"?"
Faced with Shawn's sudden, thoroughly uncivil insult, Tom took a long moment before a question mark appeared on the page.
He did not dare leave it unanswered, either.
They were like a man facing a wolf with a flimsy stalk for a weapon-each wary of the other.
Shawn's lips curled slightly. A reaction was all he needed. Dispensing with pleasantries, he continued bluntly.
"Tom, I hear you're quite the genius-the finest student Hogwarts has produced in a century, after Dumbledore. Ha. So you're still not as good as Dumbledore?"
Shawn's heart-piercing jab hit precisely where it hurt.
Sure enough, the notebook immediately trembled. Black light flashed repeatedly, and words rapidly appeared on the page, each stroke sharp and forceful.
"Nonsense! My talent far surpasses that heartless, hidebound Dumbledore's. I'll be greater than him, more powerful than him! Sooner or later, I'll make him realize he was wrong."
Tom might have remained calm if the subject had been anything else.
But Dumbledore had burned his wardrobe to force him to submit, taught him that magic meant power, brought him into the wizarding world, and then remained suspicious and wary of him all along.
Tom's reaction was intense and agitated.
The young Tom's feelings toward the Old Beekeeper were complicated, too.
Gratitude? Hatred? Resentment? Bitterness?
Tom hated his surname and his lowly father. Perhaps he had once entertained the hope that the powerful, noble Dumbledore might fill the place of a father in his heart.
But he was extremely perceptive. He had long since seen the heartlessness beneath Dumbledore's universal benevolence, and learned a great deal from it.
Everything else was false. Only strength was real!
Seeing Tom react even more strongly than expected, Shawn found that his Occlumency seemed to have failed. Shawn's spiritual senses kept catching the resentment spilling