Teaching History (is Old News)

5 - Familiars

Instead of a peaceful morning, Tom wakes to an owl attempting to peck him to death.

Immediately, Tom tries a wordless stupefy but the owl spins out of the way and flies into Potter's arms.

"Hedwig!" Potter beams, dressed in obnoxiously yellow polka dot pyjamas, "You're back!"

The demon owl that Tom recalls from First Year, trailing behind Potter as obsessively as his growing army of paper cranes, coos in response.

"If you could train your owl not to attack me on sight, I might consider not transfiguring it into a bookmark. Also, when did you cancel out my silencing spell?" Tom's wandless charms usually last over twenty four hours before fading away. He's never met anyone who cancelled it out before.

"Oh, you missed last night. Hit the couch instead of me. So I just pretended to sleep!"

There has never been anyone that Tom has wanted to strangle more. He isn't surprised that Potter dodged his spell. Potter was like this when they were younger too, always able to dodge Malfoy's attacks in the corridor. Reflexes from being an exceptional Quidditch player, no doubt, even if he did quit the team later. But he is irritated that Potter stayed quiet about it until now.

"You could have said something," Tom regrets saying immediately. If anything, he should be impressed that Potter has some sliver of self-preservation.

"I know how much you like your beauty rest."

Never mind. No self-preservation at all.

Potter's owl hoots irritably, raising up a package tied to her leg.

"Good girl, Hedwig! You brought my supplies!"

Knowing Potter, these supplies could range from anything as random as another shipment of pom-poms or another lumpy sweater. However, when Potter simply unwraps textbooks on meditation and reading dreams, Tom finds himself oddly disappointed. Then irritated. He's been cohabiting with Potter for too long if he's come to accept Potter's oddities as normal.

"Oh, awesome," Potter de-shrinks another package, "the pickled eggplants are in! Here you go, Riddle!"

He levitates over a dozen jars of pickled vegetables over Tom's pillow.

"Out," he snaps, vanishing the jars to Potter's couch downstairs. "Just—get. Out!"

"Does that mean I didn't buy enough?"

"We have classes to teach today, get out!"

:

When Tom comes downstairs to their office, Potter's hammock is already put away and Potter busies himself with cleaning his owl's feathers.

"Don't forget your bag. It's on the desk," Potter calls out.

"I won't," Tom snaps. Unlike some people, Tom doesn't forget things. "I hope you won't be letting that owl stay in here. There's an owlery for a reason."

If Tom has to deal with feathers, dead mice, and bird waste on top of Potter's origami and insulting sweaters, he will kill that owl. He remembers how often that owl would swoop in on him and peck his bag during Charms back in Third Year (Flitwick was too fond of owls to ban the thing from the classroom, unlike the other professors.) Potter has never been able to control that thing. If anything, Potter listens to the owl's orders instead of the other way around.

"She'll be visiting from time to time, but don't worry, she won't sleep here. She's sweet on this Hogwarts barn owl, aren't you, girl?"

…Too much information.

"By the way, Riddle, I haven't seen your snake around lately. Do you still have her?"

"Of course I do. Nagini is merely wandering around the school." Specifically, Nagini will be his eyes, gathering information. There's no harm in telling Potter. Most familiars are given free reign around Hogwarts provided they don't interrupt classes or attack students. Hence why Potter's owl was allowed to follow him around during their school days. An uncommon (and annoying) choice for a familiar.

"Ooooo, I should bake her some snacks."

"Don't. I would rather avoid poison."

"I would never try to poison such a gorgeous creature! I love snakes! Nagini has the most polished green scales—"

Merlin, Tom forgot how fond Nagini and Potter are of each other. Nagini hasn't stopped by his office since orientation. Back in school, Nagini would always whine that Tom should dote on her as Potter does, feed her more, pet her more, pay attention more. He refuses to go through that again.

[I would stay away from Nagini from now on,] Tom hisses in Parseltongue. A useful trick for controlling his followers and getting strangers to back away. Even the bravest of witches and wizards look at him warily after hearing him speak.

"Oh!" Potter's face lights up, "Are you asking her to come by and say hello?"

Tom stiffens.

"It's so cool how you can talk to your snakes, Riddle. I wish I could talk to Hedwig. Actually maybe not. She's probably lecture me for all the shit I pull, but still, talking to snakes—"

Tom turns away. "I'm going to breakfast."

"Oh, wait for me! Bye Hedwig!"

Tom doesn't wait. But he doesn't speed up as he usually does either.

He forgot that Potter liked his Parseltongue. He forgot a lot of things about Potter in the last two years.

It won't do to be this careless.

EDITED CHAPTER - Nov 15, 2019