Author's Note: Still updating quite often thankfully. This chapter finally has that scene with Muff that I've wanted to do for a few chapters, but kept changing my mind about. It's quite important so read it carefully. The chapter is also a good length, so hopefully it will keep you entertained. I also wanted to mention that I'm disappointed by the lack of reviews I've been getting, I don't mean to get anyone angry by saying this, but please, please try to review more. It gives me a lot of motivation to write.

That being said I hope you like this chapter, a lot of it is written from Tom's point of view. Enjoy!

The Experiments of Tom Marvolo Riddle – Chapter 17

Written By YT12J

Tom walked into the dormitory to find Harry quietly sitting there, doing an essay for Transfiguration. It had been little over a week since he had discovered that the runes he had carved out had disappeared, and when he investigated he found that the protection charms he had put up had been destroyed, and he even found traces of water that seemed to be the cause of the disappearance of the runes. He thought of Harry first; he was the only other person that could enter the dormitory, and seemed to be a likely suspect. However he wasn't too sure when he thought about it a little bit more; Harry was now his friend, and had no reason to sabotage something he was doing.

However the fact that it had been sabotaged was a big problem considering he needed several months of preparation for the runes to work, and the fact that several weeks after he began all of his work was destroyed meant that he would not be able to start doing it again and make it in time for the end of the year, the time at which he was planning to leave. It was too risky for him to stay any longer than that, so he had already made the decision that he would choose the other method of travelling back through time: a special portkey. This portkey would only take around a week to create, but unfortunately it would involve a lot more hard work, meaning that he would be very tired and drained that week, in all ways, not just magical.

Even though he had already made the decision to make the portkey, he was still curious and annoyed about his other method going down the drain, exactly why he wanted to ask Harry about it; in case he knew anything. Without any further ado he walked up next to Harry's bed and waited a moment before speaking. "Harry, there is something urgent I need to take to you about. Put down your homework for a second."

Harry didn't do anything for a few seconds, and just as Tom was beginning to think that he was ignoring him Harry sighed, put down his homework onto his bed, and looked up without saying anything. He looked extremely tired, and had been for the past week, although Tom wasn't quite sure why. He continued.

"Do you remember when I spoke to you about a circle of runes that I had fashioned, around a week ago?" Harry nodded, and he resumed speaking. "It turns out, by what could have been a freak accident, or an attempt at sabotage, these runes were destroyed, funnily enough along with the charms that were protecting them from exactly this. I investigated, and found that a few drops of water were left over at the scene, and it is my theory that they were destroyed by water. You wouldn't happen to know anything about this, would you?"

Harry shook his head, but Tom noticed his eyes look away slightly, a clear sign that he was not telling the truth. Tom frowned; Harry did have something to do with it, but it still made no sense. There was no reason for him to do it, and this was the only reason that he wasn't telling Harry that he knew he was lying.

He stared into Harry's eyes for a few more seconds, and Harry surprisingly managed to stare back without averting his eyes. Tom sighed and decided that there was no point staying there; he had to go and prepare for his portkey back in time. Giving Harry one last glance he turned his back and walked away, planning on getting several books from the restricted section of the library.

Harry watched Tom leave silently, afraid that he would turn back and question him more. He had destroyed the runes, but he obviously was not going to tell this to Tom. Meanwhile he knew that Tom would probably find some other way of going back in time, and he even remembered Tom mentioning some sort of portkey the when he was telling him about the runes.

Harry sighed. For the past week he had been extremely tired due to the fact that he was determinedly planning a way for Tom to be able to stay without causing a major paradox. It hadn't been easy, and he had lost a lot of his sleep by sneaking into the restricted section and finding books on time travel so that he could make sure his plan was fool proof. He didn't intend to tell Tom about this plan until just before he left, as he knew that Tom would disapprove, mainly because he already had when Harry had first brought up the idea.

He knew that he couldn't afford to let this become a major distraction however. His O. were coming up, and he had to make sure that he was revising enough that he wouldn't fail them. He was trying really hard to not ask Hermione to help him with his homework like he always used to, and he could tell that Ron was doing the same. They both understood how serious these exams were, and had even started to impress Hermione with the amount of studying they were doing, and the fact that they were starting to get better grades on their homework.

It was the beginning of April, and he knew that in just a couple of months the exams would start. There were already several potions and talismans going around the school that promised the best grades, although people who were caught with them were receiving severe punishments form the heads of houses. Alongside that Fred and George were still selling joke products in the school, and Hermione had threatened them several times about this as a prefect. The only reason that they took her seriously was because of the fact that she threatened to tell their mother, something which Harry found extremely funny.

Break

It was a couple of weeks later and Harry was preparing to go to Hogsmeade with Daphne. He was currently in his dormitory and Tom was nowhere to be seen, something which Harry wasn't particularly bothered about. He had been quit preoccupied lately, and Harry suspected that he was creating his portkey back, although for some reason he wouldn't tell him that.

Harry didn't realise it but Tom was in fact standing in the room, invisible. He was planning to go to Hogsmeade with Harry and his girlfriend, mainly because he needed to stock up on several things, but also because he had overheard one of the Slytherin boys boasting about an attack that was going to happen that day. He wasn't sure if they actually knew what they were talking about, but took it seriously enough that he decided to go with Harry in secret, should he need to protect him from a possible attack.

He followed Harry to the Entrance Hall and watched him greet his girlfriend, Daphne, with a small kiss. They then walked hand in hand to the village, Tom directly behind them without their knowledge. To his surprise they didn't go into any of the shops, instead choosing to simply walk with each other past all of them. This lasted for several minutes, and Tom was starting to get bored when he suddenly heard a scream coming from his far left. He turned, instinctively shooting a curse as he did, and watched, satisfied, as it hit a Death Eater square in the face. The man fell to the floor screaming, and the women whom he had been attempting to curse ran away.

When he turned his head back he found that Harry and Daphne were both running back in the direction of the castle, but knew that they wouldn't make it without being attacked. Death Eaters were appearing everywhere, shooting curses and fighting in well organized groups. Tom frowned; this wasn't just a regular attack, they were organized enough that they must have had an aim. And then he found out what their aim was when the groups of Death Eaters headed towards the people that he had come with to guard. They were after Harry.

The two of them seemed to be shooting curse and running at the same time, however they weren't able to fight off the thirty Death Eaters that were after them, so Tom decided to help in an extremely clever way. He silently modified his voice with magic so that he didn't sound so young, and then, still invisible yelled out to the Death Eaters in a deep voice "It's not Potter, it's someone in disguise! Potter's actually in the Three Broomsticks!"

Tom was amazed and appalled at how stupid the Death Eaters seemed to be; almost all of them believed him, and headed in the other direction to the pub. He knew that he had potentially put the people there in danger, but he wasn't too bothered considering his only priority was Harry, and seeing as Harry seemed to care for her, Daphne.

There were still a few Death Eaters who did not believe him when he shouted, so after changing his voice back to normal he shot a few curses at them, quickly and efficiently dropping them to the ground. He then ran until he was alongside Harry and Daphne, and accompanied them back to the castle.

When they finally got there, they were ushered into the castle instantly by a surprisingly worried looking Filch, and when they were finally in the safety of Hogwarts Tom let them go on their own to wherever they were going, and he himself headed back to their dormitory. He could have gone back to Hogsmeade to help fight the Death Eaters, but he didn't really care for any student other than Harry, and there was a small part of him that in fact didn't want to fight his future followers, even if they didn't know who he was.

The next day Harry found out, along with all of the other students, that the Aurors had come into Hogsmeade and managed to defeat the Death Eaters in the end, however there were many casualties among them. No student died, although there were some pretty bad injuries with some of them.

The day after, at breakfast, Hermione gasped as soon as she saw the Daily Prophet, and wordlessly showed it to Harry and Ron. It read:

Minister Fudge Suspects Black!

Two days ago there was a major attack on the village of Hogsmeade during which many Hogwarts students were injured, and the Aurors were forced to fight for their lives. However yesterday the Minister announced that he does not believe that these attackers, some of which were identified as former followers of You-Know-Who that recently broke out of prison, did this on their own without anyone organizing them. The Minister has stated his belief that these Dark Wizards were sent to attack by none other than Sirius Black, another former follower of You-Know-Who that broke out of prison two years ago.

"Black clearly feels the need to express his insanity and extreme hate for the innocent of the Wizarding World after this incident." Announced an anonymous Ministry Official yesterday. There are major efforts at finding Black's location and having him arrested, but so far they are not successful, however the Minister has also stated that he is sure Black will soon be captured and brought to justice.

Go to Page 3 for a detailed account of Black's crimes

Go to Page 5 for a description of the attack on Hogsmeade

Harry shook his head in disgust as soon as he read this, and Ron muttered "The Minister's gone barmy for sure mate, how can he blame Sirius for this?"

Hermione nodded when he said this and replied "I think it's disgraceful that the Minister is jut blaming innocent people so that people can't blame him, when it's actually his fault that a lot of these things are happening. Although Harry, it's obvious that the W.H.M is working quite well because a lot of students managed to defend themselves the other day. Some of them even told me that they might have died if it weren't for the fact that they were taught so many useful spells."

Harry smiled; it was nice to know that the group was working out so well, although it angered him to think about the fact that the Ministry were so intent on stopping Dumbledore from creating an army that they weren't teaching the students what they should have been teaching. The name 'We Hate Muff' was very appropriate in his opinion as Muff was a terrible teacher and the reason that people might have difficulty in their O. .

Break

Harry sighed. In the last Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson he had shouted at Muff, and told him that situations like the other day were the reason as to why they should be learning Defensive Magic in the lessons, instead of just reading the book like they did in every lesson. Muff hadn't even bothered to reply to this with anything other than a detention, and Harry surprisingly managed to control his temper after he did this.

He knocked on Muff's office's door, and entered when he was invited. However the scene inside was a surprise. Muff was stumbling drunkenly around his office, and there were several bottles of Firewhiskey on his desk. Harry sighed; it would probably be a detention that he would remember for a long time. He was tempted to report the teacher's drunkenness to Dumbledore, but knew that Muff could get away with almost anything thanks to Fudge being such a lunatic.

"I'm here for my detention Professor, like you told me to be." Harry said, and it was a few seconds until Muff looked up. When he did, he stared at Harry like he only just found out the boy was standing there, and took a few minutes to speak.

"Harry, Harry, please sit down in this chair." He indicated the chair in front of his desk, and after Harry walked over and sat down he did the same, although he more dropped himself into his chair rather than actually sat.

His voice was surprisingly normal for someone so drunk, and Harry would have suspected that he was actually sober and just going mad if it weren't for the numerous bottles and the smell of alcohol that was on his breath as he leaned in a little bit.

"Harry, I've meen beaning to, that is to say I've been meaning to speak to you about something." He mixed up some letters in his words, and Harry sighed, wondering how long it would take for him to say what he wanted to say.

Suddenly Muff straightened up, and a serious look came onto his face. "This is a very important matter Harry. First of all, did you know that I once knew your father?" Harry suddenly was a lot more interested. Was he going to confess the secret that he apparently had? Tom told him about it a while ago, but with everything going on he had forgotten to somehow get Muff to tell him.

Without waiting for a reply Muff suddenly launched into a story. "Y'see, I was once reasonably close to your father, when we were at school. 'Course not as close as he was to his gang, but close enough. Loadsa people thought we were just friends 'cause we both loved bullyin' Snape, but it wasn't true. We were jus' good friends." His speech was starting to get sloppy, and it probably didn't help that he began to take great gulps of Firewhiskey every few seconds.

"It was true though, I loved bullyin' Snape, he wasn't a nice guy, so I made his life hell, y'know? He hated me jus' as much as he hated James, maybe even a li'l bit more. Anyway, when we got out of school, we both became Death Eaters, Snape jus' 'cause he was a loser, me 'cause I was recruited for my esper- expertise in killin'."

Harry's eyes widened. He had no idea that Muff had been a Death Eater, and he filed this information away in case it could get the man fired.

"We were fellow Death Eaters, and Voldemort always liked me more, Snape was jus' a loser. But he was jealous, I made fun of 'im even more when we were Death Eaters as well. One day he jus' attacked me, outa nowhere, and Voldemort lost it when he found out. Tortured Snape in his dungeons for loadsa days, and 'ventually he had me kill a coupla prisoners in fronta Snape, as an example."

At this point, to Harry's extreme surprise he burst into tears. Harry wasn't quite sure what to do, so he just handed a tissue to the man, and watched as he wiped his eyes, sobbing the entire time. When he was done he surprisingly managed to continue telling his story.

"I did it, killed 'em, didn' even know who they were, jus' tha' they'd wronged Voldemort, but after I did it, he told me who the prisoners were. James' parents, Mr and Mrs Potter; I'd killed the parents of one of my close friends from school."

Harry stared at him, completely shocked. He was opposite the man who killed his grandparents! He was about to leave the classroom, but Muff grabbed his arm and tried to finish the story. "I left Voldemort, soon as I found out, but before I did I murdered 'round about fifty Death Eaters; large part of his army. Since then he's wanted to kill me, and 'til y'defeated him I had to live in a safe house Dumbledore gave me. It was 'orrible, I'd basically betrayed my friend an' killed 'alf his family. He never found out, so he never hated me, but Snape always has an' always will. He won't forget that torture anytime soon."

Professor Muff began to blubber again into the tissue, and Harry had had enough. He got up and headed straight towards the door, intending to go straight to Dumbledore and shout at him for allowing the same man who murdered his grandparents to work at the school, even if the Minister appointed him.

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed that! It's nice to finally get Muff's secret out into the open. Harry will now obviously lose his temper at Muff a lot more easily, although Muff may actually not give him that many detentions out of guilt. The next chapter will most definitely continue straight off from here, with Harry going to Dumbledore to discuss the fact that Muff is his grandparents' killer.

Thank you for reading the chapter! I'm not too sure when I'll update next, it almost definitely won't be tomorrow because I am very busy, and my holiday is coming to an end so my updates will be a lot less frequent. Please try to review and vote on my poll if you can. Until the next time, bye!