A/N: Hello, everyone. No, I am not dead, and I apologise profusely for giving you guys enough reasons to believe that I am. I know this will probably be the oldest and most unbelievable excuse in the book, but I have had a massive writer's block a few months back. I kept breaking off my train of thoughts and could not seem to be able to finish what I had already laid out for this chapter. Even now, I still have this weird itch that this chapter has turned out to be a fascinating piece of crap that had every character become OOC beyond reasons (more than they already did, anyway xD). Tom will be in Hogwarts in the next chapter, so I do hope that the storyline will stop being stagnant.
Really, sorry again for updating so late, and enjoy the chapter!
In which Tom got royally sick of vulgar grandparents, of impotent father, of ancestors with unoriginal naming sense, of irritating bearded old man (that was probably queer as fuck), and of morons overload in general.
Three weeks into his eleventh birthday, Tom came belatedly to the conclusion that he was surrounded by idiots.
It was the fact that it took three whole months for his toadies to refrain from generating verses that started with the word 'fornicating' in his scripture. (Apparently, the 'f' word resonated with something deep within preteens and post-toddlers - which said wonders about their credibility as semi-sophisticated human beings). As an effort of subtle antagonising, Tom even needed to set his snakes on them in the toilets. Repeatedly.
It was also the fact that Hermione returned from Egypt just a few days shied of his ninth birthday looking half-Amazonian and somehow still having a massive existential crisis (or so Sirius claimed, anyway). His guardians got into a spectacular fight, the content of which was guarded zealously away from his prying ears (which were unbelievably unfair, especially since he had been so gracious as to forgive Hermione's transgression of leaving him alone with Sirius for nigh on a year). They made up much later, but it didn't lessen Tom's spurned pride and had him giving them stink eyes for weeks (the perfect form of which he learned from her, by the way).
It was also the fact that Sirius got caught in a compromising position with an inadequate-looking man with a pretentious first name (Mr. Pretentious Nott, as Hermione duped him) and had his face all over the newspapers and magazines across the country for inappropriate behaviours. The overwhelming level of scandalisation and backlashes from high society got to the point where Tom had to ask Hermione in his most serious voice whether or not it was possible for them to ditch Sirius and change their last name and start living in a hut in the woods until the shenanigans died out. Hermione said no, of course, with her trademark disapproving look at Tom and a sigh so long it made him felt exhausted in her place. He then asked, even more solemnly, if he would be allowed to turn prying wizarding neighbours into pigs the next time they snoop around the house spying on 'that scandalous gentleman and his probably out-of-wedlock kids'. Interestingly, Hermione wisely said nothing to that. Tom took it as an encouragement, and proceeded with zeal. Sirius were incandescent with rage by the whole thing (not the neighbors-turning-pigs bit, anyhow), and had had to be suspended from work and chained down by Hermione to be prevented from storming over to flay Mr. Pretentious alive and cut 'that delusional Greengrass whore' to pieces. Pity. Tom would have helped. They sounded positively awful.
It ended, though, just as spectacularly as it had begun, with pictures and news of a clandestine meeting between the Nott person and the Greengrass person in question started appearing indiscriminately on every front pages of every newspaper and magazine in England. At the same time, talks had been circulating in the high society of a previous matchmaking session between the poor framed Sirius Black and the vindictive jilted Miss Greengrass that had ended in plates being broken ('The waiter was clumsy', said Sirius) and tears being shed ('The onions in her dish was too raw', said Sirius). And what do you know, Mr. Nott had been coincidentally beside their table the whole time! A disturbing yet exceptionally vivid picture of a jilted (possible) lover and an ambitious political rival coming together with a scandalous plot to frame the unsuspecting Mr. Black to the depth of hell started painting themselves on everyone's mind, and Tom's family got away unscathed. The incident forced Tom to reassess the resourcefulness of his step-father, though, seeing as he managed the entire drama in just three days after being released from Hermione's needlessly strong magical chains.
As if those weren't enough stupidity to last for a lifetime, Tom was forced to witness first hand the catastrophe that was the on-again-off-again engagement between cousin Dorea and Charlus Potter. Despite being all over each other for ninety-eight percent of time (subjecting Tom and all younger cousins to some very unhealthy PDAs that would surely put them off of romance for decades to come), the two somehow got a bad case of pre-marital breakdown and both families were dragged free-fall alongside them.
"I'm eighteen!" Dorea shrieked hysterically, bawling her eyes out and scaring her cousins (Tom nearly included) shitless, "I have barely left Hogwarts! I have never even see the world! Mother! Did you know that there was a very dashing Abott boy in Ravenclaw who kept blushing and couldn't meet my eyes at the Dueling club? How could I not know people like him exists and already I'm getting married?"
It was official. Everyone's favorite cousin (really, even to Hermione!) had crossed the temporary hysterical lines and on the verge of becoming a permanent inhabitant of bonker town.
Cousin Callidora, who was hoisting her whiny son up on her hip, drily reminded Dorea that eighteen was a perfectly reputable age to get married at, as per tradition, even staring pointedly at her nose-running son as if to prove a point. Cousin Lycoris, who was in mourning for a third husband, scowled and pointed out undiplomatically that at least Dorea was having a husband soon, and that if it made her feel any better, the Potter boy at least had pretty teeth and muscular forearms. Cousin Charis claimed most emphatically that Abotts were weasels and their indecisiveness were contagious, Dorea should really have known better. And cousin Marius chose that exact moment to enquired mildly if Dorea made it a habit to look choir boys in the eye while dueling.
Charlus Potter also proved to have a fatal case of gamophobia, seeing as news of him continuously trying to fly off to Neverland on his broom made it to the Black household on a daily basis. The Potters showed their commitment to the arrangement by locking him in a cellar and writing heartfelt apologies to Sirius Black II. The Head of the House of Black was outraged, Hermione was bemused, Sirius was entertained beyond words, Tom had nearly developed a permanent migraine, and all other Blacks seemed to be on the verge of drowning themselves. The miserable couple got married in the end, but the precarious state of mental health of all involved couldn't seem to get any better for years.
By the time the bearded old man with a questionable sense of fashion and surprisingly presumptuous demeanours rang their doorbell one fine morning in August, Tom had fairly choked to the brim with idiocy of the highest level.
Upon opening the door and beholding the supposedly wise old man in the woods, in all his twinkling probing eyes and overgrown red mane glory, Tom plastered on his Good Boy smile and tightened his hold on the door knob:
"Hello, Sir. How may I help you?"
It was tiresome, sometimes, to act the good kid when several of the instincts in his body were telling him to give the person in front of him a stomp on the foot and a slam of the door to the face. He had never been the stomping-on-foot kind of person (it is clearly beneath his dignity, after all), but there was something inherently... uncomfortable about the man's gaze that made him want to react badly to it. It did not help at all that the queer old man was fairly humming with magical power (more so than any other wizards or witches Tom had met), and a part of Tom immediately flared up with territorial indignation the likes of which startled even himself.
"Mister Riddle?" The man gave an easy smile in the midst of all that beard and stretched out his arm in one smooth movement, "Professor Dumbledore Of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Nice to meet you, young man. Is any of your guardians home right now?"
Just one word - 'Hogwarts', and Tom felt an immeasurable amount of offenses crawled up his throat like bile. Normal magical students of respectable families all received their letters through owls, which was both standardised and decorous. With this Professor's appearance in front of Tom's door, though... How dare these people treat him like a bloody... Muggleborn?('Mudblood' was a forbidden word in his family, though Tom really couldn't help letting some of his minions' uncultured talks rubbing off on him.)
Tom had half a mind to restrain himself and flaunt a Good Boy response at the old man, but stopped himself at the last minute. He really did not feel like forcing himself this early in the morning. And so Tom let loose his deadpanned stare:
"A letter would have sufficed, Professor."
Dumbledore did not seem to be fazed by that, though it wasn't as if Tom was expecting him to be. The old man gave a low chuckle:
"So it would have, young man, if your... family's situation was not as complicated as it was." He looked at Tom with insufferable serenity, "And really, this is not something ones discuss on the front steps, Mister Riddle. May I meet with your guardians?"
Hermione chose that inconvenient moment to call out from upstair:
"Is that a guest, Tom? Who is it?"
Tom swallowed down a curse, stepping back with the door opened wider and flashing another Good Boy smile at the old man:
"Most certainly, Sir. Please come in."
Five minutes into the conversation and Tom already had this horrible inkling that Hermione knew this Professor Dumbledore beforehand. For nigh on a minute after their introduction, she had stared at the old man with a dumbfounded expression the likes of which reserved mostly to ghosts and/or psychotic people. And even after snapping out of it, she kept on flinching imperceptibly every random seconds wherein her eyes met Dumbledore's. Tom was aghast, because it really seemed as if she did not only know the old man, but also somehow looked up to him, from the occasional shine in her eyes when looking at him. Tom's dislike for Dumbledore grew exponentially by the second.
"It might seem impudent of me to inquire such, but why exactly is it that you and your father decided to adopt young
Mister Riddle, lady?" Professor Dumbledore, apparently, looked down on the concept of 'beating around the bush'.
Hermione's eyes hardened and she straightened her spine:
"I wasn't aware that the students' personal past is under Hogwarts's jurisdiction. Is this an interrogation, Professor?"
Looking insufferably insouciant, Dumbledore put down his cup of tea and stared at Hermione:
"It is of concern, Miss Black, if there are...ulterior motives in you and your father's decision to adopt young Mister Riddle." Still having that unfathomable expression on his face, the old man asked almost conversationally, "His real family is still around, you realise?"
Tom felt as if a ball of slimy water had been dropped on his stomach. His insides felt cold and cool disgust rose up in his throat. They were alive, his biological family. And yet Tom was supposed to rot in that orphanage.
He knew Dumbledore's words to be of merits. There should be some reasons why Sirius and Hermione adopted him knowing all the while that his family still lived. That would be a cause of contention, he knew, but later. He refused to give the damn old man the satisfaction of seeing them getting flustered and turning on each other with merely a few words.
"I still don't see it is any of Hogwarts's business, Professor." Tom chirped in, voice half sing-song, "Are you saying that all professors go out of their way to do pedigree-check for several generations to every students they admit?"
He left just enough opening for Hermione to snap out of her stupors and finished the question:
"Or is this a personal project, Professor?" She narrowed her eyes at the old man, face taut, "How...dedicating of you, sir."
"It is a personal concern, yes." Dumbledore admitted easily, "You and your father are...famous, I should say. And when you two decided to adopt a child from the orphanage, a magical child, coincidentally... Well, it makes one wonders."
Hermione was annoyed, Tom could tell, though she made sure no such things were shown on her face:
"Scamanders are sparking international scandals with possible unauthorised intermarriages. Grindelwald is haranguing magical world war. Blacks and Crabbes are reproducing at an alarming rate. And you wonder about a young talented magical boy of respectable upbringings just because his adopted guardians happened to be time travellers?"
Dumbledore gave a light laugh at that:
"You seem intent to make this all about me. I can most certainly assure you, Miss Black, the problems lie with Mister Riddle's true family."
Impossible as it was, Hermione's posture went tauter and she shot Tom a worried glance before saying:
"It can only be so if you went out of your way to inform them, Sir. We... It is to our knowledge that his mother's side was still in Azkaban and and his father's side barely acknowledged him at all."
Something cold lurched inside Tom's stomach again, and he dug his nails painfully into his palms to stop himself from reacting violently to this information. Disdain swelled up in his throat and Tom had this irresistible urge to shatter every lightbulb within a mile radius, just for kicks.
Hermione must have sensed something from him, for she reached over to rub his back and snapped at Dumbledore:
"This is no conversation to be had in front of a child, sir. Tom, would you mind..."
"With all due respect, Miss Black. This is a matter that greatly concerns him and his choice. I believe Mister Riddle has to be present to..."
"I have been having a migraine, incidentally, ever since you set foot in this house, Professor." Tom cut him off, not caring about propriety anymore, "This is, as you have said, a family matter, one that I hope to be able to hear directly from my father Sirius and my sister Hermione. May I be excused now?"
He moved swiftly to the door at Hermione's timely nod.
Shutting the door close behind him, Tom took a deep breath and schooled his face into an expressionless feature again (Not before a very emphatic quake shuddered around the house, though. He was eleven, stop expecting him to be level-headed all the time).
It would be a lie to say that Tom had never wondered about his biological family. Not in the 'supposed they are purebloods', 'supposed they accidentally lost him', 'supposed they wished for his return everyday' kind of thoughts. He was already growing up with purebloods, he was already brought up by sane, powerful, and accommodating guardians of respectable upbringings themselves. There was not much to complain about, really (Save for the occasional overdose of stupidity, but everyone had their moments. No one can shit sunshine forever). But yes, he did wonder sometimes. Were they alive? Did they know of his existence? Were they magical? Were they, Merlin's forbid, plebeians?
That still didn't mean that he want to hear all this information from the mouth of a stranger. A queer old man that would be his Professor, but a stranger, nonetheless. Hermione and Sirius really should have told him beforehand, getting all flustered over inconsequential matters was no way to make a first impression.
The night after Dumbledore left (giving Tom one last meaningful glance in the end), his guardians sat him down and gave him a talk. By the end of it, the only conclusion Tom could get out of the melodramas Sirius was telling was:
"You are saying I'm unwanted."
The window glass behind Sirius shattered.
With an annoyed frown and a mild wave of the wand, Sirius fixed it right up and told Tom:
"By them, most likely."
Hermione glared at him:
"Sirius!" Then she squeezed Tom's unresponsive hand, "Don't listen to him. We don't know for certain if they feel that way, or whether they know about you at all. Sirius just wants you to prepare for the worst."
Across the table, Sirius rolled his eyes and asserted emotionlessly:
"It has come to the worst, Hermione. Stop trying to sugarcoat it for him. Tom isn't a kid anymore." He cut her off before Hermione could put her objections to words, "No, listen. I went to Azkaban a few years back."
Hermione paled visibly beside Tom. Sirius sighed:
"Morfin was...disgustingly vocal about his opinions on his half-blood nephew. We are in civilised companies so let's not sully our ears with the particulars of that conversation. Oh and by the way, I took an heirloom, Tom. I will give it to you when you come of age." He took a deep breath before looking at Tom in the eyes, "Your father's family is rather...difficult. I approached them, years ago." Sirius seemed almost reluctant to continue, "For selfish old bags, they really were obnoxious and judgmental. It's up to you whether to meet up with them, but keep in mind to be vague about magic and that they are ten kinds of bastard. Don't falter and don't get hurt. They aren't worth it."
Tom felt his head throbbed painfully.
"Do they know about magic at all?"
Just the thought of elucidating the intricate theories of wizardry to two shrivelled and prejudiced Muggles with the emotional range of a tree bark gave him an excruciating pain not only in the butt but in literally everywhere.
Sirius's expression illustrated quite clearly how much he empathised with Tom in that. Hermione just looked crossed at them:
"You two are incorrigible." She scowled, "Professor Dumbledore has eluded that he had given them a simplified explanation of magic already. We only need to converse with them about Tom's education at Hogwarts, is all."
Professor Dumbledore was really too nosy for his own good. Tom would have lived his life perfectly fine without ever knowing that his biological relatives were revolting and hating his guts. Now his homicidal tendency was rising again and if the meeting with the so-called family went haywire, Dumbles would have only himself to blame for the bodybags.
Tom's attention got snared into something else, though:
"Where's the heirloom? How come I can't have it now?"
He would want it, he thought. Must have been something useful. The Gaunts were one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight after all.
Sirius gave him a smirk:
"Nuh-uh. Heirlooms tend to be powerful magical artifacts, kiddos. You haven't even a wand to use properly yet." He stood, stretching his arms and yawning uncaringly, "Master fifth-year spells and then we can talk about your heirloom."
Tom would have been outraged if Sirius was anyone else. Thinking of taking Tom's birthright? Tom would have made sure that person die in the most horrible ways possible. But really, it's Sirius. Lax, untidy, and hating-birthrights-and-pretentiousness Sirius. It was almost unthinkable to believe Sirius would steal the heirloom (whatever it was) from Tom.
He shrugged and followed suit by standing up and saying goodnight to Hermione. All in good time, Tom, he told himself, all in good time.
"Well, this sure is backwater." Said Tom, deeply unimpressed by the nondescript manor house surrounded by lawns and hills.
Hermione gave him a light knock on the head for that:
"Don't be unpleasant, Tom. We taught you better than that."
He sighed and rubbed at the spot:
"... Fine. Are we to walk all the way there?"
Hermione steeled herself:
"Yes. Apparition too near would break the Statute, after all."
There were only the two of them. Sirius got some incredibly important project coming up, so he left Hermione with the address and careful instructions on how to deal with cranky old Muggles that was Tom's grandparents.
The walk to the front steps of the manor was noticeably quiet. Tom supposed he would be more anxious if Hermione weren't already twitching with nervousness. It almost seemed as if she was agitated enough for the both of them.
A crippled footman answered the door, looking at once bedazzled and disgruntled at the appearance of Tom and Hermione on the Riddle's front porch. Tom resisted the urge to curse him.
"Good afternoon, good sir." Hermione tightened her hand on Tom's shoulder and greeted the man with a perfunctory smile, "My name is Lyra Black, and this is my brother, Tom. We are here to call on Mister and Mrs. Riddle."
The footman scowled unattractively (though that was an unfair assessment, as Tom hardly believed that there was anytime at all when the man could be considered attractive with bone structure as mediocre as that) and grunted:
"Wait."
When the grumpy piece of excrement slammed the door in their faces and turned to call for his employers, Tom took in a deep breath and swirled to look Hermione in the eye:
"Why is this necessary? Can we just go to Diagonal Alley instead? I want my books and wand."
Hermione barely looked any happier than him as she loosened her hands on his shoulders and said with suppressed anger:
"It is necessary," she glared at the closed door with hand tightened on wand, "because Professor Albus Dumbledore is suspecting us of purposefully brainwashing you and using you in a conspiracy for blood supremacy. Gaunts are direct descendants of Slytherin, after all. You are to meet your biological family and ask for their approval to go to Hogwarts."
The wind picked up violently as Tom felt himself tense up:
"He blackmailed us? I can't go to Hogwarts if filthy Muggles don't approve of it?"
Hermione gave Tom a warning look before answering:
"It isn't quite so simple. It's more or less a test. He will be checking the conditions of your grandparents after our meeting, and depends on how we go about it, he might even file a report to the Ministry so that Sirius and I either go back to being under surveillance or...worse."
"Worse?" Tom's voice was calm and shatteringly cold, "Azkaban? Is that what 'worse' means?"
Hermione took care not to look at him, and Tom felt the air around him shuddered.
"Hermione?"
"Not Azkaban, no. They need concrete evidences to do so. But they can convict us of random offenses and have us confined to the Department of Mysteries, where Unspeakables will be positively thrilled to conduct all kind of mental and physical experiments on suspicious time travellers. And you will... They will take your custody away from us. I can't be certain of what they will do to you after that, but whatever it is, it won't be pleasant."
Tom frowned:
"Sirius has Unspeakable friends, though. And you are Blacks."
Hermione opened her mouth to explain, but was interrupted by the swing of the door in front of them. They both clammed up immediately.
The grumpy footman stuck his head out, scowling all the while:
"The lord and his lady will be meeting you now."
Annoyed at the interruption, Tom balled his hands into fists and the nearby nightingale promptly shat on the older man's bald head.
"Identify yourself." The stringent old man that looked disgustingly similar to Tom ordered them from across the table.
That was the first thing he said to them as Hermione and Tom crossed the threshold and had yet even received the basic courtesy of 'Hellos' and 'Sit down, please'.
Tom bristled and Hermione seemed to be fighting off her disgust. She gritted out:
"I imagine your footman has already informed you of our identity. Can we skip this unpleasantness and go straight to business?"
The old man gave her a disdained glare and motioned irritably to the seats furthest away from him. Tom made it a point to knock the nearest candleholder down to the unblemished carpet and make as much noise as possible as he pull the chair back to sit on it. Both of the adults' face turned greenish at that. It almost made Tom felt bad. He did like Hermione much more than he hated gross Muggles, after all.
They were sitting at the dining room, only the three of them. Thomas Riddle seemed to have not one ounce of intention to invite them to lunch, but he did looked remarkably like someone who would call for lunch and have it right in front of them out of spite. It was once again proven that Tom was an excellent judge of character, because ten minutes into the conversation (which consisted mostly of Thomas's veiled insults fired at Tom and Hermione due to their peculiarities and supposedly indecent breech of propriety by barging in on his ancestral house, and their own mild jibes and suppressed anger at his disastrous manners), the old man held up his hand to halt them and called for the chef to serve his lunch. He then proceeded to devour it, in that pompous way that made Tom itched to force the chandelier and all five floors above down on his stupid inflated head, while still gesturing patronisingly at his guests to continue.
Yet continue they had to do anyway. Hermione made their case as simple and concise as possible, and finished with a polite nod:
"It would be more proper if you are informed of Tom's attendance in this school, Sir. Despite the complication of his custody, you are his biological family, and it would lift a great weight off our shoulders to know that you are aware of his situation."
Mister Thomas Riddle shove a piece of roasted beef into his mouth and arched an eyebrow condescendingly:
"...Well, I'm informed now. And that is all?"
Even before Hermione reacted to that seemingly nonsensical response, Tom's realisation came so suddenly it shocked him to bits that he hadn't seen it before. He bit back his outrage, though.
For a moment, Hermione looked confused:
"Yes? Is there anything else...?"
Impatiently, the old man wiped at his mouth and gestured grandly:
"As you can see, young lady, our family is ... of a higher standing than what you and the boy are used to." Sneering ever so slightly, he continued (deeply unaware of Tom's mounting homicidal mood-must have been wonderful to be stupid), "you have to understand, we have met your kinds aplenty over the years. Regardless of your expectation of the boy's importance to this family, we want nothing to do with him. Don't expect contributions of tuitions, which most likely will flatten your purse more than any kind of education he might receive, and don't even think of inheritance. Bastards are shame enough upon the family name that we don't even need to consider his peculiarities in order to erase his existence in the history of our house. So yes, I appreciate that you two have come all this way to inform me of inconsequential tidbits. But now that you have finished..."
Hermione cut him off cleanly by shooting to her feet and exuding an unbelievable amount of magical pressure. Her hair cracked with the unrestrained incandescence that he shared:
"Are you implying, sir, that we are here to beg for your money? Or that we want anything from you?"
She looked to be on the verge of exploding, and Tom had half a mind to push her to it, really. But then he remembered Professor Dumbles, and Merlin forbid he could not have the old man breathing down on their necks any closer than he already had. Gritting his teeth hard enough that his jaw ached, Tom tugged Hermione's sleeve and gave her a warning look.
She squeezed his hand but did not deflate:
"We do not, nor will we ever, have any intention of asking for anything from you, sir. Do refrain from being delusional of your supposed important existence. Your pomposity is high enough to bring down the Big Ben as it is."
Thomas Riddle's face turned into an expressive color of puce as he made to stand up and waved his offensive finger at Hermione. Squaring her shoulders, Tom's sister looked murderous enough to initiate a wrangle right then and there.
It would have come to that, too (he was not gleeful, really, he was merely satisfie... er... anticipating a reasonable resolution to the shitload of theatrics), if not for the impossible melodrama ensuing right at that moment.
The spectacle unfolded with an old woman dressed in an incongruous silk dress (age-wise) and earrings shiny enough to half-blind everyone in the vicinity rushing in and wailing theatrically at the sight of Tom:
"Oh. Oh! OH! Oh, Thomas! Look at him!"
Thomas made certain to do exactly the opposite. That did not deter the woman:
"He looks exactly like you! And like that one! Oh, Thomas! To think that when all hope is lost when it comes to that one, this little one comes to us! Finally, we have a decent heir!"
The door was opened again, and this time, a haggard-looking man with unseemly resemblance to Tom tripped in, falling nearly flat on his face and knocking his head on the nearest chair (Tom had an inkling of who he was, but Merlin's beard the shame of being related to that thing!). Still struggling ungracefully to his feet, this new man barked out in a pained nasal voice:
"... Mother... What do you even...?"
His eyes caught Tom's and Hermione's, though, both offended and disgusted beyond measures, and this new man blanched. He took rapid breaths, even as the two old people were screaming at each other right on the other side of the room. A beat. Two. Then the haggard middle-aged man started screaming.
Hermione tightened her hands on Tom's shoulders (again! She really was tested entirely too much this day) and seemed hard-pressed not holding her hands over her ears to block the noise out. All the screeching, Merlin. Tom could not help it. He sucked the air from the room. Thomas wheezed in his personal affront and Mary Riddle choked on her hysteria as she crumpled to the ground. The deranged man with needlessly high voice fell down again, clutching at his chest and looking half-dead. Hermione turned to give Tom her exasperated stink eyes but had not been able to say or do anything before Sirius, unbelievably, barged in on the dining room in a flurry of righteous indignation, the footman being dragged along by his magically glued hands on Sirius's biceps.
Eyes dilated, breath exalted, and every bit reluctant, Tom ceased his oppressive magic and slunk back to Hermione's (who was still unnecessarily disapproving, by all account) side.
Sirius, being Sirius, did not disappoint. In three long strides, he was in Thomas Riddle's face. He smoothly drove his hand into his coat's pocket, pulled out a bag of gold (Are those Galleons? He really should stop making this a habit.), and smacked it right across the old man's face. The satchel fell to the table, and gold spilled out of it in slow motion as Sirius grabbed the older man in a menacing hold:
"He is mine. He is my son now. As he has always been. This will be the approximate cost of your reasonably adequate bloodline. I bought that drop of blood, I raised it as my own. And so he is mine. You are never to approach him again." Sirius was nearly picking him up with how hard he was choking the old man, "You are to save your bloody drama for your bloody dysfunctional family and leave us all out of it. You. Are. To. Tell. Mister. Dumbledore. That. We. All. Have. Had. An. Incredible. Time. Together. This meeting will be recorded as civilised and because of your own discomfort with Tom's existence and his biological father's disgrace that you don't want to contact him again. Ever. There is nothing wrong with Tom. Nor is there anything wrong with me and my daughter." Shaking him harder and in a deep and even more threatening voice than before, Sirius asked, "You will tell him that, won't you?"
Being a Good Son as he was, Tom chose that moment to have the nearest window shattered into pieces.
The woman screamed, the middle-aged man whimpered, and Thomas Riddle gave a startled nod and promptly passed out.
The trip back home was full of unresolved fuming and more than a little bit of disgruntlement.
"I don't like that you made it sounded as if I belonged to you." Tom said.
"I don't like that you keep throwing bags of money in the face of anyone you hate." Hermione grumbled.
"And I don't like that you two are so inefficient that it took more than half a day to convince a bunch of ignorant Muggles that they are ignorant and should act accordingly." Sirius spat, "But here we are. So I don't see any meaning in continuing arguing about it."
After a moment of silence, Hermione frowned:
"Tom exploded a bit at the end, though. Do you think Professor Dumbledore will file a report on us?"
Sirius gave her a look and tugged their hands for a quick Apparition. Stepping back out into their own front porch, he sighed:
"He wouldn't have a chance to. I already filed one."
"What?"
"Filed one the moment Tom did that thing with the wind. My report specified that he was meeting his long lost family -who also abandoned him ages ago- and became needlessly emotional about it."
Hermione looked unconvinced:
"And they'll accept that excuse?"
Sirius shrugged noncommittally:
"No one died. And I did apologise profusely and promise to educate him on it later."
They entered the sitting room and Hermione swirled around to face him:
"You promised them something else, though."
Tom pretended he wasn't listening in intently on them by picking up a book on Ancient Runes on the bookshelf.
From the corner of his eyes, Tom saw Sirius looking uncomfortable.
"Well..." He mused his hair and avoided looking at Hermione. "... I might have eluded that I am willing to partake in a threesome between the Head Department and his lover. Maybe."
Tom dropped his book. Hermione scooted back to the other side of the sofa in mild disapprobation.
"Ugh. You just want an excuse to sleep with Malfoy. And Macmillan."
Sirius nodded solemnly and admitted unabashedly:
"That, too. It's really time high society get a gist of what I'm really in to. All the shite with Nott is giving me a dyspepsia."
And right then and there, at the tender age of eleven, Tom accepted with a growing level of resignation that he was surrounded by idiots.
A/N (Again): A little notice for all of those who have been gearing up to accuse me of darkening dearest Professor Dumbledore: I do not hate Albus Dumbledore. I don't think he was an evil old man, either. He was just hypocritical in the strangest of situations and kept pushing the worst of tasks to his students. In my fic, he was forced to bear witness to the atrocity that his old lover was wrecking on the world, without the ability (the damn curse) or the (really, be frank) inclination to do anything about it. He had plans relating to cultivating students to do his bits, but he himself felt an immeasurable amount of shame and frustration at his own weakness for not stepping up on his own. So he kind of tuned out for a bit and tried to busy himself with something else. In this case, it is this suspicious situation of this magical kid adopted by two notorious time travellers. And what do you know, digging a fair bit and he found relations to Slytherin! So he went and poked around and genuinely worried about a vision of two possible Dark Lords (Haha, think of Sirius and Mione as Dark Lords) running from their own time to plot another world conquest using the Heir of Slytherin. A tad bit too paranoid, I know, but probable, given the situation. He will still be super suspicious about Tom, but unlike in canon (wherein the boy was a creep who didn't know how to hide his creepiness just yet), he will be suspicious about Tom by association (as for how much blood supremacy the two Dark Lords were pumping into the once-sweet-and-clear river of his mind).
He is still a good old man in my book. Just somewhat more of a nuisance to Tom's, Hermione's, and Sirius's lives.
P/S: The encounter this chapter does not mean Tom will not kill the Riddles in the future. It means that there might be possibility wherein it will not happen the way it has in canon.