Summary: A thoroughly impossible freak accident transports our favorite attractive psychopath forward in time from 1942 to 1996. Harry Potter/Tom Riddle slash. Tom and Harry have a pleasant discussion… well, they don't have their wands out, anyway.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Tom Riddle, or any other people, places or objects that may appear in this humble work of fiction.
Warnings: Possible spoilers up to the fifth book. M/M, obviously. Rating is down as T for now but may, possibly, increase to M as things progress.
Author's Note: My God, I actually accomplished everything I wanted to get done in this chapter! Mwahahahaha! There's a first time for everything. Don't expect this madness to continue.

Chapter Fifteen: Letting Your Hair Down

Thursday morning brought with it Tom's second Divination class of the week; to Harry's great relief, however, Tom was not let out early. Harry met him at the entrance to the very top of the North Tower when class was over and walked with him and the other Gryffindors who took Divination, Parvati and Lavender, to Transfiguration. Harry wished the two of them could keep their swooning over Tom to a minimum. Tom didn't act as though he minded, but Harry was starting to find the flirting and giggling annoying. On the other hand, it meant that he didn't have to talk with Tom much, himself, which was best for them both.

When they reached Transfiguration, Harry found Professor McGonagall staring grimly at the door, as though she was anticipating something wretched coming through it. Then he noticed her grimace as she caught sight of Tom. Tom, himself, stopped in the doorway at the look she was giving him. Parvati and Lavender nearly walked into his back.

Tom was squinting hard. 'Do I… do I know you?' he asked tentatively.

'I imagine not,' Professor McGonagall replied curtly. 'If you would kindly take your seat, Mr. Maxwell, and stop clogging up the entrance to my classroom, it would be greatly appreciated.' McGonagall turned back to her desk, rustling a pile of homework papers already sitting upon it.

Tom walked out of the entranceway, but did not sit down. He instead headed to the Professor's desk.

McGonagall was, it seemed, still watching him closely out of the corner of her eye, because she turned back to him abruptly and said, 'I believe I told you to sit down, Mr. Maxwell.'

'I need to hand in my assignment, Professor,' Tom replied, swinging his backpack off his shoulders and digging into it for his parchment.

'Oh,' Professor McGonagall said, 'Very well, then.' She then turned completely away from him, towards the blackboard, and stood there for a moment looking confused, as though she was trying to remember what to write.

Harry noticed Tom staring at her back. He placed his homework very slowly onto her desk, and his eyes traveled up to the back of her head.

That hair! Tom thought. It's –

'Minnie?' he croaked in surprise. 'Minnie McGonagall?'

McGonagall swooped back around to face him. 'Excuse me, but I am not on a first-name basis with my students, Mr. Maxwell, let alone a pet name basis.' Despite the firmness of her words, her voice was shaky as she spoke them.

'You are her!' he grinned.

Tom looked anxiously around, but no one else seemed to be paying any attention to the conversation taking place between the Professor and the new student. Relieved, he turned back to her, lowering his voice. 'Long time no see.'

'Not long enough. Take your seat,' she said curtly, glaring at him.

'So you do know who I am!'

'If I have to repeat myself again, it will mean a detention!'

'Fine,' Tom said grumpily, stomping off to an empty seat next to the aisle. Harry followed, making Tom scoot his chair forward so Harry could take the seat beside him.

'What was that all about?' Harry asked quietly. Hermione and Ron hadn't made it to class yet, and Parvati and Lavender had already taken seats two rows away, so they were safe from prying ears, but it was still better to be safe and speak softly.

'Minnie McGonagall,' Tom grunted. 'Head Girl in my day; she was a year older than me. Never did let her hair down,' he added wryly. 'That stick up her arse has only gotten thicker through the years, I see.'

Harry tried his best not to grin, but the thought of a student version of Professor McGonagall with her hair in a tight bun, walking primly through the hallways as if she had dung under her nose, was too funny. Tom was looking at him and he smiled, too, and Harry thought for once that it might be real.

The class was fine until near the end; Harry wondered idly, later, why Tom had a predisposition for making trouble right near the end. Lord Voldemort had a penchant for attacking Harry late in his school year, and Tom seemed to enjoy leaving his mischief until the last quarter of class. It was just as Hermione was transfiguring her fourth textbook into a Crookshanks-sized cat, taking further copious notes on which limbs had a tendency to fully transform first, that it began. Parvati, at the front of the class, let out a surprised shriek as something shot right past her and pinged loudly off the wall to her left. Another something nearly hit Neville, but bounced off the edge of the desk beside him instead as he ducked it. Professor McGonagall looked around for the source of the disturbance as the third object shot out and made a tiny ring as it hit the brass door handle.

They started coming faster after that. The class was in chaos as everyone dropped under their desks, at least two dozen of the little things shooting around them, and more appearing by the second. The things didn't stop once they hit an object, but instead kept bouncing around the room. Harry managed to grab one just as it was zooming past his ear and examined it.

It was a long, black hairpin. Harry's eyes went wide and his jerked his head over to look at Tom for the first time since the mysterious event had begun. Tom looked entirely unconcerned about what was transpiring – in fact, he let out a great, gaping yawn as several of them bounced off the desk they were both sitting under.

Tom returned his gaze. 'What?' Tom asked, a small grin forming on his lips. 'Is my head on backwards?'

Harry turned to Professor McGonagall, who had at some point in the past few moments discovered that she was the source of the disturbance. Her hairpins were escaping their nest and flying across the room as dangerous projectiles. She was pulling out her wand and pointing it at each of them in turn, saying a spell that Harry couldn't hear over the noise in the room, and each fell to the ground or onto a desk as it was immobilized.

But there were a great many of them, and it was taking her quite a while. Hermione, it seemed, had figured out what spell McGonagall was using, and started helping out. Tom, too, got out from under the desk and helped halt several of the rampaging hairpins.

When there were no more left, the rest of the class tentatively came out of hiding. Professor McGonagall looked more furious than Harry had ever seen her, and she was directing it all slightly to the right of him, at Tom.

She stomped up to their desk and turned on him. 'Mr. Maxwell, what do you think you are doing?'

Tom frowned. 'I was just helping to get these things in the air to stop shooting around, ma'am,' he replied guilelessly.

'How dare you, you –!'

But the rest of the class was watching her now in confusion. Parvati and Lavender came to Tom's defense immediately. 'Professor, Tom would never –'

'He didn't have a thing to do with –'

'He was taking notes right in front of me when it started!' cried Hermione. Ron, Harry noticed, looked a bit annoyed with her interference. 'It can't have been him, Professor!'

McGonagall opened and closed her mouth several times, her fury seeming so great that she couldn't put it into words. The class was staring at her apprehensively for the most part, though a few were glancing bemusedly at her long grey hair, now released from its usual confines. Finally, she spoke.

'That will be all for today. Please leave the classroom immediately,' she said shakily, clenching her fists and stomping away. Tom, Harry noticed, was wearing a slightly confused pout on his face, which seemed to confirm to everyone except Harry that he had been unjustly accused.

As they left the class, Parvati and Lavender kept saying over and over that they couldn't imagine what had gotten in to Professor McGonagall to treat a new student that way, and Hermione, too, was speaking her disapproval of McGonagall's attempt to blame the bizarre incident on Tom. 'Though I suppose it would make sense, from her point of view,' Hermione said, 'since nothing like that has ever happened before, and it did happen on his first day of class…'

'But I saw him taking notes!' Hermione kept muttering to herself, her eyes fixed on the back of Tom's head. 'He couldn't have done it… could he?'

Harry, of course, had no doubt at all about who was the culprit.

Tom said he needed to go to the loo before lunch; the others walked to the Great Hall, and Harry went with Tom. He saw Tom check to see that the bathroom was clear; then he turned to Harry, a delirious smile on his face.

'I always loved doing that to her. It drove her mad because she never could prove it was me. Some things never change,' he said wryly.

Harry glared at him. Tom seemed surprised at this. 'What are you so grumpy about? That little prank didn't hurt anyone,' he grumbled defensively, crossing his arms. 'She deserved it for being so rude to me before class. Maybe next time she'll think twice about being nasty.'

'I'll tell,' Harry said, his eyes narrowed.

Tom rolled his eyes. 'Are you really so daft? She already knows!'

This time, it was Harry's turn to smile. 'Ever heard of a Pensieve, Tom? I could show her the whole confession you just gave me.'

Tom blinked and took a step back, looking at Harry in disbelief. 'You don't have a Pensieve!'

'Dumbledore does,' Harry replied smoothly, stepping forward into the space Tom had just occupied. 'And if you pull a joke like that again, I'll show him.'

'You didn't seem to think of this when it was a Slytherin I was bothering!' Tom growled. 'Gryffindors. You're all the same,' he added with a great deal of disgust.

'Malfoy was-was different!' Harry argued.

'Why? Because I hurt someone that time instead of merely disrupting class? So it's fine by you, then, if I break an arm or two, but not if I shoot little objects around the room?' Tom shouted, his fists balled at his side and his arms shaking in fury.

'No!' said Harry. 'It's… it's because…' but Harry couldn't think of a single reasonable argument, so he just sighed. 'Look, you're right,' he said.

Tom raised an eyebrow and the tension in his limbs decreased. 'I am?'

'Yeah. You're right. I didn't think of it with Malfoy because… well, I guess I kind of thought he deserved it, too. He and I have never been the best of friends,' Harry admitted with a shrug. He looked seriously up at Tom. 'But I'm still going to tell if you pull any more pranks… well,' he grinned, 'unless they're really well deserved.'

Tom looked at Harry contemplatively. 'You know, you're not really all that bad for a Gryffindor,' he said absently, drumming a finger on his chin. 'That whole plot to show your conversations with me to Dumbledore was pretty well-conceived. Almost Slytherin, really. Mind you,' he added softly, looking Harry in the eye with a deadly sort of gleam that would have made Harry squirm if he wasn't trying hard not to, 'if I were you, I wouldn't have told me about it first, especially not alone.'

Harry found this to be an ironic thing to hear from someone who had just confessed his crimes to a known enemy, but he didn't mention it. 'I'm not afraid of you,' Harry said sternly.

'No, you're not, are you?' Tom replied, leaning back into a contemplative pose again. 'Why is that, I wonder? You know I'm a murderer, yet you don't seem too worried about me offing you.'

'You wouldn't dare,' Harry said in a deep, threatening voice. 'Dumbledore would –'

'Yes, yes, Dumbledore would throw me out, but that's not all of it, is it, Harry?' he asked, frowning at the look in Harry's eyes. 'There's something else… you're just not afraid of me. You think you could stop me if I tried to kill you, don't you?'

The conversation was reminding Harry forcefully of the one he had had with this very individual years before, deep in the Chamber of Secrets. The tone of his voice was just like Tom Riddle's had been then, as he was prodding Harry to tell him why he had lived through Voldemort's attempted murder on him as a baby. It was the tone he had when there was a mystery he wanted to have solved, an itch he couldn't scratch, and the memory, far from making Harry nervous, made him smile. He defeated Tom Riddle then, and he could defeat Tom Maxwell now.

'Yeah, that's right,' said Harry. 'I think I could.'

'Is that a challenge!' Tom hissed.

Harry didn't have a chance to reply, because the bathroom door swung open and three third-year Hufflepuffs walked in. Harry headed for the door, and Tom followed.

As they walked to the Great Hall together, however, Harry leaned toward him and whispered. 'No, it's not. I don't want to fight you.' It's not like I need any more enemies. No need to egg him on.

No, it's not. I don't want to fight you. The words twirled around in Tom's brain as he lay awake in bed that night. The whole conversation had been one of the most absurd Tom had ever had. No one, no one, told him what to do, and no one would ever dare threaten him. Yet this scrawny, foolish Gryffindor of no more than average intellect and magical ability seemed to be under the impression that he could defeat Tom, if it came down to it.

But he didn't want to defeat him, or so he claimed. He just wanted Tom to cease his mischief and be a good boy, exactly like Dumbledore. Why?

Tom didn't like not being able to understand his enemies. He wondered, for the first time since he'd arrived, if Harry actually could triumph against him. After all, he did defeat that You-Know-Who fellow, who Tom had served, when he was just a baby. Maybe he had some special powers? If he does, he hides them well, Tom thought mockingly.

Still, if he had to have one of those Gryffindors watching his every move, Harry wasn't the worst choice. He was certainly the most Slytherin Gryffindor Tom had ever encountered; he was cunning, a survivor. Tom could respect that. Not bloodthirsty enough, maybe, and idealistic, but that could only work to Tom's advantage.

Ugh, I'm wasting too much time thinking about him. It's because I don't have any good books; I'm simply bored silly. I've already memorized our textbooks. If only they would let me into the Restricted Section…

Harry, in the bed to Tom's right, was having a dream. He was flying high, high up into the air, higher than he had ever had before, and Sirius was flying next to him, insistently shouting over the roaring wind 'Clear your mind, Harry!'… But the wind got stronger, and Sirius was blown away. Far, far below, Harry could make out a pinprick of a figure, black, and he flew down toward it, faster than he ever had before. And there was Tom, sitting on his broom, clutching it in terror as the wind whipped around him. Harry was close, so close, and he was reaching out his hand – why, he didn't know – and Tom was reaching up to him as well, but the wind blew him away seconds before their fingers touched. Harry tried to fly toward him, but the wind changed direction and was beating him backwards, and Tom was falling, falling…

Many miles away, Lord Voldemort opened his eyes, and he wondered.

wizzan: Good question. It depends upon what you mean by slash… if you mean actual physical touching, etcetera, then four chapters from now at the earliest.

Black Perla: I'll drop by your profile soon! Always up for some good slash!