He appeared out of nowhere

Chapter 9: (and so it is) Christmas

With the Christmas holidays came the fact that Tom and Harry had the Slytherin dorms all to themselves. Harry wasn't complaining, he loved spending time with Tom, and if he was supposed to be there, he could see himself spending the rest of his life with him.

He still hadn't told Tom the truth. He was planning to do it as soon as he knew his plan would work, though.

*

It was Christmas day and both teens woke up filled with a sense of sadness. They both knew they wouldn't get anything, other than a few books that their acquaintances would send out of respect - pureblood, am I right? It was more a formality than friendship.

However, they still managed to enjoy the day, reading together by the fireplace and discussing what they wanted to do after Hogwarts, not that they would get to see each other achieve any of it. Harry would be going home soon and Tom would go into the future like before and end up killing Harry's parents, plus countless others.

That's just the way it is.

There was one present that Tom received that would be useful, though, and that present was the time turner, immediately Harry started working on his theory.

Time turners always have to be turned the one way, right? Wrong. You can do it either way which means that the way you travel isn't determined by the turning motion. Harry tested the time turner for various spells or enchantments but eventually resolved that it must be runes that were determining which way you'd go.

So, Harry took out runes books from the library and had Tom (who was studying ancient runes) look at the time turner with a magnifying spell to see if there were any he recognised.

"Here is one that is similar to something we've been over in class," he said, breaking a long silence, "This one here is the rune for reverse, and that one there looks similar to the one for time, but it isn't quite that,"

The fact had stumped Harry for a while before they decided to look in an older version of the books they had been using, where they discovered that it was the rune for the passing of time - which was apparently different, though that may have made sense if he understood runes because Tom didn't seem that bothered.

Now was to try out his theory. He removed the rune for reverse on the time turner, by he, that means Tom, Harry couldn't quite wrap his head around it. After that, he replaced it for the rune that meant forward.

He tested it by going a minute into the future, Tom waiting in the room to make sure he would be fine. It worked! Now all Harry had to do was wait for the perfect moment.

*

When they went down for dinner Harry could see that Dumbledore was watching him and Tom again, it really freaked him out when he did that, what did Dumbledore want? Tom hadn't done anything yet, so why was he acting as if he had?

So Harry decided he'd just have to confront Dumbledore about it. After all, a teacher taking a 'special interest' in one of his students could be considered suspicious.

*

When he visited Dumbledore's office, he found that it was a lot more professional than his headmaster's office in the future.

"Harry, my boy, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"Why do you treat Tom differently to everyone else?"

"I'm not sure I know what you're talking about, Mr Evans," he chuckled "Do you mind elaborating?"

"You treat Tom like he's evil, darker than the rest of us, why?"

"Do you know that he speaks parselmouth, that is a dark trait that owes me the right for some concern does it not?" Surely that can't be the reason why, after all, in some wizarding cultures parseltongue is a celebrated gift that many speak.

"But it isn't a dark trait. If you keep doing this then I will report you to the board of governors, Tom may not want to come forward, but I will not stand for such blatant discrimination."

He didn't think Dumbledore could be so cruel - but then again, he had told Harry in his second year that parseltongue as spoken by dark wizards, and Harry swears he remembers seeing a glint of disgust in his eyes; hidden behind his grandfatherly demeanour and twinkling eyes that stared right into your soul.

Maybe Alb-ass Perciv-almost-dumber-than-me Wol-frick-off Bri-and-your-mum Dumble-whore wasn't all that the media portrayed him as.