i am lord voldemort • Tom Riddle

I

Author's Note:
The FL is deliberately shown as being weak in the beginning, which I know will bug people, so I'm making the disclaimer that she's not actually incompetent. She's playing a role, and is, in my opinion, a strong lead when she stops trying to operate under people's radar. It takes a few chapters to get there, so I hope people bare with me until we get to that point.

• — • — •

"I know what you are known as . . . but to me, you will always be Tom Riddle. It's one of the irritating things about old teachers. I'm afraid they never quite forget their charges youthful beginnings."
—Albus Dumbledore

• — • — •

Tom had never seen a more pathetic girl in his life, he thought, watching disinterestedly as a pair Slytherin Seventh Years tossed a book bag tauntingly back and forth over her head.

"Come on. This is getting ridiculous," she snapped, pausing with her hands on her hips, as though trying to lull them into a false sense of security, before again throwing herself at the boy who held the bag far above his head. "You're going to make me late for Potions!"

Tom lifted a brow in mild mannered surprise. He certainly had never seen her in his class before. He made an effort to catalogue every one of his classmates into a far corner of his brain in order to better ascertain their strengths and weaknesses, and if they were promising enough, to recruit them into his circle. How... peculiar.

Well, perhaps not. Talentless girls like that swarmed Hogwarts in droves. Tom couldn't expect himself to remember all the worthless ones.

"Get off me!" the boy snapped, shoving her away, hard, by the shoulder.

She stumbled back, losing her balance from the force of the hit and sprawled across the corridor floor. She didn't move at first, blinking slowly up at the ceiling in a bizarre disconnectedness from her own plight, almost as if considering whether getting up was at all worth the trouble, or if rolling over and napping in the middle of the walkway might be a better use of her time than Potions.

"Did poor, little Ophelia get hurt?" the first boy asked after a beat, dripping with faux-sympathy. "You deserve that for not backing off when I told you to. Aren't you going to get up and try again? How about we help you?"

They both took a threatening step closer, one even going so far as to swing his leg back in preparation of a well-aimed kick. Her hand itched toward her wand

Unfortunately, if this carried on much longer, they'd make Tom late for class, given that the three of them were strategically obstructing his path.

"That is enough, I think," Tom interjected coolly, stepping out of the shadowed corner he'd been observing from. "Get to class or I'll be forced to assign you both detentions."

"Oh, relax, Tom," the other boy protested, like it should be obvious why it was no big deal. "It's only Ophelia."

Tom blinked. Were they really challenging him?

"I will not ask again. Release the bag and leave."

Sensing the dangerous edge to his voice, they dropped the bag as though it were ablaze, muttering their apologies. Satisfied, Tom turned around in time to pretend to be surprised by Professor Slughorn bustling down the corridor.

"Good work, Tom! I always knew you were a good boy, coming to sweet Ophelia's rescue like that!" Slughorn boomed. Good. He noticed. If it would endear him more to his professors, then helping one miserable girl wasn't a complete waste of time after all. "I'll have to give those two boys a stern talking to, to have members of my own house behaving so shamefully..."