All night, I'll riot with you.
♫ | Physical - Dua Lipa
The next morning
First period was about to start after breakfast in the Great Hall. Tom was determined to be early for classes not only to keep up his good grades, but to show the teachers that he is indeed, a great student.
Of course, Tom was just pretending. He had a great plan up his sleeve, that would end up changing his future and making him the greatest wizard of all time. But, perfect things took time, as he liked to think.
He casually walked in the classroom, where to his surprise, Dumbledore was already inside, looking out the window and admiring the view.
Oh, that old man. Tom's least favorite teacher. You never knew what was on that man's mind. No one could read his thoughts. He had a way of knowing everything before others and he looked wise. Too wise.
"Mr.Riddle." the professor spoke, still looking out the window. "Early as always, I see."
Tom felt shivers run down his spine as he heard his voice. "Sir. I could never be late to my favorite class."
"Is that so?" this time, the old man turned around facing Tom, and had a friendly smile on his face.
Other students started walking inside the classroom, which made Tom sigh of relief. He never liked having conversations with Dumbledore nor to have the professor smile at him. It always made him uncomfortable.
He sat down in a bench, and as always, no one joined his company. He was aware of the fact that he was feared by most of the students, but there's nothing wrong with that, right?
In the middle of the transfiguration class, the door was suddenly opened by headmaster Dippet.
"No offense to interrupt, Albus."
"None taken, headmaster. How may I help?"
"I'm here to borrow one of your students. More exactly Mr.Riddle. Is that possible?"
"Of course. Is there something else you need?"
"Just him. Thank you, Albus...Tom. Please come with me."
Tom got up from his seat and walked over to the headmaster. They both left the classroom and made their way to Dippet's office.
"Did I do something, professor?" Tom asked on the way.
"I am not sure, Tom. But we will both find out." the headmaster responded.
As they entered the office, Tom's eyes widened. The girl he encountered last night in the hallways was sitting in front of Dippet's desk. They locked eyes for a moment.
"Tom, please, sit down beside Miss.Wallis."
The student obeyed.
"Yesterday Miss.Wallis had the unfortunate luck to run into me during nighttime in the hallways, which of course, is a rule breaking action. Thanks to her, I found out that she wasn't the only one. And since I know no student other than you who loves books, I figured you were the other one."
Tom felt his blood boil. He looked at the girl sitting next to him with fire in his eyes.
"Do you not have anything to say, Mr.Riddle?" Dippet asked.
"You know me too well, sir. And to answer your question, yes, I was also walking in the hallways last night. But I had a reason." Tom said, still not looking away from the girl.
"And what would that be?"
Tom turned his gaze to the headmaster.
"You see, professor, being the prefect of Slytherin, I had the feeling that it should be better to check the hallways to see if anyone was still out there."
"As much as I would like to believe you, Tom, I am afraid you both broke the rules, therefore you will both get two weeks of detention."
"But that's not-" the girl was interrupted by the headmaster, who this time raised his voice.
"That, Miss.Wallis, or I will have to take twenty points from Slytherin and Ravenclaw."
The girl scoffed. She mumbled something similar to "Fine.".
"Also, I would like you, Mr.Riddle, to spare some of your free time on Miss.Wallis and teach her how to properly brew potions. She's not the best at it, and I reckon she would appreciate your help. That's all. You may leave."
As soon as the two walked out of Dippet's office, they started staring at each other with fury in their eyes.
"So it was you who I bumped into." the girl said, but there was no answer. "I'm Julia."
"My apologies." Tom said sarcastically as if he was actually sorry. "I'm To-"
"I know who you are."
Again, there was just silence.
"I suppose I do need your help with brewing. I'm not failing, if that's what you think, but I'm close to."
Tom scoffed. "Are you serious? You expect me to help you after you just ratted me out?"
"Yeah, right. I'm sorry about that. To be honest, if I knew that Dippet was such a smart arse, I wouldn't have said anything and I would've took the blame on myself only."
"That's more of an excuse than an apology."
Julia rolled her eyes.
"Fine. Mr.Riddle, I apologize for my stupid actions, and I would appreciate it if you would be my tutor. Satisfied?" her voice was full of irony, which made Tom a tad angry.
She talks to me with no fear in her voice, and she doesn't seem to be frightened of me. Is she doing this to make me mad? If that's the case, then she will regret it.
"Whatever. I'll be your tutor. But don't ever talk to me in that tone, Miss.Wallis, because trust me, you will say goodbye to these private lessons." he leaned to her ear, whispering the last sentence. "We'll start tomorrow, after lessons in the potions class room. Be there at six o'clock."
Tom then left the girl in the middle of the hallway, who was covered with goosebumps. After all, he was proud of himself for teaching her a lesson that she won't forget for a long time.
After he was done with his lessons Tom went back to the common room, where he found Lestrange and Asher. he sat down on the green sofa and sighed. Lestrange and Asher looked at him with a confusion.
"What was that?" Lestrange asked.
Tom raised an eyebrow. "What was what?"
"Never mind. You just seem..angry."
No answer.
"Look, I know it's none of my business, but may I ask what happened?"
"Sorry to disappoint you, Lestrange, but as you said, it's none of your business."
"Still, we are your friends. I feel like we deserve to talk about stuff." Asher said, but immediately regretted it.
"Fair enough, Culling." Tom said, to everyone's surprise. He never really opened up about personal stuff, but this time he felt like he needed to get it off his chest. "A ravenclaw named Julia Wallis ran into me last night on my way to the library, and she was rude enough to tattle me out to the headmaster. Now, we both have two weeks of detention and on top of that, I have to give her private lessons."
The words flew out so quickly out of Tom's mouth, that he had to breath in after finishing.
Asher didn't really know how to respond to that, but Lestrange did. "That really sucks, Tom. Sorry to hear that."
"Yeah, you must have a lot of shit to deal with." Asher replied.
There was a moment of silence, which Tom broke. "I fancy a walk." he sat up.
"Alone." Tom said, seeing the excitement in his friend's eyes.
He left the room and went outside afterwards. Just as he was passing by the quidditch pit, he heard a scream.
"Someone help! My friend is in danger, please, someone help!" a girl pleaded.
He turned to face the sound of the scream, and saw three students in the middle of the pit. He knew that if he would help, he would be acknowledged by the teachers, so he ran towards the screaming students.
"What happened?" he asked as soon as he got there.
"For Merlin's sake, thank you!" one of the girls said relieved. "My friend up there wants to be a part of the quidditch team, but the leader said that no girls are allowed, and she wanted to prove him wrong."
Tom looked up. No, it can't be...
"Hang on Julia, you have help coming your way!" the other girl shouted.
Her again? Does she really love putting herself in trouble?
"Alright. Julia, I'm going to need you to slowly come back down!" Tom said loudly enough for the girl to hear.
"I can't!" Julia replied.
"If you could fly up there then I'm sure you can come back down!"
"I can't even move, how should I know how to get down!?"
"At least try to!" said one of the girls.
Julia put the pressure on the tip of her broom, which led to her losing her balance. In the next moment, all the four of them saw, was Julia falling towards them.
Oh you got to be fu-
A big oof escaped Julia's mouth as she fell on top of Tom. She gasped when she realized what happened. "Merlin's beard! I am so so sorry Tom! I really tried-"
"It's alright." the boy interrupted her.
She tried getting up, but there was this huge pain in her ankle.
"Uhh, Lia? I think you might have broken your ankle." a girl said.
"Yeah, Pandora. I'm aware of that." she said with a little groan escaping her mouth.
Her other friend helped her up, while she tried not to fall over.
"Thanks, Aaliyah."
Pandora hurried up to her friend, so she could grip onto both of them.
"Miss.Lovegood and Miss.Dowson! Get in my office right now!" professor McGonagall said angrily, but in a worried tone. "Mr.Riddle, please help bring Miss.Wallis to the infirmary."
Aaliyah and Pandora handed Julia to Tom, who lifted her up, with one hand under her knees and the other on her back.
The two girls ran to professor McGonagall, while Tom was left behind, holding Julia.
"I'm sorry you have to do this because of me and my stubborn mind." the girl said, letting out a sigh.
"There is no need to apologize, I spare you this time." he said with slight sarcasm. "Although I would appreciate if you wouldn't get yourself into more trouble. Don't want to spend my time with saving clumsy people from their clumsiness."
"It really wasn't my intension. All I wanted was to prove the quidditch team's leader wrong, that I am strong enough to be part of the team."
If there is one thing Tom admired, it was ambition. And Julia had that. He had to admit: she was different from other girls. Her voice was not annoying at all, and she was not throwing herself at him like other girls would do. She also didn't look disgusted from the dirt she was covered in after she fell, whereas other girls would mew at the sight of something disgusting.
But, afterall, he had just met her. She was still just a pathetic stranger to him.
~
When he arrived at the infirmary, the nurse told him to put her on a bed. Tom did as the lady said. Before leaving the room, he took one last glance to Julia, who was already asleep.
It was peaceful, but pleasuring to look at. Tom sensed a warm feeling in his chest. He will surely return tomorrow.