Usagi headed back up to the atmosphere to look for food. The meteorite stock left on the planet wasn't enough for her evolution anymore, so she had to fend for herself.
Fawkes had become even clingier. Just being near Tom felt good, and under the pressure of that bloodline he was being tempered too. He decided not to bother going back to Dumbledore's office at all and followed Tom straight to the dormitory.
But the moment Tom stepped into the castle, he found someone on the stairs.
Snape stood alone against Lupin, Harry, and Ron, and the two sides were locked in an argument. Tom hadn't made the slightest effort to hide when he pushed the door open, and as soon as he came in, all of them turned to look at once.
"Tom?"
"Riddle." Snape frowned. "What are you doing here?"
Tom walked over, looking puzzled, and pointed at Fawkes on his shoulder. "Fawkes has been eating a bit too well lately. I took him out to walk it off."
It was quite literally waving a feather around as if it were a general's command arrow. Snape and the others assumed Dumbledore had asked for it and didn't want to press further, but Tom wasn't finished. "Why aren't you all in bed at this hour? What are you doing here?"
"Ha! That's a question for Potter, who's forever making trouble."
Snape gave a cold laugh, as if Tom's arrival had put some steel in his spine. "Armed with a few treasures, he thinks nobody can catch him. Wandering the castle in the dead of night. Who knows what sort of shady business he's up to."
"I wasn't!" Harry shot back at once.
Lupin frowned as well. "Severus, I told you, I asked Harry and Ron to come and see me. Don't think so darkly of your own students."
"They are not my students," Snape drawled. "They're merely a class I'm obliged to teach."
Tom understood what was going on now. Harry and Ron had been caught wandering at night, that was all.
As for why they'd been wandering... he had no interest in finding out.
From the look of these people, it was going to drag on for ages. Tom kindly stepped in to smooth things over. "Either way, Harry and Weasley both broke the rules. Professor, I wouldn't think about expulsion. Night wandering isn't bad enough for that. If you ask me, everyone gives a little. Take fifty points from Gryffindor and call it even."
Ron opened his mouth.
How did fifty points come out of Tom's mouth sounding as cheap as five?
But he had no standing to speak here.
Snape heard Tom put it that way, and with Lupin shielding the boys, arguing any longer would get him nowhere. He snorted his agreement. Lupin let out a breath. He had wanted Tom to take off fewer points, but when he saw the boy smiling away, whatever he'd meant to say died on his tongue, and all he could do was nod.
From the point hourglasses nearby came a clattering rush. Under Harry and Ron's stricken stares, Gryffindor's total dropped by a whole chunk.
"Problem solved. Perfect." Tom clapped, then yawned. "Well, everyone, I'm off to bed."
"Wait." Lupin stopped him.
"What is it, Professor Lupin?" Tom turned back, puzzled.
Lupin smiled. "That Wizard's Guild of yours is quite interesting. I wanted to ask whether I could register as a member now."
He had agreed to teach at Hogwarts for a single year. In the last class of this year, he would reveal that he was a werewolf.
Before this, Lupin had been fretting over finding work once term ended. He couldn't live off Sirius forever. Then the Wizard's Guild had appeared. He could earn bounties by taking quests, wouldn't need much contact with people, and nobody would care about his background. It suited his situation perfectly.
Seeing that fellow werewolves had already joined the Guild and completed quests had only firmed up his decision.
Tom smiled and nodded. "Of course you can. Sirius is chairman now, so just have him let you pick the good quests first. That doesn't break any rules. It's what he's doing at the moment anyway."
Sirius made a purely ornamental chairman. Tom had no idea where he'd run off to on a quest this time, and couldn't be bothered to keep track.
"Severus, Tom is far more of a head of house and a professor than you are."
After watching Tom leave, Lupin lobbed that sly remark over his shoulder, then led Harry and Ron away, leaving Snape standing there with his face flushed red.
What did he mean, Tom was more of a head of house than he was? He had simply been respecting a student's opinion!
Sure enough, the dog that bites doesn't bark, and a wolf that bites is much the same. Even back at school he had noticed it. Lupin looked like the most honest of the lot, but he was actually the sneakiest, and he had come up with plenty of the schemes from behind the scenes.
Snape swept his sleeve in irritation and stalked off. He wasn't about to be mocked for nothing. Just you wait, Lupin. The next Wolfsbane Potion would be a treat you'd never forget.
...
The next day.
The students coming down to breakfast noticed the change in Gryffindor's total.
The Slytherin snakes gloated. Gryffindor's own students discovered, to their surprise, that they had already gone numb to it.
This sort of thing happened a few times every year, and it was hardly worth making a fuss over.
Only one question remained: which brave hero had pulled off this fine piece of work?