The Fear in The Child

Furthering Relations

Draco and Tom's friendship continued to grow, continued to thrive, actually. Despite the meddling of that old fool called Dumbledore, he and Draco had many things that they agreed upon, and so it was almost impossible for them NOT to become such good friends. 

They both hated Dumbledore, for once. Although, it did I not take much to despise the old fool, it was something that they both shared and with similar degrees of hatred, it was the first thing that they both managed to truly bond with. There was so much more than just that, though. Both he and Draco were incredibly smart, and cunning. They managed to run circles around most of the teachers, other than Severus. Then again, Severus was a rarity and he was a Slytherin. Not just any type of Slytherin, but a real true Slytherin, one which Tom rarely saw but always respected. Furthermore, they shared their dislike of the curriculum which Hogwarts forced upon their students. Most of it was academically based, meaning reading, writing, essays and the like. Very little of the classes which required active magic to pass, actually used magic and the use of magic as a basis for the class. It was something that both he and Draco discussed in anger at length. Furthermore, they both shared a passion of the dark arts. 

At first, Draco had been hesitant to admit such a thing, not sure whether or not he should even begin to approach such a touchy subject, but after seeing Tom place a dark, nonverbal curse on a Gryffindor student who tried to hit him without hesitation, Draco felt much more comfortable with the subject. Not only because he managed nonverbal magic, but the magic was dark magic. It was not a complex dark spell, hence why Draco assumed that Tom could do it nonverbally. Not  the point. The two then spent turns sneaking in some dark magic conversations here and there, merely one extra thing that they managed to bond over. 

Draco and Tom also both seemed to have a good grasp of politics. Even if the world had changed much in his resting time, Tom had been eager to learn as much about the changes in Wizarding policies as possible, something which Draco, with a parent within several areas of the wizarding Government, knew well and was eager to pass onto his friend. Both of them then had much to speak of when it came to the wizarding policies and the government. 

Tom's friendship with Draco's crew, Blaise, Pansy, Aurora, and Crabbe and Goyle, was much slower in the making. Even still, though they were not as close as Tom and Draco, Tom managed to insight quite the friendship with them as well. It all happened after Tom had come in furious after a talk with the headmaster. 

"I cannot believe that old man!" Tom had hissed, more reptilian than human. Something he really needed to work on, as whenever he got angry it seemed to come out more and more like a snake than an actual English sentence. 

"What happened?" Blaise asked, looking up from where he was seated in the Common Room. It was just Draco and his small group of inner friends, and now Tom, still up and in the common room. 

"Wanted to 'talk to me.'" Tom growled, eyes flashing angrily. "So of course, I went. Why would I not? Not like I can very well refuse a directive from the bloody headmaster of all things." 

"What happened?" Pansy asked, all of them now visibly nervous. 

"The old man wanted to talk to me about...school, how I was fitting in. As though it was any of his business. Then, as though he thought I did not know what he was doing, he tried to use mind magic on me." Tom was more than angry at that, and his words began to slur in their anger, his eyes flashing dangerously. 

"Mind magic?" Crabbe asked softly. 

"Mind magic. Like what Professor Snape knows." Tom said with a wave of his hand. "There are various types of mind magic, such as the obliviate spell, and the imperious curse. However, there are also full branches of mind magic. Two, mainly. Legilimacy, and Occlumency.  Professor Snape is decent at both branches of magic, as far as I can tell. From what I know Dumbledore is good at Legilimacy only, not Occlumency, if the amount of surface level emotions I felt flowing from the old man speaks for itself." 

"What did you do?" Aurora asked nervously. 

"Gave him false memories of course." Tom said simply. "What else would I do." 

From the way they all stared at him Tom figured that probably was not the answer that they were expecting. 

"What?"

"False...False memories? You managed to successfully feed DUMBLEDORE, False memories?" Blaise asked, looking faint. Tom shrugged.

"What? Is it not that common?"

"No!" Draco said suddenly. "It takes high level of control and understanding of mental magic to be capable of doing something like that." 

"Oh," Tom said, a bit surprised. "But...I have always been able to do that?" Draco looked as though he were about to drop from where he stood, and the rest of the Slytherins looked at him with wide eyes. 

"Always?"

"Yes, Professor Snape tried to get into my mind once too. I was sleeping at the time, but I still felt him. He could not break through the outer barriers, though I suspect he did not try very hard." Apparently that was not exactly common either as the Slytherins in the room just stared at him. 

"Tom, you know that is very complex magic, right?" Tom shrugged. 

"I assumed probably." 

"We can talk about this later." Draco said simply. "There is something else that I should tell you," Tom looked at Draco, his dark eyes curious. "Father wishes to meet you." 

"Lucius Malfoy? The government official?" Draco nodded.

"He wants you to come over during winter break." 

After that incident two weeks ago, Tom had become much closer with all of them. Though Draco had very good wards, he and Tom worked together to teach the other few Slytherins how to do it as well. Tom felt that it was wise given Dumbledore's apparent penchant for sneaking into his student's minds. 

The day which Tom met Lucius Malfoy seemed to loom nearer and nearer. Tom could not admit to himself, rather he would not admit to himself that he was nervous. 

But he was.