AN;

thanks to my beta who helped me on this. I am now on antibiotics due to a chest infection making it difficult to think.

Please don't forget to go over and read The Squib. The side story to this. I am currently writing the last chapter in that story.

Thanks to all who reviewed my last chapter. Spiritofthenightowl, Loricfool, nerdalertwarning, Aintgotnone, sammiemarie123 and the guests. Thank you so much for taking the time to review. It Is appreciated.

…...

101.

Never Kill A Boy On The First Date. part 2

...

When Tom had entered the corridor and caught Dearborn kissing Buffy, it felt as if Fiendfyre burned inside his gut. He'd had to look away to stop himself from launching a Crucio at Caradoc. He'd bitten down on his lip, forcing himself to focus on stray cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, the flames dancing inside the bowls of the giant torches, anything he could to push away the gathering magic and tamp down his anger.

He could tell that Malfoy was worried. Every so often, the other boy would sneak a look at his face, his mouth opening and closing as if he wanted to share something, but was too scared to say it out loud. Finally, when they reached the desk they shared during Transfiguration, Tom spoke. "We'll sort this out later, Malfoy. I've already thought of a way to get our revenge on Dearborn."

Tom didn't explain the idea further. This was Professor Dumbledore's class and it wouldn't do for the old stickler to look into Malfoy's eyes and read what they were planning to do to one of his students. He'd make sure that his Knights knew what was required of them when he was ready to let them in on the secret, and not before. So a calmer Tom sat at the ancient desk he shared with Malfoy, running a finger across the scarred wooden surface and waiting for her to appear.

Buffy breezed into class with the appearance of someone without a care in the world, the butterbeer cork she wore in her hair bouncing with every step. She slid gracefully into her usual place on the opposite side of the aisle – a couple of rows in front of him – and greeted her cousin with an easy smile.

Shameless Betrayer, House Traitor, Deceiver, and Faithless Female. Yet just knowing she was away from the Gryffindor eased some of the knots in Tom's stomach. She'd learn. She'd learn the hard way that you couldn't defy Salazar Slytherin and go off with a Gryffindor to spite your Housemates.

"Good Morning, students!" Professor Dumbledore appeared in the doorway holding a large cardboard box. He carried it carefully over to his desk, placed it down, and then smiled at the watching students – his keen eyes checking for absentees.

"You are all here bright and early I see. I hope that you've all slept well, because we have a new and difficult topic to learn today."

"Yes, Professor Dumbledore," chorused the majority of students back to him.

Tom didn't bother joining in. Although he'd no problem sucking up to teachers when necessary, he saw no point in adding his voice to the multitude and having it lost.

"Today," Dumbledore went on, "we will be learning a branch of Transfiguration known as Trans-Species Transformation. Who can tell me anything about it?"

Automatically, Tom looked up, knowing the answer. Across the aisle, Buffy was still whispering away to Lovell while directly behind her, Uma and Fiona were leaning in, intrigued by whatever it was she was saying. Gossiping about Caradoc? Tom scowled and stared down at the pale wood of his wand that he'd placed on the table in front of him.

Dumbledore called, "Yes, Jane?"

A voice behind him, answered, "Trans-Species is changing an animal's species to another."

"Excellent," said Dumbledore. "One point to Ravenclaw. This branch of magic is similar to Switching, which we covered last year. Instead of merely transfiguring a monkey's tail onto a chicken, however, this time you'll be transfiguring the entire animal." He smiled around at the class, shot Buffy a glare for speaking and yet, oddly, didn't call her out for it.

Tom rolled his eyes. Dumbledore had his favourites and despite Buffy claiming that she found him nosy, Dumbledore was always ready to look the opposite way when she broke the rules.

Dumbledore continued. "This is an OWL requirement. The examiner will expect you to be familiar with the incantation and the wand movements. It will not be necessary for you to achieve a complete transformation to pass, but if you should do so, you will be awarded extra points."

He levitated the cardboard box into the air so that it hovered in front of him and walked over to the students in the first row. Putting his hand into the box, he pulled out a small, grey kitten and placed it in front of the first student. Then he continued along the row giving each student a different coloured kitten. When Dumbledore reached him, Tom was given a black kitten which stared up at him with unblinking green eyes. Next to him, Malfoy was making ch-ch-ch noises to a tortoiseshell and across the aisle Buffy had a white with blue eyes.

When all the students had a kitten to Transfigure, Dumbledore returned to the front of the class and tapped the board with his wand. The board shimmered and changed, revealing the wand movements and the incantation – Ducklifors – they'd need to use during the lesson.

"I want you all to transfigure your kitten into a duck. Any type of duck. It doesn't matter what it looks like. Simply imagine a duck; gather your intent and then use your wand and incantation to bring about the change. Buffy? What is the problem?"

Tom had been watching her for the past few seconds. She'd been waving frantically at Dumbledore.

"Sir, um, are these kittens for real?" she asked. Her eyes were darting from the kitten sitting in front of her to everyone elses' kittens.

Malfoy snorted. "Snog it and see." The entire class laughed.

Buffy's neck reddened and she swallowed.

Yes, you should be ashamed. With a short laugh, Tom called out, "To be fair, I'm sure the cat is a better kisser than some of her other boyfriends."

Buffy's green eyes swung in his direction, hurt and anger flashing in the emerald depths, and then she quickly looked away.

Don't you like being called out on your behaviour? Ignore me at your peril, Buffy.

"Settle down, class," Dumbledore warned. "Yes, Buffy, the kitten is real. Touch it. Your hand won't go through it."

Buffy gingerly stroked the white kitten's head and it leaned into her palm, purring for more. "No, Professor, I meant... does it have a mother?"

"Ah." Dumbledore nodded and perched on his desk, more intrigued than annoyed by her questions. "I see. You want to know if this is a previously transfigured cat and if that affects future transfigurations?"

Buffy frowned. "No. I just want to know if it's a real cat."

"They are."

"Here we go..." drawled Tom with a pretend bored yawn. "She'll be wanting to take it back to the dorm with her."

She stiffened but gave no other sign of having heard him. Don't ignore me, Buffy. And never pass me over for another.

"Won't changing it hurt it?"

"Not as badly as your Gryffindor is going to hurt," Tom kept his voice low, yet loud enough for Buffy to hear. Malfoy sniggered. Uma and Fiona looked over at him anxiously.

Buffy stared stonily ahead.

Dumbledore sighed. "Buffy, while it is a credit to have a soft heart for those weaker than you, transfiguration is neither cruel or immoral."

"Compassion for the weak," Tom said quietly, his eyes on the side of her face. "That must be why she's so attracted to Gryffindors."

Malfoy choked with laughter and had to cover his mouth.

"How do you know it isn't going to be painful for them?" Buffy asked Dumbledore, still stroking the kitten. It was butting at her chest with its head and showing every sign of jumping into her lap.

"You will see for yourself that it shows no sign of being in pain during the process."

"Okay, but what about mentally?" Buffy argued. The white kitten was in her lap now and trying to curl up in her skirt. "It could have associated traumas for the rest of its life after being turned into a duck. What if it has some kind of mental relapse and gets an uncontrollable urge to go off swimming in the lake?"

Dumbledore laughed, not taking the question seriously. "You're worrying about nothing, truly, you are. Once, I was turned into a goat by my own brother. I can assure you, that it has never affected me."

Tom's gaze latched onto Dumbledore. "Don't be too sure about that, you old bearded bastard," he muttered under his breath.

Buffy shot a shocked, wide-eyed look over her shoulder at Tom. Tom blinked in surprise. There was no way she could have heard that!

Her attention, though, was back on Dumbledore. "Yeah, but you're human. You knew what was happening to you and knew it wouldn't last. An animal doesn't know about magic. Won't it hear itself quacking and get mental issues?"

"You're bloody quacking with mental issues..." Tom muttered.

Buffy was on her feet, her hair and robe skirts swirling as she faced Tom. "Repeat what you just said to me." She pointed her wand at him and shook it. "I double dog dare you."

Tom leaned back in his chair, exaggerating an arched brow at the way she held her wand. "Really, Buffy? Have you ever thought of being in the Muggle movies?" he drawled. "You're such a drama queen."

The whole class was watching. Dumbledore was keeping silent, quite possibly purposely, in the hope if he gave them enough rope, they'd hang themselves.

Buffy cocked her head, her eyes trailing over Tom. Then she let out a low laugh as if she'd found him wanting. "I know what your problem is, Tom-Tom. You had to buy an extra-long wand to compensate for what you're lacking."

Tom scowled. He'd been tall, even as an eleven-year-old. That was why Ollivander had given him a 13 ½ inch wand – it had nothing to do with compensating for a lack of magic. Tom's chair clattered to the ground as he rose to his feet, his pale wand pointed directly at her. "Take that back!"

Buffy cocked her head, a taunting smile on her lips "You know what they say..." She motioned to his wand. "Big wand," she held up a finger and thumb with an inch gap between them, "very small penis."

The class tittered and Tom saw red.

"Miss Summers!" Dumbledore finally spoke. "I won't have you making such unladylike accusations to a male student. Tom! Where do you think you going? Both of you! Sit down this instant!"

Tom didn't even hear him. He stepped out into the aisle between the rows of desks, Buffy mirroring the movement – darkness reflected in her eyes and in her soul.

"Ventus!" Buffy's wand twisted and flicked, and a gust of wind blew at Tom.

He jerked away, the wind missing him and hitting Malfoy, who shrieked as papers were flung into the air. Tom wasted no time, sending a Jelly Legs Jinx to Buffy's left, closely followed by a Stinger to her right. Both spells hit – the tables, but not Buffy, who'd jumped high into the air to avoid them. Kittens yowled and hissed, leaping from tables and darting off into the far corners of the room. Tom went to fling an overarm stupefy and slipped – his feet losing their grip on a suddenly icy floor.

"STOP THIS IMMEDIATLY!" Dumbledore roared.

At the same time, Buffy cried, "Accio Wand!" and Tom was jerked forward as his wand was almost torn out of his hand. Determined not to lose his grip, Tom was pulled – his feet skidding – towards the blonde. The two collided, his hand grabbing the waistband of her skirt to steady himself, his wand pressing into the soft flesh at the base of her throat.

"I have you. I could kill you now," he hissed through white lips. "If I wanted too."

There was a sharp pain between his left ribs as she dug her wand tip into his skin. "Bigger and meaner than you have already triiiiiieeed –."

She was wrenched away from Tom. The Knockback Jinx Dumbledore had cast took them both by surprise, and yet somehow she managed to turn within the blast of magic, somersaulting and landing in a three-point crouch, her wand and her gaze pointed on Dumbledore. Tom fared much worse. The Full Body Bind held him frozen with only his eyeballs able to move.

"THAT IS ENOUGH!" Dumbledore's face was thunderous. "You will return to your seats and will not draw your wands on each other again!"

The use flowed back into Tom's limbs, but for a second, he was too dazed at what he'd just done. Stupid! Stupid! How could he have been so stupid? Had he really just drawn his wand... and engaged in a fight... with a girl... over the size of his wand... in front of a teacher?

He gave Buffy a withering, full-on, Tom Riddle glare; the kind that caused most people to squirm uncomfortably, only for her to not even glance in his direction. Aware of Dumbledore's attention moving away from Buffy to him, Tom quickly changed his expression to a more penitent one.

"Please accept my apologies," he said, sitting down in his chair. "I don't know what came over me."

"I do, "Buffy called unhelpfully as she passed him. "You hate me."

"I don't. And I'm sorry for drawing my wand on you like that," Tom apologised. It was true, he didn't hate her.

"Not believing you," Buffy called again, tucking her chair in and scowling.

"Miss Summers!" Dumbledore snapped. "Don't think it escaped my notice that you were the one who cast the first spell. I don't want to hear another word from either of you. I shall deal with you both after class."

Tom dropped his gaze to his scarred desk top once more. Fighting in class? Disruptive behaviour? Inappropriate use of magic during a lesson? Dumbledore could choose any punishment – from detentions to suspension or even expulsion if he wanted to push this.

Lovell handed Buffy the white kitten back and whispered into her ear. Buffy shrugged and looked over to Travers' desk. Travers caught her eye and shook his head at her before spotting Tom watching and hurriedly looked away. Buffy pouted, folded her arms, and glowered at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore moved back to the front of the class and pointed to the writing on the board. "Now, please observe the incantation, paying particular attention to the emphasis on pronunciation and the small flick of upward wand movement before starting your transfiguration."

"I'm not doing it," Buffy shouted out crossly. "This is the sort of thing Muggles do in those laboratories. They have rows of innocent animals and they go along spraying chemicals into their eyes to watch them suffer. We're not them. We're better than that. I'm not being party to experimenting on animals for anyone's vanity."

"Out!" Dumbledore roared, his finger pointed to the door. "You will wait on the bench outside, until the end of the lesson. I will not have the rest of the class disrupted more than it already has."

Buffy pushed back her chair, its legs screeching noisily against the hard floor. "Fine. I'm going." She marched to the door with her head held high – and slammed it behind her.

Dumbledore pinched at the bridge of his nose, then walked across to the arched window and stared out through the mist towards the Quidditch Pitch. He looked almost lost. Not that Tom had the slightest bit of sympathy for him. He was an idiot picking cute kittens for the students to transfigure. If he was a professor, he'd have brought in spiders or locusts. No one would be upset at transfiguring an insect.

Tom shot a look over to where Buffy's friends were sitting. Lovell was pale and greenish around his mouth, no doubt genuinely frightened in case his cousin was expelled. Fiona and Uma were exchanging worried looks, and Travers looked paler than normal and a trifle greasier, if that was possible.

Dumbledore finally turned back to the class, his face calm once more. "Come along! Please start your transfiguration without further delay. There's only ten minutes left."

A Ravenclaw girl burst out crying. Clutching her kitten, she ran from the room with no word of explanation. Two rows over, a boy transfigured the hair of the boy in front of him into the top half of a duck and the rest of the class went downhill from there. By the time the bell rang to signal the end of class, the only person who'd made any progress with Tom. His cat now sported duck's feet.

"I couldn't do it," one Ravenclaw boy declared as he packed away his things. "It kept looking at me. I think it knew what I was about to do to it."

Lucretia Black shuddered. "Do you think Buffy is right about the Muggles experimenting on animals?"

"She must be," replied Fiona putting her books inside her bag. "She lived with Muggles for a long time. I'm going to ask her more about it."

Once the students began leaving, Buffy sheepishly slid past them and slunk over to her seat. She didn't look over at Tom and Tom didn't try to speak to her. He was too busy wondering what punishment Dumbledore was going to mete out. The Deputy Headmaster's face might as well have been carved from granite, it was that stony.

Once the door closed behind the last student, the professor walked between the rows of desks until he came to an empty desk just in front of them. He folded his arms and looked down at them both, until Tom thought he could bear the uneasiness no longer.

"I am shocked – absolutely shocked – at your disgraceful behaviour today. Tom, as a prefect, you were chosen to lead others by your good example. Buffy, you might not be a prefect, but you have been here long enough to know that fighting in corridors and classrooms is strictly forbidden. Yet both of you, knowing this, drew you wands and fought one another, showing a profound lack of responsibility and respect for the school rules. I have no doubt that Professor Slughorn will be exceedingly, deeply disappointed that two of his House have let him down so badly in this way."

Tom winced, imagining Slughorn's face.

Dumbledore went on. "I have therefore decided to consult with both your Housemaster and the Headmaster over this. I will require you both to attend my office at 7pm tonight."

Tom's fists clenched inside his robe pockets. He should have known Dumbledore would take the hard line on this. Would he be expelled? He shot Buffy a side look to see her reaction. She was staring down at her desk, her expression inscrutable. At least she had somewhere to go if they were expelled. At fifteen, the Muggle world considered him old enough to leave the orphanage and find full-time employment.

Pasting on a devastated expression, Tom cleared his throat, saying, "Yes, Sir. I am truly sorry for what happened, sir. I swear it won't happen again."

"No, it won't." Dumbledore's voice was icy.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that too." Buffy piped up. It was the first time she looked Dumbledore in the eye since she'd come back into the room "Sorry for disrupting others and I'm sorry for saying Tom has a tiny penis and causing him to get annoyed. I'm not sorry for refusing to transfigure kittens, though."

Dumbledore regarded her coldly. "We will discuss your concerns over animal welfare at a later time. Now, please leave before my next class arrives. If I find out that either of you has drawn wands on one another again..." He left the sentence unfinished and both students knew an unspoken threat when they heard it.

….

When the classroom door closed behind the troubled teens, Dumbledore locked the door with a flick of his wand and then crouched down to examine the floor. He ran a hand over the surface, noting the ice and the skid marks across the surface that Tom had made, trying to keep his balance and stopping Buffy from taking his wand.

To most, it would have looked as if Buffy had conjured ice to destabilise Tom during his casting and give her an advantage over him. Dumbledore had assumed the same until he'd noticed the students slipping on the ice at the end of the lesson. Conjured ice wouldn't have lasted that long; by its very nature, it should have dissolved and vanished by the end of the lesson.

Now, he realised that this was not a simple conjuration. The actual flagstones had been transfigured from stone into solid ice. And what was quite amazing, was that she'd done it wordlessly and wandlessly.

The door handle rattled as someone tried to enter. It must be his third years, gathering in the corridor ready for their lesson. Dumbledore ignored them for a few moments longer, staring down at the ice as in his mind's eye, he replayed Buffy and Riddle's fight. Buffy had jumped high, dodging Riddle's Stinger and Jelly Legs jinxes. She held her yew wand in her right hand, her left palm facing the floor... her fingers subtly moving as she cast RUNIC FORMULATIONS!

That was how she'd done it! She'd spun a trap for Riddle, changing the very structure of the building with a complex piece of magic. It was similar to the traps the Wardmasters laced into their runic grids to entrap intruders, and yet she'd done it without mapping it out first, and had cast it with only her hand.

Oh, this was interesting... So very interesting... He didn't think that even Grindelwald could cast like that when he was fifteen...