A/N: TBH, this one has been mostly finished since not long after I posted the previous chapter. I've just been busy with life and stuff. The next one may take longer since I'm going on vacation soon, or it may be up within a day or two depending on what kind of brainworms I get lol.

Flower of Life

Morgana Fata was an odd girl. Her name, for one thing, was unusual, and when they had heard it in the great hall his allies within the house of snakes had questioned whether it was a coincidence or some sort of omen. It had made many members of their house wary of the girl from the very beginning, and her continued oddities had only reinforced that wariness over time.

The girl was intelligent, shockingly so. She was reported to perform every piece of magic requested of her with a casual sort of ease, to the point that some particularly ridiculous rumors had suggested that she was her namesake reborn into new flesh.

These rumors were completely unfounded of course, even casual observation of the girl had made that quite clear. He'd recently seen her carrying a second year tome on charms to her dorm room to study, no fully realized legendary witch would ever have a use for a simple text like that.

No, she was something less extreme than that, but certainly more dangerous than he would prefer any of his peers to be.

She was like him.

He could see it in the way she carried herself, in the feel of her magic when she stalked through the room with the self-assured grace of a truly exceptional witch.

She'd been experimenting with her magic, gaining control for years before she'd come here, just as he had.

It didn't necessarily mean anything in the long term, every witch and wizard had an upper limit to the growth of their power, of their talent, of their creativity. Every text on the subject of magical power and great mages told the same story. Eventually, a limit would be reached, and that limit was different for every magic user. It was the reason why wizards like Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald stood head and shoulders over people like Headmaster Armando Dippet who was more than two hundred years their senior.

Of course, Headmaster Dippet was perhaps not a perfect example. It was a little known, but documented, historical fact that the man had limited his own magical potential in his youth as a sacrifice for the ritual that had allowed him to live to such an incredibly advanced age.

An average wizard or witch who happened to avoid deadly accidents or diseases could easily live into their mid one hundreds, but nearly three hundred was far out of reach without some form of enhanced longevity such as what Armando Dippet had achieved centuries ago. It was a fascinating topic, but had been something of a dead end for his own purposes. Limiting his own power was not acceptable. Something like a philosopher's stone would have been much better if achievable, but the price and difficulty involved in such a creation was far beyond the resources of any modern witch or wizard unless they wanted to bring a dozen or more magical governments down on their own heads.

So no, Morgana's control and early power said little of what her limits would be in the long term. It did, however, say quite a bit about her in the short term. She was a witch who would, unlike many other witches and wizards in the world, actually achieve her full potential instead of languishing in mediocrity.

Whether that potential was along the lines of someone like Professor Merrythought or something more extreme like Professor Dumbledore was something that was impossible to predict so early on. Regardless, he would have to keep an eye on the girl as he grew his own power.

She had too much in common with him for his comfort.

~FoL~

His father was not a wizard. He'd suspected this for much of the last year, but he'd continued to look nonetheless. It was as he was futilely looking through ancient records of Hogwarts prefects that he encountered the answer to the endless riddle that was his lineage.

'1745-1748, Slytherin Male Prefect: Marvolo Gaunt'

Marvolo was his middle name. Was it possible that he was descended from these 'Gaunt's? He would have to look into it more thoroughly. Actually, the name sounded familiar. He was fairly certain he'd seen it as one of the twenty-eight pureblood families in the Pure-Blood Directory.

It did not take him long after that to find what he was looking for, and the state of the Gaunt family was far more disappointing than he could have imagined, though there was at least a strong connection there with the rare ability to converse with snakes that he shared with the disgraced pureblood descendants of Slytherin.

And wasn't that interesting? He was likely personally descended from Salazar Slytherin himself. It was fitting he supposed, as the house he was an heir to would become the foundation of his own rise to prominence if he had his way.

~FoL~

It was good to be done with his research into his origins for now. It had freed up quite a bit of his free time that he could use to expedite his studies of the fifth year curriculum. It was perfect timing for him as well, because he had come to realize that the fifth year of Hogwarts was indeed significantly more difficult to grasp than the first four years had been. The fifth years complaining about their OWL preparations suddenly made a little more sense than they had when he'd been steamrolling his way through the first four years of school material during his previous two years at Hogwarts.

He would still likely finish it by or during winter break of this year, but it would take significantly more of his time and effort to do so when compared to the previous material.

"Don't you agree, Tom?" He looked up from his charms text to see who had spoken to him. Mulciber.

"What did you ask, Mulciber?" He let out dryly, making no secret with his tone that he wasn't actually that interested.

"That new girl, the mudblood. We should really teach her a lesson, she's always looking so haughty, yknow?" The brown-haired boy looked to him for approval, paying no attention to the fact that he'd considered Tom himself a mudblood not all that long ago.

"What, Fata?" Tom raised his eyebrow.

"Yeah, her. Why?" Mulciber narrowed his eyes slightly.

Tom snorted lightly, thinking back to something of note he'd realized about the girl while he'd been in one of his Arithmancy classes after he'd first taken note of her. "You're welcome to, if you'd like. Let me know how that one goes for you."

"What, you don't think we can take her? She's a bloody firsty." The boy scowled at the seeming slight.

"So was I, a couple years ago." Tom returned to his book with a smile. His allies could make fools of themselves if they wished. He was quite certain their plans would die on arrival with the first year girl if she was anything like he thought she was, and then they would come crawling back to him when they realized his warning for what it had been.

~FoL~

It was the night after Halloween, and she was being followed.

She'd first noticed from the sound of their footsteps, then their shadows peeking around corners. They likely knew she was aware of their presence by now, but they had continued their pursuit regardless.

They must be serious about this then, that was annoying. She was hoping she could avoid this type of confrontation, but she supposed getting two months into the school year without confrontation was probably more than she should have expected. She was a mudblood in the house of pureblood supremacy as far as her housemates were concerned after all.

She frowned, and then deliberately took a turn that she knew would lead to a dead end in the dungeons, purposely hastening her steps to give the impression she was trying to avoid a confrontation.

When she reached the dead end, she turned around and drew her wand. "Come out, I-I know you're there." She injected a waver around the middle of the sentence for extra effect.

After a few seconds, four older boys stepped out from around the corner she'd recently turned. She recognized them immediately, Tom Riddle's little posse of 'friends'. Reginald Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov, 'What's-his-name' Mulciber, and Elliot Nott. The first three were third years like Tom, while the fourth was a second year. Good, they would be manageable for her if all went well, she'd been worried they might be older students.

Mulciber was the one to speak with a cocky smirk on his face. "Hey there mudblood, it's a good evening we're having isn't it?" He seemed to look her over and note her purposefully crafted shaken appearance, before continuing mockingly. "You don't seem quite as haughty as usual, something wrong?" He looked to his friends and they let out what they no doubt thought was a sinister group chuckle. They weren't entirely wrong, it did send a nervous shiver down her spine, but she was far less affected by it than the average first year girl likely would have been.

"What do you want from me?" She glared deliberately weakly at the boys as she mentally prepared for what she would need to do to subdue them in a relatively intact state.

"Oh, nothing much. We're just here to teach you a lesson is all." Nott decided to speak for the group of thugs this time who were all wearing matching victorious grins as if they'd already won something just from her scared reaction so far.

"A lesson? W-what do you mean?" She shifted nervously as she continued to hold her wand towards them with a deliberate quiver.

Lestrange spoke up this time, stepping forward slightly with a leer down at her. "The sort of lesson that is less painful if you come quietly and don't resist, mudblood."

Disgust flowed through her as the implications of what he said registered in her mind. When she locked eyes with the fourteen year old boy to invade his mind and confirm her suspicions, rage flooded through her veins. Slight alarm registered on the four boys' faces as her visage shifted from frightened girl to enraged witch in the space of a split second, but their alarm had no time to develop before they were very abruptly bowled over by a suit of armor that had been previously standing innocently beside them as Morgana forwent her original plans for dealing with them in her rage.

Her rage was not sated quite so quickly however, and she proceeded to smack the suit of armor into the boys several more times before she was satisfied.

As she was walking past the now unconscious and heavily battered boys, Morgana stopped and looked down at Lestrange. She spat on his face, before turning and walking away from the scene of the crime at a sedate pace as she processed the boy's disgusting fantasy.

The choice in location would prevent the attack from being noticed until later, possibly until one of the boys woke up, and the boys would never admit to being beaten bloody by a single first year girl. Luckily, she didn't have to worry too much about having accidentally killed one of them. She'd learned recently that magic users were rather resilient physically, especially when it came to blunt force trauma in particular. It had come up when she'd gotten curious about what had possessed wizards to include a flying cannonball in their sport of choice, it turns out they just weren't all that deadly to the average witch or wizard.

~FoL~

When his allies in Slytherin House returned to the empty common room battered and bruised early on a saturday morning, Tom was amused and unsurprised. They were a little more damaged than he'd expected, but if anything that only told him a little bit about the girl they'd gone to harass.

"Well, you four were out late weren't you?" Tom set his book down on the table beside him and rested his chin on his fist as he eyed the four boys. "Did you 'teach her a lesson'?"

The four stood there quietly looking amongst themselves for a second before Mulciber spoke up angrily. "We would've been fine, she was scared until Lestrange pissed her off-"

Tom held up his hand, signaling the boy to stop and he followed the command almost subconsciously. "She would've taken you all out regardless. I warned you about her before, remember? Now," His gaze shifted to Lestrange. "What did you say to get her to brutalize you to this degree, Reginald?"

Lestrange stood nervously for several seconds, struggling to come up with an answer. His answer was supplied for him by Nott. "The bastard implied we were going to," His face flushed slightly at the thought, "You know, do stuff to her. That was never the plan." He glared heatedly at Lestrange. "Bastard got my ass kicked for his dumbass fantasy."

"Really?" Tom turned his gaze back to Reginald. "You thought you could, what? Sexually assault her? Rape maybe?" He sneered at the thought, somehow seeming to look down at the tall boy from his place sitting in a chair. "You'd have found yourself in Azkaban in days, fool, if you were lucky. The girl is practically worshiped among the professors, they would have believed her story in a heartbeat."

Lestrange glared back rebelliously. "I would've obliviated her, of course."

"No obliviation would protect you from the physical evidence of your crime. And that is to say nothing of what I would do to you when I found out." Tom glared venomously at the boy. "Do you think I want to deal with the negative consequences of your braindead actions on my character? Do not allow me to find out about such foolishness in the future if you value yourself." Tom's glare grew more heated, and the boy began to wilt under his anger.

"Get out of my sight." Lestrange followed his command without question, and Tom closed his eyes before letting out a deep breath. "I hope I don't need to explain to you three the issues I have with trying to do that kind of thing to an eleven year old, do I?" His eyes snapped open and looked over the remaining three.

This time, Dolohov spoke up without hesitation. "Of course not, I was disgusted the moment the words left his mouth. We just got our heads bashed in before I could do anything about it."

"Good." Tom picked up the book he had set down to return to his studies.

That had been a very productive discussion, and had allowed him to make a very large power play. 'Thank you Morgana.' Tom smiled.

~FoL~

The next couple of months went by without incident, and the long-awaited winter break arrived to finally provide Tom with a bit of peace and quiet. No more dealing with allies he cared little for and their petty pureblood quarrels, no more constant interruptions to his studies.

It was a period of the school year that Tom treasured above the rest of the year. Both of the previous years he had been alone in Slytherin House as the only person who stayed over the break.

All of his housemates were purebloods or half-bloods, and all of them had homes they were expected to come back to over the break. Some of them to attend balls and the like, others to simply spend time with family. It mattered little to him, the only part of it he cared about was the time alone and away from his bothersome 'peers'.

It was interesting that Slytherin was so nearly exclusively made up of purebloods and half-bloods, the traits that the house supposedly prized were far from exclusive to the members of the wizarding world that had grown up within it. He could only assume that the hat purposely chose to avoid putting those the house would see as mudblood in Slytherin unless it was sure they could handle the danger such a thing would put them in.

Regardless, he was greatly looking forward to the peace and quiet.

He was nearing the end of his studies in the fifth year curriculum, and he wanted to get started on the sixth year as soon as he could. Currently, he was working on his least favorite subject: Transfiguration. He had started on it earlier in the year, but grew frustrated trying to learn it while also dealing with Slytherin politicking.

It was in part due to his own lack of great talent in the subject; He was skilled enough in the branch of magic, but he lacked the great natural grasp of it that he had of the other forms of magic he'd taken the time to study. The bulk of his distaste for Transfiguration really came from his own personal grudge against the Hogwarts professor that taught it, however.

He'd never been able to let go of his first meeting with the professor and how powerless the man had made him feel. In truth, his anger towards Dumbledore was a large part of what was driving him to become greater than the man. It would be good to be able to show the man how he had once made Tom feel.

Regardless of his own distaste for Transfiguration, it was a powerful and important branch of magic for him to gain some amount of expertise in. Limiting himself to other branches of magic would only give him a handicap after all.

It was with this in mind that he had decided to save his least favorite magic for last so that he could give it his full attention over the break rather than learning it while his attention was divided. He would need it if he was to gain the same grasp of the subject as he had gained of the magic that came more naturally to him.

It was as he was curled up reading the textbook in his favorite chair within the common room that his plans for the winter break were rudely interrupted. The door to the common room opened as it shouldn't have with all the other students leaving as he had expected them to.

Through the newly opened entryway stepped Morgana Fata, who curiously eyed his very unusual sideways sitting position with his legs comfortably draped over one of the armrests of the armchair.