Chapter Three: When I Start to Sway, I Get Carried Away
Tom and Quirrell walked back towards the Slytherin dorm together. The main hallways of Hogwarts were nearly abandoned since, by now, most students had found their common rooms and were enjoying getting to know their fellow housemates. Making friends and talking about how incredibly alike they were. Laughing over how well they were getting along.
And here Tom had been in a fight not five minutes after setting foot in the Slytherin dormitory. Tom's fist still ached with the imprint of Lucius' face. Malfoy had a large nose and it had hurt to impact with it. Why had he done it? Tom didn't particularly like fighting. He always listed fighting as a fault of the mean boys at the orphanage. And here he was, acting just like them. Punching people in the nose for their opinions. For thinking they were better than all this.
Lucius had, unfortunately, been right. Muggles were dirty and the hierarchy extended away from them. Mudbloods were lower than half bloods and half bloods were lower than pure blood wizards, naturally. Purebloods were completely removed from muggles. And it was obvious Lucius was pureblooded, otherwise he wouldn't have called Tom and Quirrell those names.
"I don't think I ate enough," complained Quirrell rubbing his stomach.
Tom smiled in disbelief, shaken out of his thoughts. "Why not?"
"I was too excited! I wanted to see the school, the dormitories, the paintings!"
Tom looked forward and shook his head. "I don't think that's something I can help you with, sorry Quirrell."
"That's alright," said Quirrell, shuffling his feet. "Breakfast will come soon enough. And besides, you've done enough for me already. You're a hero, Tom."
Tom blushed but he didn't protest. He wanted to be a hero and he was afraid that if he denied it, he might convince Quirrell that he wasn't.
"You know a place we didn't get to investigate," said Quirrell, trying to look cunning.
Tom raised an eyebrow and turned. "Where?"
"The library."
Tom scoffed and looked ahead again. "The library? Quirrell, you must be joking!"
Quirrell looked hurt. "But Hogwarts has one of the best libraries in Europe! Full of all sorts of books! Novels, spell reference books, and then there's the restricted section—"
"There's a restricted section?"
Quirrell nodded, eager to improve Tom's opinion of the library. "Absolutely! My mum tells me it has an alarm and everything."
"I wonder what books it would hold that would warrant such protection," mused Tom.
"A lot of dark magic, probably," offered Quirrell.
Tom stopped in his tracks and Quirrell walked on a few more steps before he noticed and turned back.
"Let's go see," said Tom, a spark in his eye. "Want to?"
Quirrell looked worried. "What? But the restricted section is…restricted! We'll get in so much trouble if we're caught—"
"So we won't get caught," said Tom. "Come on, Quirrell. Everyone will be busy with unpacking and preparing for the first day of classes. No one is going to be in the library."
"Except the librarian."
"I hardly think so at this hour." Tom smiled eagerly. "Come on."
Quirrell gave a pained look.
Tom rolled his eyes. "Unless you want to go back to spend the night with a bloodied and angry Malfoy."
"He might take my bed again," Quirrell protested in a little voice.
"If he does, I'll push him out," insisted Tom. "And I'll keep pushing him until he stays out."
Quirrell bit his lip and fidgeted with his robe. Then a smile crept onto his face. "Alright, let's do it. With all that has already happened tonight, I feel prepared for an adventure."
"That's the spirit," said Tom happily, though he wasn't ready to pat Quirrell's shoulder or hug him round the neck to show affection like some of the rowdier children at the orphanage did. Not just yet. He spun slowly in a circle, looking at the walls and corridors in turn. "Now," he said, "where might the library be?"
The boys ended up spending nearly an hour trying to find the library. The longer they searched, the more determined Tom was to find it. He couldn't shake the notion that it might be down the corridor just ahead of them, couldn't shake the fear that if they turned back, it would be right before the correct corridor.
Quirrell shuffled along behind him, tired and hungry, as he kept reminding Tom.
"We have classes all day tomorrow, Tom!" whined Quirrell. "There's no way we'll be able to make it through."
"Nothing important ever happens on the first day of class," sighed Tom, growing irritable. "As long as we show up to the right classes at the right times, we'll be fine."
"But I'm tired—"
Tom groaned. "I have a cold and I'm fine, so you're fine."
"But—" Quirrell cut off and pointed. "I found it! I see shelves!"
They ran to it, forgetting that they had been quiet so they wouldn't get caught. On one of the tables sat a lantern lit by some sort of magical fire that wasn't quite fire. Seeing this lantern, Tom had a moment of panic and he and Quirrell hid behind a bookshelf, in case the owner of the lantern was still there. They stayed there, breathing as quietly as they could for several minutes. No one came and though Tom strained to hear any small sound indicating someone was in the library, he heard nothing. Perhaps the lantern was left lit at night. It wasn't technically fire, so it wasn't a fire hazard to leave it lit among shelves of old books.
"I don't think anyone is here," whispered Quirrell.
"Neither do I," agreed Tom as they crept out from their hiding place and into the aisle.
Tom had never been a fan of libraries, per say. They were quiet, and he liked that, but he never got the rush that some of the other children got from the smell of paper and shelves of books. And whenever he was in the library, it was always part of some "field trip" or other, so he wasn't actually ever alone. He was always being watched more carefully than the other orphans by the chaperones, even more carefully than they watched the mean boys. They had watched him as if they expected him to intentionally burst into flames and run around burning the other orphans. It wasn't Tom's fault that the other boys picked on him until bad things started happening to them. He had always thought it was his guardian angel sticking up for him, punishing people who hurt him. Now he knew that it was his own power.
All that aside, Tom could see why Quirrell liked libraries so much, if other wizarding libraries were anything like this one. Shelves full of books, outlandish titles such as, Cures for Magical Maladies, The Complex Society of Trolls, and The Tales of Beetle and Bard. Tom liked this library. Maybe it was because he knew that inside each of these covers was information on a magical world he had only just recently discovered, a magical world that he was part of. These books contained spells for all manner of magic and, Tom thought, if he could manage to read every book in this library, he would be the most powerful wizard in the world by the time he was done.
"The restricted section is over here," came Quirrell's quiet voice. Tom followed him to a short gate with a flimsy chain and sign that read: Restricted. Alarm Will Sound.
"Well, there it is," said Quirrell, rocking back and forth on his feet. "Alarm and everything."
Tom blew his breath out between his lips in amazement. All these books full of magic that weren't in the restricted section. If not all books of spells were restricted, what made the restricted books so special? Maybe they contained really dangerous, really powerful spells. Maybe they contained spells to change your shape or to raise the dead. Things that Dumbledore didn't want careless students to stumble upon. Students that didn't have the sense to handle these spells with the proper care.
"Hold the back of my robe so I can lean over the railing and get one of the books," instructed Tom, holding a chunk of his robe out for Quirrell to grab.
"Won't the alarm sound?" protested Quirrell.
"Not if we don't actually set foot in the section, I'm thinking," replied Tom.
"But what if the alarm hex is attached to the books and not the floor?"
"It will be fine," Tom insisted. "Besides, going to the library was your idea."
"Only sort of," Quirrell mumbled. "But now I think we should go back. You've already gotten into trouble once. Twice before classes start wouldn't be a good beginning to your time at Hogwarts."
"It's in the pursuit of knowledge," said Tom. "The school can't get too upset over that. Now grab my robe, please. I'm going to lean."
Quirrell grabbed two fistfuls of Tom's robe and leaned back on his heels, closing his eyes in anxiety.
Tom reached for the nearest book, the one on the end of the shelf next to the fence. It was too dark to see the title but he knew whatever it was would be the best book he had ever read. Carefully, ever so carefully, Tom inched it out by the spine. Finally, it was in his hands.
Alarm bells exploded and echoed through the corridor. Quirrell let go of Tom's robes in fright and Tom fell against the fence, nearly somersaulting over it and into the restricted section. Tom righted himself and turned to Quirrell.
"Run!" he whispered, pushing Quirrell ahead of himself. They made it out of the corridor and into the boys' bathroom just as a light and footsteps appeared in the hallway.
Tom clutched the forbidden book to his heaving chest with one hand and he clutched Quirrell's shoulder with the other. Realizing what he was doing, he let go of Quirrell and held the book with both hands.
They both listened as voices and footsteps passed and the alarm turned off. Quirrell swallowed, trying to catch his breath as he wiped sweaty hairs out of his eyes. Tom slowly smoothed his hair back and tried not to breathe too loudly.
Tom and Quirrell looked at each other, excitement bubbling in their eyes. Quirrell was the first to laugh: silently of course. Tom's face broke out into a smile as well, a proper one that showed his teeth.
"I must admit," Quirrell whispered. "That was some kind of fun."
"Yes, and now we have this book." Tom ran his hand along the book's dusty spine.
"We won't be able to keep it for long, since they'll be missing it," observed Quirrell.
"They'll be missing it by now already, I'll bet," countered Tom. "But anyway, we will have to keep it hidden."
Quirrell smiled, showing his teeth. "Students by day…and-and I guess students by night, too?"
"Yes, technically. Only we'll get so much further ahead than all the other first-years. Eventually we'll surpass all of them."
"And then we'll rule the world."
"And then we'll rule the world," Tom agreed.
"Oh no you won't," said a voice that was unmistakably Dumbledore's. The bathroom door opened and Tom and Quirrell fell into the hallway, straight at Dumbledore's feet. The old wizard bent and took hold of the book. Tom wanted to keep a strong grip on it, to fight Dumbledore for it, but he knew better than that, so he let the headmaster take it.
"Grey Potions," Dumbledore read the title. "A little steep for first-years, wouldn't you agree, Tom?"
Tom righted himself and got to his feet. He was angry. He was hurt. A candlestick crashed to the floor near them in the hallway. A curtain ripped on its own. The bricks in the wall rattled.
Dumbledore steeled his jaw and he looked fiercer than Tom had ever seen. "That's enough, Tom."
Tom bit the inside of his cheek, glaring at the floor. The curtain stopped tearing. The wall stopped rattling. He wouldn't be able to get away with such tantrums here the way he could at Wooley's Orphanage.
"It is late and I am trying to get some rest before school starts tomorrow, and yet we need to have another talk in my office," Dumbledore told Tom. Then he looked at Quirrell. "Both of you, come along."
Quirrell looked like he might pass out; clearly, upsetting Dumbledore was something he had hoped would never happen. Join the club, thought Tom. Tom admired Dumbledore. He respected him. He was grateful to him. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint him. Yet it was the first thing he had done.
A/N: I hadn't originally planned for Tom to get into so much trouble right from the start, but I feel like his curiosity, social isolation, and scrappiness would make him a troublemaker. As he gets older, however, I think he would learn how to better control these instincts, or at least hide them enough that he wouldn't get expelled or spend his life in detention.
Also, Lucius is ending up as something of Tom's enemy. How does Lucius go from little snot to being one of Voldemort's Death Eaters? You'll see!