Harry marched up to the desk and set the pile of fabric and sword clattering upon the wood. Dumbledore's eyes traveled along them, picking up clues as they went, though he didn't touch them.
"Sir, with all due respect…prepare yourself."
"Forgive me, Harry, but I am an old man, and one of the benefits, as well as tragedies of age is that very few things surprise you."
"Hold on to that thought, Sir."
Harry took the tip of Tom's hood pulled it back.
The moment Tom's face was visible, Dumbledore shot up as if he'd sat on a spring, knocking back his chair, its legs making a screeching noise on the wood, his face going white. A stick, much like Harry's, aimed at Tom's chest before Tom even saw him dig in his pocket, and his grip was so tight his knuckles were white too, though his hand was perfectly steady.
His blue eyes blazed like Harry's had green, but Harry's gaze was turbulent, poisoned waters, and the calmness behind this blaze was something far more disturbing. This gentility pierced through him, creating a hole through which he could peer into his very soul.
Tom got the sudden urge to bite at him, as if he were some animal with venomous fangs. Instead, he simply put his hands in his pockets and said,
"Well, I appear to be quite popular, don't I?"
Dumbledore looked from Tom to Harry, confusion added to the never-dwindling flames, his grip still poised on what Tom hoped it wasn't stupid to think was a wand.
"He doesn't remember anything. Or at least…he claims not to." Harry gave him the side-eye. "Didn't even know his name till I told him." When Dumbledore said nothingHarry added; "Well, he didn't try to kill me—at least not after he woke up—and he did let me take him to you. So make of that what you will, Sir."
Dumbledore walked around his desk to get closer to him, never lowering the wand; then circled Tom like an animal deciding if he was worth pouncing on, and put it to his throat, tipping his chin up with it, examining him. Tom hoped his own eyes were as venomous as theirs.
Closer up Tom realized that blue wasn't calm. It was Harry's turbulent waters frozen over in the midst of their raging; the storm ever ready to break out of its icy prison and wreak more havoc upon the world than any of them could bear. But, for now, they simply stared at each other across the too-quiet tundra, two rivals frozen in time, waiting for something to break.
"How is it that a young Tom Riddle finds himself at my school?" Dumbledore's voice was level, and altogether too soft, but behind it was the sound of slowly weakening ice.
Why and how did Tom find himself without memory in the presence of his enemies? Especially as they seemed to be just as surprised at this fact as he was.
"You still have the diary, right?" Harry asked.
Tom didn't want to lose the staring contest, wanted to see what kind of thing would break out, but dug the mangled diary out of his pocket all the same. Before he could put it on the desk, Dumbledore took it from his hand, and though his grip was not harsh, it was rather direct.
Tom couldn't see why the object was so telling, what with all the nothing it contained.
Flipping through what pages were left of it, Dumbledore's eyes flickered to Tom every few seconds, his wand never wavering. When he saw the name at the front, recognition dawned on him, and his icy gaze rested again upon its apparent owner.
Tom was starting to hate those eyes.
Tom was more than ready to hear the explanation for this whole situation—he was being very patient, if he said so himself—but none came. Instead Dumbledore looked at Harry, his gaze much softer and asked, more quietly than before, the question trailing off,
"I presume Miss Weasley is…?"
Harry didn't even have to nod.
She must have been the corpse.
Something very sad indeed set into Dumbledore's eyes, and at last his gaze shifted. He didn't look at Tom, instead he seemed to deflate slightly, sitting on the edge of the desk, his eyes falling to the floor, his voice like a breath of wind before the thunder,
"Such a shame…she was a lovely girl. It is, I think, the greatest tragedy when a young life is snuffed out."
And now it seemed he was deliberately refusing to look at Tom. As if, if he did, all those waves would shatter out of their finely crafted cages, and send them both tumbling into an oblivion of cold despair.
"Now how would an object of such nature come into Miss Weasley's possession?" Dumbledore asked softly.
"I—" Harry swallowed. "I don't know how she got it—" The thought of speaking her name appeared to be constricting his throat. "All I know is…She…She's been writing in it, and he's been…"—Harry looked down—"writing back." He said the words like returning correspondences was an action reserved for the worst of villains.
"She was the one writing the messages on the walls?"
Harry gave a single, jerky nod.
"Oh dear."
Before Harry could continue his explanation, Dumbledore raised a hand to stop him. "Harry, would you mind fetching Professor Snape? Explain to him what has happened—be as detailed as you can. Tell him to bring the strongest truth serum he has. As well as that bottle of mead, if he happens to still have it."
Harry paused a moment, then his feet sounded against the floorboards, and the door shut with a creak and a bang.
Dumbledore sighed, his eyes grazing over the dismembered diary, before at last settling on Tom—
Was he still breathing? Tom wasn't sure. He had to look away.
Pity. That was it. That was what he hated most about the way this man looked at him. Harry's hate was bearable. But this pity, this looking down on him was what he couldn't take.
Tom glanced at Dumbledore's wand, which had never once moved throughout this whole conversation.
"Isn't your arm getting tired?" He grunted.
"A little, yes." Dumbledore answered, and didn't move a millimeter.
He was expecting Dumbledore to question him, or threaten him, to say something, anything at all, yet he just sat there, looking at him with that gaze like suffocation.
Tom looked anywhere but him. At the bookcase, at the sword, the tattered fabric he now realized was a hat, the bird which landed on the desk next to Dumbledore, and back to the stick in his hand.
"That's…" Tom paused, unsure he wanted to ask, for surely he'd sound stupid, "a wand…isn't it?"
There was something lurking in his voice, a longing he didn't realize was there until he said it aloud.
Dumbledore didn't answer right away.
"Yes, it is."
Something bubbled in Tom's chest at these words, desire, longing, possibly dark.
"So…So one of you put a spell on me to make me forget? Is that it?"
"Well, I do not have the full story, nor should I presume to know the answers, however…if I am correct in my understanding…this has the mark of your own handiwork."
Tom blinked up at him. "I did this to myself?"
"Not, intentionally, I am sure."
"So…I can do magic?" He looked at his hands as if hoping to see magic flowing through his veins.
Dumbledore didn't respond.
"So where's my wand?" he asked in an almost greedy way.
"I'm afraid I cannot help you there, Tom. I'm not privy to where you keep your valuables."
"Would you care to explain to me what's going on?" Tom tried to keep his temper from his voice.
"Not until we know what you know," Dumbledore replied simply. That calm tone was aggravating.
"You already do!" He stood. "I don't know anything!"
"I would prefer to confirm this fact before divulging any information."
Tom fell back into his seat, looking away bitterly and biting his lip
"…Who was that girl?" he grunted after a moment, "The one who died."
Dumbledore sighed, seemingly deciding this was a question he could safely answer.
"Her name was Ginny Weasley. She was a few years younger than yourself."—Ah, so Tom was indeed young—"Kind, spirited…I like to think she would have grown up to be a fine woman some day… I am not looking forward to giving her family the news."
"Yes but who was she? Why was she killed? Was she important?"
"Important?"
Tom made yet another discovery about Dumbledore's eyes: There was fire trapped behind that ice; the most violet and vibrant he'd ever seen. The two elements were forever at odds, for if the fire melted the ice, the resulting water would extinguish it.
"You ask this as if she was some tool to be used. She was a person, like you and me; of course she was important."
Ah. So he was one of those sentimental types.
"Where are we?"
Another pause. "Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
Tom blinked, feeling that desire rear up in him again, and perhaps the echoes of a memory.
"That's a funny name for a school."
"Yes I suppose it is."
Tom sighed, looking at the wand again. "Do you think you could...you know, stop pointing that at me? I'm unarmed, I can't exactly—"
"There are a number of things I could do, Tom," said the fire, "be grateful I am choosing this."
Well. That was cryptic. Obviously he had deemed Tom a threat. Tom rather liked the thought of being a threat, he just wished he knew why he was being deemed so, and if it was justified.
There was another pause.
"So you teach…magic."
"Yes."
"…Will you teach me?"
Those eyes flickered, betraying something dark in him. "I already have, once."
"That means you could to it again, correct? Will you?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On how you will use it."
