Harry Potter : Chapter 86: Means to an End I

"Tom and I could probably end up linking some of my brews and his wards, the first acting as a key for the second." the image of a stone basin in the middle of a inferi infested underground lake flashed in my mind before I turned my focus towards the challenges that had led to the Philosopher Stone in the first of the Harry Potter books. 

We'd need a way to tailor the challenges on seven levels of difficulty, as they'd hardly be fair otherwise, but it could be done, somehow.

"It remains to truly write down what we want from people we'd allow into the Rùnda, and then to prepare a way to test each of the characteristics we want without our involvement. Maybe we set up some process to go through for the people we want to be able to drink those potions, could it work?"

"It's worth thinking about it." Minerva sniffed, her lips thin with disapproval as she brought out an old sock from one of the hidden pockets of her school robe, tapping it after several seconds spent perfectly still: "Portus."

After the portkey glowed blue, she was yanked away, her green eyes still accusing and pointing at me.

"Also, a way to see what the newcomers would be doing without the need of personally walking back into the Rùnda sounds necessary." Riddle spoke calmly as he extracted a familiar piece of black wood from one of his pockets, tossing it at me.

I caught it mid-air with a silent hovering charm, and I rose a questioning eyebrow at Tom from above the chess piece that we had been exchanging among ourselves since our first year.

"We both know that even if it rises Minerva's hackles, it's yours for the time being." the dark eyes with the boy with the potential to become the worst dark lord in history glanced back into the woods, clearly referring to the giant wolf that Marie had become. 

"In Norse mythology, the wolf that will eat the moon is called Mánagarmr, or Hati, if you want an alternative: pick ne of the two as the name for this new species, will you? Even Marie would hate to be referred to with the same practical sense that you've used to name the 'storing-ink'."

He readied a portkey smoothly, and in a handful of seconds, he too was gone.

I was left holding the black king chess piece that had been the metaphorical stake of so many of our bets, and somehow, it felt like it was made of lead. 

Maybe it was due a session with Ravencalw's diadem, just to try and understand what the fuck I wanted to do now that I had apparently unknowingly created my first, brand new creature, only at the cost of a human that was no longer useful to me.

With those thougts, the familiar, blood curling wave of shame that I had grown to know since the death of Hagrid's father came back in full, but in my mind, I could only see a pair of golden eyes that reflected the sun even when shadowed.

...

Tom let his own little combination of spells to avoid detection fall apart once he witnessed Rubeus' first-year pet leave the Hogwarts' Library with a spring in his step and a barely contained smile.

The diminutive student had taken to his interactions to Minerva like a fish starved for water: which could even somehow be understandable, Riddle knew that he almost always felt the drearily dull interactions with everyone else like a heavy cover that he managed to lift either by playing everyone for a fool or in his always unpredictable and always intriguing interactions with Hagrid and McGonagall.

That didn't mean that he was just going to hand over his hard work to the first bright-eyed idiot that piqued Hagrid's interest, and frankly, Tom had better ways to spend his time than wasting it to observe this particular speck of dirt that even Minerva had pronounced 'absolutely brilliant'. 

Then again, he had never truly believed that the witch would refuse someone the right to knowledge of any kind, not when they proved worthy of it somehow in her eyes. It was the same facet of her personality that had first allowed Rubeus to snuggle them both in her confidence.

The Slytherin Prefect walked into the Library with the usual polite charm painted on his face, not giving a hint of the sneer that he felt mount up every time he thought about allowing another into the Rùnda, and soon found Minerva huddled on a table that she had recently taken to share with her Gryffindor companions and mixed year mates for the occasional study-group.

But even if pushed by the looming N.E.W.T.s, the other students simply couldn't really be expected to keep up with a witch like her. 

Not when she had been studying beyond the scope of Hogwarts' curriculum alongside Rubeus and Riddle's brilliant self, not when she had received private lessons with Dumbledore ... and slowly, the frustration that had barely been simmering, unknown, during her first years of schooling, was now blatant if one knew her enough.

And Tom was such a person.

"I thought that you wouldn't last an entire week of mediocrity." his smooth tones made Minerva's head snap in his direction even while her hand kept scribbling on a spare piece of parchment, the several tomes open before her shifting to accommodate for the next topic of study once the witch used her off hand to poke at them with her wand.

Riddle didn't wait for her to truly address his presence before opening his trusty, leather-bound journal and casually extracting the drawing of a comfortable armchair into reality, the liquid twisting of black ink briefly shimmering under the light of the winter sun that peaked through some of the clouds outside, and he kept talking.

"That you managed it for so long ... on one side, I feel like I should be impressed by your stubbornness, on the other, I really can't condone your lowering yourself to any common student."

"Don't insult your fellow students Tom," she narrowed her bottle-green eyes at him before tapping her Headgirl badge, "this is the only warning you'll receive today."

Does it meant that I can insult them tomorrow? Tom refrained from smiling when the image of Rubeus saying those exact words blossomed in his mind, and simple arched an eyebrow.

"Are we already pretending that everyone is the same and equally capable? Rubeus and I never truly forced you to explicitly recognize it, but our accomplishments are proof enough, don't you think?" 

Is she truly thinking that she can go back to being extraordinary among the worthless without feeling meaningless herself? And is she really attempting to ascribe meaning to House Points, now, after all that we've witnessed and shared?

It was clear that in her haste to distance herself from Rubeus, after the ill-received news about Marie's situation, Minerva was trying to grasp to what should have been familiar. 

But from the barely contained snort of the witch, Tom could clearly see how laughable she found the idea of using House Points to discipline him, and how out of place she suddenly felt now that she unconsciously realized that her feet had truly gotten used to a very different set of shoes. 

She was a huntress of magic playing an old game, not too different from a grown woman finding that the dolls she used as a child held litle to no interest for her now after trying to play an old game.

The witch in question pursed her lips in a thin line as she straightened her back, unamused and apparently uninterested in what Tom had to say: "You call accomplishment even that abomination..."

"It was an abomination that saved my life, or I remember it wrong?" Riddle made use of all of his Occlumency to crush back the bone-deep, soul-gnawing fear that was summoned by a simple, oblique reference to their Hydra-ritual, his fingers idly tracing the circular scar on the back of his hand, the charms to conceal it unable to stop him from feeling the slightly upraised skin.

Before the witch could reply, the Slytherin wizard let out the dismissive sneer that he felt she deserved: "Of course you're referring to the last impossible achievement of Rubeus."

"I'd hardly call it an achievement!"

"And yet you haven't gone running to Professor Dumbledore, spilling the beans." Riddle's face returned to his usual polite facade only for him to raise a challenging eyebrow.

"But you have been avoiding the Rùnda, and even with your disdain, you really have done nothing to help. I can't help, but wonder why..."

Seeing as she wasn't going to get anything done until Riddle was done with what he wished to say, the Gryffindor witch mastered her own temper and waved her wand, closing the tomes and drying the ink of her notes. "What do you want, Tom?"

"To understand." the deceptively simple answer led the Slytherin Prefect to tilt his head sideways, "And more importantly, given what I've seen, to try and make you understand."

"I understand perfectly..."

...

Hey everyone, don't forget to check out my other work its a Star Wars fanfic. I would really appreciate it if you could leave some reviews and give power stones to help elevatemy other story in the ranking.

=========================

if you want to read ahead of the public release, you can join my p atreon :

p atreon.com/Darkness013