Chapter Six
"Tom!" I exclaimed merrily, as I glanced up from a tempting display of truffles in Honeydukes. "Aren't you supposed to be practicing Apparition with the other sixth-years?"
"The instructor told me to run along and have some fun in the village, since it was obvious that I didn't need any more practice," answered Tom, shrugging while he joined me beside the truffles display. "To be honest, I don't mind being dismissed early. I've been able to Apparte ever since the first lesson."
"Yes, while everybody else was stumbling into their hoops, and the luckier ones were Splinching themselves, you were disappearing and reappearing at will." I chuckled, delighted as ever by Tom's achievements.
"Good thing I was, too," commented Tom dryly. "Clearly, the instructor that the Ministry hired isn't competent. A majority of the class still hasn't Apparated, and most of those who have managed to Apparate cannot do so regularly. Apparently, teaching the three D's over and over isn't effective. It seems like if students don't grasp a lesson the first time, one actually has to go to the bother of devising a different lesson plan, instead of just repeating yourself ad nausem."
"Now, now, Tom." Somehow, even though my arms were filled with candy, I managed to waggle a finger at my current favorite pupil. "Don't be too harsh on those of us in the teaching profession. When you're a student, all you can think about is how hard your professors are on you, but when you're a teacher, all you can think about is how difficult your pupils are upon you."
"I have the utmost respect for excellent teachers like you who nobly devote their lives to educating younger generations," Tom replied, his gaze earnest, although he had to know by now that I instructed young witches and wizards out of a selfish desire to influence the best and brightest of tomorrow. Teaching had always been about what I could get out of my pupils, not about what I could offer them. Oh, I came to love some of my students, but it wasn't an unconditional love. It was a conditional love, and I never could quite forget that all the time and energy I poured into my favorites was an investment that I expected to profit from. I was a Slytherin. It wasn't in my nature to be noble. "For instructors that aren't so wonderful, well, it's harder to not judge them harshly, I'm afraid. Still, I do hope that I have never been any trouble to any of my professors."
"Well, you can hope all you want that you were no trouble, but I assure you that you were," I informed him. Seeing a flash of hurt flicker across Tom's features, I grinned at him. "Oh, don't look at me like that. You're a joy to teach. You're brilliant, respectful, rule-abiding, charming, and responsible. Every professor dreams of having a pupil like you, yet…"
Unable to describe just what it was that made it a challenge to teach someone as gifted as Tom Riddle, I trailed off, shrugging helplessly.
"Yet what, Professor?" pressed Tom when I broke off.
"It's not any failing of yours that makes you difficult to teach, my boy," I said, not wanting to wound him. "It's a failing of us professors. You see, you're so much cleverer than your peers that it's hard to assign you work that is appropriate for your level. It's a constant struggle to challenge your mind as it should be. Every teacher hopes to influence the next great mind of the future, but when you are presented with that next great mind, you realize that you don't have the intellectual capacity to teach that next great mind. I imagine Dumbledore's professors faced the same difficulties when they were trying to instruct him. They must have felt every time they looked at him and saw that he already understood the lesson before the teacher even had to speak that they could never be as good a teacher as someone with his brains deserved to have. They must have recognized that in a way they were failing the future by not honing such a brilliant mind as it should be sharpened."
"You've always taken time to answer my questions about advanced subjects after class, you've been happy to lend me any books I couldn't find at the library, and you've always signed any notes I needed to borrow books from the Restricted Section, sir." Tom shook his head. "You've been a wonderful instructor. Most of the teachers that I've encountered at Hogwarts have been incredible, but you're the best of the lot, if you ask me. I'm sorry I complained about the Apparition teacher. I had no right to do so. I've had some excellent teachers, and it's ungrateful for me to grumble about my education."
"You always have the right to complain about not being challenged enough academically." Now, it was my turn to shake my head.
"I have been challenged," insisted Tom quickly, but I think we both knew it was a lie. Tom had never been challenged at Hogwarts as he should have been.
Sometimes, I wished that Dumbledore had taken more time to instruct Tom personally, because only Dumbledore had a mind agile enough to keep up with Tom's. However, Dumbledore had always been more inclined to focus his energies on helping those who struggled to learn the basics of magic. He didn't direct his attention on the stellar students like Tom. While I admired his willingness to assist the pupils who would never have the wit or talent to go far in life, which demonstrated a selfness that I could never possess, I also wondered why it never seemed to occur to Dumbledore that the gifted required extra attention just as much as the less talented did. After all, as Dumbledore should have comprehended from his own experience, gifted students like Tom were as far away from the norm as the severely mentally handicapped were, and that should be taken into account when they were taught. It was just as possible to fail a gifted student by not challenging him enough as it was to fail a mentally handicapped one by not aiding him enough. Sure, I realized that I failed the mentally handicapped students every day by ignoring their struggles, but somehow the plight of the genius trapped in a society of idiots struck me more. Somehow it hurt me more to know that Hogwarts failed its greatest minds than its less brilliant ones. Somehow it cut more to know that every time a deep brain went untapped it was the future that paid the price for the school's failure to teach properly.
"Well, you certainly haven't been challenged enough in Apparition," I pointed out, making my tone as light as possible. "Tell me, if the three D's didn't help you, what did?"
"Oh, I think I just have a natural knack at disappearing and reappearing at will," responded Tom. "When I wanted to Disapparate, all I had to do was think about how I wanted to seep into the ground, and then my body just disappeared upon my command. Then, when I wanted to reappear in my hoop, I just had to picture myself doing that, and my body obeyed. I think that it was easy for me to learn to disappear, since I was always invisible at the orphanage. Once your body has learned how to slip through the cracks, it never forgets how to do it."
"You're not invisible at Hogwarts," I reassured him, thinking that perhaps I would back up this point by giving him a box of candies on the way back up to the castle.
"I know, Professor." Tom smiled cheekily at me. "I've got all sorts of glistening badges and trophies to prove that."
"And the glittering badges and trophies are all us Slytherins are interested in, of course." I laughed and allowed myself to forget until years later how Hogwarts failed one of its most brilliant pupils by allowing him to slip through the cracks.