He needed a proper weapon!
Now that he'd decided to make a flying mount that could double as a weapon, ordinary steel wouldn't do. The best choice was Goblin Metal.
The famous Sword of Gryffindor had been forged by Goblins. If he could ask them to make one for him...
Unfortunately, he had no connections among the Goblins.
Besides, even if he found some, he'd still have to pay them before they'd be willing to work for him.
Let's take it one step at a time. For now, the most important thing was to master flying.
"Hey, big brother, how did you get your broom to fly?" Ron sneaked a glance in Tom's direction, like a student peeking at the answers of the person next to him during an exam.
Even the single-minded Harry had gotten his broom to fly, but Ron's was still lying motionless on the ground.
"Put a little feeling into it." Tom recalled what he'd done just now.
"You can't treat the broom like an ordinary tool. You should treat it like one of your own people, like... a subordinate."
Tom set his broom back on the ground and demonstrated again.
"If you tell it to get up, it has to get up. That's an order from its master."
This time, Tom hadn't even said "Up." He'd only reached out, and the broom flew straight into his hand.
Tom spoke loudly enough for every student there to hear. Some of the little wizards who were struggling tried his method at once, and their brooms really did fly up.
["Genius Educator" +1 progress]
["Genius Educator" +1 progress]
It worked!
Tom had taken the first successful step toward becoming headmaster of Hogwarts.
"Very good. All of you can learn from this..." Madam Hooch applauded Tom, but when she was about to say his name, she paused. After briefly recalling the full list of new students, she continued, "Mr. Riddle. He's already got his broom completely under control."
"Two points to Slytherin."
Seeing Tom earn points, the other students felt the pressure too and shouted even louder.
Time passed...
"Please, please, broom, please hurry up and fly~" Neville's voice grew increasingly tearful.
Everyone else's broom was already flying. Only his wouldn't budge.
No matter how loudly he shouted, the broom did no more than flop over on the ground like a fish out of water.
Perhaps his pleas had worked, because the broom really did rise into the air and slowly drift into his hand.
"Haha! Neville, you're such a wimp. We're all the broom's masters, but I think you've let the broom become your master." Draco snickered.
Neville's face, which had finally begun to brighten, fell again. He looked mortified.
"Ahem! Mr. Malfoy, be quiet. This is a class, not a place for idle chatter." Madam Hooch glared at him.
"All right, on to the next step. Everyone, get on your brooms. Remember! Just sit on them. Don't make any other movements."
Tom straddled his broom. Only then did he notice that it felt as if there were a cold stool beneath him. He looked down, but couldn't see anything.
So that was how it worked.
Before he'd crossed over, he'd always wondered whether flying on a broom hurt a wizard's backside. Whenever he saw a flying witch in a cartoon, he'd imagine himself as a child sitting on the front of a bicycle.
The school's flying brooms were old, crude things that had been around for who knew how many years. With one of the latest, more expensive models, that invisible seat would probably be much more comfortable. It might even come with a heating function, so you wouldn't freeze your backside while flying in winter.
Madam Hooch continued explaining the finer points of flying, correcting everyone's posture so they wouldn't slide off their brooms mid-flight.
She went on and on, then suddenly noticed that everyone was looking up at the sky instead of paying attention to her.
"What are you looking at? Is there an answer up in the sky?"
Madam Hooch looked up, and only then noticed Neville, who had somehow flown above her.
"Mr. Longbottom, what are you doing? I haven't given you permission to take off."
"I—I don't think I can stop!" Neville sounded utterly panicked.
He was doing everything he could to control the broom, but it insisted on flying and wouldn't listen to him.
"Longbottom! Mr. Longbottom! Neville!" Madam Hooch shouted up at him in an increasingly stern voice, but didn't even take out her wand.
"..." Tom was speechless.
As a professor-level witch, didn't she know that most first-year students were encountering magic for the first time?
When a student's magic went out of control, all she could do was stand there shouting. She had no idea how to handle an emergency and seemed even more helpless than her students.
That was what happened when you were too lazy in your day-to-day life.
If Hogwarts professors had to take exams, Madam Hooch would definitely fail.
Neville was already five metres off the ground, and still rising.
Whoosh!
Everyone felt a gust of wind. By the time they came to their senses, Tom had disappeared.
His broom was still on the ground, but two deep footprints had appeared where he'd been standing.
They looked up and saw that Tom had jumped beneath Neville and grabbed his broom with one hand.
"Riddle!!" Madam Hooch let out a shriek.
She suddenly remembered that after the Sorting Ceremony yesterday, Dumbledore had privately instructed all the professors to keep an eye on Tom and give him a little extra help where appropriate.
At first, since she didn't teach many classes, she hadn't paid much attention to the instruction. But now...
Tom was flying alongside Neville!
If the two of them merely got hurt, that would be one thing. But if they suffered injuries that even magic couldn't fix...
She felt her teaching credentials melting like cream.
She hurriedly pulled out her wand, intending to use magic to force them to stop.
But the broom in the sky seemed almost alive. Whenever her spell hit it, it jerked wildly, making a huge loop, darting left and right, and... continuing to climb higher. It was almost ten metres up.
No one could aim at a moving target like that.
"It's completely out of control," Tom remarked.
Even with the weight of two people on it, the broom's agility hadn't diminished at all. There was no controlling it.
"Tom, why aren't you panicking?!" Neville was completely dazed.
The broom had flung the saliva right out of his mouth, yet Tom, hanging onto it with one hand, hadn't even cried out.
"Neville, you'll have to brace yourself," Tom suddenly warned him.
"What?"
Crack!
Tom's hand tightened. The wooden handle of the broom he was gripping shattered, and its internal magic circuits were forcibly broken.
Without its flying enchantment, they finally stopped rising. The broom's remaining momentum flung them a few metres higher, and then...
"Why does the ground look like it's rising, Tom?" Neville asked nervously and curiously, headfirst.
"Don't panic. You're going to feel a little dizzy."
Tom grabbed Neville and held him in his arms.
He could handle a fall from this height in his current condition, but Neville was another matter. He had to do something.
At that thought, Tom swiftly pulled his wand from his robes.
"Wing-gar-di-um Le-vi-OH-sa~"
The Floating Charm (Wingardium Leviosa) was a spell every first-year had to learn. It made light objects float.
The spell couldn't lift a person weighing several dozen pounds, but it could at least reduce their weight a little.
Boom!
Dust billowed everywhere.
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