First Day of School, Room of Requirement, and Hunting the Basilisk.
Waking up in the Hufflepuff dorms for the first time was an experience. The warmth of the crackling fireplace in the room, and the fluffiness of the furry blankets they had provided him tempted him to fall right back asleep. At least if not for one of the other students poking him in the arm, even going so far as to shake him a little to wake him up for breakfast.
He was somewhat glad they did, because he didn't want to miss his first day of classes for the world. It was absolutely imperative that he show up on time and make a good impression on both Professor Flitwick and Professor Snape, because they had much to teach, and he had much to learn.
Professor Flitwick was a master at many styles of dueling from all across the world, and Professor Snape was the most distinguished potion master from Britain in the modern age. Tom would be a fool not to make use of such amazing teachers, no matter what he thought of them from the books, or his personal experiences from the real world.
Besides, Snape seemed much more likeable than his canon book counterpart, and he had yet to talk with Flitwick, so he most definitely needed to temper his immediate reactions to and expectations of them for his future interactions. It would be better to get to know them properly first, after all.
As soon as he was up, showered, and dressed, he made his way down to the Hufflepuff common room. The low ceiling he previously hadn't paid much mind to seemed to shift with each passerby, allowing them to stand to full height while still allowing the various plants hanging above to help brush and comb their hair for them while they walked. Various cacti danced and waved in the sunny, brightly colored room as the students passed them by. Even the various rugs and furs seemed to have a special charm on them that made them extremely comfortable to lay on, especially when there were no couches or high tables to sit at to do your work on at that moment.
The dorms were not separated by year or by gender, but rather each student got a full-sized bed for themselves, and special privacy curtains they could pull around it that let out no sound or light, so that everyone could sleep peacefully even while feeling a sense of comradery and belonging. It was a veritable paradise for those who happened to enjoy any sort of socialization and friendship. And the fact that they had fresh mugs of coffee, tea, and surprisingly butterbeer for the morning — set out with plates of donuts and breakfast wraps — made Tom wonder how the house wasn't filled with morbidly obese children by the end of each year.
Still, he was quick to grab himself a coffee and a donut, as they had about half an hour before Professor Sprout came to guide them back to the Great Hall for breakfast. After that, they would be off to start their classes.
Well, at least he would have more time to read a few chapters from his Potions textbook. That would help a lot for the coming day.
~~~~
Charms class was the first class of the day, and it had started with a bang. Quite literally, in fact.
When they were told to make the end of their wands glow with a simple light charm, one of the students managed to overpower their wand so much that it actually exploded in his hands! Of course, Tom was still recovering from being right next to that when Professor Flitwick called for the resident healer to come check them over for any injuries.
It only took a few moments in his mind for her to arrive and begin to check them all over. She declared that besides the person whose wand literally exploded in their hands, they would all recover on their own in a few minutes. At least, provided no one else decided to dump the entirety of their daily magic capacity into a light spell, in an attempt to use a wand that was both poorly maintained and unsuited to them.
The poor Slytherin boy looked thoroughly embarrassed, as if he had been shamed to the greatest degree he had ever been in his life, or if his ancestors were looking down on him with disgust. He didn't seem too terribly injured himself either, having all of the splinters removed from his hand in moments, along with some healing salve placed on it with a bandage for the day.
"I don't know what you were thinking using your grandfather's wand, especially not in that condition Mister Macmillan, but such things are not good for your continued health and wellbeing!" Madame Pomfrey told him with a sharp glare. It was her duty to make sure students didn't injure themselves permanently while practicing magic within Hogwarts, so it was within her rights to be stern and angry with him.
"Sorry Miss Pomfrey. It won't happen again," the boy told her with a groan, clearly having learned his lesson about trying to force an uncooperative wand to work for him.
Tom knew he had learned something valuable that day himself. He would need to be careful when he looked for a new wand for himself to get around the magical tracing they must be capable of.
"I would hope not! If you managed to do such a thing a second time, with a proper wand, then something is seriously wrong, and we would need to find out what managed to curse you on your first day at Hogwarts!" Madame Pomfrey told the poor boy, her voice only slightly lowered in volume compared to before. Her graying hair seemed to get just that much more gray as she looked over him, but eventually, she gave him a pass to leave the school for a new wand, and decided everyone else was fit to carry on with the lesson.
"The rest of them should be fine to continue, Filius," she told the half-goblin teacher with a smile, tapping her wand against her thigh as she stood before his desk with cocked hips. "Just be careful not to cause permanent damage by demonstrating an overly bright Lumos Maximus in the class so soon after the last attempt at magic and they should be fine."
"Very well then. Perhaps we should move on to something a little less traumatic while we recover?" the old half-goblin asked with a cheery grin. He certainly seemed excitable and ready to teach at any moment. It was actually quite fun for Tom.
For the rest of the class that day, Professor Flitwick had the first years practicing making a feather float above their desk.
~~~~
Professor Snape was an interesting teacher. His method of teaching seemed harsh at first glance, but it really was necessary. "…And tell me, Mister Harry. What is the common name of the potion called Felix Felicis, and two ingredients involved in its making?" he asked with a small smirk, as if he had full confidence that Tom would be able to answer it.
The young boy nodded and began to recite what he knew from memory. "Finely ground gold dust and vodka help make the common variant of the Luck potion. There is a more potent version, but the ingredients are regulated harshly and the full-strength version is a banned substance in Britain."
Once he was done, Snape looked at him with appraising eyes, an eyebrow raised to show how impressed he was. "Very good, Mister Harry. Ten points to Hufflepuff for actually reading the first years recommended reading for the first week of school, unlike some I can mention," he looked around the classroom, a dark expression on his face as he eyed the ones who couldn't even be bothered to read through the rather short section in the very beginning of their book that would tell them everything he needed to know for what Snape would ask them.
Honestly, it was a wonder that any of them had managed to even find the classroom, as the Gryffindor students that had been assigned to the same timeslot as them for that class were very much not willing to do the required amount of reading. Something that would have taken the average child fifteen minutes at the absolute most. It almost made him wonder if any of them had ever gone to a non-magical school in their lives, or so much as picked up a proper book before coming to the school, because that was kind of ridiculous.
At the very least, however, the rest of the Potions class was mostly uneventful due to him being paired with the most idiotic and lazy of the group. He managed to simply force the boy to properly watch their measurements with the looming threat of their cauldrons exploding violently on them on their very first assignment, and how embarrassing that would be.
Needless to say, the boy listened well, and they got through it just fine. He would definitely have preferred to be working with Charlie, however. The Weasley seemed to have it well in hand, at least.
Perhaps next time he could ask to join him instead? It might be worth a shot to at least try. Would certainly be better for his longevity.
At least classes were done for the day, which meant it was time to find the most essential part of his plan: the Room of Requirement.
~~~~
"Seventh floor hallway, directly opposite of the tapestry of an idiot teaching trolls to dance," Tom noted to himself as he walked back and forth in front of said tapestry, thinking strongly of his need to access the private study room of the main character from Hogwarts Legacy. A game he had played in his last life when he heard how Silvervale, his favorite Vtuber, was nearly cancelled entirely simply for playing the game.
He never understood why people gave the series such hate, going so far as to literally buy J.K Rowling's books, paying massive amounts of money for multiple copies of special editions of her work — only to burn them all out of spite. The author was still making money off such things, and clearly didn't care how people treated their own property because it was still making her money either way, but people were oddly insistent about it nonetheless.
As a direct result, the game was treated as if it was the most evil thing in existence, despite having quite literally nothing to do with the author. People might have been right about her having political agendas, or being a right bitch of a person towards quite a few different groups of people, but the way people treated her didn't help matters at all, and in fact, only helped spread the hate for the groups J.K. was so adamantly against.
As he focused on his internal tangent, he noticed that the door to the Room of Requirement had appeared, so he headed in right away, only to come face to face with a debate club made entirely of old paintings that seemed to argue over things at exceedingly loud volumes. Needless to say, Tom sighed and left the room to begin pacing again. He realized from that incident that he would definitely need to have a clear image of what he wished from the room, lest it give him something that would only cause an annoyance or worse: a migraine.
After calming his inner fanboy for the series and his old man sensibilities, Tom paced back and forth in the hallway yet again, keeping a clear image in his mind of what he absolutely needed the room to have. A room he could study in, that had all of the required tools and equipment needed to learn the various things he desired, and that held additional rooms within that had access to a reserve for magical beasts and a magical garden he could use for his own purposes, just like in Hogwarts Legacy. He would certainly need to populate it himself, he figured, but it would most definitely allow him the tools and equipment he needed to perform safe extraction of the materials he wished for.
When the door next appeared, he opened it with an expectant grin, hoping it would be as interesting and filled out as he thought it would be. And yes, in fact, not only did it achieve that, it even exceeded his expectations.
Just within the Room of Requirement was a study filled with various books and study materials for his perusal in what amounted to a massive library. It was well lit, and filled with countless topics that he could choose from by calling for a book near the desk, which had the largest catalogue he had ever seen in either of his lives.
Before he could get too caught up in that, he noticed a hallway connected to several doors, all of which were clearly labelled, and one of which specifically led to the room he wanted to check most: The storage room for all the automatically harvested ingredients.
After a moment's hesitation, he opened the door to see the aisles of neatly stacked and organized boxes absolutely filled to the brim with all the magical reagents and ingredients he could have ever needed, all labelled and charmed with preservation spells so that they wouldn't go bad. It had everything, from harvested Dittany, Mallowsweet and Mandrake, Knotgrass, Chinese Chomping Cabbage, the room had it all.
He knew as he looked through the catalogue that all of the potion ingredients needed to make any of the potions taught at Hogwarts — and quite a few that most certainly were not — could be found within the room for him to use. And in such quantities that it would be hard to run out if he spent a thousand years trying to go through all of it without receiving any more, let alone if the production continued at such a prodigious rate.
That was not even getting into the sheer amount of magical creature ingredients that was available to him in those boxes. Puffskein fur, Fwooper feather, Graphorn horn, Unicorn hair, Toad warts, Phoenix feathers — there was no end to the list of magical creature parts that had been harvested and preserved for him to make use of.
With a bright smile, Tom laughed a little at his fortune. "This is insane. Absolute madness," he said as he took in all the things he had available to him at that very moment.
There was only one thing that he needed to check. Was there a time turner in the magical artifact room, or would he need to find another way to get one? He certainly hoped it would be available for him. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to research occlumency from the books the school had to offer instead of the one he had purchased.
Tom would have asked Professor Snape if the book was legitimate, but he decided to wait for a moment or two. Simply because he felt as though he needed to provide some decent results in Potions class before he asked for anything more from the man. To prove that he was worth helping out, above all other students. He really wanted to get Snape on his side, if only so he could learn from such a high-level master at potion crafting and creation.
It was the same thing that drove his desire to ask Professor Flitwick for extra lessons and more things to practice in his free time. He hoped that by doing so, he could potentially find himself learning so much more from the reigning dueling champion of the world. One who remained undefeated according to the books he'd read, even in his old age.
Plans he had made were coming to fruition, and he needed to make sure that no one else could see his plans and adjust accordingly without him noticing. Which was why when he checked the artifact room and found that yes, it did have a Time Turner ready for him as soon as he walked in the door, he smiled even harder.
There was no way that he wasn't going to make use of this. But first, he would snag one of the magical automatically setting watches in the room, so that he could better keep track of time. It wouldn't do to have a Time Turner and use it frequently, only to accidentally run into himself in the washroom, now would it?
~~~~
After using the Time Turner to make the most use of his time reading the books in the Room of Requirement all day, Tom realized that he was tired and hungry, and that he should probably get something to drink before he passed out from dehydration during class. Considering his dorms were just down the hall from the Hogwarts kitchens — and he already knew how to get in — he made his way down to them, tickling the pear for entry into the most delicious smelling room in the castle.
Immediately upon entry, he was beset upon by worried house elves, all of whom were extremely distressed at how little care he had shown for his own health and wellbeing. "Young Master Tom! We was worried sick about yous. We saws you working all day with no drinks or snacks, but wes couldn't come unless called!" the poor head house elf cried at Tom while they worked to offer him food and drink until he legitimately felt like he was going to be sick from overeating.
"Sorry, my bad, but I can't keep eating and drinking right now. If I eat any more, I'll definitely get sick," he told them with a light groan. At least at that point they seemed to realize he was full and stopped, however.
"Sorry Young Master Tom! Wes just were worried about yous a lot!" the main elf claimed. It was quite clear that they cared this much about literally everyone in the castle, which was quite interesting in his eyes.
Though he did have one question that would likely help him immensely in his quest before the end of the day. "So, if I was to call for you, what kinds of things can I call you for?" he asked with an easy grin, the interest in his eyes plain to see for all the elves.
"Well, as long as it wonts cause any harm to the students or staffs, we's will bring you things that can help yous in your tasks, clean up after yous, and even tell yous of places out of the way to study and trains!"
"Well, that's pretty good to know," Tom responded thoughtfully. "What about potentially doing a bit of buying and selling of potions and ingredients, along with some magical artifacts in my stead? Can you do that discreetly without letting anyone know?" he asked with a curious gaze, his mind wandering to the various things stored in the Room of Requirement.
The house elf shook their head, knowing that it was not something they could do based on their contract. "You needs a personal house elf for that, Young Master Tom. We can'ts help with things that aren't related to Hogwarts, and we can't keeps it a secret." It was rather unfortunate, but it looked as though he would need to properly find himself a house elf for hire.
"Very well then. And how would I go about acquiring a house elf of my own?" Tom asked, his gaze never shifting from the rather helpful little elf. If he could have one of them, he could achieve quite a lot more in his daily tasks.
Blinking, the house elf seemed to collect itself for a moment before telling him exactly what he wanted to know. It likely wasn't something that came up often based on its reaction. "Alls yous gots to do is ask Headmaster Dumbledore if you wants to buys the contracts. When you finds one that's willing, that is."
Tom took note that while it didn't seem offended, there might be a bit more to the contract than he initially thought. It was almost as if such a thing was considered a major undertaking, based on how the elf seemed extremely surprised by it. Perhaps the house elf was even a little put off.
As he thought about how he would go approaching the house elves about the prospect of working for him despite this, Tom noticed something odd, and felt a wave of slight disgust fill his entire being. "Is that one using his feet to tenderize the meat for tonight's dinner?" he asked the head elf with a groan.
"Yes, that's hows we does it here, why?" the head elf asked with a strange expression, as if she had no idea what to make of his question. It was clear to Tom that he'd need to explain this gently, so as to not cause any problems.
"Can you make sure that any of the food I receive does not touch feet at all? It's just a personal preference of mine," Tom requested as politely as he could, his eye twitching from the sheer lack of proper hygiene involved in such a practice.
"Of course, Young Master Tom. We'll sets some asides for yous then!" the head house elf nodded rapidly, its long ears flapping wildly as they all stared at him with their big, bulbous eyes. They seemed rather enthused that they were getting a special request for dinners from one of the students, even if — or perhaps because — it made more work for them.
Tom nodded in return, his blue eyes scanning around the room to make sure everything else was properly made instead of being mishandled in such a way. "Thanks, I really appreciate it," he told them after a moment, meaning every last word.
"Yous don't have to thanks us!" one cried from the corner of the room, with all of the others seeming to join in right after. It took him another half an hour to convince them that he was only being polite, as that was how he was raised, and that he wanted to keep doing it without them feeling bad about it.
After all, didn't hard work deserve praise?
~~~~
Upon exiting the Hogwarts kitchens for the night, Tom began to wonder about the Basilisk. It was an extremely dangerous foe, one that could move throughout the castle with ease despite its massive size.
… It could get through the castle, where he had seen no pipe entrances at any point for it to get in and out of, with no real effort. And hid from the various staff members without issue. A Basilisk. The giant fucking murder snake that could and would kill you just by looking at you.
The thing must have had secret invisible doors to get through, since even if the pipes could enlarge themselves, there were no clear entrances and exits anywhere in the castle…
Yeah nope. That thing needed to die. Right the fuck now.
Ducking back into the kitchen for a moment, he put aside his immediate distaste for asking for any form of help and with a groan, did just that. "Hey, can I get a live rooster to kill the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets with? It's kind of important to the safety and wellbeing of the students," he asked with a pained and somewhat tired expression.
"… I was waiting for someone to ask that of us for a long time," a distinguished voice called out from the shadows of the kitchen. Stepping into the light, a house elf with a magnificently trimmed goatee smirked, making his way closer to speak with Tom directly.
"We couldn't act without permission, you see, but such a thing is quite simple for us to take care of on your behalf, if you would ask for it," he articulated politely but with a strong sense of pride in his eloquence written plainly on his face.
"Alright. Can you go kill the basilisk for me?" Tom asked with a small yawn. "It's for the safety of the students, and the materials that can be gathered."
"Of course, Young Master Tom," the house elf grinned at him with a bow. "Consider it done."
"Just bring the materials up to the Room of Requirement when you're done killing and rendering it, I guess?" Tom asked, not truly certain what to make of the house elf. Well, to be honest with himself, if the House Elf was willing to help, why not make use of it?
"Alright, I'll be off to bed if you'll do that then," Tom sighed, hoping that this would work out just fine in the end. "I'll check the Room of Requirement in the morning to see if I can use any of it right away. Maybe the Skin?"
The house elf nodded to him with a small smile. It was quite interesting to see the tiny being trying his best to help in his own way. "It would be fine to use the skin, but you shouldn't play with the venom until at least third year. That's when you start needing such things for potions in any case, Young Master Tom."
"What can I call you?" Tom asked, deciding he'd like to talk with this one a bit more in the future. It was only natural to be interested in seemingly the one house elf that spoke properly in the castle.
"You can call me Larry," he told Tom with a grin. "I'll be seeing you, as soon as you call for me, Young Master Tom."
Tom smiled in return, yawning lightly as he turned to leave. "Alright. Goodnight."
Within the hour, Tom had made his way back to his room, and after a quick shower, got in his bed and drifted off to sleep. Perhaps he should make time to nap during his Time Turner sessions, in order to avoid crashing as easily, but he would consider that fully once he was rested.
After all, he had been awake for possibly an entire extra day despite the need to rest. Maybe it would be a good idea to take naps using the Time Turner as well?
~~~~
AN:
Kitsu: I got the 6th chapter done! Took a bit because I wanted to make sure Asdo21 was okay with it.
Asdo: Bit of a slowish chapter, but it is only over the course of a single day with most of it being classes, so I feel it can be excused right people? Again, if you got any feedback, just direct or tag me in the post so I can respond to you without missing it.
Kitsu: This one was finished on December 1st! Isn't that crazy?
Almost Christmas time for me. Anyone up for buying me a peppermint mocha so I can remember this day fondly? Aiko Akiyoshi's Carrd!
EN:
Kitsu: It do be edited! And it's no longer Christmas!
Also, yes, Tom got it wrong about the basilisk. He would need to look at it himself to actually die. Unfortunately, I was dead tired at the dead of the night absolutely dead in brainpower when I wrote it, and don't want to rewrite. So now it's canon that he was also braindead for a minute there when he was crashing just as hard as I was.
TheLetter_A: It is indeed edited. I legit don't know what else to put here, so I'll just mention that the weather's been lovely recently around where I live. I've been taking some time to go out cycling while I'm not busy with other things.
Oh, yeah, nearly forgot. I'm on Kitsu's Discord, so if you want me to edit your work, feel free to contact me there. If you somehow manage to find me elsewhere, feel free to contact me there as well. Can't be bothered posting the kofi link, so I'll just say that it's somewhere on Kitsu's Carrd.
Kitsu: It's also on his channel on the server, so you can literally just talk to him and ask him for it there! Find us at https:// aiko akiyoshi . carrd . co/ for some shenanigans! I do commissions there!
Thanks for reading and stay fluffy!