A/N: Right, so, I don't really want to waste a lot of time with Author Notes, but I felt like this had to be done. I started this story WAY before HBP came out, and Rowling really made me angry when she put in stuff about Tom's background. I already had this started and like it too much to trash it now, so I'm continuing it as it is. Don't like it? Bug off. No! Just kidding! I've already started another one that is in canon with HBP, so that'll be up eventually. Most of the characters will remain the same 'cause I'm a dork like that, but that's okay. -Grin.- Anyway. On with the story.
Riddle Me This: Chapter Four
"I have a question to ask you, Katrina." It was early the next morning and Tom was once more speaking with the portrait, sitting on the ground in front of her and craning his neck back to look at her. He'd woken up early especially for this, not wanting to be interrupted in the middle of his conversation.
Inside the frame, Katrina was lounging on a black loveseat, fire flickering merrily and lighting up the bookshelf in the background. A book lay open on the end table, obviously Katrina's current pursuit. Though she'd long since died, her thirst for good literature had yet to be quenched.
"And what would that be, Tom?"
"Well, I'm not sure exactly how to phrase is…You see, I was sorted into Slytherin house, which is renowned for holding only purebloods, or so I've been told. Why is it such a big deal that some children come from muggle families?" Tom glanced at his watch. Good, there was still some time before the rest of the castle would wake; long enough for him to get the answers he needed.
"That's a bit difficult for me to answer, Tom. I'll need a minute to find where to begin…
"Long ago, there was a large gap between muggles and wizards. Everyone was a pureblood, and even the thought of settling down with a muggle was offensive. They were just so primitive. As the years passed, they started to develop new things in the technological department. Things we'd have never thought of. Then troubled times came. There was a plague that swept through Europe, and even our strongest magic could not counter it. I believe the muggles called it the Black Death. Half our population was gone, probably more, and to stay alive we were forced to marry the muggles. We'd looked down upon them for so long that it was frowned on, and many of the older, more powerful families thought it would have been better to die off. Magic started sprouting up in all sorts of odd places, and there were those like Salazar that thought we should not allow muggleborns into Hogwarts, claiming their blood was dirty. Of course, the other three founders didn't agree with him and allowed them, but he would only accept the purebloods that thought like himself into his house, and they became more segregated. And so the hostility between the purebloods and muggleborns grew through out the years."
Tom nodded. "So this whole separation between purebloods and muggleborns dates way back, and no one exactly knows why anymore," he concluded. "What can you tell me about Salazar?"
Katrina laughed.
"I can tell you practically anything you want to know about the man. I," she said with an air of importance, "was his lover and confidant."
Tom gaped. "That means…That means that you're my great, great, great, great (I can go on and on) grandmum!"
Now it was Katrina's turn to gape, jaw slack and eyes wide.
"How do you know that?" she finally asked.
"The Sorting Hat said so. It said I had the blood of a founder running through my veins. Having been placed in Slytherin, I'm assuming it was Salazar. If you were his lover, that means you're also my kin. Right?"
"Yes, yes it would. I bore his only child, a boy we named Sebastian. At least, I do believe it was his only child…Do me a favor, will you, Tom?"
"Anything," Tom chirped.
"Do you have any free periods today?"
Tom pulled his schedule from his bag, glancing down at it and nodding. "Yes," he confirmed, "right before dinner."
"Excellent!" Katrina exclaimed. "During that time, I want you to go up to the library and see if you can find a book on the founders' family trees. There should be one, of course I can't remember the name, which adds the people all by itself each time the line is continued. Ask Miss Thao if you need help – she's the head librarian. Drop by before dinner and tell me your findings."
"Yes, ma'am," said Tom obediently. "One more thing before I go, though."
"Hmmm?" Katrina looked up from the book she'd already resumed reading.
"Can I still call you Katrina?"
"Of course, dearie. Now run along." She smiled at Tom's retreating back.
His first class that day had been Double Potions with the Ravenclaws. Tom noticed immediately that Blythe sat with the one albino girl, and he made a point to sit behind the two with Dagon. It was a good five minutes after the bell rang that the professor swept into the classroom, black robes billowing behind her. Like all Slytherins she had a flare for drama. Turning to address the class, Tom noticed that she was the same lady that had been handing out schedules yesterday.
She couldn't have been yet in her thirties, with curly brown locks tied back with a piece of black ribbon, pretty face held clear of hair. Her features were just a tad bit angular, and Tom couldn't help but wonder what mix of blood she had in her. It almost reminded him of the house elf he'd stumbled across this morning, but of course that was absurd. Her eyes were the lightest shade of brown her could imagine, almost golden in hue.
"Class!" she barked at them, and the students that had still been chatting immediately quieted. "Good. I expect you to be silent each time I am to start the lesson. I don't have much patience for time wasting or stupid mistakes, and it would be best if we could refrain from making stupid mistakes by shutting our mouths, no?"
She walked forward to the first row of desks, scooping up one of Blythe's room mate's (Tom thought Amber was her name) books. "This book was on your supply list this year, so all of you should have it. There was a slight problem in my Advanced Potions class where a student forgot his book. I am warning you now that if you are not prepared for class do not bother coming. I do not accept late homework for any reason, and any homework that is in such poor handwriting I cannot read will automatically receive a zero." She placed the book she'd been holding back down on the desk, turning to face the large blackboard behind her. A flick of her wrist filled the board with large, blocky letters.
"Copy down that sentence. When you are done, open your books to the index and find the correct information. This assignment is to be completed by the end of class and on my desk before you leave. No talking. Begin."
Tom copied down the sentence on the board in a neat, precise script, and flipped to the back of the book to find the section on the dangers of mixing a potion wrong. Tom sighed; there were fifteen pages on it. This would take up most of the class period. Turning to the right page in his book, he dipped his quill in the ink pot and began to write.
Under the topic "The dangers of mixing a potion wrong," there are two broad categories one can write about. The first category actually deals with mixing the potion wrong, by that meaning stirring, and the second is about adding the wrong ingredients in the wrong order…
The professor sat at her desk grading papers for the first hour of class, occasionally glancing up from her work to survey the students. It was silent, just as she'd asked for, and for that she was glad. She knew the time was coming when she'd no longer be able to command silence to a group of students, and the way kids were being brought up these days it would be soon. Her head turned as she heard someone whispering, and she stood, walking towards the sound.
"Excuse me, Miss…?" The professor stopped in front of the source.
"Snider, ma'am. Meg Snider," the offending girl said quietly.
"Yes, Miss Snider. I do believe I asked for silence, don't you? Because, had I not, it would be entirely too easy for you to have this boy you're sitting next to do the work for you. Is that not correct?" The professor seemed to smile in amusement. All eyes had turned to her and Meg by this point.
"That is correct, Professor," Meg mumbled.
"And that, Miss Snider, would be cheating, would it not?"
"Yes ma'am."
"May I see your paper, Miss Snider?"
Meg looked up. "What?"
"I'd like to see your paper, to see how much you got done," The professor repeated.
"But, I…"
The professor didn't wait to hear Meg's excuse. She snatched up the parchment the girl had been writing on, letting her eyes scan over the paper. And then she smirked, and it was such a horrible smirk that Meg just knew she was in for it. Already she was ducking down in her seat, as if by doing so she'd become invisible.
"This, class, is what Meg Snider has written so far for her paper. The dangers of…Vincent, Vincent, Vincent with a heart around it, Vincent, Mrs. Meg Malfoy, I heart Vincent…My, my, it even comes complete with a very nice drawing of our dear Vincent."
Meg had turned scarlet by this point, placing her hands over her heated face as she slouched even lower in her chair. She could not believe this was happening to her. Vince, sitting next to her, had turned a light shade of pink, but Tom was not sure if it was from embarrassment or something else. He was pulled from his musings as the professor thrust the paper back towards Meg.
"I expected better from a Slytherin, Miss Snider. Five points from Slytherin and you serve detention with me tonight after dinner, during which time you will re-write your paper for half credit. Do not be late, or you will receive another detention."
Meg nodded her assent, and the professor moved away from the scarlet girl towards another bench of two. She continued to move around the room as class proceeded, occasionally stopping to read over a nervous student's shoulder. Upon reaching Tom and Dagon, she stopped behind them, tutting as she read Dagon's paper. Before she could turn to see Tom's he was standing, walking towards the front of the room. Placing his paper down on the professor's desk he returned to his seat, offering a pleased smile to the professor. To his surprise, she actually smiled back before moving on.
Class ended in much the same way it had with the other three he'd been to so far, with no homework from the teacher. Tom was assuming that the only reason they didn't receive homework was due to the fact that they'd written that paper in class, but he might very well be wrong. He shrugged as he shouldered his bag; all the better for him, then, because he had to do some research for Katrina anyway.
As he and Dagon were about to step out into the corridor, the professor called him back.
"Mister Riddle, I'd like to speak with you for a moment."
Tom nodded for Dagon to go on ahead, and turned back towards the professor, walking over to her desk.
"Yes, Professor?"
"I am very impressed by your work, Tom. I was able to read part of your essay on the dangers of mixing potions wrong, and it was one of the best I've read since I began my job here. You see, the subject I give my first year classes each September is purposely vague. It is my way of gauging the depth and seriousness of their desire to learn, and usually their capability as well. The students that take the easy way out and are just as vague are usually those that do poorly in my class. However, students like yourself tend to excel." She nodded her head at him, as if to say "keep up the good work." She smiled once more, and then he was dismissed to lunch.
Walking into the Great Hall for lunch, Tom noticed that Blythe and Malfoy were having a heated argument. He approached them and took his seat, turning a questioning look to Dagon, but the boy merely shrugged his shoulders.
"…cannot believe you are so shallow!" Blythe was hissing at Malfoy.
"They've got dirty blood! We all know how horrible muggleborns turn out to be!" Malfoy hissed right back at her. Tom could see one of Blythe's fists curling around her wand.
"You didn't say anything to them about being muggleborn! It was just about the way they looked!" Their argument was starting to draw attention from the nearby Slytherins.
"Well you didn't have to go sit with her! I can't believe you'd show your face at this table after having done that! Being forced to in Herbology is one thing, but willingly sitting with her in Potions! I'm surprised Professor Tothurgal didn't humiliate you like she did Meg!"
"Shut up, Malfoy!" Before Tom could do anything to stop her, Blythe had whipped out her want and pointed it straight at his chest. "You're not the only one who knows hexes already, as you were so brazenly bragging about last night in the common room. I happen to come from a powerful family myself, and you'd be surprised what I know."
Malfoy blanched. "Traitor!" he sputtered.
"I'm no traitor. I just said you shouldn't be a shallow prat. You're worse than them, if anything, not even a true albino but a wanna-be, pale skin and platinum hair. Mad at them because they managed to become what you want?" She was glaring daggers at him, daring him to even respond to that. She noticed with a smirk that color had risen to his cheeks, just as it had in Potions while the professor read Meg's paper aloud.
"You don't even have the nerve to admit it, Malfoy. Face it: you're pathetic." With a final sneer she shoved her wand back into the pocket of her robe, snatching up her books and storming from the Great Hall. Tom looked to Malfoy in amusement.
"Shut up, Riddle," Malfoy spat at him. "Follow her. She's a powerful witch, I'll grant her that, though her views are a little skewed. Father would be displeased if I let her slip through my grasp."
Tom nodded. He grabbed a sandwich for himself and Blythe before exiting the Great Hall, searching the corridors for where she might have gone. He racked his brain in the meantime, wondering what he could say to her to get her to salvage the lost relationship with Malfoy. Tom wasn't an idiot. He knew that Vincent would make a great ally, just like he knew that Blythe would. He didn't want to have to choose sides his second day here.
He found her ten minutes later, sitting in one of the winged-back chairs in the Slytherin common room by the fire. By the way her jaw was working Tom could tell she was still fuming, and he took a moment to gather his thoughts before approaching her. He held out the sandwich wordlessly, and she took it with a grateful nod. She didn't even look at him as she bit into it, staring into the flickering of the flames and obviously still deep in thought. Finally, she did glance up at him.
"You don't agree with Malfoy, do you? About muggleborns and all that, I mean."
Tom clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. There were a few ways he could answer that question, none of which he felt would be good at the time. After all, he hardly knew the girl, and she could just be goading him.
"Why, are you muggleborn?" He finally settled on countering with a question.
"Of course not! I meant what I said about my mum teaching me what I needed to know to defend myself. But Tocelas, that's the Ravenclaw girl, isn't so bad. She's rather cunning, really, and I figure if she wasn't muggleborn she'd probably have been placed in Slytherin along with her twin. She knows almost as many hexes as I do, truth be told." Blythe grinned at Tom, and the dark-haired wizard grinned right back at her.
"Still miffed at Malfoy?" he asked.
"I guess not, I can understand where he's coming from." She finished off the rest of her sandwich and glanced at her watch. "Oi! Time to go or we're going to be late!"
The two Slytherins snatched up their bags and left the common room at a run, bowling into a second year on their way out and knocking her over. Shouting apologies over their shoulder, they rounded the corner and took the stairs two at a time, knowing only that their Defense Against the Dark Arts room was somewhere on the fifth floor. As they started up another staircase it shifted beneath them, swiveling in a half-circle. The two clutched the banister for dear life, proceeding up the rest of the stairs only after they were sure it wouldn't move again.
"We're going to get detention for being late," Blythe groaned. The last thing she wanted to do was serve a detention her second day of classes.
"Where are you two headed?" Tom and Blythe spun at the voice, catching sight of a fifth-year walking their way. On his chest was pinned a silver prefects badge, which he seemed to thrust out before him in an important manner.
"Defense Against the Dark Arts," Tom said. "Do you know where it is?"
"Of course I do. Only been going here five years," the boy replied. "Follow me." He led the two down the hallway and around a corner, stopping before a classroom just as the bell rang. Opening the door, he poked his head inside. "Please pardon these two, Professor Vitale. The staircase switched around on them, that's why they're late."
"Thank you for leading them here, Mister Fudge. Ten points to Hufflepuff," the voice came from inside the classroom, and as a beaming Fudge departed down the hallway Tom and Blythe could see inside. Professor Vitale was young-looking, with a shaved head and somewhat pudgy body. He looked almost like a boxer gone soft, save for the fact that he probably hadn't had time in his life to be a boxer. The odd thing, Tom noticed, was that he wore those boots he'd seen muggles wearing in that one movie they'd watched in the orphanage, the one about cowboys over in Texas, America.
"Please take your seats, you two, so I may begin class," Professor Vitale said to Tom and Blythe. The two Slytherins hurried over to the empty desks in the second to last row, sitting in front of two Gryffindor boys. The boys leered at the two as they sat down, and as Professor Vitale began the introduction to DADA, the boys behind them started whispering to each other, purposely loud enough for both Tom and Blythe to hear.
"…probably snogging in an alcove," one said. The other snickered.
"Yeah, and paid off dear old Fudge to cover up for them," the other whispered back.
"Wouldn't mind getting her to myself…"
"Joshua! That's perfectly horrid!"
"Is not, Joseph. Only thing holding me back is the fact that she's a Slytherin," Joshua hissed at him. "Just take one look at her…"
Tom snuck a glance over to Blythe on his left, and noticed she was once more working her jaw as she stared straight ahead at the professor, trying to listen to him explain the differences between truly evil wizards and those that just use curses. He wasn't surprised to see that she'd snapped her quill in her shaking hands, and was too distracted to get another one from her bag. Tom didn't blame her. He turned slightly in his seat, still looking forward as he hissed out of the corner of his mouth.
"Shut up, you stupid Gryffindors. That's no way to be talking about anyone, especially if they can hear you." He obviously had interrupted their conversation, for he could see out of the corner of his eye they looked slightly taken-back.
"Ooo…Best listen to the scary Slytherin, Joey, don't want him to hex us," Joshua snorted.
"Yeah, Josh, wha'd'ya think he'll use first? The Cruciatus curse or will he go straight for the killing curse?" The boys snickered.
"That's it!" Blythe suddenly snapped, twisting in her seat to face the two boys. The boys smirked at her, and laughed as she pointed her wand at them. "Silencio!" she hissed, their chuckles cut off abruptly. A smirk of her own and Blythe faced forward once more.
"Watch it!" Tom shouted. The two boys had lunged for the Slytherin girl, outraged that she'd hexed them into silence. She snapped back around to face them, dropping from her chair and to the ground to avoid the blows they'd sent her way. Rarely did one wizard get physical with another, but without the use of their voice there was little else they could do.
"Locomotor mortis!" Malfoy shouted from the front of the room, and Joseph's legs locked together immediately. One of the other Gryffindors rounded on Malfoy. "Tarantallegra!" The blonde Slytherin's legs started dancing out of his control, and that was all it took to get the rest of the Slytherins and Gryffindors in on the fight. Hexes were thrown every which way, with kids getting hit from both sides. Blythe took it upon herself to hex the two Gryffindors that had started the fight with everything she could think of, including a rather nice combination of boils and a jelly-legs jinx.
"IMPEDIMENTA!" Professor Vitale bellowed, and all the students were frozen in their places. "What is the meaning of this!" He shouted at the class. "How dare you all let loose on one another? This is your second day at Hogwarts! I could have you all expelled for your actions!" He paced in an angry circle, and glared at the class. "I'm going to release you from the spell. I expect you to all take your seats and do not speak a word. If anyone so much as looks sideways at a member of the opposite house, you will find yourself in the Headmaster's office faster than you can say 'counter curse.' Finite Incantatem!"
As one, the students were released from the charm that froze them, and they scrambled to find their seats. The various hexes and jinxes that the students had been hit with disappeared as one, save for those that did lasting damage, like the boils dotting Joshua's face. Gryffindor and Slytherin alike hung their head, not daring to even glance at one another for fear of Professor Vitale being true to his word.
"Who started this?" he asked of the class. No one spoke. "I asked who started this, and I want an answer!"
Blythe raised her hand.
"Miss Ashcroft, what do you have to say?"
"Sir, the two Gryffindors that were sitting behind Tom and I started making rude comments about the two of us, and when they couldn't get a rise out of us they lunged. I don't think –"
"That's not true, sir!" Joseph cut her off. "She was the one who –"
"SILENCE!" Professor Vitale roared. "You will speak only if I ask you a direct question, is that understood Mister Asotin?"
"Yes, sir," Joseph muttered.
"As I was saying, sir," Blythe continued, "I don't think the two of them know any spells to scrape together, or else they'd have used those instead of swinging fists." The dark-haired Slytherin just couldn't resist the chance of making a dig at their magical prowess.
"I see, Miss Ashcroft. And were you the one to hit them with the jelly-legs jinx combined with the boils?"
"Yes, sir, but I was only trying to protect myself." Tom might have imagined it, but he thought he saw the young professor's lip twitch in an almost-smile.
"Those of you that were hit with lasting damage may go down to the hospital wing. The rest of you are excused while I sort out this mess. We will pick up this lesson on Friday. Go!" He barked at them.
The students scattered.