Voldemort had always believed he would be a good teacher. It had been the career he most wanted to pursue as a cover for his other activities, and though he had had stints of teaching some of his Death Eaters the Dark Arts, it had never been on the scale he wanted. Dumbledore had always prevented that.
Dumbledore. It always came down to Dumbledore.
Voldemort felt a deep rush of loathing at the thought of the man, and he simmered in it for a moment, clutching his wand tightly. Below him, the petty Death Eater cowering on the ground eyed his wand and whimpered.
Hearing him, Voldemort breathed out slowly and relaxed his grip. This Death Eater was not the subject of his ire. In fact, he had been reporting a minor success. Though Voldemort of course could go ahead and torture him anyway, punishing his servants for their successes as well as their failures would be counterproductive.
His red eyes dropped to the Death Eater. "You have done well," he informed him coldly. "Leave."
The little man needed no encouragement. Scrambling backward, he stammered out, "Th-thank you, my l-lord. You are m-most g-gracious" before disapparating with a pop.
Voldemort could breathe more easily once the man was gone. Being in the presence of such imbeciles always felt stifling. Voldemort took one look at them and instantly loathed them, and it was hard to listen to their reports when it was much more pleasurable to imagine their deaths. He had the plan for Peter Pettigrew's death perfected. The little rat had best hope he didn't lose his value as a spy on the Order.
Smirking rather maliciously at the thought, Voldemort stood, swept down the steps of his dais, and out the throne room and into one of the private rooms of Malfoy Manor. There he pulled from beneath his robes a small medallion of a snake. He hissed a spell in Parseltongue, and the portkey shot him through the words of the Manor as if they were nonexistent. A second later he landed in his library in Morocco.
A bell chimed in the courtyard, letting the house-elves and Revelin know he had arrived. Voldemort heard from upstairs the sound of feet pattering on the floor. He glanced at himself in a floor-length mirror, and immediately his form start shifting. Cheekbones and nose jutted out, lips and hair appeared, skin darkened, red eyes turned black. It took only a few seconds for Voldemort to turn into Cadmus Ellwood.
He sensed Revelin clambering down the stairs, and Voldemort strode outside to meet him. It was early morning in Morocco; the sun was pale and weak on the horizon, the air chilled. Voldemort had been gone most of the night, and he suspected Revelin had only been awake for a little while. Sure enough, when the boy emerged from the staircase, his face flushed with excitement, his hair was still soaked from his shower. Voldemort frowned as he eyed it, fingering his wand. It would be no good for the boy to get sick on his first day of lessons. Voldemort didn't want the child to associate education with misery. Just as Revelin opened his mouth to greet him, a drying charm seared his hair.
Revelin's mouth snapped shut, and a confused expression crossed his face. He reached up to touch his hair as if he didn't quite know what had just happened to him.
Voldemort took advantage of the ensuing silence to skip all niceties. "Have you had breakfast yet?" he enquired, stowing away his wand.
Revelin shook his head quickly. "No, Shara."
"Good," said Voldemort. "Then we shall eat together. I am sure Poinai will have whipped up something by now."
Poinai was a house elf. Upon acquiring all his house-elves, Voldemort had promptly renamed them. He wasn't about to call his servants something like "Twinky" or "Flopsy" or "Pippy." Those were stupid names. They sounded too much like what a prepubescent girl might name a pet Puffskein. The only house elf he didn't rename was Missy: she was so damn old she didn't respond to anything else.
Placing his hand on Revelin's shoulder, Voldemort guided the boy into the dining room where a steaming-hot, full English breakfast already awaited them both. Voldemort smiled in approval. His house elves had learned early on to go out of their way to please him. It was amazing what a quick dose of the Cruciatus would do. Lucius ought to try it on his errant house-elf.
"Did you get a good night's sleep last night?" Voldemort enquired as he poured himself a cup of tea. It was important that the boy be fresh and ready for his first day.
Revelin nodded quickly. "Yes, Shara." Voldemort caught the briefest flash of hesitance in the boy's mind, and he arched an eyebrow. Seeing this, the boy amended his statement. "Well," he cleared his throat, "I had some difficulty falling asleep last night, because I was so excited. But once I fell asleep, I slept well."
Voldemort nodded, but didn't say anything. It pleased him the boy was so honest with him. It was a refreshing change compared to his sniveling Death Eaters. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps it was because Revelin wasn't afraid of being Crucio'd that he was so honest, but Voldemort crushed that thought immediately. He had no use for such counter-productive thinking.
They ate their meal in silence, and when they had finished, Voldemort turned to Revelin. "I've furnished the empty room on the second level as a classroom. Meet me there in 15 minutes."
Revelin nodded eagerly, his face glowing.
AAAA—Page Break—AAAA
Before Voldemort could teach Revelin anything else, he had to teach the boy how to read. But he didn't start with the English alphabet. He started with the Arabic alphabet, the abjad. He thought it would better help Revelin fit in and operate in Morocco. Voldemort would teach him the English alphabet later, when the boy was well-adjusted to the Arabic one. In the meantime, however, there were plenty of course-books in Arabic for the boy to read, so he would still be able to learn on his own without a problem.
"When you read and write," Voldemort said quietly to Revelin, "you are interpreting letters, which represent sound." He picked up a quill, dipped it into ink, and wrote an elegant symbol on parchment paper. Revelin's eyes watched him avidly. "This is Baa. It represents the sound its name makes. Baa is in book, brain, ball, balm, bank, and bar. Can you name other words that contain Baa?"
Revelin nodded eagerly. "Boy, beach, bed, bear, big, baby—"
"And how many Baa sounds are there in baby?" Voldemort interrupted to ask.
Revelin paused, with an expression on his face as if he was afraid this was a trick question. "Two," he said, after a moment of thought.
"Good." Voldemort drew another symbol. "This is alif. It represents the aa sound." He drew another symbol. This one looked like the first two meshed together, Baa on the right, alif on the left. "When you write both Baa and alif, you put them together like this. Now," he pointed to the symbol, "What sound do these two together make? Go from right to left."
Revelin considered it a moment. "Baah."
"Good." Voldemort drew the fused symbol twice. "And what does this sound like?"
Revelin looked confused. "Baah baah." There was a pause. Then his face lit up. "Baabaa!" Baba. The Arabic word for "Papa."
Revelin rocked back and forth in excitement, then stared up at Voldemort eagerly. "What else?"
Voldemort looked down at him, his expression serious. "Do you understand how reading and writing works?"
Revelin nodded quickly. "Yes, Shara."
"Good. Then the rest of this should be easy."
Voldemort introduced four more symbols that morning, drilling them into Revelin's head by making him name words that contained those letters, giving him words and asking him which sounds were in them, and making him form words from the sounds he had introduced. He did this for hours, quizzing the child, while Revelin answered and sat in his tiny desk, practicing writing each letter, over and over again. Voldemort was pleased with Revelin's performance. It wasn't until Voldemort started throwing large words at him in rapid succession that the child finally started stumbling.
The first time he answered a question incorrectly, Revelin had stopped and stared at him, looking horrified and terrified, as if Voldemort was going to cast him out of the classroom now. Voldemort considered him in silence for a minute. He sensed this was a crucial moment: that criticizing the boy now could completely destroy his confidence. Voldemort would need to be careful.
"Even I have made mistakes," he told Revelin eventually. The boy looked marginally less horrified. "It is okay to make a mistake now. You are allowed to make them, in an academic setting like this. But you must learn from them."
Revelin nodded quickly.
Voldemort gazed at him levelly. "So where did you go wrong, and what did you learn from going wrong?"
Revelin thought back on it. Voldemort had been asking him to transcribe English words into the abjad. He had misspelled 'thunder.' "I used," he said slowly, "taa which is the 't' sound instead of thaa, which is the 'th' sound."
"And what did you learn from that mistake?"
"That I need to be careful when choosing between taa and thaa?"
"Are you asking me or telling me?"
"Telling," said Revelin firmly.
"Correct."
"Very well. Now, spell 'pathway.'"
That night, before he left for Malfoy Manor, Voldemort stopped outside of Revelin's room and peered in through the crack in the door. Parchment paper littered the bed, full of inky black marks still wet and glistening in the candlelight. Revelin lay on his stomach in the center of the mess, his right hand clutching his quill, a determined expression on his face, as he practiced writing his letters over and over again.
AAAA—Page Break—AAAA
Voldemort stared down at his servant. "Tell me about the Potters and Longbottoms."
At his feet, Nott lowered his head so far his forehead touched the ground. "My lord," he said quickly, "the Potters and Longbottoms have begun to lower their guard. They wander in public more freely now. The Longbottoms went to Diagon Alley this week, albeit still trailed by three different members of the Order, and the Potters visited Hogsmeade, though Albus Dumbledore was present. Two years ago, neither family would have dared come out of hiding at all."
He waited for Voldemort to speak, but Voldemort stayed quiet, thoughtful. Nervous, he ventured, "P-perhaps now, my lord, might be a g-good t-time—"
"No," said Voldemort simply, and Nott snapped shut his mouth. Voldemort leaned back in his throne, appearing oddly relaxed. "No," he said again, "I chose, when I heard the prophecy, not to take immediate action. As a baby neither boy posed a threat to me, and as toddlers they still do not. I will wait and see which of them appears to be more powerful before acting."
Voldemort couldn't very well imagine either child ever posing a threat to him. Both appeared to be quite normal children, not prodigious like Revelin. Still, he would err on the side of caution when it came to the prophecy. One of the boys would have to be eliminated. Eventually.
"Continue to watch them," Voldemort instructed Nott. His mind flicked to Bellatrix Lestrange, and he added, "In fact, should it ever appear that any of my…overzealous Death Eaters are attempting to take matters into their own hands, prevent them from doing so. The Potter and Longbottom boys are not to be harassed or attacked in any way. Their parents must be lulled into a false sense of security. When I do decide to eliminate one of the boys, I would prefer it if I had to deal with as little security as possible."
"Yes, my lord," said Nott swiftly.
"Good," said Voldemort, bored with the conversation already. "You are dismissed. Send in Pettigrew as you leave."
As Pettigrew gave his report on the Order, Voldemort's thoughts kept on flicking back to the prophecy. When he had first heard it, a little over two years ago, his initial instinct had been to hunt down both the Potters and the Longbottoms and murder the children. What had prevented him from doing so had been Revelin. Voldemort had returned to Morocco the day after hearing the prophecy and checked in on Revelin in the nursery. Revelin had been so small and harmless, and it had occurred to Voldemort that both the Potter boy and the Longbottom boy were even smaller and more helpless. It had suddenly seemed stupid to waste his resources trying to kill two babies when they obviously posed no threat to him. He had instead decided to simply keep tabs on the boys until they were older. He would kill them when he had time to kill them. If either one of them ever had the power to defeat him, they wouldn't have it for a long, long time, so Voldemort could be patient. In hindsight it had been the right decision. From the information he had received, both boys seemed painfully ordinary. Voldemort was insulted Dumbledore seemed to believe either had the power to defeat him.
When Pettigrew was done with his report—nothing much new had surfaced—Voldemort dismissed him with a couple of Crucios—he had no real reason to do so, other than the fact he simply like torturing the rat—and sat back and contemplated his next move.
AAAA—Page Break—AAAA
Revelin learned and flourished. In three days the child had memorized the abjad and was able to read simple words, albeit slowly and through pronouncing them out loud. On day four Voldemort taught him about basic sentence structure, and he was able to read simple sentences. By the end of the week he could read more complex sentences.
Revelin could barely contain his happiness at learning how to read, though he tried to for Voldemort's sake, for Voldemort did not approve of excessively expressing emotions. Every time the child read a sentence correctly, however, his face glowed. And though Voldemort gave him praise sparingly, each time he did, Revelin might well have floated off the ground, he was so happy.
The child worked hard at learning how to read. Every time he was not in lessons he was practicing his writing, saying the words out loud as he did so, or sitting on the floor in the library and slowly pronouncing the titles of each Arabic book on the bottom shelves. Voldemort was pleased with his work ethic, and told him so. As he had anticipated, the boy had appeared thrilled and had then proceeded to work even harder.
The second week of instruction Voldemort switched from focusing entirely on learning how to read to only partly doing so. Half the lesson was spent in review and practice of the abjad, and the other half was devoted to introducing mathematics. In the introduction of mathematics, Voldemort simply had the child learn numeric symbols and explained to him how the ten's system worked. Neither was a difficult concept for Revelin to grasp. The boy had already known his numbers up to a thousand and had already figured out on his own the basic idea behind addition and subtraction. The child had a very mathematical mind. Arithmancy would come especially easily to him. Voldemort had been very similar, at that age. In the muggle primary school he had been forced to endure, the teacher had eventually resorted to giving him secondary school mathematics problems to prevent him from getting bored.
In the ensuing months, Voldemort slowly diversified the subjects he taught, spreading into such topics as geography, history, and extremely basic herbology and magical theory. He devoted at least three hours of instruction a day to reading and writing. He wanted Revelin's literacy to be superb. It was imperative that the child be comfortable reading texts on his own for extended periods of time. Voldemort couldn't continue to devote 11 hours a day to Revelin's education, as he had been doing. Much of his research had been put on hold, and that couldn't continue forever. Voldemort had a world to take over. Ideally, eventually, he would instill enough discipline in Revelin for him to be able to learn plenty on his own. That wasn't to say Voldemort would no longer teach Revelin—he still planned to squeeze in about six hours a day of instruction—but that Revelin would learn the rest of the day on his own.
It crossed Voldemort's mind that children Revelin's age typically didn't do well in such a structured, demanding environment. It had then crossed his mind that he was glad Revelin was in no way typical for his age. Revelin was like he had been at that age, and young Tom Riddle had never wanted to run around like other children. He had always wanted to read whatever books he could get his hands on.
Seven months into Revelin's education, Voldemort reduced the time he taught the child by one hour. Revelin looked up, confused, when Voldemort told him the lesson was over for the day.
"But Shara," he had protested, "We still have an hour."
"I realize," said Voldemort mildly. He flicked his wand, and a thin book flew off the shelf on the wall.
Revelin read its title out loud questioningly, "Strange Stories in Magical History?"
"Yes," said Voldemort simply. It was a simplified version of the book, meant for children. Voldemort thought it prudent to start Revelin's independent reading with something more entertaining than a typical course-book. When Revelin continued to stare at him curiously, Voldemort pointed to the wizard clock on the wall and explained, "I would like you to read as much of this book as you can until the hour is up. Meet me downstairs when you are done. Start with chapter one."
Voldemort gauged his reaction carefully, to see how well the boy would adapt to this new method of instruction. To his credit, Revelin took it in stride. "Yes, Shara," he said obediently, clasping the book with both hands. Voldemort considered him for another moment, before nodding in satisfaction. "Very well." He swept out of the room.
When the hour was up, Revelin strode downstairs, the book held tightly in both hands. Voldemort was waiting for him at the dining table, sipping tea and reading reports Rookwood had stolen from the Department of Mysteries. When Revelin entered the room, Voldemort looked up.
"How far did you get?" he hissed in Parseltongue.
"To a page into Chapter Three, Shara."
"Recount the details of Chapter Two."
Revelin immediately launched into a detailed explanation of the story of Barnabas the Barmy, and Voldemort listened patiently, occasionally interrupting to ask a more detailed question in order to see how much Revelin had absorbed. Revelin was able to answer them all satisfactorily, and when Voldemort had finished quizzing him he smiled in satisfaction.
"You are an attentive reader," he said. Revelin glowed with the praise.
Voldemort pointed to Revelin's seat, and Revelin sat. A second later his meal appeared before him, and Voldemort returned his attention to the reports as Revelin dug in.
The boy would have no problems learning independently. In fact—Voldemort raised his eyes briefly from the reports—the child was attempting to read more of the book underneath the table. Voldemort normally would have chastised him for doing so, but that would have been hypocritical at the moment. He was doing the exact same thing. Instead he returned his attention to the reports and took another sip of tea. Dinner passed in silence.