Freezingflames7 - FreezingFlames

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the cupboard under the stairs

"...You are the heir of slytherin, after all." chapter 10

fanart for draw me after you by @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger on ao3

*Shrieks*

This is literally exactly how i imagined them in Vitae Redux

Gimme more

the last days of sparta | tom/harry | sneak preview!

Summary:

Harry beats Tom to the “Heir of Slytherin” title.

Tom is pissed as hell. Also maybe kind of horny, which is a problem, since if the Peverell brat really is an Heir, then that means they’re related.

Eh, incest. Who cares?

AHAHAHA HOLY SHIT SORRY THAT’S NOT THE REAL SUMMARY. THIS IS:

A new student is sorted into Slytherin in Tom’s sixth year. The mysterious Hericus “Harry” Peverell is a boy full of contradictions: he’s a Pureblood, but he says he was raised by Muggles; he’s wealthy, but he acts like he was starved as a child; he’s as slender as a thistle that could be blown away by the wind, but his magic is so oppressively powerful that it darkens the air like a thundercloud; he opposes everything Salazar stood for, but claims he’s the Heir of Slytherin.

Worst of all, he stole that title from Tom.

Now, Tom has to decide whether he feels so robbed by Harry that he has to murder him post-haste, or whether an alliance would be the better tactical alternative.

Tom has made alliances with other people he’s hated before. Surely this shouldn’t be too difficult.

…It is.

Or: Watch Harry cheerfully take over Slytherin while Tom boils with jealousy... and lust.

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Notes:

This happens in Tom’s sixth year, shortly before the discovers the Chamber of Secrets, but after he murders the Riddles.

Harry is posing as a descendant of Cadmus Peverell here, not Ignotus Peverell; Cadmus spawned the Gaunts (including Tom), and Ignotus the Potters (including Harry). Harry just switches ancestors because it suits his cover story better.

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Preview:

Hogwarts rarely, if ever, admitted students mid-year. So when Tom heard from a mildly intoxicated Slughorn at a Slug Club party that Hogwarts would soon be getting a new student, he conducted his customary intelligence-gathering. He plied Slughorn with cherry wine and flattery until Slughorn spilled that the newcomer was a Peverell.

“After generations!” Slughorn sniffled, misty-eyed, as though he were speaking of his own long-lost kin. “A genuine Peverell! A distant relation of Salazar himself, perhaps? I do wonder where he’s been hiding…”

Indeed. Where had he been hiding?

Everything about it rubbed Tom the wrong way. His magic whispered to him that something was off, something was uncanny, something was wrong… and Tom had learned to trust that whisper, because it always preceded—by minutes, or even hours—the landing of a bomb. It was an instinct he’d honed under threat of death, packed body-to-sweaty-body with weeping, pissing, vomiting children in bomb shelters that reeked of refuse and fear.

Tom had washed himself clean of that filth. Would keep washing himself clean of that filth, and the last task he had to complete to show his housemates that he was clean—that he was Pure—was to prove himself the Heir of Slytherin.

He knew what he was. He felt it in his veins, in his brain, the serpent-slither of his thoughts. It was his heritage; his calling; his destiny. All he needed was to find the Chamber, as he was confident he would do this year, and it would all be his: power, prestige, immortality. He thrummed with excitement at the great discovery awaiting him. A historic discovery. One day, he would be written about in the history books: a conquerer, a victor. One day, one day.

Little did he expect it would all be stolen from him, just that quick.

He had blood on his hands already. He was a killer. A predator. Predators took; they didn’t get stolen from. The very notion was absurd. Why else had he sharpened his claws, his fangs, on the murders of the Riddles, if he was only to become prey himself?

Peverell didn’t look like much of a predator.

Tom saw him for the first time on a Tuesday evening, during dinner in the Great Hall, about two weeks after the Slug Club party at which Tom had learned of his existence.

Headmaster Dippet rose from his chair at the teachers’ table and announced that Hericus Peverell, an unfortunate victim of Grindelwald’s war, would be joining the sixth-year cohort. He said nothing of Peverell’s background, but it was heavily implied that Peverell’s parents were no more—meaning that Peverell was now a Lord at the tender age of sixteen.

Tom watched covertly as an oddly tense Professor Dumbledore led Peverell to the sorting stool. Even odder was Peverell himself: he was short, messy-haired and not well-groomed at all, his features plain and peasant-like except for his bright, curious green eyes. He somehow reminded Tom of a kitten that would never be able to resist a ball of yarn.

There wasn’t a single stately or dignified thing about him, other than his rich, luxurious robes, the traditional Hogwarts black shimmering with layers of intricate, high-quality, expensive wards and charms. Robes clearly customised at the The Armoury, Diagon Alley’s premium shop for protective clothing. It was the one sensible, proper-looking thing about him. Everything else about him resembled a skinny street urchin, not a Lord of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

It remained to be seen whether this Peverell was of Ignotus’s more Gryffindor-tending side, or Cadmus’s more Slytherin-tending lineage—a direct line of succession from Salazar Slytherin himself. Tom wasn’t perturbed by that, however, knowing that he was the Heir of this generation. The Peverell boy might have a fine name, but without Parseltongue, he was nothing.

Then, Dumbledore placed the Sorting Hat on Peverell’s disheveled head.

Tom’s pulse ratcheted up a beat.

Every Slytherin was on high alert, though few showed it: Orion Black was gazing dreamily into the middle distance, as he was wont to do; Walburga Black was knitting a lace doily, of all things, with perfect precision and seemingly unshakeable focus; Lissia Avery was slicing her meatloaf with the attentiveness she always devoted to handling knives and all bladed weapons; Livius Lestrange had his nose in a book on magical ornithology; and Marcellus Mulciber was had the tip of his quill between his teeth as he glowered down at his Potions homework. Only the younger years were unrefined enough to stare, to whisper.

The Gryffindor table was more openly fascinated, nudging each other with their elbows and gossiping loud enough for snatches of their conversations to drift over to Tom: “Ignotus’s descendant, y’think?” “Imagine having the Invisibility Cloak in our House. The pranks we could get up to…” “The Cloak isn’t real, stupid! It’s a fairytale.” “But what if it isn’t?”

TO BE CONTINUED.

You can't leave. I won't let you.

The real reason Tom Riddle got sorted so fast:

Tom Riddle: *finds out Dumbledore is the head of Gryffindor House*

Sorting Hat: Hmm well-

Tom: Not Gryffindor or I will burn you.

Sorting Hat: Yikes! Slytherin it is then!