June 18th, 94th Year of the Tenth Celestial Century.
Failed. His plan to escape the Mirror had failed.
His initial tests had raised his hopes, making it even worse. Now those successes felt like insults, given that he couldn't go where he actually wanted to go. Ponyville? Sure. Canterlot? Of course. Cloudsdale? Why not? Manehatten? Absolutely.
As easily as a flame could burn out where he was and spark up at his destination, he shifted from place to place without any difficulty whatsoever. It was easier than teleportation, portkeys, apparition, and even floo travel. It required less magic as well, and maybe none at all – at least, none of the magic he uses to cast spells. As long as he was trying to go somewhere on Equus, it worked without fault or strain, no matter how often he used it or how far he traveled. He could even go beyond Equestria's borders, to Griffonia.
So why not Earth? Why did the power fail to activate? Why were Hogwarts, the Ministry, and Azkaban all out of reach? Why should that be? Why couldn't he escape when Mr. Potter could?
He couldn't even blame it on the will of a phoenix that seemed to inhabit his pony self. Perhaps if his internal 'fire' strongly objected to the idea of teleporting to Earth, that might have been the reason for a lack of successful phoenix travel. But the internal drive of Gryffindor that now existed within him whenever he was in pony form did not seem to object to the idea of saving the hostages and helping Mr. Potter destroy the world's Dementors, as he no doubt would be doing as soon as he escaped. It loathed the idea of bypassing Dumbledore's test, but not enough to overcome its even greater loathing of Dementors.
Something else was preventing him from teleporting to Earth.
Riddle sat in his hideout in the crystal caverns beneath Canterlot as he scoured his mind for ideas. Learning the Patronus Charm would be his last resort, the fallback if all else fails. If Mr. Potter was right in his estimations, that would take half a century, and therefore it was the last option. He would attack the problem of the phoenix from every angle before considering that alternative.
Why did phoenix travel work for Mr. Potter- no. Why had it worked for Ms. Granger, and not himself? Did he have to be standing in front of the Mirror as his starting location in order to access the location of Earth?
But Dumbledore hadn't seemed like he'd known about Mr. Potter's disappearance, and surely Celestia would have acted differently if she'd discovered Mr. Potter and Ms. Granger within her secret vault. Wherever they had been when the phoenix took them, it was likely somewhere that Celestia didn't find objectionable, like Mr. Silver's room.
Standing in front of the Mirror while attempting to phoenix travel home was still very much an idea worth testing, but he wasn't putting his hopes there, not least because Mr. Potter's possessions had been behind the mirror, and it's not like phoenix travel caused Riddle to lose all his possessions. How did that factor into the equation?
He needed more ideas.
So... maybe he was looking at this from the wrong angle again. Did an actual phoenix have to be involved? Or even more constraining, could escape only be done upon the moment of first companionship with a phoenix, the moment the Gryffindor's insurmountable foe is challenged? It would be the moment when phoenixes ordinarily transcend this plane of existence, assuming the theory that phoenixes originate from the Mirror is accurate.
It would be a logical restraint that they could only ever do it at that specific time, and impossible to bypass himself without acquiring a true phoenix companion.
Or was there some other restriction at play? Was there some unknown factor he wasn't taking into account? There probably was. He barely knew anything about the surrounding circumstances. He had no idea what Mr. Potter and Ms. Granger had been doing when they were taken by the phoenix.
His mind returned to Celestia's words, and in particular his mind returned to her oath of secrecy. Maybe that was the key.
If she was telling the truth about that, there was only one culprit who would make her promise such a thing. If Celestia had sworn silence to someone, then it was Mr. Potter who extracted that oath.
This begged the question: Why did Mr. Potter require it from her? What was he doing at the time? What was his motivation?
The obvious guess is that he intentionally escaped the Mirror and didn't want Riddle to know he'd done it on purpose. That was the possibility that his cynical thoughts produced. If it was true, the elder Tom Riddle might just have to find a way to kill the younger Tom Riddle, despite the curse and the binding promises preventing him from doing it.
His more neutral thoughts, on the other hoof, suggested that Mr. Potter was discussing the secrets of the Patronus charm with Celestia, secrets that non-casters such as himself must not know. Somehow, the topic of Dementors came up, and somehow Ms. Granger – privy to the conversation, for she can also cast the spell – decided that something had to be done. That would explain why Celestia was willing to say she was keeping secrets at all, and also explain the facts she deemed acceptable to share, since those facts did not pertain to the Patronus.
He flinched.
"Riddle Tome. My sister would like to know if you are coming to your shift tonight."
That's it. Enough is enough.
"Avada Kedavra."
Anti-Patronus-Message charm, invented. Though it probably wouldn't work on animal Patronuses.
For the sake of not violating his established promises, he would have to set up some beehives across his hideout, ready to move into place at a moment's notice. His killing curse and the Patronus had cancelled each other out this time, as he was hoping they would, but he would take no risks of a curse escaping in the future.
"Riddle Tome, did you receive my message?"
For now, another false tooth would do as a potential shield if he missed. He had plenty of magical bears.
"Avada Kedavra."
Right on target. Once again, the spells canceled out.
"Riddle Tome, are-"
"Avada Kedavra."
She got the message after the third time. No more Patronuses interrupted him that night.
"Did your messages reach him?" Luna asked with a tinge of desperation.
"I... don't think so, Luna. I think he may have found a way to block them."
"Block them?"
"Or destroy them as soon as they arrive. It is hard to tell. I think... Luna... the last thing he said was to not speak with him again. I think he does not want to return."
Her sister gave her a look that mixed blame, hurt, and despair all in one. Then she silently stood and left the dinner table. Whether she went to Night Court that night, Celestia didn't know.
Eventually, Riddle took to wandering the caverns as he thought. Invisibly, just in case, and as a human, just so he could avoid that nagging internal phoenix fire. He hadn't been consistently human in a while. It took some time to readjust to standard walking, and he was glad to be getting in practice again.
Then, after realising that he wasn't making any progress on the phoenix problem at all, just thinking himself in circles, he decided to do something extreme.
He gathered enough food to last him a long time.
He cast certain spells to automate his bodily functions, including eating.
After that, he took to floating with his broomstick bones, setting an automatic flight pattern that endlessly floated him through a long loop in the cavern network.
He thought, maybe, that if he recreated the experience of falling through the stars, he might reach that Zen state of mind where unusual solutions to impossible problems would present themselves. When his brain finally did relax after countless hours of conscious thought, its ingenuity could surprise even him.
It was difficult to achieve, though. At first it would come in flashes. His floating loop passed through his workshop, where he would sometimes stop to write important realisations down – a privilege he did not have the last time he lost his freedom with little hope for escape. He also left the cave on a few occasions, when an idea required implementation in the outside world.
But stopping became rarer and rarer as he decided to just keep thinking.
Using the Killing Curse on annoying Patronus messages that came to him became like a reflex. A false tooth contained a transfigured normal bear (which was not sapient, despite that initial encounter with the Element of Kindness suggesting otherwise). The bear was large enough to easily intercept any stray green bolts in case he ever missed the Patronus, or in case it disappeared before his curse could reach it.
That interruption also became rarer and rarer as time passed.
Watching the glow of the crystals became almost hypnotic. His mind slowly became more peaceful with each pass. In that state of mind, thoughts he usually wouldn't think came to him. Most felt true, as if they had simply been waiting to be promoted to conscious attention, but not all of them were welcome.
Like how, from a practical perspective, Mr. Potter's escape had been timely.
Staying trapped in the mirror for more than a year would have been a problem for the young Ravenclaw. He would have become too mature, too outgrown for Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Longbottom to be anything more than children to him. Those two would certainly not be the useful peers that they ought to be, even according to Riddle's own plans.
Riddle was an immortal adult in his sixties. Another year meant far less to him than it did to a twelve-year-old. This became especially true when you factored hormones into the equation. Riddle would not wish physical attraction to ponies upon anyone, let alone Mr. Potter. Actually, he would wish it upon some of his enemies...
Regardless, his student's and his own plans were best served by the child's early release. Especially if that child no longer had anything left to contribute.
Then there came the ethics. The morality. The feelings of being righted and wronged, the objective facts of favours owed, promises exchanged, and debts settled. Debt, in Riddle's opinion, is the true heart of morality, the only thing that made him weigh concepts like fairness and equity.
Though his emotions of frustration and betrayal urged him to claim otherwise, his peaceful self could see that the situation was relatively fair, with most debts settled.
Mr. Potter did all that could be reasonably expected of him on this detour. He'd already made plenty of contributions to the Horcrux system, for example. Even if that only amounted to pointing out the problems and making a few suggestions, it sufficed. Mr. Potter also figured out how to use the Stone of Permanence. He even convinced Dumbledore to release Voldemort, working his inevitable demands into the convincing process itself. Then he left not a moment longer than he needed to stay. If the Mirror was at play, it could have been an accident from Mr. Potter's perspective.
Mr. Potter had also learned the Killing Curse, which greatly diminished the distance between his spirit and the elder Tom Riddle's. The younger Tom Riddle had, in a sense, earned the right to reside on the world in which they need to coexist. The older Tom Riddle had not earned that right, for he had not yet learned Mr. Potter's own signature spell.
In short, Mr. Potter had done all he wished to do. Maybe that was why the Mirror had allowed him his freedom.
Mr. Potter had not revolutionised this world's technology like he said he wanted to, but then, this world doesn't really matter. Mr. Potter had only suggested that as a means to the end of finding the mirror. Ignoring that one ambition, the Boy-Who-Lived had accomplished his desires. And from the perspective of debts, he had upheld his ends of the bargains he'd made with Lord Voldemort.
Riddle, on the other hand, has not accomplished all of his own goals.
He has not come up with a solution to Cruciatus insanity. He has not ascended to full alicorn status yet, not 'walked down memory lane' and become immune to Obliviation. He hasn't invented the Obliviation reversal ritual that Mr. Potter theorised into plausibility. Riddle hasn't thought about why wearing the Sorting Hat for too long would kill an intelligent being – neither about how that method might be a potential bypass to his immortality, since it clearly has something to do with damaging the mind, nor how to guard against it.
Riddle Tome hasn't even made more than one of his three allotted horcruxes.
Does he really want to escape so early? With Mr. Potter no longer a concern, Riddle truly could take all the centuries he wanted or needed to solve these problems. That's an irreplaceable opportunity, and escape would throw it away.
So, what does he truly want out of this situation? What is his ambition?
'Escape the Mirror' was the first thought that came to mind.
Hm... but no. He should ignore that. Immediate goals are not ambitions. What is his ambition?
To not die. That has always been his core desire, and until recently he thought he'd solved it.
Since he hasn't, not fully, he needs to reexamine the path to achieving his ambition. What must be done?
He must shore up his system's weaknesses.
And once he does?
He'll need to prevent idiots from destroying everything and rendering his hard work moot.
And then?
He hasn't really thought that far. The previous goal seemed insurmountable enough. But even still, what comes after?
Live forever. That is his motivation, the heart of his ambitions.
But what does he do with forever? Continue preventing idiots from destroying the world for the rest of eternity?
That sounds rather tedious, come to think of it – a never-ending annoyance. If Mr. Potter is right about the future of technology, more time is only going to compound the problem by making it easier for idiots and their idiot politicians to become sufficiently powerful and dangerous.
The obvious solution is to take over the world and ban all technological progress.
But then, he does enjoy the space program. He does want to eventually be able to escape the planet that Dumbledore believes is doomed.
After listening to every globe in the Hall of Prophecy, the old fool probably wasn't wrong about that. Professor Dumbledore had found it frightening, considered it a day of terrible awakening, when he saw that the world was doomed. Riddle would have just nodded and said, "I thought as much."
That leads to the true challenge he would face: how can the planet be escaped as quickly and effectively as possible, given that its destruction is inevitable?
That shall be his new ambition, once he has shored up his weaknesses and prevented the world's more immediate dooms from manifesting. Escaping Earth competently is, by all metrics, greater in scope and difficulty than preventing the muggles from ruining everything. It also has a tangible goal, one that he'll be able to point to and definitively declare, "I have succeeded." It doesn't seem to be the sort of thing that would be a never-ending annoyance.
So, his ambition is now clear: escape not just the Mirror, but the Earth itself.
The next obvious question to ask is how to go about achieving it.
Mr. Potter believes the solution involves improving the intelligence of others. Riddle had dismissed it at first, but Mr. Potter's arguments about the Chaos Legion were... not conclusive or convincing, but interesting. Despite the small sample size of his evidence, Mr. Potter was right that people can be changed to be less stupid if you get to them early enough and teach them well enough. Riddle can't deny that, not after all the progress he made during his own tenure as Defense Professor.
So, ban technology or encourage it. Win the muggle-wizard war or prevent it. Kill stupidity or cure it. Killing Curse or Patronus Charm.
He was leaning towards the Killing Curse, naturally. He could take over the world and force scientists to work on the space program and nothing else.
But after reading so many textbooks on fallacious reasoning, he has come to acknowledge that, perhaps, his choice is a result of his own bias. He has come to recognise that it might not be the truly intelligent option. He suspects that his solution is better, at least in some/most cases, but now there is doubt.
Muggle science progressed as much as it did from individuals who followed their own interests, wherever they led – the heart of Slytherin – and by freely sharing their discoveries with each other – the heart of muggle power. That is what Mr. Potter believes. He could even be persuasive when he spoke of specialization and free exchange of ideas between passionate and intelligent minds. Unfortunately, Riddle had learned the hard way that most ideas can be equally persuasive on paper. It is only harsh experience that dictates which ideas are best. And he has little to no experience with Mr. Potter's way of viewing things.
How can he make the correct decision when he doesn't truly understand the other option? How could he understand the other option?
Lord Voldemort had only ever forced his will and knowledge on his underlings. And yet, somehow, Mad-Eye Moody had been the most powerful piece on the game board other than the two kings, and the most cunning besides himself. The Dark Wizard hunter's battle prowess and creativity surpassed even Bella's abilities, despite her advantage of lore. Moody was also more naturally passionate about fighting Dark Wizards than anybody Riddle knew, and that passion led him to grow in strength after every battle.
Voldemort had no such passion in his own followers, except Bellatrix's passionate love for himself, Snape's passionate love for Lily Potter, and maybe Lucius's passion for politics. And Snape's passion didn't encourage him to grow until after it was twisted to the purpose of revenge.
How could Riddle gain more experience about matters of passion? How could he learn to utilize the passions of others to suit greater purposes, as the muggles have? How could he encourage those passions to manifest and grow in the first place? He couldn't properly evaluate the optimal course for the world's future until he did.
Maybe he could use Equestria as some kind of testing ground? It was a decent thought, but he had no idea how to go about doing it.
...
Well, maybe an answer to that question would present itself later. He went back to focusing on his more immediate problems.
A bit of experimentation with his new phoenix abilities had proved that his new internal 'fire', as he was calling it, approved of Gryffindor intentions and disapproved of Slytherin ones. Thoughts of learning the Patronus charm got a hearty feeling of "DO IT!" from that burning fire, while thoughts of fooling Dumbledore made Riddle Tome the thestral want to throw up.
As Tom Riddle the human, he was free to think without that annoyance.
So, taking his new ambition of escaping Earth into account, it must be asked again: does he want to escape the mirror right now? Or does he want to work on his weaknesses first, and use Equestria as a testing ground afterwards?
No matter how sensible it seems, his mind still didn't want to commit to that option.
Supposing this world is controlled by Dumbledore (and that hypothetical is disturbingly more likely now than it had been a month ago), then the path of the future would follow story logic, at least until he escaped the Mirror. Tom Riddle would only be released after he did all that he wanted, after all his wishes were granted. The final achievement would be his casting a Patronus Charm, so that the wishes of Dumbledore and Potter were granted as well.
Was there anything wrong with that story?
The idea of accomplishing all of his desires without the sense of urgency that nuclear weapons had inspired him to have, every second of every day while living on the other side of the Mirror... that idea was certainly appealing. And he does want to cast the Patronus charm. Safety from Dementors, power over Dementors, and instant messages are all appealing to him – well, sending instant messages to others is appealing. Not so much receiving them. It's just that the learning process of the Patronus Charm seems daunting, maybe even impossible. Not to mention annoying...
A chittering noise within the crystal caves beneath Canterlot drew his attention outside of himself.