First Steps
It was a subtly different Tom Morningstar that walked on heavy feet to Kings Cross Station on the first of September.
His hair was still long, hanging down in a loose ponytail that fell just bellow the small of his back. His clothes were still muggle, and incredibly casual. He was still skinny to the point of sickliness, pale as death, and with eyes that showed practically nothing but an endless field of rolling green waves.
But there were differences. Subtle ones, but ones that instantly gave you a better impression. His once completely yellow stained teeth had been whitened slightly by a month of brushing, his greasy, long hair now washed thoroughly and combed to give off a distinct aristocratic, medieval vibe to the longer hairstyle as opposed to a hippie-like one. He had tied it back, not into an average ponytail like everyone just assumed, but rather a tail that split off into two tails right at the middle, a style that had been well used by wizards in the time before Hogwarts - in the time of Merlin and King Arthur. The casual clothes were no longer ripped and stained with what could be dirt or dried blood, but rather was a simple, dark set t-shirt and jeans, with the exception of his brown jacket that he had been unable to throw out. He had gotten it washed, though. Despite that, it still smelled of books, and leather, and a small hint of gasoline.
On the whole, he actually looked… rather good. For a kid who had been homeless a month ago.
Anyone who thought to glance over at him was slightly startled by his appearance though, but it wasn’t because of how he looked. Sure, the long hair was a little odd, but not overly so, and plus, passerby rarely care about things like that anyway.
No, it was the snake that was curled around his shoulders that gave them cause for alarm.
“Hey!”
Tom glanced to his left, only barely repressing the urge to pin the boy to a wall with a dagger to his throat. He was met with the grinning faces of two red-headed children, eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Nice snake!”
“We have a snake-whisper in our midst, George.”
“That we do, George.”
“Nope. I’m Fred.”
“Semantics.”
Tom’s eyes darted between the two like watching a tennis game, and he felt a foreign-feeling grin tug at his lips. He squashed it, though, and instead gave his well-practiced polite, courteous smile to the strangers.
“Thank you. May I ask who you two are?”
They grinned at him, as if they were delighted by the mere chance to tell him who they were. They looped an arm around each other’s shoulders, and responded easily,
“I’m Fred,”
“And I’m George,”
“And we’re the Weasley twins, at your service!”
They both mock-bowed, and Tom couldn’t help but snicker.
And then, a wild pack of red heads descended upon him.
“Fabian and Gideon Weasley, we have been worried sick!”
Both twins winced, and turned to face a short, stout woman who was now swatting them upside the head. He ignored the long, loud rant the mother gave them, and instead turned to inspect the family that she was towing behind her like a pack of ducks.
They were all a bit too tall, meaning that, compared to Tom’s short stature, they were at least a head taller, with the exception of a slightly shorter female who looked to be the only girl of the pack. One of them seemed to be about Tom’s age, with a smattering of freckles, pale skin (though, compared to Tom, he was positively sun-kissed), and bizarrely long legs. Another seemed older, and was a little taller then the twins. He was staring on with a disappointed, patronizing expression, and Tom instantly had to repress the urge to sneer at him.
Clearly a brown-noser.
And, last but certainly not least, there was a slightly younger looking girl who hadn’t even glanced at him yet, instead looking at the fury of the mother with tired, sympathetic eyes.
Tom was instantly struck with the fact that she was rather good-looking, before squashing the irrelevant thought.
The mother seemed to finally tire of yelling, and instead turned to him with sharp, knowing eyes. She seemed slightly de-railed, however, by the snake sitting on his shoulders.
“Is he dangerous?”
Instantly, the woman seemed apologetic, but he smiled his most charming smile at her to show that there was no harm done.
“She, actually. And trust me, Regina won’t touch your sons.”
The woman instantly relaxed at both his smile and the words themselves, and smiled tiredly back at him.
Nobody seemed to notice he had never actually answered her question.
“Oh, I’m sorry, dear. I’m Molly Weasley. I trust my sons aren’t bothering you?”
At this, she glared at the boys in question, and Tom caught sight of a wand in her pocket. He smiled his most charming smile again, though there was the slightest vicious edge to it that he hoped they couldn’t notice.
“Oh no, ma’am. As a matter of fact, they were both offering to help me get my trunk on the Hogwarts Express after we got on the platform. It is rather heavy, so I’m grateful for the offer.”
At this, he smiled what he hoped appeared to be a thankful smile to the twins, though he knew they would both catch the mocking edge it contained.
“Perhaps I was wrong,” Regina hissed from his shoulder, making the youngest ginger son turn concerned eyes onto it and the mother to do the same. “You clearly do belong in Slytherin.”
He grinned at her, macking sure it conveyed his ‘I told you so’ as clearly as speech.
He wouldn’t reveal his parseltongue so early. He was playing his cards close to his chest.
“Are you sure she isn’t dangerous?”
He turned to the youngest boy, who had just squeaked that sentence, and smiled tightly.
“Not to my friends. But if you, say, tried to poison me...”
He let the sentence trail off, before finishing happily,
“She’s quite loyal. And venomous. Very venomous.”
The family paled, though the twins grinned approvingly.
“But, she knows my wishes quite well enough, so no, none of you are in danger.”
He could see the doubt crawling in their eyes, and happily took the chance to show off.
“Perhaps a demonstration, then?”
He reached a hand to Regina, and she seemed to understand his meaning without a word. It was what he appreciated about her, above the more dangerous breeds in Magical Menagerie. She slithered happily into his hand and curled up into a circle, making her look like a particularly green (and beautiful, in his opinion,) diadem.
And then, he walked over to the young girl, and put the snake atop her head.
The girl paled dramatically, but the snake sat so stilly upon her hair that it seemed to assuage her fears slightly. He dropped to one knee and took the girl’s hand, kissing it dramatically, and glanced up, head still bent.
“A crown for the queen.”
The girl blushed beet-red all the way to the tips of her ears, and he reached forward and let Regina curl once again around his arm. He stood, brushing pebbles off one pant leg, and smiled at the family, now looking on in slight awe, slight fear.
“See? Harmless.”
The family didn’t respond, so he turned to the twins, now grinning wildly and looking at him in what appeared to be mock-worship.
“So, shall we board the train, then? I do believe it will be leaving before long.”
The family before him started, glancing at their watches. He wondered if they were magical watches.
“Damn, Gred, he’s right!”
‘Gred’ glanced contritely at his brother. “Idiot, I’m Forge!”
“Semantics, brother. And plus, neither of us are clever enough to tell.”
“True that, brother, true that.”
Tom smiled tiredly at the bickering, and stepped easily over to the barrier between nine and ten. He repressed the urge to swallow, and instead stepped happily up to the barrier, only giving a short glance to make sure the crowd had thinned, before vanishing into the stone.
For a moment, he was surrounded by thick, heavy blackness. He was uncomfortably reminded of his dreamscape, but was comforted by the fact that the black mist was too thick and solid to allow him to see rolling, endless fields. He continued to step on, not a hitch in his path, and came out the other side.
And his eyes widened slightly, eyebrows thrown up.
Before him was a bustling crowd, thick with black, dark green and velvet robes. The tops of witch’s hats poked up from the crowd, and children having heartfelt goodbyes with their guardians surrounded him.
He averted his eyes from the sight, fingers twitching harder, and focused instead on the more surprising aspects of the station.
The train was an obvious one. It was painted a cartoonish scarlett, and dark smoke billowed from the top of it. He could see children bustling into compartments from the window, and trunks clattered heavily against the metallic steps leading into the door.
The signs of magic, though, took another moment to notice.
Owls screeched from short distances, and toads croaked happily. A cat curled once around his legs, and he smiled a genuine smile at the feline. He spotted a vulture hat in the distance, and plenty of parents were shrinking the trunks of their kids. Sparks danced happily in the air from children flicking their wands, and someone had set off some kind of magical sparkler in spherical form, which was now rolling around on the ground shooting off multicolored sparks. Though, judging by the children crowding it, the sparks were harmless.
He even spotted more than one pipe, but no cigarettes. It seemed nicotine would invade any environment, magical or not.
The twins (he had to keep himself from mentally capitalizing twins) came through the barrier less easily then he did, and he made sure to swerve out the way of them before they walked into his trunk. They stopped easily enough, though, and turned to him with broad grins.
Though the grins faltered when he glanced pointedly at his trunk.
“Mate, surely you don’t actually expect-”
He could see the other twin was about to pick up the sentence, but cut him off.
“You to fail at carrying my trunk? No, I don’t. I expect two strapping boys such as yourselves to carry this burden easily.”
They both cringed a bit, but, with great reluctance, grabbed his trunk and wheeled it to the stairs. They heaved it up onto the floor of the train, and he grinned his cheapest, sleaziest dime-store grin at them.
“Thank you, boys. I do hope you have a lovely goodbye to your mother, and make sure to give her my undying gratitude at producing such kind young souls as yourselves.”
They scowled at him, and he grinned back.
“You’ll pay for this, you know.”
“Indeed you will,” the other said, equally gravely, “or my name isn’t Forge.”
His grin didn’t falter.
“You are aware, boys, that retaliation will start a war.”
They grinned back, viciously.
“Indeed we do.” They chorused.
Tom offered them a hand.
“I look forward to meeting you on the field of battle, boys.” He grinned again, this time with a mocking edge. “Unless, of course, you just accept you fate and surrender?”
They shook his hand, gripping a touch too tightly. Their grins betrayed their enjoyment, though - and the sparkle of challenge in their eyes promised him good competition.
“Never.” They said together.
“Then may the best prankster win,” Tom said, his smile dying as he spoke with complete, genuine sincerity. He grabbed his trunk, and gave his parting shot.
“And the worse pranksters lose.”
Tom finally found the compartment he just knew he would find, and opened the glass door without a trace of hesitance.
“Good afternoon. Do you mind if I sit here?”
He smiled his most charming smile at the arrangement of boys and girls alike, and waited for the inevitable.
You must understand that, before this moment, Tom had read enough books on etiquette to understand what he would have to do here. He could have easily used that knowledge to pose as a pureblood for one of the many dead families, maybe even a member of the twenty-eight, claiming to be a bastard child whose mother had died in childbirth.
It would have been easy, but he thought that this would give him a better chance, in the end.
Because hiding the fact that he was a muggleborn (mudblood, he mentally corrected, even while hating himself for it,) would just mean that someone else would inevitably learn that fact. And, once that happened, it became completely inevitable that they would use it to blackmail him, and his empire would already be too well established to build from the ground up. So he would have to accept the blackmail, and have the terms of it grow and grow until eventually the person blackmailing decided it would be easier to just collapse his empire and use it as a catalyst to their own power.
So, instead, he was going the more tedious, but safer route. It was, admittedly, an odd way of doing it that he had planned, though step one had already happened without a hitch.
Step one: Find the Slytherin compartment and introduce yourself in the most muggle way possible.
And the faces, predictably, sneered at him.
“No.”
He turned to the blond kid who had just spoken up, and raked him up and down once.
He was obviously a Malfoy, from the blonde hair to the pompous attitude to the two bodyguards. He was also spoiled and doted upon something fierce, and probably completely dedicated to his father’s ideals.
He probably called him that, too. Father.
Well, he was dedicated to those ideals. For now.
He grinned at the Malfoy, showing his slightly yellow teeth. Malfoy sneered harder at him, but he cut him off at the outset.
“Are you sure about that, heir Malfoy? Cutting off potential Slytherin alliances at this stage is not wise.”
And, instantly, he could see the newfound indecision. God, how easy they were to read.
Before, Malfoy had had him pegged for a mudblood. But now, he had shown courtesy by addressing him under his title, and even shown a bit of cunning by making it clear he expected to be in Slytherin.
He might easily be a powerful halfblood. Or even a pureblood who doesn’t care too much about tradition.
So easy.
“You know my name, then. Who are you?”
He grinned a vicious grin at him. On the outside, though, it was completely polite and courteous.
“Tom Morningstar, at your service.”
And the die was cast.
He could tell, right away, who was going to be competition. Malfoy was the leader of the bunch for his blood and competent attitude, but he was clearly brash and easily offended. He didn’t even catch the entirety of the sentence - he assumed the message was only an introduction, and, once his name was out, the important stuff was done, since he was now obviously a halfblood with a witch mother at best.
He could also tell, though, who was clever enough to already be analyzing every word out of someone’s mouth, and even the movements they made. And they easily pieced together the bow, and the postscript that usually was just a house name.
A bow. And ‘at your service’. The message was clear to anyone who could be a worthy Slytherin.
He could tell that only three people in the compartment caught it. A young, impeccably dressed, beautiful in a cold way woman who he guessed was a Greengrass from the distinctive eye colour. A young, dark-brown-haired black boy with cold, calculating eyes who he couldn’t quite pin down but, if he had to guess, would have pinned a Zabini. And a young, lighter-brown-haired boy with wide eyes and a touch of a tan.
That last one and an average looking girl were the only ones whose family he couldn’t pin down.
He couldn’t offer a family whose name he toted. Instead, he could offer his services.
But this was the tricky part. He had to make sure the message was clear, and they didn’t think he was offering them anything other than what he was.
It was a touch blunt, but…
“Did you know, heir Malfoy, that in muggle religion, the Devil was once the right hand man to God before he was cast out?”
Malfoy clearly thought he was spouting nonsense, and he could also tell who was clever enough to do anything muggle, and thus, could catch the rather blunt meaning he was trying to give them.
Zabini clearly did, as did the brown haired tan boy he still couldn’t pin down, but he couldn’t tell with the Greengrass. The spark in her eye could have been irritation or comprehension. But, either way, someone had caught his message.
Blunt as it had been.
Malfoy opened his mouth, obviously to tell him to get out, but Zabini interrupted him. Tom wasn’t sure if it was because he wanted to climb the ladder and wanted Tom by his side, or if it was respect for the Slytherin message he had given, but he would know by tomorrow.
If Zabini wasn’t looking to climb the ladder, Malfoy would have his message by the feast. If he was…
Well, didn’t Malfoy already have a right hand? Why not take Tom for himself?
“Why don’t you sit down, Tom?” Zabini said genially, gesturing to the seat next to Malfoy.
Tom smiled his most polite, bland smile at him.
“Thank you.”
Meanwhile, everyone else in the compartment seemed flabbergasted. Several were staring at Zabini with full-on wide-eyed stares and gaping mouths. Tom wasn’t sure what to make of that, but tucked it into the back of his mind for later.
He sat down easily, sliding his trunk into the top rows as he did, and glanced pointedly at Zabini. Zabini smiled back, before offering his hand.
“Blaise Zabini, heir to house Zabini.”
Tom took the hand, and shook it once.
“Tom Morningstar.”
And so, the introductions went. Tom soon learned that he had been correct about every house assumption. The blonde girl was indeed a Greengrass, going by the name ‘Daphne’, and Malfoy’s sycophants were a Crabbe and Goyle respectively, going by the names ‘Vincent’ and ‘Greggory’. The girl who was practically clung to Malfoy’s arm was a Parkinson, going by the horrid name ‘Pansy’, and the dog-faced girl across from him was a Bulstrode, ‘Millicent’. Though Pansy called her ‘Millie’, but it really seemed more like an insult, especially with the cloyingly sweet tone she gave it.
Apparently, the most normal looking girl there was a Davis, of all things, but Tom didn’t let his surprise show, instead shaking Tracey’s hand without hesitance and smiling happily at her. She seemed a touch surprised at that, but it only showed in a slight widening of the eyes, and that might be more because of the scars on his hand.
The brown-haired boy with a tan was a Nott, which made much more sense. He seemed more than content to drift in the background, though, and his large eyes and hair flopping into them reminded Tom uncomfortably of a wet dog.
And with that, the introductions were made, and Tom smiled happily at the assorted Slytherins. But, before he had a chance to try and strike up conversation, Malfoy butted in.
“Well, as I was saying -” he cast a dark glance at Tom, “I’m rather looking forward to potions. My godfather, Severus Snape, teaches it, and -”
Now, let it be known that Tom is not someone who it prone to outbursts of emotion. But, in select circumstance, he excuses himself for it.
It’s only human, after all.
And so, Tom is not ashamed of the fact that he had to repress a gasp there. Nobody was even attempting to look at him, though - mostly everyone was latched onto Malfoy’s words, and Zabini was staring out the window silently. That was probably for the best.
Because he didn’t want to embarrass himself by fanboying all over Snape.
But can you blame him?
The youngest potions master in a century! Is teaching! At the school I’m going to!!!
Tom tried to repress his enthusiasm, he really did, but the only thing he could do was get something to distract himself.
So he did.
Tom grabbed his trunk without a word, pulling it back down. Honestly, he should have kept it on him at all times anyway, but for some reason he had packed it. Regina curled anxiously around his stomach, where she had slithered as he walked down the corridor to the Slytherin compartment, as Tom unlatched his trunk and reached into the first drawer, pulling out his leather-bound notebook.
He noticed Zabini glance at him curiously, but he just pulled out his newest sleek fountain pen and got to work.
Before him, on the page, stood an island in the middle of a storming sea, with a great figure looming atop it. Small, torn shapes whisked around it, and the iron bars littering the walls glinted with the strike of lightning in the background.
Azkaban.
Tom shivered dramatically, grinning at his handiwork, before setting the pen and beginning to add some finishing touches.
“Tom? What about you?”
Tom glanced up for the first time in about ten minutes, neglecting the drawing before him. In his quest for something to ease his wandering mind, he had begun a new sketch, but it was in the preliminary stages at best, and so he felt no guilt at leaving it hanging.
“‘What about me’ what?”
Zabini smiled blandly at him, though there was a spark of irritation in his eyes. “What classes are you looking forward to?”
Tom tapped a pen against his bottom lip thoughtfully before answering.
“Charms.”
There was a chorus of snorts and snickers, and Tom smiled blandly back at them. Zabini didn’t snicker, but his eyes were narrowed in suspicion.
That was clearly not the answer he’d been expecting, and it clearly pissed him off a bit. Before he got a word out, though, Malfoy cut in.
“That’s such a mudblood response, too. Why is it that those of lesser rank always love charms, Davis?”
Tracey stiffened, eyes closing off all emotion like steel curtains had closed over them, but Tom answered easily for her.
“Why, because it’s the closest thing to Dark Arts, of course.”
Silence.
And then Malfoy bust out laughing. More than one person followed him, but Zabini had narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at Tom.
“Why do you say that, Tom?”
And the laughter died quickly. Tom was quickly picking up on the fact that Zabini speaking up was something which shut all mouths.
“Well, of course, when it comes to fields of magic, they are quite literally on opposite ends of the spectrum.”
“Obviously,” Malfoy muttered.
“But when it comes to intent, they can be quite alike.”
He smiled another bland smile at the assorted younglings, who were all looking at him with a mixture of confusion and amusement.
“For instance,” he said genially, “the cleaning charm, scourgio, is often used by parents to wash out children’s mouths. But it never goes beyond that. However, if instead of lifting the charm when you were done with the punishment, you enhanced it, you could easily choke someone to death with bubbles, and drown them quite easily. Or you could wash their eyeballs until they were blind.”
“Or the refilling charm,” he went on, when the compartment had fallen into blissful silence and everyone was beginning to stare with a combination of fascination and horror, “which just transports liquid from one container to another. You could easily use it to fill someone’s stomach with flaming gasoline, or someone’s veins with molten silver. Molten silver would be particularly useful on a werewolf, even during full moon, if you had it on hand.”
“Or you can use the summoning charm to summon someone’s heart and eyes. It would take a lot of power, but it could be done. And since there isn’t any Dark Arts class, the most useful methods of torture and execution will definitely be found in charms.”
“And plus,” Tom added, “I’m quite good at charms, anyway.”
And there was dead silence.
Tom went back to his drawing, knowing that the first step in his newfound empire had just been taken.