After that mishap at Ollivander's, Dumbledore excused himself very politely claiming that he had important business to attend and directing the Smiths to ask around any of the storekeepers if they had any trouble finding Tom's supplies. Tom had spent the last hour just trying wands and the entire trip had taken far longer than anticipated.
Tom was even more impatient and just as soon as Dumbledore was gone, he was alone with both his "parents" returned (using his powers) to the muggle world and finally he was free to do as he wished.
With his pockets full of gold and even more as he had stripped both of them clean of any muggle cash they carried (while he often stole from the muggle world using his magic, he wasn't fool enough to try in the magical world), he had left them the magically-induced impression that the headmaster would be responsible for him as he attended a Hogwarts-organised muggle-born orientation which would last a couple of weeks.
And truly, Tom thought, it was an impressive sort of lie because it was exactly what a school like Hogwarts should have been doing for students coming without a magical background. All the best lies originated from the quality of reasonableness after all.
His first stop was Flourish and Botts where he spent a blissful two hours just skim reading and identifying the major interests and preoccupations of the wizarding world. Magic spells, Quidditch, the Ministry, History, Current Affairs, and the major fields of knowledge in Herbology, Potions, Charms, Defence, Transfiguration, even rudimentary domestic books about gardening, healing, house-keeping magic.
He devoured knowledge voraciously with the desperation of someone who's life depended on it, because in reality it did. It had all been kept from him for so long. All his life he had been in exile and he felt now like a King returned to his kingdom. He hadn't known where to start so he merely guessed before he could draw any coherent map in his mind. His first objective was to learn as much as possible in the shortest period of time so he couldn't possibly be at a disadvantage once he finally made it to Hogwarts.
After spending another morning browsing magical wares as his mind reeled from the possibilities of magic, he used a sizeable amount of his money to purchase a usefully enchanted pouch that could conceal many large-sized items. He filled it with many important tomes. In addition to general wizarding knowledge, he bought several upper year textbooks out of curiosity because they intrigued him far more than the first year textbooks that he had already purchased.
On his fifth day alone, he finally decided to acquire a wand but Ollivander's seemed to be the only option in Diagon Alley. Then he discovered Knockturn Alley and it was to Tom's disbelief an even more fascinating experience. The alley had a menacing reputation selling human body parts (some of them shrunken and deformed), poisons, and blood-stained cursed trinkets galore, and for Tom's particular need: used secondhand wands of unknown providence.
This was the other side of the magical world that they wanted to hide, deny that it even existed in order to preserve their immaculate reputations. But like all people that Tom encountered, magical folk too had a need for unchecked ruthlessness on occasion to accomplish something important and it was always tolerated from the shadows.
Tom delighted in its twisted ugliness and it was essential as he encountered many books that he otherwise would have never known. His view of magic was thus shaped both from what he read in Diagon Alley as well as in Knockturn Alley and they always had broad disagreements. Tom could accept them both; that they were both correct in their own ways.
When he returned to the Smiths, his entire worldview was changed and he could never remember learning so much in so short a period. It was a deliriously happy thought as he threw himself into further studies, rarely leaving his room. It seemed the more he learned, the more he needed to know and the further questions he had and with no one to answer his questions, to his ever-growing frustration.
One day in late August, the doorbell rang again and Hermione had come to visit. It was the day before they would be setting off for the magical platform at King's Cross and Hermione wanted to ask Tom if they would go together.
He had been neglecting her, that was certain. Hermione had anticipated sharing what they had learned about the magical world quite soon after Tom had returned from Diagon Alley but he had just disappeared and she had never even once seen him outside the house.
Since she knew that he knew that she was no doubt as desperate for knowledge as he was, it both hurt her and stung her pride, so she had refrained from contacting him until the very last day.
Tom came down, very pale and obviously exhausted with dark circles around his vivid eyes and seemed very impatient with her.
"Yes, of course I've read Hogwarts a History, or at least the most important parts. What other books have you read?"
When Hermione had listed them, he did not seem very impressed.
"Listen, Hermione you don't have to read books cover from cover. Save yourself a bit of time and locate the important chapters and work more productively."
To her surprise, he hadn't tried a single spell and had barely even bothered to pick up his wand.
"I've been far too busy for that right now," Tom rubbed his eyes and bit back a yawn. "I'll try later, yes sure let's go to Hogwarts together tomorrow."
Tom wanted to understand all the theory first. He felt that was far more important. Casting spells was just a matter of following rudimentary rules, like a rote performance that treaded in the well-established footsteps of others. It marked him as a lesser being, a follower rather than a leader. So he was relatively uninterested. What he wanted was to understand the nature of magic itself, so he could make the new rules or at the very least find new principles and ideas that no one had ever dreamed of.
But after Hermione's visit, out of some curiosity, he opened a few of his textbooks and tried several. Every spell he attempted he managed within the first few tries, even those supposedly at the highest OWL and NEWT levels. Tom slammed his textbooks shut in boredom and returned to theory.
Thus the final weeks before he was set for Hogwarts passed like a blur. What irked Tom however at the back of his mind even as he focused on his studies was that there was nothing whatsoever that he could find for either of his parents. He had been forced to concede that neither of his parents had been exceptional or well-known. He would still hunt for his parents' names at Hogwarts but he no longer expected to find anything significant.
He knew he had been named after his father from the orphanage (a distasteful thought) but his mother never talked about him. He knew his mother's name was Merope but what about her surname? It was an uncommon name that never showed up anywhere Tom read.
Nor could he find anything regarding his future self and that thought puzzled him greatly. If Tom Riddle had been so important for the headmaster to recognise and accompany him personally to Diagon Alley, then why couldn't he find his own name anywhere?
But by the first of September, he reckoned he already knew far more about magic than children who had been raised their entire lives in it. Or even those who had already spent years studying in Hogwarts.