Afternoon.

Saturday, Sept. 14

Tom Marvolo Riddle hated many things; a pesky mudblood who wouldn’t get out of his way when he had a baby to kill, chief among them.

Another thing Tom Riddle absolutely detested, was that nagging feeling you get in the back of your mind when there was something important you needed to remember but couldn’t.

It was infuriating, and he’d been getting it all morning, ever since that blasted prank had woken him (and what he would do when he found the little shit responsible for that, he thought).

Worst of all, the feeling wasn’t going away. Not even hours later, well into the afternoon.

If this were the old days, before said mudblood had ruined his life (with love, of all things), he would have found some particularly pathetic members of his following and made up some (flimsy) excuse to crucio them. For Riddle did his best thinking while torturing people.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the old days. Riddle only had one readily available servant right now (well, not quite, but that was a trump card he would like to leave up his sleeve), and seeing as he was currently trapped in the head of said follower, torture proved rather difficult.

Not impossible, mind you. Just difficult.

“ARRRGH!” The worm that called itself Quirinus Quirrel screamed as Riddle forced his left elbow to bend backwards until it popped out of its joint.

No, torturing Quirrel wasn’t impossible. Not at all. It simply required some creative use of the complete control Riddle had over the pathetic wizard’s body.

“M-my Lord,” the wizard stuttered, the sudden, sharp pain causing him to not need to fake the speech impediment. “Why? Have I offended you?”

“Silence, worm,” Riddle hissed in his sibilant voice. It was the one upside to his current state; his voice. Riddle liked it. He found it quite suiting.

With Quirinus temporarily quelled, and providing a lovely ambience with his pained whimpering as he cradled his broken arm, Riddle went back to his thinking.

Now, where was he?

Right, he was forgetting something. But what?

Unicorn’s blood? No, it couldn’t be; he still had a few more weeks before he needed that, and even then he knew exactly where to get it. Nothing had changed on that front.

Was it the stone then? Had he maybe heard or seen something important about it that he’d forgotten? Or maybe he’d planned to do something today and had forgotten about it? What even was today’s date?

Being the dimwitted worm he was, Quirinus was naturally unable to follow a simple order for long and so tried to speak again: “M-my Lord, if I have offended you I swear I—”

Riddle dislocated his other elbow.

“ARRRRGH!” The wizard screamed, even louder this time, and Riddle idly thought that it was a fortunate thing they were currently in his servant’s office. This would have been rather conspicuous otherwise.

Office or not though, the wizard’s screaming was getting annoying. He had a high, unpleasant voice. Honestly, it was almost as bad as the rooster from that... morning.

The rooster from that morning; why was it so important?

It had been very annoying, true, and Riddle would like nothing more than to find and crucio the student who had done it, but why did it feel so important to him?

Did he have some sort of plan that involved roosters?

...

No, that was stupid.

But why then? What was so special about roosters that would make its crow stand out to—

It hit him like a lightning bolt.

“My basilisk!”

And somehow, like he’d known, like he was mocking him, Dumbledore’s voice rang out through the castle.

“All students, return to your dormitories this instant. There is potentially a very dangerous magical creature loose in the castle. Know that anyone who willfully disobeys this instruction may very well die a terrible death. Prefects and faculty, please see that no one is left behind.”

“He knew!” Riddle raged. “He knew!”

Because really, what else could explain this?

“My Lord, what—” Quirinus began to ask, but all he did was remind Riddle that he had an easy target for his ire.

In an instant, Tom forced all twenty of Quirinus’ digits the wrong way, finally forcing the hurting wizard into unconsciousness.

*****

Sitting there some hours later, listening as Dumbledore mocked him by admitting that he’d used Potter and his little mudblood harlot to kill his ancestor’s familiar was the final straw.

This would not go unanswered, old man, Riddle decided.

Looks like it was time to use that trump card after all.