Chapter Text
DEAN POV
Dean spun around in shock, finding himself in a weird hallway lined with doors with name plates on them. Did he somehow teleport through that damn diary? He cursed, flipping the safety off of his gun as he studied his unfamiliar surroundings. One second he had been sitting and the other he was just…here. Approaching one door cautiously, he read the name on it…TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE. On top of it, “Wool’s Orphanage”. Raising his eyebrows in surprise, he turned to look at the different name plates on the other doors, and sure enough, there were other names of kids, he assumed. Yeah, definitely kids, given that one door was open just a little to reveal a messy bed with a teddy bear on it.
Turning back to the door in front of him, he stiffened and gripped his gun tighter. Wasn’t Tom Riddle the name Voldemort had before he used that stupid ass name? Deciding that it wouldn’t harm him to get more information,he pushed open the door, blinking in shock at what he saw.
A little boy was lying on the bed, fast asleep, with the blankets pulled up to his head. Dean could only see a head of messy hair poking above the edge of the wooden blanket. The room contained a dresser, closet and a table with a chair, mostly devoid of colour. Hearing footsteps getting louder from the hallway, he quickly ran to hide somewhere, but before he could, someone had just walked through him. Like he was a ghost.
Dean shook off the memories of his first death, of the hospital and his Dad and Tessa the Reaper. He needed to focus, taking deep breaths to calm himself down. He should be completely visible in plain sight, but neither woman nor child noticed him, so he assumed he was both invisible and intangible. Just like a ghost. Great.
He watched curiously as the woman woke the child up, in a way that was a little too rough than Dean would’ve liked, but the boy woke, blinking rapidly. Seeing that the kid was awake, the woman left quickly, presumably to wake the others. From what he could see, Tom was about six, maybe seven, with pale skin, wavy black hair, angelic looking face with baby fat still clinging onto his cheeks. Looking at him sent a pang through his heart, his mind picturing a different face. Brown curly hair, wide brown eyes, chubby cheeks. Six year old Sammy, looking up at him with adoration and love and such trust in his little puppy dog eyes. Wishing that he had a bottle of beer right now, he blinked the memories away quickly, Sam’s face morphing into Tom’s.
God, what was happening to him? That was an evil baby wizard, for fuck’s sake.
Dean shook it off, watching as Tom made his bed automatically when he got up, doing each step like it was rehearsed, like a machine. He frowned as he noticed Tom’s skinny frame. Did they not feed the kids enough here? Looking around the sparse room, his eyes widened when he noticed the date on a calendar pinned to the wall.
24 November 1932
“What the fuck.” He muttered under his breath. Either Dean had travelled back in time and was in a ghost-like state, or this whole thing wasn’t real, or he was in someone’s memories. Most likely Tom’s, since his diary had transported him here somehow and he was seeing him as a kid. All of the options sounded terrible, and he wanted to just be back at the old castle, hugging his fat cat instead of being wherever here was.
He sighed, deciding to find out why he was here instead of wondering what his life even was, not wanting another midlife existential crisis. He had enough of those after Sammy died the first time. Seeing as Tom was making his way out of the room, Dean followed after him.
Just as he took a step out of the doorway, his surroundings faded, turning into a whirlwind of shapes and colours. Looking around him made his eyes hurt, darkness and light blinding him. In the background of this tornado of memories, he could hear a child crying, a woman’s scolding, children playing and other sounds he couldn’t make out.
Tom was here too, as Dean could recognise the aristocratic face structure that he had and his hair was styled the same. He could tell that he was a few years older, as he had lost most of his baby fat and looked more mature. Maybe eleven? Twelve, at the most.
What threw Dean off was that he was wearing a Hogwarts robe, albeit one that had no house colours on it, but it was clearly the Hogwarts uniform nonetheless. He had forgotten that he was a Hogwarts student before he went all crazy and tried to kill a baby. The kids clustered in front of him were also wearing the same uniform, so he assumed that these were first years that had not been sorted into their houses yet.
Tom was looking at the castle with barely concealed awe and…hunger. Like he'd been deprived of something for his whole life. It was an unsettling expression to see on a kid’s face, even though he knew what kind of person that kid would grow up to be.
As the wooden doors opened, Dean was surprised to see Dumbledore. He looked a lot younger, wearing what was a cross between a regular suit and his regular old man(wizard) robes, which looked both stylish and horrendous at the same time. Good to know that he always had a terrible fashion sense. (Not like he could judge, as all he owned was flannel. But still). Younger Dumbledore didn’t look as stressed as he did now, the only lines on his youthful face being smile lines and a few creases on his forehead. His beard was also much shorter and full of colour, a dark reddish brown. His bright blue eyes were still twinkling as usual, so that was definitely Dumbledore.
“I’m Professor Dumbledore, and I’ll be leading you all into the great hall, where you will be sorted into your houses.” His voice echoed strangely, but Dean could still recognise it as Dumblore’s, just more booming and energetic. Man, it was weird hearing the headmaster address himself as a Professor.
Just as he took a step forward to follow the rest of the students, his surroundings faded again, memories flowing past him again. This time though, there was red and green lightning crackling around him, whipping past him and causing him to dodge as it almost hit him.
Dean blinked. Now he was in a bathroom in Hogwarts. Judging from the lack of urinals, he was in the girls’ bathroom. Seriously? Why would one of Tom’s memories be in a girls’ bathroom? He hoped that he wasn’t doing what he suspected he was doing in a girls’ bathroom, or his memory would be severely scarred.
Small sobs from a locked cubicle drew his attention.
It sounded like a girl was crying in one of the stalls, which made him feel bad for the kid. In the few months that he was teaching, Dean had to console so many kids that had broken down, mainly due to either bullying or stress from the work. Rusty had also become an emotional support cat for many children, and they adored him when he would climb on them and let them cry into his soft fur. When he had mentioned that to the other professors, Dean found out that most of the students actually sought him out when they felt sad. He couldn’t help the burst of pride in his chest, that his kids trusted him so much that they went to him. Of course, that had meant that they always appeared at his office at odd hours of the day, looking to chat with him, but he found that he didn’t mind the cheerfulness and boisterous nature of his students.
The sobs slowly receded and the door opened, revealing a girl walking out while rubbing her eyes. She looked like one of the older years, with two long ponytails and bangs, holding a pair of large circular glasses in one hand.
Movement at the corner of his eye made him whip around, looking at the sink as it retracted, revealing a deep hole.
A giant snake slithered out of the hole. WHAT THE FUCK??
Forgetting that he was intangible, he instinctively turned to cover and pull the girl away from the snake, cursing in several ways when his arms passed through the girl like smoke. Dean could only watch in horror and shock as the girl looked up at the snake‘s eyes, her own teary ones widening before they turned grey and she dropped to the floor, completely motionless as stone. Just like the petrified victims. But there was no doubt that this girl wasn’t petrified, she was dead.
Looking back at the giant snake, Dean winced at the sickly yellow eyes that it had. It emanated death, piercing into his soul, even when he wasn’t actually there. Its head looked more like a dragon than the smooth ones of a snake, with ridges and horns. It had spines on its back from what little Dean could see, and its scales were a bright, warning green. The white teeth made him shiver, as it dripped with poison as its tongue flickered out in a low hiss.
Tom stepped up behind the snake, though he was clearly older than the last memory. He was much taller now, his facial features fully formed, making him look mature and grown up. Dean noticed the Prefect’s badge pinned on his robes in surprise, noting the green and silver tie. Slytherin. Tom seemed to frown at the corpse of his classmate, not seemingly worried at all, looking like she was an inconvenience.
He watched incredulously as Tom hissed at the snake, and felt his eyes bulging at the way the snake hissed back. Were they having a conversation? In snake language? Apparently wizards could communicate with snakes. Great.
Dean couldn’t help but wonder if he could learn to talk to Rusty before shaking that thought away. He needed to concentrate.
He watched warily as the snake disappeared back down the hole before following after it, taking a deep breath before sliding down the hole. Landing on a pile of bones, he groaned. “That’s fucking disgusting.” Dean just thanked god that it wasn’t human bones but animal bones. Looking around, he assumed that he was in the school’s sewer system and the snake was nowhere to be found.
Getting up quickly, he walked down a dark tunnel, with creepy snake statues lining the walls. The passage led to a wide cavern, with a large, menacing statue of a wizard’s head at the end. Based on the whole secret passage and the snake decor, Dean knew this was probably the Chamber of Secrets, the room he had been searching for months. No wonder he couldn’t find it, when the entrance was in a malfunctioning girls’ toilet inhabited by a wailing and temperamental ghost.
Wait a minute. Dean had never really gotten a proper look at the ghost that was usually in the second floor bathroom, but he would bet Baby that it was the same girl who he had seen die earlier.
Just as he came into that realisation, the world around him distorted and his back hit something hard. Grunting in pain, he opened his eyes, sighing in relief at seeing his room again. Rusty yowled loudly, rubbing his furry body against Dean, licking his face.
“Sorry for scaring ya, buddy.” Dean smiled, scratching Rusty on his small head, holding him in the crook of his arm.
Standing up and rubbing his back, he noticed that the diary on his desk was open, but filled with gouges and scratches. Glancing at the scraps of paper in between Rusty’s claws, it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened.
“Thanks for dragging me outta there.” Dean took a treat out of his pocket, feeding it to Rusty with a grateful smile.