Tom's eyes skimmed over the boy's work. It was very advanced arthimancy. Far more advanced than they probably even taught in Hogwarts and Tom doubted that the boy was old enough to have graduated yet. His tone also caused some amount of amusement for Tom. Whoever he was, he was quite certain of himself - he obviously knew the difficulty of the work that he was doing and probably doubted that anyone here would be able to understand it.
"Have you considered Agrippa's theoretical calculations on binding magic?" Tom asked in a low voice, interested in seeing the extent of the boy's research. He, himself, didn't actually believe that such a theory was applicable to where they were now. It was simply something he had looked into in depth within the last year. He had been hopeful that such a spell could be used to bind all Muggleborns' magic, but, thus far, such work hadn't been especially productive.
He knew that such conversation probably was unwanted at the moment, but Tom didn't particularly care. His curiosity had been roused.