A Magical Journey Begins

Teacher's Pet

After that first Potions Class, it was very clear Slughorn had taken a shine to Tom, much to the annoyance of the Gryffindors and the jealousy of some of the Slytherins. Tom was just proud at how well he was doing. Not only at Potions, but also at Charms, Transfiguration, Astronomy and DADA. In fact, he only had trouble with Herbology and flying. During their first flying class, he couldn't even get his broom off the ground, and to make it worse, he had the class with Gryffindor.

At the moment, he was studying on his own in the common room. He would have gone with Gwen and Octavian, but they had been strung along with their family for the day. Septimus and Clara Weasley had pulled them out of the library, giving Tom the evil eye as they did. Knowing Gryffindors, they'd most likely spent the rest of the day telling his two friends that Slytherins were bad and they shouldn't talk to him.

"Hello!"

Tom jumped up at the sudden voice next to him and looked up to find Artemis Black smiling down at him. The boy cocked his head in curiosity at the girl. Neither of the Black's had tried to talk to him at all during the past three weeks school was already going on. He wondered what reason she had to come to talk to him now.

"We were just going to study Charms a bit, and Hope was maybe hoping if you wanted to join us," she said, blushing a bit.
"We noticed you're always on your own or with those Weasleys."

"And you felt bad for me?" Tom asked dryly.
"Don't worry, your treatment is nothing unusual."

He looked back down on his papers. He was about halfway on his Charms essay already. Another half hour and he'd be done. He heard the girl sigh and shuffle a bit on her place. Scowling annoyed, he looked back up at her, glaring.

"I don't need your pity," he told her harshly.

The girl stopped fidgeting and glared at Tom. Her hands were on her hips as her eyes and her hair suddenly turned red. It grew several inches straight upwards, making it look like fire. Tom stared at the sudden change in shock, having entirely forgotten she and her brother could do that. He still didn't know how they did it either, he realized annoyed.

"I don't do pity!" Artemis hissed at him.
"And for your information, neither does Hope! So you get off your lazy arse and bloody join us!"

With that, she turned around, sticking her nose in the air as she went. Tom stared as her appearance slowly bled back to what it had been before. Sighing in defeat, he packed his books together and followed her towards the little group of five sitting together. Artemis had retaken her seat between Hope and Alphard, with Malfoy sitting on Hope's other side and Seth sitting next to him. Not looking at any of them, he sat down next to Alphard Black and pulled out his quill again.

"Glad you could join us, Tom," Hope said smiling.

"Careful, Hope. I think Riddle is allergic to nice gestures," Artemis said snarky, glaring at Tom.

Tom glared right back and put his quill back down.

"You were the one ignoring me for the past three weeks," he pointed out annoyed.

"I'm sorry, I must have missed you approaching us," the dark haired girl growled in reply.
"It's a two way street you know. You pretty much ignored us too!"

That did it to shut Tom up of course. She was right, and that surprised Tom maybe the most of all. He had never been wrong before, but he couldn't fault them for not coming to him if he never went to them either. Damn her for making actual sense!

"Did you two already have an argument?" Hope asked surprised.
"I just asked you to invite him over to our study group!"

"Don't blame me! He said he 'didn't want any pity from us'!" Artemis shot back.