Dumbledore: Like Him, Even More Like Him!

Tom Marvolo Riddle, born in 1980. By a remarkable coincidence, that really was the name his mother, whom he had never met, had given him.

After awakening the memories of his previous life, he immediately understood the function and purpose of the Persona panel and began building up his own persona.

Drawing on his experience as an adult, he easily became the child everyone praised as a genius at his public elementary school. The Wisdom persona soon took shape.

According to the panel's rules, every time a persona increased by one level, he gained 1 Achievement Point. With 10 Achievement Points, he could draw a new persona.

The Robust and Overbearing personas were the two he had drawn.

Although the Dursley family had taken him in and, at least, given him a roof over his head, they were hardly good at raising an orphan. They treated him like a House-elf. At the time, he wanted people to think he looked robust despite being malnourished, which was a pretty difficult feat.

Although Tom had grown a lot stronger thanks to those two new personas, he wasn't satisfied. This was the magical world of Harry Potter, after all, and he was already ten years old without having experienced a single bout of accidental magic.

That was right. He was a Muggle.

After going to all the trouble of being transported to another world, who wouldn't want to see the wondrous, fantastical magical world?

To change his fate, he began building up a wizard persona. After teaching himself a few magic tricks, he started telling the people around him that he could do magic.

He could fool the children at school, but the adult members of the Dursley family weren't so easy to deceive. But that changed if they were ordinary Muggles who knew nothing about magic.

Now and then, Tom used invisible threads to make some furniture float, making sure the Dursleys saw it. They then filled in the blanks themselves and mistook his tricks for magic.

Whenever Harry was bullied by Dudley and accidentally used magic, they always blamed it on Tom, too.

After a while, he really did acquire the Wizard persona.

After observing and experimenting for some time, Tom had figured out how personas formed. The quality of a persona and the speed at which it progressed depended on three things: how many people knew what he had done, how deeply his actions affected their impression of him, and the strength and social influence of the onlookers.

So when he overheard the Dursleys secretly contacting Hogwarts, Tom carefully prepared what he was going to say.

At first, he thought McGonagall or Hagrid would come today. He wanted to use their influence to level up his Wisdom persona and, while he was at it, earn himself a Genius Wizard persona.

But to his surprise, the person who showed up today was the strongest White Dark Lord of the century, and he'd given Tom a Born Dark Lord persona.

It made sense, really. What did he expect, with a name like that? Besides, he couldn't change his name himself until he was sixteen.

Oh, well. Dark Lords were all wise, genius wizards. This was fine.

Tom took a deep breath, calming his roiling emotions before looking at the white-bearded old man in front of him again.

"Um, aren't you worried I might be someone from the madhouse sent to take you away? Usually, when we introduce Muggle-born young wizards to the wizarding world, we need to demonstrate some magic to convince them." Dumbledore tried asking.

The little boy before him had accepted everything far too easily. It was hard not to suspect that he was Voldemort reincarnated.

Still, Dumbledore was an excellent teacher with impeccable morals. He wouldn't casually decide a child's fate based on a similar background, personality, or a few shared behaviors.

Meeting Dumbledore's probing gaze without flinching, Tom looked straight into the old man's blue eyes and opened his hand toward his side.

A glittering gold trophy flew off the bookshelf and into Tom's hand. The words All-Round Champion were engraved on it.

It was a trophy from his public elementary school's sports day. He had taken first place in every event, and that wasn't even his limit.

"Although I have some abilities other people don't, I don't think I'm the only one in the world who has them. Besides, Vernon called people from the madhouse before, but none of them were as good at fighting as I am."

Dumbledore immediately thought of the boulder in the yard.

Suddenly, he felt that Tom was actually a rather kind child. If he had really wanted to hurt someone, Vernon would have had more than just a simple bruise on his face.

"How did you build up all those muscles?"

Unable to contain his curiosity, Dumbledore asked.

"One hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and a ten-kilometer run."

Tom answered honestly.

"Altogether?"

"Every day."

"...You're an excellent boy..."

For a moment, Dumbledore didn't know what to praise him for. His magic control? Or his muscle strength?

In any case, Tom really was a genius in every respect. And between the lines, Dumbledore could also sense his ambition and his desire to go further.

Like him!

Even more like him!

The feeling was exactly the same as with the other Tom.

[Born Dark Lord +50 progress, Impression Level reached Lv.1, Persona activated, Achievement Points +1]

At that moment, Tom felt his control over magic grow stronger, as though magic had become a new limb extending from his body. Before, he'd needed to concentrate to move things from a distance. Now, all it took was a casual flick of his fingers, and the trophy in his hand flew back onto the bookshelf.

"Thank you for the praise." Tom smiled, inwardly relieved.

His only worry now was that Dumbledore might use Legilimency to look through his memories. He didn't know Occlumency.

If Dumbledore looked through his memories, he'd probably face one of two outcomes: Dumbledore would take him in and keep him under strict supervision, or send him straight to Azkaban.

Although the gap between their magical abilities was obvious, they were less than ten paces apart.

He remembered Frieren once saying, "A powerful warrior can kill a top-tier mage in an instant within ten paces." He wondered if that theory held true in the Harry Potter world.

In any case, Tom was already studying the weak points of the human body, as well as the difference in height between them.

But Dumbledore suddenly seemed unable to hold back a cough. "Ahem... Mr. Riddle, this has been a very pleasant conversation."

He realized that he had probed too much and made the child nervous.

Dumbledore stood up and took a letter from inside his robes. Along with the Hogwarts acceptance letter, it contained a list of the supplies needed for school.

Seeing this, Tom finally relaxed. Old Dumbledore had a decent moral compass after all; he wouldn't go rifling through the memories of an innocent child.

He took the envelope and glanced through it, then looked troubled. "Um, does your school offer loans?"

Although he had entered quite a few school competitions, Great Britain in this era emphasized the intrinsic value of education and the honor of competition so heavily that winners received no prize money. The champions only got some school supplies and a gold-plated imitation trophy.

As for his orphan's allowance, he had spent almost all of it on living expenses.

In short, he was poor.

"Oh, Mr. Riddle, please don't worry. Hogwarts doesn't charge tuition, and students from struggling families receive additional financial support. There are no academic requirements for it. We make sure every young wizard has the chance to attend school."

Dumbledore saw hope. Tom was ambitious, but at least he had limits. He wouldn't take advantage of his abilities to steal. As far as Dumbledore could tell from Vernon, Tom had only taken back things that already belonged to him.

Dumbledore had many regrets in his life. His greatest was undoubtedly failing to properly guide young Tom fifty years ago. He bore some responsibility for all the lives lost in the wizarding war.

Now he had met another young Tom. It was surely a chance God had given him to make up for his past regrets.

He swore he absolutely would not let the Wizarding World see a third Dark Lord!