Chapter 8
The years passed and although Tom's love grew, he still hadn't said even one word to Harry. Which was enough to leave Tom depressed most of the time, thankfully he was skilled enough in acting to not let it show.
In his 2nd year, Tom discovered that his ability to talk to snakes was very much not as common as he once thought. It was actually an extinct magical ability called parseltongue, which in turn made him a Parselmouth and granted him the gift of parselmagic.
Tom obviously researched this ability like crazy, and ended up discovering it was an ability only the descendants of Salazar Slytherin possessed. More specifically, only one family line still survived to this day and would've been able to give him this ability: The Gaunts. Former members of the Sacred 28, which were basically a bunch of old pureblood families who thought themselves important. Tom didn't give a whit about his blood status, but he couldn't deny that being the descendant of an ancient and pureblood family that had special magical abilities definitely seemed interesting.
This led to Tom conquering the entirety of the Slytherin house in his 3rd year.
It was funny, how the name "Tom Riddle" went from being the name of a nameless nobody mudblood, to being the name of the brightest wizard to set foot in Hogwarts in decades. His reputation got good enough that he now could protect Harry without anyone questioning him.
And now Harry hates him because of that.
Perhaps hate is a too strong word, more like Harry and his entourage™ distrusted Tom. It was really just redhead 1 and fuzzy hair fault, Tom had seen them openly distrust him and talk to Harry about how "eerily perfect" Tom is.
Well, forgive a man for being amazing, can't do anything nowadays. Tom thought bitterly.
Anyways, none of that mattered. What was important was the way Harry looked at him now. Harry looked at Tom with so much mistrust, like Tom would hurt him at any given time.
They'd never even traded a single word.
Tom has spent most of his life being judged, he never cared. But having to see those green eyes looking at him like that?
It hurt his soul.
Although, Harry's friends weren't completely wrong about Tom either.
While he may love Harry with all his heart, Tom too had his own life and goals. And one of them was getting to know more about the greek gods in the wizarding world.
His research led Tom indo such a rabbit hole, that he ended up on dark magic somehow.
That was in the middle of his second year. It obviously didn't take him long to try it out.
And dark magic was simply... Perfect. Tom could feel how it aligned so perfectly with his magical core, and he finally understood why there was something that always felt off with light magic. It was exactly because Tom's core was dark, not light. Light magic would simply never feel comfortable for him.
Tom came to the obvious conclusion that he was a dark wizard, like the infamous dark lord Grindelwald and those who followed him.
He supposed his status as a dark wizard gave a very good reason for Harry's friends to distrust him, but it's not like they knew, so really, they were hating on Tom just because.
Even so, he couldn't help but worry, what if Harry discovered Tom's magic and hated him? After all, Harry's parents were killed by Grindelwald, his whole life was ruined because of a dark wizard, so Tom wouldn't blame him if he hated all dark wizards. It'd only be fair.
But the fact that it was fair didn't lessen the pain one bit.
As all years, third year began normally, until something that had to do with Harry (again) happened (again), so Tom had to discreetly help (again) in order to get Harry to live another day (again).
This year, it was nothing more than an Azkaban fugitive named Sirius Black, who was apparently Harry's godfather who'd betrayed his parents by giving their location to Grindelwald and then killing a bunch of muggles which put him in Azkaban.
...
Needless to say, Tom spent more than half of the year following Harry around. If he wasn't doing the following himself, he entrusted one of his fellow Slytherins with the task. Sure, they thought Tom's "obsession" with Potter was weird, but none of them ever dared to question it, so their opinions really didn't matter.
Anyways, thanks to Tom's careful... watching, (It was NOT stalking and if Zabini said that one more time Tom would stupefy him all the way to Tartarus), he was able to stop Harry from being killed by a werewolf by summoning a wolf do distract it. Which was good, what was not good however, was the fact the dementors that had surrounded Hogwarts all year were now hell bent on killing Harry.
Absolutely not, that wouldn't do at all.
There's only one way of driving a dementor away. Tom didn't think he could pull it off, after all, Expecto Patronum was a high level light spell that Tom had never even tried before.
But he had to at least try.
Happy memories, happy memories... Tom's most happy memories revolved around Harry. A person he'd never even talked to. But still... He just really wanted to see Harry's smile again.
"Expecto Patronum." Tom said quietly, memories of Harry flowing freely through his mind.
And wonder of wonders, a silvery fox emanated from his wand.
4th year was terrible from the beginning.
It all started with that stupid tournament, Tom just knew Harry would get caught up in it. And of course, he did.
From what Malfoy gossiped later on, it all happened because of the Weasley twins. Apparently, they tried to cross the age line on the cup with some faulty spell, which ended signing Harry as one of the competitors.
Tom really, really, wanted to murder those two.
At first, the whole school decided to hate on Harry. That didn't last long tho, since Tom managed to make Slytherin change from hatred to simple neutrality. Ravenclaw followed suit since these two houses were on friendly terms, but he couldn't do much about Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. They were just too out of reach for Tom to have a hand in them, so he decided to focus on something else instead: Discovering what the first task was going to be.
He happened to discover one week before the task.
Tom was passing through a deserted corridor, just trying to find some peace, really, when he heard a quiet sob from one of the abandoned classrooms.
Normally, he'd just mind his own business, but there was white feather stuck on the door's hinges. Tom got closer and examined the feather.
It was a dove's feather. One of Aphrodite's many symbols.
Tom felt his heart skip a beat, did that mean?...
Tom opened the door slightly and his chest tightened at the sight behind the door.
Harry was there, sitting on the floor and hugging his own legs, and although his face was wet with tears, he made almost no sound.
"Harry?"
He didn't respond.
Tom walked slowly to Harry, sitting beside him.
"What happened?"
Harry kept silent and Tom didn't know what else to do.
"When you feel like talking... I'll be here."
Tom said simply, deciding to stay there until Harry felt like speaking.
Hours passed before Harry spoke a single word.
And by single word, Tom meant an actual single word.
"Dragons." Harry whispered, and Tom wouldn't have been able to hear if not for the absolute silence in the room.
Tom blinked with confusion.
Harry gave a shaky breath before whispering again, "The first task is dragons."
Tom felt his eyes widen, "Dragons?!"
Harry didn't say anything more, but the tears came back with revenge.
Dragons. The first task were those blood thirsty creatures,. And Harry, his Harry, would have to defeat one of those.
Tom wanted to hug Harry so badly, but he'd seen how the boy reacted when people touched him, especially if it was sudden. Harry would always look uncomfortable with touching, but he looked especially upset if it was sudden. So Tom clenched his hands into a fist and instead tried to offer some advice.
"Dragons... Dragons are creatures of protection. Most of them exist solely to protect treasure."
Harry sniffed, "What?" lifting his head and looking at Tom through teary eyes.
Tom blushed, "Sorry, I just... I just thought it might help."
Harry nodded slowly and decided to stare at the wall in front of him.
They sat there for a few more hours, and then the dinner bell rang.
Tom didn't want to, but he knew he had to go.
Harry nudged him slightly with his elbow, "Go. You need to rule your little Slytherin group, don't you?"
Tom blushed again but nodded. Has Harry noticed that?
Tom got up and walked to the door, just before he could leave tho, Harry spoke again,
"Hey Riddle... You don't act like the evil Slytherin I pegged you to be." Harry took a deep breath, "Thanks."
Tom couldn't think of anything to say, so he simply nodded and left.