You were sitting at his table in the library, and it was by choice! Third week of term and you were already closer to him! Well, you were here to work on potion's work. But you had come ten minutes earlier than agreed upon!
"This assignment is pointless. We do not learn the real way to create antidotes until year six! And even then, antidotes are pointless! There are endless amounts of poisons, and no one carries every antidote. We should be learning how to procure a bezoar! That is a helpful lesson!"
He loved how you could get so mad, and fight something so silly. He would play along. "But even then, who carries around a bezoar." He was amazed when you pulled a box from your bag.
"Call me paranoid." He wouldn't do that, it was a genius move.
"Where did you get it from."
"Knicked it. Slughorn keeps a box of them, bit of a klepto. Who knows when I might need it." He was thrilled you would share so much with him.
"Are you that concerned that someone might poison you?" He liked how condescending he sounded. Didn't want you to think that you had impressed him. No, that would give you power.
"More concerned that if I ever have to poison someone, I can put the poison in my own drink and survive. No one would suspect me."
He could see a flaw in your plan, but loved that you had a plan for murder. "Is it not suspicious that you have a bezoar in the first place?"
To his surprise, she laughed. "Oh Riddle, of only aurors were as smart as you." You leaned closer to him. "The thing is, when they come to investigate, all the close minded wanna do-gooders will see is a distraught girl with poison in her drink, devastated that she was quick enough to live but her uncle died."
Your eyes go wide as the reality of what you said hits you. You go to stand, but he grabs your arm. "Sit Alexandrov." He wished he could have called you Ivetta. "I won't tell."
The panic dies down, a little, and he smiles at you. "Well, I didn't think you had such a dark side."
"You mustn't tell Riddle. Please, you don't understand!" He opens his mouth to promise again, but you aren't finished. "Swear to me Riddle. Tom. Please." You used his name.
He tries not to go berserk. He despised his name, his stupid, common name, but when you said it, with your accent more prominent in your anger, he didn't hate it so much. He brings himself back to the current situation.
He places a hand on yours, it seems like the right thing to do at the moment. "I swear on my life that I will never tell."
Your face filled with relief "Cпасибо." He didn't recognize the word, but it didn't matter. He wasn't finished.
"But you have to give me something."
The panic is still gone, but something else sparks in your eyes, you sense a challenge, he can tell. "What do you want?" Your voice is one of a negotiator, sickly sweet yet strong as steel.
Information. You. Power. You. He wanted so many things, the list would go on forever. But for now, he could settle on answers. "I want to know," he pauses here, liking the way your foot taps impatiently. He knows he has you. "Why a girl like you has a plan to kill her uncle."
"Because I'm sure he has a plan to kill me." This left a silence between the two of them that went unbroken. That was not the answer he expected, and now he was rather perplexed. Not because of the answer, but because of the sense of kinship he felt, At that moment. You knew what it was like. To be hated because of something you can't control.
You are giving him an odd look. It's as if you can see what he is thinking. Or like you believe you said too much. "This essay isn't going to write itself Alexandrov."
A smirk appeared on your face. "No. It isn't."
(Dumbledore)
Being a professor at Hogwarts was not what he had wanted to do. The letter on his desk reminded him of that. It also reminded him why he had wanted this job in the first place. Gellert Grindelwald. The name haunted him.
This was not the first letter he had received, but it was the first one with anything of substance. Dumbledore knew that his once friend (lover) was taking back the spotlight. This letter, however cryptic, confirmed it.
"Albus,
A corpse of wasted potential. I could have written that instead of your name and the owl would have delivered this to you anyway. I do not write this to gloat, although I should be. I've left Russia, I'm thinking of Austria next. I was actually in London this summer, doing some research. Your minister acts as if he is confunded all day. You really should have taken that job.
I'd watch out for that devil on his shoulder. Now there is a smart man! His father was a potioneer, rather famous, very controversial stuff. I think he has a daughter too, she was at the ministry while I was scouting. You teach her, I'm sure. She seemed familiar. Definitely some sort of seer, saw right through my disguise. I would know, of course (but I don't think she does). I'm going to look into her. She'll be my first recruit.
Maybe teaching was a smart idea. Are you scouting students Dumbledore? Are you raising an Army? I might beat you too it."
It was in typical fashion for Gellert to not sign his letters. The man never owned up to his work. But he was raising another Army, a powerful one. And one of his possible recruits was one of his students.
His mind immediately went to Tom Riddle, Grindelwald would have a field day over that one. The boy had every reason to despise muggles, and a promising amount of power. But he had said the student was a girl.
There were no seers at Hogwarts that he knew about, but Grindelwald was one of the most powerful seers of the time, he would know. The amount of devils on the Minister's shoulders didn't narrow it down either. Probably a third of the students in the school had a father who worked for the Minister. And practically everyone in the 1800s had been a potioneer.
If there was a seer at Hogwarts, one that Grindelwald wanted, he had to get to her first. Gellert was a master manipulator, and on top of that, relatable, especially to a child who did not realize their own powers. The only problem was he didn't know where to look.
(Tom)
You were already seated in potions when he walked in, with his essay in hand. You seemed surprised when he sat down next to you. "So Tom Riddle, you did not get scared off after hearing my deep dark secret."
He smirked. For someone who wanted to keep this under the wraps, you certainly were bringing it up a lot. "Avunculicide is rather rare. You would be ruining statistics if you actually went through with it."
You seemed intrigued by this. "If I were to murder, I would want it to be abnormal." He did not know how to respond to this, so he turned his attention back to the lesson. They were working more on antidotes again.
"I should just take out the bezoar and tell Slughorn to shove it." Your blatant disrespect to authority is something that he admired, although had to disagree with.
"I don't think he would appreciate that."
"Oh please, he fawns over you, I'm sure I could get away with it." He did not like how your tone had taken on a mocking quality.
"Why do you waste your talent? You could actually try the assignment." You were not put off by his change of attitude, which actually annoyed him more.
"I am a vessel filled with wasted talent. I'm not going to amount to anything more than a society wife anyway." As soon as you said them he could tell that those words did not belong to you. He wanted to tell you that you would never be a society wife.
Instead, he said, "Yes well maybe we could you some of that wasted talent to get a good grade." He hid a smile at the small laugh (scoff) he received in response.
"Sure Riddle. Whatever you say."
By the end of the lesson they had successfully brewed an antivenom. It had taken almost two hours, and a lot of concentration and attention. He wished he had gone with your idea of the bezoar.
"Are you going to the library to work after class?" He wanted you to say yes, to spend maybe an hour more in your company.
"Sorry, Professor Wrigby was sick this morning, and they didn't have a substitute. So my free time was moved." He felt the sudden desire to murder Wrigby and his untimely illness.
"A shame. I was hoping to work on this new essay." Now you actually laughed.
"Yes, I am truly disappointed to not be able to work on homework for a class that just ended. Let's wait until after dinner." He blinked. You were inviting him to work. With you.
"Alright. Have fun in divination." You nodded, and went your own way, leaving him at the entrance of the potion's classroom, in total shock.
(Dumbledore)
He knew it was wrong to poison an associate. But he told himself it was for the greater good. After realizing how that sounded, he told himself it was for the safety of a student.
Dumbledore knew absolutely nothing about the practice of divination, other that it was complete codswallop. Yet if there was a seer in this school, this was the first place he would look.
Somehow, even with his lacking experience, he was able to convince Dippet he could take the classes at the end of the day. It was easier than bringing in someone else. Eventually the headmaster had been relieved, he wouldn't have to waste galleons on a substitute.
And so Dumbledore went through the day, with no success. No one showed signs of being a seer, no one had relations to a seer. There was nothing remotely special about any of the students he had seen.
So he approached his last class of the day, the fourth years whose class he had missed due to his own transfiguration classes, with low hopes. "Hello everyone! Sorry we had to postpone this lesson!" There were some grumbles about missing afternoon plans, which he pointedly ignored. "I see here that you are doing something with stars, which I don't really understand."
This won him a few snickers. He got a good glance at the glass. Mostly female, Slytherins and Ravenclaws. This gave him some comfort, for they met most of the criteria. "Does anyone have alternate suggestions on a lesson, for a beginner teacher."
A Ravenclaw boy in the back said, "The first thing he did was tea leave readings." Albus clapped his hands together.
"Wonderful! I do love tea. Get to work then." Chairs scraped as the students went for teapots and cups. He sat back at the desk and observed.
His eyes went first to the group of Slytherins nearest him. Zara Shafiq had a father who worked in a high position at the ministry. So did Druella Rosier. And Walburga Black. Ivetta Alexandrov had an uncle at the ministry, but he doubted Grindelwald would be able to tell the difference between uncle and father, so she was on the list as well.
He decided that their table would be as good of a place to start as anywhere else. He conjured a cushy chair, and grabbed a tea cup for himself. The girls all gave him looks as he sat down, knowing he was usually against their house.
"So who is going first?" The four of them looked at each other as he spoke. He had the odd feeling that this class was usually a joke. What a waste of time and money.
"Usually we pass the cups one to the left." He was relived by Zara's explanation, and the cups were passed, one by one, to the left. His cup ended up in the hands of Ivetta Alexandrov.
He listened as one by One, guesses were given based on the shapes. They were pouring over a book that Ivetta seemed to have quite a hatred for. He felt her eyes glaring at him. When it was finally her turn he was expecting something rude, but was surprised when she didn't even bother looking at the book.
She didn't really look at the cup either, for that matter. "You're looking for something. Whatever it is your doing it because of guilt, even though you know it might be dangerous. I know that because the bottom of this cup has a couple squiggly tea lines on it." The other girls laughed, Ivetta joining in, obviously the slightly dark narrative she had deadpanned was meant as a snide remark at the subject.
But she was spot on. He was looking for someone, because he was guilty about what he had turned Gellert into, and it was dangerous for himself and the unknown girl. Who he had a feeling might be the one sitting to his left.
"Why don't you try Alex? You could probably be amazing at it." Walburga asked through laughter.
Ivetta shrugged. "You know, Riddle said the same thing in potions. Is this team up on my work ethic day?"
"No this is, your mother literally wrote the book we use for class, maybe you can do it too."
Dumbledore's interest shot up. "I didn't know your mother was a seer Ivetta." The slytherin did not spare him a glance.
"She was Cassandra Vablatsky, the 'seer'. That stuff is just a bunch of nonsense though. And I don't go by Ivetta." She spoke to him as if he was not a teacher. But he had the information he needed.
No matter what the girl thought, Cassandra Vablatsky was a seer even he had heard of. Even with his limited knowledge he knew that the power of true sight was hereditary. And he had the odd feeling that her 'reading' was not a guess.
Later that night he had the final confirmation he needed. Her grandfather, the eldest Alexandrov, was a celebrated potioneer. Her uncle was a prominent member of the wizengamot, and an advisor to the minister. Ivetta Alexandrov, whether she knew it or not, was the girl Grindelwald wanted on his side. And Dumbledore needed to prevent that from happening.