Chapter Text
There’s something distinctly cult-like to all the muggle studies students. They cluck their tongues at students who don’t take the elective and call them “poor things.” Every single student taking muggle studies has a tell-tell harried look about them, a fanatical gleam in their eyes, and superiority clinging to the fabric of their clothes.
Muggle-borns not taking the class often protest assertions from students that, “Muggle Studies is easily the hardest class at Hogwarts!”
A sixth-year muggle-born, Tawny Dingle says, “It can’t be if you already know about muggles! I mean what do you learn, what electricity is?”
Her sixth-year friend, a Hufflepuff who Tom Riddle never learned the name of, asserts, “Not just what it is, but how it works! We’re terribly behind you see, we were supposed to have learned about circuits ages ago and we can only take two days for science so we’ll never catch up. Harry’s just teaching us the very basics about Eddison, Tesla, and Alternating Current because what we really ought to be learning is Biology. Do you know why we need to breathe?”
Tom’s nose crinkles in distaste. Muggle-Studies is NOT supposed to garner this kind of fervor. He needs to know what is happening inside that classroom. Harry Potter, the new professor with wild black hair and emerald eyes somehow managed to get muggle studies into a two-hour daily class with optional evening sections and students keep showing up and Tom’s had eight of his Slytherin students beg him to get them into the class. And Potter lets students call him Harry and he wears distressed jeans, v-neck cable-knit sweaters, and combat boots and is easily cool. Which is NOT what Muggle-Studies professors are supposed to be. It is an affront to Tom who unto the arrival of Harry Potter was the favourite professor.
Tom needs to be able to get into one of Harry’s classes. For Observation. Of Course.
Dingle blinks, wide-eyed, “Why do we need to breathe? I know that. I mean yeah, to live.”
“But why does breathing help us live?” The Hufflepuff pushes.
“Oxygen?”'
“And what does Oxygen do?”
Dingle bows her head, “I don’t know.”
The Hufflepuff adjusts her robes with the air of someone self-satisfied. “Of course you don’t. You’re not taking Muggle-Studies. But to put you out of your miserable ignorance, it’s because during aerobic cellular respiration, the glucose you store from food reacts in a chain ending with oxygen which produces Adenosine Triphosphate which is used as energy for all your living processes.”
Tom Riddle frowns. He thinks of himself as being rather brilliant and he understands almost nothing from what the young Hufflepuff just said.
A Slytherin hears the exchange and says, “Well, I heard Potter’s a squib.”
A third-year who clearly has also taken Muggle-Studies stands up and shouts, “And what if he is?”
This interests Tom greatly and for the next week, he spends all his time observing Harry Potter. The professor seems to own six different sweaters and three pairs of pants. Whenever it’s foggy, the man will head to the kitchen and grab a slab of bleeding, juicy meat, thank crying houselves, and disappear to somewhere around the Quidditch pitch.
Harry never uses magic. Not for grading papers (which he does with a pen on a notebook!), not for heating his tea, not for cleaning himself off. He may indeed be a squib. Disappointing and surprising. Tom cannot recruit him for later purposes. Yet… Tom cannot help but be impressed by how the man has managed to become so important to Hogwarts despite lacking magic.
Harry Potter catches Tom following him one evening on his way to a class and flashes a bright smile.
“Ah! Tom, would you like to sit it in my class today?”
Tom initially begins a polite refusal, “I’d have to refu–,” but looking into Harry’s (when did he become Harry?) sparkling eyes and remembering his desire to learn what exactly goes on in the muggle studies classes, he says, “Actually, yes. That would be excellent.”
Harry falls into step with Tom and they walk side-by-side to the muggle-studies classroom. The interior is filled with potted plants and wooden tables with sofas around them and a large blackboard.
Harry settles himself comfortably sitting atop a desk at the front of the room. He pats the space beside and Tom sits down on the indicated spot stiffly. Harry’s thighs are firm yet soft and he smells nice – like lemon with a hint of sandalwood.
Tom’s face feels warm for reasons he cannot quite discern.
“You’re here for my favorite class,” Harry says, voice warm and soft and sweet. Heat pools in the bottom of Tom’s belly as Harry’s breath ghosts over his ears. “IB Economics with the seventh years.”
The students filter in, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed which they SHOULD NOT BE for an after-dinner optional course. They should be dead behind their eyes and drooping onto their desks. (Merlin knows sometimes kids fall asleep even in Tom's exciting Dark Arts lessons, and yet not a single child in Harry's class looks even remotely tired. Something is off here, something is very very wrong.) Harry peels off his sweater, revealing a tight grey shirt beneath.
For no reason at all, Tom wants to shrink Harry’s discarded sweater down and put it in his pocket.
Harry stands and Tom gets an excellent view of a well-muscled slim back and round bottom. Not that he is noticing such things.
“The defense professor is joining us today in order to learn what we do, and I expect you all on your best behaviour. Where we last left our heroes we were discussing money theory, now can anyone tell me the money multiplier?”
“One over the reserve ratio!” The class choruses.
“And what is the problem with banks in the Wizarding World?”
“They do not have a reserve ratio,” one student says.
Harry nods encouragingly. “Someone else, expand on that.”
Another student says, “They don’t have one because they don’t actually lend money out. They just keep gold in vaults.”
“Good, Avery,” Harry praises. Tom wants to lock up the word “Good,” from Harry’s lips and keep it forever. “One could say that Gringotts isn’t a bank so much as a storage facility. Keep going, class. Look at your notes if you must.”
“Ah!” A Gryffindor student yells out, one of the Blacks. “It keeps the wizarding world stagnant. There’s no way for the money supply to increase so growth is almost impossible and it makes resources perpetually scarce.”
Tom feels his head start to spin.
“Thank you for that wonderful reading of your notes, Sirius. Precisely. Which is why you all will change that. We’re going to bring a true financial system to this country and we’re going to do it together. We’re going to create growth. But we only have eight months until you sit for your IB exams and we are already much too behind. Today we will be reviewing the impact of taxes on GDP and if you are very good, we may be able to begin on inflation next week. Tomorrow, we change the world.”
There is a collective cheer from the class. Harry begins to speak and write things on the board and Tom sits on the desk entirely convinced that Harry has managed to start a cult. As a squib no less! It is all rather concerning, but Harry makes so many compelling points Tom begins to think that Harry may be on to something.
For no reason at all, Tom sits next to Harry at the high table for meals for the next few weeks. The division between those taking Muggle-Studies and those not continues to grow. And then, three months into the term, a Patronus in the shape of a Phoenix delivers a message to Harry, “Fawkes would like to see you,” intones Dumbledore’s voice.
Harry releases a deep sigh and says, “Expecto Patronum,” and a brilliant stag bursts forth from his wand.
NOT A SQUIB! Tom’s mind immediately supplies. POWERFUL WIZARD WHO IS HOT AND SMART, it also supplies.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there,” Harry says in a put-upon tone.
Tom Riddle has never once desired legitimate companionship, but as he watches the stag gallop away, he thinks, “This could really be the beginning of something.”