apparently named Nymphadora, looked especially irate at his greeting. That was something to look into, perhaps.

The youngest Weasley - the girl - entered with the Headmaster, but parted ways without a word and came to sit next to Tom. After she'd grabbed a piece of toast, she said, casually, "I overheard you talking to Ron and Hermione."

Tom raised an eyebrow. When she just took a bite of her toast rather than elaborate, he huffed and obliged her. "Why are you bringing it up?"

"Weeellll, I may know of a vow that might do what you want," she said. "It's called the Unbreakable Vow."

He knew about that, of course, but would Potter? He thought not, given that he was raised by muggles. "Is it actually unbreakable?" he asked.

The girl shook her head. "Not technically, but if you break your Vow, you die."

How had this girl gotten the impression Potter was someone who would accept such an extreme consequence? Even he knew otherwise. Perhaps this girl wasn't very bright. Or perhaps she simply knew Potter less well than her familiarity would imply. Tom frowned and, after pretending to think about it, shook his head. "What would happen if Hermione broke her Vow without knowing it? Would it be able to tell the difference between reality and intent?"

The girl blinked, cocked her head, then shrugged. "I'm not sure," she admitted. Though she tried to look casual, her gaze was sharp and attentive. It was a look Tom recognized well from Slytherins, though he'd eat these bloody hand-me-down clothes before he'd believe a Weasley could be placed in his old House.

"Then thank you, but I'd rather find something else," he said honestly. In the past, as Lord Voldemort, it wouldn't have mattered. Now, however, he had too few allies to be laying Hermione's life in care of magic as fickle as the Unbreakable Vow. "Please let me or Hermione know if you think of anything else though," he added.

"Ginny!" Mrs. Weasley's voice called from across the kitchen, "Finish up there, then come help me with this pantry. Something's moved in."

The girl next to him - Ginny, presumably - rolled her eyes and stuffed the last of her toast in her mouth. She gave him a smile and a nod before hurrying over to her mother.

Tom sat back in his seat, breakfast as finished as it was likely to get, and observed the people around him. Dumbledore was speaking with Lupin now, and the werewolf's gaze occasionally flicked his way, so they were probably once again discussing Lupin's decision to bring him here. Tom didn't know much about the man, other than that he'd attended Hogwarts and belonged to the same group of friends as James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew. Still, the fact that he was a werewolf and had still been allowed to attend Hogwarts meant he quite likely felt indebted to Dumbledore. Approaching him would be dangerous until Tom had a much more thorough understanding of him.

Black was done with whatever he'd been talking about, and was arguing with a house elf. The corners of Tom's lips turned down sharply as he studied the elf. He'd long made a habit of memorizing the names and appearances of any and all creatures belonging to his followers, house elves included. It was a bit paranoid, even for him, but he'd always thought that a healthy dose of paranoia was a good way to stay alive. Of course, elven features being what they were, it was hard to tell for certain, but he thought he recognized this one as belonging to Regulus Black. His eyes narrowed. The elf was supposed to have died. Curious.

"Hey, Harry, come here a sec."

He started and turned to find the pink-haired Auror from earlier standing there. "Sure Auror… Nym?" he tried, not sure of her last name but being fairly positive she didn't like her first.

She grimaced. "That's on the better end of things at least," she muttered before shaking herself. "But the name is Tonks. Just Tonks."

"Ah, my apologies, Auror Tonks. How can I help you?"

Tonks led him out of the kitchen and upstairs to his room. After closing the door behind them, she plopped down onto his bed and ran a hand through her hair. "Okay, so like, there's some things going on at the Ministry I think you should hear about."

Tom sat in a chair and nodded. "What is it?"

"Alright, so keep quiet about this, but you know how your cousin got Kissed?" She said it quickly, awkwardly, as though she thought he might be upset. "Well, apparently there's no 'proof' of any Dementors in that area, so people are saying that you must have used some sort of extremely dark magic on him." She held up her hands placatingly before he even had a chance to react. "Most people don't believe it, of course, but, well, you know, some people do."

Tom stared at her. If he had to have ended up in Harry Potter's body, couldn't he have done so before Potter's reputation reached this point? No, he chided himself. There was no point wasting time with things he couldn't change. More interesting, he noted, was the way her hair was fading from pink to dark brown. A metamorphmagus. Interesting. He sighed and leaned back, mind racing. "Thank you for letting me know, Auror Tonks," he said at last.

Tonks gave him a weak smile. "Yeah, well, Dumbledore said you didn't need to deal with this on top of everything else, but I figured it'd be worse to get blindsided by it."

So she went against Dumbledore's orders for this? He shook his head and stood. "In that case, I feel doubly appreciative. I know how hard it can be for people to go against what Dumbledore thinks is best." He held out a hand to help her stand, smiling. "Please, let me know if there's anything I can do to return the favor."

Tonks blushed prettily as she took his hand, and her expression brightened. "No problem! Right back atchya."

He tilted his head, still smiling, and asked, "In that case, would it be alright for me to consider us friends?" It wasn't the sort of question easily refused, and it would let him stay in contact with her without it seeming strange. Writing to her would be extra effort, but a metamorphmagus was well worth a bit of extra work.

"Sure, Harry!" Tonks chirped. The Auror looked around and, after a moment, grinned mischievously. "But you know, next time you have a girl in your bed, you should find out if she wants to be friends ahead of time." She laughed at his perplexed look and sauntered out.

A/N:

To Arwengeld: I don't think Tom Riddle was actually particularly cruel to animals in general - he wasn't above killing someone's pet to get back at them, certainly, but I think he's at least neutral about animals in general. … Not to mention, I like Hedwig. Also, tbh, I'm not sure what I'll be doing about Occlumency lessons. I have a couple different ideas, but it depends on how various relationships and characters develop.

MagicisMight: Tom is a bit of an unreliable narrator. Since this story is from Tom's POV, there's basically no chance that Dumbledore will be shown in a good light. Whether or not he's actually evil!manipulative!Dumbledore is another matter entirely.

I think you have a good point about trying to show more of the differences between inner!Tom and his actions, but I disagree that he'd automatically hate Hermione. To be quite honest, I'm not convinced he ever particularly hated muggleborns more than any other group. I mean, I think he hated everyone, but I think targeting muggleborns was more of an opportunistic move. There were a bunch of rich and politically powerful people willing to follow him so long as it meant subjugating muggleborns, and he ran with it. I think.

As for the rest… no comment.