Here is the next chapter. For future reference Tom Senior is Tom Riddle and Tom Junior is Harry Potter. Please read and review thanks, love Angel x
By the morning all students and staff alike had seen the new rules as Cedrella had wanted everyone out there to be informed of them at once. Tom had read them feeling great. He entered the office of Severus to see the man nervously pacing. He looked highly freaked out at the new rules. Tom chuckled slightly. "Good morning Severus. I can tell that accidents happen when someone is not taught how to prevent them. I have a task for you. It is not as mundane as what I asked Lucius to do but here it is. You will teach all year's potions safety and why it is always important to follow instructions thoroughly and only one time. This way if they get it wrong and get hurt it will be their fault. When you know you will teach Gryffindors who do love to get a rise out of people you will take one calming draft before that lesson no exceptions. I will provide these for you because I do not wish for you to have unnecessary expenses and besides which I have more than enough money to buy several years' worth of supplies at a moment's notice!" he said seriously making Severus reel. If he'd expected his master to say anything this wouldn't have been it. In all honesty he didn't know what he had really expected but it wasn't this that's for sure.
"Ok I will do it. Given I no longer need worry about Albus all the time. His new deputy Head is actually rather fair. I warn you now though all students will get one chance only and if they elect to not listen and then get hurt it is on them!" he snapped irritated. Tom snapped his fingers as a small bag was deposited by Lolly onto the desk of Severus. It was undetectably extended and filled with all of the calming drafts he'd ever need whilst Tom still attended school. It was amazing and weightless. It had cost him twenty thousand galleons but he didn't care if it meant Severus was better at teaching his lessons now.
"From now on in your lessons I will be pairing with Ronald Weasley my best friend and Daphne will be pairing with Tracey her own best friend. You should know that both Ronald and I have received special gifts from our house elves. We always get violently sick when we floo so they have given us the ability to travel the elven way easily. We have inherited some of their abilities as well but I don't know if they meant to do that or not. It may have been an accident. Blaise and Neville will also sit together and Ron and I will ward their desks the elven way so no accidents can happen. This is non-negotiable. I will not be warding Draco's desk as he needs to learn some lessons Lucy isn't teaching him!" he snapped as Severus rounded on him looking highly annoyed and shocked.
"You will no such thing until such a time as you can show me. I will make an explosive but harmless potion just now and I want you to ward this desk. If it works you may do as you like!" he said doing so stunned entirely when the ward worked and not only that forced whatever had exploded out of the cauldron into a compressed ball which it then deposited back into the cauldron again. Severus was amazed completely. If others knew what Ron and Tom had done with their elves it would change society as they knew it but he knew never to share it so it wasn't a problem. Hermione reviewed the new rules with a scowl. She was missing out on her DADA lesson today because apparently that classroom needed to be examined. She burst into tears when it was quite literally blasted to pieces feeling utterly hopeless. She was further stunned when some black screaming gunk came off the walls at all angles before disappearing. The room was the repaired and filled with brand new seats and desks as they had been destroyed beyond repair in the process. That was a relief but as she thought of complaining to Dumbledore about it she figured he wouldn't have authorised it if it wasn't necessary. She didn't realise of course that he'd had no say whatsoever in anything new happening.
All classrooms now had brand new chairs and desks something Minerva herself was thrilled with. It was much needed. Also the tables and chairs in the great hall had been replaced by brand new tables and chairs with backs on them now. All were rather generic actually but at least the seats did now provide back support and you could have your own comfy seat instead of being crammed onto benches like sardines in a can. The changes actually were only small ones really. The infirmary had gotten brand new beds and supplies to Madam Pomfreys joy. Nothing which hadn't truly needed to be touched had been changed.
Albus was utterly stunned. In all the hubbub going on he'd not even noticed the Philosophers Stone was now gone. When he did find out he was furious and even stunned to the core when it turned up in none other than Professor Quirrels old quarters. When he had signed that parchment Cedrella had asked them all to sign he hadn't died because he didn't yet want Tom to die. He only wanted to micromanage and control every aspect of his life. With Tom dead now nothing good could come of it so it was always just better for him to die later on and not by the hand of Albus. He wasn't a fool and knew how these things worked.
Years from now when necessary he would insure Tom and Voldemort faced off against one another somewhere public and furthermore that Tom would die so he could kill Voldemort himself and bask in the glory he'd earned. Everyone would love him for being the one to defeat Voldemort in the end and he knew it. He would then tell them in a calm humble sounding voice that he was only doing his duty to the citizens of Magical Britain to keep them safe. Then Aberforth would have to come crawling back to him and apologise to him for hating him so much over the death of Arianna. The truth is no one knew precisely who had killed her and he simply couldn't forgive Aberforth for always just assuming it had been him. Gellert had been wrong something he'd found so very hard to accept but he'd had no choice but to face it in the end. He couldn't have Gellert outshining him when they'd agreed that would never happen but Gellert then decided to try and backtrack taking all the credit for himself. Albus was a Gryffindor and everyone knew or should have known at least that credit always goes to Gryffindor in every situation for being brave and so on until the end.
Having been the best Gryffindor there ever was in the best house that had ever existed at Hogwarts Albus knew he'd always be the best. He'd needed to lock Gellert away, his lover, to stop him taking all the credit all the time for everything he was doing. Albus wasn't actually doing any of it but he didn't want Gellert getting any credit which should have gone to him. He collected the Philosophers Stone or what he thought it was anyway and brought it back to his office. However he could feel no magic whatsoever on it. It was an exact replica and only just that. He almost trashed his own office in rage. Clearly Quirinous had been better then he looked. He had obviously known somehow that Albus would be onto him hot foot and had created the fake while storing the real stone somewhere else before Albus had the chance to even test Tom's abilities. Well then he'd need to do it another way. He'd figure that out somehow.
He did hate admitting it but Cedrella was better in every way Minerva had been bad and was taking full responsibility for her role and all the jobs it entailed. He was angry that no one consulted him any longer on whether a student should be expelled or not but was entirely stunned when every member of the board of governors told him to relax and that they themselves would deal with any of the fall out. That had not truly been his concern and he was annoyed as they seemed to have thought of everything. He could do nothing at all to persuade them that he should be the one to decide things like that. When he did try they had told him in no uncertain terms that he had enough to be getting on with and should not be focused on things like this. It had been a thinly veiled threat that he either did his job the way they wanted him to do it or he'd be replaced something he found very difficult to take. Maybe the board needed some new members who were supportive of him in every way. It was time to contact Horace Slughorn and Dedalius Diggle amongst others. They would change things in his favour and he'd make sure of it.