"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I simply cannot offer you any more than market value for used infertility amulets."
"The fact that they're used means they work!"
The shop was unusually busy, and Tom had been left to man the counter after Borgin had conveniently disappeared.
The absolute worst part of the job was having to deal with customers. They were dim, impatient swindlers who were consistently certain that whatever they were offering for sale or trade was of top quality, while also insisting that every purchase they wanted to make was ridiculously overpriced.
"Three Sickles is the best I can do, ma'am," he muttered to the short, elderly woman on the other side of the counter. She looked at him as if he were a misbehaving child that had just told a lie.
"Nonsense. I'll go to Shyverwretch's!" she threatened. "They're offering a full Galleon each!"
Shyverwretch's didn't even sell Dark objects. They sold poisons.
He pushed the disgusting amulets back across the counter, thinking that if it hadn't been his last day, and he'd had to come back to this hellish job in the morning, he might have killed her then and there. "By all means, then. Go to Shyverwretch's," he said.
The woman blinked stupidly. "Well- I mean- quite inconvenient..."
He shrugged.
"Unbelievable. What a bloody- fine. I'll take the Sickles."
"Very well, ma'am."
There were five more people in line and Tom wished them all gruesome deaths.
When Borgin finally appeared, he did not look at all like he was of any mindset to help. "Sir," Tom called, "I have something I need to discuss with you."
"Eh? Sorry, Tom. Bit busy at the moment."
He shuffled into the back room for a minute, shuffled out, then headed back up the stairs to his flat, completely unfazed by the chaos on the shop floor.
"Busy being useless," Tom muttered under his breath, turning back to the next customer.
"I need eighteen Peruvian shrunken heads," said a young, dark-haired woman in an American accent. "Crushed, if you have them. Though I'll take powdered as well."
There was no legitimate use for shrunken heads at all, let alone "crushed" shrunken heads.
"Sorry, we only have three. And they're from the Caucasus Region."
She sounded impatient. "Fine, I'll take all three."
He retrieved the heads from the floor and began to wrap her purchase while she watched him, tapping her foot.
"Good lord," she said after a minute, "could you go any slower?"
"I could..." he muttered.
But she didn't hear him. "You would think the world's greatest former colonial power would have at least reasonable access to global foodstuffs, considering how many countries they've ransacked."
"Foodstuffs?"
She yanked the package out of his hands, slammed her money on the counter, and hurried out of the shop. "I hate Europe," she declared on her way out.
He watched her go, wondering what on earth powdered shrunken head could possibly be used for.
"I need a book on necromancy," said the next customer. "But I don't want to reanimate whole bodies. Just... parts. So, if there's a book on that..."
He would never know, for years afterward, how he had managed to get through that last day. When it was finally over, he didn't even bother to find Borgin again to discuss his resignation. He just left the letter on the counter, opened up a massive, writhing box of eldritch books, let them loose on the back room, and made sure to steal a few choice items he'd been eyeing before leaving out the back door for the last time.
Tom's flat had never been particularly glamorous. In fact, it was one exposed beam away from being a hovel. But what it lacked in comfort it made up for in convenience. Its proximity to the Alley made life much easier, even though he was consistently updated on the turbulent relationship of the couple next door through the paper-thin walls that seemed to be mysteriously impervious to magic.
He would not miss Nancy and Clarence and their intimacy issues.
He'd always promised himself he would charm or hex his way into much nicer accommodations, but never seemed to find the time. And so he was stuck with Rollo.
Rollo was the landlord. He was a short, balding idiot who wasn't a wizard so much as a man who happened to have a wand, and the only good thing about him was that he was easy to curse.
At least, it was a good thing, until Tom tried to move out.
"Lookin' to move in?" he asked when Tom met him at the dingy little desk on the first floor.
"No, I'm moving out."
"Eh?" He looked at Tom as if he'd never seen him before. "If you say so. Name?"
"Riddle."
He started to rummage through a filing cabinet by hand, his wand sitting unused on a table in the corner of the room. He might as well have been a Muggle. After several unpleasant minutes he pulled out a folder, set it on the desk, and then looked up at Tom again. "Date leaving?" he asked.
"September first, I suppose. But I should like to return in the summer."
"Why?"
"Because I am a teacher." It was the first time he'd said it, and had he been anyone else, he might have felt excited about that. "I do not work in the summer. I will need a place to stay, and I would like to stay in London."
This was beyond Rollo's ability to process, apparently. "I can't hold the unit unless you pay through the year."
Tom was silent for a moment, likely appearing to the landlord as if he were considering the option. What he was actually doing was imagining Rollo's slow, torturous disembowelment. He sighed longingly.
But Rollo had looked away, and when he turned to face Tom again, his face was blank.
"You movin' in?" he asked again.
"No, I- I just said I'll be moving out. And I've been here for five years. How do you not recog-"
He stopped himself, remembering with annoyance that he'd used the Imperius Curse on the man so many times that he hadn't had to pay proper rent in months. He also, apparently, had quite possibly addled Rollo's brain. This would be difficult.
I will not curse him again, he told himself.
"I'm moving out. Is there something I have to sign?"
Rollo rummaged through a different filing cabinet and pulled out a form. "Fill this out," he said.
Tom hastily completed the form and handed it back to Rollo, whose face had once again gone blank.
Rollo smiled. "Moving i-"
"NO I AM NOT MOVING IN!" Tom yelled.
Rollo stared at him with a slightly confused expression on his stupid face.
I will NOT curse him again.
"Take this form," he said, "file it away, and I will have the flat empty by the first."
Rollo nodded his head. Then he looked down at the paper. "But this is a moving-out form. You need a moving-in for-"
"Imperio."
He had told them to come alone, stagger their arrivals, apparate into opposite ends of the Alley to avoid being noticed, and to assemble in the Leaky Cauldron by midnight.
They showed up side by side, staggeringly drunk, twenty two minutes late, two pubs away. Avery was singing.
Tom had a difficult time hiding his displeasure. In other words, he didn't.
"Are you complete idiots?" he hissed from the corner, beckoning them to his table when they finally wandered in, gabbing boisterously like they'd just come from a football match. Not that they knew what football was. "I thought I told you-"
"Sorry, Lord," Rosier slurred.
"Lord," Avery repeated.
"Loooooord," Rosier countered.
"Lo-"
"DO YOU MIND?" Tom shouted, attracting the attention of half the pub in the process.
They fell silent, though Tom suspected in Avery's case it was just to keep himself from vomiting.
"Sit down, you fools. I have news."
"If this is about the Giant fiasco..." Rosier began.
"No, this has nothing to do with- wait, what Giant fiasco?"
Rosier stared at him, either terrified of his potential wrath or drifting into a drunken stupor. He couldn't tell.
"Never mind," he muttered. "I will be gone for the foreseeable future. I have been offered," he used the term loosely, "a position as a professor, and I'm going to take it."
"I'm sorry?" Avery chimed in.
"I said I'm going to teach. At Hogwarts. For a while, anyway."
"Teach?"
He looked from one face to the other. They seemed bewildered.
"Is that a problem?" he asked in a tone of warning. There was no way he would accept having his actions criticized by a bunch of spoiled, barely intelligent, old money legacies that were more suited to the smoking club at Cambridge than the Dark Arts underground, even if they were his closest friends.
"No- no problem," Rosier stuttered. After a moment's pause he added, "children?"
"What?"
"You're going to teach... children?"
"Obviously."
They both sat there in silence, looking as if they could not imagine the possibility of a universe existing in which Tom Riddle was anything remotely like any semblance of a professor.
"What?" he demanded.
"Nothing."
"Anyway, in my absence I will require you to advance the plan as much as possible and take on the responsibilities to which I will not have time to attend."
Rosier blinked, trying and failing to understand the grammar of that last sentence. "Look, Tom," he explained, "it's going to be fine. Have we ever failed you before?"
Tom looked at him pointedly.
"Recently?" he specified.
Avery grunted, half asleep.
Tom got out his wand. The silent hex he sent from under the table jolted them both to attention, and they were considerably more respectful once they realized the threat.
He spent the next half hour assigning them tasks and messages to pass on to the rest of their "associates." Whether or not they would remember any of it the next day was anyone's guess.
When Tom returned to his flat in the early hours of the morning, an owl was waiting for him at the window. It carried a large, heavy roll of parchment, sealed on the outside with the Hogwarts crest. He broke the seal and felt the tiniest bit of excitement, which he quickly stifled.
Professor Riddle,
Please find enclosed your pre-term paperwork package, to be completed before the start of Week 1. All lesson plans must be outlined for the term before 27th August. The paper is enchanted to provide a gentle reminder if it is not completed by this date.
Also enclosed is a list of unapproved subjects pertaining to the Dark Arts. These topics are not to be included in any lesson, discussion, or reading at any level. Please sign at the bottom of the list to acknowledge that you have read, understand, and agree to these terms.
Wishing you a wonderful and productive school year,
Headmaster Armando Dippet
He had no doubt that the "list of unapproved subjects" was specially curated for him by Dumbledore, who likely assumed he needed the extra policing, as if he was going to begin day one with "how to make a Horcrux."
So, he decided that he would sign the form, then endeavor to faithfully include every single bloody topic on that list somewhere in his classes.
The other forms were self-explanatory but tedious. He threw them down on the desk and rubbed his forehead in frustration, realizing with annoyance that it was already the twenty-sixth.
What he had pictured in his head when he'd first thought of teaching were long, sweeping orations, students hanging on his every word, young minds being taken in and inspired by his message.
What he did not fully consider, however, was that he would actually have to teach.
Properly teach. As a job. A full-time job.
Was access to the castle worth this amount of misery? Was the cultivation of young minds worth the time he would be required to spend actually talking to the owners of those minds? To... children?
Tom hated children as a general concept. He also hated them specifically. They might be the future of society, but they were also expensive, ignorant little parasites. Their only redeeming quality was that they were impressionable - at least, he hoped they were. As an adult he'd only ever spent a few minutes with one, and that was when a woman pushing a pram walked into the shop and demanded he keep an eye on the thing while she talked to his bosses.
It had stared at him. Not in a "you're interesting" or "you're funny" sort of way. Just an emotionless, wide-eyed stare, like an animal trying to camouflage itself from predators by not moving.
He had looked into the baby's mind, curious to find out what it might have been thinking about, but all he'd seen was his own face staring back at him, looking confused, like he was the subject in a Surrealist painting.
Turning back to the matter at hand, he read over one of the long pieces of parchment Dippet had sent that explained class schedules. The paper contained a grid that depicted the class lineup, into which he was supposed to write topics by course level. There was a parchment with another grid to outline exams, and several other administrative forms, including an "Acknowledgement of Heightened Risk of Accidental Death and Dismemberment" and a "Waiver of Right to Sue in Cases of Accidental Death and Dismemberment."
Raising an army and storming the castle by force would have been less tedious.
In addition to the requirement of teaching, he had failed to consider something else: the sheer volume of work involved. Defense Against the Dark Arts was a mandatory class for years one through five, meaning that, if every house had a separate class, he'd have at least twenty classes per week. Even if they were doubled up, that was still ten, and at least fourteen separate midterms and final exams to come up with.
Years six and seven were considered "advanced," which he would need to discern the meaning of at some point, but luckily there was only one class per year for all houses.
He sighed and sat back in his chair, looking out the window and wondering vaguely if there was a spell that would do all this work for him. Probably not, because that would have been terribly convenient, and there was an unwritten universal law that magic was useful and convenient in every respect except when it came to administrative paperwork. Bureaucracy was some kind of dark anti-magic over which no one had power.
He watched the sun rising, and for a brief moment he thought he saw a tiny house elf flying through the Alley and off into the horizon on a broomstick. That was the point at which he figured he must be getting tired.
He remembered his own classes at school, in which Merrythought had divided the course into spells, potions, objects, and creatures, as if it were a dumping ground for anything the other professors didn't feel like teaching.
But Tom's class was not going to be a Potions class. Nor was it going to be Care of Magical Creatures.
He perused Dumbledore's list and noticed with annoyance that every useful and interesting topic, along with every book he'd hoped to use, was on it.
Staff,
All teachers must note that the below subjects are not approved for teaching, research, or discussion at Hogwarts. Any evidence of incorporation of the below topics or texts in any classroom setting will result in immediate disciplinary action.
A list of banned topics follows:
Blood Magic
Class 5 Major Poisons
Cursing of Objects
Demonology
Esoteric/Mystical Practices
Necromancy
Object Sentience
Prejudicial Spells and Rituals
Religion
Unforgivable Curses (use of)*
*Unforgivable Curses (defense against) acceptable
The approved texts for this year are as follows:
Defense Against the Dark Arts by Galatea Merrythought
Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts by Galatea Merrythought
The Essential Defense Against the Dark Arts by Arsenius Jigger (supplemental)
The Hogwarts letters had already gone out to students nearly a month ago, so he would have to live with those texts until he had a chance to phase them out. Having been taught by Merrythought himself, he knew they were likely devoid of any content he would deem useful. But he could understand the impulse to assign one's own books to a school full of students that would be forced to buy them.
Unapproved Texts:
Curses and Counter-Curses by Vindictus Viridian (encourages practice)
Magick Moste Evile by Godelot (dangerous, encourages practice)
Malleus Maleficarum by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger (unverified sources cited)
Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics by John von Neumann (questionable theory)
Memory Mechanics and Manipulation in Magic by Joyce Pritchard (dangerous)
Secrets of the Darkest Art by Owle Bullock (dangerous, encourages practice)
The Bible by Various (unverified sources cited)
The Study of Time by Ibrahim Dhakar (dangerous)
Ymchwil ar Eneidiau (A Study of Souls) by Carys Wynne (dangerous)
Dumbledore had done his research. Though, why he worried that Tom might use the Bible in his classes was a mystery.
He decided to replicate Merrythought's model on paper and insert alternate content in practice, here and there, slowly at first, so that before anyone noticed that he was deviating from his original lesson plan, the year would be over.
It took him all day to finalize his submission, and by midnight he had cobbled together a rudimentary exam schedule as well, hoping it would at least pass as acceptable. Relieved that it was finally over, he threw the stack of papers down and sat back in his chair.
And then his desk exploded.