The first of September was on a Friday, which meant that the teachers got a rare weekend break before classes started.
But because Tom had failed to realize that visual aids were considered a necessary tool for teaching, he ended up spending the entire weekend in the library.
Ilania had pointed this out to him in that annoying way she tended to do: by hiding incredibly helpful pearls of wisdom between her incessant gossiping and her complaints about other teachers, so that he was forced to listen to almost everything she said just to get anything useful out of her.
He had briefly attempted Legilimency to avoid having to talk to her at all, but in the four seconds he'd spent inside her head, all he'd seen were an unreasonable amount of differential equations, which was a mystery that would require its own investigation at some point.
"Why would they need visual aids?" he had asked rather stupidly. "Would the texts not provide those?"
"Teaching new and unfamiliar topics to children becomes much easier with pictures," Ilania explained. "Trust me. They have no attention span when it comes to reading."
Thus Saturday was spent perusing the library's familiar Dark Magic collections, looking for suitable images to replicate and trying to find a happy medium between "only slightly gruesome" and "nauseatingly disgusting" (and tending to favor the latter – the goal was to keep them interested, wasn't it?).
During his fourth trip, as he waded deep into the dusty stacks of the Restricted Section, a voice that was guaranteed to make his day worse called out from behind him.
"I noticed you did not include the Boggart in your lesson plan."
He turned around to see Dumbledore standing at the end of the aisle, a large pile of papers hovering beside him, the look on his face pleasant and friendly and generally annoying.
"I'm sorry?"
"I noticed you did not include the Boggart in your lesson plan," Dumbledore repeated.
"No, sir," Tom said quietly. "As they're magical creatures, I assumed they would be covered in more appropriate classes, like Care of Magical... Creatures..."
Dumbledore smiled. "Ah, I'm afraid I must disagree with you, Tom. The Boggart may not be human, but it is certainly not a beast, either. And as they are common in Britain, and their effects Dark in nature, they are perhaps best covered in a class that focuses on defense against such things, like Defense... Against the Dark... Arts."
He knew perfectly well that Dumbledore was right, of course. The Boggart was a non-being. But one of his worst memories of Hogwarts was of the day he was forced to face a Boggart in class, in front of everyone, and then deal with the whispers and conversation surrounding him afterwards as his classmates tried to interpret what the hell it was they had seen.
Because apparently, at the time, no one at Hogwarts knew what an exploding bomb looked like.
"How-silly-of-me," he muttered through gritted teeth. "I shall rectify the situation, sir."
"Thank you," Dumbledore said politely, nodding his head and strolling off, his stack of papers floating behind him like a loyal but haphazard personal assistant.
But that was not the only criticism Tom's apparent Content Parole Officer intended to make, as it turned out.
"Are you partial to the subject of temporal physics?" Dumbledore had asked after cornering him in the library for a second time that evening.
He was sitting at a table that was covered in books and papers, trying to maintain some modicum of composure despite his growing frustration, and it would have been clear to absolutely anyone else that he was far too busy to talk.
"What?"
"You moved the topic into the sixth-year curriculum. Typically it is taught in the seventh year. If you have a particularly inventive and innovative method of teaching it that sixth years who have not yet learned about elementary transfigurational physics would be able to understand, then I commend you. Do you have such a method?"
Tom sighed, calculating in his mind the logistics of throwing the Killing Curse at Dumbledore in the middle of the library, murdering any witnesses, hiding the bodies, and returning in time to finish his visual aids.
"Probably not," he said.
"Ah, I see. In that case-"
"I'll fix it."
Dumbledore gave a satisfied smile – at his own cleverness, most likely – and disappeared in his usual foreboding, needlessly whimsical fashion.
In the end Tom decided to acquiesce to Dumbledore's requests because, for every approved topic he would be forced to teach, he had three or four banned ones with which to supplement it.
Sunday evening came far too quickly for Tom's liking, and once again he found himself somewhat nervous.
To make things worse, Arithmancy - whose name was Peggy, he now knew, despite being determined not to learn anyone's name who wasn't useful to him - ruined his dinner by casually mentioning to him that he would also be required to oversee study halls periodically.
"Why was I not told this?" he demanded.
"I don't know," Peggy said with a shrug. "It was all explained to me on my first day. At orientation."
"Orientation? You had an orientation?"
"You didn't?"
He was livid. "What do I have to do for this ridiculous, useless study hall requirement?"
"It's simple," she explained, "just check the schedule in the staff room. It will tell you when you are required to be there and where it's being held. But, well…"
"But?"
"I should warn you… New teachers are usually expected to take on most of the study halls."
Ten minutes later, after abandoning his food and storming through the castle in a poorly contained rage, he was staring at the study hall schedule in the staff room.
Predictably, the first three weeks had his name beside them. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he would be required to take two extra hours out of his day to sit in some random classroom and make sure children were doing what they should have been doing in the first place but were apparently too incompetent to be trusted with.
And somehow, despite his best efforts and the confused faces of the other teachers in the room, he could not light the schedule on fire, curse it, or explode it out of existence.
"What're ya doin' there, son?" Tyre asked from the couch by the fire.
"Trying to destroy the study hall schedule."
Tyre nodded. "Aye, we've all been there."
It became apparent by Monday morning that Tom would receive no orientation of any kind. He felt like he was being thrown into the middle of the ocean and told to swim to the nearest continent. He supposed that, at the bare minimum, if he managed to keep all his students alive then it would probably be considered a successful year.
He had no idea just how lofty that goal really was.
Unsurprisingly, he had decided to go with the serious/tough professor approach, with no coddling and no compromise, thinking that strict control over class time would lead to increased dissemination and absorption of content. Or something. The truth of the matter was that the future-Greatest Dark Wizard of All Time had absolutely no idea how to deal with children.
His first class that day, which was also his first class, consisted of third year Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors - hardly the most appealing combination. He wrote his name on the board so that he didn't have to waste time telling them who he was, because they certainly weren't getting an introduction, and as the class filed in he handed the roster to someone in the front row.
"Initial by your names so I know you were here, then pass it along," he instructed.
"Don't you want to know our names, sir?" a Hufflepuff girl in the second row asked in a flirtatious voice that made him extremely uncomfortable.
"Not particularly."
"Professor Merrythought knew all our names," a Gryffindor boy said.
Tom stared at him for a minute. The boy fidgeted uncomfortably under his gaze.
"I am not Professor Merrythought," he stated. "I do not care what your names are. My job is to ensure that you receive your education in the Dark Arts-"
"Don't you mean Defense Against-"
"Defense Against the Dark Arts. Yes, of course." Bloody hell.
There was a moment of silence as the roster was passed from student to student.
Then the Hufflepuff girl raised her hand, leaning over her desk as if she were trying to get as close to him as possible. "Sir?" she asked.
"What?"
"My name's Tilly, sir. I just thought you should know."
"Great."
She raised her hand again. "Professor? Excuse me, Professor?"
"What, Tilly?"
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
The class laughed at her, but she did not care in the least, and many of the other girls in the room were now staring at Tom with burning curiosity.
"That is irrelevant to the matter at hand," he said, forcing himself not to blush through sheer god-like willpower and trying desperately to stifle the impulse to hex anyone that looked at him. Turning an entire class of children into a pile of shrunken heads on the first day was most likely frowned upon. "Can we focus, please?"
Tilly did not look dissuaded, but she kept quiet.
"Now, your second-year curriculum left off with blood curses, both genetic and viral, that manifest beast-like qualities - the werewolf, the maledictus, et cetera - so we will pick up there until the basics are understood and we can move on to something more useful."
Things were calm after that, and Tom almost managed to get through the entire lesson until he made the mistake of asking if anyone had questions. Then it all fell apart.
A short Gryffindor girl raised her hand. "Sir?" she called.
"Yes?"
"If two werewolves have sex, and one gets pregnant, does she have wolf cubs? Or a baby?"
"I don't- why would you even think of-"
"And sir?" It was a Hufflepuff boy this time. "If a woman gives birth to werewolf cubs, how do they turn human?"
"Sir, can werewolves crossbreed with dogs?"
"Is there a chance my rabbit is a maledictus?"
"Can a maledictus be forced to turn into any animal? Can there be, like, a maledictus that has to turn into a maggot?"
The class started talking animatedly and asking questions over each other and Tom had never felt less in control.
"I will turn the next person that asks a question into a maggot myself," he said, his voice low but threatening enough that they still caught it over the din.
They seemed much more intimidated by him after that. Well, except for Tilly, who was inexplicably staring at him with even more longing.
However annoying Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors were, they paled in comparison to the Slytherins.
Tom knew that Slytherins tended to be a bit full of themselves, but he had no idea just how obnoxious they could get until he had to teach them. It was like talking to a room full of brick walls – pompous, privileged, well-connected brick walls that believed they had any class "in the bag" if it was taught by a former Slytherin.
And somehow, despite his loyalty to his house, it gave him the (not entirely irrational) desire to make their lives a living hell.
The fourth year Slytherins were arriving and taking their seats while he tried to prepare the lesson, and it took a minute for him to notice that a short, stocky boy was standing on the other side of the desk, smiling at him like a used broom salesman and offering his hand to shake.
"Sir," he said in a drawling, high-class voice, "my name is Murray. Wallsend Murray. Brilliant to meet you. Perhaps you know my father Hephaestus? He's the Deputy Undersecretary for Education."
"And?" Tom demanded, wondering what the hell kind of sadistic parents would name their child "Wallsend."
"And, well, I thought you might have heard of him."
"Why would I have heard of him?"
"Because… he's… the Deputy Undersecretary for Education."
Tom stared at him, trying to wrap his head around the astonishing level of arrogance. "Brilliant," he muttered. "And when that becomes relevant to today's lesson, I'll let you know, and you can announce it to the class."
The boy sat down looking highly offended.
Like the previous lesson, this one also seemed to be doomed from the start. The next question came as the roster was being passed around.
A girl at the front raised her hand but did not wait to be called on before speaking. "Sir, are you related, by any chance, to the Bordeaux Riddells of France?" She said the word "France" as if challenging anyone else to outdo her in having impressive foreign contacts.
"No."
Someone else raised their hand. "Professor, weren't you a Slytherin?"
"Not that it matters, but yes." He wasn't surprised that they had obtained information about him already. Slytherins sought out intelligence on their enemies better than Russian spies.
And another. "Professor, is it true that you're a half-"
"I'm sorry," he interrupted, "is this an interrogation? Or will I be allowed to teach?"
Strangely, his tone of warning did not seem to intimidate them as much as it did the third years.
Sometime later, a haughty, bored-looking girl interrupted Tom mid-sentence to explain that-
"I don't think that's right, Professor. My mother always said that a jinx was worse than a hex, and she should know because she used to work-"
"Unless your sentence is going to end in 'as a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor,' please stop talking."
"But she was an auror. An auror."
"Saying it twice doesn't make it any more relevant to this lecture."
"But aurors-"
"No."
"But they-"
"No."
The girl eventually resorted to pouting with her arms folded while staring at him with intense dislike.
By the end of the lesson he'd broken up at least two blood purity-related arguments, given the son of the Daily Prophet's Chief Editor detention, and had to explain why one's uncle being on the Board of Governors did not exempt one from homework assignments, all while receiving very disconcerting looks from the girls. At least the fourth years had the decency not to ask him about his marital status. Though, being Slytherins, they probably knew it already.
The study hall, in which the only thing students were required to do was sit quietly and read, was perhaps the worst part of Tom's first day, because the only thing the students absolutely refused to do was sit quietly and read.
Either forcing the first week's study hall duty on the newest teacher was some kind of hazing ritual, or the universe had specially designed this unique brand of torture just for him.
As it was the first day of classes, no one had any real assignments to finish, which meant that the entire thing was largely pointless. The students were keenly aware of this. They were scattered throughout the large, high-ceilinged eighth-floor classroom, chatting and carrying on, and a few were even throwing some sort of ball around. His arrival went unnoticed, even as he walked to the front and took a seat at the teacher's desk. Not a single student acknowledged his existence.
"Sit down, please," he called.
No one responded.
"Sit down," he demanded again.
Nothing.
In a rare and satisfying moment of clarity, he had an idea. Rather than wasting his time trying to call the room to attention, he raised his wand toward the ceiling, muttered a short incantation, then sat back to enjoy the chaos.
The stone archways of the ceiling disappeared as a massive swelling of dark clouds filled the space, growing larger and darker until, finally, rain began to fall. Caught in the sudden downpour, the children scrambled to cover themselves and protect their belongings while Tom conjured a makeshift umbrella and watched them with a smug smile on his face.
It got their attention, to say the least.
"It would be wise," he said, after the rain had stopped and they were finally seated, looking soaked and miserable, "for you to remain quiet for the remainder of this study hall."
And they were quiet… for a while.
But children were children, and before long they were whispering to each other and passing notes and quickly sliding up the scale from somewhat tolerable to generally insufferable again. He managed to confiscate a few of the notes and decided to read them out loud just to reiterate who had command of the room.
"Let us see what is so important you felt the need to break my rules." He held up the first note. "'Who is he? Is he even a teacher?'" he read. "Hm, no. I just really like sitting at the front of the room because it makes me feel important."
He read another one. "'Is that the new DADA professor?' Bully for you, you're observant."
And another. "'DADA is a… dish.'" A considerable amount of snickering and giggling occurred after that. "Well, thank you for that, I suppose. Would anyone else like to comment on my appearance?"
He'd said it sarcastically. It was supposed to be sarcasm.
But several hands went into the air.
"The next person that makes a noise will receive an inordinately painful amount of detentions," he said, trying not to appear embarrassed. "You are at school. Sit and read."
"But sir?" called an older boy from the back who obviously had no concern for his own safety. "We don't have anything to read yet. It's the beginning of the term."
"Then sit and stare at the bloody wall."
Within twenty minutes the room had begun to fill with whispers and chatter again, and he reverted to the only method that seemed to work.
The next morning, Slughorn stopped him in the hallway, looking confused.
"Er, Tom, I hate to ask, but..."
"Yes?"
"You didn't happen to, er… conjure a thunderstorm on top of the Monday night study hall, did you?"
"I did."
"Twice?"
"Yes."
"May I ask why?"
"Because they deserved it."
Slughorn winced. "I see, I see… Well, I must be honest, Tom, violent weather phenomena are not on our list of approved disciplinary practices, but I commend your creativity. Anyway, I know study halls can be quite a chore, and I do regret having to put your name down for the first week-"
"You made the schedule?"
He shrugged. "It's one of the few things Dumbledore trusts me with. Though, I admit I'd very much prefer not having to do it."
"Such a trivial administrative task is not worth your time, sir. I can take it on, if you like."
"Are you sure?" Slughorn appeared intrigued and concerned at the same time. "It's quite tedious."
"I don't mind. Is the entire staff eligible for study hall duty?"
"Yes. Well, everyone except Dippet, which is understandable, you know."
He smiled. "It won't be a problem, Horace. I'll take care of it."
There were a number of impressive achievements of which Tom was proud, of course: he'd opened the Chamber of Secrets; he'd made multiple Horcruxes, which no one had done before; and he'd even successfully framed someone for murder. Twice. But never had he felt more satisfied than when he had managed to obtain control of study hall duty, which he decided he would wield like a deadly weapon of agonizing inconvenience against anyone that annoyed him. Anyone.
a/n: "Dish" = 1940s slang for attractive
to I. M. Amage: What does Dumbledore have against von Neumann? We may find out… Alternatively, we may not.
to marvynthephoenix: Is it Tom/Minerva? lol. Let's just say… lol. vOv
…lol