Chapter Nine

"I've come to say goodbye, Professor," announced Tom Riddle with rather less poise than was typical with him, as he entered my office through the door that I was keeping open, so that any students who wished to bid me farewell wouldn't be shy about entering.

"Oh, Tom." For a second, I could do no more than stare at his tall, handsome frame. As I gazed at him, my eyes played a vicious prank upon me and replaced this brilliant young man who was so eager to enter the adult world to show it just how much he had to offer with the eleven-year-old boy I had first met, who had been so hungry for knowledge, but who had also been so timid in the new magical world he had found himself in. Now, there wasn't a shy or hesitant bone in his body. If none of Tom's professors had challenged him as he should have been, at least we had given him confidence, I thought. Shaking my head, I indulged myself in a little nostalgia by adding, "It feels like only yesterday that you were eleven-years-old and first sitting down in my Potions class."

"The best days are the first to flee," Tom answered softly, running his fingers along the back of his favorite chair in my office. From the distant, oddly vulnerable, cast to his eyes, I could tell that he was remembering all the conversations we had shared in here over the years. "I'm going to miss this place. It's the only home I've ever really known."

"Oh, Tom," I repeated, wishing that the fact that Tom was an orphan wouldn't always cut into me without warning like an unexpected knife attack from a foe, and praying that one day the wounds that the orphanage had left on Tom would be healed by time eventually. After all, if time always insisted on breaking people's hearts by making everyone eventually lose everything they love, the very least time could do was numb some of the pain it created. "The wonderful thing about a home is that you never truly leave it."

"You don't, sir?" His forehead furrowing, Tom cocked his head at me, as his gaze mingled confusion with hope.

"No, you always carry your home about with you wherever you go," I assured him, tapping his heart with my finger and pretending that I didn't have to reach up to do this. "A home makes you who you are, and so it is always with you. That's part of what makes it a home. "

"Hogwarts made me who I am today," Tom agreed, nodding. "You made me everything I am today, Professor."

"Nonsense, my boy." Beaming, I waved this off, not realizing that in a few years time I would come to regret hearing Tom Riddle utter these words. Even while I brushed off Tom's comment, I knew that there was some truth behind it. Tom was clever and cut out for greatness, yes, which meant that he would have excelled even if he had never met me, but I was also the teacher that he was closest to. While he was well-liked by all of his professors except Dumbledore, Tom didn't get the same kind of attention from his other teachers as he did from me. Other professors are shier about indulging their favorites than I am. I have never bothered to lie about which students I have time for and which I don't deem worth the effort. I am guilty of favoritism, yes, but at least I make no effort to conceal it.

"You were always ready to give me advice," Tom said, a smile touching his lips. "More importantly, you were always willing to sign notes allowing me access to the Restricted Section of the library without posing too many prying questions."

"I know that a mind such as yours forever needs to be challenged if it is to stay sharp," I replied.

"Everyone's mind should be challenged if it is to stay sharp," answered Tom dryly. "The reason so many people act like fools is that they never bother to challenge their minds. Brains are muscles, and muscles that aren't exercised are weak."

"It's a good thing that I do the crossword in the Daily Prophet on a regular basis, isn't it?" I chuckled, and, then eyed him shrewdly. "You know, Tom, you never did tell me what you wanted to do in the Restricted Section."

"Research, of course, sir." Tom's voice was amiable, but his eyes flashed, suggesting that he didn't appreciate my probing.

"Obviously. I am not in my dotage yet, so there's no need to treat me as though I am." My curiosity further piqued by his secretiveness, I pressed, "I was asking what in particular you were researching."

"Do I need to confine my research to a specific subject?" Tom arched an eyebrow. "With all due respect, sir, I never wished to narrow my studies to a particular field. I always felt that there was too much useful knowledge out there to risk missing any of it by limiting my interest to one paltry area."

"Come, come," I chided, wagging a jovial finger at him. "You are a Slytherin, not a Ravenclaw. You don't acquire stores of knowledge merely to possess the information. No, when you gather data, you do so because you believe that it will be useful in some manner."

"All knowledge is useful," countered Tom. "I love knowing things, especially things that nobody else does."

"Well, I suppose it makes you happy that you know more than half the staff." I chucked, and then warned genially, "You should be careful. A little knowledge can be dangerous."

"Only to those who don't have it, not to those who do. Calling knowledge dangerous is just a way of tricking people into not doing any research for themselves," answered Tom, and his eyes flashed scarlet again. For a second, my stomach knotted, and then I assured myself that it had only been an optical illusion. How could I possibly be foolish enough to mistake the young man's honest thirst for knowledge with something sinister? I really must be in my dotage, after all. "Knowledge is power, and I want all the knowledge that I can get. I want to push the boundaries of magic farther than anyone else has. I want to discover things nobody else has. I want to achieve the impossible, so everybody realizes that the impossible is really only the difficult."

"You'll be a great wizard, Tom," I reassured him. "I've said it ever since you've arrived here, and I've never been wrong about a pupil yet. You'll go far, and everyone will know your name."

Tom grinned at the picture I painted with my words, and, for a moment, we were silent. Then, I couldn't resist bringing up a dead horse for another flogging. "My boy, are you quite sure you wouldn't prefer working in the Ministry with your charm and your cleverness?"

"I'm quite sure I wouldn't, as I have explained to you at least a half a dozen times in the past month alone, Professor." Tom's smile seemed rather tight and forced. "At the Ministry, there is so much bureaucracy that I'd never be able to get anything done. No, I'd much rather be a teacher at Hogwarts. Hogwarts is where I should be, and I'm only leaving now because no one will let me stay on as a professor right now, but I'll be back to teach one day. Hogwarts is loads better than the Ministry. At Hogwarts, you can shape the minds of the future generation. The present generation is always set in its way, but the children are always willing to fit the molds that you make for them, and they are eager to learn whatever you will teach. If you catch a child young, you have him for life, and wizards live very long lives. The future generation is where the true power lies, but I don't have to explain all that to you, sir. You do it- you influence tomorrow's leaders, and you know that true power isn't found in the limelight, but rather in the shadows."

"Tom!" I gasped, feeling appalled at hearing this description of my teaching methods. "Really, I do no such thing. I'm no saint, but I'm not a conniving monster, either."

"Of course you aren't; I shouldn't have said what I did when it isn't true." No doubt seeing my pale face and recognizing just how discomfited I was, Tom offered me his most disarming smile. "It really isn't fair that after all these years of you seeing the best in me, I reward you by seeing the worst in you, is it?"

"It's all right," I replied hastily, but, bewildered by his last remark, I couldn't refrain from adding, "I really don't think I've ever met anyone quite like you, Tom."

"Of course you haven't." Tom's chin lifted, and pride shone in his eyes. "I'm unique in all of human history."

"Yes, you are." I clapped him on the shoulder. "Keep in touch with me, my boy. I have no doubt that you are headed toward a great destiny, and I hope to be a part of that."

"I will write to you, sir," Tom promised me, and, as he left my office for the last time as a student, I had no idea that would be the final time that I ever laid eyes on Tom Riddle. I had no way of knowing that the red gleams I had seen in his eyes were real, and that the scarlet would consume his eyes entirely within a few short years. I could never have guessed that he would change his name to Lord Voldemort and become infamous under that title. I could not have foreseen that in a few years, as he destroyed so much of what was good in the Wizarding world, I would be wishing that I had been wrong about him, and that he would be the only favorite student of mine who didn't have the power to attain his definition of greatness. At the time, I could not have hoped to understand that the desire for knowledge that had so charmed me was rotten at its core. As Tom departed my study, I could never have thought that the pupil that I perhaps loved above all others would turn out to be the one I understood least.