Being too good at something has a way of becoming its own kind of headache, because whatever you accomplish, everyone else just assumes it was owed to you anyway.
Tom had run straight into that problem lately. He was only a little short of the Achievement Points he needed to summon another teacher, but the professors had all turned suddenly stingy with their marks.
They'd even stopped calling on him in class as often, handing more chances to other students instead, which left Tom more than a little put out.
Earning points the honest way had gotten harder and harder. That left him with only one real option: go solve some genuinely large problem.
He'd actually considered sending a couple of Dementors after Harry again, just to swoop in and save him. The Boy Who Lived, saved twice over. Surely that had to be worth something.
Still, a favor Dumbledore handed him on a silver platter beat going through all that trouble himself. Five hundred points, two hundred Achievement Points, and he'd call it even.
Dumbledore, for his part, looked faintly dazed. This was, if he wasn't mistaken, the third time now that Tom had come to him directly asking for points. The very tool the school used to encourage healthy competition among its students had somehow turned into the boy's personal currency, and the thought left Dumbledore more than a little embarrassed.
No headmaster before him, surely, had ever sunk quite this low, reduced to bargaining with a student to get things done.
One glance at the disapproving stares from the portraits lining his office wall told him everything he needed to know. Even a man who'd weathered storms like Dumbledore's felt his old face color slightly.
Still.
"Three hundred and seventy points. Done, Tom." Dumbledore's expression shifted at once, his smile turning warm as spring sunlight. "Hogwarts is part of the wider magical world, and what you're about to do amounts to a tremendous service on the school's behalf. Awarding points for it is only fair."
"Though I'll need to think of a suitable reason to give the points for."
"That's the easy part." Tom waved a hand and proceeded to walk Dumbledore through the finer points of padding invoices and writing custom justifications after the fact, leaving the old man blinking in bewilderment.
Dumbledore was fairly certain now that even without a drop of magic, Tom's mind alone, paired with that uncanny grasp of how the world actually worked, would have carried him a long way in life.
"Professor, I don't deliver until payment clears."
Tom offered that last reminder, then turned and strolled off, hands tucked comfortably behind his back.
"That boy is an absolute swindler!" Phineas snapped from his frame, giving voice to exactly what Dumbledore was thinking.
...
Back in the pocket world, Tom let Nicolas know he'd agreed to Dumbledore's request, though in truth this had always been part of the plan from the start.
He hadn't put himself through all that trouble just for the spectacle of it. He had a goal of his own riding on this.
Nicolas showed no surprise at the news. He already knew Tom held no real reverence for Grindelwald, and simply reminded him, whatever the man said in Berlin, to let it slide off him and stay calm.
Tom agreed readily enough.
[Tom: Master, I'll come find you tonight, save me some dinner.]
[Nicolas: Why the sudden visit home?]
[Tom: I need to plant a tree. I'll need your help and Uncle Newt's too. I'll go talk to him in a moment.]
[Nicolas: Plant a tree? What are you scheming now.]
[Tom: You'll find out tonight.]
Tom left it at that and switched over to message Newt instead. The good-natured man agreed without even asking what it was about, which gave Tom the perfect opening to fill him in, once again, on just how devious and calculating Grindelwald really was.
Tom quietly summoned Grindelwald over so he could hear firsthand what Newt thought of him.
Grindelwald, who'd been in a decent mood up to that point, soured instantly, his composure cracking. "That man spent years sabotaging every plan I ever had, and now he's saying my character's the problem?"
"Stealing the blood oath between me and Dumbledore, was that his idea of good character? Scamander is an absolute disgrace to Hufflepuff!"
Furious, Grindelwald went off to vent his frustrations on the Durmstrang students. He still hadn't left the school, spending his time instead giving the students his own brand of "ideological instruction," reshaping the next generation of wizards from the roots up.
Today, though, he'd decided a more physical approach was in order, one that would make these young wizards understand exactly what it meant when magic itself was power.
...
After his last class of the day, Tom took his time flying out to Dorset.
Nicolas had already had the house-elves prepare a small feast, with the Scamanders invited along as guests. Nobody brought up any actual business through the entire dinner; the conversation revolved almost entirely around how shamefully Dumbledore had handled this whole affair, and furious denunciations of Grindelwald's character, dragging an innocent child into all this.
Tom sat through it all with a pleasant smile, nodding along now and then, agreeing wholeheartedly with whatever they said.
The boy had never had any shortage of nerve. A man behind the curtain couldn't afford one anyway.
Only once the dinner wound down, once Tina had gone off with Perenelle to the opera, did Tom finally find his opening to bring up the real matter at hand.
"Master, Uncle Newt, do either of you know about the golden apple?"
Nicolas nodded. "I never had children of my own, but I did enjoy my share of fairy tales growing up."
Newt's mouth twitched. He'd noticed Nicolas's tongue had only gotten sharper with age. "The golden apple from Greek mythology, you mean? Are you talking about the wedding gift between Zeus and Hera, or the apple of discord that the goddess Eris set as a trap?"
The Mirror of Erised, of course, took its very name from that same goddess Eris in Greek myth.