— — — — — —
Dumbledore actually chuckled at the exchange.
See? His choice had been the right one. If it had been him trying to talk, he probably would have gotten nothing more than a sneer out of Voldemort after half a day of lecturing.
Tom: "No need to be so vulgar, friend. We're both Riddles, aren't we?"
"And you call yourself Slytherin's heir? Did Slytherin's legacy teach you to curse like a thug?"
「Even the filthiest insults in the world can't match how vile and low you are.」
"How exactly am I vile?"
「You handed me over to Dumbledore! You betrayed Slytherin's honor!」
「I thought you were like me — talented, powerful, destined to chase the highest peak! And what did you do? You became Dumbledore's lapdog!」
The pain and humiliation Tom had put him through were bad enough. But what truly enraged Voldemort was that once Tom squeezed every ounce of use out of him, he tossed him aside without hesitation — handed him over to Dumbledore and spilled everything.
Come on. They were both Riddles, both Slytherins and this guy just tossed him aside like some cheap Mudblood joke?
The humiliation Tom put him through was bad enough. But realizing he'd been completely wrong about who Tom really was — that cut deep. It didn't just burn, it left a scar.
That was why Voldy lost his composure every single time Tom's name came up.
"..."
Tom looked up at Dumbledore. "Professor, he's insulting me."
Dumbledore gave an awkward little smile. "It seems Voldemort holds quite the grudge against us. I wonder why? I'm just a humble teacher, always happy to help my students."
"Happy to help your students, huh? Then why does it feel like I'm the one helping you right now?"
"Because, Tom, you're not like other students. I never hold you to standards."
"So basically I'm your workhorse?" Tom snorted. "Whatever! Can I teach him a lesson?"
Dumbledore gestured with a flourish. "By all means. Pretend I'm not even here."
Honestly, this was going better than expected. Voldemort had said more in the last few minutes than he had in half a month of Dumbledore's own attempts.
Dumbledore gave himself a nod of appreciation. But the very next second, he began doubting his wisdom.
Tom raised a finger, aimed it at the diary, and whispered, "Crucio."
A red arc of magic shot from his fingertip and struck the diary. The moment it hit, the diary convulsed violently, letting out a high-pitched, almost inhuman scream.
The diary might look like an inanimate object, but a Horcrux is a fragment of soul — and the Unforgivable Curses all target the soul directly. Even a shard of Voldemort's soul couldn't escape the pain.
Everyone in the office — Dumbledore included — stared in shock as the boy calmly kept the curse going, torturing the Horcrux.
Second-year student. Unforgivable Curse. No wand. Right in front of the Headmaster.
Could he be any more outrageous?
---
Meanwhile, in the Gryffindor common room—
Harry, who'd just been plotting with Ron about how to get back at Malfoy, suddenly let out a scream and clutched his head like it was splitting in two.
His whole body convulsed violently. Then everything went black and he collapsed off the couch, twitching on the floor.
Ron froze in terror. Several other students came running at the sound of Harry's scream.
"What happened to Potter?" a fifth-year demanded.
"I—I don't know!" Ron stammered. "He was fine a second ago and then suddenly he just—"
"Don't just stand there! Get him to the hospital wing!"
Thankfully, Percy was quick to take charge. He ordered the crowd to clear a path and had Fred and George carry Harry — still unconscious, still shaking — to Madam Pomfrey.
---
Back in the Headmaster's office, Tom finally lowered his hand.
The diary fell limp on the desk. Tom picked up a quill, smoothed the crumpled pages, and wrote:
"Little Voldy, this is a new spell I just learned. Like it?"
It took a long time for the response to come, and when it did, the letters were faint and shaky.
「Dumbledore, you saw that, didn't you? He just used an Unforgivable Curse right in front of you!」
"You've got it wrong, Voldy."
"If I used the Cruciatus Curse on an actual wizard, the Headmaster would definitely step in. But you?" Tom paused, smirking, "You're just a diary. Me practicing a spell on a notebook isn't a crime."
"…Fair point," Dumbledore muttered, nodding along before he caught himself.
Fair point, my ass! It was called Unforgivable Curse for a damn reason.
Inside the diary, Voldemort was about ready to lose his mind.
「Dumbledore! This is unfair! You were always after me when I was a student. Why are you just sitting back now?! This isn't fair!」
Dumbledore picked up a quill and added his own message: "Actually, Tom, I was never after you. I was cautious and with good reason. After what you did at the orphanage, I couldn't exactly trust you."
「Lies! Every time you looked at me, it was like I was some suspect under investigation. Always judging, always suspicious!」
"And wasn't I right?" Dumbledore wrote back. "If anything, I underestimated you."
Tom smirked. "See, Little Voldy? You've had him wrong all along. I handed you over because you were useless to me, not because of Dumbledore. Maybe do some self-reflection about why you turned out so useless."
"And just so we're clear," Tom wrote casually, "it's not like Dumbledore gives me special treatment. If anything, he's been trying to keep me down. You don't know this, but last summer I saved the school — and he still tried to hand all the credit to Harry Potter. You know, the baby who killed you."
"Tom," Dumbledore said with a wince, "that wasn't 'keeping you down.' You agreed to it, remember? You got the Philosopher's Stone and an appointment with Nicolas Flamel as a reward. And in the end, Slytherin still won the House Cup."
"I took that Cup back with my own effort," Tom shot back.
Dumbledore had no response to that.
Well, he had no plans to rig things for Harry this year anyway. Best not to turn Tom's irritation into full-blown hatred of the Boy Who Lived.
Tom closed the diary and tucked it under his arm. "If you don't want to stay here, fine. Come on, Little Voldy, I'm taking you home."
The diary reacted violently, its pages thrashing to protest.
「No! I'm not going with you!」
「Dumbledore! Take me back! Get this lunatic away from me!」
「Dumbledore! Aren't you afraid that—」
Snap!
Tom shut the diary and began locking the seals with practiced ease.
"Professor," he said calmly, "I'll take care of this from now on. Don't worry, whatever we talk about, I'll record and deliver it to you."
Dumbledore nodded with a faint smile. "Thank you, Tom."
"You're thanking me too soon." Tom gave him a polite, almost innocent smile. "Shouldn't we discuss my payment first?"
Dumbledore's smile froze.
Yes, he'd definitely celebrated too soon.
"What do you want?"
Tom didn't answer right away. Instead, his gaze drifted to the magical notebook sitting on the desk.
"Professor, what do you think of The Codex?"
"It's very useful," Dumbledore admitted. "I recently added a few old friends and it's much more convenient than owl post. I heard you even developed a live-feed version — do let me know when it's available."
Tom sighed dramatically. "Still running into some trouble. The raw materials have been hard to source. Luckily, Grandpa Newt helped me out a lot."
Dumbledore immediately caught on and nodded. "No problem at all. Just tell me what you need and I'll make the arrangements."
"No, no, I already have the materials." Tom smiled and gestured out the window. "What I need now is somewhere to plant them. Professor Nicolas sent me ten Whomping Willows. Grandpa Newt's looking after five, but I still have five left with nowhere to put them. I think the one we have here at Hogwarts is doing quite well — maybe it needs some company?"
Behind his half-moon spectacles, Dumbledore's eyes widened. "You want to plant five more Whomping Willows at Hogwarts?"
"Professor, you summed that up beautifully."
Dumbledore rose and looked out across the moonlit grounds. The massive Whomping Willow stood alone in the distance, swaying slightly in the night breeze.
"…Very well, Tom."
In the end, it wasn't much of a dilemma for Dumbledore, planting a few trees was hardly a disaster. "But give me some time. I'll need to clear some space in the Forbidden Forest. If we plant all of them on the lawn, the students won't have much room to move around."
"I'll be waiting for good news," Tom said cheerfully, diary in hand, and left the office in a light, almost springy step.
After he was gone, Phineas muttered from his portrait, "Lawless. Absolutely lawless."
"Even Voldemort never dared use an Unforgivable right in front of Headmaster Dippet. How does this Riddle dare?"
"That's enough out of you, Phineas," came the dry reply — not from Dumbledore, but from Armando Dippet himself. "Back then Voldemort was just better at pretending. Have you forgotten you once praised him as the very model of a Slytherin?"
"That was all a façade!" Phineas shot back.
"And that's exactly why I trust this Riddle more." Dippet's tone was calm. "When he's angry, he shows it. When he has complaints, he voices them. And he has the ability to back it all up."
"If he hid everything behind a polite smile like the last one, Albus wouldn't be smiling right now."
Dumbledore nodded in agreement. "Professor Dippet is right. Tom will give me headaches, but talking to him is actually… rather refreshing. I quite like his straightforwardness, even if it does make trouble for me sometimes."
"I imagine there are plenty who feel the same," Dippet added dryly. "Otherwise he wouldn't have such an eventful personal life."
Phineas huffed at being ganged up on by two headmasters. "Fine, fine. Clearly you two know everything. Not a shred of headmasterly dignity left between you. Dumbledore, you should put that boy in his place someday, teach him who really runs this school."
Dumbledore was speechless.
Wasn't the "real boss" of Hogwarts Minerva McGonagall? What did this have to do with him?
---
Back in the Slytherin dorms
Tom didn't bother teasing Voldemort any further.
If anything, Dumbledore had just done him a favor by handing him the diary. Slytherin's legacy research into bloodline fusion had given him a lot of inspiration, and he'd recently hit a bottleneck that he needed Voldemort's expertise to work through.
Would Voldemort clam up and refuse to help?
Tom doubted it.
People liked to call Voldemort, the merciless Dark Lord, but in truth, he was fragile. The wizarding world treated killing as something monstrous; they had no idea what a real meat grinder looked like.
Looking across both Fantastic Beasts and the Harry Potter timeline, there was a person Tom respected more than the others: Jacob Kowalski, the Chosen Muggle.
He survived the Battle of Verdun, came back from World War I without so much as a trace of PTSD, stayed cheerful and witty, and was so genuinely kind that Queenie — a natural-born Legilimens — couldn't help falling for him.
That was god-tier.
Jacob probably saw more corpses in one afternoon than Voldemort had in his entire life. And still didn't let the world change him.
After letting his mind wander for a while, Tom pulled out his Codex and pinged Laos to gossip.
What on earth had happened that made all four Heads of House take something so seriously?
.
.
.