He Doesn't Even Go Here

Gemma entered the common room only to falter when she spotted Riddle. In no sense had Riddle ever acted in a manner which she expected, but it always seemed as if her perception of him were flipped on its head each interaction. Her opinion on him had altered as well since he first came to Hogwarts. At first, she’d thought him cooly calculated—arrogant, though justifiably so, given his lineage and talents. Antisocial, but charming in his way. She thought now that she may have imagined him too much as You-Know-Who; based on what she had heard through books and articles. 

Riddle was different than she had initially thought, though. Unfortunately, not in a way that brought her any solace. There was nothing silky or devious about Riddle, not really. He was brilliant, she knew this, but he was also mean. Riddle was outwardly cruel and rude in a way she never would have anticipated. It was unlike the unpleasant demeanor of many of her peers—Riddle did not tease or laugh or bully in a distinctly vulgar, childish way, not like some of the other Slytherin boys his age. He mocked, ripped down, and undermined in a way that was decided worse. Riddle did not pretend to be anyone's friend or ally for his own benefit—in fact, he was strikingly honest, in a way that would be almost Gryffindorish if his nature and attitude were not so nasty and spiteful. He was self obsessed and scarcely concerned with others, as if his world began and ended with himself. Gemma was both respectful and scared of him at once—her wary fear of him from when she had first met him had mostly been borne of his lineage and the uncertainty, but now it stemmed precisely from the certainty that she knew him better now, and she knew he was dangerous.

Regardless, she’d come into the common room early in the morning to pick up a bit—put pillows where they were supposed to be, set up the chess set, organize books and games, only to stop in her tracks when she spotted how Riddle was splayed out on a sofa, head thrown back, an arm over the back, and his leg slung over the armrest. Gemma frowned. He was wearing sunglasses. 

She wasn’t sure whether he was asleep or dead, and she took a cautious step forward. He didn’t move.

“Riddle?” she asked, and saw no response. 

She stepped closer and noticed several unlabeled glass bottles on coffee table and on the floor. She scrunched up her nose and vanished them. It seemed that he really had been spending time with Flint. She stepped over a pillow that had fallen onto the floor, hesitating before reaching out to poke his shoulder and wake him.

“Don’t touch me.” he said before she could, and she started, jumping backwards and nearly knocking into the coffee table.

“I thought you were sleeping!” she said, embarrassed with how her own voice shook. 

“Why?”

“You didn’t respond to me.” she said. Riddle slowly turned to look at her, and his sunglasses slid down his nose. He squinted at her. He really was quite a gorgeous boy, and Gemma thought she might be disarmed by that if she weren’t so frightened of him. And if he wasn’t such an incorrigible douchebag.

“Not much to respond to. I find it easier to ignore you, lest I become prone to migraines.” Riddle said, rising to his feet, and she pursed her lips in irritation. 

“Why is the common room so empty?” he asked, voice slightly rough, reaching up to rub at his temples.

“It’s five in the morning. Most everyone is asleep.” she said, and blushed when he laughed at her.

“So why the fuck are you awake? Playing maid, Cinderella? It suits you—you love to kiss arse.” 

Gemma felt flustered and annoyed and didn’t bother to justify that with a response, turning to continue cleaning. She felt Riddle watching her and tensed in discomfort, but he said nothing else. Eventually she grew too curious about his silence, and she turned around and spotted him standing by the wall and resting his head against it.

“Are you hungover?” she asked. Riddle shook his head.

“No. Beer never gives me a hangover. I just feel sick. It’s been a while since I drank anything alcoholic.” he said, and then made a face as if he realized he was speaking to someone that he disliked. He pushed himself off of the wall and turned around to leave. Gemma remembered she was a prefect, and though she really had no desire to try and discipline Riddle about anything, she ought to try. 

“… You shouldn’t be drinking so much. At all, really, not at your age. And especially not in the common room around the younger years.” she said, regretting it the moment it left her mouth. She’d be lucky if Riddle didn’t conjure a cauldron to drop on her head. 

But Riddle just shot her a glare, and Gemma quickly turned away and pretended she hadn’t said anything. Riddle disappeared to head off to his dorm. Gemma went to clean up the couch he’d been on, and made a face. He’d left behind a book on Haematomancy, and it made her shudder to think of what he was planning to use that for.

✦

The end of the year meant that Jack had some very important wixen-wrangling to do. He’d told the little brunette Nott kid to run around and tell all of the Slytherins that there was a very important meeting for them to attend on Saturday after dinner. Jack should have expected nothing else, but somehow word had spread throughout the entire castle and now everyone thought he was going to perform a very sexy, very scary human sacrifice on a virgin. Jack frankly hoped everyone that went to this school fucking died. Perhaps not Ginny. Flint and Lockhart would get a pass too.

Jack got the vibe that Dumbledore was going to attempt to speak to him about it, but Jack rocketed away from dinner as soon as he’d finished his soup and was vaguely aware of the clamor as half of the Slytherin table immediately started scrambling to finish their own meals to follow after him. Jack turned his head at the pattering of Mary-Jane’s on the floor and saw Ginny running after him with a baked potato in her hand and her bag tucked against her chest, very nearly spilling all of her books onto the floor. 

“What’s with this meeting? You never told me about it. Ron thinks you’re going to absorb my soul and turn me into a pea plant.” she said, out of breath.

“I wish you were a pea plant,” he said, and she kicked him in the shin. 

“Don’t be a bitch,” he said, and Ginny looked genuinely taken aback for a moment. Jack wondered if he perhaps should not be calling eleven year old girls bitches. “Don’t be a dick.” he nobly corrected. For feminism.

“Anyways, it’s no big deal. I’ve a few requests to make of the snakies before summer. I figured I’d get it down before our O.W.L’s. lest the fifth years are too braindead to listen to a word I say.” Ginny blinked, and continued following after him. 

Once the Slytherin common room was substantially full, some settled on couches or around tables, and plenty just standing, Jack dragged over a chair and with a quick thought transfigured it into a rolling blackboard. There were a series of gasps as if that were impressive, and Jack ignored them as he conjured a little piece of white chalk. Frankly, he was surprised that so many showed up. Jack had figured at least a third of the Slytherin populace must be smart enough to find him to be a fraudulent dickhead not worth their time, which is true, but apparently he’d been too generous in that assumption, as he was quite certain almost every head in the house was present. Ginny did look a bit out of place, seated in her Gryffindor robes beside Cecily Fawley and Marcus Flint, looking especially tiny. Jack brandished his little piece of chalk and turned to the blackboard.

Summer Homework

He underlined it three times. 

“Go on then, write some notes,” he said, and there was a bit of shuffling as the Slytherins began to ruffle through their bags for their parchment and quills. 

Jack turned back to the board.

Do not write any fucking letters to me.

Jack pointed at the writing.

“This is your most important assignment. Do not write to me, do not tell your parents to write to me, and do not tell your friends to write to me. If I receive a letter from anyone who’s surname I recognize, I will send a bomb to your house by owl.” 

Jack ignored a few mutterings saying, “What’s a bomb?” He added:

Exceptions: Ginny Weasley, Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy

He tapped it a few times, and saw heads ducking to scribble that down. Ginny flushed a little from where she was sitting on the couch, looking pleased with herself. 

Jack wrote again.

Send me money. 

That one got a few murmurs, and Jack was surprised and delighted to hear that a few of them nearly sounded enthusiastic. Jack really was not sure what sort of brain damage being sorted into Slytherin develops in the youth, but whatever it was apparently made them very susceptible to MLM marketing schemes from Dr. Evil. Jr., so he certainly had no complaints.

“Many of you come from affluent families,” Jack said. “Which is very useful for me. As you all know,” he gestured at himself. “Orphan. It’s all very terrible, really. If I am to succeed in my ambitions, a small donation from just a few of your parents would be just beautiful. I promise your gold will go to a very honorable cause.” 

Pansy Parkinson raised a hand. He pointed at her with the chalk.

“You with the bob.”

“How are we meant to send our donations if we’re not to send you letters?” she asked. 

“Brilliant question. As I, very sadly, am an orphan, and both of my parents are, immensely sadly, dead, as it is with orphans, I am currently on scholarship, and the Hogwarts Board of Governors opened me a Gringotts account at the beginning of the year. Any and all donations should go directly there.” 

Jack turned around to write the next line.

Tell your friends! :D

“I think we all have similar ideals and aspirations,” Jack said. He saw Ginny give him a vaguely alarmed look, but he ignored her for now. She’d live being concerned for a few minutes. 

“I consider myself a leader, really. And it would be just fantastic for the, ah, cause, if word spread even further.” Jack was pretty certain the cause was terrorism, but he wasn’t sure how much terrorism this bunch could do. 

Jack finally sent everybody off and ignored several of the Slytherins trying to talk to him to grab Ginny by the shoulders and drag her off to stand by the windows. She shot an anxious glance at the dark water on the opposite side of the glass, but remembered quickly enough that she was becoming upset with him—Jack intended to knock some sense into her, with a brick if he had to, before she started angsting all over the castle. She was frowning at him and red in the face in the way she got when she was angry or about to cry.

“What were you talking about out there?” Ginny said. “You told me you didn’t want to be tied to your fathers legacy but you’re telling every dark Slytherin at Hogwarts to—to send you money for ‘the cause’ and to spread the word!” 

She was growing increasingly hysterical as she kept talking, and Jack had to remind himself that she was just a kid, so of course she was this annoying. Jack flicked her on the forehead. 

“Don’t be a dumbass, Ginny. I was lying.” 

“…You were?” 

Jack scoffed, crossing his arms.

“Yes, well, it’s the most fun a girl can have,” he ignored her puzzled look. “Really, Ginny, you’ve known me for this long, you ought to know how much of a fraud and a cheat I am by now. I want money, and these evil children’s parents have loads of it. I couldn’t care less if it’s coming straight out of the arsehole of Satan himself—in case you’ve forgotten, Ginny, I am currently extremely fucking broke, and equally as fucking homeless.”

Ginny was quiet for a moment, running his explanation through her mind. She shuffled on her feet a bit, crossing her arms and idly rubbing the fabric of her sweater between her fingers. His explanation seemed to get through to her, and she sighed.

“You’re a terrible person.” Ginny said, though there was humor in her voice, and a slight smile appearing on her face. 

“Oh, the worst.” Jack said, only to narrow his eyes when she stepped forward. “Tacky. Don’t hug me. You get one a year and you’re already on two.”

✦

The close of the year was altogether uninteresting, in Jack’s opinion.

He’d gotten O’s on most of his exams, with the exception of Herbology, in which he’d gotten an A. He’d excelled on the practical portions, of course, though he’d been none too happy about the fact that they had made him use his hideous wand. The written parts were a bit more tricky for him, but he’d always been good at bullshitting, and he’d been surprised to notice that all of the advanced reading he’d been doing to try and figure out what exactly was going on with his and Ginny’s magic had given him quite the thorough understanding of plenty of the concepts he had to write about. They were hardly the first exams Jack had ever taken, and despite what his (real) father might’ve had to say about it, he was a good student. Perhaps he’d been a bit of a whore, was drunk quite often, and had his nose broken in a fight that made it sit crooked on his face for the rest of his life, but he’d still earned a first class degree, so there was that.

Unfortunately Lockhart was not going to be returning the following year, as he had some sort of tour to go on in the States, but he’d told Jack that he’d be personally sending him a signed copy of his next book upon release, and Jack figured if it was really uninteresting, he could just sell it. It really was a shame though—Lockhart was possibly the only professor at Hogwarts Jack didn’t find completely miserable to be around. 

As the school year wrapped up, he really did begin to wonder what the hell the Harry Potter books were actually about, as it didn’t seem that anything particularly interesting happened at all. He’d expected dragons, perhaps, so an ordinary school year where the subjects just happen to be magical bullshit did not seem particularly interesting to him. Frankly, Jack was not regretting choosing the school rugby playoffs over the nth HP book release back in the day.

Ginny was far more torn up about it all than Jack, getting a bit sniffly when she’d shuffled over to say hi at the final feast. Jack set down his fork to look at her and pretended he couldn’t see her brothers and Potter and friends glaring at him.

“I’ll write twice a week, okay? But you have to write back.” she said. Jack rolled his eyes.

“Yes, yes, I will. Even if you weren’t my—my…”

“You can do it.” Ginny said, and Jack used his magic to splash a bit of pumpkin juice on her forehead. 

“My friend,” he sneered. He lowered his voice.“I do appear to disintegrate if not in your presence for too long, so even if I didn’t tolerate you, you would still be seeing me.” 

“Well, I’ll miss you, Jack. Really. You’re my best friend, I think, and I’ll miss you calling me a dumbass and hanging out with your friends who… hate me.” she said. Jack sniffed.

“Frankly, you won’t be lacking in either of those things, so no need to despair. I really meant it, I will be writing to you. And I will need to be seeing you anyways, so Lucius Malfoy has agreed to open the fl—flew? Floo… to you upon request. I say you come over twice a month, we share tea, and then you go back to your infantry of gingers before the small Malfoy finds you in his parlor and bursts a blood vessel.”

“Tea at the Malfoy’s. Lucky me…” Ginny sighed. Jack clicked his tongue at her. 

“Well, which of us is living there for the entire summer? One of us had to draw the short stick. Besides, Lucius and Narcissa seem just fine. It’s Draco that’s a bitch.”

Jack heard Malfoy sputtering behind him—ever since Jack had basically agreed to move in with them, Malfoy had decided he was a part of the “Inner Circle” and was allowed to sit near Jack now. 

The next morning had everybody clamoring onto the train with their trunks. Jack didn’t have much, honestly, as most of what he owned came from the scholarship he was on. It was just a few uniforms, a couple of plain shirts, trousers, a coat, a scarf, gloves, and shoes. His wand was in there too, probably, not that he cared very much.

Ginny was sitting with Potter, three of her brothers, and the Hermione girl, and Jack imagined he wouldn’t be welcome to even pop his head in and say hello, so he didn’t. Jack ended up in a compartment with Farley, Flint, Nott, Malfoy, and Shafiq. They chatted amongst themselves for most of the ride, and Jack just stared out of the window. Ever since he’d arrived here he’d barely been outside of Hogwarts, only to Hogsmeade, which was just a walking distance away. It felt odd, really, to be leaving, and to think he wouldn’t be back for some time. 

When the train finally rolled to a stop hours later, Jack was more than happy to rise to his feet, cracking his neck. He grabbed his trunk and begrudgingly helped Malfoy load all of his onto a cart, as the boy was struggling on his own, and Jack had no desire to linger on the train for any longer. Farley had the gall to try and shake Jack’s hand before she left, and Jack just gave her a disgusted look and elbowed past her. 

Jack walked with Malfoy—perhaps calling him Draco would be more appropriate now, until he spotted two heads of long blonde hair waiting amongst the gaggle of parents. Jack saw more than a few stares directed his way from parents and siblings alike, but did not particularly care.

Draco practically ran towards his parents, his mother wrapping him in a tight hug and pressing a kiss to his hairline while his father set a brief hand on his shoulder. They looked towards Jack, finally, and Lucius reached out a hand. Jack took it.

“Mr. Riddle.” 

“Mr. Malfoy.” 

“Lucius is fine.

“Then Jack is fine.” Lucius looked inordinately pleased with that, but Jack just turned to give a brief nod to Narcissa. She inclined her head in return.

“I’ll give you a tour of the manor once we Floo back, and then I say we all have a meal together.” 

“Sounds wonderful. Thank you both again for letting me into your home.” Jack said. 

He caught Ginny’s eye a bit of a ways away from him, standing with her parents, all her brothers, and Harry. Hermione and her probably-parents were there as well. Ginny waved to Jack, and he lifted a quick hand as well, before the Malfoy’s were turning and heading off, and Jack followed right behind them.