The Sortinghat's Mission

Chapter 8

There was an extra horrendously boring lesson. If Professor Poll had gone easy on them, Professor Binns had not even taken into consideration how tierding the first day back could be. He kept monulogin about giants as not many students were even trying to pay attention, not that Binns noticed this. Most of his peers were gossiping and flying small paper birds around the classroom.

Tom took notes, but only listened with half an ear. He was more focused on Hermione, who was sitting right beside him, shuffling a bit on her chair. She did not take notes, just squbbeld down a few support words here and there. He saw her eyes roam the room, locking eyes with a weird boy named Frank he thought, another mudblood in their year, and waving to him smiling. Tom only knew him because he usually was the victim of his friends' torments whenever they got bored. The warmth in her eyes had returned, that same warmth that was so obviously gone when locking eyes upon him. Tom couldn't help himself.

"You can't stop flirting, now can you?" he mumbled while still taking notes.

It was a good thing he had somewhat of a photographic memory, it served him well in his studies. Hermione faced him once again and he could actually see the rage roaming under the surface. It was quite appealing.

"That's actually one of my new friends. IF you don't mind," she hissed back.

"Oh trust me, I don't mind. I couldn't care less about you or what you do, mudblood" he replied with a quiet but deadly voice that made her shiver visibly.

"It sure as hell doesn't look like you don't care, of how much you're watching my every move, Riddle" she hissed back and turned away from him once again.

The students in front of them, Belinda Burbock and Latifa Leys; both Hufflepuffs, stared at them with big eyes before starting to gossip. Tom could overhear words like "flirting" and "obviously they like each other". He shook his head and gave a sigh, and apparently Hermione had done just the same thing because Belinda whispered, rather loudly, to Latifa how "they even acted the same". It enraged him. He hated being compared to others as they were equals. And to be compared to this girl... They were nothing the same, she was of foul blood and he was the heir of Slytherin. She was an annoying, stubborn and bitchy know-it-all and he was an impeccable gentleman with great manners, charisma and true power.

Tom was determined not to give Hermione the time of day henceforth. It wasn't like she even deserved his presence, nonetheless his efforts to befriend her the first day. No. From now on she wouldn't get the nice Riddle. He would show her exactly what he thought about her and her dirty blood, defiling the school with it. He gave a small shiver. As the class dragged on Tom continued to scribble down notes.

Even though history of magic was only one hour at a time, it dragged on incredibly slowly every freaking lesson. Probably because Binns was such a bad teacher. He didn't even answer most students' questions because he was so deep into his own book, just reciting it. Had it not been for Binns, history of magic had probably been one of Tom's favorite subjects, given he wanted to learn almost anything from this world. It had of course started as an attempt to keep up, but upon discovering he was the true heir of Slytherin, Tom had gotten a sense of being better than everyone else. Then it had turned into the power of knowledge. After all, even though he wasn't really a pureblood, he was still the one and only descendant from Slytherin himself. No one could argue with that. Maybe he should show Hermione just how powerful the heir of Slyherin was. Oh how he wished he could release his basilisk on her.

The class came to an end and Hermione virtually leapt up from her seat and out from the classroom. Probably eager to get away from him.

"So Tom..." Latifa said with a small blush on her cheeks as she gained his attention. "Have someone finally gained your attention?"