t o u c h

t w e l v e

"You're mad," she glared.

"I'm clever," he winked. He was originally going to kill Alexandra when he finally discovered her secret, but he realized she could more useful than he imagined. "You want to return to your time, correct? Unharmed, preferably."

"Why would you send me home?" She asked, taking a moment to catch on. "You want me kill Dumbledore?"

"Precisely," he smirked. Tom knew that Alexandra killing Dumbledore would make her the owner of the Elder Wand, and he would therefore kill her in order to obtain it himself. Even now, Tom knew Dumbledore was a much more powerful wizard than himself, and that he would fail to kill him now, but the future was an entirely different story.

If Dumbledore sent Alexandra to the past, it meant he was desperate. He was running out of options, becoming weak, and Tom was going to take advantage of that.

Alexandra was his perfect pawn, and Dumbledore brought her right to him. Maybe he wasn't as clever as everybody thought.

Dumbledore, however, expected this to happen. As always, he was ten steps ahead.

"What do I have to do?" Alexandra asked, desperate to end this nightmare. Every day seemed to bring her more and more pain, and she was desperate for it to end. All she wanted was to return home, and Tom was holding her only hope in his hands.

"We must begin by making him think his plan worked. By the fading in the photograph, I expect you have around three weeks left here before you no longer exist in the future," he explained. She nodded, knowing it only got worse from here. "We'll take a mild love potion, strong enough to get the point across but weak enough so that we can willingly take an anecdote and be done with it."

"Is the potion necessary?" She asked, afraid of what the potion might make her do.

"Entirely," Tom answered. "When he is convinced the plan worked, I will allow you to return to your time. There, you will continue on with your seemingly boring life until I call upon you. You will know when the time comes."

"That's it? That's all the information you're giving me?" Alexandra asked, frustrated.

"It's all the information I'm willing to provide," he told her. "I suggest you cooperate, unless you'd like to see me do to your friends what I've done to their photograph."

"Fine," Alexandra glared, not knowing what else to do at this point.

"Meet me in Professor Slughorn's classroom directly after curfew tomorrow evening," Tom directed, smirking to himself as he walked into his dormitory with his head held high. He had won once again. Nobody could outsmart Lord Voldemort, not even Albus Dumbledore. At least, that's what he thought.