Once the arrived at the castle a woman came up to Tomas and introduced herself as Professor McGonagall. "You'll be needing to come with me," She said, "so that you can be sorted with the first years." Tomas was exactly pleased with having to travel with a bunch of nervous little eleven year olds but he knew he had no choice. He bid goodbye to his friends and went off with McGonagall.
When he entered the Great Hall everyone looked at him strangely but he had been excepting it. After all with his height he must stick out like a sore thumb.
He waited patiently until the sorting hat was brought out and placed upon the stool where it sang its song. Then the sorting finally began.
Tomas waited anxiously until McGonagall called out, "Snape, Tomas!" His friends cheered as he made his way up to the front of the hall and sat down on the stool. The hat was placed upon his head and instantly a voice filled his mind.
"Ah Tomas Riddle. So nice to finally meet you."
"Nice to meet you too," Tomas thought.
"Why thank you," The hat said. "Now let's see where your to be sorted shall we? Hm…hardworking but no I have a feeling Hufflepuff would suit you horribly…extremely smart but no not Ravenclaw either. That leaves us Slytherin and Gryffindor." Tomas sat there waiting for the hat to say something when suddenly he heard a sudden, "Ah," of realization from it. "Slytherin's blood," The hat said. "I think that the house of your father's will do rather nicely for you…"
"SLYTHERIN!" The hat called out. The Slytherin table erupted into applause as Tomas got up taking off the hat and putting it back on the stool before making his way over to the Slytherin table.
Eventually the sorting was finished and they all dug into dinner.
It was around this time that Harry came into the Great Hall walking as fast as he could to Ron and Hermione.
Draco laughed. "Serves him right," He said. Pansy gave him a curious look.
"Draco," She said, "what did you do?" And so Draco explained what had happened to his fellow Slytherins laughter and applause.
By the time he finished the story Dumbledore was getting to his feet at the staff table. Everyone's talking and laughter died away almost instantly.
"The very best of evenings to you!" Dumbledore said, smiling broadly, his arms opened wide.
It was then that Tomas noticed there was something wrong with Dumbledore's right hand. It was blackened and shriveled up giving it a dead looking look.
He wasn't the only one who had noticed either as whispers quickly spread throughout the Great Hall. Dumbledore merely smiled and shook his purple-and-gold sleeve over his injury.
"Nothing to worry about," He said airily. "Now…to our new students, welcome, to our old students, welcome back! Another year full of magical education awaits you…"
"What's happened to his hand?" Pansy whispered.
"No idea," Tomas said. "Maybe Father knows."
"…And Mr. Filch, our caretaker, has asked me to say that there is a blanket ban on any joke items bought at the shop called Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
"Those wishing to play for their House Quidditich teams should give their names to their Heads of House as usual. We are looking for new Quidditich commentators, who should do likewise."
"You should tryout," Draco said.
"Why?" Tomas said. "I'm not that good." Draco rolled his eyes.
"Drop the modest act," He said. "You're bloody brilliant!" He smirked then and said, "I want someone like you on our team. You'd give Potter a run for his money."
"We are pleased to welcome a new member of the staff this year. Professor Slughorn"—Slughorn stood up when mentioned—"is a former colleague of mine who has agreed to resume his old post of Potions master."
Tomas and his friends weren't the only ones surprised. "Potions master?" Blaise said. "But I thought he was filling in for Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"Me too," Tomas said, "but if he's not going to be then who is?"
"Professor Snape, meanwhile," Dumbledore said, raising his voice so that it could be heard above all the muttering, "will be taking over the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."
Tomas couldn't help but cheer knowing that his father had been wanting that job ever since he had first applied at Hogwarts. Harry's reaction however was a, "No!" so loud that heads turned towards him.
Snape lifted a hand in acknowledgment to the applause from the Slytherin table and when he caught Tomas's eye they shared a grin.
After this everyone began talking at once about the new staff appointments and Dumbledore had to clear his throat to get them to quiet down.
"Now, as everybody in this Hall knows, Lord Voldemort and his followers are once more at large and gaining in strength." The air instantly became tense at his words.
Tomas noticed that Draco wasn't paying attention to Dumbledore at all but instead was making his fork hover midair with wand.
"Draco stop that it's rude," Tomas hissed.
"Which is why I'm doing it," Draco said. Tomas sighed and turned his attention back on Dumbledore.
"I cannot emphasize strongly enough how dangerous the present situation is, and how much care each of us at Hogwarts must take to ensure we remain safe. The castle's magical fortifications have been strengthened over the summer, we are protected in new and more powerful ways, but we must still guard scrupulously against carelessness on the part of any student or member of the staff. I urge you, therefore, to abide by any security restrictions that your teachers might impose upon you, however irksome you might find them—in particular, the rules that you are not to be out of bed after hours. I implore you, should you notice anything strange or suspicious outside the castle, to report it to a member of the staff immediately. I trust you to conduct yourselves, always, with the utmost regard for your own and others' safety."
"Think he's finished yet?" Blaise yawned.
"Yep," Pansy said. "Finally."
Dumbledore's eyes swept over the students before he smiled once more. "But now," He said, "your beds await, as warm and comfortable as you could possibly wish, and I know that your top priority is to be well rested for your lessons tomorrow. Let us therefore say good night. Pip, pip!" (A/N: I give full credit to all of Dumbledore's speech to J.K Rowling.)
With a deafening scraping noise as the benches were all moved back the students began to file out of the Great Hall toward their dormitories.
The Slytherin dorms were in the dudgeons and the password was, "Salazar," which Tomas didn't find surprising.
The common room was a long low, underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. All of the furniture seemed to be made of expensive material and as Tomas noticed everything in the room seemed to be expensive.
Draco yawned then and announced that he was heading to bed. They all agreed and with a quick goodnight to Pansy they headed off to the sixth year boys dormitory.
The room was huge with floors of polished black marble and walls of white marble. Greenish laps like in the common room hung from the ceiling and the room even had its own fireplace which was already cackling away in the grate.
"It gets cold down here so we need that fireplace," Blaise said seeing Tomas eyeing it.
"It sure does," Draco said. "Winter can be dreadful sometimes. But anyway Tomas come over here your bed's next to mine."
Tomas did as Draco asked and sunk down onto his bed. It was as soft as a cloud and when he felt the sheets he looked at Draco in surprise. "You have silk sheets?" He said.
"We're not the richest house for nothing," Draco smirked. "Now come let's go to bed."
Voldemort sat on a throne of black marble looking down at the five Death Eaters kneeling before him. They were his inner five and therefore his most trusted. Which was why they had been given the most important task of all.
"Have you found him yet?" Voldemort asked. The first shook his head.
"Not yet my lord," He said, "but we have some new leads."
"Oh really?" Voldemort said. "And what are these new leads?"
"We've discovered that he use to attend Beauxabatons," The third said, "but that he left it this year to transfer to a new school."
"We're quite sure that he transferred to Hogwarts," The fourth said.
"That maybe the case," Voldemort said, "but still search every small school you can. I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to still be trying to hide him from me." The five Death Eaters nodded as one.
"Understood my lord," They said. "We'll start searching immediately."
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Redluna
