A/N: I told you, ya get weekly for the first five chapters, but then I'm gonna be like a dad gone out for milk and walking around for several years, okay, unless I continue to find time and muse. Had to do another deep dive on time and culture-appropriate wordings so for anyone interested; A straight ponytail (where hair is gathered and either tied in one mass at the base of the neck or at the top/back of one's head) is generally still called a ponytail in the UK. A braided ponytail is called a plait. Unbraided pigtails are bunches, while braided pigtails are also plaits as well, you would just specify one versus two plaits. / The More You Know /
It was not the first time Tom had a ringing in his ears and a disorientation that left him not knowing where his brain stopped and his body began, and he knew it would not be his last. Instead, he groaned softly and took a deep breath, tentatively wiggling both his fingers and toes. Upon finding nothing immediately broke, he slowly sat up and reached a hand to his head, running it over his face and head, checking for any further injuries.
He hadn't hit his head hard, he didn't think, but the pounding there in the back, the front, and underneath his eyes was something closer to mixing a long night of drinking and fornication with the heat of battle. His vision was swimming, but he was still in the dark room with the arch sitting in front of him, still and silent. No voices, no veil, no runes.
Not even the ones that had originally been on it. Strange. He stared hard at the arch, just barely making out the blank stones before realising there were no lights. He looked around, but the balls that had been emitting a soft warm glow were all gone and he could not see anything else in the darkness.
He fumbled for a moment, reaching for his wand, but it was not in any of its normal spots- shoved into the base of his ponytail or in its holster, so it took him a moment before he finally retrieved it from his pants pocket, where he must have shoved it earlier.
A silent Lumos lit the tip of his wand and he pushed himself to his feet, looking around, confused when he could not spot the table with the piles of notes and books he and the others had been reviewing as they had tried to determine the purpose of the arch. Before he could linger on it, he realised he could hear footsteps in the distance, outside of the room. The door that originally sealed the room from the rest of the department was gone. Odd.
He tilted his head as he stepped away from the arch, moving to meet whoever was approaching. He must have been knocked unconscious and he shook his wrist, trying to read the time on his wristwatch in the dimness. Unless something had happened to his watch, only a minute had passed, so if he had been unconscious, it hadn't been for long.
Had the arch blasted the table across the room and the door off its hinges? It seemed unlikely, but he looked around just to be sure and the footsteps finally made it to the archways where the door had been minutes before.
Two Unspeakables moved into the room and he recognized one of them, Roland Pluckett, as one of his former students from at least a decade or so before. They both had their wands drawn, likely seeking the source of the noise from whatever minor explosion had occurred, and he twirled his wand so it reset gently between his fingers and he could put his palms otherwise up in a show of peace.
"Sorry about that," he said easily, "I'm not certain what happened- the archway reacted to something."
Neither of the men relaxed. Instead, both appeared even more on edge at the sight of him, which set something in Tom's stomach into a knot, the feeling of something being amiss.
"Relax, Pluckett," Tom said slowly, still holding his hand aloft, good-naturedly, "It's just me."
Pluckett's eyes narrowed immediately, "How do you know my name?"
Something is not right. He could practically hear Morgan saying it as she read Madeline to Sophie and saw both of the Unspeakables' hands tighten on their wands and Tom did something all his Slytherins hated. He reacted on pure instinct.
He threw himself to the floor, ducking and then rolling out of the way and several stunners tried to follow him, but the room was dark and his Lumos had gone out when he'd twirled his wand out of his palm.
It was back in his hand, the Yew cool and breathing life into him as he breathed into it and darted behind the arch, sending off an Expelliarmus and then a Stupefy in short order, but only the latter hit its intended target.
Pluckett had enough sense to dodge the disarm and Tom had to throw up a shield to absorb the curses being tossed his way.
Curses?
Years of dueling with his coworkers and friends meant that no matter how prepared the Unspeakables were for their jobs, they were not prepared for Tom Riddle. It only took a moment for Pluckett to join his fellow Unspeakable on the ground and as he stared down at them, Tom's head spun, the weighted feeling in his chest back again.
Something is not right.
He should walk out and find Shacklebolt and explain to the man why there were two unconscious Unspeakables on the floor. Deciding to err on the side of caution, Tom slowly raised his wand and cast two small memory charms. He didn't need them coming to and hurting someone else, and it would be easily lifted after he spoke with Shacklebolt.
The issue was, however, that when he exited the side room that contained the arch, nothing looked quite right. Like everything was off just a hair. He turned, looking around as he tried to get a sense of his bearings. That heaviness was coming back to him and his hair was standing on end once more.
Footsteps interrupted his thoughts and not wanting to be found coming out of a chamber in the Department of Mysteries again, he disillusioned himself and stepped behind a pillar.
"- Dumbledore's going senile?"
"Dunno, but do you really believe all this nonsense about You-Know-Who coming back?"
"I mean, what other explanation do we got, what with the Diggory boy dead. I doubt Potter took him down, fourth year's don't exactly go 'round casting unforgivables-"
The footsteps went past the door he'd emerged from, neither taking notice of a whole fucking door missing which gave Tom the chills before he'd even truly processed what they said. Dumbledore- senile? And the bit about Diggory, surely they were talking about Cedric Diggory, one of the Hufflepuff seventh years, who, he was fairly certain, was not dead. Least of all at the hands of Harry Potter…
Something is not right, Morgan said again in the back of his head, in her best Miss Clavel voice. This time it didn't feel as playful. It felt almost foreboding, sinister even.
He ignored it for the time being, finding one of the offices, but not Shacklebolt's- no he didn't recognize this one. He did spot a container of floo powder on the mantle by the fire though. He was not going to stay around, not with the hair on his arms standing on end, feeling like a cat with its tail bristled out in warning.
He grabbed the powder and tossed it into the fireplace and called, "Slytherin Common Room, Hogwarts," before stepping through.
He held his breath as he stepped through, avoiding the smoke, and felt a wave of relief wash over him as he emerged from the familiar grate of the largest fireplace in the Slytherin Common Room. Wiping some soot from his shoulder he took a deep breath, grounding himself, willing the hairs on the back of his neck and his arms to settle, like a cat licking his fur down, or a snake coiling in on itself.
This. This was familiar and he needed that. He closed his eyes, refusing to open them until his heart rate had returned to normal.
Something had happened with the archway, he acknowledged silently as he opened his eyes. The table was gone from the room with the archway, the door was gone. Pluckett seemed confused as to his presence there. His mind strayed as he struggled to find a reason and wondered if perhaps the archway was something liminal.
Archways and crossroads tended to be places of powerful magic and it wouldn't be odd if perhaps he'd been suspended in time. He suddenly envied Morgan and TJ their muggle watches that had the dates on them, but then realized it likely wouldn't have helped, because if he'd been suspended, the watch only shifting by a minute, it likely wouldn't have notated the passage of any further time as it passed outside of a contained liminal space.
Days, perhaps?
The common room looked mostly unchanged, but then even as he thought it, he realized the subtle differences.
The blankets he'd purchased and kept draped over the back of each sofa and armchair were gone. The pieces of Slytherin decor he's slowly accumulated over the years and put up around the common room were all missing. The frames he'd hung years before to keep art and notable things from the students were all gone.
This looked like the common room of his youth, from when he was a student. It sent a chill down his back.
Something is not right.
All at once he took off at a sprint. He might have dropped his bag if it hadn't been crossed over his chest and he hadn't been clutching it like a lifeline. It had to still be summer- no students were in the common room, and the light shone through the lake and lit the place in green indicating it was daytime out. No one lingered in the halls of the dungeon or the Entrance Hall as he sprinted to the stairs, glad he was still regularly jogging to keep up his cardio or he'd likely passed out on the stairs then and there.
He nearly skidded to a halt in front of the gargoyle that blocked the path to the Headmaster's office, out of breath.
"Cockroach clusters," he panted, hands on his knees as he tried to get his breathing under control. The gargoyle didn't even twitch and more dread coiled in his gut, the hairs on his arm raising again.
"Pumpkin pasties," he tried instead, as Albus tended to cycle through the same five or six treats for his passwords, only springing in something new every now and again. The gargoyle remained stone still.
"Acid pops, chocolate frogs," Tom spat out, growing more stressed with each failed password, "Bubblegum, sugar quills-" Nothing. "Ice mice?"
"Merlin Albus I'm not Honeydukes!" He shouted in annoyance at the gargoyle. He imagined the gargoyle raised one eyebrow ever so slightly- he was sure of it. He had half a mind to kick the thing in frustration, but he was fairly certain karma would make sure he broke a toe and so resisted the impulse- he would not be explaining to Pomfrey why his foot was mangled. He was still keyed into the Hogwarts' wards to be able to get in via floo, so it hadn't been that long- he'd just go back to his suite-
He heard footsteps from the other end of the hall and turned, straightening and nearly sagging in relief at the sight of the Headmaster.
Albus was staring at him like he was a ghost- he'd lost what little colour had remained in his hair and his blue eyes were wide in shock.
Something is not right. Morgan's words were haunting. The words from the Unspeakables came back to him and he froze slightly in worry. Had something happened to Diggory and Potter then? Had something happened in the time he'd been gone? Suspended in time and space while in the archway?
He opened his mouth to ask, something, anything, but Dumbledore's wand was in his hand and raised in his direction and Tom's blood ran cold, his blood pounding in his head.
Something.
Is.
Not.
Right.
"Albus?" He asked quietly, frozen on the spot, eyes twitching to the wand and back to the Headmaster. Never before had the elder man raised a wand to him, except for in a friendly duel. Never, not even when he and the man had been at odds in his time as a student.
"How did you get in?" Albus asked darkly, like he was ready to attack.
"Albus, what are you doing?" He hated how pathetic and desperate he sounded, but this was the man he had, for the longest time, considered as much of a father as anyone could be to him, even more than his own had been. This was a man he had the highest adoration and trust of.
Albus's eyes betrayed a flicker of confusion and as before in the Ministry, Tom acted on instinct. He twirled the wand in his hand back between his fingers and raised his hands again, like he did before, but this time slowly- inch by inch, like he didn't want to spook him, as if he were a wild stallion who would bolt or charge if threatened.
"Albus," he said so quietly, but it seemed to echo through the hall, "It's me, it's Tom." He wanted to shake the man, snap him out of it, but he stayed frozen in place, palms up, his wand threaded between fingers, pointing safely towards one of the stone walls. As nonthreatening as he could physically be.
"Who…?" Albus asked quietly, and if it hadn't been silent Tom might not have heard it even. "Who are you?" He finally asked, slightly louder this time, intended for Tom to hear. Tom could feel a gentle creep at the edge of his mind, and he couldn't remember the last time that Albus had tried to reach out to him with legilimency.
Tom felt his shoulders sag further, his head tilting ever so slightly- confused, his brain trying to rationalize the impossible. If the archway had held him in a liminal space, then time might have moved on, but this Albus acted like he'd never seen Tom before.
Something.
Very rarely they communicated with their minds- it was a personal and troublesome thing and only a very skilled legilims and occulums would be able to keep bleed-through from happening, but both Tom and Albus were masters. So instead he opened the draw bridge, so to speak, not removing his fortifications (because it took time and years to build those up), but allowing Albus in.
Once he could feel the tentative tendrils of Albus in his mind, his magic warm and soft like a summer afternoon- if he closed his eyes and tried to picture it, it would be a sunny golden hue- he called forth his day, his memories in little scenes playing out in the front of his mind, on display for Albus to see.
Stumbling out of bed at the manor- a light breakfast with Minnie sitting in companionable silence as they read the paper. His arrival at the Ministry, chatting with several of Aurors who had once been his students before sequestering himself in the dark room, igniting the fires that lit it so he could see. The archway activating, the trip, the suspension, awakening and his encounter with the Unspeakables.
As quickly as he'd been there, Albus, both his physical body and his magic flinched, yanking back from his wind in the same way his hand yanking back his wand, out of an offensive stance and into a defensive. His eyes wide in shock.
Is.
He felt like he was drained, very suddenly, the adrenaline from the last twenty or thirty minutes crashing down around him suddenly. Tom slumped against the wall, one hand bracing himself, the other pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the migraine he could still feel the echoes of. He just barely kept himself from sinking to the ground, the air gone from his chest.
"Tom?" Albus finally asked, quiet, hopeful. Tom looked back to the headmaster and blinked, exhaustion creeping into his body. A long and ragged breath of relief stuttered out of him as Albus closed the gap and pulled him to his feet and into a violent, tight hug. He slowly raised one of his arms and returned it, still worried, so fucking worried.
"Albus- what's happened?" He choked out, and he could feel emotions rising in him, tears at the corner of his eyes that he managed to blink away before Albus pulled back from the hug. "How long was I gone? Why do you look like I've come back from the dead?" Tom demanded.
Not.
The older wizard gave him a look, like weighing something in his mind and Tom felt his stomach clench. He was still gripping Tom's upper arms tightly, like it was anchoring them, somehow, like Tom would float away and disappear if he let him go.
Albus did not answer him, still staring, and the silence there was heavy and telling and made it hard for Tom to breathe, something clawing up the back of his throat.
"Because," Albus said, slowly, like each syllable is a strain, "For all intents and purposes, you have."
Right.
A/N: You will notice plenty of differences from the original story going forward but broad strokes are similar, especially in the beginning. If you are new and aren't a previous reader of Empathetic or Compassion you may be wondering why this Tom acts so different from how canon Tom is perceived and that's a whole host of reasons which is why I needed to flesh out this Tom more in the first place amd then realized as I was fleshing him out I would need to totally rewrite Empathetic. Besides the fact that I now have an additional 10 years of writing experience from when I first started. Oops.
Examples; you'll notice this Tom is more open and direct with his intentions and wording. He shares an impatience with canon Tom while there are plenty of moments when this Tom definitely thinks himself the smartest in the room and is annoyed by others lack of abilities, he rarely acts outwardly on it or dismissively as instead he makes a conscious effort to assume everyone has some use to them and would rather let them have enough rope to hang themselves with than the alternative. This version of Tom also finds political games and the niceties of society, though he is proficient at navigating them, to be irritating and a waste of time. He is happy to give up the pretext of being mysterious if it means you will get on with the fucking point for the love of God.
Also, you will notice this Tom is very fidgety- Honestly gave him this trait from me because when I get kinda in a certain headspace I get very fidgety and I headcanon that canon Tom does as well, but in his insane desire to rule over himself body and mind, he does not give into any of his physical impulses. This Tom thinks trying to put a leash on every aspect of himself in this manner is a waste of time and his mental/physical resources (ie spoons but he doesn't know of the spoon theory yet obviously).
Aka This Tom would rather you explain why you're being an idiot so he can understand and then correct you or understand and choose not to correct you then sit there wondering why the fuck you're being an idiot. The handful of times he is, in fact, being the idiot he's usually stunned by this enough that he just goes quiet.
This chapter is an Okay length but buckle up because few are going to be longer. Till next time mugglefuckers
