Author’s Notes: Back to our regularly scheduled programming: Tom has some inter-Slytherin problems, and there is an incident of bullying at Hogwarts.

I don’t abandon fics. That said, I almost abandoned this one, simple and utter lack of time, but I have some chapters in the queue and I reckon I’ll just go ahead and finish it! Many thanks to those reading and reviewing this story: TheCrescentMoonWriter, Hahukum Konn, Estella May, SaintRidley, AnkouBlake, Charming-Lynn, Persefone88, Sonzai Taz, Moony’s Metamorphmagus, Lady Charity, Savage-Stiletto, Treesah Quiche, SilvaGirl, Fullmetal, blindfaithoperadiva, phoebe turner, Ilaaris, Dcrawford84, sesquipedality, jodiebaby, Crystal Inferno, swaggerofthedagger, Jo, ashley, Chanteur d’ombre, Violet, wover3, livesonwisteria, Aideko, jumping-jo, Almecestris, Becky, praypray, queenieb, Jeg elsker deg, Megami284, ImperialJedi, Toyah, and Terra106.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Harry Potter universe; JK Rowling does. No profit is being made from this fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter Seventeen

The wind ran icy fingers through Tom’s hair as he chased the Golden Snitch. Tiny, sharp snowflakes stung his cheeks and he swooped through the air, close to the screaming crowd, and the Snitch hovered here, flew there… he faked a right to throw off Gryffindor’s Seeker and pulled up.

Come on, come on, he thought, scanning the turbulent clouds for a flash of gold. He’d lost it. The score was neck and neck; Gryffindor and Slytherin had evenly-matched teams this year. This was the last game before the winter break. Tom had to win it, he just had to…

There, dancing next to a flag, a fluttering of gold. Tom glanced behind him to see his rival Seeker cruising in the other direction, also looking. Taking a deep breath, he dipped his broom forward and was off like a bolt of lightning. His focus narrowed to that one little thing… that treasure… the win… Gryffindor was on his tail, catching up… Tom stretched out a gloved hand and willed the Snitch into his grasp.

It darted away, but Tom’s reflexes were faster, and then he had it, its tiny mechanical heartbeat a buzz against his palm.

“Slytherin has the Snitch! Slytherin wins!”

Tom held his arms up in the air and listened as the students chanted his name. “Riddle, Riddle, Riddle!”

With a grin a mile wide, Tom strode off the field with his teammates, secure in their superiority.

After the victory, the Slytherin common room was packed with cheering students. Banners of silver and green were charmed to float around the room, and confetti was thrown, and the bottles of Butterbeer were handed about. From his perch on the shoulders of two of his classmates, Tom looked around him and felt satisfied. Slytherin House. His house. This was his inheritance, and he felt that somehow the other students sensed it.

‘Lemme down!’ he said to his friends, who laughed and as Tom hopped off their shoulders, his feet landed a little lighter than normal. His magic hummed in every part of him, even down to his toes… making all things just a bit easier. He Summoned a bottle of Butterbeer and, staring at it, remembered something he’d seen in a Muggle pub once. His mother had always been less than strict about allowing him to see the Muggle world… he thought perhaps it reminded her of his long-dead father.

‘We need pint glasses,’ Tom said, and snapped his fingers so the house-elves knew. Last year he’d learnt the charm to get them to provide essentials. Food late at night, the fire stoked, a set of clean sheets (in the boys’ dorm this was often necessary), and in the case of the party, a gleaming row of clean pint glasses.

‘What’re you doing?’ Avery asked.

Tom grinned. ‘Little trick.’ He poured the bottle of Butterbeer into the glass. ‘Oi, Mulciber, hand over that Firewhiskey!’

Mulciber’s tight grip around the neck looked reluctant to let go, but he did for Tom. It wasn’t often that students could have Firewhiskey so openly, but Slughorn was holding court with a couple of Ministry officials over mulled wine in his office. Tom knew because he’d put a Listening Charm of his own invention in there.

Pouring a measure of the Firewhiskey into the shot-sized cap, he dropped it into the pint glass and handed it to Avery. ‘Down it!’

‘Nice!’ Avery said. ‘What is it?’

‘Let’s call it a Scottish car bomb.’

‘Drink, drink, drink,’ the other students shouted. Everyone tried it after that, even Tom, and he had a pleasant buzz that relaxed his muscles and made him smile. The girls gathered round him and he indulged their flirtations… giving a gentle tug on Lucretia Black’s ponytail, placing a confident arm around Lamb Gilder’s shoulders. Lamb’s identical twin, Lynx, was draped over Avery. It was starting to get a little out of hand.

Tom saw a couple in the corner, clutching at each other and snogging as though their lives depended upon it. A vague distaste filled his own mouth at the lack of finesse. Kissing like Gryffindors, he thought.

In fact, the entire common room looked to be pairing off. He noticed Avery’s flirtation with Lynx growing more bold, and smirked as Mulciber (not the finest specimen, with his crooked teeth and spotty skin) tried to turn the charm on an unenthusiastic fourth-year. Since Tom himself was starting to feel a bit woozy from his own cocktail, he decided to take a refreshing walk through the corridors… perhaps even to the snowy courtyard.

Unnoticed (he was an expert at being invisible if he so chose), he edged out of the melee and once outside the sliding stone door, he breathed a sigh of relief. A clipped pace took him out of the dungeons and up the moving stairs and along a pleasant corridor on the fifth floor; the windows were tall and allowed in the grey twilight. In his slight haze he didn’t hear the scurrying footsteps behind him.

It came as a shock when he felt a warm hand grab his wrist and he was pulled unresisting into an alcove. ‘What-?’

‘Shh,’ Olive Hornby’s fingers were on his mouth. She giggled, high-pitched and nervous. ‘I don’t want anyone seeing us.’

‘Olive.’ He felt acutely uncomfortable and wanted to extricate himself from this without angering Olive… she’d been drinking, too, and was out of her senses. Otherwise she wouldn’t dare.

But dare she did. Before Tom could react – he couldn’t believe it – Olive stood on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth against his. It felt strange, wet, not what he’d expected, and for a moment he didn’t realise that she was kissing him. After a few seconds he put his hands on her shoulders and shoved her away. ‘Stop that!’

‘But, Tom,’ Olive said, leaning in again, ‘you like me, don’t you?’

‘Not like that,’ Tom said. Annoyance flared and he moved her away from him. ‘Go back to Slytherin. Let me alone.’

Hurt passed over her face but Tom wasn’t worried; the memory would be blurry once she was sober. Olive was good at recovering from humiliations… she would just find some hapless Hufflepuff to tease and feel much better about herself.

‘Fine, Tom Riddle,’ Olive huffed. ‘Just remember what you could have had!’ She stormed out of the alcove and down the hall.

Tom watched her go and then stepped up to the window, looking out on the soft white landscape. The snow made everything lose its dimension somehow. He held his long fingers to his lips.

Cheated. He felt cheated, taken unawares, and as the seconds passed his annoyance at Olive grew into fury. ‘How dare she…’ he hissed to himself. The stupid bird had crossed the line. And Tom – who in spite of himself held a romantic streak, a sense that things ought to live up to his idealised versions of them – was outraged that his first kiss should be so unwilling.

On his way down the stairs he snarled at a portrait who stared at him, and threatened to hex Gryffindor’s ghost Sir Nicolas, who made an unnecessary comment about Slytherin’s cheating Quidditch tactics.

‘I say!’ said Sir Nicolas. ‘To be spoken to in such a fashion by a student!’ Yet he floated away, holding his head upright, because even the castle ghosts knew better than to cross Tom Riddle in a bad mood.

He was just passing the library when a voice called out, ‘Tom! How dare you catch the Snitch so fast?’ It was Wolfin Fenwick, grinning, clutching a large textbook. Upon seeing the expression on Tom’s face, however, he held back his good-natured taunts. ‘You alright, mate?’

‘Too much Butterbeer. I’ve a headache.’

‘Aw, rubbish!’ said Wolfin. ‘Divine retribution for beating Gryffindor.’

Tom managed a tight smile. ‘I suppose.’

‘Well, if it makes you feel better, Pandora’s just found a text in the Restricted Section about vampires, and she’s thrilled about it. Thought of you, I think.’

Pandora. For some reason Tom had always figured that when he got around to kissing girls, he might kiss Pandora. Too late now. He thought about dropping in to the library but found himself walking past.

In the spring, two things happened that made up Tom’s mind about his future at Hogwarts. The first occurred during a morning Potions class. Slughorn was at the front, thumbs hooked onto the lapels of his robes, and his moustache quivered with good humour as he supervised the class’s brewing of a tricky Enlightening Draught. Tom was bored, chin resting on his hand as his wand stirred the mixture for twelve languid turns. He’d already made gallons of this stuff with his mother.

“Excuse me, Professor Slughorn?” A small third-year girl approached from the door. The students watched her as she handed Slughorn a small scroll. “From Professor Drakkis.”

Drakkis was the Arithmancy teacher and head of Ravenclaw House. Slughorn waved the girl away and his eyes slid over the note… he raised his head. Tom’s curiosity was up, especially when Slughorn maneuvered his large frame through the rows of steaming cauldrons to speak with a Ravenclaw girl. Her face went pale and she gathered her books with shaking hands, then ran out of the room.

“What’s going on?” Leo Lestrange, Tom’s Potions partner, asked.

“Dunno.”

Even Slughorn looked troubled, though, and his moustache drooped accordingly. Later, at lunch, Tom’s spies in Ravenclaw (Lawrence Carter among them) reported what had happened.

The girl’s parents had been turned into vampires… under the orders of Lord Grindelwald.

Later that day, in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Merrythought taught them about the theoretical uses of doxy droppings, and Tom gritted his teeth in frustration. Vampires, werewolves, Dementors… German bombers gnashing through the sky… and a flash of green to rival the sun as Casper Malfoy fell to the sand. There were dark forces at work and he was forced to sit here and learn this rubbish!

Scribbling on a scrap of parchment, Tom wrote, “Meet me in the common room after class.” With a wave of his wand he duplicated it and sent it flying (Merrythought’s back was turned on them as she wrote on the board) to his friends: Avery, Lestrange, Nott, Mulciber.

Tom Riddle was not about to stand by and wait to be a victim. He’d been powerless for too long and he’d had enough. His school robes billowed behind him as he walked swiftly down the hall after the day’s lessons. A group of first-years squeaked in terror when he rounded the corner on them and they jumped out of his way. The effect was that he had a wand brandished… but the danger was in his eyes.

In the Slytherin common room, a small crowd gathered around Tom as he paced in front of the fireplace. “What’s eating you?” Lestrange asked.

“The Dark Arts,” said Tom.

A few of the boys sniggered. “Oh, is that all then?” said Nott.

He whirled to face them. Speaking in a low tone he said, “The instruction at this school is deficient. Merrythought is a wimp. We need to be learning the real stuff.”

“So?” said Avery, wiping a hand across his face. He had a perpetual runny nose. “What are we meant to do about it?”

Tom gave them a glittering smile. “Learn on our own, that’s what.”

This was greeted with immediate complaint. “We’ve so much work already!” Lestrange said.

“And what about Quidditch practise?”

“I’d rather spend my free time with my friends.”

“Oh, shut up, Nott. By your friends you mean snogging Lucretia Black in the corner.”

“Do not!”

“I’m already behind in Potions! Those essays are murder…”

Tom rolled his eyes. I’m surrounded by idiots, he thought. “It’s not going to be work, it’s going to be fun,” he said and his friends fell silent. “And it won’t take much time. Maybe an hour or two every week. Don’t you lads want to learn to duel? To defend yourselves? To get what you want from other people? Grindelwald’s goons don’t hesitate to use the Imperius Curse, you know. I doubt any of you would like following the orders of the Germans – they’d make you eat sauerkraut and say ‘Heil Hitler’! How’d you like to pledge allegiance to some filthy Muggle?”

It was Lestrange who first admitted that Tom might have a point. The others followed suit and it was agreed that they would meet on Monday evenings at eight in the evening. “Will it be just us lot?” Avery asked.

Tom paused. He’d had the notion to include some of his more loyal friends from other houses. That might have to come later, however; the Slytherins were snobs and might refuse to attend a meeting with Gryffindors. “Yah, just us for now.”

There was a smattering of nods as his friends began to comprehend how much it might benefit them. “The girls too?” Lestrange asked.

“Mmm…” Tom thought it over. “I think it should be anyone who wants to learn. But we have to keep this secret. It’ll be like… a club. I doubt the professors would be too keen on our learning the Dark Arts.”

“Yeah…” said Avery and Nott together. Nott rubbed his hands together in glee. It had become forbidden and therefore more compelling even than Quidditch practise.

“So if you lot have anyone you think is interested, tell them to meet right here – “ Tom pointed at the stone floor below him, “Monday night just after dinner.”

Tom paced in front of the wall where, any minute now, the Room of Requirement would open up. Behind him a group of his closest Slytherin friends waited with sceptical expressions. None of them knew about the Room and hadn’t believed him when he’d described it. A place to learn the Dark Arts, a place to learn the Dark Arts… A door popped into view.

“Hey!” said Avery. “Look!”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Yes, look. And for God’s sake get inside before a professor happens by.” He gestured at his friends to follow him inside.

There was some part of Tom that was always in awe of magic. He’d grown up with it and it was the norm for him, but like a shadow in his consciousness, he felt a wondering gratitude that it was, in fact, real. That he could be a part of it. Sometimes he wondered if it was his dead father’s Muggle blood that created the astonishment. It was too bad his father hadn’t survived; Tom felt sure he would have loved the magical world and his equally magical son.

The scene that so impressed Tom would have struck fear into the hearts of most (Muggles especially). The Room of Requirement had turned into a large space filled with spiky, strange objects. Torches blazed on the walls from inside metal cages. Shelves boasted rows of glittering potion bottles of dubious safety. A brewing cauldron was set off to the side and Tom could see the ingredients lined up to make a Draught of Living Death. Several duelling platforms took up one end and there was a wall packed with books. Stepping up to them, Tom saw titles he’d never imagined before: it was like the Restricted Section’s bigger and more evil twin. He smiled as his fingers brushed across the spine of a text called ‘Mummy Creation and Creative Curses.’

“This will do,” he said aloud. Now, just for a place for me to sit… and as the thought formed and arced through his mind, the room responded with a circle of wooden chairs. At their head was a grander, more elaborate seat: a throne of ebony wood. The Slytherin Crest was engraved upon it. “Perfect.”

Tom began with some basic counter-curses. It was a review, but several of his friends needed it: Mulciber was unable to do shield charms and Nott had trouble disarming his opponents. Merrythought, Tom’s mind growled. The woman adored him but she hadn’t done his classmates any favours. Ah, well, the better for Tom himself to be further admired.

The boys had been meeting for two weeks when the second thing happened that solidified the rebellion in Tom’s mind. It was the first true day of spring and the students had taken to the school grounds, using their jumpers as blankets to sit on the grass, textbooks scattered about them. A group of first-year Gryffindors edged close to the lake as though daring each other to put a toe in to tempt the Giant Squid.

“Don’t touch me!” A female voice was shouting from off in the trees, but at a distance the cry was thin.

Tom’s head snapped up from the book he was reading. No one else seemed to have heard it, but Tom’s senses were acute as a serpent, and he had preternaturally good hearing. As a Prefect he had a responsibility to prevent any ‘incidents’… He’d already told Lestrange to watch his books and started walking toward the grove when he heard it again.

“How dare you come near me!” This time the tone was less alarmed, and more sneering.

Slowing, Tom peered past the solid tree trunks to witness a scene of humiliation. It was the Black cousins, Lucretia and Walburga, and the blonde Gilder twins, Lynx and Lamb. In the midst of them was a Hufflepuff boy whom Tom recognised as John Parrish. He had no love for Parrish (he was Hufflepuff’s Seeker) but he had to wince in sympathy: Parrish had been caught with his pants down, literally. The mussed hairstyle of Lamb Gilder suggested that they’d been doing something together… until she called her friends in for the kill.

Walburga twirled her wand. “So, mudblood, you thought you could dip your nib into Slytherin ink? Thought she liked you?”

Lamb giggled and waved him a kiss.

Lucretia used her wand to prod Parrish in the back. “His dad’s in the Muggle army,” she said. “Trying their pathetic hand at fighting Grindelwald. They haven’t a clue!”

From his hiding spot, Tom frowned. He was still trying to work out what was going on… it had not been his experience that girls formed gangs, except against each other. The Gilder twins, however, were German… or at least their mother was. He’d heard them praising Grindelwald’s control over that country’s government.

“It’s more than that,” said Lamb, Lynx’s twin, in a soft voice. “Johnny-boy’s Muggle mother is also a Jewess. Do you know what that makes him? Twice-filthy.”

All four girls made gagging noises.

Parrish struggled to get his pants back up but Walburga flung a Leg-Locking Hex and he fell over. “So, girls,” said Walburga, “now that we’ve got one of them alone, let’s show the rest of this school that Slytherin doesn’t tolerate bad blood.”

“Silencio!” Parrish couldn’t speak. Then Lucretia hit him with a cruel trick of a Tickle Hex. Parrish convulsed in silent, painful laughter, his mouth wide in a grimace of hilarity, his eyes wide with outrage.

“Petrificus Totalus!” Lamb caught him mid-laugh and he froze in a half-bent position. She reached down to the soft Scottish soil and gathered some with her pristine white hands, and after compressing it into a ball of dirt, she shoved it inside Parrish’s mouth. “Take that! You’re filthy! You’re dirty, you disgusting Jew, you Muggle, how dare you touch me? Or look at me?”

“You don’t belong here,” Walburga added in a sing-song.

“Go home Jewboy, go home mudblood,” the twins chanted.

“Beaten by girls,” Lucretia crowed.

For his part, Tom was torn. He would do something about Parrish in half a second, before these girls could do any real physical damage, and before he choked on the black dirt spilling out of his mouth. But whose side should he take? Parrish was annoying and dim. The girls were his friends and fellow Slytherins. However, something irked him: Parrish, for all his faults, was a male. No bloke should be humiliated by a pack of girls. It wasn’t natural.

“Ladies,” said Tom, stepping out from his observation spot.

At first they tensed in guilt, but when they saw it was their Tom Riddle, they smiled at him. “Twenty points to Slytherin?” said Walburga, always bold.

“Mmm, I don’t think so. Finite,” Tom waved his wand at Parrish who coughed and spluttered and spat the dirt out onto the ground where it belonged. “Will someone tell me what’s going on here?”

Lamb stepped forward. “He attacked me!” She pointed at Parrish. “We went for a walk and then he grabbed me and started kissing me and tugging at my clothes.”

Lynx pulled her sister into a comforting hug.

“It was a good thing the others came along when they did,” continued Lamb, conjuring a few tears. “Otherwise who knows what he would have done?”

Tom raised an eyebrow at Parrish. “It’s fortunate indeed the rest of you knew to come to this particular grove of trees.”

Walburga’s mouth compressed. “You know how it is, Tom. We look out for each other. Especially when a girl goes for a walk alone.”

It was convincing, he had to give them that. But he’d heard too many of their insults to Parrish to believe for an instant that it was anything less than a set-up. A piercing look into Lucretia’s eyes revealed the plot. “Nice try,” he said, “but I don’t buy it.”

Parrish, who’d recovered enough to stagger to his feet and put his trousers in order, said, “They’re liars.” His voice was low and angry. Tom wondered if the girls had inadvertently created more trouble for themselves; Hufflepuff had a hive-like nature and in their taunting they may have gotten the whole nest riled up. And the badgers wouldn’t be well-pleased if their Seeker had landed in the hospital wing at the hands of Slytherins.

Another Gordian knot, Tom thought. The social relations at Hogwarts were so very complicated and he wished he could be free of them… that all the students might just be loyal to him instead of their stupid houses or ideologies or families. “Right,” he said crisply. “Parrish, are you alright?”

John Parrish hesitated, then gave a nod.

“Fifty points from Slytherin,” said Tom, and the girls protested. “Each!” he added. He was loathe to do it, but Hufflepuffs were such sticklers for the rules. Parrish wouldn’t understand Tom’s notion of underhanded Slytherin justice to Lynx, Lamb, Lucretia and Walburga. He hoped that the point deduction would mollify Parrish… and he was half-right.

“Are they going to get detention, too?” Parrish asked. Something in his mouth quivered and Tom knew that he was on the verge of losing faith in the system.

“I don’t know, Parrish,” Tom said. “Are you not a Prefect too?”

“Oh, yeah…”

“Tom Riddle!” Walburga stepped up. “We were just defending ourselves!”

“By shoving dirt into his mouth? Come on, Wally. Don’t lie to me. Be glad it’s me and not a professor… or the other Hufflepuffs. Parrish, get out of here, and we won’t tell your friends that you were beaten by girls.”

He looked about to protest but thought better of it. Grasping his wand, he gave one more murderous glare to Lamb Gilder and limped off through the trees.

Tom had nothing further to say to his four Slytherins. He was annoyed with them. It might have been him, being made ridiculous for being a mudblood, if they weren’t so afraid of him. “Don’t let this happen again,” he said to the girls. Silent and calm he left the grove, his feet making nary a rustle through the leaves.