When Tom wakes up in his bed, something is very very wrong.
Firstly: he is not in the Slytherin dorms. He's in a large, singular room with one bed (his own?). A room that reflects many of the chambers he's stayed at in different pureblood manses over the summer: there's a writing desk next to a small library and chaise. A fireplace in the corner of the room. A large wardrobe with serpents and runes carved out of the dark wood. He even sees a door, ajar, to his right that seems to lead to a private bathroom.
"What the fuck?" It comes out involuntarily, how could it not? He's not in the Slytherin Boys dorms, he's in these unknown quarters wearing–
Oh Salazar, what is he wearing?
He is no longer wearing his sensible button up pajamas, but rather he's in his...His underclothes. Wearing nothing at all but his underclothes! The scandal! What if some young plucky heroine were to walk in suddenly and see his bare chest! His suddenly very buff, muscular chest and broad shoulders and abs and biceps even though he's been skinny and malnourished all his life!
What a strange fear to have. He has no idea why it came up in his head.
When Tom looks in the wardrobe, he finds clothes that fit him. When he looks around the room he finds his own supplies and prefect badge–Except...Except it's not a prefect badge, it's Head Boy?
Ah, so he's dreaming. Right then–
Pinching himself does nothing. Trying to force himself awake does nothing.
"What the fuck?" He's repeating himself. That's not good.
He wanders outside the door: the room appears to be located in one of the Slytherin dormitories many corridors...Funny. He didn't think they had a singular room like this for anyone other than Head of House...
The strangeness doesn't stop there. When he tells his fellow snakes good morning, instead of returning his smile, they...cower. Look at him with surprise and shock and fear and scurry to get out of his way. As if he had threatened to eat them instead of greeted them.
He sits among his normal retinue at breakfast, intent on poking them to see if they're experiencing any strangeness when– "...Where's Ximena?" He doesn't see her anywhere.
"Ximena?" Hedwig squints at him, "Who the fuck is that?"
Nemesis looks too concerned, like maybe she's thinking about checking him into an asylum. "Do you mean Simone, Tom?"
"Who?"
The whole table is quiet now, looking at him.
"Have you hit your head?" Evan whispers to him, low so the others can't hear, "Or been hit with a confundo?"
"I am quite fine." Tom huffs, "Have you all been hit with a confundo? How could you forget about Ximena?"
Blank looks. Confused looks. "Do you mean Simon–"
"No, I do not mean bloody Simone." He snaps at Mulciber, "Who on earth is that?"
"Simone Wysteria, Tom." Katux states, "Your rival."
...
"My what."
-
The world has gone mad. Ximena isn't here and everyone is blabbering to him about someone or other named Simone who is apparently his rival in every way, including the idea of uniting the Slytherins under his banner.
Naturally, he's extremely lost. He's never heard of this witch before today, and he's tired of people asking him if he's sick when confessing this.
According to them, they've been sworn enemies ever since she transferred here from another school (none of them could answer him when prompted what school), where she was expelled for practicing the Dark Arts.
"That doesn't make any sense." Tom frowns, "Hogwarts wouldn't allow her to attend if that were true."
But the world is mad! Nobody listens. They say that Simone Wysteria is a formidable foe. That her Dark Forces are something to be reckoned with! That Tom and his Knights should watch out–
That's another thing: everyone in Slytherin is suddenly privy to his personal business. Even making up said personal business. People are calling him My Lord and talking about his plans to rule Britain and rid the magical world of Muggleborn and half-bloods. People are bowing to him in the middle of the hall as if it wasn't the most obvious, suspicious thing to do!
And Dumbledore... If Tom thought he was bad, he's certainly worse now. There's looks of condemnation. Of actual fear and hatred pointed to him. Openly! As if he committed some great crime that only the transfiguration professor knew about.
Tom tries to find refuge in the common room. Maybe take a nap and wake up from whatever nightmare this is–
But of course, the world is against him. And he isn't alone.
The witch is a head shorter than him and statuesque. A creamy, porcelain complexion unmarred by freckles, scars, or acne. Warm blonde hair cascading over her shoulders into a comfortable and sensible haircut that showed off her high cheekbones and swan-like neck. Her green hues were the color of an Avada Kedavra spell. Haunting! Enticing! A siren of death!
Her clothes are...odd. Exceptionally inappropriate and immodest: the witch is wearing a scandalously short plaid (Muggle) skirt and dress shirt, with high socks and absurdly tall heeled shoes. She looks like a joke. Who dresses like that?
She was most certainly not Ximena.
"Riddle." The stranger addresses him, posing his name like a challenge, "You look particularly repulsive today."
"Do I know you?"
She missteps, the sudden question honestly seeming to throw her off. "...Very funny, Riddle, pretending you don't know your greatest rival? Childish of you, but unsurprising."
Ah. So this is she. Tom snorts, "Greatest rival?" None had ever come close to him. Not since he left Hedwig and Nemesis behind his first year. "You look more like a circus misplaced its clown."
Fierce anger in her ORBS! "Mark my words, Riddle, I will have you at my heel."
Tom blinks, "Rather aggressive for a supposed academic rival."
Her magic hisses! Bright and gold and sparkling, like she had creature blood in her (in fact, a little voice in the back of his head is insisting she's part Veela, but he has no idea where this voice came from, so he ignores it). Her magic is the most powerful he's ever felt in his life, it's earthy, airy, watery, FIRY! Every element in one, gentle and beautiful and savage and terrifying, yet elegant and understated yet unignorable and bold yet mysterious and–
Oh she's monologuing.
"--I was made and forged in the darkness. I am a queen among mortals. An everlasting plague upon witchkind–"
Do...Do people actually talk like this? Does he talk like this? Merlin, why hasn't anybody told him?? This is insufferable. She's just unloading all of her life to him as if he cares.
"The nunnery knows my darkness! The evil within me! They tried to cast it out! To drown me!"
Simone's monologue continues despite Tom's lack of real reaction, "I, the heir to a cast out family: the fifth founder of Hogwarts, lost to time. Erased by the founders out of their envy! Their fear!"
Tom looks around the empty common room, wondering if this was some sort of practical joke. If his fellow snakes are going to pop out from behind furniture and yell 'surprise'!
"--And it will be I who revives my great, ancient and most noble house to its past power and glory! I, Simone Lyra Casseopea Emerald Katerina Rose Athena Wysteria!"
Oh she's still talking.
...
Tom turns around and walks out of the common room.
-
All of a sudden, all the witches around him are wearing the absurd outfit that Simone wore when they met. They wear Muggle ties in the color of their house and drape bathrobes around their form as if that were the uniform. And nobody bats an eye! Next the boys will be wearing trousers.
He's sitting at lunch with boys (ridiculously attractive boys, they could be actors) he's never met. Abraxas Malfoy (didn't he graduate in Tom's second year? He certainly looks like an adult too old to be hanging around teenagers) and.... Not-Katux. He has Lestrange attached to his name, but he certainly never made an appearance in his life before now. When Tom asks his snakes where Katux is, they look at him blankly. When he asks where Nemesis and Hedwig are, they laugh. Only boys sit at his table. Everyone knows that.
Tom pinches the bridge of his nose, muttering under his breath when he hears that horrid voice that sounds like silk and velvet and fire and air and water and sugar and spice and everything nice and power and reckoning and–
Anyways, Simone is talking to him and he wishes she wasn't.
"My Bestie said you were staring at me." Her what. "So since you're too much of a coward to come over, I'm here to ask what you want from me."
"I wasn't staring at you."
"Oh it'll do you no good to deny it, I felt your conniving eyes on me the entire lunch hour."
"Bold of you to assume I know or care to remember where you sit at lunch."
Simone clenches her fist, swallows her anger. Points to a far corner of the Great Hall where a lone table sits away from the four rows for the four houses. How long has that been there?
He looks and the group of witches there, all remarkably plainer looking than Simone, turn away and giggle.
He looks back at Simone. Her expression is nothing short of smug, like she had caught him in the act of doing something especially incriminating and embarrassing.
"Do you always believe everything people tell you?"
This was not the response she wanted, he can tell. She blinks, unsure of how to proceed for a moment. "I trust my underlings with my life." A scoff, "Unlike you."
Now it's Tom's turn to blink, "Underlings?" What on earth, "Are you the leader of a cult?" Honestly, at this point, he wouldn't be surprised, "And I don't have underlings, for your information, it's called having friends." He's taken great care to make everyone around him believe it. Why should Simone be special enough to see through it?
"Don't make me laugh, Riddle, everyone knows you're a two-faced dark wizard with an appetite for taking over the world." What the fuck. "You may fool others, but you can't fool me."
"...If everyone supposedly knows I'm evil, then how is it that only you know the supposed truth?"
Simone ignores him, "You're unworthy of the title Dark Lord... So stop trying to make me your Dark Lady."
What the fuck.
His group finally speaks up at that: defending his right to call himself the new Dark Lord and telling her off for even deigning to think that a chit like her could ever be worthy, and Tom really wishes that he was somewhere else.
-
By the end of the school day, his whole group has been replaced with complete strangers. Leon Mulciber. Antonio Rosier. Abraxas Malfoy. It's insane. They're all airheaded purebloods as bad (worse!) than the ones he left behind! He can't find anyone he used to know. And those he does find are different. Druella's hair is pale blonde. Walburga is in his year and simpering after him. He thinks it can't get any worse. And it can't. It really can't–
"Tom."
He turns. "Nemesis, Circe, you're a sight for sore eyes, I–What's wrong?"
Nemesis looks...different. There's no familiar spark of kindness in her eyes, instead there's just a strange sort of spite in them. Entitlement. If that's not enough, she's wearing....The most absurd looking frock. Not at all like she would wear, not stuck in the past but... Somehow brought from the future? The material is cheap and lacey, too revealing! The fabrics are mismatched, and it looks like something a child would expect to be fashionable. It's hideous.
"Simone is not fit enough to be your Dark Queen."
What the fuck.
"Wot." His cockney accent spills out, that's how dumbfounded he is.
"It should be me, my Lord!" Her declaration is...odd. Tom had known of her misplaced feelings for him but to have them be this strong? "Only I am worthy of being at your side, ruling over our kind! Not that slut pretender with dubious blood!"
What the fuck!
"Ha!" Oh God, please no, not Simone–"Your blood is as good as mud, Fawley, I'm surprised Thomas even deigns to let you breathe in his presence!"
Who the fuck is Thomas?
"Whore!" The not-Nemesis witch screeches in a very un-Nemesis way, "We're the most pure and powerful, we're supposed to be together!"
The two witches begin a duel of epic proportions as Tom rubs his temples, a massive headache coming on.
"Stop!" Abraxas comes out of nowhere, "Simone, my darling, we are engaged! Forget Tom! He'll use you and throw you away! You know his reputation!"
His what.
Simone scoffs, "All of those inferior witches who came before me? I'll make him forget all about them."
Nemesis screams, "HE'S MINE!" Their magic meets in the center of the room! Explosive! They're set on killing each other! Abraxas faints! "THE AMORTENTIA SMELLED LIKE HIM!"
"So. Did. Mine!" Simone sneers, "And when he smelled my amortentia, it smelled like me! I saw it in his eyes! We're dark soulmates! Born from the shadows and bonded in the shadows! Even if he cannot love because of his love potion birth! He is mine! And my tits are bigger than yours!"
Tom drags his hands down his face. He's never brewed amortentia in his life.
Suddenly, "Whoa." That voice! Tom looks up hopefully, "What'd I miss?" Ximena! Holding a hot dog in one hand and...A very small Pomeranian in the other.
Tom throws himself at her feet, wraps his arms around her legs, weeping!
"Uh." Ximena stiffens, "...What's going on?"
Not-Nemesis and Simone continue battling, oblivious to the arrival of Ximena. No one tends to Abraxas, who lays passed out. The tiny pup in Ximena's arm borks aggressively at Tom, who weeps openly, clinging to his upperclassman.
"Huh." Ximena hums. "What a strange April first."
---
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