Teaching History (is Old News)
13 - School Days: Pushed
Dumbledore takes the hat off Tom's head just as students start to cry out in shock.
"Not to worry everyone," Dumbledore says calmly, "Just a minor influx of magic that happens once every hundred years. One reparo spell," he waves his wand, enveloping all the glass shards back together, whole, "and we'll be right as rain."
"Influx of magic?!" Longbottom looks ready to drop dead at any moment. Around him several other First Years begin to shout too.
So much for calming the masses. Tom glares at the smirking hat, at Dumbledore, at everyone gossiping down below in futile panic. They all point at Tom and whisper about unnatural magic (like the orphanage), they all stare at him in awe or fear.
"Rookwood, Adams," Dumbledore tries to move on with the sorting, despite the growing whispers. No one will shut up. Whispers climbing on top of whispers and not a soul with the thought to think and stay silent, not a soul but Potter.
Potter is like an unnoticeable breed of plant, being strangled by the louder weeds surrounding him. Tom can barely see Potter's face, only the top of his head hidden behind taller shoulders of older students.
Tom stares at him regardless, his mirror, trying to will Potter to stare back. But Potter doesn't. Tom resists the urge to lash out with magic. Aren't mirror images supposed to be one and the same? Shouldn't they stare back at their originals? They have to. It's the law of reflection, one that Potter is continuously ignoring. Look at me, Tom thinks, show me that you're special too.
And yet, Potter refuses. No, Potter doesn't even acknowledge Tom's existence. His little head is bowed down, transfixed on the cutlery, as if it holds greater magic than Tom could ever possess.
Dumbledore gently taps Tom's shoulder and that's when Tom moves off the stool.
Fine. Tom grits his teeth and smooths out his expression. He descends down the steps, head held high, gaze fixed above them all. He's better than this. All of it.
:
Very quickly, Tom establishes himself as the top student of all four houses. He smiles at the right people, charms all his professors (Dumbledore doesn't count), and has his housemates listening to his every beck and call. Even if the rest of the student populace glances at him in worry or fear from the sorting incident, Tom quickly charms them over with his act. It's an interesting role to play, very different from the quiet menacing dictator he plays at the orphanage, but even with all the attention he receives from the student body, his mirror refuses to look back.
Harry Potter, despite core similarities, seems to be his opposite. His grades are average. Tom heard that Potter made a cauldron explode in potions (though he suspects Longbottom to be the culprit there.) His spells are erratic, either too powerful or too weak. He doesn't seem particularly skilled in any subject and he's too quiet, only hanging around Longbottom when they share classes or listening to the older students in Gryffindor.
He doesn't actively seek Tom out, he doesn't sing Tom's praises like everyone else. He shows the same level of courtesy to Tom as he does to everyone else. As if Tom is just as average as the rest of the student body here.
At that thought, the quill in Tom's hand snaps and burns up into tiny pieces of ash.
Potter's the one who's average, the one who fails to live up to his full potential as Tom's mirror image, not Tom. And for that, Tom will not forgive him. Tom will not disgrace himself to be the one who seeks Potter out first.
:
For a long time, they barely acknowledge each other, pretending to be strangers, becoming strangers. Tom almost forgets that he felt something like a connection to this quiet Gryffindor boy.
Almost.
:
But on Halloween, Tom runs into Potter by the top of the staircase. If he were superstitious, he would call Potter his ghost instead of his mirror image, but Tom has only ever believed in himself as a greater power.
"Hello Tom," Potter whispers, ruining Tom's plan to ignore his existence as Potter has ignored his.
Tom only nods. For some reason, he doesn't move downstairs. He finds himself lingering by Potter. Waiting. His gaze lingers on Potter's face, on the baggy eyes and thinner form.
"You should be at the feast," Tom says without thinking.
"So should you."
Tom doesn't reply to that. They stand in silence for a minute longer, staring at each other as if they could be mirror images, only opposite. Tom's tie is green while Potter's is red. Potter wears glasses, Tom does not. Potter looks ready to fall over while Tom has gained a healthier weight over the past two months.
"…I am not fond of this holiday." Too noisy. Too sweet. Tom would rather read up on Samhain rituals and wizarding culture instead of this bastardization of the day of souls.
Potter's lips twitch up. "Another thing we have in common."
Tom only shrugs. Another reason to curse that hat for putting Potter in another house. Another reason to detest Potter for not seeking Tom out.
"My parents died today, when I was four," Potter whispers, staring straight ahead at the suits of armor lining the walls.
The sudden topic makes Tom go still. Is Potter opening up to him? Seeking comfort? For some reason, Tom feels triumphant, as if he's somehow won a complex game against his mirror.
"I watched them die," Potter continues, his gaze transfixed on another time, elsewhere, "I shouldn't remember… but I do. Sometimes, I hear my mother screaming at him to let me go…"
Tom grabs that information hungrily. "Who…?"
Potter's gaze flickers to Tom and back to the armor. "I don't know sometimes, even though I saw it all."
Well, Tom thinks, Potter was only four.
"Have you asked anyone? Surely there was an investigation…"
But Potter doesn't reply.
This situation requires delicacy, a comforting tone. Tom should play the kind friend, the pillar of comfort, but all he wants to do is hiss look at me, to drag Potter back to the present.
"It won't matter. The details won't make sense to me. I'll get them confused with the others. Halloween almost makes me so confused…" Potter frowns, rubbing at his forehead. "You… Are you really here, right now, Tom? Are you real?"
Tom frowns, wondering if Potter is ill. Perhaps he should coax the boy into the hospital wing… possibly Potter ate something contaminated early this morning.
"I am just as real as you are. If you want, you can take my hand." Tom will lead him to Madam Pomphrey.
"Oh… but you're here with me…" Potter mumbles as Tom tugs him towards the first step on the staircase, "when you should hate me… You must be so upset that I'm avoiding you. But it's hard to look at you. You remind me of my parents…"
Tom stops. "How do I remind you of your parents?" Are he and Harry actually related? Was Tom abandoned while the Potter's extended family only kept Harry? Kept the more human mirror?
"You're still Tom Riddle, no matter what time you're in, aren't you?" Potter looks at the paintings above them, his gaze blank and elsewhere. Tom wants to shake him.
He almost does when—
"Do you steal trophies from the other children, Tom?"
How does Potter know that? Tom tries to move Potter's head towards him, but that gaze keeps looking elsewhere…
"Do you hang rabbits from rafters?"
What? That's ridiculous! Tom would never be that obvious with his revenge on Billy. "Potter—"
"Do you think of killing them in their sleep?"
"Stop it—"
"When you walk these halls, do you have dreams of everyone submitting to you and fearing your name?"
"I said stop it!"
Tom pushes him. Then regrets it as he watches his mirror image fall backwards with a twisted smile on his face, watches his mirror twist his body forwards, as if to embrace the fall.
"STOP IT!"
Tom's magic tries to catch him, tries to stall the damage, but Potter's forehead still manages to hit the edge of the railing in a startling crack, and then there's blood, blood, blood, bleeding over blank green eyes…
"Potter!" Tom goes to him, tries to stop the bleeding, only to get red stains over his robes. "Harry!" He can't think, can't help but think of seeing Potter fall with a smile as if Tom had punched his own mirror and laughed over the cracked shards.
He needs to think, needs to find—
Tom gathers Potter up in his arms, rushes to the hospital wing, ignores Madam Pomphrey's bewildered gasp.
"Help him," Tom orders, in a tone he will one day use on his future followers. "Get rid of the blood."
But Tom, a voice like Potter's seems to echo in his head, red is your colour.
EDITED CHAPTER - Nov 15, 2019