AN: Well, here we go, another update. Thank you for all the encouraging reviews, I'm glad that you're liking the story. Pairings? Enjoy - The Fictionist
Chapter 10 part 2
"What is going on here?' Scrimegour, demanded.
Harry felt his head tilt to the side. Blimey, he remembered the lion-haired man when he was a teenager. No Auror could be intimidating if you saw them drunk at the age of fifteen. Ah, good times. The man looked around, his gaze landing on him and Tom. His mouth tightened, all the colour draining from of his face. "What did the pair of you do to Madame Umbridge?' came the immediate question. He wondered absently if he should have been offended at how everyone automatically concluded him as a troublemaker.
"Rufus," Tom smirked, " an Auror, are we?"
"Mr Riddle, if we could keep this professional." He looked nervous though. Bless the little ministry worker.
Tom shrugged easily, a debonair expression on his face.
'But, of course," his violet eyes hardened. "Madame Umbridge was a death eater."
He almost laughed at the utter disgusted, horrified and poor little orphan Tom managed to pull off, while still garnering respect.
"Didn't you see the dark mark?" Harry widened his eyes innocently. Rufus hesitated, glancing at his men. He was clearly torn between doing his job and not trusting them.
"Well, yes, but -"
"-But what? It wasn't enough evidence for you? Sirius Black never even got a trial, and he actually was innocent." He saw Scrimegour wince. Tom's eyes met his for a brief moment, amusement present in his gaze for a moment.
"Well -" Rufus began, obviously not liking being interrupting by a teen.
"- You're TOM RIDDLE!" a loud interruption. Harry almost snickered as yet another interruption made the head Auror's ire visibly grow.
"And you are?" Tom's calm reply seemed to serve only in irritating Scrimegour further.
"Dawlish, I - wow, this is an honour. I am such a fan of your work!"
This had to be a joke. Did he mean Voldemort, nah, he couldn't, could he?
Tom seemed to be thinking a long the same lines, at least that's what the slight quirk of his brow suggested. It was almost eerie how well they knew each other, and how little.
"My work?" Tom repeated, giving the Auror an intense, psyching stare.
"Catching the heir of Slytherin during the monster attacks."
Oh. He was getting worried for a moment there. Tom looked a little blank.
Oh, Harry almost laughed, it hadn't happened to Tom yet; but he knew who the heir of Slytherin was. Riddle shot him a sideways glance, warning him that he would be explaining once the ministry had left. He merely smiled innocently.
"Ah, that. It was nothing," Tom said breezily, smiling a charming smile. "I was merely doing my duty."
Liar.
Dawlish smiled stupidly, hanging onto the future Dark Lord's every word. Irony to its greatest forms. How he managed to become an Auror…then again, it was the ministry. They were almost all incompetent so he supposed that this doofus fit right in.
"What are you going to do about Umbridge?" Harry asked, taking a slight step forward. He inwardly cringed as everyone stared at him. Dawlish had gone slack jawed.
"Wait, you're Harry Potter!"
"Yes," he dismissed patiently. "Hi."
"What does it matter?" Scrimegour snapped. Dawlish looked excited now.
"But don't you see!" he explained.
"Why don't you explain?" a slow, regal voice asked. He turned to glance at the dark-skinned, bald man. Kingsley Shacklebolt. An Auror. An Order member - they'd met at Grimmauld over the summer. Harry hadn't missed the sick twist of fate from landing from hanging out with Tom to being in the Fawkes' HQ. The irony. The sick irony.
"Well," Dawlish began, pointing to him and Tom like a child who had heard that Christmas was a month early. "If he's Tom Riddle, then he has to be Harrison Evans! Which means that Harry Potter is Harrison Evans!"
He clapped slowly. "Genius," he said sarcastically.
"I know, right!"
Seemed Dawlish didn't know of sarcasm.
"Your point is?" Scrimegour asked. Dawlish grinned gleefully.
"The light's savoir is also a dark side legend; we're going to win now. He can easily kill You-know-who."
Harry felt himself freeze, his fists clenching and his magic roaring. Tom's eyes flashed crimson, before darkening to black slits.
"Oh?" he said coldly, only realising after he had spoken that him and Tom had, once again, spoke and moved in complete unison.
"Oh dear," another Auror muttered, sensing danger. "Dawlish, honey?" the woman said sweetly.
"Smith?" he replied brightly.
"Shut up. I remember then stories of the Slytherin duo as well as you do."
He stared at her, uncomprehending. Dumbledore stepped up, all grandfatherly.
"Slytherin duo?" he repeated. "Well sure, that's what everyone called them. Among other things, according to my grandfather."
"Such as?" Alphard asked curiously, grinning at them both.
"Together or individually?"
"Both," Abraxas said. Dawlish hadn't seemed to notice the predatory smirks on all of the Slytherin's faces - but everyone else certainly had.
"Here we go," Scrimegour said, but it was quiet. No one - no one - who knew them, or of them, got involved in their fights.
"Well, um. Riddle is like the Prince of Slytherin -" Tom smirked. "-Evans is Griffin, the Snake Lion or He-who-must-not-be-named-in-he-who-must-not-be-named's- hearing. I never got that one…"
Harry exchanged a look with Tom. They both knew where that one came from.
"Then if you talked to the lions they were the next Dark Lord's in training and apprenticed to Grindewald."
Harry actually laughed at that one.
"I can't see Tom becoming a Dark Lord," he said, somehow managing to school his features as he said it. Dumbledore gave him a flabbergasted look. It almost cracked his composure.
"Are you accusing me of something?" Tom demanded, glaring at Dawlish. Smith backed up a little.
"No!" he looked panicked now.
"I think we should be going," Smith said.
"Great idea," Scrimegour smiled nervously "Lets go, rest assured - Madame Umbridge will receive appropriate punishment."
The Aurors fled, grabbing a bewildered Dawlish roughly by the arm.
A moment of silence.
Then they started to laugh.
"So, what's this about a monster an the heir of Slytherin?"
Well hell.