Tom The Great
"Thank you for the help Tom!" a bright and cheerful voice rang out as he made his way down the corridor leading to the dungeon's the voice continued "For real I would of never of been able to cast the unlocking charm if it wasn't for your tip."
His eyes turned to the side allowing him to get a look at who was talking to him as he made his way to potions.
Jack Thimdel, a year mate of his and a fellow Ravenclaw.
He was one of the more popular kid's at Hogwart's, a real social monster. He was constantly full of energy that only children possess and had no issue's with talking with anyone and everyone.
Tom personally thought if it was not for the boy's startling kindness to even the current caretaker of Hogwart's Bartemius MacFarlan. Then he would of made quite the few enemies by now but he simply was not unlikable, even the most proud purebloods would stiffle a grimace at Jack's disregard towards blood purity.
Though as Tom had learned the current climate was not yet "Remove all non-purebloods now" and was more of a "Oh so your new? Well then move along commoner this place is only for the best of people of which you do not belong". But as Tom had realised it would only take a spark to turn this casual disdain and minor seperation and turn it into a blinding fire of utter hate.
A few words here and there, a twisted phrase about how these new comers were changing things, changing the proud traditions of the wizarding world with muggle ideas and concepts and Tom could over time -realistically maybe a decade or two- create a schism that would lead to what was seen during the Harry Potter books. A time were to purebloods anything that wasn't them was simply cattle to be culled or played with.
It would be all to easy, it honeslty reminded Tom of how Adolf Hitler turned Germany against the Jew's. Inspire those who had lived in the wizarding world all their lifes that their world, their lifestyle was threatened, that those who were beneath and lesser than themselves were seeking to change it to fit their ideals.
By then it would hardly need Tom to do anything, the spark would be lit, the idea burried in the minds of the pure and as they saw more and more examples of lessers changing things or being unknown of the wizarding worlds ways, well it would only support what they had heard and thought about.
A self sustaining flame which with very little effort would turn into a bonfire of hatred and disregard towards a minority, something history was already singing with examples on.
Making sure to allow a small smile to appear on his face he stopped and looked at the boy, placing all of his focus on him.
"Of course I would help don't think about it, though I am certain even without my assistance you would of got it by the end of the lesson. Professor Barrows is an excellent teacher after all."
As Tom spoke he noticed Jack go pink in the face at the sheer amount of attention Tom was paying him.
You see when Tom spoke to someone he liked to give the illusion that his entire focus was on them, eye contact would be held, a hand on the shoulder or arm depending on the mood and he would listen paitently to what they were saying and then speak the exact words needed to get them to act or do what he desired.
He could already see the desired effects on Jack outside of the blush he was also smilling, these things would help cement the image Tom wanted.
It was splendid just how a making eye contact and simple body language could make other's feel comfortable. That they were safe with Tom, after all he was Tom Riddle the best at magic and brightest in the year and perhaps even the brigest student to ever walk the halls of hogwarts and was always oh so kind.
It was an art really.
As Jack recomposed himself Tom continued not allowing the boy to speak, another trick that could be used to show dominance. Over time others would get used to following his lead and waiting for him to decide on what to do.
"Anyway's we should really get going, Professor Slughorn would decidedly be dismayed if were are late." He finised with a confident smile showing his perfectly white teeth.
It was a smile that later in life would kill.
Sitting down at his desk Tom's eyes lazily looked around the underground classroom, the room was a rectangle that slowly bled into a semi-circle near the back, the wall of's of the semi-circle were lined with shelf's holding strange conconctions and brews.
A table sat between the two sections of the room's with odd pieces of equipment that would not be out of place in a muggle chemistry lab if you left out the obvious magical objects like cauldron's.
Standing behind the table was if you were to be kind a short plump man with a permant cheerful smile and a cunning gleam in his eyes, Tom however felt he was an enormously fat, bald, old man with a hard on for talented people.
As you most likely had guessed Tom was talking about Horace Slughorn, Slughorn was short with an immense belly, so large that the buttons on his waistcoat seemed to be debating whether or not to burst off.
The students of this class were made up of Ravenclaw's and Hufflepuff's, Tom's desk mate belonged to the latter, a blonde haired girl with chubby cheeks and light brown eyes.
He could see her visibly struggling to keep her collectedness at being near him, his skill in the mind art's could feel the strange combination of dread and what could best be described as fuzzy joy at being his partner for the lesson.
Not something he wasn't use to however, nearly every person he was teamed up with and or sat by in any of his lesson's felt a combination of those two emotions. The dread came from the fact he was Tom Riddle, the best in the class and they feared making a fool of themsleves around him and his greatness.
The joy though that was something different, especially the fuzziness of it. Tom recently has begun to notice how the same emotion can feel different an easy way to explain it would be anger, like mindless rage vs righteous anger.
They were both the same emotion but were different on a fundemental level.
This fuzziness however he had noted only ever came up when he was partnered with girls... so he was forced to conclude it was them liking him.
Tom personally did not feel any desire for anything like that in his life -at least at this point in time- however unlike the original Tom he certainly was not going to ignore it and the inherent power those emotions can give a person.
After all it had been his downfall in the orignal timeline twice.
Shaking his head Tom looked at the girl who was his partner this lesson she seemed to jump slighly once he placed his attention on her, a light pink dusting her face.
Objectively she was a pretty girl, soft brown hair, light blue eye's and a dark tan also of note was the prominent smile lines on her face, seem's she was a cheerful girl. If he recalled this was Sarah Brown, most likey the grandparent or even mother of Lavender Brown from Harry's time.
"Sarah Brown, correct? we share Transfiguration together don't we." the girl's eyes light up as he said her name, clearly she was pleased that he knew her.
"Y-yes you sit two tables forward and one to the right from me..." Sarah spoke softly and seemed to lose confidence as she spoke, as though she had said something horribly wrong.
Never one to care for what others would say, as what they said most of the time was usless drabble Tom just chuckled followed with him quirking his lip as he continued.
"Yes and you sit next to Floria Dartson in Professor Dumbledore's class." here he flashed a charming smile "Professor Dumbledore, now that is a man who know's his stuff." Tom had no problem saying such a thing.
It was true after all, just like it was true that Voldemort had become arguably more knoweldgable about some magic's than Dumbledore in the original story. Something Tom was cartainly going to be aiming for as well.
Of course Tom knew he would one day be more powerful than the man all it would take was time.
Sarah smiled at his words and he could already see the way her countenance brightened at the mention of Dumbledore, even now he was well known as likely the most powerful Wizard of the age and the only one who can defeat Grindelwald.
A throat clearing stop the conversation and took him from his thoughts on what was going on outside the castle wall's "Welcome class, now that it seems all of us are here allow me to begin." Professor Slughorn spoke in a jubilant voice as he opened up the potions book.
"Now today we will be covering the Wiggenweld Potion, so open your books to pages sixteen through eighteen... thank you." He continued on given us a brief moment to open our book's to the correct page's.
Getting the book open Tom appraised the page, it was a beginner stage potion. Not that difficult for any competent brewer let alone someone who was new to brewing entirely so long as one followed the instructions or even practiced small safety procedures.
Turning his attention back to the professor as the man started to describe what the potion did.
"It is a powerful healing potion that can be used to heal injuries, or reverse the effects of a Sleeping Draught and even the Draught of Living Death." the man finished in a spooky tone getting a couple laughs from the class.
Slughorn turned around a twirl folled by a flick of his wand behind him to the right and on the left side of the classroom a blackboard suddenly appeared. A nice and very well done piece of conjuration Tom thought silently. Another flick this time the chalk started to write on the board.
It was something the man did quite often. Much like how Tom himself put on an act, an air of showmanship and theatrics one could say so too did Slughorn and the man was good at it.
Very good.
"Here are the instrutions, now you'll want to follow them carefully despite being a beginner potion even the slightest mishap could cause disastrous results." Slughorn's voice was sterner than before but still contained a hint of the light-hearted tone he was using previously and he took the time to make eye contact with those who had already known by now for misbehaving.
Notably was one Gerald Pickot and Frank Livesly.. both boy's were Hufflepuff's and from what Tom had gathered were the George and Fred of his year group.
Nevertheless Tom looked at the instructions of the board and compared them to the book, there was no difference between the two.
"Now then class, This concoction should not take us too long in spite of being a beginner grade even the most competent could face difficulties here though that could be said about any potion... yes in fact even an exceptional brewer would struggle to get it done in less than two and half hour's... this is of course due to the nature of potions they are more of an art and a science than any other subject taught at this school" Slughorn spoke returning to the joyful voice he had before.
"One cannot rush a potion, timing is critical to any concotion you will learn to brew or maybe even one day go on to create." A small smile was on the professor's face as he looked around the classroom.
"However the mark of a skilled brewer? is not in how fast they complete the potion but rather the quality... yes... this however is something that comes with both time and inherent ability so I would not worry about that the now." The man finished with a light laugh.
Tom agreed it would not take that long to brew the potion, Tom estimated that even if he did take his time to make sure everything was just right down to the quality of the individual ingredient's and regent's then he could get it done in just under two and a half hours.
The mark of a skilled brewer was the quality of their potion? Tom could feel his magic feeding into the ingredients, pulling out magical and coneptial properties inherent to them.
This was the reason behind why even squibs could brew potions while muggles could not, despite not being able to harness and use magic squibs still retained magical ancestry enough that they could see magic while muggles could not.
The passive magic within any magical being -squibs included- could for a lack of better wording pull out properties from the potion ingredient's and these properties were not always something physical or even anything tangible.
It was far more mystical than he had ever though potions were and was why Slughorn had said the subject was both an art and a science. It was also why certain ingredients needed to be picked and collected at specific times or even grown in specific conditions like a complete lack of light except for light that belonged to a full moon every second day.
Back to the process of how the magic worked an example would be how water was known for it's healing and purity properties and while water was good at that someone with magic could pull on that concept and imbue it into whatever concotion they were brewing.
Of course that was just a simple example and really just the barebones it was much more complex but that was the jist of it and muggles with no magic at all could not achieve this while squibs could.
Back to the matter at hand previously just two day's ago they had brewed the forgetfulness potion, and Tom had deviated from the instructions and added a counter clockwise stir and added an extra Valerian sprig.
He was not sure why he had done so other than intuition but he later concluded he subconsciously knew how to increase the effect he was looking for, he believed it was down to his skill in feeling magic.
His eyes narrowed in determination, everyone knew he was good at magic hell that he was good at anything he did... that he was brilliant perhaps the most brilliant student to ever grace the hallowed halls of Hogwart's...
Dark eyes narrowed in concentration, excellence?... He would brew the highest quality Wiggenweld potion possible. He would give them a taste of his greatness.
He gathered the ingredients and proceeded to look at the instructions.
Add salamander blood until the potion turns red.
Stir until the potion turns orange.
Add more salamander blood, this time until it turns yellow.
Stir until the potion turns green.
Add more salamander blood, until the potion turns turquoise.
Heat until it turns indigo.
Add more salamander blood until the potion turns pink.
Heat until the potion turns red.
Add five lionfish spines.
Heat until the potion turns yellow.
Add five more lionfish spines.
Add flobberworm mucus, until the potion turns purple.
Stir until it turns red.
Add more flobberworm mucus, this time until it turns orange.
Stir till it turns yellow.
Add Honey water until it turns back to a turquoise colour.
Add another few drops of boom berry juice.
Stir the potion again, then let it simmer for thirty minutes.
Take the potion away from the heat and allow it to cool, when it is cool its ready for use.
Nothing to complicated or hard at all... which was to be expected.
Very quickly Tom and Sarah settled into a pattern, she would be in control of the heating and stirring while he would prepare the ingerdient's and add them to the cauldron.
Tom would of preferred to work by himself but no student was allowed to work alone because of the natural danger of potions. It was only in third year you were allowed to brew alone, as by then each student should be able to both notice when something was going wrong and brew safely enough to be trusted to do so alone.
Though even then it was generally accepted to partner up outside of examination's and personal practice.
With nothing else to do Tom got to work, he would need to carefully bleed out the salamnder;s first and then debone the lionfish for their spine's.
Just over forty minutes later Tom reached for the boom berry juice as the potion had returned to a turquoise colour adding a few drop's and quickly adding two and half clockwise stir's he sighed now all that was left would be stirring the potion and letting it shimmer for thirty minutes.
If this was a succesful brewing then he and Sarah would of managed it all within an hour and ten minutes.
Which he Sarah was already on, her face on of incredibly concentration.
A glance around the classroom showed he and Sarah were the first to reach this stage, the closest was Rosie Oliver a light haired halfblood and Sam Smith Sandy haired pureblood who was most likely the grandfather of Zacharias Smith from Harry Potter's time at Hogart's.
"My oh my..." An astonished voice cut through the silence of the classroom.
Eyes looked up from their cauldron's zeroing in on the source. Professor Slughorn stood nearby Tom and Sarah his face one of delighted suprise as he looked at their potion.
The man wasted no time in picking up a laddle and a beaker He carefully filled the beaker up before raching into his pocket and pulling out a test tube and proceeded to fill that up from the beaker.
Raising it up so the light from one of the torches around the dungeon's shown through it revealed perfect crystal magenta.
The exact colour depicted in the book.
"Astounding absolutely astounding. Never in all my year's has anyone ever put together such a well done potion... remarkble." the man was all smiles his eyes scrunched up nearly closed with how happy he was.
He turned placing the beaker but kept the test tube.
"Ten point's to Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff and ..." Slughorn spun on the spot and moved back to his desk "Come around now.. come around!" He spoke gleefully
As the professor went on to explain just how good the potion Tom and Sarah had brewed and just how incredible it was, a smirk formed on his face... yes this was it, he was getting looks of admiration from every other student a few were envious but that was to be expected.
Talent, skill and ability often did breed jelously after all, but he would deal with that if and when he had too.
Either way they were starting to realise just how great Tom Riddle really was.
Sitting in the great hall eating his lunch Tom could see the look's he was getting from other's his age and even few older student's.
New's spreads fast and in Hogwart's it spread even faster the fact that Tom Riddle and Sarah Brown had brewed a perfect potion was not something new after all the boy had been scoring highest and blowing any challenge placed in front of him with seemingly no difficulty.
No the reason they were staring was because of the quality of the potion, it was after all nigh-perfect level quality something that should of been impossible.
Yet it was done by two first year's with only a couple months of magical education.
The shock of how good he was had only just started to fade and by now it was just look's of admiration. They expected him to be as good as he was, but it never failed to leave them stunned.
This happened on a daily bases but Tom loved it, in every lessson he would achieve results beyond anyone his age and even those of his elder's should be capable of.
He stood up finishing his meal as he left he hall he made sure to make small conversation on his way out, he threw a nod of acknoledgement there, a hand wave here.
He made doubly sure to do so to Sarah who had been his potions partner, she right now was a person of interest to the rest of the student's. She had worked with him after all and he would like her to have a good image of himself so that when approached by anyone she would say only good things.
The moment he was outside of the hall he made his way to a location just out of sight and twisted his magic just so and anyone looking for him would not find him.
He was invisible, silent and scentless.
He continued his journey through the castle returning to a room that offered him the greatest advantage's over any other student.
One that resided on the seventh floor, The Room of Requirement.
In just a few short minute's using his knowledge of the castle to enter a hidden pathway that led from the ground floor to the fifth, from there it was only a matter of going up one staircase and down two the get the seventh floor corridor.
Pacing back and forth thrice he though of the room he desired, the door appeared and he entered.
The room was the same as last time a large space open to the right for practicing, testing and refining his magic. Bookshelf's lined the left wall the book's themselves would be changed depending on what he was looking for, and in the centre was a desk for reading. There was a staircase going from the right that sloped over the training area that led to a more confortable area which even had a firepalce, Finishing it off was the far back which included a potion and a greenhouse that was larger on the inside. The colour of the room was a calming green and the floor a dark wood.
Over all it was near perfect for his uses, as was expected.
He made his way over to the practice area, he would be going over every spell taught so far. The more you used a spell not only was it easier to use it but also decreased the difficulty in learning spells of similar nature.
However he had also found it to benefitial to his aptitude with magic itself, the more one practiced magic the better they got at it. It was common knowledge that a wizard or witch got more powerful as they aged not by much but in general the future version of yourself would alway's be stronger than the younger version.
Some book's Tom looked through had tried to decipher the reason behind this and he currently had a hypothesis on the reason behind why that was how it was.
It was based on his knowledge that the more you practiced magic the better you got at it, the hypothesis was that as you got older it wasn't that you got more powerful necessarily because you did even if it was only minor but rather most of a wizards increase in power was because they learned how to manage what power they did have better.
Let's go with game lingo, say you had one hundred mana when your starting out you cast a spell and end up using say eighty of that mana but as you learn and grow more experienced and more knowledgable you can cast that same spell with only eight mana.
Of course a wizard couldn't run out of magic and their was no thing as magical exhaustion that would just be silly.
Tom knew he had magic obviously as did everyone else at hogwart's however over the year's before he entered the magical world he had noticed that there was no core or well of power to his magic that he pulled from and he vividly remember the feeling he got from Dumbledore whenever he saw the man.
At the time his magic was like wild while Dumbledore's power slumbered as calm as a still lake. That had changed since both his arrival to hogwart's and his acquisition of his wand he had already talked about how his magic had been smoother, quicker to answer his wishes and that progress had not stopped.
Everyday his powers grew, everyday he was just that more powerful. Infact if you were to have Tom fight the him of last week he felt he could win without much struggle, you couldn't really define the changes outside of it just being better than the him of a week ago.
His mind turned back to the differences between his own magic and Dumbledores, he had discovered each person's magic was different, Sarah's magic for example while nowhere near as powerful as Dumbledore's let alone his own was wild, warm and bright with like a sunset. With more thought put into it Dumbledore's power was luminous, a transparent being, a window onto a sunlit meadow of strong magic.
Tom's magic was like was a silent storm cloud, flickering with dangerous lightning, building the rotation that threatens a tornado. Tom personally though his own magic was more powerful than Dumbledore's even if the man had him beat in sheer control and skill currently.
After all Tom doubted the man could do what he could without his wand or even create spell's on the spot, not that Tom was at the level of being able to create spells on the spot just quite yet, he still needed at least an hour or two maybe even a day depending on the complexity and scale of the spell.
But compared to most people who take months and years? Sure Dumbledore could also likely devise and invent spell's and or magical objects within a shorter amount of time but Tom felt he was clearly the suprior.
Focusing back on the current matter's continued what he was here for he would do this every day, come here and go over every spell he knew at least once, some may of seen it as tedious or useless seing as he could create his own spell's or just force his magic to do what he wanted and it was likely the original Tom had gone with that approach.
Creating his own magics in place of others with sheer brute force tainted with deranged genius, Tom was not going to ingore that path completely because there was something to but he did however feel different, he knew experience and skill trumped power in most cases, unless the power was overwhelming. He knew he would one day be overwhelmingly powerful but he saw that as no reason to not nurture his skill.
He wanted to get so skilled with magic that he would not need to depend on his sheer power. He knew it was possible, after all Dumbledore kept up with the original Tom's greater power through pure skill alone.
He himself had no desire to be lesser than anyone in any catagory, that included skill.
His yew wand flew into his hand held losely and his eyes gained an unearthly glow as he pulled his might to the forefront. The air around him gained an oppressive pressure one that would make all but the most skilled, talented and powerful feel unsettled and uneasy.
He looked at the dummies and his wand flew through the air his hand a blur, a steady smell of ozone reached his nose, as a result of his colossal power, his magic would bleed out for lack of better term.
His lip's felt a tugging sensation and his cheeks started to rise, he was grinning.
Using magic in any capacity always made him feel content but using it like this? despite doing it every night going all out holding nothing back... it was something different.
Yet again some dark black magic has summoned forth another chapter from the ether.
As usual I will highly advise all readers to not get their hopes up for a consistent schedule of updates, and to be prepared for this to be possibly the last chapter written. I am just that unreliable.
If you feel inspired from anything within my work's be it a charater, a plot, the way the power system works then feel free to take it and put your own twist on it. -X