She woke to the sounds of curtains being pulled and someone tugging the mattress from her body.
"Wake up, Mary!" cried a voice.
At first it took her a moment to wonder why everything was so comfortable and nice before she realized that she wasn't at the orphanage.
"Up! Up! Or we will be late for class!"
A part of her wanted to ignore the Dorothy and just continue to sleep, so soft was the bed but eventually she groaned and sat up.
Dorothy was already dressed up, her auburn hair perfectly braided as she did the same to Edith. Mary noted that Edith was even less of a morning person than she was, as the Parkinson girl threw a pillow towards Dorothy. The young witch ducked the projectile and simply tutted.
Irma, Mary noted, was putting on her schools robes.
"Good morning, Mary," the young girl said as she began brushing her hair. Mary gave a quick look at the clock near the dorm's door.
It showed 7am.
She must have groaned, loudly, as Dorothy turned away from her attempt to rouse Edith from her to give Mary a disapproving look.
"Now, now, enough of that. Early bird gets the worm! We don't want to be late for class! Especially on our first day!"
"Shut it Dorothy, class won't start until nine!" Edith spat, burying her head further into her pillows.
"So? Breakfast starts in fifteen minutes, don't you want to have a walk on the school grounds?" Dorothy rebutted, pulling said pillow from Edith's head.
The blonde witch must have muttered something rude as Dorothy cried, "EDITH!"
Realising that she was not getting back to sleep anytime soon, Mary stretched out and made her way to the bathrooms.
As the hot water poured down her back, Mary felt her brain start to plan.
If her memory served her right, Grindelwald won't fall until 1945, around the same time as World War II ended. It would mean she would have to stay and graduate Hogwarts before she could even attempt the wand. The ring, she would have to 'claim' from Morfin. She would find a way to get to Hangleton during holidays. She would have to plan how to shake off Tom to do that.
But the cloak is her biggest issue. The Potter family, despite their wealth and heritahe, were a small line; all but gone by the time Harry had been born. She knew her year had no Potter family members whatsoever, so she would have to keep an eye out for them in the older batches.
If none were here, she was going to have to wait for Dumbledore to borrow it from the Potters.
In 1990.
Frankly, she has no patience to wait that long.
She sighed as a conclusion came up.
Albus Dumbledore and the Resurrection Ring.
She knew she could bank on him wanting to see his deceased family again. He did so, foolishly in the Half-Blood Prince, and lost his life for it. She could offer him the ring's service, if only to unite it with the cloak and wand. The Potters might look askance at a stranger asking to see their cloak but they would be more amenable to Dumbledore, future vanquisher of Grindelwald.
And then, she would do what Harry did, traverse the place between life and death and find a way home.
It was a goal and a plan and the first thing she was going to do was learn how to stun a wizard.
#
Tom was waiting for her in the common room as she stepped out from girl's dormitory. He was reading 'A History of Magic' as she walked up to him. He looked positively refreshed and alert, as he was wont to do compared to his twin.
"Morning Tom," she greeted. Her twin flashed her an affectionate smile, "Morning Mary. Ready for breakfast?" he replied as he stood up and grabbed his school bag. It sounded so sincere, Mary was given a pause as she gave her brother a once over.
Gone was that arrogant strut and smirk and the boy standing in front of her seemed to embody a sort of childish awkwardness found among young teenagers. Harmless and childlike.
Not even two days in and already Tom Marvolo Riddle, perfect Hogwarts student was on.
It was not that Tom never pulled the whole, 'charming, nice boy' routine in the orphanage. It was just that everyone at Wool's knew what Tom was like and it fooled only the new children and ignorant adults. Even then only for a brief while.
"Already?" she said, arching her eyebrow.
Tom leaned close to her, "Yes, let's make Hogwarts a new, fresh, start won't we sister?" To anyone else it looked like a simple harmless, if somewhat sweet statement.
Mary gave him a guarded smile back.
"Of course, fresh start," she replied and Tom flashed another smile again as they both walked to the door leading outside the Slytherin common room.
As they made their way, quietly as they would, Mary realized something, once more.
She has seven years to go before she could begin reuniting the Hallows and she would have to reign Tom in if she was ever going to get Dumbledore's trust. That means ensuring that Tom does not go to the deep end when he finds out about Merope and the Chamber of Secrets.
The Chamber of Secrets and Slytherin's pet Basilisk, accessible via a hidden passage way in the girl's toilets. Somewhere.
She frowned, her memory knew it was in a toilet on some floor, unfortunately she lacked details. If not she would have marched down to the Room of Requirements and used it to her delight.
Suddenly, she wished she was one of those fanfiction self-inserts with eidetic memories, it would have at least helped with her 'Master of Death' plan. While she knew the general history of the Harry Potter universe, she lacked the intimate details.
As for the Basilisk, she will have to cross that bridge before Tom does. Maybe Tom would never discover it and she'd avert the death of Moaning Myrtle. If not…well, she hoped that the Basilisk is an egg at this point and she'd be able to smash it to pieces or she would to start finding a way to smuggle roosters into the girl's toilets.
Was it roosters? She would have to read up on it.
Feeling a headache, she wished to run back to her dorm and sleep the seven years away. She was not a planner of that scale and her manipulations less so.
"…were yours like mine?" Tom trailed before tapping for her attention.
"Sorry, what were you saying?" she asked, shaking her thoughts.
"I'm asking if your dorm mates have this Pureblood notions?" he responded, his lips curled with distaste.
"Yes, but…they are polite about it," Well, mostly; she recalled Edith's response.
"Do you think our father's a wizard here too? I hear they keep a book on wizarding lineages in the library and I think we should go there once class is over." The boy said, his eyes burning with fervor.
"I have told you what I think about our father…" but Tom held his hand up, "I know but I still think we should try. I think he's a Pureblood too, which means we're at least Half-Blood. We have to be if we're sorted into Slytherin. They never accept Muggle-borns."
"And who told you that?"
"Avery. He said that there had been no Muggle-borns in Slytherin since the school's founding," Mary wondered if Avery was one of the earlier Death Eaters. She knew Tom eventually formed his little group during his school years.
And from Tom's little speech some seeds of Pureblood Purity nonsense has sunk in. She was going to nip that in the bud.
"Really? Cause I distinctly remember the Hat saying something about Slytherin favouring ambition, nothing about heritage."
Tom rolled his eyes, "If you've read 'Hogwarts: A History', then you would know that Slytherin has always been known to be champions for Pure Blood families."
"I thought we couldn't afford that book?"
"Avery lent it to me," Tom replied, before taking the book out from his bag and placing it in her hands. "Here, I have finished reading it."
Weighing the book that many Potter fans would have murdered to read, she gave Tom a considered look, "He lent you that book?"
Tom gave her that smirk. "Yes, yes he did."
Her twin strode past her and made his seat at the Slytherin table.
As she sat next to him, she came to a conclusion: she was going to have to work harder and quickly.
#
After finishing breakfast – jam and toast and all the eggs she could swallow – they received their schedule.
In her thoughts, she tend to forget that she was at a school and she needed to study.
She gave a glance at the paper the prefect had passed down the table. First class was Charms with Hufflepuffs, Herbology with Ravenclaws and History of Magic with Gryffindors. She would not get Transfiguration until tomorrow, along with Potions and…flying lessons?
She imagined herself clinging to a broomstick tens of feet in the air and cringed inwardly. Judging from the slightly fixed smile, she had an inkling Tom thought so too. Granted, Voldemort had no issue flying on his own, maybe he just find brooms lacking dignity.
"It seems we have a free hour here, we should go to the library then," Tom pointed out on his paper. She nodded, though she did not agree with his intentions, she would have loved to visit the place. At the orphanage books were scarce and she would love to take the opportunity to read on some new tomes.
They were about to leave, when they bumped into Dorothy. Mary gave her a quick greeting when the young girl beamed and held out her hand.
""Hello, Mary, and this must be Tom. Hi, I'm Dorothy Prewett, I share the same dorm as your sister."
Dorothy must have thought she was being nonchalant, but Mary noticed the slight blush on the girl's cheeks and the way she's trying hard to look casual.
"Hello Dorothy, nice to meet you," Tom replied and gave Dorothy a winning smile. The girl responded with further reddening of her cheeks.
It took all of Mary's willpower not to grab Dorothy and run off, screaming that "It's a trap!", so instead Mary settled with a befuddled (and inwardly, horrified) smile.
Oblivious to Mary's internal thoughts, Dorothy continued, "I can't help but hear that you wish to go to the library. My brother is a sixth year here and – Edith!" the girl cut off as Edith stomped beside her.
Sporting an expression of an angry pug, Edith gave Dorothy an unimpressed stare, "It's only the first day and you're talking about going to the library? Honestly, Dorothy, you sound like those bluestocking girls. Library – ugh!" The young girl said before grabbing a cup of tea.
From the look on Dorothy's face, it was as though Edith had just announced that she would snap her wand into two and declared she was going to join the Muggle world.
Sensing a fight, Mary grabbed Tom's arm and marched straight out of the Great Hall.
#
After getting lost and climbing various stairwells that seem to delight in changing every time they reach the top, Mary (and Tom), admits that the whole magical castle thing can go screw off.
She knew why the stairs act as they do, but it's not less infuriating to end up somewhere north when all she wants was to reach the south tower.
It does not help that some of the portraits would titter each time Mary finds out that they had ended up on the opposite side of their destination.
By the time they did reach the classroom, Mary felt as if she was going to have to thank Dorothy for her insistence they woke up two hours early.
The charms classroom was wide and its tables set up stadium style, surrounding a large empty area in its center. Most of the seats had been taken and Mary waved at Dorothy (who had somehow reached there before them) and a grumpy Edith. Irma sat behind the two, reading her textbook. Tom merely smiled to Slytherin boys sitting across them, who were ribbing each other with their wands.
As her temper ebbed Mary felt a nervous energy thrumming in her. After the shopping trip at Diagon Alley, she and Tom had taken to practicing some of the spells in their textbook and they quickly reached to the same conclusion.
Their Latin needed a lot of work.
After accidentally setting a chair on fire, then vanishing their clothes (which ended up on top of a startled Mrs Cole), she and Tom conceded that they were going to have to wait until they were in school before attempting the more complex incantations.
They did practice the hand movements, however, so that they could focus on how to pronounce the spells.
It did made her wonder why Latin to begin with. Magic, she believed, was older than humanity itself and yet to channel their abilities to their best, the magical world required Latin, a two-thousand year old language, to focus their spells.
She was curious if it was other countries had their own versions because she doubt the more isolated ones like Japan or the more proud kingdoms like China would have used Latin as spells. A part of her was glad she was in England, if Latin was hard, then Mandarin would have murdered her.
Her thoughts were broken as the a large middle-aged man, with broad shoulders and a beard thicker than Santa Claus walked in and stood in the center of the empty circle.
"All right, you midgets, I'm Professor Beau and this is Charms class!" he roared, smacking his thighs as he spoke. "I know the lot of you probably think this is an easy class, for dunders and the like but if you think that then you are free to get out of my class!" he pointed at the door.
The talkative air dropped to silence as everyone gave Professor Beau their attention. Even the Slytherin boys as the professor glowered at everyone in the room.
"Didn't think so," the man grinned. "If I catch anyone fooling around, it's ten switches for each of you and detention! Now, raise your hands and say 'here' when I call your name," he said.
Professor Beau was the opposite of Harry's Flitwick, in every way. Tall where Flitwick was short, broad and solid where the half-Goblin was basically feather weight, Beau had the imposing aura of someone not to be crossed with. Mary doubted he's the sort who would be sent flying all over the classroom over misspoken spells.
He reminded him a bit like Professor McGonagall, only if McGonagall was the sort to smack you on the shoulders for saying 'Leviosa' wrongly, then demanding you to enunciate that word twenty times before he was remotely satisfied.
But he was good in Charms, there were times Mary stood transfixed as his large, oak arms moved gracefully across the air, his spells uttered with absolute perfection. There were no wasted energy and he demanded the same from his students.
In contrast, Professor Bloom was, less hands on, in a way.
The young (well she thinks Bloom is young) Herbology professor, wore large goggles over her eyes. She was bald and wore a pair of well-worn gloves, dirt covered robes held by a belt carrying spades in various states of dirtiness. When they arrived in the greenhouse, she was smacking a large fanged plant into submission with a shovel.
Without even a backwards glance, she ordered the nervous class to grab a shovel, "You lot, first lesson! This is how to beat a Venomous Tentacula!" as she swung hers down on an enraged plant.
It was less like a lesson and more like a free for all beat-em up. Tom even dropped his harmless façade and was gleefully whacking any plant life that snapped his way. Not all joined the fray, however; Edith and several others stayed near the doors and watched as the rest with disapproval.
'Well, their loss,' she thought.
The Tentacula beat up lasted the whole lesson and ended with her and Tom panting from the exertion. They were so exhausted that Tom dropped his plans to visit the library, and just sat at the Great Hall, trying to catch his breath.
Herbology was the high point of the day, unfortunately.
The books were not joking when they said that History of Magic was unbelievably dull. Mary was psyching herself up, fearing the Baron incident, but apparently Professor Binns was alive in that time.
Though judging from the way the old man barely raised his head as they all sat down, Mary thought that it wasn't long before the Professor Binns would become the infamous ghost Professor.
As the time passed by, Tom and even Dorothy, was struggling to stay awake. Mary wondered if she could bottle up the drone that came from Binns' mouth. She'd like to think that she'd cure even the worst of insomnia.
Yet, for the whimper of a class, Mary found herself quite happy; for the first time, she felt normal and like the child that her age was.
Suddenly the seven years felt like nothing and Mary realized that maybe, just maybe, she could forget.
And for the first time, she allowed herself that.
#
Author's Note: Thank you again for all your responses.