Dumbledore had lived through more storms than most people could even name. Wars, betrayals, triumphs that turned sour, tragedies that never quite faded. So even if the pieces in front of him lined up a little too perfectly, he refused to slap a label on a child just because of a name and a familiar kind of loneliness.
A few seconds of distraction were all it took. He recovered smoothly, as if nothing had happened. Tom still wore that impeccable, polite smile, the kind that looked practiced rather than natural. Dumbledore stroked his beard as a convenient cover for his earlier lapse, then spoke in a warm, measured tone.
"Mr. Riddle, 'honor' might be a bit much, but it is… certainly a curious sort of fate."
He chuckled softly, the sound gentle rather than mocking.
"We have a Potions professor who is far too busy. Ordinarily, he would be the one to guide you. Unfortunately, his cauldron has reached a critical stage and he cannot leave it unattended, so the burden falls to an old man like me."
Dumbledore's eyes gleamed with genuine appreciation.
"But you'll have the chance to meet him soon enough. He is an absolute master of Potions. You'll learn a great deal from him."
Then his tone shifted slightly, subtle but deliberate.
"Actually, Mr. Riddle… you are a very special kind of new student."
Tom didn't blink. He simply waited.
Dumbledore folded his hands, voice calm, but the question in it was sharp.
"My colleagues and I have guided many Muggle-born children into Hogwarts. We've done this for years."
He tilted his head, studying Tom carefully.
"And yet… a child who accepts the existence of magic as quickly as you did… you are the first I've known. Usually, we must perform a little demonstration to convince them we aren't running a rather elaborate con."
He snapped his fingers.
The scattered books on Tom's desk stirred as if a breeze had swept through the room. They slid neatly into place, stacking themselves into tidy piles, spines aligned, pages settling with a soft whisper.
Dumbledore looked back at Tom.
"Mr. Riddle, did you never once suspect that 'magic' might simply be a trick?"
Tom met the old man's blue eyes directly. No flinching. No forced laugh. No exaggerated shock. Instead, he raised one hand, palm up, as if presenting something he'd been holding for a long time.
"Actually," Tom said quietly, "magic has always been around me."
A thick copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales sat on the shelf. Without anyone touching it, the book shifted. A gold-edged envelope slipped free from the hidden inner fold, floated into the air, and drifted across the room like it knew exactly where it was going.
It landed neatly in Tom's open hand.
It was the letter he'd received yesterday.
His Hogwarts acceptance letter.
Tom turned the envelope between his fingers, the motion casual, almost absentminded, but there was a careful control in every movement.
"After I turned six," he said, "I realized I'd awakened certain… unusual abilities. But I never believed I was unique. If I could do it, then there had to be others like me somewhere in the world."
Dumbledore's expression brightened instantly. He applauded without hesitation.
"Excellent. Truly excellent," he said, and his praise sounded sincere rather than performative. "That is remarkable control."
He leaned forward slightly.
"And you're wrong about one thing, Mr. Riddle. A child who can cast by sheer will before receiving a wand is rare even in our world. Extremely rare."
His eyes narrowed with an almost boyish interest.
"Believe me. Your future in magic will not be small."
In the wizarding world, accidental magic from young witches and wizards was common. A burst of power here, a strange incident there. If a child never had any, that was when people began to worry.
But accidental magic was usually uncontrolled. It flared and vanished. Afterward, it often went quiet for long periods. Only once a child had a wand and proper instruction could they begin to use magic deliberately and reliably.
What Tom had just done wasn't a wild flare.
It was deliberate.
Precise.
Smooth, like he'd practiced.
Dumbledore was glad. Hogwarts gaining a talented student was always something to celebrate.
And yet…
Something heavy settled in his stomach anyway.
Too similar.
It was getting even more similar.
Tom lowered his head slightly, as if shy.
"You flatter me, sir. I've simply been lucky."
But inside, he exhaled.
That hurdle… was cleared.
Because Tom wasn't just a gifted orphan.
He was a transmigrator.
When he was six, his magic had erupted for the first time. And with it, something else cracked open, like a locked room finally remembered. Memories from a previous life flooded back into place.
At first, Tom hadn't known what kind of world he'd been reborn into. Britain was Britain. London was London. A children's home was a children's home. Nothing screamed "magic."
Not until third grade, when he began competing in math contests.
That was when he met a girl his age who kept beating people with a frightening kind of cheerful confidence.
Her name was Hermione Granger.
And when Tom, curious and cautious, asked about her family and learned her father was a dentist…
His brain practically blue-screened.
Harry Potter.
This was the Harry Potter world.
And the name he wore in this world was not just a name.
Tom Riddle.
That name carried weight like a curse.
Tom Riddle was Voldemort.
Once he realized it, he'd thought about changing his name. Of course he had.
But he was underage. In Britain, legally changing your name, especially your surname, wasn't something a child in a government-run home could do easily, not without complications, not without paperwork, not without time.
More importantly, there was the risk.
What if changing his name somehow affected Hogwarts noticing him?
What if the magic that tracked him didn't follow the new identity?
It was a gamble he couldn't afford.
Because the wizarding world, with all its danger, was still a world of wonder, power, and possibility. Tom wasn't willing to risk missing that doorway.
So he kept the name.
He lived with it.
And two days ago, he finally received the Hogwarts letter he'd been waiting for.
What he hadn't expected was this.
The person who came to guide him wasn't Hagrid. Not Professor McGonagall.
It was Dumbledore himself.
But Tom understood why.
To Dumbledore, "Tom Riddle" was too significant to ignore. The similarities were too unsettling. The story was too neat. Dumbledore had every reason to want to confirm whether this was some nightmare repeating itself.
When Dumbledore questioned why Tom wasn't shocked or doubtful, that was the first real test.
Tom had known he couldn't fake surprise well enough to fool a man like Dumbledore, a man who'd lived more than a century and watched people lie with their eyes.
So Tom chose a different approach.
He revealed talent openly, using it as the explanation.
It was still a gamble.
A calculated one.
He was betting on Dumbledore's character. Betting that Dumbledore wouldn't assume the worst solely because of a name. Betting that Dumbledore wouldn't immediately use Legilimency to dig through his mind.
If he lost that bet…
Then he'd surrender on the spot. Confess everything. Spill it all like beans from a split sack. He didn't have much to lose, and in the best case, he might even witness Dumbledore speedrun the Horcrux problem like an angry genius with a checklist.
The only issue was what came after.
Would they study him? Lock him up? Treat him like a specimen?
Tom didn't care to find out.
Fortunately, he'd won the bet.
Dumbledore was… decent. He hadn't done anything excessive. No invasive probing. No sudden coldness. No hidden hostility.
Dumbledore rose from the chair, looking genuinely satisfied.
"Mr. Riddle, I hadn't expected today to go so smoothly."
He made an inviting gesture, as if proposing something as simple as a stroll to the corner shop.
"It's still early. Shall we take advantage of the time and acquire everything you'll need for school? I must also go to Diagon Alley to collect something."
Tom nodded immediately.
"Of course, sir. Give me a moment."
He crossed to the desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a thick stack of banknotes. Mostly ten-pound and five-pound bills.
In Britain, the largest note was fifty pounds, and even decades later that would remain true. More importantly, people didn't casually use fifties. They were for larger transactions. If you tried to pay for something small with a fifty, you might not get punched, but you would absolutely get sworn at, loudly, with at least one word that started with F.
"Mr. Riddle," Dumbledore said, as if remembering something important. "For students from difficult financial circumstances, Hogwarts and the Ministry have loan programs. They do not require repayment."
Tom looked up, and the polite smile returned, sharper at the edges.
"But I'm not in difficult circumstances," he said lightly.
He counted quickly.
Twelve hundred pounds.
Then he held the stack up and gave it a small, almost playful shake.
"Am I?"
Dumbledore's eyes flicked to the money, then back to Tom.
A child in a children's home.
With twelve hundred pounds in cash.
And a private master suite full of trophies.
Dumbledore didn't ask where it came from.
Not yet.
But the silence that followed felt like the beginning of a different kind of question.
One Tom couldn't dodge forever.
Because if Tom wasn't poor… then what, exactly, had he been doing all these years in Lewisham?
And what else, besides magic, was he hiding?