There were days you woke up and knew instinctively you should hide in your bed.

Tom knew those days well.

There were days you woke up happily, remembered what was scheduled and then wanted to hide in your bed.

Tom knew those days, too.

Finally, there were days in the year that always went wrong, usually marked with a bloody skull on the calendar.

Tom knew those days too well. Luckily, his roommates thought the bloody skull was a contribution to Halloween.

Of all the days in the year, the 31th of October was the worst. He hated the date. He abhorred it. Halloween was like a concentrate of a week's worth detention with Snape while Looby brewed potions next to him and Dumbledore twinkling at him with disappointed, suspicious eyes, while knowing that Bellatrix would try to get you fuck her later.

"Why are you so grumpy? It´s Halloween!" Harry asked him cheerfully but with a hint concern.

Tom grunted something unintelligible.

"Mr Potter, please pay attention!" Minerva reprimanded him for the tenth time. Tom nodded absently and doodled another exploding cauldron on his notes. The last time he had been in school he drew the design of the Dark Mark, but that would be kind of suspicious. Just a little bit.

If he only knew which one here was after the philosopher´s stone, he would have gotten rid of that problem. The protections were laughable, first years could overtake them, literally, as long as Dumbledore was out of the way. It could be everyone. Somehow, despite doing the classwork practically in sleep, he had forgotten the task of finding out what was happening. He forgot. He! He never forgot anything! Never!

Only now he had. And he had the gloomy feeling it would come back and bite his ass. He silently decided that he would get the damn stone if only to ensure that nobody else could cause him problems with it or endanger Harry. He did not see a reason why this should happen (his Death Eaters knew that he had the dibs on killing Harry) but then again, nobody if not he knew what a trouble magnet his little brother was.
Better to bring all mysterious, megalomaniac attracting artefacts out of reach.

Plus, on the upside, it wasn't as if he couldn't think of a use for the philosopher´s stone.

First though, unfortunately, he had to live through Halloween. To be more precise, he had to make sure that Harry lived through Halloween. Not for the first time he wished he had a pensive. Something rather important had happened the first time around, only that that was about seventeen years ago from his point of view. Between then and now Harry had caused him so many near-heart-attacks for either not dying when he was supposed to and him consequently throwing a hissy fit or lately for nearly dying and… well, he still threw a hissy fit, but for other reasons. The point was that all the adrenaline had obviously affected his memory.

On one hand he knew that whatever had happened was probably caused due to him possessing Quirrell. On the other hand he had a really, really queasy feeling that just would not go away.

The feast was… nice. Tom had nearly forgotten how nice Halloween in Hogwarts could be, if you weren't busy creating havoc in order to obtain world domination. The decoration was for once tasteful. He made a mental note to congratulate Flitwick to his pumpkins. At least three of his classmates had nearly soiled themselves already.
Harry was practically bouncing on his place, while he chattered excitedly with his two sidekicks. That only affirmed Tom´s theory that some people were just meant to be together, no matter which upbringing. Though he had only known Potter from the teacher´s perspective and maybe a little bit biased at the time, he was sure his brother was different from the one back then. Still, the three of them were friends.

He continued watching the Gryffindors deep in thought, while ignoring blondie´s snide comments about the feast. Spoilt, degenerated brat he was. Tom had had spent quite some time figuring out what to do with the Slytherins. He had to admit he had rather liked the attention he got the first time around. On the other hand he could feel Dumbledore´s eyes on him every so often and Snape, too, seemed to watch him. Additionally he had still troubles with pretending to be a child, probably because he never had a childhood. While living at the Dursleys´ was admittedly a lot better than growing up in an orphanage during the Second World War, he slipped into a father/brother role for Harry instead of being a child himself.
So he was wary of antagonizing his classmates and outing himself as too mature. Instead he mostly kept for himself, that is, as long as Harry allowed him to. What was it with the Gryffindors and all the hugging? The Lord Voldemort part of his personality rolled in his grave.

As if on cue sidekick two embraced a very flustered (though more the girls have cooties flustered, not the girls have breasts flustered) sidekick one. Then, for good measure, she hugged Harry, too. Tom couldn't help himself but let his eyes wander over his house. Rigid backs, carefully chosen words, calculating looks. For the most part, at any rate, since Malfoy was sprouting rubbish as usual and his clique of sycophants was fawning over him. But still, who had made the rule that the ambitious weren't allowed to hug each other?

Not that he wanted to be coddled! Not at all!

He scanned the teachers´ table and found no one missing. Snape was seated between Trelawney and Quirell. Tom almost felt pity. Almost. The git was still unbearable, but Harry had forbidden him any other retribution, though lately he got contemplating looks from his little brother. No, Snape wasn't doing himself a favour.

So far everything seemed to be playing out well. Maybe he had worried for naught…

As fate played it games, just then a deafening noise echoed through the hall. As one teachers and students jumped, wands ready. Frightened screams priced the air, as pupils jumped up to see what was going on. Tom tried to see his brother in the chaos, but to no avail. A roar and another blow only fuelled the panic.
In return Tom remembered the event. Mountain troll. Right. Thank you very much, brain, for supplying the information now. Growling he pushed and occasionally hexed his way through the pupils. The teacher could deal with the troll, but he had to make sure his idiot brother was out of danger.

Fuck his luck that on Halloween a bloody mountain troll had found its way to the castle. He vaguely remembered letting the thing in as a distraction. Bloody hell! How could he forget a twelve something feet high stinking monster? Admittedly there had been bigger ones in his life, but still…

The doors of the Great Hal banged open. Simultaneously, a thunder of spells deafened Tom´s ears, while everyone with a wand (who were quite many, considering the place) started firing into the vague direction of the doors. The explosion shook the castle walls, which miffed Tom quite a bit. After all, the only one to manage that had been him, so far. Or in the future.
His mood was fell further, when he just caught himself before summoning an umbrella (which was by any means not a first year spell) as bits and pieces of mountain troll rained down on the horrified pupils. Not that he hadn't been covered in more disgusting stuff over the years – with a shudder Tom remembered the ingredients of his rebirth ritual, what the hell had compelled him to use Wormtails flesh, of all his useless minions? – but the last eleven years had been pleasantly bloodless. Pleasantly, at least, concerning the laundry.

He shook his head and whipped of a particularly big troll piece, before looking for his brother. It was considerably easier, now that right and left children fainted. Harry, he noted enviously, had a lot more luck with his position. Apart from a few blood streaks on his shirt he looked relatively neat, though his expression was oddly pensive. In fact, he stood perfectly still within the chaos.

"Tom?" he said very calm, when said one approached.

Tom froze in his tracks. Shouldn't Harry be kind of upset? Or anyhow else hyper?
"Yes?" he asked carefully.

Harry´s odd expression turned into a deep frown.
"You know, I just realized, that normally children don't get warned about fighting trolls. And I just remembered you doing that at least five times in the last years."

Tom´s eyes went wide. As did Snape´s, who fluttered through the students in an attempt to create order.

"What?"

Oops…

Its been a while, I know. Thank you all for the Reviews! Even though I am very lazy here I enjoy reading them! I'll try to work on the story again, but unfortunately no promises.