AN: This is a little something I cooked up ages ago. I thought about making it a full length fic but I couldn't really construct the whole world where this would be taking place so it's only this small thing. Hope you guys like it :D
Tom Riddle watched as Professor Dumbledore announced that the Muggle Studies class would no longer be taught at Hogwarts. He listened as the older man claimed that it was due to budget cuts and the complaints from many parents who felt that the class was unnecessary as it taught more fiction than fact.
He watched as his classmates all expressed their opinions on the matter. Some students, the sensible ones, were glad that they could focus on more important NEWT classes. Others grew worried when they realized they actually had to study the harder subjects now.
The muggleborns all agreed that it was for the best since most of the things they teach in that class were wrong and demeaning to muggles.
He would have joined them and readily agreed with his professor without suspecting him of ulterior motives. He would have if he didn't see the way his calculating eyes hardened and his smile falter as Headmaster Dippet assured everyone that this is not an excuse for them to ignore the muggle world because they are our neighbors.
Tom Riddle spent the majority of his Hogwarts years studying Professor Dumbledore. Something about the man has felt odd and wrong from the moment he told him he was a wizard. He could still remember the look of barely contained disgust on his teacher's face when his muggle father shook his hand. He still remembered the way he stayed away from the walls and made it a point not to touch anything or anyone in the place. He didn't know it then, but now he knew that the spell Dumbledore used repeatedly at the home was Scourgify.
It was these things that let Tom know how much the deputy headmaster hated muggles. It wasn't an open hatred that everyone could see. It was hidden behind twinkling eyes and welcoming smiles that made Tom believe he was playing a longer game.
He saw all this and couldn't help but connect his teacher's apparent hatred of muggles to one powerful wizard in the Ministry who advocated that Wizards step out of the shadows and stop hiding.
When Tom's eyes locked with the calculating eyes of Dumbledore's from across the Hall and the old man all but smirked at him, he made up his mind.
He didn't know what Dumbledore was up to or what role Gellert Grindelwald played in it, but he was sure it wasn't good. And since no one seemed to see what he did, it was his duty to stop them.
The muggle world took him in and cared for him when his mother died and he would be damned before he let any harm come to his home.
With this thought in mind, seventeen-year-old Tom Riddle gained control of a beast within the castle and together with his closest friends, disappeared after Graduation to learn more magic and prepare himself for the fight to come.
He didn't realize he'd be gone for years. That Dumbledore and Grindelwald would become more powerful in his absence and start building a network of devoted followers. That every power structure in Wizarding Britain would be overtaken by two power-hungry individuals who despised muggles more than anything. That they would take advantage of his absence and dirty the name of Salazar Slytherin and his esteemed house so much that his name became synonymous with evil, dark magic that no right-thinking wizard or witch wanted to get involved in. That they would want to hurt him so much that they would murder his muggle father as he slept in the Riddle home.
When Tom Riddle left to prepare for a battle, he didn't know he'd come back with the war almost lost.
