– – – – – Rebirth Chapter 02 – – – – –

The pair spent a great deal of the next month and a half making their way through London and visiting Diagon Alley.

Tom was always good with managing money, and Heri was good at spotting deals. Tom wanted them both to look their best, but also acknowledged that neither of them had much and that, what was given to them was likely all they would get for the whole year. Their most notable splurge was their outer robes, since that was what everyone would see and Tom insisted that appearances were everything. The rest of their clothes, their books, trunks, cauldron, scales, and telescope were all secondhand. They found a shabby looking apothecary down a rather dark and questionable-looking alley called 'Knockturn', that sold most of the potion ingredients cheaper than the main apothecary on Diagon Alley.

The very first thing, that the two of them purchased were their wands. Tom had gotten his first. About thirty minutes of trying out various wands had passed before the old man, Ollivander, had matched Tom with a yew wand, 13 ½ inches, with a Phoenix feather core.

Heri's search for the perfect match took even longer though, and as nearly an hour had passed, he was beginning to look seriously dejected. Ollivander, in contrast, looked more excited by the moment and kept muttering about 'tough customers'.

Finally, he gave Heri a long piercing look before glancing over to Tom and back again.

"The two of you aren't bothers are you?" he asked.

The two blinked in surprise before informing him that they were not brothers – not biologically anyway.

Ollivander muttered a bit under his breath for a moment as he went back in the store and came out with a box identical to the one that Tom's wand had come from. Heri took it and felt a surge of warmth through him, gave a small smile, and with a quick flick, the wand shot out a shower of green sparks, the same color as his eyes.

Ollivander looked most pleased, while Heri just looked relieved that he had finally been matched with a wand. Ollivander then went on to explain that the wand that had chosen Heri was the brother wand to the one that had chosen Tom. The two wands were different wood types – Tom's was Yew, while Heri's was Holly – but the cores were identical. Both of them had come from the same phoenix, and were the only two feathers that particular bird had ever donated to wand crafting.

The two boys seemed pleased with this discovery and had quickly paid the wandmaker before leaving the store to continue their exploration of their new world.

In addition to shopping and the exciting exposure to a whole new magical culture, Diagon Alley also featured a public library. The two boys spent a great deal of time there, trying to learn as much about the Wizarding World as they could manage before starting their new lives at Hogwarts.

It also had the added benefit of getting them away from the orphanage, and any excuse to get away from there was welcome.

–

September 1st finally arrived and the two made their way to King's Cross Station, onto the hidden magical platform, and boarded the bright shiny red train. The two kept to themselves for the long ride to the school, were greeted in the tiny wizarding village of Hogsmeade by a bent old wizard named Ogg, and led across the lake in boats. After a brief wait in a small anti-chamber, all of the first years were called into the Great Hall and lined up down the center as a ratty old hat on a stool began to sing a song.

Then, one-at-a-time, their names were called and they went up, sat on the stool, and were sorted into their houses.

"Jude, Herakles." Dumbledore called out, and Heri gave one last hesitant glance at his one and only friend before making his way up to the front and sitting down on the stool.

The hat had been upon his head for less than 30 seconds before the rip in the front opened up and it called out "SLYTHERIN!"

A spattering of students sitting at the Slytherin table clapped politely for him as he strode towards it with as much confidence as he could muster. As soon as he sat down, his eyes were instantly drawn to Tom's and gave him what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

It felt like ages passed before Dumbledore finally called out the name, "Riddle, Tom."

Tom made his way up with his chin held high and smooth confidence in his strides. He sat down on the stool and let the hat fall over his head. It had barely touched his head at all when the hat called out "SLYTHERIN!"

Heri heaved a relieved sigh and began to clap enthusiastically the moment the hat was removed from Tom's head.

The other boy smirked lightly at Heri as he confidently began to walk to the Slytherin table. However there was very little clapping from anyone else. Many of the older students were observing him with narrowed eyes and a few sneered at him. Tom noticed this, of course, but pointedly ignored it as he came to stand beside Heri, who was shooing the boy beside him to scoot over and make room.

The sorting finished after two more children and after a very brief word from Headmaster Dippet, the feast was served and everyone began to eat and converse.

The scowls and upturned noses, aimed at Tom continued and finally Heri, having noticed it, turned to Tom and whispered. "What is their problem with you?"

"It's my name," Tom said in a low voice with a carefully concealed angry glint in his eyes.

"What? What's wrong with your name?"

"It's muggle. They think I'm a muggleborn, or at least a half-blood."

"Why the hell would that matter?" Heri hissed angrily.

"This is Slytherin house, Heri. Did you even read the books I gave you?"

"Of course I did!" Heri responded indignantly. "But I don't read as fast as you do... nor do I remember every bloody word I read."

"Salazar Slytherin despised the muggles. It's why he left the school," Tom explained in a slightly exasperated voice. "His house stands for blood purity. People with impure blood aren't very welcomed here."

"So why aren't they glaring at me? For all they know, I'm a half-blood or even a muggleborn. I don't know anything about my parents."

"Yes, but your name isn't quite so muggle."

"Herakles? It's bloody Greek. It's weird."

"It's not weird. You were named after a god, Heri. It's a fantastic name. And at least it's not muggle." Tom said with a grimace.

"What's wrong with Tom? I like your name. Thomas... that's a really nice name."

"My name isn't Thomas, it's Tom," he responded with a mild sneer.

Heri snorted. "Yeah, well my name isn't Heri, but that's what everyone actually calls me. You could be Thomas if you wanted."

"In what way is Thomas less muggle than Tom? Besides, it isn't Tom that they're sneering at. It's Riddle. It's not a magical surname."

"And Jude is?"

"Perhaps Jude is a magical surname." Tom pointed out. "We don't actually know."

"True, but even if it is, I'm not related to them. Jude isn't really my name; it's some random bloody saint one of the damn matrons named me after."

"But they don't know that."

"That's the point! They don't know anything about us, and yet they're judging you! Chances are that at least one of your parents were magical. Marvolo sounds like a wizarding name. And that was your grandfather's name, right?"

"On my mother's side, but she couldn't possibly have been magical. She died." Tom sneered.

"Being a witch or wizard doesn't make you immortal, Tom."

"She could have used magic to save herself."

"You have no idea what had happened to her. Maybe she was so ill that she couldn't save herself, even with magic."

"It's pointless to waste time theorizing about all this," Tom finally said, cutting off the conversation.

Heri sighed and shook his head, refocusing on the mountain of food placed before him and eagerly digging in.

"What are we going to do about them?" Heri asked after a few minutes had passed, as he made a movement with his head towards the older Slytherins who had been glaring and scowling at Tom earlier.

"Slytherin valued two things. Blood, and power," Tom said simply with his chin turned up slightly. "I will simply prove myself as powerful enough to earn their respect."

Heri smirked a bit and nodded his head.

–

While Hogwarts was a significant improvement over the orphanage, it was far from being an easy life for the pair. At the orphanage they at least had their unique skills to intimidate the other children into leaving them alone, or obeying their orders. They had no such advantage here. In fact, as first years, they were some of the weakest in the school. But out of their year mates, they were clearly the strongest.

They were both at the tops of every one of their classes, often bouncing back and forth between first or second place depending on the class. Tom, however, was more often in first, but he was also more competitive and had the most amazing ability to remember almost everything he read, word-for-word – a skill that Heri often coveted, but accepted he would just have to live without.

The pair stayed at the school for winter holidays since there was no way they'd go back to the orphanage for the 3 week break. Their gifts for each other were simple as neither had much spending money for frivolous things. One of their housemates gave Heri and Tom both a box of chocolates in appreciation for help they'd given her on her Transfiguration work. Rather, Heri had insisted to help her, and Tom had simply grudgingly gone along with it.

Another housemate had given Tom a couple books in thanks for assistance he'd lent him, and it was at this point that Tom first began to fully comprehend how beneficial it could be to him to 'help' those in his house with their studies. The Slytherins were mostly old pureblood families, and many of them were quite wealthy. These children were spoiled and had easy access to untold riches in their home libraries. More often than not, the children had grown up with easy, constant, access to a veritable mountain of books and knowledge, and had disregarded just how valuable it was. They discarded the books as if they were worthless, but Tom and Heri as well, realized just how much power resided in knowledge.

Tom spent a great deal of the second term worming his way into the esteem of the more powerful, influential, and wealthy of his housemates, and Heri followed right behind.

While there were still many who openly disliked Tom due to his assumed blood status, the fact that he was sorted into Slytherin was often used to argue the fact that he couldn't possibly be a muggleborn – because no muggleborn would ever be sorted into Slytherin – and even if he was a halfblood, he was still powerful.

His performance in classes and all of his and Heri's extracurricular studying had put them leagues ahead of their classmates. Tom and Heri were even frequently found helping Lucretia and Walburga Black, who were cousins and who were a year ahead of them.

The Blacks were a powerful old family, and, at least the branch that Walburga came from, were staunch blood purists. The fact that even she could move beyond Tom's questionable blood status and ask for his assistance, was enough to open up most of the rest of the house to treating him with the respect that he was so fully convinced he fully deserved.

–

The end of first term, and return to the orphanage was a dark time for the two young wizards. While they had both done remarkably well on their exams, and the fact that Slytherin had won the house cup was in large part due to all of the points the two of them had gained in classes through the course of the year, any joy derived from these facts was lost as they departed the train and began to make the journey through London, back to the orphanage.

They were not greeted warmly.

The older children taunted them and shoved them around. Tom and Heri couldn't even fight back since the Ministry had added an extra layer of wards around the orphanage during the course of the year, now that it was known that two magical children resided there. The wards, while theoretically there to 'protect them', were really there to protect the muggles. They would detect any and all acts of magic performed there, even the 'accidental' kind – the wandless kind – that they had been performing, unknowingly, before Dumbledore had come to tell them about magic a year earlier.

They had been warned before leaving the school that any use of magic outside of school was strictly forbidden, and any use of magic against a muggle would not only result in expulsion, but could even get them in trouble with the law.

Now that the two had absolutely no way to directly fight back at all they were practically sitting ducks.

Tom managed to track down and acquire a couple snakes and often used them to attack and intimidate the other children, but Heri couldn't speak to snakes like Tom could. He was also still the smaller of the two, and the older boys often singled him out and used him as their personal punching bags. Tom tried to be there to protect his friend, but he couldn't always be there. And this frustrated and angered him.

It was a long and miserable summer, and by the end of it, Tom was committed to finding some way to avoid ever having to go back again.

–

The return to Hogwarts in September was a monumental relief. The pair quickly slipped back into the routine that they had developed over the course of the previous year. All of their teachers loved the, except for Dumbledore, who seemed eternally suspicious of the pair. Tom would never forgive himself for allowing his mask to fall so utterly in the aged wizard's presence, but Heri tried to reassure him that one suspicious old man didn't matter in the greater scheme of things. Dumbledore was a powerful wizard – there was no denying that – but he was just one man, and Tom and Heri had the rest of the faculty tightly wrapped around their little fingers.

Their head of house, Horace Slughorn was especially smitten with the two of them. Tom was the most outgoing and dominant of the pair and as such drew the most attention. Not only the attention of the staff, but also the students.

While, the previous year, their fellow classmates had learned to appreciate Tom and Heri's value in academic pursuits, they began to appreciate them in other areas this year. Tom and Heri were more than academically accomplished, they were also magically powerful. The most powerful in their year by a significant margin. A dueling club run by the Defense Professor Merrythought, spanned multiple years, and in 2nd year Tom and Heri were finally able to attend. They easily wiped the floor with quite a few students several years above them. This attracted a following to the two of them. Their roommates, Walter Gibbon,

Aldous Baddock and Casper Crouch took to sitting with the pair during meals, and joining them to study sometimes in the library. Even Druella Rosier began to sit with them, and she had been quite cold their first year.

It was during one of their study sessions in the library that Tom stumbled across a book that would bring about an obsession that would last for years.

"Heri!" Tom exclaimed in an excited whisper as he came rushing around the row of the shelves he had been sequestered away in for the last hour. Heri looked up from his book, blinked twice and sighed, wondering what Tom had found now. There were exceedingly few things that got Tom excited enough to show it. Normally the boy kept his emotions tightly locked away inside, opting to instead display a polite, respectful, young man, rather than the fiercely ambitions, aggressive, and admittedly, often times rather cruel, boy that he truly was. But aside from his rather dark underbelly, Heri was privy to Tom's protective, possessive, and absolutely brilliant side as well. And while possessiveness might not be seen by many as a very positive character trait, Heri found he didn't mind it much.

Tom had a tendency to collect things, and anything he considered 'his', he protected with a ferocity beyond description. Heri had grown accustomed to being one of Tom's treasured 'things' and found he actually liked the position.

"What is it, Tom?" Heri said with an air of exasperation, but mostly resignation.

"This isn't the same as usual, Heri! This is really incredible!"

"Of course it is," Heri said in a slightly condescending tone that instantly earned him a hard glare. Heri shifted his expression to an innocent smile and Tom rolled his eyes and huffed.

"Look at this," Tom said, dropping an open book on the table in front of Heri and pointing to a passage.

Heri looked down and quickly began to skim it. His brows furrowed slightly for a moment before they rose into his hairline and his eyes widened dramatically.

"Parseltongue?" Heri asked, looking up at Tom.

"Yes! That's what I can do! My ability to speak to snakes! It's called parseltongue! And it's a blood trait. The only family line that has ever been known to carry it is the Slytherin line!"

"So you're descended from Slytherin?" Heri gasped.

"Yes!"

"That's incredible..." Heri said in an awed whisper.

"But there's more!" Tom reached down and flipped a few pages further in the book and let his finger jab down violently on one of the paragraphs. "Read that."

Heri turned his eyes back down to the book and began to read the passage. Slowly his eyes widened again before he finally finished and looked back up at Tom.

"The Chamber of Secrets? You think it really exists?"

Tom gave a curt nod. "I do. And if I'm his descendant, I'll be able to open it. I can continue Salazar Slytherin's noble work!"

"You mean rid the school of the mudbloods?" Heri whispered back quietly while darting his eyes around for an instant to make sure they wouldn't be overheard.

"Of course!" Tom snapped. "They're filth and they have no right being here."

"Tom, for all we know, I'm a mudblood." Heri responded with a pointed look.

Tom scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. You're at least a halfblood. With a name like Herakles? What muggle names their child Herakles? Besides you and I are far too powerful to be mudbloods."

Heri sighed and shook his head, but smiled slightly at the other boy. "Fine, fine. So what – you want to try and find the Chamber of Secrets?"

"I will find it."

Heri chuckled. "Awfully confident, aren't we?"

"When have I ever failed to accomplish something when I set my mind to it?" Tom asked with a smug smirk.

–

Tom had always hidden his ability to speak to snakes after the way Dumbledore had reacted back when they'd first learned of the wizarding world, but now that he realized what it was and what it meant, he had no hesitation in allowing the other Slytherins become aware of his unique skill.

Any hesitation that had remained among the older Slytherins in regards to showing Tom any respect thanks to his unknown blood status vanished with the first demonstration of his parseltongue ability.

It was kept solely within the students of Slytherin house, but word quickly spread that Tom Riddle was most likely the heir of Slytherin. A title, which he had no hesitation in propagating.

Tom and Heri easily stayed at the top of their classes, and Tom continued to milk his newfound fame and respect while building alliances among their housemates, and every free moment was spent searching every inch of the school for any signs of the Chamber.

The year passed quickly and before they knew it, the summer was drawing near. With only a month left to go until the end of term, Tom approached their head of house, Horace Slughorn, to see if there was anything he could do, so that he and Heri could remain at Hogwarts over the summer. Slughorn didn't think there was, but suggested that he bring the matter to the Deputy Headmaster and inquire with him.

At that point, Tom felt a weight settle into the base of his stomach. The Deputy Headmaster was Dumbledore, and Dumbledore's dislike for both Heri and Tom was an indisputable fact.

Finally, building up his resolve, Tom scheduled a meeting with Dumbledore to discuss his concerns with he and Heri returning to the muggle orphanage over the summer. Tom refused to admit to the shame of being weak in the face of muggles, so instead used the excuse of the growing turmoil in muggle Europe.

The Nazi's had taken Czechoslovakia just a few months earlier in March. And the Nazi's had just signed the 'Pact of Steel' with Italy. Everyone knew the British were going to be signing an alliance pact with Poland soon, and would be mobilizing forces soon.

The excuse did not seem to fly with Dumbledore at all. It was clear that he did not believe a muggle war was the reason for Tom's hesitation to return to the muggles. The fact was that he believed it was nothing more than prejudice in play. That Tom and Heri did not like to return to the muggle orphanage because they believed themselves better than their muggle fellows. And while that was actually true, the reason Tom did not wish to return was entirely based on the abuse the two suffered at the hands of the children and their caretakers.

In the end, Dumbledore didn't even take Tom's request to the headmaster and had instead simply refused it, outright.

Bitter and angry, Tom returned to the dungeons, cursing Dumbledore's name under his breath.

–