Birds of a Feather

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/15996890.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: F/M
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle, Hermione Granger & Tom Riddle, Hermione
Granger/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Characters: Hermione Granger, Albus Dumbledore, Tom Riddle
Additional Tags: Timeline shift - 1930's, Developing Friendships, Childhood Friends, Pen Pals,
Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Manipulation, World War II, Tom and
Hermione grow up together, Slow Burn, friendship to romance, if only Tom
knew what romance was
Language: English

🌌
Collections: My Heart Adores, ✧ Wizarding World Works ✧, Real Good Shit, The
Heliocentric Discord Server Recs, Pensieve (WIPS), The Witch's Library,
Tomione~, The Very Best of Tom Riddle Jr., Abandoned HP Fic I Follow
Stats: Published: 2018-09-15 Updated: 2024-10-21 Words: 576,009 Chapters: 61/62
 Birds of a Feather
by babylonsheep

Summary

In 1935, Hermione Granger meets a boy in an orphanage who despises fairy stories, liars, and
mediocrity. He offers her a deal of mutual convenience, and soon a tentative friendship forms
between them—if Tom would ever lower himself to call anyone a "friend".

But whatever they have, it's something special, and if there's anyone who can appreciate
Specialness, it's Tom Riddle.

1930's-40's Childhood Friends AU.

 Starlings
Chapter Notes

Another take on the slow-burner friendship fics featuring a realistic and sympathetic
childhood friend Tom but keeping him in character. Shout out to Addendum: He Is Also a Liar
by Ergott for the wonderfully developed pre-Hogwarts friendship.

AU Point of divergence: Hermione Granger is born in 1926. No time travel, foreknowledge, or

prophecy.
Relationship pairing: Eventual Hermione/Tom.
Characterisation and setting based on book canon where possible. Cursed Child doesn't exist.

Now available in Russian, courtesy of translator byepenguin.

And now available in Portuguese, courtesy of translator mi806051.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

1935

Tom Riddle knew his life was one of contradictions.

He was penniless and owned next to nothing. The things that belonged to him were not really his
—not his room, his bed, his rickety wooden wardrobe, his schoolbooks or shabby grey orphanage
uniforms with yellowed collars on the shirts and patches on the trousers. These material things had
all been given to him, and had belonged to someone else before him, and would go to another
nameless orphan once he'd outgrown them.

But there was one thing he had that was truly valuable, priceless, a thing that was his and no one
else's, not a hand-me-down assigned to him from the communal linen cupboard by an apathetic
matron, not a useless dolly or teddy or pennywhistle taken from a snivelling brat in a disciplinary
action courtesy of Wool's Orphanage School of Life Lessons. (Tom Riddle was its schoolmaster,
and all residents under the age of ten years old were his obedient disciples, whether they liked it or
not.)

That thing of his.

The contradiction in his life that his schoolbooks said couldn't be real, because there were
fundamental rules of the universe for things like that, because Newton said this, and Galileo said
that... But his own eyes had confirmed the truth, as did the truths he found in the scared and tearful
eyes of Eric or Billy or Dennis or whichever interchangeable orphan it was that had offended him
that day.

The truth: that he wasn't mad. He was Special.

It was his Specialness that allowed Tom to break the rules of the universe and get away with it. No
one had showed up at the doorstep—beyond picking up the empty milk crates or dropping off an
illegitimate baby or two—to take away his entropy-defying abilities in the name of Saving the
Universe. No, life went on, and Tom drew on the well of Specialness inside him that answered to
his will, and the universe continued to putter on around him as per usual, as ignorant and intact as it
had always been.

And so Tom's life continued, each day as monotonous as the one before, the school lessons
pointless, the people around him receding into the background like the cardboard backdrops of the
Easter Fair's Punch and Judy show. They fell into their inbuilt routines by instinct, just like
migrating starlings, going in circles with the rest of the flock, chirping out the same stock phrases,
the Good Mornings and How Do You Dos making his eyelids twitch when he could sense the
insincerity behind the words. At times he was tempted to force them to tell the truth, to make them
aware that they were just starlings and that he was not, but some part of him warned against
flouting the rules of the universe too soon and drawing the attention of the Maintenance Committee
of Existence before he was ready to defeat them.

He was, of course, only eight years old.

In the eyes of his caretakers, he was a child, just as much as he was a starling, at least for the next
ten years. Until he turned eighteen. Then he'd be forced out of the nest (he was being generous
with his metaphors here; it was Wool's they were talking about, after all) to fend on his own. After
that, he could die for all they cared—he'd seen more than a few young men be pushed out of the
rusty gates, to enlist in the soon-to-be war rumbling in the stirring pot of the Continent. And no
one batted an eye that they were probably going to die. Dead or alive, they'd be called Brave
Young Souls, and people would mutter reverently about King and Country, and so on.

Tom's internal monologue on the nesting habits of the common European starling was interrupted
by voices outside his grimy bedroom window, a shrill clamouring of children in the small, paved
courtyard between the front gates and the orphanage's main entrance.
He peered out, rubbing his palm over the foggy glass. It was mid-December, and the heating was
intermittent. When it wasn't raining, the temperature difference between indoors and out was
negligible, and as such, the children were allowed to go out for walks as long as they were back in
time for dinner.

His room was on the third floor, so he had a decent view of the front gates. The sky and the street
below were veiled in a miasmic grey pea-souper of a fog—this was London in winter, so that
wasn't much of a surprise—but what had drawn his attention was a motorcar gliding out of the fog
and in through the open gates. A shiny blue automobile with a big silver grille on front, whitewall
tires and polished hubcaps, and a lady with a fur-collared coat stepping out of it, no doubt clutching
her pearls close to her throat, because it was in poor taste to flaunt one's wealth to this poverty-
stricken side of London.

(Nevermind that this lady's entire well-bred existence was a big, phlegmmy gob in the eyes of the
hand-to-mouthers who lived here.)

Tom heard the dinner bell ringing from downstairs, and the clatter of feet pounding down the
stairs. It had only been an hour or two since lunch, and thus too early for dinner, so—

He scowled.

It must be one of those days.

Adoption Days, where everyone had to comb their hair, spit-wipe their snotty noses, and line up by
Mrs. Cole's office so any family looking for a free servant or a replacement child when one of their
own moved away or died could pick one up. Like picking puppies out of a window display. To
Tom's relief, the number of people wanting to pat his head and inspect his teeth had gone down
significantly as he'd aged. He couldn't stand people touching him, or even being near him, which
was how he'd wangled a room to himself when everyone else had to share.

When he'd reached the ground floor, he saw Martha bustling about and handing boxes over to the
older girls, and Mrs. Cole attempting to make conversation to the rich lady—more like try to coax
her into donating cash, or better yet, taking a sweet, angelic little sprog out of her hands.

"—These'll go well with the girls; Christmas is always a stretch, especially these days."

"Well, the ladies of St. John's are happy to help those less fortunate. Those boxes there are my own
daughter's clothes—she's outgrown them, and they're in good shape and ought to go to those who
need them more than we do. The boys' clothes are to the left, just a bit worn—Mrs. Fanshaw's boys
were rather rough with their things—but they've still a few years' wear left."

"Oh, splendid," said Mrs. Cole, flapping her hands at Martha and Lizzie and Dotty. "Sort them and
lay them out, we'll see if we can have a new set of clothes for each child, or a new jumper and coat
each."

"You can give everyone a new book, too," said the rich lady. "We brought a few boxes of those.
Bibles and hymn books, though I'm sure you have some of your own, and some of ours from
home. Our Hermione didn't want to give them up from her collection, but we were running out of
shelf space as it was, so we told her we hadn't room for anything new unless she cleared out some
of the old ones."
She smiled fondly down to her right, and there, peeking out from behind her skirts was a little girl
with winter-pale skin and the kind of frizzy brown hair that Tom associated with pet poodles and
old floor mops. She was of the same age as he was, much smaller if one didn't count the few inches
of height added by her hair. To his annoyance, she was better dressed than he, in a ruffled pinafore
dress under a pink wool coat, and pristine patent Mary Janes with not a mark on them, unlike the
scuffs on his own boots that he'd mostly polished away with a lump of beeswax. She, unlike him,
probably used the motorcar every time she stepped foot outdoors.

"The books will go to our reading room," Mrs. Cole said, her eyes turning this way and that, tongue
clicking when she'd seen that the children had found the box of toys, spilling lead soldiers and sock
monkeys to the floor. Her gaze fell on Tom, standing innocently by the doorway, his face blank.
"Tom, you'll take them there, and bring the empty boxes back with you."

At the mention of books, the girl's eyes lit up, and she turned to her mother. "Can I see the reading
room, Mummy?"

Her mother gave an indulgent smile to her daughter, and Mrs. Cole hesitated, before fixing her eyes
on Tom and giving him a Look.

"I'll show her the way, Mrs. Cole," Tom offered, his face shifting into his harmless angel
expression.

If he got to take the books up, then he'd have his first pick of the selection, before the little brats got
crayon or jam or gravy or other mysterious and disgusting stains over the pages.

The concept of private property at Wool's Orphanage was somewhat theoretical. No one owned
anything and all resources were communal. (Common sense said that the contents of Mrs. Cole's
office and person were off-limits, so Tom had limited himself to reading through her paperwork
and appointment book whenever he got the chance. He'd been fairly disgusted by the mess of
empty gin bottles in the bottom desk drawer, and also vindicated in the assumption that she found
dealing with orphans all day was as tiresome as he did.)

Anything donated to the orphans was common property and therefore fair game for Tom.
Possession of toys and trinkets was directly correlated to the ability one had to hide and protect said
items. From experience, Tom knew that the nicest ones could be had from the children who'd only
been recently admitted to the orphanage, souvenirs of their past lives. At the end of the day, Tom
could admit his "games" were all quite silly and childish, but nevertheless, they were amusing, and
there was little else he could do to fill the vast stretch of time before he turned eighteen.

Tom nudged open the door to the reading room with his elbow, his arms laden with a box of books.
The little fluffy-haired rich girl followed behind, her eyes darting up and down, at the soot-
smudged plaster moulding of the ceiling, the worn floorboards creaking under their feet. He
wondered if she noticed the small, dried bloodstain by the landing where Jimmy Thurgood had
tripped on his way down the stairs one morning and lost a tooth; he hadn't had any valuables to
confiscate, so Tom had had to take his payment elsewhere.

"Oh, this is nice," she said politely, eyeing the shelves of timeworn books, the rows of peeling
spines and faded lettering. She clutched a box in her arms, biting her lip and shifting from foot to
foot.

Tom glanced down at the open box in his arms. The books were lightly used, as evidenced by the
smudge of fingerprints on the covers, the soft feathering of paper in the corners. But it was obvious
that they'd been bought new, then discarded for having been read once or twice. Given away to
make room for more, with a certain careless extravagance that he despised.

He decided that he hated this girl, her fur-bedecked mother, and her fancy motorcar and shiny,
shiny shoes.

"Put the books on the table over there," Tom ordered, "and sort them by type. Bibles go to the left,
school books in the middle, and fairy stories on the right."

"Fairy stories?" the girl huffed, shoving her box onto the table. "Excuse me?"

"Aren't these your old books?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"You're, what, six years old? And you're a girl," said Tom with a sniff. "Anything that isn't Bibles
and textbooks will be fairy stories."

The girl's eyes narrowed in anger. "I'm nine! And you're very rude, you know."

"That's only fair," Tom said, pulling his orphan card with glee. Normally he didn't make much of
the fact that he was parentless to outsiders, not wanting to make himself an object of pity and
sympathetic head-patting and other such intrusive personal space invasion. But his status was
impossible to hide from her. "I haven't any parents to teach me manners."

"You might have been adopted if you were nicer," the girl replied, in a remarkable show of
tactfulness.

"Are you offering your parents, then?"

"N-no."

"Even if I promised to be nice?"

"No!" The girl's face had gone quite pink, he was pleased to see.

"There, now you see why I don't bother with being nice," Tom said in a cold voice, as he tipped the
books out onto the table and turned them over to read the covers.

The girl sputtered for a moment, a furrow forming between her eyebrows. "What about common
decency?"

"What about it?"

"Well, people have to be nice to each other, even if they don't feel like it, for the benefit of the
community. It's true that people often want to be mean to others, and sometimes it's hard for them
not to, but it's happier and more peaceful for everyone around them if they don't." She dug around
in the box and pulled out a book with a scratched cover. The Principles of Political Philosophy,
Tom read. "It's called a social contract; I read it in this book." The girl gave him a superior look
and lifted her nose. "And as you can see, it's not a fairy story."

He returned her superior look with one of his own. What kind of person told people off by reciting
rules lists from a musty old book? Clergymen and grannies, that's who. And this girl, apparently.
"Do you always parrot things that come out of a book?"

"When I think they're important and worth sharing," said the girl crossly, her knee giving a little
twitch, as if she were only a few prods away from stamping her feet. "But if you don't care, then
I'll have my books back."

"You can't have them back, you already gave them away," Tom retorted, his interest returning to
book sorting.

Beneath the layer of Bibles was an eclectic mix of titles. Elementary Primer of English Grammar,
boring. Junior's Basic Arithmetic, Volume I, and The Young Lady's Companion For Maintaining a
Bright and Happy Home, no thank you. He could see there were a number of books on etiquette,
and he had to wonder why anyone thought they would be of use to the children who lived here.
None of the girls in residence would end up married to a "proper gentleman"; even being legally
married at all was pushing the limits of probability. Let alone owning a full service of formal silver
tableware.

Creation Myths of Ancient Persia, The Mediterranean Mushroom Hunting Guide, On the Tectonic
Formation of the British Isles, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Now this was much
more promising.

"Oh, now you decide you want them?" the girl asked, watching him pile up the books he wanted to
take a look at later.

"Maybe," said Tom indifferently. "I won't decide if they're worth keeping until I read them."

"But they're worth reading, even if they're girly fairy stories?"

"They might be acceptable fairy stories, but I won't know if I haven't finished them," Tom said,
eyeing a book on Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia.

"Acceptable," the girl sniffed. "You'd probably like that one. There are lots of battles and horses
and Emperors, and a million soldiers who died in awful ways; it's the kind of thing that not-nice
boys like you would like, isn't it?"

Tom ran his finger down the spine of the book. This one wasn't going to get splashed with ink or
juice before he'd reached the end. "And I suppose a nice girl like you didn't like it at all?"

The girl frowned in thought, then said, "It wasn't a nice book, but it was interesting. I... I don't have
to think it's nice to like it."

"That's the most intelligent thing you've said all day," said Tom.

The girl harrumphed and slammed a heavy Bible onto the table. Tom gave her a wicked smirk,
which she returned with an irritated lift of her chin. They returned to sorting the books, the girl
giving occasional sidelong glances to the pile he'd collected by his elbow, for bedtime reading.

She left before dinnertime, and the motorcar drove out from the gates, the growl of the engine
muted in the low-hanging fog.

After dinner, Tom mentally revised his list of possessions. He had his private room and all the
orphanage-issued things inside it. He had his Specialness. And now he had a dozen books of his
 own, not quite new, but in better condition than any of the other books he owned. They'd been
given by a girl that he didn't like at all, but who did, he was forced to admit, have a decent taste in
literature.

To his annoyance, he had to admit that her handwriting was decent too.

He felt some satisfaction in scratching out the name Hermione J. Granger from the bookplates
pasted inside the covers. He felt even more satisfaction writing his own name inside, even though
he knew that no one would ever see it, because these books would never join the Bibles and
etiquette manuals in the communal library.

(And yes, he did end up taking that book on social contracts, if only so that he could tell the girl her
ideas about common decency were stupid, the next time she showed her face at Wool's. This kind
of thinking was like teaching sheep to shear themselves, which benefitted the shepherd more than
the flock.

She could argue about "the needs of the flock", but he'd convince her that he was right. And that if
one had to make a choice, then without question it was better to be a shepherd than a sheep.)

Chapter End Notes

I have attempted to make the story feel like it is set in Britain of the 1930's, with references to
period culture and attitudes. Please remember that Tom's perspectives and personality are not
reflections of the author's personal viewpoints.

If you notice any typos, story-breaking anachronisms or Americanisms, drop a comment!

 An Equivocator's Exchange

1936

Tom finished his books by the first week of the new year, distracted enough by the new reading
material that he'd almost forgotten to observe the insignificant date that was his ninth birthday.
He'd gotten an extra egg at breakfast and a slice of butter cake at dinner (once you'd had margarine
cake you quickly realised why butter cake was considered a treat), but other than that, it was a day
just like any other.

He didn't count his new-ish thick woollen jumper as a real birthday gift because everyone else had
gotten one, courtesy of the Ladies' Aid Society of St. John's Anglican Church in Crawley. He knew
this from perusing Mrs. Cole's appointment book, and he also knew that a Mrs. Helen Granger had
donated twenty-five pounds in cash "for a special Christmas supper", according to the receipt. As
Tom was familiar with the distinctions between Special and merely special, he could tell that their
Christmas dinner had been neither. The only difference he saw was everyone being allowed second
helpings that day, and Mrs. Cole's restocked gin drawer.

Mrs. Cole's vices made Tom impatient for the day when he wasn't so young and scrawny and could
get away with things like extortion and blackmail without adults laughing at him or pinching his
cheeks. He was self aware enough to know that nine-year-olds lacked all semblance of physical
presence that an adult would ever respect or fear. He could heighten the effect of his presence
through a careful application of universe bending willpower with other children, but it was more
difficult with adults for some reason.

Tom spent the rest of the year—when he wasn't making his way through the collection of donated
books in the reading room—testing the limits of his abilities. It was an educational experience, on
his part and the other orphans', and he was pleased that they'd been taught well enough to
remember that The Rules applied to everyone except Tom Riddle, and going to the matron would
result in nothing but scolding and corporal punishment for telling stories.

Because how would Tom have made Clem Gilford slip in the shower when he'd been brushing his
teeth in the boys' loo with three other people there too? Tom was such a good boy; he'd received
the local academic achievement award every year since he'd begun primary school. This year he'd
even shaken the mayor's hand during the annual Empire Day assembly. (It wasn't very nice; the
mayor had clammy palms and stale tobacco on his breath.)

Tom was a certified Good Boy.

It was with the intent to maintain this reputation that he encountered Mrs. Helen and Miss
Hermione Granger again that December.

They arrived in the same motorcar, splashing through a wet and windy winter drizzle. They
brought boxes of clothes and bedding, jars of fruit preserves and homemade biscuits made by
church ladies. Mrs. Helen wore a shearling car coat and driving gloves of fine kidskin lined in
rabbit fur, and Hermione had on a navy blue wool coat with shiny brass buttons and thick white
stockings under her Mary Janes.
Hermione caught his eye as soon as Mrs. Cole was distracted, and made her way over to him.

Tom lifted his brow, watching the agitated way she wrung her hands and smoothed the wrinkles out
of her coat.

"I-I'm sorry," she said, swallowing harshly and struggling to meet his calm gaze. "I called you
rude, said you weren't a nice person... which I thought you weren't for the longest time. But I
reflected about it, and, well, did some research, and it was unfair of me to judge you like that. Nor
was it my place to do so. I want to apologise for my behaviour from before."

It was the most eloquent apology Tom had ever heard in his life. Although to be fair, most of the
apologies directed at him came in the form of blubbering half-sentences, punctuated with tears. He
would have enjoyed them more if they hadn't been so... unsanitary.

"Research," said Tom blankly. "Is this about your idea of common decency?"

"No!" said Hermione. "I mean—yes? I do think we should be civil to one another, but I changed
my mind for other reasons."

"Well, go on."

"I researched the living conditions of orphans in Great Britain," she began, "historical to present
day. And how rapid industrialisation shifted the country's economic structure from farming, with
urban migration patterns due to—"

Tom cut her off, his voice cold. "Are you reciting an essay?"

"Um," Hermione said, chewing her lip and not looking at him. "Don't you want to hear the rest?"

"No. I can read it for myself."

Hermione fiddled with the brass buttons of her coat. Tom folded his arms, an unflattering
impression of the girl already solidifying in his mind. A well-meaning do-gooder, with an
unshakeable belief in the inherent good of the human spirit. Someone whose personal experience
of hardship went no further than going without red meat on Fridays.

"I just... I think you're different," Hermione said in a quiet voice. "Like I am. Not necessarily more
grown up, or more clever. More... something. The other children at school wouldn't know what I
was talking about, even if they cared. But you do—you understand, I mean. You're not afraid of
big words."

Tom cocked an eyebrow. "It's called being better than everyone else, if that's what you're trying to
say. That and the invention of steam engines is directly responsible for my being an orphan."

"You've read about it too!" Hermione beamed, sounding as if she'd skipped over what he'd said and
clung onto only what she could comprehend, the historical trivia. She dragged over a carton of
books. "I brought some books on the subject today, for you. And some military histories—you
seemed interested in those last time. Here, look, Crimea in Retrospect, Chemical Warfare Tactics
of Ypres, Skirmishes of the Second Boer War. I can tell you how hard it is to find good history
books that aren't so horribly biased; they say history's written by the winners, so the only balanced
ones are about British defeats or written by foreigners."
As tempted as he was by the thought of building his own library, a personal collection, Tom knew
that nice things didn't come for free.

"Why do you care?" he demanded. "What's your interest in me?"

He willed his voice to carry an echo of his power, for the universe to give his lungs the reach and
resonance of an orator in an amphitheatre, so that anyone in earshot would follow their natural urge
to not only listen, but to obey. To cower before him.

Tell the truth.

His felt as if his blood were humming in his veins, his eardrums rattling from the pressure, his
whole body tingling with power.

Hermione didn't cower. She swayed on her feet for a moment, blinking as the echoes of his will
dissipated, before she planted them firmly on the ground and stared at him.

"What was that?" she asked, her expression suddenly thoughtful. "That was a very queer thing;
have you any voice training? I've heard opera singers could shatter wineglasses with the right note,
some sort of trick with sonic frequencies. But it takes years to learn and you're only nine or ten,
your lungs aren't fully—Oh! I've seemed to have lost the point." Her eyes regained focus, and she
faced him again. "I saw your name in the newspaper. You go to St. Mary's at Nine Elms, don't
you? They posted your marks in the school notices section, and you were ranked top of our year in
the Greater London Boroughs for the '35 to '36 school year. 'T.M. Riddle', that's you, isn't it?"

Tom made a face. Did this girl just come over to ask about his school records? "Are you here
because you can't believe a random orphan got a good mark, so you wanted to see how he did it?"

"No!" Hermione cried. "I've never met anyone who got better marks than me. My parents had me
tested a few months ago, and I'm in the top percentile for my age. Which means that you'd be up
there too!" She gave him a wobbly smile. "I thought we could be friends."

"Wouldn't your parents be worried about you having friends in this place?" Tom asked, doubt
colouring his voice.

He didn't know how parents worked, especially those of the social set who patronised (in every
sense of the word) orphans. He assumed they were interested in sheltering their offspring from
unsavoury influences, of which Wool's was rife. Mrs. Cole was an alcoholic embezzler. Most of
the children in her charge were bastards and thieves, and every one of them who'd learned how to
write could fill a sheet of paper, back and front and tiny script, with all the rude words and dirty
street slang they knew. And used regularly.

"My parents are worried that I don't have any friends at all," said Hermione. "They said I spent all
my time reading books instead of making friends, and they won't buy me any new books until I can
prove I can socialise with people my age. I know we don't have anything in common, but we both
like books, so I thought we could read them and talk about it. I imagine that's what friends do.
Well, what I'd do if I had friends."

"I wouldn't know," Tom shrugged. "I try to limit my contact with everyone here. But I suppose we
could be friends, if..."

"Yes?"
"How much money have you got?"

"I have to pay to be friends?" said Hermione, white-faced and appalled.

"You said you needed proof of friendship," Tom quickly pointed out. "I'll need to buy postage
stamps and envelopes so you can show your parents letters from a friend. I promise I'll only write
nice things in them. And you'll send me a parcel now and then; I prefer chocolate over boiled
sweets, the orange chocolate bars if you can get them. Don't bother buying me anything with nuts."

"Is that all?" asked Hermione, getting over her shock. Tom could tell she was running his demands
over in her mind.

"We could agree on a ratio of letters to gifts," suggested Tom. "And a delivery schedule. One letter
a fortnight, one parcel for every four letters? I'll write you two pages, double-sided, at a minimum,
but there's hardly anything at Wool's worth writing about, so it'll mostly be about school things and
books."

"I suppose that'll do," Hermione mused, already perking up at the mention of books. "It's still
rather mercenary of you to sell your friendship."

"Don't think of it as a sale. You can't put a price on a human being, of course," Tom said, giving
her his charming Good Boy smile. "Think of it as a maintenance fee, or an investment."

Besides, he thought, it's not like you could actually afford to buy me.

"Well, alright," Hermione assented. She reached into her pocket and drew out a small velvet coin
purse. "Let's see how much I have in here..."

In the end, Hermione gave him everything she had in her purse. Sixteen shillings and sixpence, the
most money he'd ever had in his life. It was a small fortune by orphanage standards, where
individual pennies were jealously guarded by anyone who had them. Three ha'pence was the value
of a postage stamp to someone who lived as close to London as Hermione did; five or six pence
was the price of a handful of pick and mix sweets, or a whole bar of chocolate. A shilling would
buy a book brand new, or two to three second-hand novels from a booth at the Saturday vegetable
market.

Tom did his best to hide the gleam of greed in his eyes.

Hermione pushed the small pile of coins over to Tom. "Don't tell my parents about this. And don't
mention it in the letters, they might try to read the first couple to make sure it's not a trick."

"Of course not," said Tom, rolling his eyes. "I'm good at keeping secrets. I hope you won't have
any trouble with keeping them yourself."

Hermione frowned. "I don't like keeping secrets from my parents. I've never had to keep secrets
from them before."

"You said earlier we hadn't anything in common, but now we do," said Tom. "We have a secret
'friendship' now. Nothing keeps people closer than shared secrets. And it's not like you don't get
anything out of it. You're the one who wanted your parents to think you're normal."
"We'll be friends as long as you keep to your word," Hermione said. She held out her hand.

Tom eyed the hand, and the pile of coins on the table. He shook her hand, which to his relief,
wasn't sticky. Her skin was warm and dry; her nails were short and well trimmed, and there was a
blue smear of ink along the inside of her thumb, a pen grip callus at the third joint of her middle
finger.

"Agreed," Tom said, letting go of her hand, sweeping the coins out of sight and into his trouser
pocket. He continued on imperiously, "Now show me what other books you brought today. And if
I see anything by Dickens, I'll be very, very disappointed in you."
 Butterflies

1937

Hermione Granger turned out to be a bookworm, a description more accurate than mere simile.

She had a single-minded appetite for literature. She was thin-skinned (although every child who
hadn't gone through Wool's School of Life Lessons fell under this category) and fragile (a trait
which Tom connoted with weakness) and did better in musty, dark spaces than out in direct
sunlight. And she burrowed under his skin like a disease, infecting him with her contagious
Opinions. She had a stance on everything, didn't hesitate to share them, and to Tom's disgust, made
some legitimate points now and again.

In her fortnightly letters, she sent him newspaper clippings with notes written in the margins in tiny
text.

Chamberlain Improves Factory Conditions for Working Women and Youth

I'm sure you already know that state-sponsored full-time education is only guaranteed until the
age of fourteen, and after you turn fifteen I suppose you will be expected to take vocational
studies or apprentice in a trade, or in worst cases, be sent to do light labour or other such
work in a factory while whoever is in charge calls it "job training" and pays you half wages...

Tom did know this. Many of the older orphans were out during daylight hours doing odd jobs. He
hadn't cared to look into into it; he rarely interacted with them except for the few times when one
moved out and left an empty room to scavenge through.

His personal plan was to stay in education until he was forced to leave Wool's. If he kept getting top
marks then he'd be sponsored through to eighteen, and perhaps after that, enough recommendations
would convince the local borough council to see him through university.

It was with abhorrence that he realised he'd have to be Tom the Good Boy until then.

It was with anger that he realised social mobility for someone of his status was very far from
attainable. That even if his father was someone important—it was a long-held wish of Tom's, but he
had seen no proof of it so far—his mother surely was not, and that the sin of birth was a permanent
stain as far as most were concerned, no matter that Tom hadn't any choice in the matter, nor done
anything to deserve it.

And it was with contempt that he realised Hermione Granger knew all of this, didn't care, and felt
sorry for him.
 ...Might be opportunities available overseas suitable for someone of your ambition. A
comfortable position in India or Hong Kong would likely guarantee the native population to
recognise you as unique, a rarity, just by virtue of being an Englishman. From the tone of your
past letters, I surmise that is something you value. I make no judgement of it, apart from
observing that this attitude is not uncommon for Englishmen abroad, and that if you ever do
what Lieutenant Pinkerton did to Madame Butterfly, I would have no choice but to geld you.

Mummy would say that I shouldn't know what that word means, but Daddy is a doctor and a
scalpel is not so hard to find, nor is an anatomy textbook. Don't worry, I promise that if I make
a mistake, I'll get Daddy to put you back together so I can try again.

There were some things, at least, that were tolerable about her. For one, her sense of humour wasn't
limited to jokes about flatulence. (One of the boys at Wool's had recently gotten his hands on a
whoopee cushion; the ensuing antics had lasted for three days before Tom had had to put his foot
down. He'd confiscated it and publicly disposed of it during supper in the name of the greater
good.)

And it amused him that she held onto her Opinions with a tenacity that wasn't matched by her grasp
on morality.

Your commitment to justice is commendable, Hermione, wrote Tom.

But I have my doubts that you would actually be able to carry out such a deed, no matter how
much you wish it. I've always believed that you are one to prefer leaving justice to the duly
sanctioned authority. In his case, Lieutenant Pinkerton would be charged by a military court
for the crime of bigamy. As for me? I would not be in that situation because I would not be so
stupid as to get married in the first place, let alone married TWICE.

Any "justice" you deem fit to dispense would be limited by your conscience.

But do go on, impress me with your moxie.

The months passed in a flurry of envelopes stamped with the face of the freshly-crowned King
George. Tom wrote his obligatory two pages every two weeks. He didn't write anything about the
orphanage, about the envious glances the other children shot him when he had trade goods to
exchange for upper year school textbooks, to upgrade to a silver nib fountain pen. He didn't
mention how second-hand glimpses of a world beyond the grimy streets of South London had
distracted him from his role as Schoolmaster Tom, causing the starlings that slept under his roof to
circle like tiny vultures, until he re-established his place in the pecking order with the death of a
rabbit fed on rat poison.

Hermione, as per their original agreement, had made no such promise to write him back, only that
she'd send gift parcels for every four letters he sent. But she wrote replies to his letters, on thick
cream letterhead paper, her initials embossed on the top. She congratulated him on his excellent
marks, sent him a clipping of his name in the paper for ranking top once more. She asked if he was
enrolling to the nearby comprehensive or applying to a more prestigious local grammar school once
he finished primary.

(He wasn't. There was no money to spare for uniforms, no money to take the trolleybus there and
back every day.

Not that he told her that. He could write about his ambitions, his future, distant glory eternal and
everlasting. But he said nothing about his present. Wool's was merely ephemeral in the grand view
of things, a transitory stage in his growth; in a blink of an eye he would be gone, and it would be
forgotten, and he would make everyone forget that this coal-blackened box of concrete was where
he'd been born.

He didn't tell her.

She already knew.)

Dear Tom,

The disdain you feel for humanity is truly unparalleled. Have you ever considered applying
your talents to help humanity meet your impossible standards?

Just the other day, I read an interesting essay on the concept of 'Zeitgeist'...

Mrs. Cole stopped giving him wary looks when she passed him his mail, not oblivious to the fact
that the envelopes were return addressed to a Miss Granger whose mother signed the bank cheques
that put food on the table and gin in the desk drawer.

Tom still hadn't reversed his judgement on Hermione Granger. She was annoyingly persistent, like
the people who stood on street corners pushing pamphlets and proselytising about Christ's
imminent return or Communist utopias. He didn't like it.

He didn't like her.

She wrote her letters in blue-black ink, each word perfectly formed, the script evenly spaced in neat
lines, the envelopes scented. The post office clerks thought Tom was a middleman delivery boy for
someone's illicit lady love.

She was the only person his own age who didn't think it was a waste of time to study subjects
beyond the school curriculum. One would not be asked to plot a polynomical function when
working at a cannery. Stevedores and porters had no need for flawless manners and refined
elocution.

She was the only one who prefixed her greetings to him with "Dear".

But—

Hermione was ordinary.

People didn't hurt when she wanted them to, because she couldn't do it and she thought it was
wrong. She couldn't refashion the universe with the force of her will.

They had scarcely anything in common; their correspondence was a transcript of debates, each
point evaluated and refuted, sentences crowned with sprays of ink splatters when touching on
subjects of firm personal investment.

Nevertheless, she couldn't reshape his convictions with the force of her obstinacy.

But she tried anyway.

They still weren't friends.

That December, Hermione invited him to the opera with her family as a special Christmas treat.
She brought him a new coat during the now annual St. John's Ladies Society charity visit.

"I've never been to the opera before," said Hermione as she entered the reading room, bouncing up
and down on the balls of her feet. "I was too young, and they run on for hours and hours once you
add in the intermission. But my parents are convinced that I have a friend now, and since you don't
go to the same school with me, they want to meet the person I spend days writing to."

It's a test, thought Tom. "Do they expect anything of me?"

Recite my times tables? Expound on my favourite Tory candidates? Fetch sticks or bark on
command?

"They might ask you a few questions," Hermione confessed. "But you're ten years old; no one's
going to sit you down for cigars and brandy and ask you to state your intentions."

"How thrilling," said Tom. "I expect I can remember not to drop my aitches for one night."

"It'll be worthwhile," said Hermione. "They've booked a box for the four of us. Mum and dad
meant it to be a treat—not an interrogation. And I knew you wouldn't come if you had to rub
shoulders with the peons in the stall seats."

In his letters, Tom had been plenty forthright about the subset of humanity that he didn't believe
was worth rehabilitating. She thought he used the word "peons" ironically. They'd argued about it,
Tom believing that she was too close-minded and sheltered about the topic: it wasn't like she had to
live in a neighbourhood shared with the types of people he despised, the ones who roamed the
streets in the dark and spoke in coded English that was never King's English. Rowdy boys, bawdy
girls, rattle snafflers and ken cribbers, lurchers, lushes, dossers and ribbers.

Not that the East End of London was a lawless frontier where one would be cut down a metre
outside their front step. It had been, he'd read, much worse last century. He was grateful not to have
been born then. (As much as he could be grateful for being born; it was difficult for him to
comprehend the feeling of gratefulness with relation to his mother, whom he considered useless in
every other context.)

"Alright," Tom sighed, sounding resigned to his fate. It wouldn't do for Hermione to think that he
actually enjoyed her company. Reading her rambling by post was quite removed from having to
appear alert and interested in person. "If your parents are willing to play chaperone and chauffeur,
then I'll be your Good Boy for the evening."

A week later—a week before his eleventh birthday—the Grangers picked Tom up from the
orphanage gates in their motorcar, and gave him his first taste of grandeur. Of course he'd seen the
grand buildings of central London before, toured Whitehall and the West End with a school group
where the guide lectured at them about the history of the city and the important people who ran the
country, feeding them false hopes that one day they could be there too, despite their lack of public
school records and Norman Conquest pedigrees.

The difference was like looking in through the windows, and actually being allowed in. Here was a
doorman doffing his cap, there was a velvet rope being pushed aside so he could pass through. In
the instant where Tom was blinded by the light of crystal chandeliers reflecting off golden
scrollwork panelling the walls and white-skinned marble nymphs set in alcoves, he had an
epiphany.

This was the reason why princes wanted to be kings, and kings dreamt of becoming emperors. It
was for this that a king would sign the Magna Carta, giving away his powers and offices bit by bit,
as long as he kept the crowns and palaces.

This was the physical manifestation of success. Beautiful things, respect from lesser beings,
admiration and envy from the aspirational. Tom absorbed it all; he gloated in it, and immersed
himself in the feeling. He memorised it, from the parquet floors to the fresco ceilings, and sent
them to the corner of his mind that he had labelled 'Motivational Thoughts'.

He found the centrepiece of the evening—Madame Butterfly—to be inferior in retrospect to the

awe he'd felt stepping into the theatre's foyer for the first time. The private box was nice, the seats
luxuriously cushioned, though rather high up, and the intermission had an attendant serve the adults
champagne and the children cherry squash in stemmed glasses. But the opera itself was an
overacted melodrama, British actors swaddled in Oriental silks and singing in Italian; he judged it a
shallow, absurdist fancy disguised as poignant tragedy.

Hermione and her mother both cried at the end.

On the drive back to Wool's, Hermione asked him, "What did you think of it?"

"It was... interesting," Tom replied diplomatically. Her parents were within earshot, so he was
careful to remain the very picture of a polite, respectful Good Boy.

"You didn't like it?"

"I didn't agree with the characters' decisions," Tom said, with an ambivalent shrug. "You know why
I prefer textbooks over novels. Their motivations don't make any sense to me, and their characters
are contemptible."
What he didn't say was, I think it's pathetic for Butterfly to kill herself when she had a baby to look
after.

That made him sound like a resentful whinger who cried himself to sleep because he'd had no one
to tuck him in and sing him lullabies. He didn't care for the supposedly sublime joys of the maternal
bond, his own or any other's; he'd stopped concerning himself with this lack many years ago. He
refused to see himself as any lesser because this was an area in which he was ignorant, and would
always remain so. Tom Riddle was lesser to no one.

"Do you think they could have ever been happy together?" Hermione asked suddenly.

Tom knew she was referring to the heroine of the opera and her pathetic lover; he stifled his snort
of amusement. "Of course not. It's a tragedy, it's not supposed to be happy. That, and the playwright
is contractually bound to kill as many people off by the last act as he can get away with. If they
were real people, they'd be completely incompatible. They would've been better off if they'd stuck
with their own kind."

Tom spoke with the utter certainty of his almost eleven years of life experience. To be sure, he
hadn't meant his words to mirror the scathing tone certain people used when sending letters on the
topic of the King's subjects in his colonial territories to the local editorial column. Those people
that called themselves Social Darwinists but in actuality were plain old xenophobes.

(These people often overlapped with the segment of the population who had no tolerance for
anyone whose income was less than £250 a year, and would have no difficulty drowning orphans at
birth instead of putting them through eighteen years at Wool's. Which was a sensible act of mercy
from Tom's point of view—he was quite the utilitarian in his daydreams of running the world—if
he wouldn't have been one directly affected.)

"Outside the demands of the narrative, I mean. If they'd only talked to each other, if they'd learned
to communicate past the cultural divisions. If only they loved each other," said Hermione, sighing
mournfully. "Love has to count for something. It overcomes obstacles."

"Well, I hope someone explains that to the baby when it grows up," Tom remarked under his
breath.

Hermione nudged him with her elbow and sighed again. "You mustn't be so cynical, Tom! I'm sure
you'll change your mind about it when you're older."

"Hmm," was Tom's non-committal response. "I doubt it."

If love is as real and strong as you think it is, then things like indifference and hate are equally real
and strong.

"It's certainly possible," Hermione said firmly. "After all, you did end up changing your mind on
the use of area bombing as a method of urban development. Allowing yourself to compromise on a
more moderate stance is a sign of emotional growth. Give yourself a few years and you'll be
agreeing that there are other viable means of governance than a pure autocracy."

The motorcar, to his great regret, soon deposited him by the gates of the orphanage at a quarter 'til
midnight. Tom shook Dr. Granger's hand, thanked Mrs. Granger, and bid adieu to Hermione, before
heading through the gates (it was shameful how they hadn't gotten around to fixing that second A,
dangling off a single nail; it made the place look like a particularly sleazy hotel) and up to the front
door. Martha met him with a torch and a swat on the shoulder to wash up and go to bed quickly, no
dallying.

In the dim half-light of the streetlamps, Tom hung his new coat up in his wardrobe, admiring the
thick boiled wool and sturdy Bakelite buttons. It was a real "new", never having been owned by
someone else. Hermione had given it to him still wrapped in the department store tissue paper. He
set the souvenir theatre programme on his desk, the pages well-thumbed where he'd flipped to read
English translations of the character dialogue.

He changed into grey flannel pyjamas, pulled the itchy blanket up to his chin, and stared at the
lumpy plaster ceiling. If he was being honest, he wouldn't categorise this day as the best day of his
life. Truthfully, he'd place the production quality of the opera at the same level as a motion picture
show, and the entertainment quality inferior to that of a good book.

No, this was the most important day of his life so far. The day when his What-Could-Have-Been
converged on the What-Will-Be, showing him a taste of what lay beyond the realm of books and
dreams and the sooty brickwork of his current reality.

He had tasted; he was enraptured. Some part of him (all of him) would never be happy returning to
the drab existence that was his What-Is-Now, having confirmed for himself that the matrons and
minders were wrong—that there was nothing wrong with getting ideas above one's station. As if
one's station was not only a condemnation from birth, but immutable, invalidating the presence of
inborn aptitude and natural talent.

Delight and dissatisfaction warred within him, tumultuous thoughts keeping him from sleep.

Frustration.

He didn't feel culturally enriched after listening to three hours of Italian arias. Instead, he was
irritated at the lack of language resources available to someone of his status. It was all the more
galling when he recalled that the entrance examinations to Oxford and Cambridge required
knowledge of Classical Greek and Latin. And one needed to enrol in a school like that to enter the
higher echelons of British society.

Dr. Granger must have learned Latin at some point; if he still had his old textbooks, Hermione
could get them for him.

Hermione.

She was... useful.

Tom's world was divided into a simple spectrum, labelled "Useful" and "Worthless" at each pole.
Humouring Hermione served to advance his own interests. She, out of all the people with whom he
had regular contact, had delivered the most value for the time invested. And it wasn't that
unpleasant of a time, he was forced to acknowledge. There was more intelligent discourse in her
postscripts than he got from an entire day of school lessons.

He might be indifferent to her taste in entertainment, but nevertheless, she remained valuable to
him. And it must be reciprocated to some extent; she was indifferent to his political opinions but
still found them interesting enough to debate him. She liked talking to him. And her company
was... tolerable.
He wondered if he should tell her that.

He wondered whether or not it was a sign of emotional growth that he'd even considered the notion.
Then he rolled over and closed his eyes.
 Legerdemain

1938

Hermione Granger was still undecided about whether or not she liked Tom Riddle, but she did
know for certain that he was her only friend.

But it wasn't as if you had to like people to be friends with them. In the military history books she'd
bought for Tom, she'd read that nations formed alliances with other nations they didn't like all the
time. England had fought a Hundred Years' War with France—and it was over six hundred years of
conflicts altogether, if she remembered correctly—yet Britain and France had allied in the last
Great War. The same could be said about the Americans, who had fought Britain for only a
fraction of that time, but their shared history was no less contentious.

So there it was. You didn't necessarily have to agree with someone to remain civil; if you had the
patience to see past one another's irreversible differences then you could spot the common values
and complementary strengths.

She occasionally felt a bit uneasy having to justify her friendship with Tom Riddle, but then one of
his letters would arrive and the lingering doubts would be settled. Because that penmanship! She'd
never met a boy who could write like that, whose penmanship was so crisp, whose facility and
diction made her feel like she was a lady scholar corresponding with her man of letters, and not just
a child writing to another child from across the boroughs of London.

Hermione,

I respectfully disagree with you on the subject of criminal justice. I've always found penal
transportation a practical, and yes, more merciful system of rehabilitation compared to the
very permanent alternative. Pity they stopped it by 1850; I expect by then Parliament had
realised that railway sleepers don't lay themselves...

The first parcels she sent him contained sweets and tinned shortbreads, but after a few comments
on their nutritional value, she'd ended up sending stamps for return postage and blank exercise
books. That later turned to interesting periodicals, advanced textbooks, and most recently, Latin
primers. Well, she couldn't fault him for having eclectic tastes.

Her parents probably wouldn't approve of her spending most of her pocket money on gift parcels,
but all the books she'd bought for him she first read herself, and there was nothing unusual about
Hermione spending half her weekend browsing newsstands and bookshops.

What would they scold her about anyway? Did they want to deprive an already deprived orphan
of the kindness he would get from nowhere else? He had no parents, and despite the orphanage
matron's yammering on about how all her young charges were a family, it was difficult to spot any
signs of attachment or affection amongst the orphans, and impossible to discern with regards to
Tom himself.
And it wasn't as if Hermione's mum and dad would want to deprive her of her only friend.
Hermione had always been such an odd duck, a single child labelled Precocious at six years old,
Solitary at seven, and by eight, she was Peculiar, for the strange incidents that happened in her
presence but could not be blamed on anyone—mysterious malfunctioning locks, burst pipes, and
small fires.

She'd thought she was going mad for the longest time.

She still didn't know if she was mad or not. Having delved into books to find answers—because
there were answers, it was only a matter of how many books she needed to go through to find it—
she had come up with a few explanations, but none of them were particularly satisfying. It was
after she'd met Tom Riddle for the second time that she'd looked into the phenomenon of ESP and
had been discouraged by how ridiculous it was. Spirit mediums and fortune telling? What
nonsense!

She'd rather believe Tom Riddle was an opera virtuoso in potentia (on top of all of his academic
talents) than some kind of—of telepath.

It was in a bout of frustration at the library archives that she'd discovered another explanation:
Legerdemain.

Other people could deal and swap playing cards with a simple flick of the wrist. Hermione could
turn the pages of a book without laying a finger on them. It was an ability she'd discovered hearing
the library closure announcement. She'd panicked at the pile of books as yet unopened, and the
page she had been skim-reading quivered like the wings of a butterfly, and then under her trembling
fingers and frightened gaze one page had turned to the next, and the next, until it reached the back
cover and closed with a thump.

She could replicate it too, one success per every five attempts. As long as she combined
concentration (picturing the vanes of a windmill, the pattern of turning sheaves in a paddleboat
wheel, spokes arrayed around the spinning axle of a bicycle tyre) and the memory of urgency,
desperation, need.

In the end, Hermione decided she wasn't mad. They were only parlour tricks, like the ones seen in
stage shows. There was surely another, better rational explanation—only she hadn't found yet it.
Like magnetic attraction. Or static discharges and bio-electrical currents.

She half wondered if Tom Riddle was the mad one.

...You argue that an autocratic system is susceptible to regicide and power vacuums. I argue
that the problem of the fallible system would be solved if the autocrat himself were infallible.
Alexander and Napoleon, for all their victories and achievements, were failures: flawed not
only in character, but in judgement.

I, however, am an excellent judge of character. You see, Hermione, I've always been able to
tell when people are lying to me, or at the very least, when their intentions toward me are
dishonest, and whether they are hiding something they'd rather I not know. It's been a very
useful ability; it was how I confirmed it was worth making your acquaintance, something I do
not regret. I've often wondered if this natural intuition of mine could be useful had I been in
their position...
Tom had a very... forceful personality.

Oh, he could be charming when he wanted to be (her mother had commented on his sweet manners
the morning after they'd taken him to the opera) but of the handful of times Hermione had met him
in person, he'd always given the impression of a sort of feral intensity. As if his skin—his life—
was too small, too confining, and he was restlessly anticipating the day where he would burst out of
it like a moulted carapace.

She tried not to judge him too harshly. It wasn't Tom's fault where he was born; if she lived in an
orphanage, it would not be likely she'd have come out of it as well-adjusted as he seemed to be.

(Sometimes when their debates became heated, it provoked one of his rare moments of candour,
and he came off as delusional.)

But it wasn't as if he'd done anything to hurt her. The subjects of their debates were firmly placed
in the realm of the hypothetical. And even if Tom did cause some form of offence, friends made
allowances for one another's faults.

That's what friendship was about.

His fortnightly letters arrived every Tuesday morning, which meant Tom must have posted them
during the weekend.

Hermione would tuck the freshly delivered envelope into her schoolbag and spend half the
morning's lessons thinking about what Tom had written her, if he'd read the book she'd sent him...
Then when lunch came, she'd sit in a shaded corner of the school quadrangle overlooked by the
staffroom window and open his letter.

It was like unwrapping a gift.

(It was like having a friend eat lunch with her.)

She savoured his words; she imagined that he was in school right now, St. Mary's at Nine Elms, in
the middle of his lunch recess. She pictured him sitting under a tree and reading her books, dark
eyes devouring words she'd underlined and annotated, his fingers tracing the edges of pages, pages
that had turned under her upraised hands—without needing her hands at all—like the spring-
powered dial of a rotary telephone.

Hermione's days flew by without incident, the passage of time marked by a stream of letters that
dropped through the family mail slot.
Some time after the middle of the year—not too long after Hermione had congratulated Tom for his
Year Five scores listed as a newspaper commendation—a letter arrived that did not come via Royal
Mail. Most unusually, it was delivered by hand on a Saturday afternoon in late July, by a well-
dressed man with sharp, perceptive eyes and a benign smile lifting up the corners of his auburn
beard.

He wore a smartly cut suit in bright teal-green velvet, complemented by a silk damask waistcoat
patterned with a tessellating design of golden feathers and flames. He called himself Professor and
Wizard and the dependable cogs in the well-oiled machine that was Hermione's mind ground
themselves into a screeching halt.

Wizard.

Witch.

The cogs sought for traction, a base point; the gears and teeth within her skull sunk into facts she'd
just learned, observations she'd long known, searching for commonalities and correlations that had
to be there, were there all along.

There all along, but it was only now that someone thought it convenient to tell her.

Magic.

She was at once captivated and frustrated; there was delight in getting answers to the questions
she'd been asking for years, and in equal measure, a burning dissatisfaction in being denied the
chance to find the answers herself. Because no matter how hard she'd looked, the answers were
nowhere to be found, not in the local library, or all the bookshops of central London, or the
academic archives at the university she'd visited with her father whenever he met with his Alumnus
Society. Not for people of their heritage, those who couldn't see the publican's door hidden in plain
sight on the high street at Charing Cross, who couldn't cross the sixth brick pillar from the gate at
King's Cross Station.

Delight, frustration, and the final, welcome warmth of vindication. She hadn't been going mad.

Hermione's father observed the wizard, Professor Dumbledore, over the top of his newspaper, a
colourful figure looking out of place in the sedate creams and browns of the family's formal sitting
room. Hermione's mum set out a tray of tea and jam-filled shortbreads, before settling down on a
loveseat, an open notebook balanced on her knee to take the Professor's information down in
shorthand.

They'd been unsettled ever since the Professor waved his wand and made the legs of their coffee
table sprout roots and branches and transform into an attractive leafy indoor trellis—with a level
shelf in the middle to hold the tea tray and porcelain tea set. To Hermione's gratitude, her parents'
anxiety seemed to be due to this strange man in their home, and not by the revelation that she could
do the same things he did.

Mum and Dad seemed to be relieved on her behalf, and echoed her sentiments about the lack of
answers until now, just a couple of months before Hermione was expected to go to a prestigious
girls' preparatory school, one that she'd had to pass entry tests years ago to put her name on a
waiting list. They'd already bought her the uniforms and textbooks, because Hermione was the
type of student who preferred to show up on the first day with a study plan for the whole year's
syllabus.
"I don't suppose I'll ever be a doctor, then," Hermione said, with a sigh of disappointment. "If it's
dangerous to go untrained in magic, then I'll have to go to your school, and not to Donwell Prep."

"If you are interested in the field of medicine," Professor Dumbledore explained in a calm, assured
voice, "the magical occupation of a Mediwitch or Mediwizard is our closest equivalent to, ah, I
suppose, a General Practitioner in Muggle terms. Qualification for a specialty field is done through
a Healing Mastery program, which is an apprenticeship undertaken after Hogwarts graduation and
can last anywhere from three to eight years. This would be a specialisation in, for example, spell or
curse damage, mind Healing, magical midwifery, or contagious illnesses."

"I do hope it's a position of respect in your society," Dr. Granger remarked, a contemplative frown
wrinkling his forehead. Professor Dumbledore nodded in affirmation. "I don't suppose it pays
well? We don't mind supporting Hermione however long she needs it after graduation, but she's
always been of an independent disposition. And barring a ladies' boarding house, there's few
respectable places that would take an independent girl like our Hermione, if she's reliant on a single
income."

"I trained as a nurse before marrying," said Mrs. Granger, looking up from her notebook. "They
didn't pay as much as we deserved, because the hospital's directors were expecting high turnover—
they thought we'd go off and get married right after we completed training. But it led to most of us
marrying just so we could afford to live in the city. It was a rather convoluted cycle, and a self-
perpetuating one at that."

"Ah, I see," said Dumbledore, with a look of dawning understanding. "Healer trainees receive the
same wages, whether they are wizards or witches. We don't distinguish between the sexes in our
world, as all of us who are born with the potential are considered equally magical." A shadow
crossed his features, and the kindly lines that wove around the corners of his eyes pinched together
in rumination.

"Some of us marry quite young, right after finishing school—that is their prerogative, of course,
and some choose not to marry at all if they are independently minded; I am one such, and I have
never witnessed it held against me. Early marriage amongst our kind is usually due to a traditional
upbringing than economic necessity. Economic disadvantage is never as severe as it is in the
Muggle world, when most of our needs can be managed by magic. We can't conjure food—you'll
find out more about it by Fifth Year—but creating shelter and warmth and clothes from very little
or nothing at all? Certainly possible, for those who have the skill for it.

"But to return to what I mentioned earlier, about these traditionalists. They are a small fraction of
our population, but can be disproportionately vocal at times, and harbour beliefs that I, and indeed
many others, consider outmoded and unenlightened. Chief among those is their attitude regarding
one's magical heritage, which is referred to by that set, in common terms, as one's 'blood status'..."

Dumbledore spoke in his tenured lecturer's voice, genial in all respects. But Hermione could sense
the tension in her father's shoulders, and the white knuckles of her mother's hands where she
clutched her fountain pen and stabbed the nib into the paper in the abbreviated strokes of phonetic
shorthand. Hermione's own hands scrunched up the hem of her skirt.

By the time Hermione's mum had the kettle on for a second pot of tea, Hermione felt exhausted.

"It's better to know now than find out later, or not know at all," she murmured, picking up a
biscuit. "Even if it ruins the first impression I have of magic." Hermione glanced up at
Dumbledore, who was inspecting the framed anatomical lithographs that decorated the walls of the
Grangers' sitting room. "Professor, do you tell this to all the Muggleborns you visit? I can't help
imagining that you'd be scaring half the families away from magic."

"I give a general introduction to most potential students," said Dumbledore. "It usually takes years
to acclimate to the wizarding world; beyond the basics, I am limited to answering as many
questions as I'm asked. And few have asked as many questions as you have. But Hogwarts'
unofficial motto is that 'help is always given to those who ask for it', and I'm as much partial to that
one as our official motto."

"What is the official motto?" asked Dr. Granger.

"'Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus'," Dumbledore replied, his eyes beaming behind his half-
moon spectacles. "The Hogwarts founders' sense of humour is a tidbit of trivia unfortunately lost
to the veils of time."

"'Dragon... sleep... not... something'," Hermione puzzled out, brow furrowed. Her father seemed to
have gotten it already. "Tom would figure it out faster than me," she grumbled. "I gave him our
Latin primers because he wanted to study for matriculation."

It was in that instant that Hermione remembered her one and only friend, Tom Riddle.

How will Tom write to me when I'm away at school? It's in Scotland—the postage will take longer
and the stamps more expensive. I'll have to send him the money, or the stamps, and I'll have to
explain why I'm not going to Donwell Prep anymore, when I'd been harping on it for months as the
best school for career-minded young ladies. And we won't be able to exchange curriculum notes
anymore; he'll be learning English grammar and algebra, and I'll be studying magic.

Magic.

Dumbledore explained the concept of accidental magic. Unusual phenomena occurring around a
magical child. Unintentional magical outbursts in moments of intense emotion. But it can be
controlled consciously, some of the time. I've controlled it before.

...You see, Hermione, I've always been able to tell when people are lying to me...

"Professor," Hermione asked, turning to Dumbledore, "is it possible to tell when people are lying
with magic?"

Dumbledore's face became grave, but his eyes hadn't lost their warmth. "It is indeed possible, but
considered an extremely obscure branch of magic, and one that is not taught at Hogwarts. Where
might you have heard of it, Miss Granger?"

Hermione couldn't miss his sudden curiosity; she was feeling the same thing once she'd heard the
word 'obscure'.

"I know a boy who said he could... sense lies, I suppose," said Hermione, slightly nervous. "He has
been my dearest friend for years. And he's much like me—we both make top marks every year, it's
a bit of a competition between us—and he once did something strange that I could never find a
sensible, scientific explanation for. Like he was speaking in my head, or something like that—it
sounded so ridiculous and I thought I was just imagining it." She gazed up at Professor
Dumbledore, an idea firming in her mind. "He's my age, eleven years old, just a few months
younger than I am. I think he might be—could he be a—Professor, do you have a list of the
Muggleborn students that you bring invitations to?"

"We have an enchanted quill in the Headmaster's office that makes a list automatically," said
Dumbledore. "We sort out the addresses that are in Muggle areas, referenced against our existing
list of wizarding homes."

"Do you know if someone by the name of Riddle is on it?" Hermione asked. "Tom Riddle? He
lives in South London, in Wool's Orphanage."

"I believe I have seen that name on this year's intake. The address was somewhat unusual,"
Dumbledore conceded. "My list is sorted alphabetically, so his visit would be sometime next week,
or the week after."

Tom is a wizard.

And I'm a witch.

He'll be so pleased when he finds out. I never told him about what I could do, or the accidents at
school that made everyone think I was a graceless clod on top of being an overbearing know-it-all.
It stands to reason that he's never told me about all the things he can do, Hermione realised. If he
knows something, he isn't one to share it with the world. Heavens, he must have thought he was
going mad too.

"Sir, when you visit Tom," Hermione spoke eagerly, thinking of how wonderful it was that she and
Tom could go to school together, and see each other every day. "Can you bring him some books?
Mum and Dad bought me the school textbooks for Year Six, but since I won't be needing them,
Tom can have them. I've already finished reading them—and I promised them to Tom when I was
done with them, since I was taking subjects his local comprehensive didn't offer."

At Dumbledore's nod, she ran upstairs and fetched the heavy stack of books she was supposed to
take to school in September. A Muggle school. Muggle. Such a strange new word, and one of
many she'd learned today, but the concepts they described seemed to make sense to her, naturally
so. It was as if she'd known forever that she was different, but hadn't the words—until now—to
bring her idle speculations into the world of concrete fact.

She still half-believed that this was all a dream, and she'd wake up tomorrow morning unaware of a
parallel world that contained magic. It seemed too fantastical to be real.

Law and Governance of Britain and Her Territories, Intermediate Geometry, Physical Sciences G6,
Students' World Geography...

She piled them up and brought them to Dumbledore, who raised his eyebrow at the weight of them,
drew his wand, and shrunk them down so that each book was the size of a matchbox. They
disappeared into a pocket within his teal velvet coat.

"I'll see you come September first, Miss Granger," said Dumbledore amiably, as he put his wand
away and shook Dr. Granger's hand. He gave a short bow to Mrs. Granger and nodded at
Hermione, who gripped the thick sheaf of papers from her Hogwarts letter as fiercely as if she was
afraid they'd float away.

"Yes, Sir," said Hermione. "Please give Tom my regards when you visit him, Professor."
When Professor Dumbledore left, Hermione was still shaking with excitement, although it had
started to morph into a sense of itching anxiety. She had only a month and a few days left before
the start of term, and she hadn't read through her textbooks, because she hadn't even bought them.

With trembling hands, she dug into her desk drawer and peeled out a sheet of stationery paper and
an envelope, stamp already affixed to the top right corner.

The pen nib hovered over the paper, her account of the day taking shape in jagged swipes and
wobbly lines. It flowed out in a feverish pace, the paper smeared in the margins where Hermione
had forged ahead without a second's pause for the ink to dry.

Dear Tom,

Today, we had the most exciting caller drop in for tea...

 Stargazer
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1938

Tom learned a new set of cultural mores that autumn. He saw things he recognised, but they were
mutated and combined with the magical variation Hogwarts produced.

Hogwarts' food was one mark of difference. The food was hearty and familiar British fare: meats,
breads, pickles, and puddings. But it came with goblets of over-sweet pumpkin juice instead of the
watery powdered milk he was used to. The school uniforms were to be worn pressed neatly and
tucked in to no one's surprise, but were hidden beneath the loose, draping folds of a wizard's robe.

The school was located in Scotland, and the language of instruction was English, although no one
commented on the wide range of regional dialects he heard amongst the student population.
Nevertheless, his vocabulary and elocution were still scrutinised, not so much as for indications of
social class, but rather any sign of partisan sympathies. The eyes of his Slytherin housemates didn't
search for the same set of subliminal cues as a class-conscious Londoner would—for example, how
one took their tea and handled the service accoutrements, from the sugar tongs to the slotted spoon.
The kind of knot one used in their neckties, or the degree of sharpness one could coax out of their
shirt collars with stays and starch and hot irons.

But it was still elitism, just a different flavour of it than he was used to.

To his disappointment, Wizarding Britain wasn't far removed from the Britain he had been glad to
leave behind.

Every society had its strata, and the topmost layer would always be the corps d'élite; in this matter,
Wizarding Britain was much the same. There was a new set of people who considered themselves
his social superiors by right of birth, by the significance accrued like the dust of centuries on a
long-established name.

They weren't Windsor-Mountbatten or Farnsleigh-St. Germain. They were Black, Malfoy,

Lestrange, and Rosier, and together they called themselves the "Sacred Twenty-Eight".

It was a monumental effort in the aim of self-aggrandisement, couldn't they see it? The book
("stud-book" was a fitting name for what it was) had been published by Nott's father only a few
years ago, and if Nott the Elder had been objective in his definitions of "Sacred" and "Pure" upon
making his list, then Tom would go take a swan dive into the Black Lake in mid-winter.

When he had gone to settle his things into the stone-lined cellar of the shared dormitory, he'd been
introduced to a new world of rude vocabulary by the boys in his year squabbling over who got what
bed, because no one wanted the bed closest to the boy with a Muggle name and an unknown blood
status. It was clear from the coarse language spouting from their outraged, snarling faces that
they'd got 'well-bred' confused with 'inbred'.
Business as usual, Tom supposed. He was used to—resigned to—being surrounded by people he
despised, much to his eternal regret, and Hogwarts was no different than Wool's in that respect.

But within the splendour of ancient stones and rugged valleys that made up the school and grounds
was one single point of familiarity.

Hermione Granger.

She was a witch. She could perform magic. She was Special.

And she'd hidden it from him.

...Tom, he said he's the Deputy Headmaster of a school for people just like us. Magic! I'd
never have guessed. It still doesn't make sense to me, but in a way it explains everything. All
the accidents that I thought were just coincidence, or put down to bad luck. Although in this
year and the last, it seemed experimenting with conscious control led to fewer unfortunate
incidents. I used to have them once every two months or so since I was seven. I don't suppose
you had the same growing up...

Tom wasn't used to people hiding things from him, not something of this magnitude. With
Hermione, it was a result of their only meeting a handful of times a year, whenever her mother
brought hand-me-downs to the orphanage, or when her parents invited him to an afternoon outing
during term holidays. He couldn't discern truth and lies from her words on paper.

But now...

Hermione lived in the same castle. He could find her in person, in class. Talk to her, look her in
the eyes and see what else she hid from him, make her tell the truth—

But—

He didn't want to talk to her.

She'd betrayed him on a second, more severe count. She'd told Albus Dumbledore about him,
about his abilities, a week before they were due to officially meet. And so Dumbledore had come
to the gates of Wool's in an extravagant ensemble of plum velvet, preconceptions already formed.
He'd arrived on the scene warned and wary about Tom Riddle, the quiet orphan boy with an
uncanny dark gaze, who had a room to himself filled with books where the other boys of his age
had to share.

At least Dumbledore didn't get all of his secrets. No one knew he could talk to snakes, not even
Hermione, or knew that the rabbit had died of unnatural causes. He'd taken pains to be more subtle
after the orphanage had gotten more wealthy, regular visitors—ones who liked the idea of
sponsoring an impoverished child, but not the idea of bringing it into their own home.
"How did you come by such an ability?" the man asked in his unbearably kind voice, settling
himself on Tom's thin mattress with a squeal of worn springs. His pale blue eyes glimmered in the
muted light of the dirty window. It was a cloudy day in London, and in the height of summer, the
damp heat had become stifling, but the man didn't appear overheated in his three-piece suit. "It's
quite an unusual talent, but not entirely unheard of among our kind."

"I've always known how to do it," answered the boy who sat in the chair by the wooden desk,
fingers resting in his lap, calm and composed despite learning about the invitation to an exclusive
boarding school hidden in a distant valley in Scotland. "No one taught me. I'm the only wizard
here. Sir."

"Ah, I see," said the man, stroking his beard in rumination. "An inborn trait, then. Sometimes
hereditary, but always extremely rare."

"Sir," the boy asked, looking up from his hands for the first time, "do you know my family, then?
Did they have it too? Was my—my father a wizard like me?"

"I'm sorry, Tom," said the man. "I'm afraid I don't know. Our enchanted registration quill records
students' names from birth if they are magical, and if one of their parents has attended Hogwarts. If
this doesn't apply, as in the case of Muggleborn children, it records the name and address upon their
first outburst of accidental magic. The parents and guardians aren't listed, only the addresses—and
in your case, we've put Mrs. Cole down as your caretaker."

The boy's eyes darkened; he looked sullen for a moment, then his brows drew together
thoughtfully. "Hermione wrote that magic like I can do isn't taught at Hogwarts. But you know
about it—you must have studied it, mustn't you? Or read a book about it?" He leaned forward, his
pale face alight with eagerness. "If I was born with this, and there's no way to get rid of it, then I'm
stuck with it, aren't I? What if I don't know how to control it? I'd run the chance of accidentally
hurting someone when I'm angry—if it's magic, then it can be accidental too, when I'm angry or
upset."

The professor nodded. "There's a slight chance, which grows ever slighter once you get your wand
and learn to practice controlled magic. Accidental magic outbursts tend to disappear altogether
after the age of twelve to thirteen, and tend not to manifest in adults except in situations of great
stress or mortal danger."

"There is still a chance, isn't there?" asked Tom. "I—I don't want to risk anyone getting hurt. What
if I hurt Hermione?" His eyes grew wide, his lips trembled, and he held his hands out in a display
of humble supplication. "The other children think there's something wrong with me because they
can feel it when I'm upset. But I couldn't bear it if Hermione left me, if she was afraid of me for
something I can't help having. Please, sir, would you consider teaching me more about it?"

Professor Dumbledore searched the boy's pale face, and found his eagerness to learn stronger than
the emotional attachment to his friend Hermione.

"You are still young, Tom," said the Professor, turning away from Tom's hungry gaze. "Give
yourself a few years before you start looking into subjects beyond the teachings of Hogwarts. But
until then, you might improve your control through practising meditative techniques. A well-
organised mind, as I call it, has helped me in numerous aspects of life."
It wasn't so much that she'd told an adult on him, which had occurred more than a few times in his
life when some orphanage brats thought they could knock Tom down a peg or two. And it wasn't
that some details of his special abilities were revealed to an outsider. He'd done it himself on
occasion, whenever fresh meat was introduced to the native fauna of Wool's ecosystem, and Tom
had had to "explain" why he, and everything that belonged to him, was not communal property, but
sacrosanct.

No, the pain of betrayal came from how the things he'd written to her in his letters made their way
off the page. He'd trusted her. They were his words, given from his hand, for her eyes, and she'd
gone and—and—

Dear gods, if he was actually, genuinely upset about it, then he was more pathetic than he thought.

This, if anything, was a lesson on what happened when other people were held up to standards that
one applied to oneself. And if that self was Tom Riddle, then everyone would be inadequate by
default.

Tom was neither kind nor forgiving, so he resolved that Hermione Granger would have to be
punished.

And thus, for the first week of term, Tom had ignored her. On the Hogwarts Express, he'd arrived
early, found an empty compartment, locked the compartment door, pulled down the blinds, and sat
by himself. When he looked out the window and saw her dragging her trunk through the brick
gateway of the sixth pillar, he'd ducked his head behind one of his second-hand textbooks, and she
ended up spending the journey in a separate carriage.

It was easy to avoid her in class. The subjects that allowed the most inter-house interactions were
Flying and Potions (it was surprising how few cauldrons blew up with the way Slughorn spent most
of the practical sessions gossiping), but Slytherin took those with the Gryffindors. In fact, the only
class Slytherin took with Ravenclaw was Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration, both
of which were overseen by no-nonsense professors who didn't tolerate note passing between desks,
let alone the kind of tongue-lashing he could tell Hermione wanted to give him.

Granger was a Ravenclaw.

Her Sorting came as no surprise to Tom. If you tried to look up the definition for Bookworm, you
wouldn't have been able to, as the dictionary would have already been taken out for her light
bedtime reading.

It meant that she slept in the second highest tower of the castle. Ravenclaw Tower was five floors
above the Dungeons, where the Slytherin Dormitories lay. They had very little chance of bumping
into each other outside of classes, or even meeting one another in a shared space. The Library and
the Great Hall were such spaces, but Tom always checked to make sure he was alone when he
studied, and they sat at different tables during meals.

It pleased him to see that no classmates of hers went out of their way to sit next to her at dinner.

Not that other Slytherins liked sitting next to Tom What-Kind-of-Name-is-Riddle-Anyway, but at
least they didn't make a public show of avoiding him. They valued the outward appearance of
House unity too much, and they couldn't afford to ignore his talent. For instance, when no one
volunteered to pass the salt, Tom had used a bit of wandless summoning to get the salt cellar to his
side of the table. From that point onward, nobody in his year had attempted to prank him at dinner
by dumping a flagon of gravy on his lap.

(They still tried to jinx him in the Common Room, out of public view.)

Granger had tried to catch his eye over the milk jugs and porridge tureens at breakfast, but by then
he had started choosing seats where she'd only see his back.

The first week of September passed with cold glances and turned backs and silence.

Midway through the second week, a letter arrived during breakfast, delivered by a generic barn
owl. The owl dropped it onto Tom's lap and winged away without stopping for bacon. Tom picked
it up. The letter was on a standard student-quality parchment scroll, sealed by a bit of string and an
unstamped blob of red wax.

Who would want to write to me? Tom thought. It looks like the sender wants to appear anonymous.

Tom had noticed that many of the older students in Slytherin, and some in other Houses as well,
wore some sort of heraldic sigil ring on their fingers. When his dorm mates had written of their
Sortings to their parents the evening of the Feast, their pen boxes contained seal stamps similar to
the rings, as well as sticks of coloured sealing wax. He'd seen the whole range of colours before, at
the stationers' in Diagon Alley. Most people used a nondescript red wax, the cheapest option at a
few knuts per stick, but those who preferred more security bought charmed wax in metallic gold
and silver that burned thieving hands or destroyed the letter if tampered with.

(Of course, the average wizard relied on a well-trained owl to prevent his letters being intercepted.
However, the advantage of anonymity was moot when everyone knew your family owned a black
barred eagle owl with luminous amber eyes and a seven-foot wingspan.)

He peeled off the wax and opened the letter, unfurling the message within.

His own handwriting was revealed to him, a clean and precise cursive hand that drew the stem of
the f in a smooth, curling loop, and completed each lowercase t with a confident cross-stroke. It
was his fountain pen penmanship, honed by years of practice—not the script done for his Hogwarts
classes with his drippier quill pen, which had to be dipped in ink every other sentence, and was, to
Tom's distaste, quite messy and inferior to the Muggle way of doing it. Until he could get his hands
on one of those self-inking, no-drip enchanted quills, at least.

He scanned the page.

His own handwriting, he confirmed—then he recognised his own words—he remembered where
they'd come from.

A page from a letter he'd written to Hermione, several months ago. It must have been in late April
or May when they'd discussed the failed imperial ambitions of a handful of European warlords.

Several sentences had been copied out in red ink, still in his writing. An excellent duplication or
dictation spell with a colour-changing component, then. Clever spellwork, perfectly cast, and
beyond the first year textbooks, Tom was forced to admit.
 I, however, am an excellent judge of character... I've always been able to tell when their
intentions toward me are dishonest... It was how I confirmed it was worth making your
acquaintance, something I do not regret...

And in her handwriting down the bottom of the page:

One o'clock, East Courtyard. By the statue of Hipparchus the Stargazer.

"What's that you have there, Riddle?" asked one of the girls in his year. Antonella Everard, a
talentless braggart whose sole claim to notability came from the fact that her great-great-
something-or-other had got his portrait placed in the Headmaster's Office. "Ooh, has someone been
writing to you?"

"It's nothing," said Tom coolly. "Just a reply from Beringer's in Diagon about the dates for new
shipments."

"You can afford to shop at Beringer's?" Everard scoffed, giving his robes a dismissive glance.

His robes were second-hand, but Tom had picked the best out of the pile at the uniform shop when
he'd done his school shopping; he'd darned the linings and split seams in his room at Wool's. Once
he'd gotten access to the Hogwarts library, he'd applied a handful of minor stain-removing,
refreshening, and repair charms. His robes looked all right—he'd made certain of it—and any signs
of wear were only visible up close, where repeated washings had faded the once black fabric to a
dark grey. He wouldn't have been able to tell unless he put his robes side-by-side to a brand new
set.

She was just being spiteful.

"I wasn't planning to," Tom replied, curling his lip in a look of pure derision. "I got the name of
their supplier, so now if I want something, I can order directly without having to pay the
middleman surcharge. It makes no sense to waste money by being lazy."

He shoved the paper into his trouser pocket and pushed back from the bench. He had History of
Magic in ten minutes, and the class was dull enough that no one would notice if his mind were on
other things.

Tom found the East Courtyard deserted. It made sense: at this hour, most people would be in the
Great Hall, enjoying a filling lunch of flaky pot pies and ham-and-cheese croissants with chutney
and all the butter they wanted. (There was not a dish of margarine in sight, an uncommon instance
where Tom was grateful for the antiquated nature of Wizarding culture.)

It was a lunch that Tom wanted too, as he'd come to look forward to regular Hogwarts meals with
their dripping roasts and endless baskets of white bread and condiments he'd never seen before.
(Who knew you could make jam out of bacon? Wizards, it seemed, had no limits to their power.)
He was a little put out from missing a meal because of an annoying witch who had booked him for
an appointment he hadn't asked for.

The statue of Hipparchus was of a scholarly-looking man sitting on a marble plinth, legs dangling
over the side. He had a head of tightly curled hair with a matching curly beard, and his neck was
craned back at an uncomfortable angle, his carved eyes staring at the sky. The small bronze plaque
under his sandaled feet proclaimed that the statue was enchanted to move after sunset, whereupon
he would turn his head to follow the rise and fall of the moon.

Hermione leaned against Hipparchus' legs, her school satchel clasped against her chest. She bathed
in sunlight, frizzy brown hair falling over her closed eyes. This would likely be one of the last few
sunny days before a rainy autumn set in and heralded the arrival of their first Scottish winter.

Tom coughed politely and spoke first. "Lunch ends in half an hour."

She ignored him for almost a minute. "Do you know why I chose this place to meet?" she asked,
rapping her knuckle on the marble plinth. "This statue in particular?"

"Not really," said Tom, dropping down next to her. "Do elaborate."

"Hipparchus was the mathematician who invented the astrolabe. And apparently he was also a
wizard, but I never saw that written in any book. There was an engraving of him on page sixteen of
the textbook I gave you—that Professor Dumbledore gave you. Intermediate Geometry. Did you
read it?"

"Yes," Tom admitted, through lips pressed into a thin line.

"You never bothered to write back after I wrote you that letter and sent those books along. I
wondered how you'd take the news, that we were both magic." Hermione sat up straighter,
clutching her satchel closer with white knuckles. Her eyes opened, but she didn't look at him, only
stared up at the sky in the same blank, unseeing way as the statue. "How are you, Tom?"

"You shouldn't have told Dumbledore," Tom said, his voice brittle and scathing.

"I wanted to know if you were magical too," Hermione retorted. "I thought it'd be unfair if
someone told me that I was a witch all along and no one told you."

"He would have come for me anyway; I was already on the list," snapped Tom, his eyes narrowing
in anger. "There was no use in you telling him about our letters."

Hermione turned to face him now, her cheeks flushed red and her eyes glittering with tears. "I
didn't tell him about anything you wrote in your letters! Is that what you think this is about? Is that
why you stopped writing to me, stopped talking to me, acknowledging that I even exist?"

"Then explain how the first thing Dumbledore said to me was to warn me about it? 'A Hogwarts
education does not only comprise the study of magical disciplines, but self-discipline and the
ethical use of magic'," Tom recited, the humiliation of his memory raw-edged and bitter.

His first meeting with a real wizard, expectations buoyed up by Hermione's letter days earlier, and
he'd been told off in that calm, fatherly way, as if he were a child. Tom had been self-reliant since
he was six years old (by that age, he'd learned to wash, dress, and feed himself so the orphanage
minders had left him alone to take care of the other brats) and didn't consider himself a child
(despite what the laws of Magical and Muggle Britain said) and he certainly didn't consider
Dumbledore a father figure.

In that moment he'd been afraid—an unfamiliar sensation within the long-conquered realm of
Wool's Orphanage—that his invitation would be rescinded, and his hopes of the better life he knew
he deserved dashed for good.

"He knew, Hermione! Explain that!" Tom demanded, fists clenched, the words high and harsh and
resonant with magic.

"Firstly," Hermione replied in a low, dangerous tone, "I didn't mention our letters at all. He doesn't
know about it. I wouldn't share anything in them anyway, since I write you back and that trust
goes both ways. I'm sure that if you wanted, you could find something in all the letters I've written
that'd out me as a terrible person.

"And second, the only reason he knew anything at all is because I mentioned something—the
incident—that happened the second time we met, before you ever sent me any letters. Don't you
remember it? You did something to me—you put words in my head, and I had a headache for the
rest of that day. I'd forgotten about it, I'd brushed it off as nothing, because it was years ago,
because I'd have laughed at the idea of magic back then. But it was magic, wasn't it, Tom? You
were using magic, and you mightn't have known it was magic, but you knew what you were
doing." She stopped, bringing her hands to her temples, her wild hair curling around her face
where it had pulled out of a silver barrette clip. "You're still doing it, aren't you?"

Tom took a deep breath and reined in his anger, a strange, looming weight lifted off his shoulders,
like the atmospheric pressure in the space between the two of them had suddenly disappeared into a
vacuum. "I did it because I wanted the truth. And I'm not sorry about it."

Hermione huffed, pressing a hand over her eyes. "You're not going to stop doing it, are you?"

"Well, it worked," Tom said mutinously. "Dumbledore said I was born like this. Before I got a
wand, before I knew I was a wizard, this was magic to me. It still is magic, just the same as your
being a witch is magic. Neither of us can help what we have. And I already know you wouldn't give
up being a witch if someone asked you to, even though we both know handing an eleven-year-old a
wand is not much different than giving him a cocked gun. We learned the Knockback Jinx in
Defence yesterday and it'd be ridiculously simple to use it on someone standing on a moving
staircase."

Hermione shook her head. "I know that, Tom. It scares me, but I know it's true that magic is
capable of being dangerous. One of the first things I found out about the magical world was that
the wizarding hospital has a section for spell damage. But that's why we're at school, so we can
learn how to be careful. Knowing that, I just wish you were more... more responsible."

Tom leaned closer. A curl of his dark hair fell over his forehead, grazing his brows. "I promise not
to use it on you," he said, close enough that she could feel his warm breath on her flushed cheek, a
mockery of intimacy. "Unless you give consent."
"You should promise not to use it on anyone without permission," said Hermione, sidling
backwards. "Or better yet, not use it on anyone at all."

"I might need to one day," Tom retorted. "If someone is trying to hurt me and there's no other
choice—you forget that not everyone spends their summers safely tucked away in a nice little
house like you have. And in the summer, you know we aren't to use our wands on pain of
expulsion. But I'll be careful, I promise; I won't be making a show of it." He peered closer at her,
noting her hunched shoulders and lowered eyes. "You're afraid of me, Hermione. I can tell. Am I
frightening you?"

"I don't think it'd change anything if I were frightened," said Hermione. She shivered and pulled
her robes tighter around her body, but they both knew it wasn't because she was cold. "I think
Professor Dumbledore is right. There is a point to learning about the ethics of magic. You might
not care about girlish feelings and personal boundaries, but other people will, and you could get in
trouble if you slip."

She hesitated for a few moments, clearly debating something in that head of hers, aware that if
important information was withheld, Tom would be perfectly capable of finding out on his own.
He had as much of a scholar's mind as she.

"While you were ignoring me, I was looking up different branches of magic in the library, based on
what I remembered from Professor Dumbledore. And what you did to me," Hermione began in a
shaking voice, sagging against the statue's feet. "I tried to find anything related to magical
compulsions and... and telepathy, I suppose I could call it. It's a Muggle word, but wizards never
seem to complain if it's in Latin or Greek.

"It turns out there is a branch of magic, or a spell of some sort, that replicates the effect of
telepathic mind control. And it's highly illegal." Hermione's eyes darted to his. "That's why the
Professor warned you: he didn't want you to get arrested before you even took your first exam. I
looked up wizarding laws as well—you wouldn't just get your wand snapped, you'd be shipped off
to prison. And the wizarding prison, from the references I could find, seem much, much worse
than transportation to Australia."

Mind control.

Tom salivated at the notion. It was such a clean way to get things done, something he'd wished he'd
been able to do in the lonely days in his early childhood when he was too weak to hit back, too
untrained to make them hurt with a thought. As much as he wished he could do it, his abilities only
extended to projecting a minor compulsion, and it only worked reliably on animals, young children,
and Mrs. Cole when she was soused up to the gills, a rarity that only presented itself on Bonfire
Night or Christmas Eve.

Tell the Truth. Go Away. Leave Me Alone.

Always simple commands, not a hint of nuance at all. Still, it wasn't as heavy-handed as making
people hurt, which led to some becoming aggressive instead of slinking away as they were
supposed to do. And it was far more noticeable if a bunch of people at Wool's had started reporting
mysterious aches and pains. Too many complaints would draw the health inspectors, and the last
thing Tom wanted was for stories to be told and Tom himself sent to a psychologist.

Tom had thought his compulsion ability similar to the muggle concept of hypnosis, but he'd only
read of it in the context of asylum treatments and spirit medium stage shows. The lack of scientific
 evidence had made him believe it was nothing more than rehearsed quackery.

But this was real magic. More powerful than his own inborn magic, if the magical government had
deemed it severe enough to ban it.

"What books did you get this from?" Tom asked, with a quick glance around the courtyard to
ensure no one was listening. "I trust your memory, but I'd rather see it for myself."

"There's a set of encyclopaedias of British wizarding law in the library," said Hermione. "Funnily
enough, Wizarding Britain still recognises all of Ireland as part of its domain, so apparently they
ignore Muggle world politics. Anyway, it's not much to go on—it explains more on sentencing
protocol and historical precedent than the magic itself." She sighed and pushed her hair out of her
eyes. "There were some references to other texts, but I haven't read them, nor will I. Neither
should you. Don't go looking for them."

Tom raised an eyebrow. Don't Do This was not much of a deterrent when he decided something
was worth having. "Why not?"

"They're in the Restricted Section. Supplementary reading allowed for Seventh Years, but only if
they're on the list for the Defence N.E.W.T. and have a note from a professor." Hermione studied
his blank expression. "Tom..."

"I'm not going to wait six years to read a book," said Tom. "I'm not going to break into the
Restricted Section tomorrow, Hermione. I'm not stupid. But six years? Absolutely ridiculous."
He flashed her a sharp-toothed smile. "I understand if other students need the extra time to grasp
the material. But between you and me, I think I can get through the First Year curriculum by
Christmas."

"Tom—"

"Hermione, you are free to wait until 1944 to read whatever you like," said Tom in his best
saccharine sweet Adoption Day voice. "But don't ask me to share when I have that teacher's note
and that book out of the library and I'm reading it, enjoying it—nay, savouring it—right under your
nose."

Hermione buried her face in her hands.

Tom laughed and laughed.

Chapter End Notes

In this AU:

— Tom cleaned up his act in 1936. He's not a good boy but the seaside incident does not
occur.
— Hermione tells Tom about magic beforehand, so Tom doesn't demand "proof" from
Dumbledore during the Hogwarts letter delivery. Dumbledore doesn't set the wardrobe on fire
and see the box of stolen toys. He knows Tom is a natural Legilimens and troubled orphan, but
does not think Tom is an unredeemable demon child as he does in canon HBP. Tom finds
Legilimency more impressive than Parseltongue, because snakes are boring animals and
Hermione makes better conversation.

— Legilimency and the Imperius Curse are not the same thing, but both have a "mental
communication" telepathic aspect. However, Tom and Hermione don't know any different
because Dumbledore never told either of them that Tom's natural ability is called Legilimency,
only that it is some sort of magical mind reading. Dumbledore probably doesn't want them to
figure out that the spell for Legilimency is Legilimens, which they'd be able to find very
quickly if they had key words to search with.

— Obviously, this story is based on the premise that TMR/LV wasn't born evil, and
Dumbledore is well-meaning, if misguided and neglectful on occasion. He is not
Evil!Dumbles with the veritaserum lemon drops.
 Foils
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1938

Tom seemed to have forgiven Hermione enough that he'd started talking to her again, after putting
her through a month of silence, lasting for most of August and the beginning of September.

Or, said the voice in the back of her mind that knew Tom Riddle wasn't as nice as everyone thought
he was, he believed that she'd served out her sentence and was now absolved of her sins.

Now that Hermione and Tom lived at Hogwarts, she had the opportunity to see him in person every
single day. And thus she got to know a side of him that she hadn't seen in the polished, double-
drafted letters he'd sent her for the last two years. Tom on paper was everything she imagined a
pen-friend should be: legible, intelligible, punctual, and intellectual.

She'd unconsciously raised her standards for friendship to that level, and in the ensuing years since
gaining his acquaintance, it was only natural that she hadn't found in other people an alternative to
the dual rôles of companion and confidant provided by Tom. Other people were just too... too
short-sighted. They simply didn't care about the things Hermione was interested in, the social
causes she advocated. Of course, she knew that Tom didn't either, but he was articulate enough to
give her a reasonable explanation for why he didn't.

She noticed that he didn't bother with fatuous greetings with her, never a "How do you do?" or a
"Good morning, shame about the rain," as he gave other students in their year while they waited
outside the classroom door for the professor to let them in and begin the lesson. No, he forged
straight ahead to, "Show me your essay feedback," and "I need Schleiden's Apotheker for my
Potions homework and you haven't returned it."

It turned out that whilst in person Tom made a very terrible friend, he was also a very dedicated
scholar.

It was one of those things about Tom that made Hermione remain unsure whether she liked him or
not—he was unquestionably brilliant and talented, but it was a slippery slope to continue
overlooking his flaws in favour of his virtues. But there were, after all, plenty of fair-minded
statesmen, genius generals, and progressive Parliamentarians who made the world a better place,
while at the same time were, in their personal lives, philanderers or opium hounds or something
equally terrible.

And years later, history textbooks and the average man or woman on the street would say that they
had been great.
One Saturday not long after Hermione's twelfth birthday, she and Tom were studying in a corner of
the library, enjoying a table to themselves. Many of the other students were outside, where the
House Quidditch teams were playing an informal pickup game as a warm-up for the beginning of
the Quidditch season. It was a training practice to get returned players back into shape, and new
players on the reserve squads accustomed to the tactics of a full seven player team.

As it was the weekend, Hermione wore her school robe over a soft wool cardigan sent by her
mother in a birthday parcel, along with a plain skirt and blouse. Her other birthday presents had
been a pouch of galleons converted from pounds sterling, and a jar of Marmite, because Hermione
had written to say that Hogwarts didn't serve it—although during special occasions they did have
unusual dishes like dressed pike, jugged hare, and larks' tongues. Wizards were so traditional it
was surprising that they even owned a steam locomotive. She had wondered if this was due to
wizards having such long lifespans: Headmaster Dippet was over two hundred years old, so he was
already an old man when foods like that had been common fare on a Briton's table, a century ago.

Hermione was working on a Potions essay, while Tom was fiddling with an ostentatious purple
quill pen tipped with an engraved metal nib, a book called Time Saving Study Skills open by his
elbow. She noticed that Tom wore his full school uniform, perfectly knotted necktie and all, and
with a flash of guilt, Hermione realised that Tom probably did not own much of a wardrobe outside
his orphanage and Muggle school uniforms.

A younger Hermione would have commented on it, much to her mortification. Not only would she
have commented on it, but asked him why, then answered the question herself before he could open
his mouth to answer, in as tactless a manner as possible. (She was grateful that the first real
conversations she'd had with Tom had been through letters, where she could restrain herself.
Somewhat.) The Hermione of the present noticed but kept it to herself, taking the time to puzzle
out the explanations and full implications.

The wand from Ollivanders cost my parents four galleons, eight sickles. I don't know the exact
conversion rate between galleons and pounds, but I do know that the sixteen shillings I gave Tom a
while back wouldn't have been enough for his wand, let alone all his school books and uniforms,
she thought. So where did he get that quill?

The problem was, however, that regardless of their varying states of self-control, both younger and
present day Hermiones had an all-consuming, irrepressible urge to know.

"What kind of quill is that?" Hermione asked, trying to sound more inquisitive than judgemental.
"Your class quill was a plain brown one. I've never seen you use that one before."

Tom scratched away at a scrap of parchment. "Oh, Scrivenshaft's Deluxe Dictation Quill, I think,"
he said. "You wouldn't have seen me use it, because it's new."

"Where did you get from? First years aren't allowed out of the castle to shop in the village,"
Hermione pointed out.

He gave her a thin smile. "Do you really want an answer? I'm not sure you want to know, because
it'll just upset you."

"Tom," Hermione sighed, setting down her own quill. "You have to be careful! Even if you
borrow things and plan to put them back, you still can't tell what's had an Anti-Theft Jinx put on it."
"I didn't 'borrow' it," Tom said with a swish of the purple quill. "I traded for it from Avery. I did
his Charms and History homework for a week, and he gave me the quill to dictate it in his
handwriting. It's shocking, really—not only is he talentless, but on top of that he's also lazy and
stupid. It's a wonder how families like his have got so much money if it's this easy to talk them into
giving it away."

Hermione gaped at him. "You did his homework? You cheated for him!"

"If you're going to throw around the word 'cheating'," Tom spoke in a confident voice, "it's Avery
who cheated. I just enabled him. And if we're going to keep pointing fingers, it's Avery who's the
victim here. He's the one cheating himself out of an education, when he gets to his N.E.W.T.s and
realises he can't answer a single question. Imagine his face when he gets his results letter and it
comes with a full set of Trolls and Dreadfuls." Tom's eyelids drooped in what appeared to be a
pleasant daydream; his mouth twisted into a hungry leer. "Imagine his father's face, oho!"

Hermione was never aware more than now how, for all their similarities—their enthusiasm toward
anything academic, the strength of their convictions, their persistence toward achieving their goals
—Tom was different in other, irrevocable ways.

She believed in academic integrity. She thought it was morally repugnant to cheat, or to allow
others to cheat off their work. If someone wanted better marks in class, they ought to put in the
time to study, study more if they weren't doing enough of it, or ask for help from a classmate or
teacher. To Tom, however, her explanation for why he shouldn't help others cheat wouldn't prevent
him from continuing to do so, if doing so continued to be profitable for him. Persuading him using
words like "integrity" or "morals" would just cause him to laugh and flaunt his newly acquired
goods even more, to prove to her and anyone else who believed the saying "Cheaters never
prosper" that cheaters could, indeed, prosper.

(It suddenly made her realise where he must have gotten that set of History of Magic study guides
for the First Year final exams. He'd given them to her on her birthday; she'd been happy with them,
because they were useful, and an excellent gift from someone who knew her well—or heard her
complaining about Professor Binns' unengaging lesson structure—and quite a thoughtful one at
that.)

It would never work if she told Tom, quite plainly, "Don't do this".

Tom bore an utter disregard for those who tried to demonstrate their authority over him. Most
adults fell into this category, and there were several arguments these adults commonly used which
failed to sway him in the least; anyone who relied on them lost his respect entirely.

From their past correspondence, Hermione had figured out that Tom considered an argument over if
the opposing side tried to dissuade him from action by using any of the following rebuttals:

1. It's wrong.
2. I don't like it.
3. Because I said so.

And honestly, Hermione found answers like that to be unsatisfying too; ever since she was a child,
she'd known that things were more complex than, "That's just the way things are". It was what
drove her to seek answers in books rather than from the mouths of her nursery school teachers.
Despite that, most of the adults in her life she'd encountered she considered reasonable and of
sound judgement, and therefore worthy of her respect.
But if they were so reasonable, Tom had once argued, they would be giving reasons instead of
excuses.

She couldn't demand Tom not cheat for Avery because it was wrong. (Or, as Tom would say,
because she thought it was wrong.) Tom wouldn't listen unless her reasoning was sound and
substantial. (And, as Tom would remind her, he didn't listen to other people because they were
stupid, but he would make allowances for her, as long as she wasn't stupid either.)

Hermione was torn by two conflicting forces: her conscience versus Tom Riddle.

And as much as she didn't like to do it, she could compromise.

Hermione frowned, marking a page in her textbook before she closed it and set it aside. "Imagine
your face when Avery goes to his father and says that it's your fault he got that set of Trolls and
Dreadfuls."

Tom tilted his head. A lock of his wavy black hair fell over his eyes, escaped from the neatly
combed side part he'd worn from the first time she'd seen him, almost three years ago. The roguish
look didn't suit the cold smile he wore on his face. "How is Avery's laziness my fault? He takes
the exams, he earns the mark."

"Your logic won't matter to them," said Hermione. "Avery will blame you, and his father would
rather believe that Riddle the Upstart Orphan tricked his son than accept the fact that his son isn't...
erm, academically gifted. He'd have a history of homework marks graded with Acceptables to
show for it, that you'd have provided for him." Hermione lowered her voice, continuing with,
"People like him have influence here—they're just like the Eton 'old boys' from back home, where
his father went to school with everyone else's fathers. He could go to the Board of Governors and
complain, and you know they'd allow him to re-take his exams when people like us would have to
get on our knees and petition for weeks even if we were dying of Dragon Pox."

By the time she'd finished, she was quite pink the face from the passion with which she had
spoken. Injustice and unfairness were social ills that had always upset her, especially if she was
one directly affected. She had seen Old Boys' clubs first hand—her father had his Alumnus Society
—and she had witnessed their condescension toward her mother when serving them drinks after
dinner parties.

Her mother! Hermione's Mum was just as clever and politically informed as they were. In fact,
Mum had marched with the suffragettes for her own right to vote when Hermione was only a baby.

And as diligent as always, Hermione had researched the wizarding qualification exams so she'd be
prepared in time for her O.W.L.s and her N.E.W.T.s During that research, she'd uncovered the
existence of the Hogwarts Board of Governors, a group of twelve wizards and witches whose
power, when directed by a unanimous vision, equalled the Headmaster's. They were the group
responsible for ensuring that all Hogwarts students' fees were paid in full by the Ministry of Magic,
regardless of their blood status.

(Hermione's parents would have paid £200 a year for her Donwell Preparatory school fees, and if
Hogwarts was priced similarly, that would amount to at least forty to fifty galleons per student, per
annum. If Wizarding wages were on par with the Muggle world median, working families with
two or more children, "acceptable" blood status or not, would have bankrupted themselves to afford
schooling, let alone buy the uniforms and textbooks.)
Tom's smile slipped a bit, but didn't disappear entirely. His eyes glinted, feral and dark. "I don't
intend to die of anything, Dragon Pox or otherwise. On top of that, I also don't intend on doing
Avery's homework up to our N.E.W.T.s. If he wants my help again, he'll have to offer more than
last time. I imagine that by the time he's traded away something he can't afford to lose, it'd make
for the perfect opportunity to introduce him to the concept of 'mutually assured destruction'.
Incriminating me will only get him into deeper trouble; I expect by then, I'll have a quill pen that
writes in his handwriting and a copy of his family's letter seal."

"I don't like the idea of 'assured destruction'," said Hermione apprehensively. "Your own or anyone
else. You shouldn't be putting yourself at risk at all. Tom, this is your future! You have to be
careful, you have more to lose than him! Even if Avery fails his N.E.W.T.s the second go around,
he'll be fine when his father finds him a place breeding mail owls on the family estate. But if
people even get the slightest whiff that you did something wrong, you'll be in trouble, and no one
will jump up to help you."

"Then the solution to that is to ensure that no one ever thinks I'm anything but a Good Boy," said
Tom. "Good job that I've had years and years of practice doing just that." He inclined his head and
blinked innocently at her, his black eyelashes casting shadows over his cheekbones under the warm
light of the library lamps. It contrasted with his pale complexion; Hermione noticed that his skin
was smooth and unmarked by the pox or measles scars that afflicted many other people from his
side of London. "You don't think I'm a bad person, do you?"

Hermione's eyes narrowed. This was one of the things she'd had to get used to. Tom's armoury of
facial expressions, which she never saw in his letters, gave interactions with him a disconcerting
amount of depth and secondary meaning.

"I think you're someone who is easily tempted into making bad decisions," said Hermione. "You're
not a bad person, Tom. You're just greedy."

"Am I?" asked Tom. "What is 'greedy' but another name for 'ambitious'?"

"Greed is greed and ambition is ambition," Hermione stated in a firm voice. "I don't see why
calling it something else would change what it is. A rose by any other name is still a rose."

"Giving it another name confuses the scent-blind," said Tom. "A rose smells like a rose, and greed
smells like greed, but the unobservant—that's most people—wouldn't notice if I gave them mutton
and called it lamb, as long as I served them with a smile. Except you, I suppose." Tom's cheek
twitched in the barest flicker of a grimace, before it smoothed over. "And perhaps Dumbledore as
well. I'm still not happy that he knows about me."

"You haven't done anything wrong," Hermione assured him. "You can't be in trouble for anything.
And he hasn't acted any differently in class. He gives you as many as House points as he does me."

They were the two top points earners for their Year; whichever one of them earned the most varied
by the week. Hermione was always the first to have her hand in the air when the professors asked
questions during lessons, able to recite passages not only from the textbooks, but their optional
supplementary readings too. Tom, slower with his hand and often allowing other students to have a
turn, gave the most insightful answers which linked textbook theory to practical applications for
everyday use. He was also praised by their teachers for his thoughtful questions, such as asking
how their simple Levitation Charm differed in terms of casting strength and magical intent to the
more advanced Modified Hovering Charm used in broomstick enchantments.
Tom shook his head, scowling. "Haven't you seen the way he looks at me? I've started sitting at
the back because of the way he stares, right in the eyes, like he's waiting to catch me doing
something wrong. I'm not even doing anything, taking notes or turning handkerchiefs into
envelopes, and I can feel him watching. It makes my scalp itch."

"I don't think Professor Dumbledore is one to do anything inappropriate with a student," Hermione
said. "Everyone in Ravenclaw says he's one of the best, if not the best, teacher in the school, even
though his favourites are usually always Gryffindors. But it's not unusual, as I hear Professor
Slughorn likes Slytherins the best. Everyone knows he's brilliant—he apprenticed for his Mastery
in Alchemy straight out of school, and I heard his Alchemy Master was Flamel! He has at least
three Masteries, you know; he's qualified to teach Defence on top of Transfiguration, and if he's got
Alchemy under his belt, he must be at an advanced level at least in Potions, I can't imagine he
wouldn't be—"

Hermione had to stop herself from gushing over Professor Dumbledore's academic
accomplishments. If Tom was interested in the details, it was because it was useful to know, but he
would never admire them the same way she did. If Tom saw Dumbledore's Medal of Magical
Merit in the Hogwarts Trophy Room, it wouldn't be to appreciate the man's record-breaking
N.E.W.T.s scores, but to salivate over the day where he had one for himself, engraved with his own
name.

"He's not said anything to you, has he?"

"No, nothing," said Tom. "I'm still waiting for him to decide to teach me more about my abilities,
but it will be years from now, if he even decides to do it at all. And until then, I'll have to practice
with it on my own."

"You're going to experiment by yourself? Tom, that's dangerous! You don't know what you're
doing—"

"I do know what I'm doing; I've been doing it for years." Tom lifted his chin, looking down at her
from half-lidded eyes, his posture relaxed. But his eyes were hard and searching, as if gauging her
reaction. "I'm used to learning things by myself. If it weren't for practical lessons like Potions or
Herbology or in-class wandwork—and maintaining appearances, of course—I'd skive most of them
and spend all day in the library."

Hermione pursed her lips. "You know why they don't allow us to use our wands during the
summer, even when I'd rather be able to do revision outside of school. It's not so much because of
the Statute of Secrecy, though that's part of it. It's because we're children, Tom. If we make a
mistake in class, the professors have a Mediwitch on call in the Hospital Wing, if they can't put us
to rights themselves after someone sets their desk on fire or turns a box of matches into a box of
exploding splinters. Experimental magic without supervision is seriously dangerous!"

Her hands clasped themselves together on the table, knuckles bloodless and white, nails digging
crescents into the skin of her palms. "Even in the Muggle world, scientific experimenting is
dangerous and meant to be supervised. My father, when he was in school, said he studied anatomy
from dead bodies, and before that, he used pigs and sheep from the abattoir. No one does anything
to themselves, or by themselves, if they can help it. It's not 1650 anymore, when there was only a
choice between your own body or robbing a graveyard for one."

Tom fell silent, his gaze lingering on Hermione's pale face, at the scattering of summer freckles
over her nose and cheeks standing out in sharp relief. "I'm not alone, am I?" he mused. "If what
you're suggesting is that we—"

"I'm not suggesting anything," Hermione interrupted, because she didn't want to hear Tom's side of
the argument. The things he said often upset and unsettled her, even if they weren't intended to, and
it made him evasive at times when he knew that he would meet her disapproval. "You think too
often in terms of extremes: sink or swim, fight or fly, action or inaction. You give yourself
ultimatums when you don't have to."

"And you'd offer me other choices," said Tom thoughtfully.

"I'm simply suggesting that it's better to be well-informed than to jump in headfirst," she replied.
"Because sometimes it's not about arguing that anarchy is better than autocracy, but considering
other legitimate options too: democracy, monarchy, theocracy, or plutocracy. I may not like all of
them, but, well, I can't just pretend they don't exist, and neither can you. And it's better to know
than to realise too late that you've, erm, purged all your senators and have no one left to collect
your taxes or run a country."

An argument platform that hinged on the notion that "purging the senators" was bad because
murder was bad wouldn't engender as much discussion as "senators can be useful". She disliked
that she had to speak like this, to act like this, to do this to herself, to her integrity and her
conscience. It felt like she was losing her grip on herself bit by bit, the longer she remained in
Tom's company.

I'm not losing myself, she thought. I was always Hermione, and I still am, and the central tenet of
being Hermione is how she defines herself as one who is kind and treasures her friends. There is
no distinction between a Real or a False Hermione; I'm not the one who thinks in ultimatums and
absolutes. What I'm doing is out of kindness—the only kindness that Tom accepts willingly instead
of treating with scorn.

She had to do this if she wanted Tom to listen to her. It was better for her to be Tom's conscience
because she was uncertain whether or not he had one of his own. It was better for Tom to listen to
her than to wander off in his pursuit of ambition and fall off a cliff of his own making.

(It was better to be his shepherd than his sheep.)

"I've often wondered," spoke Tom in a soft, almost pleasant voice, meeting Hermione's eyes over
their shared table, "why other people ever bothered with such trite and insipid nonsense as
friendship. Ever since I was small, I've never cared for the company of other people, nor have I
ever felt lonely. I've never cared to join the schoolyard scrum or keep anyone's wickets; validation
through teamwork has never presented me with an ounce of appeal."

"What are you—"

"I knew you recognised how different we were to other people, the first time we met. You and I
were formed from the same clay. Not an exact replica—as if anyone could hope to replicate me—
but closer than anyone I've met since," continued Tom on his unexpected tangent, not letting
Hermione get a word in edgewise. "I've never wanted to use the word 'friends' for what we are to
each other—I've never liked the way other people used it for all their shallow acquaintances; it
sounds so disingenuous, as if it were lacking... dimension, a level of substance that we share and
they don't.
"But I do think that we were meant to be, if not friends, then foils," Tom declared, with a
triumphant flash of white canine tooth in the barest flicker of a smile. "You were meant to be my
foil. It's a much better word, isn't it?"

"It's a little bit farfetched," Hermione confessed.

She had never put stock in the notion that she was Destined for Greatness, or Meant to Be for
anyone or anything. That was nonsense, and it implied that people didn't truly possess free will,
and therefore weren't accountable for their decisions. If there was greatness in her future, then it
would only be won through hard work and the right choices; to believe otherwise was immensely
egotistical. Although, now that she thought about it, egotistical would not be an inaccurate
description for Tom Riddle.

(But she could see how Tom had come to the conclusion that he was Meant For Better Things. If
she was a student whose brilliance the Hogwarts teachers saw once in a decade, Tom was the once
per century prodigy. Professor Dumbledore's own brilliance had been acknowledged when he'd
published original research in Transfiguration Today as a Seventh Year student.

Tom, she decided, without a single doubt, could do that too.)

"And overly... theatrical," she added, giving Tom an unimpressed look. "I suppose it might fit for
people like Laertes and Prince Hamlet—or it might not, considering that they both died in the end
instead of talking about their problems like sensible adults. But labels of this sort don't apply to
real life. Real people are more complex than that."

"I wouldn't know," Tom said. "You're the only other real person I know."

Hermione had to force herself not to gape at him. Sometimes she wondered if it was better when
Tom was evasive around her instead of sincere. He was much less shocking that way. "I'd prefer if
you listened to me not because I'm 'real', but because the things I say have merit."

"Why does it matter, as long as I listen?" asked Tom. "You've made some valid arguments. Isn't
that what you wanted me to say?"

"I wanted you to agree not to experiment on your own."

"Then help me, join me, stay and observe. I won't be on my own if you're with me."

Hermione's heart hammered in her chest. He wants my help. He didn't ask—he'd never ask for
help, not even if he needed it. But... What was this but a compromise?

"I can help you research. And I can buy books through owl order if we have to, if they don't care
that they're selling to underage students," Hermione said. "But I won't agree to help with anything
that goes against my personal principles. No sneaking into the Restricted Section. No keeping
watch while you sneak in. No using students as test subjects unless you have their permission.
And definitely no dead bodies."

"As if dead bodies are that easy to find," Tom snorted. "The streets of London are paved in them
compared to Hogwarts. But fine. I agree to your terms."

"There's one last thing."

"What is it?"

"If something goes wrong, I'm going to Professor Dumbledore for help. And you won't hold a
grudge for an entire month because I chose Dumbledore over serious permanent damage."

"Alright," said Tom, somewhat reluctantly. "But only if something goes wrong that I can't fix on
my own. Only if it wouldn't risk either of us being expelled; I'm not going back to London unless I
have to. And you won't report me to any other teachers or prefects because you don't like what I'm
doing. If you don't like it, then you can leave."

If I report Tom, Avery will no longer be the target of 'mutually assured destruction'. I'd go down
with his ship if I ever tried to sink it, "friendship" or not. His Hogwarts attendance is the
opportunity he's never been given before, and will never get again. To take it away from him...
would be to destroy every virtue I've seen in him the last few years.

The voice in the back of her mind whispered to her, "You know what it means to him if you choose
this."

I know, thought Hermione fiercely. It means I am his friend.

"Agreed," she said after a moment of contemplation. "But if you're doing something I don't like,
I'll tell you, and you'll justify why it's necessary instead of showing me straight to the door."

"Agreed," said Tom, taking down each of their concessions on a spare sheet of parchment. "By the
way, Hermione..."

"Yes?"

"You still haven't returned Schleiden's Apotheker."

Hermione sighed. "I've finished it, but it's in my room. I'll bring it down to dinner tonight."

Tom shot her a very pleased smile. "Isn't it so much better when we get along?"

"We'd get along more if you weren't so stubborn," Hermione said, sniffing. "And Schleiden's
Apotheker isn't even that good. It's the most archaic Potions manual I've ever seen; half the terms
are old-fashioned Alchemists' jargon. Lead sugars, lime oil, and wine salts—I've never seen any of
those ingredients in the textbook or our class instructions."

"Just because it's not in the textbook doesn't mean you can't make a usable potion with it," Tom
remarked.

"If it was right, then they would have put it in the textbook!"

The rest of the afternoon was split between finishing up homework assignments and arguing with
Tom about the school textbooks being incomplete. It turned out that one could, if they wanted to,
successfully brew most of the common household potions in a solid gold cauldron. However, it
necessitated recalculating the ingredient ratios, simmer times, and the amount of stirring, as gold
cauldrons were by volume smaller than the standard school pewter.

They didn't put this in the textbook, because very few people owned gold cauldrons, and those that
did tended to be professional potioneers who could complete their own calculations and didn't need
to follow recipes from a schoolbook. (On top of that, professional potioneers didn't waste their
 gold cauldrons on simple headache remedies or wart cures that school students practised with. No,
they brewed in gold for rare draughts like Liquid Luck or Grochowska's Condensed Helianthus
Essence.)

Tom was triumphant; Hermione was less so. She was a bit put off by having an incomplete
textbook. She was also the slightest bit annoyed because apparently this was assumed knowledge
to wizards and witches born in the magical world. She'd assumed that the Hogwarts authorities put
pewter cauldrons (standard size two) on the school shopping list because they were the best and the
safest, not because they were the most economical.

"If they're the safest, why does some imbecile explode their cauldron at least once per lesson?"
asked Tom. "You'd have seen it with your own eyes; you have Potions with the Hufflepuffs, and I
have them with Gryffindors, but it's the same thing. A single porcupine quill on high heat and
they're gone. The two thickest Houses at Hogwarts—now you know why they don't take Potions
together."

"You know what," said Hermione with an irritated huff, disapproving of Tom's high-handed
arrogance. "Since you're so clever, I think I'll keep Schleiden's Apotheker for another week."

Chapter End Notes

Hermione's PoV is slow-paced in comparison to Tom's, but I need to give her a reason for why
she puts up with him.

Also we gotta establish that Tom lives in his own cuckoo world.
 Birds and Beasts
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1939

Tom's first term at Hogwarts flew by in a cascade of perfect O's.

He was used to getting perfect marks and being better than everyone else, so this came as no
surprise to him. But for the first time in his life, his peers—he used the word loosely, to refer to
people who were his equal in age and nothing else—respected him for his magic and intellect.
They admired him, unlike the children of Wool's whose respect was founded on fear, and tainted by
an intrinsic distrust of anyone who spoke the King's English and remembered to wash their hands
every time they used the loo.

He learned that even though the other students had magic just like he did, and access to the same
teachers and schoolbooks and lessons, to him the theory was intuitive, and the spells came easily.
He was a wizard, but he was still Special.

He never used that word, Special, in public. Just as he never used the word Hermione or Friend in
the same sentence at the House tables, in the classroom, in the corridors, or anywhere outside the
closed drapes of his dormitory four-poster. To the public persona he presented of Tom Riddle the
Humble Orphan, and to the rest of the First Year cohort, she was Granger the Topiary Wonder and
resident Ravenclaw swot, a fellow classmate, class rival, but nothing more than that.

But in private—

Behind the closed doors of abandoned classrooms, hidden in a warren of corridors in the Hogwarts
dungeons, Tom saw Hermione beyond what everyone else saw, those who were blinded by the
mound of fluffy hair with too much tooth and the perpetually waving hand.

"Did you check the trap on the second floor?" Tom asked, opening his book satchel and sliding out
a small shortbread tin with holes punched through the lid. He pulled the lid off and tipped out the
tin's contents.

One scrawny brown rat with whiskers missing on the left side, motionless and stiff after being
struck by a double helping of Petrificus Totalus.

Hermione had her own box out of her bookbag, a pasteboard jellybean box wrapped in a shiny
layer of Spellotape. Inside was another brown rat, in better condition than Tom's, also bound with a
Petrificus.

"I got one," Hermione said, kneeling down on the flagstoned floor of the empty classroom, the ends
of her robes dragging on a thick grey layer of dust and old powdered chalk. Her wand lay in her
lap. "Mr. Pringle almost caught me when I went to check. He started to notice that I kept loitering
around the broom cupboard by the Charms corridor." She looked down at the rat, which appeared
dead; the spell restricted movement, but permitted shallow breathing. Her cheeks were ever so
slightly pink. "I think he thought I was keeping watch for older students. They say that specific
cupboard is often used for—for—"

"Indecent proposals?" Tom remarked, setting out his parchment, quills, and wand, his expression
unperturbed. "You don't have to dither about it; I already know where babies come from. I also
know where babies go when a gentleman decides he prefers the indecent but not the proposal. I'm
told my father was one of them."

Hermione flushed darker. "Oh, I'm sorry, Tom—"

"It's alright," said Tom, shrugging. "He may have been a cad, but if he gave me my magic, then I
suppose he's exonerated. I'd rather be a wizard than not have existed at all."

"Perhaps if he had magic," Hermione put forward hesitantly, "he had your talent, too. Professor
Dumbledore did tell you it was sometimes hereditary. Maybe that's how he... um, won over your
mother."

"Maybe," said Tom, his eyes darkening in silent outrage. "But what a pathetic waste of talent. A
rare skill in the hands of an adult wizard could have him hobnobbing with the cream of London, but
instead of doing anything useful, he went off chasing skirts downmarket." He shook his head, the
darkness clearing away from his expression, although his shoulders remained stiff and his spine
rigid. "I don't want to talk about him anymore. For all I know, he's long dead. I've never met him,
and if I ever do, I want to be better at magic than he is. Let's get back to work."

"Alright," Hermione agreed, not wanting to spend any more time discussing Tom's parentage, or
rather, his lack of one. "Finite!"

In many aspects, Hermione was refreshingly blunt, especially when the topic involved subjects she
viewed from an academic perspective. However, drawing reference to her comfortable standard of
living and her well-to-do family, and now, apparently, broom cupboards, made her timid and self-
conscious. Tom found her sudden bashfulness amusing, but not surprising—Hermione was several
months his senior, and was older than almost everyone in their year.

(He'd long resolved that when his time came to undergo that mysterious phase of adolescence, or as
he put it, pupate, he would never be as awkward as that. If there was any way one could go
through that process gracefully, then Tom assured himself he would find it. He'd never got chicken
pox, after all, and he'd been told that all children had it at one point in their lives. Specialness had
to count for something.)

"Finite!"

The frozen rats shivered and twitched, their pink, hairless tails thrashing over the dusty stone floor.

"Hello, there," said Hermione, watching her rat crawl around on the floor for a minute or two,
before it began heading for her bag. She reached inside and pulled out a bread roll wrapped in a
handkerchief. "Our control rat is good to go."

Tom nudged his own rat with the tip of his yew wand. "Mine is a bit slow. I double-spelled it just
in case it wore off in my bag. It seems to have worked."

When the rats had woken up, he and Hermione set the empty classroom up as an obstacle course.
They set the bread on the empty lectern, or hid it in a drawer of the teacher's desk, or in the musty
storage cupboard in the back of the classroom. Hermione and Tom lowered the rats they had been
levitating, and let them sniff around the food.

Hermione's rat, which Tom had named "One", but Hermione had re-named "Sienna", relied on its
nose to scent out the hidden bread. Tom's rat, which he called "Two", but now went by the name
"Peanut", hesitated at Tom's feet.

For most of his life, Tom had been good with animals. Tom's definition of "good" meant that he
could ensure small animals remained quiet, docile, and defecated only in places he approved of,
rather than the romanticised Man's Best Friend angle that everyone else seemed to adore. Mice
never nested in the back of his wardrobe and left stains on his socks. Mrs. Thornton's one-eyed
moggy left him alone when he stole plums from over the fence.

Billy's prized pet rabbit came to his hand quietly when he called for it, its little heart thumping in its
chest beneath the layer of velvet-soft fur and delicate ribcage. And quietly it went back to its nest
of torn linens and ragged tea towels under Billy's bed, with not a peep until it passed, whereupon
Billy filled the glazed brick halls of Wool's with his cries.

(Tom still reminisced about that day. No one knew he'd done it; it was considered one of the Great
Mysteries of Wool's, like the Disappearance of Jamie Fitzroy, one of the original orphans who was
presumed to have died in 1897, and the Strange Racket in the Attic. Tom would have liked to
claim credit, but in the end, he'd spread the rumour that Billy had done it himself, and after that,
none of the girls would sit next to him at supper or talk to him at school.

It was worth it not to have taken credit in the end—Tom had found it pretty hilarious to see Billy
Stubbs be treated as the orphanage outcast, not to mention Mrs. Cole giving him the evil eye for an
entire fortnight.)

Tom stared down at the rat.

Rats didn't think the same way as humans. How could they? They were vermin, short-lived and
instinctual, even the ones exposed to magic for generations—a result of being raised by wizards as
pets or potion ingredients, or from living in wizarding homes. They were simple-minded creatures,
driven by simple things. Hunger and thirst, mates and territory, danger and survival.

As good as Tom was with animals, he didn't make it a habit to keep them as pets. They were
unclean, the orphanage didn't approve of keeping animals, and most important of all, making them
do as he wanted required him to think as they thought, for all the thinking they were capable of. It
wasn't as if they could speak English or understand verbal orders. A dog might, and maybe a
monkey or a parrot or a wizard-raised mail owl, but they only had access to rats.

That was because Hermione had put her foot down at Tom's suggestion of "borrowing" cats from
their classmates. Pet cats were allowed to wander the Common Rooms of all houses, leaving hair
on the sofas. The male cats wiped their... secretions on the furniture and on dormitory beds if
anyone forgot to close their doors at night or when they left for classes. (Lestrange had done that
the other week, and Tom punished him by covering his pillow with cat hair and furballs. No one
knew who did it, but after that incident, everyone in the dorm learned not to leave the door open.)

Tom hadn't thought using cats would be much of a loss; Hermione had very loudly disagreed.
Empathy for human beings was a demanding task to Tom. Empathy for animals... well, strenuous
was a very mild way to describe it.

But hardship wasn't something that could intimidate Tom.

Hunger and thirst, he could remember those from his earlier days at Wool's, when he'd been sent to
his room without dinner for his cheek. Back then, he didn't care about speaking unless spoken to,
and he had wanted to prove he was cleverer than this minders. He'd made comment on Miss Gloria
Caruther's beau and his wandering hands tangled on Thelma Roscoe's apron strings, by the
tradesman's gate last Tuesday—

Urgency, he could remember too, along with darkness. The boiler room in the basement, a place
that little boys dared each other to explore during rainy Saturday afternoons. It had contained a
dirty cast-iron box boiler, coal-fired and coated in a fine, clinging dust that stained his hands and
clothes black and fell into his eyes when he banged on the door—

The rat shuddered, and its beady eyes met Tom's. Its whiskers quivered, then drooped, and the light
in its eyes glazed over.

The rat jinked left and right, wobbling along in a drunken zigzag, as if it couldn't decide which
direction to go. As if two conflicting instincts were competing within its simple little mind. Tom
clenched his teeth, a headache forming behind the sockets of his eyeballs, his eyelids twitching in
concentration.

The rat went for the teacher's desk. The second drawer from the top, on the right side. It didn't
have the strength to pull open the handle, so it gripped the top surface of the desk with its forepaws,
and used its back legs to wedge its toes into the opening. Once it had pushed the drawer open past
a crack, it dove in headfirst, and both he and Hermione could hear the scratching sounds from
within.

"Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds! Good job, Peanut!" announced Hermione, glancing down
at a Muggle stopwatch in her left hand, then across to Tom who had dropped into one of the student
benches that littered the empty classroom. "And you too, Tom."

Tom grunted in response.

Empathy was exhausting. Why on Earth would people want to feel it all the time?

By the time the Christmas holidays had rolled around, Tom had Peanut fairly well-trained.

Or, to be more accurate, Peanut Three.

Peanut One and Two had both died during a series of rather violent seizures, and Hermione
speculated that they'd suffered an aneurysm, after Tom had overloaded their danger reflex
response. Hermione had been upset at him, but she wasn't one to talk. She'd already lost her first
Sienna, who had gnawed out of its box while they were in class, and couldn't be found anywhere in
Ravenclaw Tower. After she'd cried a bit, Tom had reminded her that it would have died anyway,
as Mr. Pringle the caretaker hadn't set his rat traps to collect furry little pets.

The loss of the Peanuts hadn't left Tom unscathed. After the death of Peanut One, he'd had a
massive headache that lasted for three days, and after that he took a much lighter hand to training.
No more trying to override their simple instincts by pure magic and force of will—he got better
results and stopped losing his time investments after he tried a basic training regimen that rewarded
obedience with food and positive mental stimulus.

It was an almost Muggle way of doing it, to his annoyance.

When Hermione returned to London for the Christmas holidays, Tom remained at Hogwarts with
Peanut.

Christmas at Hogwarts was the highlight of his school experience, by far. He had no classes, so he
could spend all day in the library without having to fight with older students for the best studying
nooks. The dormitory was empty apart from him, so he could study in bed past midnight without
hearing one of his dorm mates complain about trying to sleep with the lights on. The dinner tables
produced all sorts of seasonal treats that he hadn't seen before—iced gingerbread houses, creamy
spiced eggnog, and pineapple jelly with vanilla ice cream. That wasn't even counting the glory that
was the Christmas Feast, during which Tom had felt like an emperor at a banquet. The tables had
been laden with two dozen roasted fowl: goose, duck, pheasant, turkey, stuffed and dressed in their
own feathers. The small number of students and staff who'd stayed hadn't even eaten half of them.

Tom thought it was very excessive and disgustingly wasteful, but if wizards could multiply food,
then perhaps grand banquets were more of a show of magical prowess than a tasteless boast of
financial superiority as Muggle dinner party hosts would have done. As Hogwarts was the centre
of magical learning in Britain, it was only fair that they put on a good show.

After Christmas, Tom and Peanut explored the deserted corridors of the castle, looking for secret
rooms and hidden passages. Tom held Peanut in his gloved hand as he paced down each side of the
corridors, and Peanut would squeak when detecting mysterious draughts or strange smells. So far,
they'd found three alcoves hidden behind tapestries, a number of abandoned classrooms, an empty
storage cupboard, a room full of floral-scented soap in great vats, and a secret shortcut that
connected the Fourth Floor to the Great Hall without having to cross half a dozen moving
staircases.

Before she'd left for the train, Hermione had given Tom the gloves, along with a woollen hat and
scarf set in Slytherin colours as a Christmas present. They were traditional gifts given by parents in
the days and weeks after Sorting, which Tom and Hermione had found out when all their yearmates
had received them via owl post. Tom's dorm mates had had their green-and-silver scarves the
evening of their Sorting, as most of them had already known they'd end up in Slytherin. Even
though no one needed a scarf on the second day of September, they still made a show of flaunting
them in front of him in the first few days, as proof of their House pride and family tradition, both of
which Riddle the No-Name Orphan clearly lacked.

(Tom had written a Third Year student's History of Magic essay with his handy Dictation Quill in
exchange for sneaking out several vials of Shrinking Solution from their Potions lesson. He'd then
shrunk Lestrange's and Rosier's scarves over the following weeks, so when the weather was finally
cold enough to use them, they'd lost a good three feet in length, and couldn't be fixed with a simple
Finite. The Common Room had a good laugh at that; even the Prefects thought it was a clever
trick.)

Tom was bundled up in his toasty new scarf when he turned a corner on the Fourth Floor and
encountered Professor Dumbledore, not far from the entrance to the Hospital Wing.

"Good afternoon, Tom," said Dumbledore amiably, his hands in the pockets of a fluffy orange robe,
embroidered with metallic copper thread in the shapes of oak branches, leaves, and acorns.

"Good afternoon, Professor," Tom replied, stuffing Peanut into the pocket of his own robe.

"I do not believe rats are on Hogwarts' list of approved pets," Dumbledore remarked with a gentle
smile. His eyes, however, were not as kind and gentle. They were astute, and they were fixed on
Tom's pocket.

"Well, sir," said Tom, returning Dumbledore's smile with one of his own, "the Hogwarts Student
Relief Fund didn't have enough to afford an owl or a cat as a pet, and if it did, I don't think I'd have
wasted it on a toad. It's quiet in the castle during the holidays, and I suppose I have to enjoy
company where I can find it. Beggars can't be choosers, and all that."

"Ah, indeed," said Dumbledore, his eyes lighting up with a genuine sort of fondness. "Well said,
Tom. Would you like to join me for tea?"

"I'd actually planned to get some homework done," Tom said, even though he'd finished all his
essays by the second day of break.

"I'll write you a note giving you an exemption from the pet approval list," Dumbledore offered.

"I was going to ask Professor Slughorn when he comes back after holidays," Tom said. Then he
added, "He is my Head of House, sir."

"And I am the Deputy Headmaster," said Dumbledore. "It's best to take care of these things as soon
as possible, while they are fresh on our minds."

How could this man seem so genial while pulling a power play over a twelve year old? Did he
even realise he was pulling rank over a child, or did he act in this infuriatingly patronising way with
everyone? Was his entire modus operandi based on being underestimated, a powerful genius
hidden under the guise of a harmless eccentric? Be a respected Professor, while on the other hand
act as a friend to all students and a kind ear to be trusted with their juiciest secrets?

It was a clever strategy, much like Tom's Good Boy persona, but every time Tom held open a door
for a gossiping harpy, allowed someone to ruffle his hair, or handed away the last slice of chocolate
cake on the dessert platter, something inside him died.

"Of course, sir," Tom said, and he would have ground his teeth if Dumbledore wasn't standing right
in front of him. "To your office, then?"

"Yes, to the First Floor we go," said Dumbledore, leading the way down the moving staircases,
Tom jogging along to keep up with his long strides. "Quite a distance to travel, but I've always
noticed that the castle provides an alternative path when one is in desperate need of it. A few years
ago, my N.E.W.T. students were practising with self-transfiguration, and one young lady, in the
process of transforming herself into an osprey, went with the inchmeal visualisation method. It's a
thorough method, and allows one to copy the finest details of the original object, but it's very slow,
especially for beginners, and the girl began her transformation from the bottom up.

"She was so slow with her self-transfiguration that her fully transformed osprey legs couldn't
support the weight of her human torso. And so she ended up shattering the bones in her legs, and
we had to rush her up to the Hospital Wing so the Mediwitch could heal her before we changed her
back. It wasn't worth it to reverse the transfiguration and risk leaving bird bone fragments
embedded in her flesh—they're hollow, and much harder to detect than solid human bones, you
see. But luckily we had her sent to the Hospital Wing in time, thanks to the magic of the castle."

What a morbid tale to tell a First Year, thought Tom. It wasn't as if he hadn't heard cautionary tales
before; every British child learned what happened to the little boys who cried wolf, sucked their
thumbs, and ran with scissors before they were old enough to walk. It was just, well, rather
alarming how blasé wizards were when it came to serious bodily mutilation. Especially mutilation
that occurred in a student under the eyes of their professor.

Tom knew he was a wizard, not a Muggle, and on an intellectual level understood that most injuries
could be healed with the right combination of spells and potions. But somehow he couldn't help
but acknowledge that Hermione had a point, magic could be dangerous in the hands of the
inexperienced and untrained.

Or, Tom thought to himself, to those whose visualisation was unfocused and whose willpower was
weak.

"Professor, why didn't she turn herself into an osprey in one go?" asked Tom. "If she had enough
skill and focus to copy fine details, then she could have expanded her focus on changing her whole
body, with less emphasis on exact detail. It's the same technique on different scales, isn't it? The
same way levitating a feather is not much different from levitating a desk. Then she would have
avoided breaking her own legs."

"The technique for partial self-transfiguration is slightly different from a full transfiguration,"
explained Dumbledore. "Animal self-transfigurations alter the thinking process of the caster, so
many inexperienced wizards lose concentration right before completing the spell, when their
transformation begins to affect their mental faculties. An experienced wizard may perform
multiple, rapid partial transfigurations to replicate the effect of a full self-transfiguration, which in
most cases is considered a safer alternative, even if the multi-stage approach is not quite as
efficient. It is rare for a wizard or witch to have the broad and comprehensive mental focus to
perform a full-body self-tranfiguration in one go; the ones that can do it often become Animagi,
which grants the benefit of an animal body, while retaining the human's mental acuity."

By this time, they'd reached the Transfiguration teacher's office. Dumbledore drew his hands out of
his pockets and tapped the doorknob with one long finger, and Tom heard a click of tumblers
sliding within the locking mechanism. Inwardly, he marvelled at Dumbledore's use of non-verbal,
wandless magic. This was a door protected from a textbook Alohomora. In fact, it looked more
like an enchantment found in the locks of premium expanding trunks.

Dumbledore's office was circular in shape, situated at the base of one of Hogwarts' many towers.
Shelves lined the walls, containing row after row of intricate magical gadgets: spinning tops,
armillary spheres, animated globes, chronometers, metronomes, and barometers. The bookcase
behind Dumbledore's desk contained a collection of ancient-looking tomes with weathered spines
in a wide assortment of exotic leathers, and even a few scrolls and clay tablets.

A tall, diamond-paned window at the back of the room overlooked a snowy courtyard, and by the
window was a golden stand upon which rested a large bird with red feathers that faded to a warm,
buttery gold in its long tail and crest. The bird was asleep, its head buried in its chest.

A phoenix, one of the rarer magical species, Tom observed. I wonder if it means something that
Dumbledore has a phoenix and my wand contains a core of phoenix feather. Do we have shared
magical affinities? Are we to be equals in power some day? There are few magical creatures as
powerful as phoenixes, although their magic tends to be concentrated toward their abilities in
healing and longevity.

"Please, have a seat, Tom," said Dumbledore, settling himself behind his desk. He gestured to a
well-worn armchair arranged in front of the desk, upholstered in a soft blue velvet patterned with
moving clouds. "How do you take your tea?"

Tom sat down, adjusting his robes so he didn't squash Peanut. "With lemon if I'm being served the
good stuff. If I'm not, then with milk and sugar. I've never been partial to the aftertaste of
fermented dirt."

"You are young to have such discriminating tastes," Dumbledore remarked. He drew his wand out
of his sleeve and tapped it against the table. A silver tray appeared on his desk, containing a tea
service of Hogwarts' standard set of bone china, white with gold rims and the school crest in relief
on the sides of the cups, sugar bowl, tea pot, and milk jug. With a wave of his wand, the tea pot
leaped up and began pouring over a levitating tea strainer.

Tom noticed that he hadn't spoken an incantation, nor had he used the standard "swish and flick"
motion taught in Charms class. It was proof that one didn't need words and wand-waving—or even
wands—to perform magic. Of course, he had known this before he'd come to Hogwarts, but he'd
thought it was an ability limited to those who were Special, and of those, Tom was the Most
Special. For all that he disliked admitting it, even in the privacy of his own thoughts, perhaps
Dumbledore had a smidgen of Specialness in him as well.

Only for some reason, he hid his Specialness, as if he enjoyed being one starling in a flock of a
thousand others. Tom couldn't imagine why.

"I don't see any use in pretending I like the taste of boiled dirt," said Tom. "It only serves to
encourage people who buy cheap tea to keep buying it. And well, sir, I can't say I like the idea of
reinforcing negative behaviours." He accepted the cup of tea that floated to his side of the desk,
closely followed by a hovering saucer of lemon slices. "I found a book in the library on the care
and handling of nifflers, and it seemed like solid, practical advice."

"But you forget, Tom, that nifflers are not people," said Dumbledore, as he dumped spoonful after
spoonful of sugar into his teacup. "Practices for one kind do not necessarily transfer to others."

"Are they, sir?" Tom asked. "I read that the Ministry of Magic defines centaurs as 'not people'.
They even have a Beast Control department assigned to take care of them. I haven't taken Care of
Magical Creatures yet, but it seems somewhat presumptuous to decide who counts as a person, and
who doesn't. But then again, I'm only an outsider who learned about the magical world a few
months ago, so what do I know?"
It was easy for him to slip in the rôle of the wide-eyed, open-minded young schoolboy, a humble
scholar so very eager to siphon wisdom from the mouth of the master. Professor Slughorn, out of
all his professors, loved his performances the most, although the man had no idea that it was just
that, a performance. Hermione, who debated him in words and letters, called this side of him her
Devil's Advocate.

Dumbledore's piercing eyes looked at him from over the rim of his teacup. "You're a clever boy,
Tom. I'm sure you can discern for yourself what makes a person a person and what doesn't."

Well, there it was. Dumbledore was quite patently not like Professor Slughorn. Sluggy was a
weak-willed pushover, for all his talent in potioneering and networking. But Dumbledore only
pretended to be weak and useless, and certainly wouldn't consent to being addressed as "Dumbles".

At least, not by someone like Tom.

Tom found that he couldn't decide whether or not he should respect Dumbledore for having a
backbone.

"I'm a supporter of self-determination, sir," Tom replied, keeping the muscles of his face from
twitching, from showing any hint of dishonesty. Hermione relied on raw fact to win her
arguments. Tom had always had a way to put his opinions in the best light, to make his side of an
argument sound so reasonable that people forgot they were only his opinions. "It's up to the
individual to decide what they want to be—what name they want others to call them. But if
someone willingly allows themselves to be led into doing things, whether it's buying or boycotting
cheap tea... Well, as they say, actions speak louder than words."

"Indeed they do," Dumbledore said placidly, setting his cup down and leaning back in his
armchair. "It is our choices that define who we are, more than words or ability, inborn or
otherwise." He folded his hands across his stomach. "How has school been for you, Tom?"

"Good," said Tom. "Sir, you're my professor. Shouldn't you know my academic standings from
marking our term exams?"

"Beyond exams and marks, how are you settling into Hogwarts?"

"Well enough," said Tom. "I like the castle and I like learning about magic. I like it more than the
orphanage, though that's not hard to beat. Living in the Hogwarts broomstick shed would be
superior to being locked up with a bunch of Muggles for three months." On impulse, Tom decided
to ask something he'd been contemplating from the first week of September. "Sir, I don't suppose I
could stay at Hogwarts during the summer? It's just that I'd rather not stay at the orphanage if it
could be helped."

Dumbledore shook his head gravely. "I'm sorry, but it wouldn't be possible. The staff return to
their own homes during the summer, and the only adult member of staff who stays year-round is the
caretaker. It's not nearly enough supervision. There is, after all, a good reason behind Hogwarts'
prefect system."

"I suppose it was too much to hope for," Tom said dispassionately, but on the inside, he'd felt like
Dumbledore had just slapped him across the face. It was a rare day that Tom experienced the sting
of barefaced rejection. Tom could argue, cajole, flatter, or threaten to get himself placed in most
people's good graces, but it would never work with Dumbledore. Dumbledore was too perceptive.
Too principled. Like Hermione, but she was twelve years old and the only person she knew who
was as persuasive as Tom... was Tom. Tom guessed that Dumbledore had met other people over
the decades who could do what Tom did, and it had made him resistant to things like clever words
and superficial charm. Hermione was starting to develop that same resistance, much to his
annoyance.

"It's very strange, sir," spoke Tom in a soft, conversational tone, "that the Ministry of Magic would
fund school and board for each student, and the Hogwarts Relief Fund pays for robes and books,
but no one cares for the student himself. In a way, it reminds me of the orphanage. There's the
same kind of... disengaged philanthropy, shall I call it, where a well-meaning individual can donate
money, yet he will never learn the names of the orphans who benefit, nor will he grant a
disadvantaged child the blessing of a family.

"In this regard, Professor, I can see that despite calling ourselves Wizard and calling them Muggle,
and drawing lines between our world and theirs, there's not much different between us, is there? In
the end, we're all rather alike, aren't we?"

"You are correct, Tom," Dumbledore agreed. His eyes closed and then opened again, as if he was
repressing a memory of great agony. But it passed, and his eyes cleared, returning to the normal
shade of blue that pierced through the many constructed layers of Tom's identity. "We were all
born human, imperfect; we suffer as much as we profit from the volatility of our human natures. I
cannot change it, and I cannot change the specifics of your situation, for all that I wish I could.
Unfortunately, there are responsibilities outside Britain that require my presence this summer, and I
fear, the coming summers as well."

Tom would have made a comment on Dumbledore's recent lecture on the importance of choices
over lip service, but he bit his tongue. The overarching moral was one of wisdom and making wise
choices, and Tom was self-aware enough to recognise that it wouldn't be a wise choice to mouth off
to his professor.

It is our choices who define who we are, thought Tom. Not only to ourselves, but also to other
people.

"I wish you luck on your travels," said Tom, in as bland a voice as he could muster. "If that's all
you wanted to discuss, do you suppose you could write me that note of authorisation for my pet?"

"Of course, of course. Before I forget!" Dumbledore reached into his desk and took out a sheet of
parchment, printed with the Hogwarts crest on the top centre. He began to write out the note in
violet ink, excusing Tom for breaking the rules on approved pets. Tom noticed that he wrote in a
very clean hand, obviously well-practised with a quill, although he had a few idiosyncratic touches
in the form of drawing out his capital letters with long, flamboyant curlicues.

He also had multiple middle names, which he took obvious pleasure in writing out, as slowly as he
could.

Tom wanted to snatch the paper out of his hands.

Dumbledore set the quill back in his ink pot, glancing up from the parchment, which he'd rolled up
into a scroll and sealed with a daub of wax. "Here you are, Tom. And another matter before I
forget—I trust that you have been keeping up with your meditation practice?"

"I try, sir," Tom said, tucking the scroll up his sleeve. "But the only place I can do it is in my
dormitory, and it gets noisy sometimes what with my dorm mates snoring all night."
"Have you tried a Silencing Charm? The incantation is 'Silencio.'"

"I have, sir. But it only lasts for a quarter of an hour at most before it wears off."

"You should focus your spell on the drapes next time, rather than straight up in the air or in the
direction of your classmates," said Dumbledore. "Close your curtains, and conclude the wand
motion with the final downwards flick while touching the tip of your wand to the curtain. Cast the
spell with the visualisation of the curtains being a solid, discrete barrier that sound cannot pass
through. Focus more on defining the shape and boundaries of the spell rather than the effect you
want to achieve—although you mustn't disregard it. Cast correctly, you should get at least an hour
before it wears off. Or even longer, once you get better at holding a twofold visualisation."

"Thank you, sir," said Tom. "May I ask how that works?"

Dumbledore gave him a serene smile. "It is an advanced topic that you will learn once you take the
Magical Theory class in your N.E.W.T. years. Suffice it to say, it is the difference between using
my wand to cast Lumos, and turning on my lamp." He raised his finger and tapped the red glass
shade of his desk lamp, which began to shed a soft golden light across the surface of his desk.

"Oh," Tom breathed. "It has to do with enchantments. Interesting. Well, I shan't occupy any more
of your time, Professor. May I be excused?"

"You may," said Dumbledore. "Don't hesitate to drop in for tea another day, Tom. If there is
anything I like as much as I do warm woollen socks, it's tea and excellent conversation."

"I can't make any promises, sir," Tom demurred. "But I suppose I can try."

Tom left Dumbledore's office with a profound sense of relief. He had a sneaking suspicion that it
was the same kind of relief ladies felt when they removed their girdles after a long day. Not that he
knew what that felt like, of course, but he could commiserate with the sensation of being squeezed
into, confined, into a shape he did not naturally resemble, for no other reason but to conform to
expectations set by Society and the annoyingly persistent Professor Dumbledore.

He was exhausted. It was the longest serious conversation he could recall having in the last few
years with anyone besides Hermione.

How did other people do it? He didn't understand how his fellow Slytherins spent the hours from
dinner till curfew lazing about in the Common Room, playing cards and Gobstones and defending
their favourite Quidditch teams. How people looked forward to being invited to Slughorn's dinner
parties, where they had to listen to an obese old fogey ramble about his holiday spent in a chalet
owned by another obese fogey. They said Slughorn served wine and whiskey to the Sixth and
Seventh Years, but to Tom, enduring the Professor's presence for the sake of the drinks was nothing
more than exchanging one unpleasant vice for another.

(It was like sitting through the sermon just to drink the Communion wine, a very Muggle analogy
that Tom would be embarrassed to have thought of, if it hadn't been so apt.)

He walked back to the Slytherin dorms and flopped onto his bed, letting Peanut out of his pocket.
After staring at the top of the canopy for a good ten minutes, Tom whipped his wand out of his
sleeve and pointed it at the drapes.
Incantation, the spoken component. Silencio. It wasn't strictly necessary, but Tom hadn't got up to
the level of nonverbal casting yet. Privately, he thought that while an expert could cast a spell
without a word, a true master could cast a Stunner by shouting "Urgleburgle!"

Visualisation, the mental component. Shaping his magic into the form he wanted it to take in the
physical realm. The pinnacle of this skill was advanced Transfiguration and Conjuration, the art of
creating something out of nothing. Or to be more precise, matter out of energy.

Gesticulation, the physical component. Directing the magic and anchoring it to a subject using his
wand as a focus. The permanence and stability of the spell were determined by how well he
combined intent, effect, and subject. Magical Portraits and the Slytherin Common Room entrance
barrier were examples of near-perfect implementation, the magic in them functioning even after
hundreds of years.

"Silencio!"

The Silencing Charm was a minimum Fourth Year spell, and tested in the Charms O.W.L. It took
him six tries before he got the hang of combining the different spell elements as described by
Dumbledore.

It seemed the old man was good for something, at least.

By the time Tom had to head back out for dinner, he had marshalled his thoughts with the help of
some peaceful meditation. He still didn't like Professor Busybody—and was unsure if he ever
would; it was as alien a notion as being friends with Mrs. Cole. However, on the scale of Useful to
Worthless, Dumbledore had proven to have some value. (Dumbledore's pet phoenix was also
valuable. Everything from its tears to its feathers to the ashes of its rebirth was worth tens of
galleons in the potions market.)

It was to Tom's convenience that he didn't have to spend the entirety of dinner avoiding eye contact
with Dumbledore, a harder task than usual during the holidays, as the remaining staff and students
dined at a single table instead of being separated by a High Table and the four House tables.

An owl had swooped down and laid a heavy wrapped box by Tom's plate. Owl delivery wasn't
common outside the breakfast rush, but this was a special occasion.

Dear Tom,

Happy twelfth birthday!

It was surprising how quickly I began to miss Hogwarts once I'd gotten off the train. I can't
count how many times I reached for my wand and remembered I wasn't allowed to use magic
outside school. Reading in bed with an electric light feels so strange now.

Seeing Mum and Dad again is wonderful, of course, but somehow, the house feels empty. I
think I've gotten too used to sharing my dormitory with six other girls, and sitting for each
meal at a table shared with a hundred other people in my House. It's like I'm missing
something important, but I know what you'd say—most things in London can't compare to
Hogwarts. Our Christmas cards lack moving illustrations, our tinsel doesn't glitter like it does
 on the charmed trees in the Great Hall, and it's hard not to ignore the absence of snow that
you're probably getting by the bucket up in Scotland...

Chapter End Notes

Because Dumbledore needs a reason for why he is the only person Voldemort ever feared. He
is more sympathetic and less negligent to Tom compared to canon thanks to the AU orphanage
introduction, but in the end Albus cares more about the Bigger Picture than a random twelve
year old kid.

Friendship and magic were my favourite parts of the HP series, so they get a focus in this
story. Tom is said to be a magical prodigy, but his magic skills hardly get any focus outside of
creating horcruxes. I'm quite tempted to timeskip a few years, but there needs to be some
space for character development.
 Bootstraps
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1939

The rest of the school year passed without much fanfare.

Tom was invited to Dumbledore's office for tea three more times, but managed to get out of it once
by volunteering to tutor Lestrange in Potions. Slughorn was delighted; Tom was not. But it was
better to spend an hour or two deciphering Lestrange's atrocious handwriting than spend that same
time listening to Dumbledore sneakily present philosophical dilemmas as an attempt at friendly
conversation.

Tom could smell a test of character a league away.

Mrs. Cole had mentioned psychological examinations in the first few years Tom discovered he had
magic. He'd read as much as he could on the subject, to ascertain if there was indeed anything
wrong with him, and once he'd found no mention of his strange abilities, had decided that the best
thing to do was to make certain other people didn't think he was abnormal. But Tom had learned
his lesson: those who applied arbitrary tests of character to others made it very clear what kind of
character they had.

His First Year ended with good marks all around. Much to the tears and resentment of their wizard-
raised classmates, Tom and Hermione both got straight O's and took the first and second spots in
every single subject. (Except for Flying Class, but since it wasn't marked and examined like the
rest of their classes, it didn't count.) Tom surpassed Hermione in practical wandwork, which gave
him an advantage in Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration. Hermione was better at
memorising huge chunks of their textbooks, which won her the top spots in Astronomy and
History. In Herbology, Charms, and Potions they were equal, but Tom didn't care so much about the
marks—he'd rather ensure that he learned everything he considered useful about the subject, not
what the teachers thought was useful.

His First Year success was also marked by having pranked his dorm mates into submission. Apart
from the scarf shrinking incident, he'd also shrunk the left shoe of every pair belonging to
Lestrange and Travers. It was less than half a centimetre's change, but for people who bought their
shoes bespoke and handmade, it was enough that they could feel something odd, but small enough
that they, being unobservant clods, couldn't tell that anything was wrong at a casual glance.

Over the period of a few months (and after several re-shrinkings after new pairs of shoes were
delivered by owl) the boys had developed a strange, limping gait to compensate for their squashed
toes, and later, painful ingrown toenails. Tom got a leg up in Defence class, thrashing them handily
as he knew to aim to the left. He'd convinced them that their shoe problem was all in their heads—
it wasn't as if the shoes could be the issue, could it? Hadn't they ordered from the same cordwainer
who'd been serving their family for the last century? If these shoes were good enough for their
grandfathers, why were they being whiny babies about it?
Tom had read an editorial in the London newspaper a while ago that said long term use of poorly
fitting shoes could lead to spinal injuries and chronic back pain. If Lestrange and Travers proved
that they deserved punishment, then Tom had the next few years to see if the newspaper was right.
It was a little bloodthirsty, but Tom had never been tender-hearted in nature; the notion of granting
mercy for first infractions hadn't once crossed his mind. And as it was meant as a punishment, they
only got what they deserved. He didn't take an eye for an eye, of course—he wasn't that barbaric.

Napoleon, the last great European emperor, wasn't famous for his martial conquests or a strong
dynasty of worthy heirs. In fact, from the perspective of an Englishman, it was his defeats that
were not only noteworthy, but celebrated. No, the man's true legacy lay in the Napoleonic Code,
modern laws that had overturned the existing old-fashioned feudal system. Napoleon had altered
the status quo to his own design, beheading the aristocracy and taking half of Europe along for the
journey. Tom admired it, and dreamt of replicating such feats within the microcosm of the
Slytherin boys' dormitory.

(To his displeasure, "The Tom Riddle Code" sounded a bit silly in his head, and even sillier written
down in the margins of his diary, but anything was better than "Schoolmaster Tom's Big Book of
Life Lessons". He supposed that naming things after yourself only worked if your name was grand
and powerful, like Napoleon or Hammurabi or Justinian. Would anyone cower in the presence of
the Grand Sorcerer of the British Wizarding Empire, Tom the Great?)

The rest of the Slytherin boys seemed to have noticed how misfortune befell those who were rude
to Tom, although they hadn't figured out what exactly he was doing, or how he was doing it. They
just saw what appeared to be a series of unconnected accidents, like Quentin Travers knocked off
the duelling platform and landing on his head, or Fourth Year Jasper Hastings' mother sending a
Howler because he'd handed in fourteen inches on doing dirty deeds with the Sorting Hat, instead
of the Charms essay he was supposed to have written.

(It was rumoured that Hastings had put the rips in the Sorting Hat to convenient use, and added
something new to the collection of stains on its brim. Hastings ventured no details, but his
reddening at the mention of their Charms teacher, Professor Winthrop, was taken as an admission
of guilt. Thereafter, he was known as "Hatty Hastings" and nothing he said could remedy the
situation.

It was much as he deserved for using slurs in public and ramming Tom into a balustrade on the way
to dinner.)

By the end of the year, most of Slytherin House had reined back on their aggression; Tom was a
House point earner favoured by Professor Slughorn, and it was in poor taste to sabotage Slytherin's
chances at the House Cup for a petty grudge—most Slytherins could agree they hated all of
Gryffindor House more than a single no-name orphan boy. In the case of the First Year cohort,
most of them had become somewhat civilised. Only once they'd learned not to mention Tom's
blood status in or out of his presence did he declare them thoroughly housebroken.

Having accomplished so much at Hogwarts, Tom was disappointed to return to Wool's for the
summer.

"It's only for ten weeks," Hermione reassured him, while they packed away their school robes on
the train.

To Tom, it felt like shedding the vestiges of the magical world, although the plain white uniform
shirts and trousers (or knee-length wool skirts for Hermione) didn't look too different to Muggle
clothes, once one doffed the distinctive drapey robes. Of the few differences Tom noticed was the
fact that wizarding clothes fastened with laces, toggles, brooches, or temporary Sticking Charms
for the lazy, and never with the newly fashionable zip fastenings. Buttons were made of horn or
shell, never plastic. The older girls painted on their lipstick with a brush and a pot of paint, not
from a twist-up tube as he'd seen from the minders at the Orphanage. And most people got their
things tailored to size with magic, so even those who couldn't afford dragonhide looked fairly
decent.

"It's ten weeks without magic," said Tom. "You had trouble going back to living like a Muggle
during Christmas, and that was only two weeks. This is like a Roman citizen used to flushing
toilets and daily bathing moving to provincial Britain, then seeing people toss their waste into the
street from their windows. You can't help but see everyone around you as a barbarian."

"I wouldn't put it like that," Hermione said, undoing her blue necktie and putting it away. "We
lived like Muggles for most of our lives; nothing about going back will be unfamiliar to us. Not
like it was when we first learned about magic."

Tom scoffed. "For God's sake, Hermione, I'm going back to a place where they use lard as a
condiment. Where they believe a lard and onion sandwich counts as a good lunch. Muggle or not,
any place that does that qualifies for being Hell on Earth."

"That sounds a bit dramatic."

"You've seen where I live," said Tom. "Now go on, please tell me that I should be grateful for it."

"No," said Hermione firmly. Her hands clasped together in her lap, in a weak attempt to restrain
what Tom knew would be a passionate outburst. "I'll never say that to you. I might believe that
half your stories about that place are hyperbole—honestly, Tom, most of the time I can't tell when
you're joking or not. But I do believe that you deserve better. A loving home should be every
child's birthright, not just a privilege enjoyed by those who were lucky enough to be born with the
right name. And an orphanage, especially one like Wool's, will never be a home."

Tom regarded her with cold eyes. "You're right. It's not a home. It's a holding pen for Britain's
future labour force." On the opposite seat, Hermione fidgeted. "Your words were very pretty. Are
you going to do anything about them, or are they just that, words?"

Ever since his first teatime talk with Dumbledore, he'd become skeptical whenever he heard
speeches that involved other people deciding that his life would be better off if it had this or if he
did that. It was unfair of him to take it out on Hermione, but the Hogwarts Express' imminent
arrival to King's Cross was lowering his mood from anxious to bitterly spiteful. It was just so
frustrating to go from easy access to magic and books, two of his most favourite things in the
world, to a world where he had no access to either. To go from promising, talented Mr. Riddle... to
Tom the friendless orphan.

It made him feel powerless. Insignificant. As if everything he'd earned and achieved in the last
year no longer mattered.

"I'll ask my Mum if we can meet at least once a week," Hermione said. "That way you can get out
of that place as often as you can. We can go to Diagon Alley, too—we can do magic there; with all
the adult wizards and witches walking about, they can never tell who's underage, as long as we
don't make a show.
"I think it's unfair that the other students who live in a magical home can practise spells over the
summer," she complained. "I asked my Head of House, and he said that magical homes have Floo
connections and qualified adults who can get an injured child to the hospital in an emergency.
Because I'm a witch, my parents are permitted to know about magic, visit magical areas, and use
the Floo system. But because they're also Muggles—the same for your caretakers—we're not
allowed to have the Floo installed in our house. Mum and Dad can exchange money at the bank,
but aren't allowed to open an account. They can rent a room by the month at the Leaky Cauldron,
but not a flat in Diagon Alley a few metres away. It's like they can't even decide whether Muggle
guardians should have rights or not! I can't wait until I turn seventeen before I can register our
house as a magical residence, but by then, the Restriction of Underage Magic won't even apply."

"You're one of the luckier ones," Tom remarked. "You'll turn seventeen at the beginning of Sixth
Year, and if they let you register via owl post, you'll have most of your affairs taken care of when
you go home for Christmas. You could have your Apparition license half a year before everyone
else even begins the school lessons, if you wanted."

"You could do it too," said Hermione eagerly, kicking her heels against the train seat. "You're not
that much younger than me, and since your birthday falls during the holidays, you could also take
the test earlier, if you had a teacher accompany you to the Ministry office. Knowing you, they'd
fall in line to offer, and buy you drinks afterwards."

Tom leaned back in his seat. "I wouldn't have the money to pay the examination fee, or pay an
instructor for the private lessons. I'm afraid I'll have to wait for the school instructor just like
everyone else."

"Oh." Hermione looked away. "Well, I'll think of something. We have years yet to come up with
the money."

"Are you planning some sort of moneymaking venture?" asked Tom. He was intrigued; Hermione
was more of a philanthropist than an entrepreneur. She could string together a good speech if she
had time to draft and rehearse it—she lacked the charisma for spontaneous public speaking—but it
took more than that to convince people to part with their money. The concept of a profit margin
would drive her into a spiral of guilt, because it was not much different from cheating people out of
their money, and cheating was wrong!!!

"I was thinking..." Hermione began, chewing on her lip, "that if you wrote something for a
periodical or an academic publication, they'd pay you if you got published. You're good now, and
you'll be even better by Sixth Year, so I'm sure you can think of something to write. If you aim
lower and go for something less prestigious, like the spell tips section for Witch Weekly or
Housewitch and Home, the pay is just as good and they publish once per week rather than once a
month. It's steady work as long as you don't mind adapting spells to churn butter or fluff up a
meringue."

Tom lifted an eyebrow. They weren't bad ideas, and the nature of the work meant that he wouldn't
even have to leave his dorm room to get them done. Nor would he have to meet anyone in person
who would reject him out of hand because he was underage, a student, or Muggle raised, as long as
his work was good enough. Obviously, it wouldn't do for people to know that Emperor Tom's
earliest creation was an altered freezing spell for making the most refreshing lemon mint sorbet
(perfect for summer entertaining!), but a pseudonym would take care of that issue, as well as
obscuring his age and lack of formal qualifications.
But because Tom was a cynic to the core, he said, "You're trying to convince me there are
alternatives to writing other people's school essays for money, aren't you?"

Hermione flushed. "I don't want you getting in trouble! And I know you don't take pride in doing
other people's homework. I'd much rather see you use your time and skill on original work, even if
it's something trivial, like hair charms or airing carpets. For every piece you publish, hundreds of
people would see your name, and I can tell you care about that. It's got to be more satisfying than
letting someone like Avery take credit for an essay you stuffed with spelling mistakes and poor
grammar on purpose. Even if it's some housewife you'll never meet, respect for your skill is still
respect."

"And money is money," Tom added. "I'll think about it. It's not as if I have anything better to do
for the next ten weeks." Experimental spellwork, even if it was for minor, trifling applications, was
far superior to hawking cigarettes on a street corner, or whatever kind of Muggle job the older
orphans did for money during term holidays. (He quickly terminated that line of thinking before he
began to speculate on what other kind of business the older girls got up to on street corners.)

Weighing up his options, he was quite certain wizarding work paid more, once he factored in the
exchange rate.

"What about your summer homework?"

"I got most of it done before we left. I didn't see the sense in not getting as much time in the library
as I could."

The train had begun to slow down upon entering the outskirts of Greater London. It was easy to
spot the divide between the countryside and the City—the grass faded into swaths of concrete and
bitumen, the sky filled with the grey smog of industry, and the horizon disappeared from view,
replaced by slate tiling and row after row of pebbledash terrace houses. It lacked colour, vibrancy,
and above all, magic.

Hermione's mother was waiting by the platform gate, ready to drive her home in their family
motorcar. Tom, however, had no one to anticipate his arrival; he'd expected to take the trolleybus
back to South London by himself, and he'd saved his shillings and pence for the fare, instead of
converting his Muggle money to galleons as Hermione had done during her first visit to Gringotts.
The trolleybus was how he'd arrived to King's Cross back in September.

She waved to Mrs. Granger, then looked back at him, brow furrowed in thought, almost tripping
over her trunk.

"Tom," she said, leaning in so that she would be heard over the din of reuniting families, screeching
children, and the whistle of the Express' steam boiler. "I'm going to talk my parents into getting an
owl, so we can write to each other this summer. I'll tell them it's faster and cheaper than the Royal
Mail's service to Scotland, especially with parcel post. If you need anything, or if you want me to
come get you, send a note through the owl."

"You should keep mail to the morning or evening like they do at Hogwarts," Tom replied. "I
wouldn't want the Muggles to notice there's an owl sitting by my window in broad daylight."

"Alright, unless it's an emergency," said Hermione. "It's less than thirty miles from our house to
Wool's as the crow flies, so you can expect a reply on the same day. And if they give you lard
sandwiches, write me and I'll send you something from our supper."
"As long as it's not soup," said Tom. "I wouldn't mind a good steak or a pork chop. Don't forget
the mustard and currant jelly, though; I don't like my steak dry."

"Oh, Tom," said Hermione, rolling her eyes and laughing. "I'm going to miss you."

And before he could do anything about it, she'd reached over and pulled him into an embrace. For
an instant, Tom was overwhelmed with sensations. He felt the warm curve of her cheek press
against his own, and the brush of her hair on his neck, not itchy and frizzy as he'd expected based
on its appearance, but soft and somehow... organic, pleasantly scented with freesia and orange
blossom. Her fingers grazed his shoulder blades, followed by the bony point of her elbows grazing
his ribs, a gentle pressure of her arms folding around him, and then a moment later—an eternity
later—the arms were unfolding, and the weight was gone, the warmth withdrawn, and Tom was left
standing on the crowded Platform staring blankly over Hermione's shoulder, feeling as if he'd lost
something before he'd even known what to call it.

What was that?

"Goodbye, Tom!"

"Goodbye," he heard himself repeating.

On the trolley back to Wool's, he came to the conclusion that she'd given him a hug. He wasn't sure
what to make of it.

Over the course of his life, he had never found the touch of other people to be pleasant. It was
meant to be avoided when possible, and endured when it wasn't. He never asked for it. He never
expected it. He never wanted it. Physical touches came in the form of pinches to his cheek, boxing
over the ears, shoves on the shoulder, kicks to the shin, and swats on the buttocks and hands.
Nothing about it was comforting, caring, or God forbid, loving.

But... that.

Hermione hadn't ever done that before. It wasn't as if they hadn't touched each other before: he
could recall instances where her fingers had brushed against his when she passed him a book or a
roll of parchment, or the nudge of a knee under the shared bench in Defence, and the quiet tap of a
knuckle on his shoulder when he'd lost track of time in a solitary corner of the library.

This, however, was a first.

For the first time in his life, he had been embraced by someone because they'd wanted to, not out of
pity or deceit. It was nothing like the old grannies who cooed over his pale skin and straight teeth
and pressed his face into a mass of saggy bosoms, assaulting his senses with the smell of talcum
powder and dried violets. They'd prodded at him and looked him over the same way they did with
vegetables at the market, sighing to each other that for all his sweet manners and pretty looks, he
was just another mouth to feed.

Hermione Granger had embraced him because she liked him, and what's more, he hadn't made any
indication to show that he hadn't wanted it in return; he had, however tacitly, allowed it, and it
hadn't been awful. It was, perhaps, if he was being generous about it, the opposite of awful,
although calling it pleasant was overselling it. It wasn't that good.

But—
He didn't mind it.

He minded that he didn't mind it.

What was going on? What was wrong with him?

Was there anything wrong with him?

He tried to imagine Amy Benson hugging him and was repulsed by the idea before Imaginary Amy
had even got within arm's reach of Imaginary Tom. The thought of her sliding into the seat next to
his in the orphanage dining hall made him wince; the thought of her touching his books, especially
his Hogwarts spellbooks, made him angry. Anything more than that was utterly incomprehensible.
Next, he tried to imagine Mrs. Cole in Amy's place, and he almost gagged.

Good.

Nothing out of the usual. He had better not be going mad.

Because, he reminded himself, I'm not mad. I'm a wizard.

In the end, he found his mind plenty occupied during the ten tedious weeks without magic.

Tom's first summer as a wizard wasn't as bad as he'd expected it to be.

He wrote to Hermione every other day with the new owl her mother had bought, a plain tawny owl
she'd named "Gilles". Tom thought it a pretentious name, but seeing as every other one of his
Slytherin Housemates named their pet owls Athena, Hercules, or Sultan, pretentious naming must
be an established practice among wizarding traditionalists. And it wasn't like he could declare
himself the Ministry appointed Officiate of Pet Naming, as his own pet was a rat named Peanut.
Peanut Three, if he was to be accurate about it.

Tom had let Peanut out to fend for itself during the summer. He would be inconvenienced but not
overly upset if the rat got itself eaten or caught in a trap. Tom had no use for a pet that couldn't
take care of its own basic needs; if an animal needed constant maintenance and attention from its
owner to survive, then as far as he was concerned, it didn't deserve to live. Rats were common and
replaceable. He still had that note from Dumbledore, so if Peanut never showed up in his room
before August 30, then Tom would go to Hogwarts and catch himself another one.

It was good that Peanut was out of his room most of the day, because Gilles liked to rest on Tom's
windowsill in between letter deliveries. The owl had claimed the spot as his own by butchering a
few pigeons on it, splattering blood over the glass windowpanes. It was after a quick application of
Tom's animal training magic that Gilles soon took his meals elsewhere, as it put Tom off his own
meals when Gilles was choking out a furry lump of an owl pellet two feet away.
And his meals were worth enjoying—Mrs. Granger was a decent cook, and whilst he found her
Beef Wellington a tad overdone compared to the Hogwarts gold standard, she hit the mark with her
puddings and tarts. It was a shame to discover that jam sauces and ice cream sent by owl post
didn't travel well.

Dear Tom,

Mum says the food is cheaper and higher quality at the wizarding grocer, particularly the
meats and out-of-season fruits, which seem to be in season year round. She's started shopping
more at the Diagon market than with our local greengrocer, although we still take our regular
milk delivery. She says she finds magical sweets bizarre, and she doesn't know what the
dragon liver at the butcher's is meant for. Do wizards eat it? Or make potions from it?

Gringotts' monopoly on currency exchange aside, there must be other aspects where we,
having a foot in each world, have an advantage over our purely wizard-raised classmates.
For example, we enjoy a Hogwarts education funded by the Ministry of Magic; being British
subjects by birth, we both had our primary educations funded by His Majesty's Government.
But British citizenship comes with certain obligations, so it might not be so advantageous
when we're older, now that I think about it—how would the taxes even work...

For most of the summer, he met Hermione twice a week at Diagon Alley. The Leaky Cauldron on
Charing Cross Road was less than two miles away from Wool's, close enough that he could walk
there and back without needing fare for the trolley, as he didn't have a heavy school trunk to lug
around. Now that he had a wand of his own to open the brick gateway, he visited as often as he
could, either alone or with Hermione.

It was frustrating how the magical window displays beckoned him to enter the shops and try out the
wares when he couldn't afford a thing. Until his Second Year book list arrived with the pouch of
coins from the Hogwarts Relief Fund, he refrained from spending his money. He did, however, sell
and exchange his First Year textbooks for the Second Year basics, while browsing the offerings for
the Third Year electives. Introductory Numerology caught his interest, but Social Customs of the
Common British Muggle was as ghastly as its title implied.

Once he'd gotten his book list in the first week of August, Tom was invited to lunch and shopping
in the Alley with Hermione and Mrs. Granger.

He accepted. A free lunch was a free lunch.

He'd been determined to hate Mrs. Helen Granger from the very first time he had seen her. There
was something about her that had seemed unreal, artificial against the Victorian grimness of the
orphanage. It must have been the roller-set curls of her hair, the elegant arch of her eyebrows, the
click of her heeled shoes on institutional tile. Her aura of affluence had shown him his first
glimpse, at the age of eight years old, of the unattainable; it was then that he had truly understood
the meaning of the phrase 'class consciousness'.

He wasn't sure he hated her as much as he had four years ago—the list of things he hated had
evolved over the years to encompass the abstract rather than individual people.
It was how Mrs. Granger looked in the shop windows in the same way he looked at them, a familiar
mixture of hunger and wonder in the gleam of her eyes and the stiff carriage of spine and shoulder.
She marvelled at the convenience of simple charms: self-stirring ladles and knitting needles and
self-lacing boots, commonplace objects to the people around her but which she'd never seen before.

Mrs. Granger caught him eyeing the boots. "Charmed waterproof, self-lacing, shined with
Peckling's Permanent Polish," she read from the card in the display case, glancing at Tom. "It
seems as if magic can solve every problem, doesn't it?"

"Not every problem has a magical solution, but I believe that one can create anything with magic,"
said Tom, and his eyes darted down to his scuffed Muggle-made boots. "It's only a matter of
knowledge and imagination."

"Would you like those shoes, Tom?"

"Are you offering, Mrs. Granger?"

They entered the shop and she asked to see the boots from the window. The shop clerk hovered
around him, showing him the variety of leathers and finishes as an alternative to plain polished
black, offering him the extra sets of laces they had in stock (Ten different colours! One for every
season!) and trying to take his address down for their owl order catalogue.

Tom sat on the stool and let the clerk fuss about with the sizing charms.

"I've often regretted the day I brought Hermione to Wool's Orphanage," Mrs. Granger said in a
guarded voice, looking him over with a clinical gaze. His face was washed, his hair was combed
into place and parted down the side, and he was dressed neatly, so he assumed he was being
assessed for more than just aesthetics. "But for all my misgivings, you are the only real friend she's
ever had."

Tom's eyes narrowed. "I beg your pardon? Are these shoes meant as a parting gift? A 'Thank you,
goodbye, and don't come back' gesture?"

"Don't be facetious, Tom. It doesn't suit you," Mrs. Granger snapped. "I don't dislike you as a
person. Your academic standings are impeccable and you make for tolerable company when you
aren't trying to be glib. No, what I dislike is my darling Hermione, the only child I'll ever have,
spending every day of her Christmas holidays wishing she'd rather be somewhere else than at home
with her family. Now she spends every day of her summer holidays waiting by the window for the
owl. And what I dislike most of all is that it will only get worse from here."

"I think," said Tom in a low, cold voice that the clerk wouldn't overhear, "that if you're upset your
daughter is a witch, you ought to do it in other places than in the middle of Diagon Alley."

"It doesn't matter to me if she's a witch or a lion tamer," she retorted. "She was a witch from the
day she was born—but she was my daughter too. I can already tell that when she finishes school,
she'll never want to look back. And the one friend she has will never care to show her that there are
some things without magic worth having."

"Nothing in the Muggle world—" he spoke the words with distaste, using Muggle like some people
used Yankee, "—has shown me it was ever worth a moment of my time. Hermione might have
been worth it, but she's not a Muggle, is she? She never was, and never will be. If it bothers you
that her plans for her own future don't involve you, perhaps she'd be better off leaving. I may not
be an expert in family dynamics, but I do know estrangements happen all the time. In a few years
from now, when you're in need of an excuse for your church ladies, just tell them Hermione went
off and married a Catholic. They won't even question it."

Mrs. Granger looked away briefly, before steeling herself. "If you think it's as trivial as—"

"Madam?" said the clerk, interrupting them. "I have your purchase boxed up. Would you like the
boar brush and shoe horn? It's seven sickles for both."

Mrs. Granger turned to Tom, eyebrow arched. "Tom?"

"Yes, please," Tom said politely, resuming his regular Good Boy performance.

"And the extra bootlaces, young sir? You can match it to your House colours!"

"No, thank you," said Tom.

"He's in Slytherin," said Mrs. Granger, ignoring Tom. "Can you make the box fit into his pocket?"

"Of course, Madam," the clerk assured her, selecting a set of dark green laces with silver aglets
from a rack by the counter. He chattered as he worked, wrapping up the extra bits and bobs and
fitting them inside the shoebox. "The ones in this colour are always in, and they go with every
style of shoe. Can't say the same for the Hufflepuff ones—we can never move them like the rest. I
told the boss we should've gone with the black laces and the gold trim, but he wanted it the other
way 'round; he was a Badger in his day, and he said to me—"

The bell over the door rang. The clerk's head jerked up.

Lestrange—Tom couldn't remember if his given name was Edward or Edwin, not that it mattered,
as they weren't on first name basis—stood in the doorway, not looking as well as he had when Tom
had last seen him on the Express platform several weeks ago. His face was pale, his lips chapped,
and his black hair lay limp over his brow where it had been dampened by sweat. Most interesting
of all was that he walked with the aid of a cane.

"I'm to pick up a custom order," said Lestrange, scowling viciously at the clerk behind the counter.
"Name's Lestrange, Edmond."

"Of course, Mr. Lestrange, it's just in the back," stammered the clerk. "I'll just be a moment," he
whispered in Tom's direction.

"Riddle? What are you doing here?" asked Lestrange, his fingers curling around the handle of his
walking stick like a claw. His beady eyes had lit onto Tom, who was putting his Muggle shoes
back on after trying the shop's wares for size.

"Shopping for a racing broom, what does it look like?" Tom replied. He stood and looked
Lestrange up and down, forcing away the pleased smirk that had almost slipped onto his face.
"Were you attacked by a hippogriff on the way over?"

"I wish," said Lestrange. He leaned in. "Don't tell this to anyone, I swear, Riddle. I had to get half
my toenails removed and regrown, and now one of my feet is smaller than the other. It hurts more
than anything, but at least I won't have the cane on the first day back."
"I won't," said Tom, who was already thinking about how to best make use of this information.
"Did they figure out what happened?"

"Nah," Lestrange shook his head. "They couldn't tell. The Mediwitch told Father I'd dropped
something heavy on my foot, but I'd have remembered it if I did. I told him the witch was lying,
and Father wouldn't listen to me, would you believe it?"

"Well, I believe you, even if no one else will," said Tom. "If the Hospital Wing cuts you off for
pain potions, I know a good recipe or two. I was top in Potions last year, so you'd need only get me
the ingredients. It'll be our little secret, eh?"

Inwardly, Tom was amazed at how easily people were fooled into thinking he was harmless. For
Lestrange, it only took a tutoring session or two, a few tips with homework assignments, and faking
sympathy for his asinine medical conditions. It was also amazing how Lestrange's personality had
undergone a total reversal. In a situation where he was separated from his Slytherin cronies and
cousins, on bad terms with his father, and suffering from constant low-level pain, Lestrange was
almost amicable.

Of course, it had only taken Tom a whole year and the gradual destruction of the boy's self-esteem.

The clerk brought Lestrange's order then, shrunk to a quarter of its original size. Lestrange
pocketed it and bid a curt farewell to Tom. Before he turned to leave, his eyes lingered on Mrs.
Granger, who was paying for Tom's purchases.

"A word of advice, Riddle? You should've said you were a half-blood from the start," he said,
leering at Mrs. Granger's backside. "You wouldn't have got half as much ballyhoo if they'd known
about that."

Mrs. Granger wore a dove grey calf-length coat of wizarding make—she must have been familiar
with the Diagon shops if she knew about the parcel-shrinking service—over a long skirt and heeled
shoes, which would have passed as a smart ensemble, if overly formal for daywear, in the Muggle
world. In the wizarding world, she looked like a respectable witch with a taste for modern fashion.
Tom had noticed from wandering around Diagon Alley that the modern working witch preferred
the practical, closer-cut sleeves of a long coat over the more traditional floor-length witch's robe.
And good materials and tailoring spoke for themselves.

"My surname is still 'Riddle'," said Tom, wondering if Lestrange remembered that Tom was an
orphan. It wasn't as if he'd shouted it from the Astronomy Tower, but he knew in the first two days
of Hogwarts, he had answered a few questions about his parentage, telling them that both his
parents were dead. "That's the only thing that matters."

"I s'pose. But some people make exceptions for the right circumstances, if you know what I mean,"
Lestrange said, with a wink. Weren't Slytherins supposed to be subtle? Mentally, Tom retracted his
statement about Lestrange qualifying as amicable. He was still an intolerable boor. "Right, see you
in September."

After finishing with the shoe shop, Tom and Mrs. Granger met Hermione outside the uniform shop
where Hermione had been fitted for a new set of school robes for the upcoming year.

They went to a fancy Muggle hotel on Hyde Park for lunch, one with a doorman in gloves and
tailcoat, which reminded Tom of the night at the opera almost two years ago. Their table had a
crisp white tablecloth and floral centrepiece, and was shown them by the maître d'. Tom had dined
at a table with a tablecloth fewer than five times in his life (Hogwarts' Great Hall, for all its
decadent feasts, was a communal refectory, not a restaurant), and he had never seen a maître
d'hôtel.

He didn't mention anything about their earlier conversation as the courses were served. When Tom
caught Mrs. Granger's assessing gaze on him a few times, he pointedly did not comment on it.
Instead, he spent the meal concurring with Hermione about how much they were looking forward
to school, and debating if it was worth it to hire a room out at the Leaky Cauldron for the day just
to practice magic from their Second Year schoolbooks.

Summer drew to a close, and everything seemed to be going well for Tom.

He had his new school books. He hadn't had to buy a wand, the single most expensive item on the
supply list last year, so there was enough surplus to this year's Hogwarts Fund for him to replace
his old uniform shirts and trousers, with a galleon or two left over to spend on second-hand books.
The soggy fish and peas of orphanage meals were supplemented by daily food parcels from the
Grangers. He'd grown two inches from when he'd last measured himself in December, and despite
his lean, rangy appearance common with the other boys at Wool's, it was clear from a glance that he
was much better fed and clothed than they were.

The Hogwarts Express was much better this time around, now that he and Hermione weren't
quarrelling. After they'd locked the doors of their train compartment, they practised their First Year
spells, and Tom was pleased to see that he remembered how to do everything from the previous
year. It wasn't hard, as he'd snuck in as much magic practice as he could, loitering around Diagon
all summer. Which Hermione hadn't done—when she'd tried to cast a Levitation Charm behind the
stack of cauldrons by Wiseacre's, she was so nervous of being caught and warned that the book
she'd been using floated half a foot before dropping to the ground.

Yes, thought Tom to himself, when he'd settled back into the Slytherin dorms, in the same bed
closest to the watery green window he'd slept in last year. I'm back at Hogwarts once more, and it's
just as magical as I remembered.

The other Slytherin boys left him alone while they unpacked, no one commenting on the state or
quality of Tom's belongings. The background conversation soon turned to the events of the
summer, and what everyone had got up to during the holiday.

Lestrange sent him a few meaningful looks, which Tom returned. Neither of them drew any
attention to Lestrange's new shoes, of which the left was slightly smaller than the right.

"I heard Hatty Hastings was thrashed by his father the day he got back. Didn't show his face at a
single gala the whole summer. What'd be the point anyway? I mean, now that everyone knows
he'd rather marry a hat than the witch wearing it," said Avery rather callously, sorting out his socks
from his pyjamas.

Rosier chimed in with, "Pater said they brought up Madam Hastings' Howler during the quarterly
Wizengamot assembly. The woman has got some lungs to her, I can tell you. Not very surprising,
though—didn't Hatty's great-aunt captain the Harpies back in ninety-eight? They were still second-
rate to the Falcons back then, when they had Renwick as their Keeper..."

At that point, Tom closed and silenced his canopy curtains.

 Tom spent the weekend reacquainting himself with the Hogwarts library. He got used to the feeling
of carrying his wand in his pocket. His one-of-a-kind wizard's wand, not just a pointy, polished
stick as it appeared to Muggle eyes. He liked knowing that he could draw it whenever he wanted,
that it was ready at an instant to be used as a weapon and not just a threat. He sank into the
ambience of living in the magical world, of talking portraits and clanking armour and the wistful
melodies of Merfolk singing in the lake outside his window.

The warm glow of nostalgia converging onto reality lasted until Monday morning, whereupon
Hermione cornered him after breakfast, waving a letter and the front page of a Muggle newspaper
into his face.

BRITAIN DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY!

Chapter End Notes

According to Pottermore, owners of yew wands are said to be good at duelling and curses and
can also be fierce protectors of others. Hmmm....

Some minor timeskipping happening here to move the story along. Ya boy is growin' up.
 Galleons

1939

Magic, to Hermione Granger, was love at first sight.

When Professor Dumbledore came to her house, he had given her family an introduction on the
magical world. Although it had been informative, and he'd shown them his magic wand and
performed a simple transfiguration in their sitting room, it was still a lecture. And so Hermione
absorbed it with the same academic interest as she would have done for a lesson on Biology or
Chemistry. It wasn't magical, not really. It was learning. While knowledge had a magic of its
own, it wasn't magic.

Magic was the moment when the bricks had fallen away, in that alley behind the dingy pub on
Charing Cross Road. Magic was seeing broomsticks fly and drawings move and tiny, wrinkly-
faced men with gilt livery and golden axes.

It was multi-faceted, that magic of one's first impression. It was wonder, it was connection, and it
was kinship. It was a whole world opened to her that she had never known existed, full of
opportunities waiting for her to grasp. It was filled with people just like her.

But that love wasn't perfect and everlasting. It was honeymoon love.

Hermione would always remember fondly how her wand had chosen her and showered Garrick
Ollivander's floor with leaves and flower petals, and how the clerk at the bookshop had shrunk and
wrapped her three dozen magical books with a cheery wink and a wave of his wand.

But she would also remember how, in her second week of classes, her fellow Ravenclaws giggled
to each other when a Hufflepuff in their Potions class blew up his cauldron and burned half the skin
off his hands. He'd been crying as he was shunted off to the Hospital Wing, and the rest of the class
had tittered and resumed their work as if nothing unusual had happened. And in the first half of her
second term at Hogwarts, Jasper Hastings was publicly humiliated during breakfast, by his mother
and his own Housemates. For weeks, no one spoke to him in the corridors unless it was to mock
him; she could only guess that it was worse in his Common Room where there weren't any teachers
to see and intervene.

(She didn't count the instances where she'd been called a know-it-all by students in other Houses.
She was immunised to this from her years of Muggle primary school, and while it had stung at first,
she didn't think it was a flaw to want to know everything. None of the other Ravenclaws in her
dorm had disapproved of her constant need to study, and neither had Tom. Besides, if she was a
know-it-all, then Tom Riddle was an unabashed teacher's pet.)

She knew she'd been raised in a sheltered environment, but this amount of... of casual disregard of
fellow human beings was something she'd never witnessed before. When she'd asked her dorm
mates about it, she was told her unease was due to cultural dissonance between the Wizarding and
Muggle worlds. Wizards didn't make a fuss about physical injuries because they could be healed
within a day. Wizards of the traditional stripe were pressured to marry well and marry early, and
public displays of "deviant behaviour" diminished one's prospects for making an advantageous
match. It was all well and good if Hastings had waited until he'd secured the line, so to speak,
before he indulged his tastes, but he hadn't and it had gotten out and that was that.

She had been enchanted. And she was now disenchanted.

Magic was still magic, of course. She would always love it, all its simple convenience and its
grand potential; she couldn't see herself ever taking it for granted as witches and wizards did when
they were born knowing what they were. But people, magical people, had lost their lustre for her.
She had, unconsciously, held wizards to a higher standard, the same way she had expected families
with wealth—like her own—to be generous to those less fortunate. But it turned out that wealth,
just like magic, didn't make the people who had it any better, any different, than those who lacked
it. She had given them the benefit of a doubt, but the evidence came out, and she couldn't ignore it.

Wizards just didn't care about the war.

At first, Hermione thought the lack of reaction was due to the old British custom of the stiff upper
lip. There was no sense in hurting morale or scaring the youngest First Years by making a big fuss
of it. But a week later, Hermione had gotten several letters and newspaper clippings from her
mother, about city-wide curfews and blackout hours. And still, no one at Hogwarts seemed to be
talking about it. When Hermione compared the Evening Standard to the Daily Prophets she found
abandoned in the Ravenclaw Common Room, there was scarcely any mention in the wizarding
papers.

Notice from the Ministry of Magic, Department of Magical Transportation:

Temporary interruption of service to International Portkey and Floo Terminals for the
following cities...

...To request an exchange or a refund, please send copies of your booked itinerary to the
owling address below.

The Department hereby apologises for your inconvenience.

It was a list of several major cities in Central and Eastern Europe, and it was buried on Page 9, in
between an article on obtrusive fireworks set off by spectators at the latest Kestrels versus Wasps
Quidditch game, resulting in fines for any future occurences, and a report on the renovation of a
wing in St. Mungo's Hospital.

Hermione showed Tom the disparities between the Muggle and Wizard newspapers in the library
one Saturday, while they were labelling diagrams for a Herbology assignment.

"It reminds me of French aristocrats," Hermione observed. "They sit in their towers and eat cake
and throw masquerade balls, until one day the peasants are banging on their doors."

"That's why they invented moats, you know," said Tom, not looking up from an illustrated field
guide of shrivelfig subspecies. "And if the average wizard can dodge a burning stake, then a
guillotine won't be any more trouble."
Hermione did not point out that the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, a Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-
Porpington, seemed to have had trouble evading the guillotine. She knew that Tom would have
said it was his own fault, a result of his own incompetence. Because what kind of wizard allowed
himself to be arrested and disarmed by Muggles? Clearly a very inept one, and therefore if he died,
it would be no tragic loss to wizardkind.

She imagined that he'd be smug about the fact that the Slytherin ghost was rumoured to have taken
his own life. Tom would overlook the motivation behind the deed and jump straight to the fact that
his House's ghost had died by a wizard's hand. Since the Baron himself was the wizard in question,
and his death was by his own prerogative and no one else's, it was, all in all, a much more dignified
end than being offed by a Muggle.

Hermione thought Tom had a very unhealthy view of death and mortality, not to mention a severe
lack of sensitivity when it came to other people's feelings. She had brought it up once or twice in
their past letters, but Tom stated that they were his genuine beliefs and he saw no need to censor
them. He respected her opinions, so why could she not grant him the honour of respecting his?
Did she not respect him? Was she dismissing his beliefs just as Christian missionaries did in
Papua, Ceylon, and Tonga, because having been raised in brick houses—and not in communal
lodges or palm huts or orphanages—they inherently knew better than everyone else?

She hadn't known what to say to that, so she'd said nothing.

Tom, when he spoke to her through words on paper, was only convincing because he laid a
foundation on legitimate points. In person, however, in his most passionate and persuasive
moments, he didn't even need that veneer of legitimacy.

"I don't know why you're not worried about it," Hermione said, her quill scratching into the
parchment with more force than necessary. "They've handed out gas masks and evacuated half the
children out of London."

"Simple," Tom replied. "We're not in London, are we? Nobody at Hogwarts cares because
everyone knows this is the safest place in Britain."

"We won't be in Hogwarts the whole year," Hermione pointed out. "Mum says she wants me to
stay during Christmas because it'll be safer out of the city, and on top of that, they'll start rationing
in the new year. But the teachers won't let us stay during summer, so we'll have to go back to
London, no matter what's going on there. And... and you're not the slightest bit alarmed!"

"I always knew I was going back," said Tom, "and there wasn't anything I could do about it." He
leaned forward in his seat, tapping his quill nib on the rim of his ink bottle so the extra drips fell
away. "You see, Hermione, as I've mentioned before, Wool's Orphanage is Hell on Earth. When
you transplant Hell to a warzone... well, Hell is still Hell, isn't it? Just one circle lower down, if
you take Dante's word on it. And what's the difference, when it comes down to it? More orphans,
less food, no electricity, complimentary mustard gas. I've had all of those before, except for the
mustard gas, of course. But luckily, I'm told that everyone gets a free gas mask."

Hermione's mouth dropped open. "I'm going to assume that your nonchalance is a coping strategy.
Not a very good one, though; I daren't think you'd ever be one for sobbing, but if you need to, I'd
never judge you for it—everyone needs a good cry once in a while." She cleared her throat,
ignored Tom's petulant expression, and continued with, "But you're right. If my family have got to
worry about rationing, then the conditions on your end will be even worse. I'm going to try and
think of something to fix this..."
"You're going to defeat Germany and end the war?" Tom asked incredulously.

"No," said Hermione, "I'm going to find something to make summer better for us, or at least safer,
if we can't be at Hogwarts or use magic without being expelled. Mum says if London is too unsafe,
we'll be packed off and evacuated to the countryside. And if we're out of London the whole time,
not only won't we be able to see each other, but we won't have any way to visit Diagon Alley, and
then we'd start our Third Year electives without having bought our textbooks!"

Hermione was almost hyperventilating by the end. She always, always, started a new school year
with the assigned texts fresh on her mind. To do otherwise would be tantamount to coming to class
unprepared. It was unthinkable. One didn't come to class without their pens and paper. Hermione
Granger didn't come to class unless she could recite their textbook's table of contents and flip to the
relevant pages as soon as she saw the topic of the lesson written on the blackboard.

(Tom was amused by Hermione's obsessive study habits, and had called her a pedant on more than
one occasion. Hermione didn't understand Tom's own revision methods: he paced around in
circles, summarising the key points of their class lectures, while his Dictation Quill jotted it all
down in a sort of stream-of-consciousness commentary. He barely took notes in class, and when
she looked over his shoulder, much of it was in abbreviations and references to books and authors
outside the professors' supplementary reading list.)

"What are you going to do about it, then?" Tom asked, his eyebrows lifted in interest.

"I'll have Mum arrange somewhere else for you to stay that isn't the orphanage," said Hermione
firmly, not knowing how she'd pull it off, but aware that if Tom was hurt or crushed to death in an
overcrowded public air raid shelter, she'd never be able to forgive herself.

"Dear God, you're not going to have your family try to adopt me, are you?" said Tom, a flash of
revulsion passing across his face, before he smoothed it away. "I don't need a family, not even for
convenience's sake."

"I'll have you know that my family are wonderful people!" Hermione said, though not with much
acid. "My father thinks you've a clever mind and good prospects, and my mother... Well, she
doesn't talk about you much, but I've never heard her say anything bad. They like you. If you
weren't a wizard, I'm sure they'd have sponsored you through university, and a good one at that.
Dad was impressed when I explained why I wanted to borrow his old Latin primers." Hermione
paused for a moment, thinking through the implications. "Besides," she added, "I think 'Tom
Granger' is a good name. It suits you."

Tom rolled his eyes. "Just as much as 'Hermione Riddle' suits you."

"'Tom Riddle-Granger', then," said Hermione, smiling.

He made a face. "Are you going to come up with any more horrible examples to support your
belief that family members should share the same name? If so, consider repeating 'Hermione
Granger-Riddle' out loud three times before you open your mouth."

"I think it would give my mother a heart attack," Hermione said. "But at least the hyphen makes it
sound posh."

"Flights of whimsy aside, was this the best idea you've thought up?" Tom asked. "Or are you and
your family going to rent rooms at the Leaky Cauldron for the whole summer? It'd cost well over a
hundred pounds with the exchange rates the way they are. Your family aren't hard up for money,
but that's still quite a sum to spend to stay in London. Especially as you don't know how long it'll
last, and you'd have to do it every summer as long as there's a war on."

"It would be cheaper if my parents were allowed to rent directly in Diagon," Hermione grumbled.
"It would be easier if we were old enough to rent in our own names. It's unfair that we, as children,
have to think up a solution on our own because the Headmaster and the professors aren't going to
do a thing about it."

"I seem to recall someone saying that we should always listen to the teachers..."

"If their duty of care as teachers expires in the summer, and they absolve themselves of
responsibility for our welfare," Hermione said, "then we have no responsibility to listen. Only for
the duration of the summer, mind you. We might have to take matters into our own hands, but it'll
be out of necessity. It's certainly not an excuse to devolve into anarchy."

She didn't like it, but what else was she to do?

Muggle London was growing dangerous. Wizarding London was expensive, and many parts of it
were inaccessible to her parents. Living in Diagon Alley meant that they wouldn't be able to come
and go as they pleased, and both her parents needed to work at her father's clinic. Since Mum and
Dad didn't have wands of their own, they'd have to rely on her wand or, if she was somehow
unavailable, on the indulgence of other wizards to let them in through the brick gateway. Mum
visited Diagon Alley to stock up on groceries, and either a kind wizard or the Leaky Cauldron's
bartender would open the gate for her on request. Hermione knew that not all wizards would be
keen on letting unattended Muggles wander around Diagon, knowledge of magic or not. In the
worst case scenario, someone with a grudge would report them, and Mum and Dad would run afoul
of a Ministry Obliviation squad with an inflexible "clean up first, ask questions later" policy.

Or she could be evacuated to some distant village in the countryside, with most of the city's
children. She and her parents would be separated from one another, just as she would be from
Tom, as he'd be sent along in a group with the other residents of Wool's. Her parents would have to
go to a great deal of trouble in bringing her back to London in time to catch the Hogwarts Express,
but it was still possible. They could afford to send her money for rail fare and the family had their
own motorcar, and enough money to buy black market petrol since the official stuff had been under
ration from the first week of September. Tom didn't have any of that.

"Oh, Hermione," said Tom, propping his chin in his hands and giving her a very self-satisfied look.
"Every day you grow closer to seeing the light."

Hermione huffed and turned back to her books.

I've heard Tom say that magic is only limited by one's knowledge and imagination, thought
Hermione. If only we were allowed to use magic in the summer! I know if we use it in self-defence
or emergency, we can get the official reprimands struck off our permanent records by appealing to
the Ministry, but just like the Hogwarts Board of Governors, the old families have an advantage
that we won't.

I'm in the Hogwarts library. There is no source of magical knowledge better than here. I just need
the imagination part, but I'll have the rest of the school year to think of something.
Imagination wasn't her strongest suit, she knew; Tom had proved to be much better at it,
completing his transfigurations on his first or second try, while she had to spend half the lesson
focusing on the proper visualisation. They were top of their class, as most of their other classmates
only got a halfway decent result by the end of the lesson, and a good quarter hadn't managed a
successful transfiguration at all. In Charms, however, they were evenly matched, as the subject
required a great deal of precise wandwork and timing. And this was where her textbook skills put
her in good stead.

So when she returned to her Common Room after dinner, Hermione decided to go about her plans
logically.

She approached the Sixth Year Ravenclaw Prefect in one of the reading alcoves set in each of the
windows of Ravenclaw Tower. Devina Holbrook had been the Fifth Year Prefect last year, which
meant she had been in charge of introducing the First Year girls to life at Hogwarts. The six
Ravenclaw Prefects divided responsibilities so the First Years went to the same person for advice
and tutoring up until their Third Year, and anyone above Fourth Year was considered old enough to
be able to figure out their problems on their own if they could, or by asking a classmate if they
couldn't. It seemed like a sensible system to Hermione; she'd wondered if the other Houses did the
same thing.

"Devina, can I talk to you?" Hermione asked. Step one: always ascertain the facts.

Devina held up a finger, her eyes scanning the page of a book in her lap. She gave a short sigh,
then lowered the finger and shut the book with a brisk snap. "Yes? Granger, isn't it?"

"I've heard people say that Hogwarts is the safest place in Britain. Is that true?"

"Worried about the rumours?" said Devina, cocking her head. "They do say Hogwarts is safe, that
much is true. But you weren't asking me to repeat hearsay, were you? I can only confirm that,
according to my historical knowledge, Hogwarts has never been captured by enemy force. Goblin
rebellions, Danish invasions, pre-Statute royal succession crises, more goblin rebellions. They've
come and gone, and while the castle has been attacked before, they were all successfully repelled.

"So the evidence does point toward Hogwarts being a safe place to be. I'm not sure if is the number
one safest place, as I hear the Unspeakables in the Ministry's Department of Mysteries have got
their patch locked down tighter than a goblin's pocket. But whatever rank on the list it has,
Hogwarts is definitely safer than the average home, and you don't have to worry about anything
while you're here."

"Oh, good," said Hermione, pulling a bit of parchment out of the pocket of her robe and jotting
notes on it with a pencil. "What exactly makes Hogwarts so safe?"

She'd seen wizards frown in silent disapproval at those who used fountain pens—which she still
used when writing on the train or outdoors where there wasn't a good place to set a bottle of ink—
but they still used pencils in such tasks as drawing diagrams or filling out astronomy charts.
Wizard pencils, however, looked like thick, square sticks of graphite wrapped in string or paper and
not the slim, machine-manufactured wooden cylinders she was used to.

"First: there's the teachers, of course," said Devina. "All of them have qualified for a Mastery in
their respective subjects, so trust me, they've got a bit more skill than your average housewitch.
Never seen proof that they could match up to an Auror in an all-out duel, but I expect Professors
Dumbledore and Merrythought could give them a run for their money.
"Second: the Founders built some sort of native protections into the castle walls. I've never seen
them myself, and neither have my grandparents, so this is either rumour or quoted from Hogwarts:
A History. It says, in an emergency, that when called on in a time of need, the castle itself will
come to life to defend its charges. Make of that what you will.

"And third and finally," Devina said, clearing her throat and waiting for Hermione to catch up with
her frantic note taking, "the everyday protections in the form of wards around the grounds. Most
wizarding homes have some sort of simple ward: things like keeping the gnomes out, Muggle
repelling, or for the families who live around Ballycastle or Tutshill, noise wards to keep the
shouting out when there's a Quidditch match in the village. Hogwarts has wards built by the
Founders, the strongest anti-intruder protections I've ever heard of. No Apparition, no Portkeys,
limited internal Floo, no one comes in unless the Headmaster personally approves them."

Hermione jotted all this down, except for the bit about Quidditch. "Can anyone have a ward around
their house?"

"I suppose," said Devina. "But not everyone can cast one. Well, they could, but an amateur job
wouldn't last a day. And most people would prefer to pay a professional to do the work than study
years for the Mastery themselves, or do a rush job and have to re-cast it every other day. It might
work if you want a small silencing ward for a Quidditch game once a week, but anyone who wants
serious wards hires a wardmaster."

"How does one... get a wardmaster?" asked Hermione.

"You could owl the Ministry for their list," Devina said, shrugging. "They have a pool of warders
on call, in the Department of Magical Accidents. They're the ones who set up barriers while
waiting for clean-up to arrive and do their job. Sorry, I can't tell you much about this—I'm not a
warder, and it's my mum who takes care of our family's banking and filing."

"Thank you, I learned a lot," Hermione said gratefully, putting her parchment away. "As a Muggle-
raised student, I'm glad I had someone to explain all this." And, taking a page out of Tom's book,
she gave Devina Holbook a bright smile and said, "I really hope you make Head Girl next year. I
can't imagine anyone else who'd do a better job at it."

Devina beamed and patted her on the shoulder. "Any time, Granger."

Hermione went up to her dormitory, deep in thought.

I want a ward for our house, but I don't want the Ministry involved. I don't think I should use a
Ministry warder—would they be obligated to file a report on all of their unofficial housecalls? Is it
the same way a doctor is obligated to breach patient confidence if they believe a serious crime has
been committed? If I'm asking them to perform magic in a Muggle home, it might be a breach of
the Statute of Secrecy, thought Hermione, gnawing at her lip. She didn't want her parents
Obliviated, and the Ministry warders worked directly under the Obliviators!

She knew some Obliviations could be undone, but if she had her parents committed to St. Mungo's
to get their memories returned—and who knew how long that took—what would happen to her?
To the Muggle world, it would look like her parents had disappeared without a trace, and left with
no adult guardians, she'd be in the same boat as Tom.

I need a wardmaster, she decided. But not an official one. A black market wardmaster, if that
exists.
Hermione could consider buying black market petrol morally permissible in an emergency.
Nothing counted as more of an emergency than ensuring she had a way to get to Hogwarts, to study
magic. And it wasn't as if the Germans would roll Britain over just because her father bought a few
cans of petrol from some shady man in a back alley, in order to get her to school on time.

Therefore, there was nothing inherently wrong with the existence of a black—or grey—market.
All economies were built on shifting webs of supply and demand. No government, no matter how
powerful or restrictive, could take total control over the wants and needs of a population of forty
million people, so there would always be blind spots. In the British wizarding world, the
population numbered in the tens of thousands, but the pattern still stood.

She just had to look harder.

The weeks and months passed, the warmth of late summer fading to autumn and a snowy, freezing
winter.

Hermione kept up with her classes, studied with Tom on the weekends, and whenever she had some
time free before dinner, buried herself in the library to look up information on wards and warding.
She noticed that she met with Tom less often than she had the same time last year, but it didn't seem
to bother him. He'd managed to ingratiate himself with his Slytherin year mates, and while he still
sat next to her in their shared classes—Defence and Transfiguration—his "friends" always saved a
space for him at dinner. She presumed that Tom sat next to them in his Slytherin-Gryffindor
classes, based on his complaints about their lack of skill and poor grasp of the English language.

She called them his "friends" because he never had anything nice to stay about them; he held more
fondness for Peanut than he did for the likes of Avery, Lestrange, or Travers. When she asked him
what positive attributes he saw in the other Slytherin boys, his response was rather telling. But in
the end, she couldn't count "rich" as a compliment, and definitely not "gullible". He didn't respect
them, and she didn't believe that he ever would. They would only ever be "friends", and as long as
he spoke of them with such disdain, there would be no chance whatsoever of their sharing a true
and genuine friendship.

"But why on Earth do I need to be friends with them, Hermione?" Tom had asked, a thin smile
lifting up the corner of his mouth, throwing the planes of his cheekbones into sharp relief. "I have
you."

It was the way he said it that seemed so unsettling, as if friendship was in the same category as
chattel, like a chocolate frog card or a coin in one's pocket.

You are my galleon, he implied with the gleam of his eyes and the tilt of his head, and everyone else
is worth a knut to me. I would rather have you than four hundred and ninety three knuts. They
might be equivalent, but they will never be equal.
She knew he meant well, and before he'd met her, there wasn't anyone else he could speak to in so
forthright a manner. She assumed that he just didn't have much practice at—at sounding nice.

He could make himself sound nice if he wanted to, said that voice of circumspection in the back of
her mind. Have you seen the way he acts around Professor Slughorn?

But whatever she was to him, it did not go unreciprocated. She was "friends" with the Ravenclaw
girls in her dormitory; they spoke amiably to one another a few times a day, and reviewed their
class notes together during meals. But the only things they had in common were magic and
schoolwork, and the relationship built on that was... academically fruitful but ultimately
unsatisfying on an emotional level.

To be harsh on Tom for his inability to make genuine friends would be unfair. Not to mention
hypocritical.

It was during an afternoon meeting in mid-November, when they were practising spellwork in the
abandoned classroom in the dungeons, that Hermione considered telling Tom about her personal
project. It wasn't as if she was deliberately keeping him in the dark about it, but she had enjoyed
studying with a goal in mind beyond getting yet another perfect Outstanding mark. Yes, having
Outstandings across the board was nice, but she had five years' worth of class assignments ahead of
her, so in the greater scheme of things, a single perfect mark was insignificant compared to her
already perfect record.

(If this had been her O.W.L.s year, it would be a different matter, naturally.)

Tom had his own personal projects, too—which he'd been keeping to himself. She knew he was
still looking for answers about magical mind control whenever he had a chance of being left
unsupervised by the librarian, or unobserved by the other students. Not even the threat of arrest
and imprisonment had been enough to discourage him; in fact, he had been quick to look up the
technicalities of the law, but it didn't do much to soothe her worries.

"Did you know that the mind control spell is only illegal when used on an unconsenting human
being?" asked Tom idly, as he stacked five cups upside down and hid a knut under one of them.
Peanut, Tom's pet rat, watched with sharp eyes and twitching whiskers. "It used to be illegal
against witches and wizards only, but they revised the law in 1717 to encompass Muggles."

"I don't see a problem with that," said Hermione. "But it's somewhat insulting that wizards had to
go through a referendum to consider my parents worthy of legal protection. And I don't see why
anyone would consent to being mind controlled. If you valued someone enough to respect their
consent, couldn't you just ask them to do things of their own free will?"

"The law book said some wizards can be granted exemptions in special circumstances. For
research and education purposes," Tom replied. He moved the cups around so that the one with the
knut was hidden, and clucked his tongue. Peanut leaped to his hand and began sniffing around the
cups.

"I imagine that somewhere out there, wizards are studying for their Mastery by casting mind
control spells on each other," Tom breathed. His eyes were unfocused and he was sitting very still.
"And the most interesting thing about mind control spells is that you can legally cast them on
animals and creatures, so long as the creature isn't registered as property to a wizard owner who
hasn't granted consent. There was one precedent in the 1840's about someone cheating in a horse
racing championship by spelling a competitor's Granian stallion to throw the match in the last
furlong. Of course, it'd have been legal if the owner had given permission, though the perpetrator
would still be found guilty of match fixing."

"By law," said Hermione slowly, "a wizard would be able to buy animals to test spells on them, and
even if a pet shop or animal breeder knows the creatures would have illegal curses put on them, no
one can do anything about it?"

"It wouldn't be illegal," said Tom. "That's the point. But I don't see the point in making it public
that you're planning on using advanced spells on your pets. That's just going to get you on a watch
list, because why else would someone practice on animals unless it was to train themselves up to
working on humans? If it was me, I'd have gone with a reasonable excuse for needing so many
disposable animals, like working on a Potions Mastery." Tom frowned, his brows furrowing in
thought. "That wouldn't be a terrible idea; Potions Masteries can be fairly useful."

Hermione objected to the notion of 'disposable animals'. She decided to put that aside for later; if
she tried to rag on Tom for it now, he would no doubt present her eating habits as his side of the
argument, and it would end, quite predictably, with Hermione renouncing meat for a week while
Tom made faces at her from the Slytherin table, putting on a grand show of piling steak and
sausages onto his dinner plate.

However, if he'd said the words 'disposable Muggles', she would have stopped him right there and
demanded an explanation. That was crossing a line he couldn't come back from, and one she
couldn't excuse.

Hermione was aware of Tom's distaste for the general Muggle population. What he had once
referred to in his letters as peons had almost overnight been replaced by Muggles. And Hermione,
trying to comprehend his hostility, had turned her thoughts to the people who surrounded him when
he wasn't living at Hogwarts. She remembered meeting girls her age at the orphanage, when she
was nine years old. They had looked at her as if she was an extra-terrestrial, as if they had trouble
restraining themselves from touching her wool coat and gold buttons and silk hair ribbons. It had
made her distinctly uncomfortable; she couldn't articulate why, but she hadn't left the place with the
best of impressions—it had also been the first time she'd met Tom. And then there was Mrs. Cole...
"Likeable" was far from an applicable description of the woman.

"Well," she said forcefully, "if it was me, I'd owl the Department of Magical Education and keep an
up-to-date list on who's undertaking a Mastery program. Anyone pursuing topics too far outside
their Mastery supervisor's field of expertise is worth taking a second look at."

"Ah, the old conundrum," Tom sighed, his dark eyelashes cast down in false resignation. "You'd
stifle innovation in the name of moral integrity. I find it funny coming from you of all people,
Hermione, since I've heard you complain more than once about how stagnant wizarding society is."

Hermione had been focused on transfiguring a fork into a spoon, and that spoon into a knife. Fluid,
sequential transfigurations were difficult to complete within a self-imposed time limit, and harder
when she didn't have examples next to her to copy, but she wanted to be prepared when the class
studied them after Christmas. It was one of the basic skills for advanced transfiguration techniques,
so it was never too early to become competent.

She paused, her wand half-raised. She knew what Tom was doing, after years of debating with
him. He was probing the edges of what she called her moral compass, trying to figure how hard he
could press and where to push to make her North swing a few degrees in his direction. It didn't
bother Tom that her compass didn't align with his, or that he didn't seem to rely on his own; Tom
appeared to have relegated his internal compass to the same function and importance as his
appendix.

"Instead of devoting my time to arguing whether integrity is better than innovation," said Hermione
primly, "I would much rather find a way to innovate with integrity. There's nothing that says you
have to pick one and forgo the other."

Tom watched Peanut point at a cup like a well-trained hunting hound. Tom tipped the cup over,
and revealed the bronze knut beneath.

"Some people say that walking the middle ground means you lack conviction," Tom remarked.
"But I think that a man who has the ability to successfully take the middle path can show up the
two groups on either side. He might not be popular, but he'd be superior."

"I don't think popularity or superiority matters that much to me," said Hermione. She hesitated,
then added, "Of course it would be nice to have people like you, but I'd rather keep my principles
intact than sacrifice them for the sake of other people's opinions."

"You know," Tom mused, "Machiavelli once debated whether it was better for a prince to be feared
or to be loved. You already know what I'd choose. But I'm not quite certain he'd know what to do
with you, since you don't seem to care about either—so long as you're convinced you're in the
right."

"Do you think I'd make a good prince, then?"

"I think you'd make an effective one."

"That's good, then," Hermione said. "Being feared or loved is irrelevant if the person in charge is
ineffective. Nor is public opinion an indicator of the merit in a leader's public policy. You might as
well replace the prince with a parliament if it would prove a more dependable guarantor of social
progress."

"It looks like someone has got their priorities in order," said Tom approvingly. He picked up the
knut, rubbed it with his thumb, and slipped it into his trouser pocket.

Hermione decided that the best solution would be the simplest one.

After a few mornings of loitering around the Great Hall after breakfast, Hermione noticed that a
good third of the castle's population subscribed to or borrowed copies of Wizarding Britain's largest
newspaper, The Daily Prophet. There were a handful of others who read sport and hobby
magazines, upper year girls who liked fashion plates and gossip rags, and N.E.W.T. students who
browsed academic publications to prepare themselves for taking an apprenticeship after leaving
Hogwarts.
But the most widely-read publication by far was The Prophet. She'd read it on occasion, as there
was always a copy or two left on a chair or table in the Ravenclaw Common Room, free for anyone
to take back to their dorms. She'd never thought about purchasing a subscription herself, as her
mother bought and sent her the Muggle paper from London via Gilles, the family owl. She had
preferred reading reports on Britain's contributions to the war effort, instead of wasting her time
with Quidditch rankings or brazen Statute violations by drunken great-uncles at their 150th
birthday party.

It was only natural, with Wizarding Britain's limited population, that the newspaper would have to
invent "news" each day to fill the headlines. She'd seen the same thing in local papers when she
and her family had holidayed in small seaside villages when she was young. They reported when a
prize-winning ewe gave birth to twins, complete with photographs of the darling little lambs. The
Daily Prophet reported on local Quidditch teams' mascots having a cold. Their photographs,
however, were animated.

So she forced herself to read The Prophet cover to cover, and thus found her solution.

If she needed to catch a wizard, then she ought to cast a net.

Looking for:

Private and Discreet Wardmaster, to secure London residence.

Will pay market rate and above, negotiable in galleons or pounds sterling.
Must prove familiarity with Laskaris' Alternating Ravelin.

Send inquiries to H. Granger,

care of Classifieds Correspondence Desk
Daily Prophet Office, 43 Diagon Alley.

She composed the letter to the Daily Prophet office, and enclosed a pouch of galleons.

Most people would leave their own owl address in their classifieds, but Hermione didn't want to
draw the wrong sort of attention by putting her parents' Muggle address in a public newspaper. Nor
did she want to put her own Hogwarts address out; anyone reading would assume it was some trick
or prank if they saw it was a student running the ad. So she acquiesced to paying extra for the
Daily Prophet people to hold her mail until her private owl could pick it up.

Now she would have to sell her mother on the idea, because market rate for a private wardmaster
was more than her allowance and birthday money combined could afford.

It was a good thing, she observed, that both she and her mother went by the name H. Granger.

She'd handle the magical side of the deal, and she was sure that Mum could manage the rest.
 Promises
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1939

Twice as many students stayed in the castle for the Christmas holidays compared to Tom's first
year.

Most of them were Muggleborns or half-bloods, and all of them came from families who lived in
Muggle neighbourhoods.

A wizard who could afford to rent a small flat in the centre of Diagon Alley might spend that same
amount of money in British pounds to afford a comfortable townhouse in Muggle Manchester or
Brighton. This was an option many families with multiple children took; half-blood and mixed
households could blend in quite capably with their Muggle neighbours, while Muggle parents of
magical children could commute to and from their Muggle jobs. Access to wizarding areas from a
Muggle house was made possible if the family had their fireplaces connected to the Floo Network.

As it had been the previous year, Tom was the only student left out of the Slytherin Second Year
cohort. His dorm mates were all proud, self-professed purebloods who lived in isolated estates and
manor houses, which meant, once again, he had the whole dormitory to himself. The majority of
his House had returned to their homes as well; the handful of Slytherins who'd stayed were Fifth
and Seventh Years who planned to study for their exams and remain within walking distance of the
Hogwarts library.

There was only one long table in the Great Hall for meals, and Tom was forced to listen to the
blathering of students of other Houses, some of whom he had heard complaining about having to
stay at Hogwarts instead of being at their Muggle houses with their parents. Did they not know that
food was being rationed in the non-magical parts of Britain? A fully-trained wizard would never
starve to death unless he was an idiot, but whilst it was one thing for a wizard to stretch a bag of
flour or a loaf of bread, most could not magically duplicate rationed luxuries like tea leaves, coffee,
and chocolate, let alone the elaborate ice cream sculptures and seven-layer game pies served up
during the Hogwarts feasts. It was as if Tom's fellow students didn't realise that living at Hogwarts
was a privilege, or that returning to their Muggle homes meant giving up their magic in the name of
the law.

The one redeeming aspect of having to sit through so many inane conversations—outside of the
food, that is; during his first week in the castle, Tom had had trouble deciding whether the meals
were better than the library—was the fact that Hermione had to endure it right next to him.

But... she didn't seem to be enduring it now. In fact, she appeared to be enjoying conversing with
one of her dining partners, a Ravenclaw girl in her Third or Fourth Year. And a Muggleborn, based
on the topic of their conversation.

"...My favourite was always Mansfield Park—have you read it?" asked the girl. She had prominent
ears that protruded from the side of her head like teapot handles, and Tom guessed that she had
chosen her hairstyle of jaw-length rolled curls to conceal them. If only it had worked.
"Oh, yes," Hermione replied, nodding eagerly. "It emphasised the satire over the romance, so most
people overlooked it in favour of Austen's more straightforward romantic works. In my opinion,
the romance only works because of the social commentary. You have to overcome great obstacles
for love, I think, and in those days, social inequality was just that."

"Exactly!" said the other girl. "Everyone else I know who's read the genre seems to think nothing
more on it beyond siding for either Mr. Darcy or Mr. Rochester."

"Mr. Rochester? Mr. Darcy I can understand," Hermione scoffed. "But Rochester, really?"

"Well, he's dark. And brooding."

"He's a terrible person!"

"But he broods so well..."

Both girls broke into giggles.

Tom poked irritably at his roasted Brussels sprouts. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard
Hermione giggle like that, or if she had ever giggled at all in his presence. Most likely not.

The time they spent together was occupied with serious, practical things. Magic, learning, learning
about magic: they honed useful skills so that they might be better prepared for the future, because
it was unacceptable to be anything other than excellent. It would be a waste of their gifts and their
education if they didn't take as much of an advantage of their time at Hogwarts as they could.

Giggling over silly girl novels was a waste of time. It was like the boys in the Slytherin dormitory,
lounging on each other's beds and cackling over the illustrated funny pages in the back of their
Quidditch magazines. They thumped each other on the back after flying laps with the reserve
squad, they jostled shoulders behind the double desks of the Charms classroom, betting on who
would set their feather on fire first.

It was undignified, unseemly, and childish.

He liked Hermione because she was better than that. She was different from other people, in the
same way that Tom was different. More mature, less childish, and yet not at all like the older girls
at the orphanage who stitched up the hemlines of the dowdy grey uniform skirt and told Mrs. Cole
that it had shrunk in the wash. The girls who couldn't step outside without their pocketbook—even
if they weren't going past the gates—or worried if the colour of their nail enamel made them look
fast.

It was instances like this that he was reminded that she was different from him. Not significant
enough for him to write her off as a lost cause, but it was enough to make him feel uneasy. And in
the hollow space beneath his sternum, he felt the cold bite of anger simmering into life.

It was very similar to what he'd felt when Dumbledore had visited his room at Wool's a year and a
half ago, the thick cream vellum envelope of a Hogwarts invitation held in his hand.

"I have heard interesting things about you, Mr. Riddle," Dumbledore had said, his phrasing
ambiguous and his expression neutral, but to Tom it was ominous, and unease dripped down his
spine like fever sweat.
He didn't want these strange, incomprehensible thoughts. He knew hunger, bitterness, spite, and
rage—they were as familiar to him as the lines and wrinkles on the flesh of his palms, or his
reflection in the mirror. But this subtle, subdued unease slipped inside him like the vapours of
consumption, with no cause or reason that he could identify by name. It made him restless, his skin
prickly, as if someone was observing him from around the corner and ducking out of sight if Tom
looked up or behind.

He wondered if he and Hermione were growing apart just as they were growing older. He
wondered if the distance was due in part to their physical separation, as they had to make a
concerted effort to see each other outside of classes. Unlike this other Ravenclaw girl, he and
Hermione couldn't sit together at the House tables and share casual conversation with one another;
their weekly meetings were always dedicated to meaningful affairs, because they hadn't any time to
waste with frivolities.

It wasn't against the rules for a student of one House to sit at another House's table for meals, but in
most circumstances it was sibling with sibling, cousin with cousin, or in a few rare occurences,
future step-mother with a not quite son or daughter. He'd noticed a few older students sitting with
their beaus of other Houses, or for the students (mostly Slytherins) who were the proud scions of
old, monied families, their fiancés or fiancées. It was allowed because the Great Hall was a public
space, and people would notice if their hands lingered too long under the table.

People would certainly notice if Tom Riddle sat with Hermione Granger.

It almost made him question his experience with the Sorting Hat.

(He had wanted to punish the stupid Hat for being unco-operative as much he'd wanted to humiliate
Jasper Hastings for being annoying.)

Tom knew that most British public boarding schools divided students into classes or forms.
Hogwarts, apparently, had four Founders and four corresponding Houses. The envelope given by
Dumbledore was sealed by a blob of wax on the flap, imprinted with the Hogwarts crest. Divided
into quadrants, it carried the images of a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake.

Tom liked the snake the most.

He'd read a little about the Founders while browsing the bookshop in Diagon Alley, but he hadn't
the money for any books outside the textbook list, and then he had to return to Wool's before
Martha locked the gates and scolded him for being late. He had been tempted to write a letter to
Hermione to ask her what extra books she'd bought to prepare herself for Hogwarts, but then he
remembered that she was The Betrayer. She was Judas with frumpy hair and an overbite.

So Tom went to his Sorting angrier than he wanted to be, and more ignorant than he wished.

The First Years were called to sit on the stool in alphabetical order, which meant Hermione Granger
would be Sorted with the first half of the large group of milling students, and Tom in the second.
The Hat was dropped over her head, and she spent several minutes beneath it, her hair spilling out
from under the brim, white fingers clutching her knees.
"RAVENCLAW!"

When it was Tom's turn, he strode forward without looking left or right, putting one foot in front of
the other like he was walking a plank, the watchful eyes and turning heads of the older students like
the circling of hungry sharks. He didn't look for Professor Dumbledore, the only adult wizard he
knew from the staff members sitting at the High Table. It didn't matter what House he was put in;
everyone at Hogwarts was offered the same class subjects, so he'd learn the same things no matter
what crest he wore on his robe, or what bed he slept in.

The Hat dropped over his eyes.

"You've a clever mind, Mr. Riddle," said the Hat in a voice that rasped and rustled like paper bags
being shaken out at the grocery market. "You have such a thirst for knowledge, such a hunger to
learn. Ravenclaw would welcome you. But..."

"...Yes?" prompted Tom. The lack of reaction from his watchers left Tom to assume that the Hat
had spoken directly into his mind, and not aloud.

"The pinnacle of Ravenclaw virtue is not learning, or knowledge. It is wisdom. But... I see, I see.
Your appetites and potential lean elsewhere, Mr. Riddle. I can see where Slytherin would suit you
well indeed. The seed of Salazar's virtue lies in you—not simple cunning or mere ambition, but the
promise of greatness."

Before he'd put the Hat on, he'd seen Hermione's face. She was watching him, her shoulders
tensed, and from the expression on her face, the liquid glitter in her eyes, he could tell that she was
desperate to turn away and ignore him completely, but there was something—something he didn't
understand—that made her keep looking. She was the only one out of the school of hungry sharks
that he knew for certain was neither hungry nor a shark.

But—

She was a witch.

She was no friend of his.

She was magical.

She was a traitor.

She was Special.

"Ah, Mr. Riddle. I can offer you one small drop of insight. In the long-past years of my creation,
the so-called days of yore and legend, there was a young man who chose Slytherin and whom
Salazar took as an apprentice. He loved a Ravenclaw who told him that she would not give him her
heart, not even with her last dying breath. He had ambition; he wanted greatness and renown, and
he wanted to win his love's heart—but in doing so, the young man cast aside wisdom, and
committed a great crime that proved to be his undoing. In death, he learned what became of those
who went without wisdom, and when he learned enough, it was only then that he found
reconciliation of a sort.

"Ambition and cleverness were never meant to be singular suits, and the same can be said for
chivalry and tenacity. For greatness without wisdom is unsound, and wisdom without greatness is
unheard."

"The true moral of the story," said Tom, "seems to be that separating by House traits is a terrible
idea, so Sorting is ultimately meaningless." He saw no point in pretending to be polite if the Hat
could read his mind.

"It has exactly as much meaning as you give it," the Hat said with a dry chuckle. "Now, on to your
Sorting..."

"Wait, Hat! How did the apprentice learn 'in death'?" asked Tom. "He'd be dead. How is that even
possible?"

"That, I do believe, is a story for another time."

"I want to know!" Tom demanded. He decided to put some pressure on the Hat. It wasn't an
animal, or a drunk matron, but if it could speak, then maybe it had a mind. And all minds could be
compelled.

TELL ME NOW—

"Then, Mr. Riddle," spoke the Hat in Tom's head, "you may find the answers you seek in
SLYTHERIN!"

Tom didn't regret being a Slytherin.

The green linings on his robes flattered his colouring and complexion; the green light of the watery
windows gave him an air of graveness and mystery, rather than making him look sallow and ill as it
did for Lestrange and Nott. He appreciated the refined tastes of whoever had appointed the
Slytherin Common Room and dormitories. The fireplaces were kept in use year-round, so instead
of being cold and damp like the rest of the dungeons, the Slytherin living areas were always warm
and dry. And his four-poster had bedposts carved with snakes.

At first, it had been a bit odd, the way he was treated differently than others. The Slytherin table
didn't clap for him as it did for Travers who was Sorted right after. No one really spoke to him or
looked him in the eye—they did look at his robes—or passed him the serving tongs when the food
appeared. Tom didn't mind. There were plenty of other dishes to choose from. He hadn't eaten
anything the whole day but a bowl of plain porridge at breakfast; the Express' tuck trolley only
served lollies and sweet pastries and no proper lunches, not that he'd had the money to make a
purchase.

Tom was used to being treated differently, so this wasn't an issue for him. And over time, he'd
established himself within the First Year hierarchy, and when they treated him differently now, it
was not because they saw him like wild dogs saw an antelope with a malformed leg.

Until now, he hadn't speculated on what it would be like to have been Sorted into another House.

The day after Christmas, Tom decided to question Hermione about her own House experience.
Hermione sat at the very end of the single long table in the centre of the Great Hall, and Tom sat
next to her. Even with the reduced population of the castle, students organised themselves by
House and year. There was some mixing between Houses and years, but not that much, and since
Tom was wearing his Slytherin uniform robes—he didn't have any others—no one tried to take the
seat closest to him. In fact, wearing his Slytherin crest was useful for getting a good seat at the
table, far away from people who would reach over his plate—disgusting—or bump elbows with
him on either side.

He had noticed that most Muggleborns, when not attending class, didn't wear their school robes
over their shirts and slacks. It was expected, but not an official rule, that students dress properly for
dinner; Tom had heard his Slytherin Housemates comment on the slovenly appearance of those of
inferior blood status during meals, so he personally made sure to wear his robes whenever he left
the Slytherin living quarters.

Tom kept his thoughts to himself on what was slovenly and what was not. He had seen one
particular upper year Muggleborn in Gryffindor come to Christmas dinner in formal evening
whites, which included a sharp black tailcoat and a high, starched, chin-scraping collar. This same
Gryffindor was one he'd also seen at breakfast on the weekends wearing a full suit of hunting tweed
and ghillie boots, and on a separate day, jodhpurs and spats under a caped riding coat.

(Tom supposed that thumbing your nose up at the entrenched aristocracy was much easier if you
were an aristocrat yourself.)

"What is it like, being a Ravenclaw?" Tom asked, as the remains of their dinner were cleared from
the table.

"Is this your attempt at trying to wheedle out House secrets?" Hermione replied, dabbing at her lips
with a serviette, before dropping it onto her empty plate. It disappeared an instant later. "I've heard
the Hufflepuff Common Room has a door or hatch that connects it directly to the kitchens. There's
a communal biscuit tin, and every Friday and Sunday they have a cocoa party."

"How is it a 'secret' if even you know about it?"

"'Even you?' Excuse me!" said Hermione, huffing in indignation. "It's not really a secret; they tell
you outright if you ask about it. And anyway, I don't believe in 'House secrets'. There aren't any
secrets, it's just obscure information no one knows about because they haven't bothered to read
Hogwarts: A History."

Tom had picked that book up at the library, but dropped it as soon as he'd seen the name of its
author on the cover. It was written by the same old bag—ahem, celebrated historian—who had
written their History of Magic textbooks; she had apparently taught the subject last century, before
their beloved Professor Cuthbert Binns had taken over.

"The location of the Slytherin Common Room is considered a 'House secret'," Tom remarked. "The
prefects told us on our first day that no one outside of Slytherin had seen it in over five centuries,
and if they caught us letting anyone in, they'd have a House vote on the penalty as it's been so long
since anyone has had to use it that they've forgotten what it is."

"You make Slytherin sound so awful." Hermione shook her head. "None of our prefects gave us
any rules like that. It was more, 'Don't leave a mess, remember your library due dates, and if you
leave a book out overnight in the Common Room, don't be upset if it disappears'. I don't recall any
of them saying we weren't allowed to let anyone in, but I don't see how they could have enforced it,
with our password system being so simple." She made a face. "They say it's foolproof, but now I
understand why they told us our things could disappear."

"You don't have a password every fortnight?" Tom asked. He had assumed that all Houses had a
doorway, archway, wall, or passage that opened to themed passwords, depending on the prefects'
sense of humour. For three months last year, they'd used the names of magical snake breeds.

"No, we have a small test. A word puzzle," said Hermione. "There's an enchanted door knocker
that—you know, why don't I just show you? I had planned to go to my room to get something
down, but you might as well come with me, since no one has said anything about letting in friends.
Certainly not the door guard, as long as it's friends who can pass the entrance test. I don't wear my
uniform on the weekend, and I don't think it can even tell."

Hermione pushed herself up from the table and Tom followed. They passed through the doors of
the Great Hall and entered the eastern wing of the castle, on the same route that Tom and the
Slytherins used to get to their Astronomy classes.

"Does it help if the Sorting Hat said I would fit into Ravenclaw?"

"Did it say that? I'm not surprised," said Hermione. "You rank higher than every other Ravenclaw
in our year, except where you tie with me. They've been saying in our Common Room since last
year that you should've been a Ravenclaw."

She led him to a circular staircase, which corkscrewed up several storeys to the fifth floor of the
castle.

"I told the Hat that I didn't care about Houses," said Tom, breathing a little harder at the top of the
staircase than he had at the bottom. "So it put me in Slytherin. But I'm happy with not being in
Ravenclaw if I had to do that several times a day."

"Did you know that the Hat offered me Gryffindor?"

"What?" Tom snorted. "You? A Gryffindor?"

He tolerated most of Ravenclaw House, which mirrored the opinion of his fellow Slytherins. They
didn't make for diverting company, but they were, for the most part, quiet and polite and well-
mannered. Professor Slughorn dedicated a shelf in his office to framed photographs of his
favourite students. Over half of them were Slytherins, but there were plenty of Ravenclaws who
had gone on to become famous inventors and respected academics. They sent Sluggy signed
copies of various research journals whenever they were published, which the Professor proudly
showed off at the High Table after the breakfast mail delivery. It contrasted with the Gryffindor
sports stars, and the single Hufflepuff, whom Tom recalled was hugging a unicorn in his photo.

"It said I had Gryffindor conviction and Ravenclaw logic," Hermione explained, "and then it let me
choose. I said I'd rather be in the House where the members can sit down and discuss their beliefs
sensibly. Conviction isn't a bad thing, but you can't do much with it unless other people agree with
you. Oh! Here we are."

They'd stopped in front of a wooden door, affixed with a large bronze doorknocker cast in the shape
of an eagle's head. Hermione lifted the ring under its beak and knocked once.
The metal shivered, feathers shifting and fluttering. The eagle's fierce eyes opened, and so did its
beak, the metal giving a pleasant jingle reminiscent of a shaken cutlery drawer.

"When is a door not a door?" asked the eagle.

Hermione sent Tom an encouraging look. Tom stared at the door for a moment, then shot
Hermione a look of utter disbelief.

Really?

This was the famous, foolproof Ravenclaw security system?

"When it's ajar," said Tom. He waited, tapping his foot.

"Correct."

The door swung open.

"That was disappointing," said Tom, stepping through the threshold and into the Ravenclaw
Common Room. "But this is much better."

Built into its own tower, the Common Room had round, curving walls lined with bookshelves and
windows overlooking the Eastern Courtyard, viaduct, grounds and the Lake on one side, and the
Astronomy Tower on the other. There were small nooks set into the wall every couple of metres,
containing even more bookshelves, and comfortably upholstered reading benches. The largest
nook was opposite a fireplace, and it contained a white marble statue of a regal-looking woman
wearing a crown. She held a wand in one hand, and a scroll in the other. The domed ceiling was
painted like a planetarium, and was accurate to the year and seasons, as far as Tom could tell.

Why do we have to go to Astronomy class at eleven in the evening if wizards can accurately
replicate the stars on a ceiling? grumbled Tom.

Slytherins and Hufflepuffs lived in the lowest levels of the castle, and the Astronomy Tower was
one of the highest. It took around twenty minutes of walking through unheated corridors at night to
get to their lesson. And then they had to take the same circuitous path to get back to their beds.

"I read that Rowena Ravenclaw believed anyone who could pass her test was worthy of entry, no
matter their House," said Hermione. "Most wizards haven't a single ounce of logic, so the door
works, mostly. And I've seen it ask harder questions to the older students, so it's not always that
easy."

Tom's gaze returned to the bookshelves. "Can anyone borrow the books, then?"

"If you put them back when you're done with them," said Hermione, glancing around the Common
Room nervously, as if she was afraid that a prefect would pop up from behind a sofa at any
moment. "But most of them are old textbooks that people leave behind every year, and there's no
librarian to organise them. I'm sure no one will notice..."

"Good," said Tom, quite satisfied. He headed to the nearest shelf and began making his selection.
Tom spent the next few evenings enjoying Ravenclaw hospitality.

He suspected that a couple of Ravenclaws passing through their Common Room had wanted to ask
what a Slytherin was doing in their Tower, but seeing him sitting in a nook and reading with a pile
of books next to him, they left him alone. He presumed there was an unspoken rule that anyone
who was busy with a book was not to be interrupted. It was a good rule, Tom thought, and they
eventually got used to his presence and started greeting him like he was just another fellow Eagle.

It didn't hurt that he waited a few minutes so that any other Ravenclaw entering the Common Room
at the same time he was there got a fair chance at answering the door knocker's question. And if
they got it wrong, Tom would ever-so-politely drop a hint or answer for them, in his kindest, most
pleasant voice. He even helped with holiday assignments; he had noticed Ravenclaws were more
thorough with their essay research, and didn't have the same awkwardness about asking for help as
Slytherins.

In Slytherin, if you asked for help with homework, unless you were very close by blood or through
family connections, you offered something in return in the same breath. Tom rarely asked other
Slytherins for anything, having very little of his own to trade and needing nothing from other
people—outside of supplies for pranking, of course. But he'd accrued favours over the past
months, as his year mates would rather owe Tom one medium favour for helping them out in five
different class subjects, than owe five small favours to several people.

(Because of these favours, this year Tom had gotten the biggest Christmas haul of his entire life.
Half of it was useless things like boxed sweets and chocolate frogs and a wizarding chess set—
what was the point of playing a two-person game if your opponent was Tom Riddle?—but he'd
gotten that Numerology textbook he had been eyeing in the summer, and the Grangers had sent him
a new winter cloak to replace the second-hand one he'd bought in First Year that was now so short
its hem hovered a few inches below his knees.)

Late one evening, when Tom was reading in a window alcove that had the best view of the Lake,
Hermione approached him with a wrapped box in her hands.

"May I sit?" she asked.

Tom budged over. The cushioned bench gave a small poof! as Hermione dropped down next to
him.

"You'll be thirteen tomorrow," said Hermione, holding out the box. "I thought I'd give you your gift
a few hours early, since you're here."

Tom looked up from his book, Introductory Numerology, and at the box. It was a rectangular box,
wrapped in green paper, the edges tucked in and secured with Spellotape.

He peeled open the paper, revealing a metal box with small clasps on either side of the lid, similar
in size and dimension to the tins Muggle shops used for holding shortbread or Christmas cakes.
Inside the box was a thick slab of chocolate fudge, iced with the words, "Happy 13th, Tom!" in
mint green letters.
"I know you prefer practical gifts," said Hermione, straightening out her skirt, "so the box has a
stasis enchantment on it. You can put food in there and it won't go off—if you're working on
something and miss lunch, you can store food at breakfast and eat it later. Or, you could put
potions ingredients in there to keep fresh, but if you do that, I wouldn't recommend using it for food
anymore.

"I read that the Ministry is alerted when an underage wizard uses their wand, but they can't tell
when someone uses charmed items, even if it's in a Muggle area. You can't give charmed items to
Muggles—that violates the Statute—but it's safe to use them yourself."

"A loophole," said Tom, raising an eyebrow. "To get around the Underage Restriction, all we have
to do is fill our pockets with charmed objects before we get on the train."

"We haven't learned to charm objects yet," said Hermione. "We only start learning the basics next
year, when we start our elective subjects."

"And by the time we'd have learned to make an enchantment strong enough to last a whole summer,
we'd be seventeen already and the Restriction wouldn't even apply to us," said Tom with a sigh,
setting the lid back onto the fudge. "Well, thank you for the box. Can you believe that we've
known each other for five years? I was eight when I first met you. It hardly seems like that long..."

Hermione slumped against the wall of the alcove. "And we only have five years left of Hogwarts.
It goes by so quickly; we'll be eighteen before we even know it."

"That's a good thing. I can't wait until I can use my wand whenever I want, Apparate wherever I
want, and earn my own keep however I like."

"Tom," said Hermione after a few seconds of silence, "do you remember when I wrote about the
obligations of British citizenship?"

"You wrote an essay about taxes, Hermione," said Tom. "You're lucky it was me you were writing
to—anyone else would have fallen asleep halfway through."

"You're lucky it was me writing to you." Hermione lifted her chin in defiance. "No one else
researches like I do. Anyway, the point is that it's more than just taxes worth worrying about. If
the war goes on for much longer, they'll start conscripting soldiers." She swallowed. "The
government funds your orphanage, so they'll have access to records of all the boys living there, and
how old they are, and when they turn eighteen."

"Muggles conscripting a wizard? The idea is ridiculous," said Tom, scoffing. "I'd like to see them
try."

"It's happened before," said Hermione. "The Earl of Richmond brought wizards with him to the
Battle of Bosworth in 1485."

"Those wizards certainly aren't me," Tom replied. "Most of them were probably Muggleborns,
whose families were found and threatened into co-operation. Or they were greedy—"

"—But you're greedy!" Hermione interjected.

"—Hacks," Tom spoke over her, ignoring her glower, "who wanted to win a comfortable spot as the
official Court Wizard. I, however, don't have a family to blackmail, and I'd never be anyone's
magical trained monkey, least of all a Muggle's."

He'd looked it up, and it turned out that Abraxas Malfoy's great-great-something grandfather had
been Court Wizard to a Muggle king. It was illegal now, because of the Statute of Secrecy, but if it
wasn't, he thought it very likely that Abraxas Malfoy would bow under a Muggle if it would give
his family another manor house and estate.

(They'd deny it all the way, but that wouldn't stop them from showing off their collection of white-
feathered peacocks.)

"I know there's little chance of it happening," Hermione said, "but that's only if you take
precautions. It'd be best if you didn't go back to the orphanage after Sixth Year, and you should
have a position lined up before you leave Hogwarts so you can move to the wizarding world for
good as soon as you can. If the war goes on for that long, and you go back to the Muggle world,
they'll wonder why an able-bodied young man is gadding about London. You could Confund
everybody who asks, but using magic on too many Muggles will eventually catch the Ministry's
eye."

"You don't have to worry about me," said Tom, rolling his eyes. "I can take care of myself."

"You know I worry about these things!" Hermione cried. "I worry about every test we take in class,
even though we both know I'll get another Outstanding on it. I... I just—"

She cleared her throat, then looked away abruptly, her eyes peering out through the window of
Ravenclaw Tower. It was late in the evening, and on the second-to-last day of December, there was
nothing to see outside but mounds of snow and a frozen lake, and in the very far distance, the
Groundskeeper's hut with a cheery yellow light in the window. In the reflection of the black glass,
Hermione's eyes looked suspiciously wet, until she scrubbed her hand over her face and turned
back to him.

"My father was conscripted in the last war," said Hermione, her voice the slightest bit hoarse. "He
said it was the worst two years of his life. He was already eighteen when the war started, and he
deferred for being in university, but later they took him for an orderly in the medical corps. He
couldn't defer forever, you see, and unlike the Old Boys in his form, he didn't have a cousin-twice-
removed in the recruiting office. He doesn't talk about it much, but I know he hated it.

"The thing is, Tom, that if the war goes badly and the Germans overrun Britain, they won't give
anyone the luxury of waiting 'til they turn eighteen before they take them. I don't think they'd stop
at just the boys, either. Someone has to work in the munition factories."

Hermione's arms wrapped around herself. Her shoulders were hunched, and in that moment she
looked... small and miserable. He hadn't paid much attention to her appearance before. He knew,
from an objective view, that Hermione had the biggest hair of any girl he'd ever seen; she rarely
plaited it and never permed it or pinned it into fashionable rolls. It fluffed around her face like a
mane on a normal day, and now that she was—upset? Afraid? Tom didn't know what to call it; he
hadn't ever seen her in this state before—she looked like a cat dipped in water.

He didn't like it that she looked this way. It looked wrong. Unnatural. It reminded him of the few
times in his life when he'd fallen ill, and his skin had gone a few shades paler, taking on a grey cast,
and his eyes were shadowed bruise purple in exhaustion. His features were still there,
recognisable, but he'd been repulsed by how weak he looked.
Yes, he concluded. Weakness.

Hermione shouldn't allow herself to look weak.

But soon Hermione gathered herself together, then spoke in a soft voice, "If they try to conscript us
during summer, before we turn seventeen, I'm running away. They'd never let us go back to
Hogwarts if they're in desperate enough straits to take children. If they haven't taken our wands
already, they'd have us locked in the barracks. We wouldn't be the only ones thinking of running."

"I'd run away too," said Tom. For as long as he could remember, he had been tall for his age, and
was one of the tallest boys in their year. With his height and facial structure and manner of speech,
he knew that by the time he was sixteen, those who didn't know him wouldn't doubt it if he tried to
pass himself off as eighteen. He had never thought it might be to his disadvantage.

"We'll run away together, won't we?"

"I wouldn't run with anyone else."

This was true. If he was offered a choice about it, he'd prefer to go alone. He never felt lonely, nor
had he ever felt that the company of other people was necessary in any part of his life. If he hadn't
a choice, and was forced to take someone with him, it had better not be dead weight like every
other child at the orphanage, every boy who shared his dormitory, everyone who... Everyone,
basically.

Except Hermione, he supposed.

He had decided she was useful years ago.

It was a purely utilitarian decision.

"Even if we had to share a tent?" Hermione said. "They won't let anyone under seventeen rent a
flat in Diagon Alley."

"Even then," said Tom. "As long as it's a magical tent."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

She held out her hand, and he shook it. She held onto it for just a second longer than necessary, but
then she seemed to recollect herself and let him go.

The bells within the Hogwarts clocktower rang out into the silence. Twelve chimes. He counted
them out, one by one.

Midnight.

"Happy birthday, Tom," Hermione murmured. "Make a wish."

Chapter End Notes

Second Year Hermione canonically had a hard crush on Gilderoy Lockhart after reading his
fictional adventures. Georgette Heyer's Regency era romance novels were published in 1935
and revitalised the genre to a new generation of readers. It doesn't seem unreasonable for
Hermione to enjoy them when she reads things outside of textbooks.

For anyone interested in a serious take on a wizarding war story, The Unwinding Golden
Thread (50k, complete) is an AU Harry and Tom friendship fic based on the premise that
Dumbledore caves in to peer pressure, challenges Grindelwald to a duel, and loses. Britain is
invaded, and Tom and Harry become vigilante rebels on the run.
 Rabble Rouser

1940

The Christmas holidays came and went, and where Hermione had expected to be buoyed up by
seasonal cheer and merrymaking, she was left dispirited. But she was not left entirely hopeless.

She had problems, but she could solve them. It was only a matter of putting in the work.

She had discovered how much work was required, and was, she privately acknowledged, glad that
it was being put in the capable hands of an adult professional. She was proud of her academic
talents, which were matched only by Tom's, but she, at thirteen years old, knew that it wasn't
possible to do everything on her own. So she delegated, one thing she knew Tom had difficulty
doing, if he could do it at all.

Hermione was an excellent researcher; information synthesis—her ability to find and devour as
many books as possible and combine everything into one central idea—was her greatest talent.
Tom, in comparison, was inferior to her in this regard: when he read a book and found an idea he
liked, he latched onto it and didn't bother looking into alternatives unless she shoved them into his
face and proved empirically that they were better.

Tom's greatest talent, on the other hand, was being an autodidact. He didn't need teachers. Given a
few textbooks and enough time, he could teach himself everything the Hogwarts curriculum had to
offer—although his method was only a more refined form of trial-and-error, and self-taught
learning would take slightly longer than Hogwarts' seven year educational programme. That, he'd
said, was one of the reasons why he bothered going to class.

(There was nothing, he also said, that was at all challenging about the Second Year syllabus.)

And both of them were in possession of an excellent memory.

To H. Granger,

The Alternating Ravelin was never intended by Iannis Laskaris to be a comprehensive warding
system. It is a defensive foundation, although fallen out of use since the nineteenth century,
which enjoyed popularity as a more coherent variant of Bachmeier's Pentagonal
Circumscriptum. Laskaris intended that it be combined with a secondary ward layer: either
with a supplementary defence, or a contingency offence.

It is highly advised against casting it on your property without trained supervision, unless you
possess experience with layered warding. Bachmeier's Principles of Magical Fortification (J.
Karel Hentschel Verlag; 1862) is often recommended as a beginner's manual on warding
architecture and its fundamentals...

Yours sincerely,
 S. Pacek.
Wardmaster, baccalaureus 1937;
Prague Institute of Arcane Sciences.

The day Hermione had gotten her Hogwarts letter, she was told that Hogwarts was the best school
of magic in the British Isles. It had the best instructors, the best library, and a thousand year history
of teaching magic. She was won over by this; secondary education at Donwell Girls' Preparatory
was nothing in comparison. What had they to offer that Hogwarts couldn't? Emergency first-aid
training? Typist training, secretarial skills, and book-keeping?

That Donwell Prep didn't offer classes in homemaking skills had been a point in its favour, back
when the eight-year-old Hermione had been narrowing down her list of future schooling options.

Hermione wouldn't ever scorn the women of the middle classes who found employment
opportunities that their preceding generations would never have been offered. She was glad—she
was proud—that the modern woman could find success and independence outside of the home.
But she couldn't help but recognise that there was a large gulf between holding a respectable
position as the manager of an office steno pool... and being a witch.

Once she'd gone to Hogwarts, she had been told that Hogwarts was the best school of magic in the
whole world. She treated this statement with some scepticism, because it had been said by her
classmates and not by Professor Dumbledore, and Tom was correct (but not very nice) in observing
that the majority of the students in their year would never end up becoming the next Merlin.

And it was now that she had received a letter from a trained adult wizard that she was confronted
by the fact that Hogwarts, for all its prestige, history, and reputation, did not teach everything about
magic, not even in its senior year elective courses.

(Of course, she had some awareness of this already, with that grudge Tom held against Professor
Dumbledore for "hoarding" information until he believed Tom was old enough for it. Or until
Dumbledore "deemed him worthy", as Tom called it, muttering under his breath about tests of
character and whether or not Dumbledore was one of those misguided old men who believed
pulling swords out of stones was a signifier of worthiness.

But that was a different, and entirely justified, matter. She didn't want Tom to have that
information either, for the sake of his best interests.)

Basic wards were taught in N.E.W.T. years for those students who'd taken their O.W.L.s in
Arithmancy and Runes, but it didn't involve anything close to the technical detail of which Mr. S.
Pacek wrote. These were wards similar to the ones the prefect, Devina Holbrook, had mentioned:
simple Muggle repelling or noise silencing wards. A Hogwarts graduate could cast them, and they
would last anywhere from the better part of a day to over a month, and that was good enough for
most wizards and witches in their everyday life. But only a fraction of Hogwarts students taking
their O.W.L.S. took them for Arithmancy or Runes compared to the more popular subjects like
Care of Magical Creatures or Divination, so the number of potential wardmasters Hogwarts turned
out over the years was disappointingly small.

It was the same for magical artists and artificers—wizarding artists who painted magical portraits
or wove magical tapestries, and craftsmen who built useful inventions like Vanishing Cabinets or
enchanted printing presses.
Upon asking the portraits in the corridors of Hogwarts, Hermione discovered that for the last three
hundred or so years, most of the magical paintings in Wizarding Britain had been created by Italian
and French artists. These artists rotated from manor house to manor house, painting members of
the most prominent British families, in a very strange reversal of the traditional gentleman of
quality's Grand Tour.

"Oh, my darling girl," said one simpering witch, shaking her head in sorrow. Her powdered white
curls, piled high atop her head, swayed dangerously. "Some of us would have preferred an
Englishman artist, one who knew us personally, so to get the mannerisms as exact as they were in
life. But the Italians, oh! And the Frenchmen! They knew the difference between décolleté and
déshabillé, and that was what really mattered to me. I certainly don't regret choosing my dear
Claudio or sweet-spoken Laurent if my only other choice was dreary old Mr. Bingham. I'd much
rather be preserved for posterity with this—" she patted the lace tippet pinned over her bodice, "—
being accurate than anything else."

"Hear, hear," said the old, whiskered wizard in the frame on the opposite side of the corridor. He
stroked his moustaches and winked at the witch. The background of his painting was a small,
windowless room with nothing but a single desk and a candle.

The white-haired witch giggled and fanned herself.

Hermione felt vaguely unclean by the time she left the portrait gallery.

The interrogations confirmed that qualifications issued from magical schools other than Hogwarts
were considered valid and good. Although, one wizard advised her, when explaining what she
wanted she should be sure to speak as slowly and clearly as possible—and as loudly, too, which
made Hermione scratch her head; they might be foreign, but they weren't deaf. She was told that
whilst they were skilled workers, it had to be taken into account that they weren't proper
Englishmen.

As much as she was tempted to, Hermione didn't remind them that Hogwarts, and therefore their
portraits, were currently residing somewhere in the Scottish highlands. Considering that wizards
had difficulty assimilating any modern developments that came after the International Statute of
Secrecy, which was put into effect a decade or so before Scotland joined the Union, doing so would
likely be poking a factional beehive. (And telling them that Ireland had left the Union a decade or
so ago would be like throwing a hand grenade into said beehive.)

Later that week, Hermione confronted Tom about the things she'd learned about the quality of a
Hogwarts education.

She knew that Tom refused to subscribe to one of the mainstay tenets of Common Decency, which
was, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". But his honesty came in
useful at times. In those situations, he made for a good sounding board for working out problems,
so long as Hermione remembered to do the exact opposite of whatever actions he suggested.

Hermione hadn't spent a great deal of time outside the castle, not since they'd taken Flying Classes
in First Year and she'd done a few circles of the grounds with the rest of the group. There wasn't
much to look at outside: a Lake and a rocky shoreline and a boathouse that was kept locked except
for the one day of the year where the newest batch of First Years were given their first impression
of Hogwarts. There was a Groundskeeper's hut by the Forbidden Forest they weren't allowed to
explore, a grassy sward by the greenhouses and kitchen gardens, and a Quidditch pitch and
adjoining changing rooms. She had gone to one Quidditch match last year, Ravenclaw versus
Slytherin, and it hadn't impressed her. She hadn't gone back, and neither had Tom.

"It seems like the primary goal of Hogwarts is turning out well-rounded students," Hermione
remarked, ambling along a colonnaded gallery by the Eastern Courtyard. It was a rare fine day in
late winter, and for once she'd asked Tom to meet her outside instead of in a musty old classroom in
the dungeons. It was still freezing cold, but the sun had revealed itself for the first time in months.

She'd noticed that her skin had paled from being indoors all autumn and winter, but it hadn't yet
reached the translucent heights of Tom's skin—he was as fair as a princess. She knew that if she
pointed it out, Tom would make a sarcastic retort dripping with either arrogance or anger.
Sometimes she could flip a coin with how predictable he was.

"By 'well-rounded', you must mean 'basic'," Tom corrected her. His breath puffed out in a misty
white cloud with every word. "And by 'students', let me direct you toward a more accurate term:
'Lowest Common Denominator'."

"You know that we can argue semantics all day without getting anywhere," said Hermione, "but I
think the bigger problem is that Hogwarts prepares students for employment in the wizarding
community, but due to the size of the community, there isn't a wide range of positions to choose
from."

"As far as I see it, there is a tiered ranking of common wizarding employment," Tom said, slowing
a bit to allow Hermione to catch up to his longer strides. He was wearing the new winter cloak he'd
gotten for Christmas, and it swished by his ankles in a manner that he no doubt deemed
appropriately dramatic. To Hermione, wearing wizarding cloaks felt like having a blanket tied
around her throat. She preferred coats. At least when you wore one, you wouldn't trip on your own
hem going up the stairs.

(She kept waiting for Tom to slip on a combination of icy stairs and long cloak, but he never did.)

"The top tier of jobs after completing Hogwarts includes any position in the Ministry of Magic, St.
Mungo's, or joining professional Quidditch. The first-string team is best, but no one will look
down on a player fresh out of school making the reserves," said Tom. He held up a hand as
Hermione's mouth opened to argue; neither of them thought very much of the most popular
wizarding sporting pastime, and to consider it top tier was, to them, sheer absurdity. "These are
what the Hogwarts authorities, or Professor Slughorn at least—and most people count him a good
judge of these things—consider good, well-paying occupations for school leavers. And it's," he
added, as if the words left a bad taste in his mouth, "socially respectable."

"The middle tier," Tom continued, "is shop work. Manning a counter in Diagon Alley, clerking in
the back, or filling orders at an apothecary or haberdashery. It wouldn't be so bad if the shop work
came with an apprenticeship with one of the better proprietors, but how often does someone like
Ollivander offer one to those outside his immediate family? The positions at Gringotts Bank are
also considered second tier even though I hear the pay is on a level or higher than what the
Ministry's offering, but everyone knows that the place is run by goblins, and that's nowhere near as
respectable as working for proper wizards and witches.

"The last and least tier—and I must profess I agree with Slughorn on this count—is magical menial
labour," said Tom with a sniff of disdain. "Farming and harvesting potions ingredients, dissecting
salamanders and lionfish for parts, or breeding and raising magical creatures. Half of it's work you
can't even use a wand for, because of the ridiculous special requirements like 'cut by a silver knife
by the light of a sickle moon', or 'plucked in a maiden's palm on the first day of spring'.
Nevertheless, it's work even the meanest halfwit can do, with or without a single N.E.W.T."

"It seems almost... mediaeval," said Hermione. "It's not so surprising, is it? Wizarding Britain has
the population of a mediaeval town, and in those times, most people whose families owned a
business went into that business. Sons of bakers became bakers, blacksmiths trained blacksmiths.
And the local lords—they must be the old families." Hermione paused for a few seconds in
thought, then went on, "I couldn't place them in the tier system, but it's because they don't have a
place there, do they? Employment is optional for them."

"The benefits of generational wealth," said Tom bitterly. His nostrils flared and Hermione could
see where a thin stream of white mist escaped from between his clenched teeth. He stopped in the
middle of the walkway and peered through the gaps in between the columns, down to the craggy
shelf of rock below. "I don't want to be part of that tier system, Hermione. Can you imagine me
bowing and scraping to another man for the sake of my daily bread? I can't. I think I'd rather
starve. I've never been much of a conformist, as I'm sure you already know. And I don't have any
intention of starting—right now, or five years from now, or ever, really."

"What are you going to do, then?" Hermione asked. She refrained from mentioning that the
'bowing and scraping' would merely be a natural extension of his Good Boy pretense, which he
appeared to have no trouble employing when it suited him.

She was also developing suspicions of Tom Riddle's harbouring Socialist sympathies. His rhetoric
was not exactly original; she'd heard it before, in the context of labourers redistributing power to
abolish an oppressive class system. But Tom, she imagined, if he had read the pamphlets they gave
away on street corners and left inside public telephone boxes, dreamt of redistributing power in
order to give it all to himself. (And he would never discount the usefulness of an eager pool of
labourers, especially one that could be swayed by a rousing speech or two.)

"You'd never take a Muggle job as a bank teller or a land steward. I can't think of anything that
would circumvent the system, unless, after Hogwarts, you plan not to go into employment
altogether. Furthering your education—a formal apprenticeship or studying for a Mastery on your
own?" If anyone could master a magical discipline by themselves, it was Tom. "All you'd need to
do is create an original masterwork invention and have it evaluated by an established Master."

Original inventions sometimes required dangerous experimentation; Masters were sought out for
apprenticeships for this reason, particularly the prolific ones who had been involved in the creation
of famous inventions. The modern racing broomstick, the Trace, Omnioculars, the Pensieve. But
she hoped—hoped—that by the time Tom left Hogwarts, he would have learned how to be more
responsible.

"It doesn't matter what I do, as long as I can earn my own living with it," Tom said, with a careless
shrug.

"You haven't figured it out yet, have you?"

"And you've figured out what you plan to do?" Tom turned the question back on her, without giving
an answer of his own.

"Before I knew about magic, I'd have liked to study medicine," said Hermione, taking a few steps
closer to the edge of the parapet. It was a long way down to the rocks and the frozen crust of the
Lake below. "My father still has his old contacts from his army days in the Royal Medical Corps.
I'd hate to be beholden to nepotism, but it wouldn't be strictly nepotism, would it? It would only
get my foot in the door, and give me the equal standing I'd have gotten on my own merits had I
been born a boy and not a girl. I thought it was something that would allow me to do the most
good—to prove what young ladies were capable of, to help the next generation of career women,
like the VAD nurses did in the Great War before I was born."

She raised her chilled fingers to her lips and blew on them. There was a spell she'd read about in a
book, one that created a portable fuel-less fire. It would have been very useful right now if she had
learned to cast it.

"But after I found out that I was a witch, I also found that no one here cares about women's suffrage
or advancing the rights of women in work," Hermione continued. It was one of the first things
she'd asked about the wizarding world, and a deciding factor in her acceptance of magical society.
She liked this part of being a citizen of two nations, but there were other parts she wasn't so keen
on. "That doesn't mean the wizarding world is perfect, though: there are still inequalities—just not
the same ones as in the Muggle world. So I figured that making changes for the betterment of
Magical Britain would be more effective as a Ministry bureaucrat than as a St. Mungo's Healer."

Tom leaned against a column, and Hermione saw his shoulders shaking. She realised after a brief
moment that he was silently laughing.

"I can't say," Tom bit out, wiping his eyes, "that the chinless inbreds would be much pleased with
the prospect of the Minister for Magic being a Muggleborn—and there has never been a
Muggleborn Minister—let alone one who would lecture them on the principles of common
decency."

"I never said anything about being the Minister for Magic!"

"Why else would one bother working for the Ministry?"

"To restructure unfair policies?" Hermione said snippily. "Working up through the Department of
Magical Transportation would eventually let me install a Floo connection in the houses of
registered Muggle guardians, like my parents. Then we wouldn't have to drive over thirty miles to
get to Diagon Alley. And we live in the Greater London area; every Muggleborn family living
outside the Home Counties is stuck in a sorrier situation than ours."

"Yes," said Tom, his eyes flashing, "but you could do all that and more as the Minister."

"But would the 'chinless inbreds', as you call them, even let me be Minister?"

"The delightful thing about inbreeding," Tom said in a low voice, pushing away from the column to
step closer to Hermione, "is that it has not only rendered them chinless, but spineless, too."

The white plume of his breath wafted over her face, carried by a gust of icy wind. A few
windblown curls of hair had fallen over his brows, shadowing his dark eyes. His lips curled up in
the corners, in an expression of amusement that was more mocking than anything else.

Skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, Hermione recalled. But he doesn't look at all like a
princess.

"I don't know what that's supposed to mean," said Hermione, fidgeting nervously.
"It means, Hermione," Tom said, his eyes half-lidded, "that if you ever run for Minister, you'll have
my vote."

It was only when Hermione had returned to her dormitory that she realised that Tom hadn't given
her a proper answer about what he wanted to do in regards to his plans post-Hogwarts.

She kicked off her shoes and fell face-first onto her bed with a groan. If there was anyone who was
perfect for the life of a career politician, it would be Tom Riddle. He could counterfeit the perfect
politician's demeanour; when he wanted to, he could speak with the right touches of confidence and
sincerity to make crusty old men reconsider their positions, when before their beliefs had been
fossilised from the turn of the century. He possessed a certain persuasive manner that, in a decade
and a half's time, would let him rival a seasoned Parliamentarian. Tom's only flaw would be his
lack of genuine concern for social progress; in that, he resembled the quintessential politician. In
the realistic view of things, how many politicians actually cared about advancing the rights of the
ill-treated and downtrodden?

Did it even matter that they didn't care or understand, as long as they supported the ideals of social
progress in the end? Many noteworthy Liberal politicians had been alumni of the Old Boys'
institutions, were descended from peers of the realm or held titles of their own, and had never lived
the life of a working mother, but that didn't stop them from wanting to improve universal working
conditions...

"Hermione?"

A voice interrupted Hermione's sequence of thoughts.

Hermione lifted her face from the pillow. "Yes?"

"Your owl brought your mail while you were out." The voice came from one of her dorm mates,
Siobhan Kilmuir. She was a girl of reserved disposition, whose hair was so blonde that her
eyelashes and brows were nearly invisible. "Here."

Siobhan approached Hermione's bed and dropped an envelope on the blue quilted covers.

Hermione picked it up, then turned it around to inspect the wax seal. It was a deep maroon, and
pressed with the design of a turret or castle tower with two swords crossed at its base. The
wardmaster who'd seen the ad she'd placed in The Daily Prophet had sent her a reply.

"Where did you buy your owl from?" Siobhan asked, sitting down on her bed. "My mum's owl
only delivers during breakfast. If I want to check for mail myself, I have to walk all the way up to
the owlery. Yours is trained really well if it knows how to deliver right to your room."

"Oh," Hermione said distractedly, sliding her thumb under the seal and peeling off the wax, "Tom
trained my owl during the summer."

Gilles was used to running deliveries in the mornings and evenings, and knew to wait quietly on a
windowsill until his recipient had collected their mail or written a reply. She hadn't known that all
owls weren't like that, but she did know that Tom had proven to have a remarkable way with
animals. Gilles didn't drop parcels from twelve feet above the table and splash everyone in the
vicinity with milk and hot porridge. He didn't steal bacon or sausage links right off the plate, as
she'd seen from the owls belonging to other students. And he never left dead animals or other
wastes on her window ledge at home; her mother would never have allowed a pet if Hermione
needed to climb a ladder to clean up after it.

"Tom?" Siobhan frowned. "Tom Riddle?"

"Yes, that Tom Riddle."

"You should be careful with him," said Siobhan, shifting uncomfortably.

"Why?" Hermione inquired, looking up from the letter.

"I heard people saying that he cheats on homework."

"What!" Hermione's eyes narrowed. "Where did you hear that?"

"It's got to be true, hasn't it?" said Siobhan. "Riddle gets the best marks out of anyone in our year.
If he was a Ravenclaw, no one would think anything about it—but he's a Slytherin. They say
Slytherins would do all sorts of things for a good mark."

"No one said that Slytherins couldn't be clever," said Hermione, setting her letter down so she didn't
crush it with her fist, "or Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors too, for that matter." She remembered that
she had almost been Sorted into Gryffindor. "Anyway, I was told that the Hat offered to Sort
Riddle into Ravenclaw, and he borrows books from our Common Room library now and then.
Without needing help with the door puzzle, or getting kicked out by Holbrook and the rest of the
prefects. Who told you these things?"

Siobhan pressed her lips into a thin line, and unable to meet Hermione's glare, blinked and shuffled
her feet. "Antonella Everard and Evandina Chuffley in the Second Floor girls' loo. I heard them
talking about him from the stalls."

"They're liars," said Hermione firmly. "I think they're just upset that a student who isn't of 'proper
wizarding stock' keeps beating them in the academic rankings."

"But neither Everard nor Chuffley are part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight..." Siobhan trailed off. "I've
never heard them say the, um, you know," her voice dropped to a whisper, "the m-word."

"You don't need to use language like that to be a nasty person. I know that Everard once said I had
the looks of a deformed beaver behind my back, and you're taking them at their word?" Hermione
gritted her teeth. She didn't care much if she was called a know-it-all, but she hated it when girls
undermined other girls by insulting their looks, as if appearance was in any way an indication of an
individual's character or intellect. And she absolutely detested anyone who implied that a girl had
to devalue her intelligence to be considered likeable. "Besides, we're in Defence and
Transfiguration with the Slytherins. You've seen Riddle's wandwork. Do you think he needs to
cheat?"

Siobhan shook her head. "I always thought Everard and Chuffley were alright. I know their
families; they don't hold with Muggle baiting. They're a far cry from the families who want to
legalise Muggle hunting."
Hermione was horrified. "There are wizards who want to hunt Muggles?!"

Siobhan flushed a dark red. "It's been illegal for centuries. It's not something anyone talks about in
company, and the only people who do are two hundred years old and from certain families. No one
would pay any attention to them but for the fact that they have vaults full of gold people are hoping
to inherit, when they finally give it up and drop off the twig. Everard and Chuffley are decent
families compared to those ones."

She scratched her nose, then added, "It might be rude of them to say people like you and Riddle
aren't of proper wizarding stock, but at least they'll never deny that you're both wizards. They'd
never say that, not even in private."

Small blessings, thought Hermione.

"Siobhan," she spoke in an assertive voice, "the next time you hear them talking about Riddle in the
loo, you should tell them to report it directly to their Head of House. Cheating is a serious
accusation, and they ought to let Professor Slughorn sort it out. See what they say about that."

Siobhan nodded. "That's a sensible idea. I don't know why they didn't bring the proof to a
professor instead of gossiping about it... Merlin, unless they really were spinning stories about
him."

"If you still think Riddle is a cheat, you should keep an eye on him in Transfiguration. You can see
for yourself what kind of wizard he is," said Hermione. "Professor Dumbledore wouldn't allow
anything but honest work in his class."

Hermione soon turned back to her letter and Siobhan her Potions textbook. It was later that night
when Hermione was writing to her mother that she realised she had automatically jumped up to
defend Tom Riddle from a perfectly legitimate complaint. She was a proponent of fair treatment to
all, but it had taken hearing about gossip from a girls' loo to spur Hermione into a visceral reaction,
into an instant defence of Tom's character.

But Tom had done what he had been accused of. He had cheated on homework. It just wasn't his
own.

("I enabled cheating," Tom would say. "There's a difference.")

She hadn't changed her moral stance on cheating. She didn't like it, whether it was cheating or
helping others cheat... But she liked being called offensive names behind her back even less. She
wasn't fond of the idea of picking a side—it seemed as if she was condoning the actions of one side
while condemning the other—but if she had to pick one, then she would choose the side that
wouldn't speak of her as Antonella Everard did.

Tom Riddle was academically dishonest, a cheater or enabler or whatever name he called himself,
but the fact of the matter was that he never called her names.

Would he have done the same thing for me? Hermione wondered. Would he have defended me
against one of his dorm mates?

She had an inkling of what families Siobhan had referred to, the ones with the old names and the
heavily-laden vaults. The Sacred Twenty-Eight, a genealogical handbook similar to Burke's
Peerage, which had first been published over a hundred years before its wizarding equivalent.
Hermione was sceptical of both of them. She bought and saved a newspaper every time she saw
T.M. Riddle commended for his yearly academic rankings in the school notices section. She could
only imagine what wealthy families did when they saw their names printed in a fancy book, and
how an opportunistic publisher could see the profit in indulging their misplaced vanity.

I don't know what he'd do had the situation been reversed. I know he doesn't think of us as friends;
every instance where I've heard him use the word "friend", it was spoken with contempt. The
conventional expectations of friendship—or what I believe they should entail—don't exactly apply
to him.

I know he has standards, Hermione concluded. They're not the same as mine, but we've known one
another long enough that he is fully aware there are things that I consider acceptable and things I
don't.

It was easier for her to focus on less complicated, more concrete things. She had problems of her
own to manage, ones she could understand and find a way to solve, because there was a solution to
be found. Unlike whatever strange, convoluted relationship, this lopsided friendship—she couldn't
think of any better name to call it—she had with Tom.

Dear Mum,

You've written before about the state of London and the war and what to do when term
finishes. It's also been on my mind since the start of the year, ever since I was told that the
school is firm on not extending its boarding policy into the summer holidays. Instead of going
with the St. John's group to Northamptonshire for July and August, I've found a way for us to
stay safe in London. And it will mean that you won't have to use the public shelters anymore;
I know you and Dad don't like how crowded and noisy they get, especially when someone
starts a panic over food or water. All we'd need to do is clear out our cellar and let a wizard
in to ward it.

I've been saving all year, and I know it'll be dearer than I'd expected it to be, but I found a
wardmaster who can do the job, without the Ministry of Magic being any the wiser. His name
is Mr. Sigismund Pacek and I've included his qualifications in the attachment. I'm told that his
alma mater, Durmstrang, is the Hogwarts of Scandinavia and the Slavic states, and the
institution that issued his Mastery specialises in magical architecture and construction. He
quotes £30 a day for his fees, and I know it's quite a lot, but he says his wards can hold up for
ten years at least with minimal maintenance. And he can do other things than just wards—he
said he can cast an Undetectable Extension Charm, which, according to A Practical Approach
to Advanced Spellcasting, is a spell that expands the dimensions...

The days of spring grew warmer and the moments of stolen sunshine less intermittent. Every
morning when Hermione looked out of her dormitory window, she could tell that the Lake was a
different colour as the thick crust of its icy surface melted, darkening from a bright, glacial white to
grey and finally to a deep and fathomless black.
Hermione spent more of her weekend hours walking around the grounds with Tom, and every time
they heard the bells in the clocktower ring, they stopped to listen. Or rather, she would stop, and he
would tap his foot impatiently waiting for her to catch up—he was a faster walker with longer legs,
and wanted to get back indoors as soon as he could. But she noted that his hands were shoved into
his trouser pockets, and she saw the bob of his larynx as he swallowed and looked aside to study
the masonry on the walkway or the heathered hills in the far distance. It betrayed his inner
misgivings, and proved that he was not so unaffected as he wished himself to appear; it proved that
she was not the only one affected by the creeping touch of apprehension.

She counted down the days until the end of term, but unlike her dorm mates, and unlike the
Hermione of the previous year, she wasn't anxiously fretting over how much time she had left to
study before the final exams came around.

Well, that wasn't quite true.

She still cared about getting Outstandings in every subject, about picking the right electives for
Third Year, and ensuring she was getting the most out of her magical education; she was acutely
aware that she'd chosen Hogwarts at the cost of attending Muggle university and becoming the
future Dr. Granger. School marks and class rankings and the tranquil pace of life within the halls of
Hogwarts, as much as she appreciated the distraction, paled in comparison to the danger that lay
outside.

Gilles was getting more than his fair share of outdoor exercise, too. Almost every other day he
flew to London and back, bringing letters from home and copies of The Times or The Evening
Standard.

It had been quiet for most of the months of spring, and the British people, as Hermione's mother
wrote, were slowly becoming accustomed to the idea of shopping with ration books and living with
less. The wizarding market, however, had just as much beef and chocolate for sale as they had the
previous summer, so Mum and Dad didn't have to adjust their lifestyles too much. They knew it
was preferable if they made some sort of contribution in the name of national solidarity, so instead
of serving a cut of meat on the dinner table every evening, they had it five times a week. The
average Briton who lacked access to the wizarding market (or a crooked butcher) could only afford
meat two days out of the week.

My dearest Hermione,

Mr. Pacek came calling this afternoon to take the measurements of our cellar. We found him
to be very professional, well-spoken, a gracious guest, and an excellent young man in all
respects. We hadn't even suspected him to be a wizard at first; he arrived at our doorstep in
worsted wool, briefcase in hand and nothing about him gave him away. I've found that one
can usually tell wizards apart—their hats aren't quite right for the time or season, their
buttons are sewn reverse of what they should be, or they are wearing slippers instead of
proper shoes.

He stayed for tea and had some rather fascinating news to share: he'd left the Continent
because there is a rabble rouser who has taken over several Ministries, and Mr. Pacek
disagrees vehemently with some of his policies. It appears that the new Grand Minister has
been recruiting heavily among the students, present and former, of Durmstrang—which
happens to be both his and Mr. Pacek's wizarding alma mater. Mr. Pacek states that he was
 offered very little work outside of working for this Mr. Grindelwald, a Hungarian national of
German descent, and therefore chose to seek his fortunes abroad. He is lucky in this, he says,
because just last week the Norwegian Magical Assembly was attacked, and Durmstrang will
likely be under siege soon, so anyone who hasn't emigrated or capitulated may be put under
arrest.

Hermione, it appears that the magical world is facing its own set of troubles...

She showed Tom the letter when they were studying for their last exam of the school term. The
library was always busy at this time of the year, so they'd agreed to wake up early and reserve seats
as soon as the library opened its doors at eight in the morning. By mid-morning, it would have
been impossible to get a table, and if any spots opened up, the older students would have had the
clout to snatch them up first. It helped that they could store muffins in Tom's stasis charmed
lunchbox; they weren't supposed to eat in the library, but if they sat in a nook at the very back, they
wouldn't be seen. Besides, the muffins were so delicious when they were kept piping hot, and it
wasn't difficult to look up a cleaning charm to take care of the crumbs.

"'Rabble rouser'?" said Tom, skimming the bottom of the page. He snorted. "That's putting it very
lightly. This Minister Grindelwald is an honest-to-goodness Dark Lord."

"What!" cried Hermione, and instantly her hands covered her mouth and she sent furtive glances to
either side for any sign of a librarian on the prowl. "How?"

"By killing, subjugating, and terrorising a bunch of people, obviously," said Tom, with a quirk of
his eyebrow. "How else do you think one earns the title of 'Dark Lord'? Certainly not by a
majority vote of adult citizens."

"How do you know this, I mean?" asked Hermione, trying again. "I haven't seen it in The Daily
Prophet."

Hermione was the undisputed first in History of Magic. In every other class—other than
Astronomy—it was a great struggle to match Tom in practical demonstrations and theoretical
knowledge. It was a class that involved lots of reading books and essay writing, the longer the
better: everything Hermione excelled at, as much as it bored Tom in equal measure. She'd once
heard him complain that he'd rather make history, or write it himself, than listen to some desiccated
old professor mumble reasons at them for why goblins didn't deserve to live.

She'd read about Dark Lords, of course, and the worst ones were such pivotal points in wizarding
history that she'd expected to see the signs if another one was in the early stages of making an
appearance. It must be in the same fashion as volcanoes, she'd thought. The ground rumbled, and
one could spot the smoke, smell the sulphur, see the animals abandon their homes days or even
weeks before the volcano itself erupted. Hermione read The Daily Prophet on a regular basis now.
Not as religiously as the other students did—only the most important news and official
announcements—and had seen no indication of unusual occurrences in the wizarding world.

But she wasn't surprised, now that she thought about it. How often did the Prophet report on
anything outside of the British Isles? Even Irish news tended to be overlooked, outside of articles
about Quidditch matches played in the Ballycastle team's pitch, which was located in Ulster.
"The boys in my dorm have talked about it," said Tom. "But they're idiots. They don't know
anything important; they've only ever repeated things their fathers have said."

"What have they said? Should I tell my Mum?" Hermione asked. Her mother had expressed
worries about the safety of Wizarding Britain. A warded cellar would be safe from conventional air
raids and artillery, but it wouldn't serve as permanent protection against any group of determined
and well-trained wizards. "She's wanted to evacuate the family to the countryside for months."

"This bit about Durmstrang being Grindelwald's alma mater is incorrect," said Tom. "Nott said he
attended last century, but didn't graduate, as he was expelled in his final year for..." Tom paused, the
curl of his lip showing the barest hint of a scowl, "dangerous magical experimentation."

Hermione's expression was triumphant, but Tom ignored it with a blithe wave of his hand.

"And Grindelwald and his people don't care about blood status, apparently," continued Tom. "Not
as much as the Twenty-Eight do, at least—otherwise he'd have many more Slytherin supporters in
my Common Room. And he's not interested in Britain for now. It looks like they're going after
Norway and consolidating their hold in Scandinavia." He tilted his head and ran a finger down the
crease in the paper where the letter had been folded into crisp thirds. "It's interesting that the
Norwegian Ministry was attacked only weeks after Norway was invaded by the German Muggles.
Something has got to be rotten in the state of Denmark..."

"Denmark was invaded a month or so ago," Hermione offered. "The London papers say they're
under German occupation."

Tom nodded. "The Muggles are more worried about war than the wizards, as they ought to be. No
Muggle government has anything equivalent to the importance our world places on protecting
magical society and its members. In fact, the International Statute of Secrecy never mentions blood
status at all. It only ever refers to 'magical persons and beings'."

"We're Muggles for three months of the year," observed Hermione. "I wonder if we should do
anything, contribute in some way..."

"I hate living like a Muggle, and I hate the Muggle war even more, but we've no obligation to do
anything about it. We aren't Muggles. And before you make any suggestions, you should know that
I refuse to go on any door-to-door salvage drives," said Tom. He set down the letter onto the table,
carefully tucking it back into its envelope. "The best course of action is to cross our fingers and
hope that Grindelwald is still at large by the time we're out of Hogwarts."

Hermione sent him a disapproving glare. "Why would you ever wish for that?"

"How easy do you think it is to get an Order of Merlin in peacetime, Hermione?" said Tom in a
bland voice. "It would solve all those pesky issues with our future careers, wouldn't it?"
 Laissez-faire

1940

Returning to London, thought Tom, is even more miserable this time around.

The grey skies were greyer than ever. The general mood on the street was solemn and harried. The
people were an archetypal tableau of urban life: the somber, monochromatic crowds of English
yeomanry, with their chins up, upper lips stiff, and their backs straight—but Tom could see where
their eyes were just the slightest touch colder, their belts a notch or two tighter. He'd also observed
that there weren't as many motor vehicles and young children on the streets, nor as much open
gaiety in greetings and conversation, and the few spots of colour that peppered the dismal
landscape were limited to recruiting posters placed in the front windows of shops and offices.

Some part of him was darkly exultant that all of Britain had been made familiar with a standard of
life that had once been the sole dominion of a wretched minority.

Another part of him was seething because that standard of life had been what his useless mother
had condemned him to, when she'd stumbled through the gates of Wool's in her ninth month of
corporal purgatory. But Tom Riddle, unlike the rest of the creatures who called that place their
home, had found a means of escape. Yet now, slowly and inexorably, he was being drawn back to
it like a sinner led to his eternal reward. Perhaps he was being melodramatic about it (Hermione
had begun calling him 'dramatic' ever since he'd decided that she was meant to be his Foil), but that
sense of gloomy finality was much the same.

"If you can suggest anything that will make the summer the least bit bearable, now would be the
best time to mention it," said Tom, glaring out of the window at the families waiting at the platform
for the arrival of the train. Screaming younger siblings, arms up in the air and waving when the
train hadn't even arrived, colourful animated signs reading 'WELCOME BACK!' in glittering letters;
it was all rather gauche in Tom's eyes and made him glad he hadn't anyone to embarrass him like
this.

The Hogwarts Express slowly chugged into King's Cross. The white billowing steam from its
chimneys left the windows on the first two carriages warm to the touch. The doors opened, and
students pushed out of their compartments, clogging the aisles with their bags and birdcages and
brooms and school trunks. The First Years were at the forefront of the rush, pouring out the
moment the doors were flung open, eager to see their families after a long and arduous year battling
the symptoms of homesickness.

"I asked my parents if you could visit our house," said Hermione, standing up and stretching her
stiff limbs. "Petrol is still under ration, but Dad gets extra fuel tickets because of his job."

Tom brought his bag down from the overhead rack. "He's still using a civilian ration book, isn't
he? The extra ones are for medical emergencies, and using them to drive friends around seems... a
bit dodgy."

"Yes, well," Hermione said, as they lingered in the aisle between compartments, waiting for the
crowd to thin, "the whole city is on ration books, but that doesn't stop the rich getting around it by
having their cream tea and steaks at a restaurant. If we only use the motor to pick you up once or
twice a week, no one will notice."

"Oh, I wasn't objecting to it, of course," said Tom, helping himself to a handful of partially
unwrapped chocolate frogs abandoned on the bench of a vacated compartment. It looked as if the
person who'd bought them had taken the cards out and left the chocolate untouched. It was
wasteful, as opening the box broke the stasis enchantment and the frog soon lost its charmed
animation. Most wizards didn't find the inert frogs appealing, the same way they didn't like
Muggle chessboards, even though the chocolate was the same flavour, and Muggle chess played by
the same rules as wizarding chess.

The casual way wizards used and wasted things was something he had trouble accustoming himself
to; on the other hand, the wizarding perspective on physical injuries, as had so appalled Hermione,
was nothing he worried himself about. He knew that wizards could conjure matter out of thin air,
but his classmates couldn't, and while they might learn to conjure handkerchiefs, floral bouquets,
and singing doves by their N.E.W.T. examinations, he doubted that any of them would ever be able
to create unicorn hoof shavings or mandrake leaves in their lifetimes.

He'd seen the volume of waste in Potions practicals: when one of his classmates had waited too
long to stir, or stirred in the wrong direction, they'd ask the professor to Vanish their work and start
again with fresh ingredients—that is, if they didn't just go ahead and double down on their mistake,
then hand in a subpar sample phial at the end of the lesson. They could have saved both time and
ingredients on their Seasickness Serum if they'd known to stir in alternate directions every twelve
seconds while adding crushed rowan berries on low heat. It would reverse the effect of over-
simmering and produce a richer pearly green colour in the finished potion.

Wizards.

There were few instances in life where Tom had difficulty thinking up a suitable response, but he
found this one in particular to be all-encompassing and always appropriate.

"If you want to drag your entire family into a life of wickedness and degeneracy, by all means, go
ahead. I wouldn't dare stand in your way. But," Tom added in a low voice, "I still say that it
would've been simpler to borrow from the school broom shed. No one would have noticed if I'd
taken one for the summer. It's not like the Quidditch teams would miss a single old Cleansweep,
anyway."

"I'm sure you'll be singing a different tune after some overeager reservist in the Home Guard
catches you at the end of his fowling piece." Hermione shook her head. "Not to mention, you'd be
breaking half a dozen rules on wizarding secrecy."

"You're right," said Tom. "I'll have to learn the Disillusionment Charm first."

"Sometimes I wonder how you manage to show up for breakfast in the mornings," Hermione
sighed. "One of these days you'll catch your head on the door from how swollen it's gotten."

By this time they'd collected their belongings from the luggage compartment, and were headed for
the entrance of the Muggle side of King's Cross. Students of wizarding family were Apparated
directly to their homes by their parents, or used the public Floo fireplaces. Everyone else had to
wait their turn to exit through the pillar—it would not be very inconspicuous for twenty people to
suddenly appear out of nowhere on the Muggle platform.
Being British, they automatically formed into an orderly queue.

When it was their turn to cross over, Tom turned to her. "You'll write to me again, won't you,
Hermione?"

Hermione blinked. "Oh! Of course I will! I was going to ask if you'd like to come to dinner with
my family tonight. Mum was going to pick us up in the motor, and then pop in to ask Mrs. Cole's
permission for you to visit during the summer, since you live only a few miles from the station. It
wouldn't do for one of her charges to disappear for hours on end."

"She doesn't have to do that," said Tom. "Mrs. Cole wouldn't notice a thing."

"It's the proper thing to do," Hermione said, "and she insists. Like saying 'Please' or 'Thank you'
and leaving a card if you call on someone who's out, or pouring the tea before the milk. If we went
about it differently, society would be on the verge of collapse. Besides," she gestured at his
battered brass-bound trunk, "don't you need to drop your luggage off?"

"The less I see of that place, the better," Tom muttered, and then they passed through the brick
pillar and into the Muggle world.

Gone were the colourful hats and the spangled robes of the magical crowd; the hooting and cawing
of caged birds had fallen silent, the crackle of Apparition halted mid-step. On this side of the
barrier, Tom felt as if his life had run to the end of its Technicolor reel, and a sadistic projectionist
had swapped in the rest of it in black-and-white celluloid. The contrast was jarring: Muggles wore
grey, black, and navy blue in hard-wearing wool and heavy fustian, jacket and trousers and hats
with very little variation from one man's silhouette to another. He noticed that there was an
occasional spattering of olive drab worn by soldiers disembarking a train two platforms over.

They smelled of tobacco ash and engine grease and too many unwashed human bodies in too small
a space. They carried newspapers and briefcases, and they pushed past Tom and Hermione only
thinking about getting where they needed to be. None of them realised, or even noticed, the
existence of another world on the other side of the pillar.

If Tom had been a lesser wizard and a weaker person, he might have considered throwing himself
off the platform and onto an oncoming train at the sudden, shocking loss of everything magical.
But he wasn't a little match girl, nor a reveller waking up the morning after midsummer night to
discover that it had just been a dream. His wand had remained in his pocket, the bright, polished
yew wood warm to the touch, just as it had all through the coldest winter days in the lowest
dungeons beneath Hogwarts.

He couldn't use it now, but it was a reminder that his magic was inside him. It could never be taken
from him; he had been born with it; it was his birthright, as he could call very little else in his life
but his name—his plebeian Muggle-ish name.

(As much as he disparaged the name 'Tom' for being so common, three-lettered names were not
inherently bad. 'Leo' had been the name of a dozen Popes, and the first Pope Leo had been known
as Leo the Great. And people so revered the name of the Creator that in many books Tom had read,
the authors hadn't dared to use all three letters of His name. They called him G—d.

That made him contemplate the potential of 'T—m the Great'. It sounded so deliciously
blasphemous.)
He shoved his way through, the trunk in front of him parting the crowd, with Hermione tagging
along in his wake, her empty owl cage rattling against her own trunk. Gilles had been sent on by
himself from the wizarding side of Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

They encountered Mrs. Granger at the side entrance of King's Cross, standing by the Grangers'
shiny blue motor car. She was dressed in a long wizarding-style coat of deep violet gabardine, with
sharp lapels and a line of pearl buttons down each cuff. While Tom had read in the London papers
lent him by Hermione that they hadn't started rationing fabric, it was assured they would do so in
the next year or two, so long as they needed the fabric for soldiers' uniforms. It made the wealthier
families with the banknotes to spare stockpile fabric and clothing so they would not have to go
without a seasonal wardrobe even in the leanest days of a war economy. From this, Tom predicted
that donations to the orphanage would not be so generous in the coming years.

"Tom," said Mrs. Granger, nodding to him. Her eyes fell on Hermione behind him, and instantly
the frostiness of her demeanour melted away. "Hermione, oh, Hermione!" she cried.

Mrs. Granger encircled Hermione in her arms, and Hermione mumbled something to her, and soon
both of them were whispering to one another, Mrs. Granger's cheek pressed against her daughter's,
her gloved hand smoothing down the tumbling curls in vain. Hermione's eyes closed, as if the
motion was calming. Tom was reminded of animals being gentled, of the rabbit's ears drooping
down if its spine was stroked just so; he thought of Peanut and how pinching the scruff of fur at the
back of its neck made it shut its eyes and drop the collected coins into Tom's waiting hand.

Watching Mrs. Granger embrace Hermione filled him with an itchy sensation, as if he was one of
the many Muggles at the station, unknowing and ignorant of another world hidden within their
own. It was less than a yard's distance away, but the distance was in its own way immeasurable.
Impenetrable. And even if they had known of it, it would have been nothing but incomprehensible.

But it wasn't the same for Tom, was it?

He knew what it felt like to have Hermione's cheek flush against his own, to feel the whisper of her
breath stir the hair at the nape of his neck. It wasn't anything incomprehensible. And yet... he had
never associated her touch with one of the many steps of obedience training, as he had used on
animals, as had been used on him at the orphanage until he was eight years old and learned how to
deflect culpability onto a child who was younger or stupider than he.

It was...

He struggled to articulate his thoughts.

...Well, whatever it may have been, it was soon over.

Mrs. Granger unlocked the boot and helped them load their trunks inside. The interior of boot,
Tom observed, was larger than its exterior suggested.

"I had an Extension Charm placed on it," Mrs. Granger explained, lifting up a false bottom to show
the extra space beneath. "We keep the spare tyres in here—we're only allowed one spare per family
now. They'd have taken them otherwise, and it would have been a unconscionable waste as we'd
paid full price for a whole set last year. Here, Hermione, put the cage here, and move your trunk to
the side for Tom's..."
Luggage stowed, Tom and Hermione sat side-by-side in the back, with Mrs. Granger driving.
Riding in a motor car was a luxury for Tom. He didn't know any other family but the Grangers
who owned their own. Everyone else he knew took the trolley or the Underground if they needed
to get around London; outside London they traveled on the railway, which the residents of Wool's
used on their annual seaside trip. They never bought first class tickets, but by now the Hogwarts
Express had set Tom's standard for posh transport. It was one of the rare experiences in his life,
meant to be savoured, much like watching a newsreel at the cinema, or being waited on in a
restaurant.

The drive to the orphanage was short, and when they arrived, Tom noticed that the building was a
little worse-for-wear. There were no children playing in the yard, no shouting to be heard from the
other side of the gate. Hermione sent him a guarded look, but she pushed the door open on her side
and got out without a word.

Mrs. Granger entered first, her heels rapping on the tile. The halls were empty, the floors swept
clean and spotless, an unusual sight in a building that normally housed dozens of grubby children.
They didn't pass anyone else on their way to the administration office, which seemed to be the only
occupied room in the place. Inside the office, Mrs. Cole was reading a magazine, her shoes
propped up on a chair and a glass of something clear at her elbow. It smelled like medicine mixed
with turpentine.

"Sorry, we're not taking any new placements," said Mrs. Cole, not looking up. "Any enquiries
should be sent to the children's home in Whitechapel."

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Cole," said Mrs. Granger. She reached for the door handle. "Hermione, go
back to the motor. Tom, get anything you need out of your room and bring them out to the motor,
then wait for me."

She moved to shut the office door.

"Mum!" Hermione dug into her jacket pocket and retrieved a sheet of paper, which she pushed at
her mother. "Can you get the matron to sign this before we leave?"

Mrs. Granger took the paper and skimmed its contents. "Very well. I'll be out in a few minutes,
darling."

The door shut with a firm click.

Hermione gave a Tom a pleased smile. "See? Now your summer won't be so bad after all."

"Bad?" said Tom. "I'll reserve my judgement until I know I won't be sleeping on your sitting room
settee."

"Don't be so disagreeable, Tom. We have a guest room," said Hermione, patting him on the
shoulder. "And you owe me your Hogsmeade permission slip, since I just gave mine away."
The Grangers, Tom confirmed, were the epitome of the English middle class.

Their house was built of brick, semi-detached, and had two storeys, with an attic above and a cellar
below. The interiors were clean and new, the walls painted in shades of eggshell and cream,
without any of the lumpy layered overpainting Tom saw in older buildings in the areas around
central London—where if you took a pocket knife, you could scratch down to the original arsenic-
based paint laid down over a century ago. This house had none of that, and he could bet that none
of their windows were painted shut, and all of their toilets were indoors and flushing.

They also had no pretensions of aping the upper classes: he didn't see any darkly stained antique-
replica furniture, heavy crystal chandeliers, uninspiring nineteenth century oils set in gilt frames
(bought for a song at auction!), or God forbid, stuffed antelope heads and tiger rugs with those
awful, staring glass eyes. Instead, their living areas were functional and modern; Mrs. Granger had
too much taste to think that lace doilies and dried flowers were the height of home decorating.

As for the preponderance of linoleum on the first floor—well, Tom could take it or leave it.

Upon joining the family for dinner, Tom and Hermione's father shared more than a brief passing
greeting, for the first time. Dr. Granger was a thin man who wore spectacles when he was reading,
and kept them on a string about his neck when he wasn't. His hair was brown and curly, though it
was combed down with pomade in the back, and thinning on the top. He was clean-shaven, and
dressed neatly in a thick jumper over his necktie and shirtsleeves when he came to table, in lieu of
wearing his suit jacket, so apparently the Grangers didn't care to make a big to-do about dining
formality. And since he didn't say any prayers before carving up the roast, it looked like the
Grangers didn't care about G—d either.

If Tom still cared about having a father of his own, he supposed that Dr. Granger wouldn't do too
bad of a job at it. The man wasn't as much of a useless Muggle as the rest; he was educated and a
bit awkward, but that just meant he was light-handed when it came to parenting, which was a good
thing as far as Tom was concerned. Tom would never be able to tolerate the authority of a strict
disciplinarian. But if having a father resulted in Mrs. Granger being his mother...

Or, even worse: Hermione Granger as his older sister.

No. Definitely not.

He was rather grateful to be an orphan now, thank you very much. He preferred being plain old
Tom Riddle if the alternative was Tom Granger.

After dinner, Tom was shown to his room on the second floor of the house. It was comfortable but
impersonal: a metal bedstead with brass posts and legs in the centre of the room, an armchair and
desk, a radiator and a bookshelf in the corner. The bedclothes were done up in a pale and sterile
shade of blue, and to his relief, there weren't any framed needlepoint samplers on the wall with
Bible passages or that 'Home Sweet Home' nonsense. His high expectations on Mrs. Granger's taste
in décor had not been misplaced.

"My room is down the hall," said Hermione, showing him into the room. She set a pitcher of water
and a glass on the nightstand. "The loo is right across. Mum and Dad have a bathroom connected
to their room, so you only have to share with me. Laundry goes in the basket, and there's extra
soap and toothpaste in the cupboard under the sink."
"I suppose this isn't all bad," Tom conceded, unlatching the clasps on his school trunk. "You live
thirty miles from central London, so we can't visit Diagon Alley all the time like we did last
summer, can we? I could have walked there from Wool's, but you'd have to take a bus or the
motor."

"I'll ask Mum if we can go with her when she does our grocery shopping," said Hermione. "But
there's something better than sneaking around Diagon Alley and hoping no one catches us
levitating books. We can practise magic in the cellar now!"

"Really?" asked Tom, perking up. "Have you tried it yet?"

"No." Hermione's nose scrunched up in the faintest trace of a scowl. "Not yet. Mum wouldn't let
me. She said to make sure until Mr. Pacek came by to check on the wards." And then her
expression brightened in anticipation. "He's coming tomorrow. I can't wait to meet him, I've got so
many questions! I've never met a foreign wizard before; I've always wondered how the Ministries
in other countries do things. I mean, what kind of licenses do they have on magical transport? And
they don't keep up with modern politics, so how do you think the Ministries on the Continent
decided on their geographic borders? Wizarding Britain still includes Ireland, and the Holy Roman
Empire would have been around when they set up the Statute, wouldn't it..."

She babbled on, while Tom nodded along as he unpacked his clothes and books. Hermione,
although he didn't know the extent of her career aspirations, he couldn't picture as a cut-throat
politician, a true Prince of the political landscape as ascribed by Machiavelli. No, not a politician
—but she was a born bureaucrat. She ate books and breathed rules; she read heavy legal codices
for entertainment. Tom had only picked them up to skim the relevant sections—his own priorities
had been placed on figuring out what he could get away with according to the letter of the law.

They shared some of the same opinions on Wizarding jurisprudence (How many wizards knew that
it was illegal to charm goats inside a house? Why and how had that even been passed?) but in the
end, it was Hermione who admired the institution of the law. The ideal of it, if not the reality.

Tom set his wand on the nightstand by the water glass before he got into the bed. He missed the
Slytherin dormitory, and it was hard to believe he'd been sleeping in his regular bed—he thought of
that bed as his 'regular bed'—just that morning. It was strange not to have the deep green velvet
canopy curtains cocooning his bed at night, cutting off the low conversations of his dorm mates, or
the view of Nott in the next bed over trimming his fingernails with a quill knife. He'd already
caught himself reaching for a nonexistent curtain in an act of muscle memory.

The next morning, Tom was surprised by an extra place setting at the dining table. It wasn't the
plate and chair set aside for him opposite Hermione's. It was a fifth seat. He hadn't been able to
deduce the precise nature of Mrs. Granger's social origins, but he'd been confident that she was
aware of the etiquette around receiving house-guests. She knew how to count places, so what was
this?

The mystery was solved with the arrival of a breakfast guest: the wardmaster.

Mr. Sigismund Pacek was a young man, somewhere between twenty to thirty years of age, who
looked like he wanted to appear older and more serious than he was. His whiskers were trimmed
into a neat moustache and goatee, and his catalogue-bought shoes had that precise toe-tip shine
often seen when a firm's junior clerks wanted to mimic its senior partners. The cut of his coat was
longer than fashionable, and his collar was rounded instead of starched into sharp arrow-like points;
he would have been unremarkable on a London street thirty years ago, but in the here and now, he
looked distinctly out of place. It didn't help that the lapels of his waistcoat were embroidered with
a striking pattern of red flowers and intersecting geometric shapes.

"Good morning, Doctor! Good morning, Madam!" he said, hanging up his hat in the vestibule.
"You do not know how difficult it is to get a good meal in London. The restaurants only want to
serve their old patrons, or they do not want to serve foreigners, and the only place I can engage in
some good conversation with my fellow magical expatriates is a dingy tavern where they only
serve blood! I will never order their Jägerschnitzel in brown sauce again, that is for certain."

He sat down at the Grangers' dining table and tucked a napkin into his collar, muttering to himself,
"I do not like Knockturn Alley, not at all; the ambience is terrible."

"Mr. Pacek?" said Hermione. "I'm Hermione Granger. How do you do?"

"Very well, thank you. Might you pass the bacon?" Mr. Pacek replied, emptying the toast rack onto
his plate. He glanced up, just now noticing that there were other occupants at the table than Dr. and
Mrs. Granger. "Ah, the little ones are back from school?"

"Yes, we're on summer holidays from Hogwarts," said Hermione, who didn't seem bothered at
being called little by a man who was hardly older than she was. "Are the holidays much different
at Durmstrang?"

"The summers, I believe, are a few weeks shorter, and the winter holidays longer than the British
way of doing things." Mr. Pacek loaded bacon onto his plate with the tongs. "And in the dining
hall, they served the smoked bacon with pickles and raw onion, so all students were taught the
Breath Freshening Charm from the first day."

Tom felt it was his turn to interrogate the man. Hermione couldn't have all of his attention. "Is it
true they teach Dark Arts at Durmstrang?"

Mr. Pacek stopped mid-chew, fork hovering halfway to his mouth. He studied Tom for a few
seconds, his gaze penetrative, and his eyes narrowed. "The theory is taught as an elective in the
senior years, to those who pass the academic pre-requisites. And it is not a subject one lightly
discusses at the table, young Mr. Granger. I thought your lovely mother would have taught you
better manners."

"I'm not—" Tom spluttered.

"He's not—" Hermione spoke at the same time.

"Mr. Pacek," said Mrs. Granger calmly, observing the conversation with a bemused detachment
shared by Dr. Granger, "this young man is Tom Riddle, Hermione's friend from school. He's
staying with us for the summer."

"A fosterling? Madam, you are as beautiful as you are generous; Doctor, you are truly blessed."
Mr. Pacek nodded at Hermione's father, before turning to Tom. "Mr. Riddle, then, if you prefer that
name: what Britons call Dark Arts has less of an association with darkness and evil and more of an
association with tradition at the Durmstrang Institute. There is a class they teach for senior
students, traditional Divination, where one can foretell a glimpse of the future by casting the
haruspex. The future can be read in this way, the ancient Roman way, in the entrails of anointed
sheep and sacrificial bulls.
"They do not teach this in all but a handful of schools now, because everyone has moved onto
crystal balls or decks of cards these days. The old way is considered messy and barbaric in
comparison, as it is known that the best readings come from the wizard whose hand also held the
knife." Mr. Pacek took a sip of his tea and continued in a solemn voice, "But there is an even older
way, demanding the knife of a wizard and the flesh of a man—and that is barbaric, and that is what
we, even us onion-eating foreigners, call Dark Arts."

"Sir," said Hermione timidly, "surely they didn't teach that at Durmstrang?"

"The general theory only," Mr. Pacek assured her. "But it is enough to give the school a certain
reputation."

"Does it work, though?" Tom asked, who wasn't at all disgusted about the discussion of human
sacrifice at mealtime. By 'flesh of a man', he surmised that Mr. Pacek meant a Muggle, and had
avoided using the word at the table in order not to offend the sensibilities of his hosts. "If people
today are using crystal balls, it seems to imply that they work better. Like choosing a motor engine
over a horse: the motor has twenty-five horsepower, while the horse has, well, just one. The less
efficient one is quickly made obsolete."

"In theory, human flesh should not work any better or worse than with a good bullock," Mr. Pacek
said. "But in my opinion, it is worse. The bullock is raised its entire life by a wizarding
gamekeeper, anointed with oils and fed fresh magical herbs during certain times of the year,
enhancing its magical properties. Then when the divination is finished, it is served to the students at
dinner. You are correct, Mr. Riddle, in that there is indeed a difference in efficiency between one
and the other."

"What about the bullock to the crystal ball? How do they compare?" Tom knew one couldn't be
scientific about magic, because magic was an art beyond science, but it didn't hurt to try.

"That," said Mr. Pacek, looking a bit put-out at the sight of his cooling bacon and untouched toast,
"rather comes down to the skill of the Seer. A true Seer can divine the future from the light of the
stars, the fall of wheat in the wake of a scythe, or the flight formation of geese in the autumn. Only
laymen need tools. But I imagine that as tools go, crystals are the cheapest out of the lot."

"Are you a Seer, sir?"

"Tom!" Hermione hissed at him, nudging Tom under the table with her toes. "Let him eat!"

"No, I am not," said Mr. Pacek firmly. "If I were one, they would not have let me leave the
country."

That shut the conversation down for the next five minutes.

It was after breakfast that Tom saw the the Grangers' cellar for the first time.

A set of sturdy wooden stairs led down to the cellar, whose design matched the look of the house
proper. It was clean, with a plaster ceiling and walls built of clay brick, the mortar still a fresh
white without a hint of dampness or moss, laid only a decade or so ago. There were support pillars
spaced every few yards across the floor, pipes running across the ceiling, and three empty outlets
where lightbulbs could be screwed in.
But there was one very obvious sign of magic: the floor space of the cellar in square feet was more
than twice the area of the house above. It echoed like a factory floor with all the machines
removed, the ceilings soaring twenty feet above his head. If Tom hadn't known any better, he would
have assumed that the cellar encroached onto the neighbours' land. But because he did know better,
he was silently marveling at the power of an Undetectable Extension Charm. An illegal one, at
that. Knowing that it was forbidden made the display of magic more impressive; it made Mr.
Pacek's skills as a wizard—his knowledge on Dark Arts having proven anticlimactic—worthy of
respect.

"As you will be using this space as a bunker, then it shall be furnished as such," said Mr. Pacek,
drawing his wand and waving it.

Lights flew out from the tip of his wand to glass hurricane lamps hung on hooks from the walls.
He swept his wand to one side, and a folding screen flew back from a corner of the room. Behind it
was a brass bedstead, identical to the one in Tom's room, but this one had bedding in soft pink and
purple. Mr. Pacek duplicated the bed frame and mattress, laying the second bed right next to the
other, and started on the blankets and pillows.

"Do you want the same colours, young Mr. Riddle?" he asked, looking over his shoulder.

"Can you do them in green?" said Tom.

A swish of Mr. Pacek's wand, and the bed covers became a mint pastel green. "Like so?"

"Darker, perhaps?"

"Would you like to try it yourself, young sir?" asked Mr. Pacek, stepping back from the bed.
"'Colovaria', I believe—it has been some time since I have needed the words for such a simple
spell."

"What about the Ministry?" Tom pointed out. "Won't they know if I'm doing magic underage?"

Mr. Pacek winked and tapped his wand against his nose. "I have set the wards: this room has the
full line of privacy wards to conceal sight and sound and magical residue. On top of that, a mail
ward to redirect those troublesome official owls, and a bit of tricky magic with a layered variation
of Henderson's Thermobaric Pylon because Madam Granger worries so desperately about the
dangers of Muggle artillery. You could breed dragons in here, and the neighbours will never know,
though I do not recommend opening the door once the sire has caught scent of the dam, hmm?"

Hermione had promised that they could do magic this summer. And this was her house, so if any
owls did come from the Ministry, any warnings would go to her name. Hermione was the only
witch registered to this neighbourhood; according to the official paperwork, Tom was still living at
the orphanage, thirty miles away.

"Colovaria!" he incanted, and one half of the mint green faded into the deep emerald of the
Slytherin dormitory blankets.

"It is not just the final result one must envisage, but the process of change itself. Think of the green
darkening to the colour you want; think of the shadow of dusk as it draws over the late afternoon,
or the soft spring buds unveiling their summer glory," suggested Mr. Pacek, raising his hands and
spreading his fingers out like the petals of a flower.
"These elementary transfigurations are all about one's acceptance of change and transition, and
harnessing that power. If you want to practice more, you might try different patterns. Indian
paisleys and the Moorish zellige always gave me such trouble when I was not much older than
you. I remember," he said wistfully, "that the edges lost their crispness by the third day, and had
faded away completely before the week had passed."

Tom frowned and tried again. The blanket darkened, though it wasn't as rich a tone as he really
wanted. "Sir, if you're a wardmaster, why are you bothering with... interior decorating? I would
have thought warding would be more profitable."

Mr. Pacek had taken up the task of duplicating nightstands and transfiguring the extras into chairs
and tables. "It is a long story," he said, growing out the legs of a chair and extending the back in a
lattice of carved tulips. "My family has produced many a wardmaster, those who built the walls of
the wizarding ghettos and old towns south of the Oder." He clarified by adding, "Like your Diagon
Alley and Hogsmeade, I think. The places open for only those of wizarding blood, though I do not
recall hearing Britons use the word 'ghetto' themselves.

"But," he continued, settling himself down onto the chair and smoothing out the tails of his coat,
"with the situation in Europe as it is, a man cannot depend on employment when, these days, it is
not considered acceptable for a wizard to want to hide his magic from Muggles. So I arrived to
Britain, where I have found that most households have no need for powerful defensive wards, but
many want their front parlours renovated, or their wardrobes protected from doxies."

"You sound like you don't much care for Grindelwald, sir," said Tom as innocently as he could.

He had some idea of Pacek's allegiances already. The man had had no issue with sitting at a
Muggle family's table, eating their Muggle food. From speaking to students outside Slytherin, he
knew that many of the wizarding families of his classmates, though they believed themselves to be
of a liberal slant, rarely ventured into the Muggle world, let alone dined with or spoke to Muggles
as actual people.

(There were very few of any designation who counted as actual people in Tom's eyes, so they might
have a legitimate point with that line of thinking.)

These wizards might go for sightseeing and window shopping in the area around Charing Cross
where the Leaky Cauldron was located, but they fumbled their way around shillings and pence
converted from galleons by the Gringotts goblins. If they didn't get swindled in the Muggle shops,
it was only due to the honesty of the merchants.

"I do not care for politics," said Mr. Pacek, brushing a non-existent speck of dust from his pressed
trousers. "I was born in the Kingdom of Bohemia, and the Bohemian life is the life I choose to
live. This Lord Grindelwald—" he snorted in derision, "—does not value the idea of laissez-faire
as I do. If I had my way, I would be enchanting the stained glass windows in the cathedrals of
Prague's Old Town; if he had his way, I would be setting the wards to the doors and windows of his
magnum opus, his 'Nurmengard'.

"I have never met the man himself," Mr. Pacek went on, twirling his wand in one hand in what
appeared to be a nervous tic, "but I have read his writings about 'freedom for wizardkind'. I do not
think he understands the meaning of the word 'freedom'."

"I've never read his writings myself," said Tom, sitting down on the green blankets of his new bed,
fingering the soft fabric and the perfectly spaced stitches that had once come from an industrial
sewing machine, and had now been replicated by magic. "And I've only heard about his policies
from second hand sources—and not the most reliable ones—but I believe his idea of 'freedom' is
not so much 'freedom for' as it is 'freedom from'. Freedom from persecution, from living in hiding,
and from dedicating so much of our time and resources to protecting ourselves and our
communities. The Ministry of Magic has dozens of wizards and witches working to clean up
accidents and modify memories, when those same people could be inventing new potions and
authoring books, or even, for instance, enchanting cathedral windows. But society has decided that
they're needed more for Obliviating witnesses to preserve magical secrecy."

"You have a very clever mouth, Mr. Riddle," remarked Mr. Pacek. "I have heard it said that the
young Herr Grindelwald spoke with that same kind of fire when he was sixteen. If you choose to
join his crusade when you are grown, I hope that clever mouth will serve you well when the time
comes for you to explain to your little Miss Granger why all children like her must be raised as
fosterlings in the name of Grindelwald's greater good."

"What do you mean by that, sir?" said Tom. "Fosterlings?"

"Wizards born of Muggles." Mr. Pacek's eyebrows lifted up, and his grey eyes glowed in the light
of the dozen lamps. He met Tom's gaze straight on, and unlike most people who tried to stare him
down, Mr. Pacek didn't look away. He made no silent, instinctive signs of accepting Tom's power,
as others yielded to Tom's natural place in the pecking order with the lowering of their heads or the
slouch of their shoulders. Tom was slightly taken aback; he was so used to dealing with the endless
flocks of starlings that it was shocking to encounter someone who wasn't one, although he had
made no display of his talons.

"You do not think," said Mr. Pacek, "that in Grindelwald's great vision, the future of wizardkind
would be left in the hands of slaves and animals, do you?"

Tom's mind raced for a response that wouldn't incriminate him in any way. Mr. Pacek seemed close
to the Grangers, close enough to be invited to share their meals. Hermione respected him, and it
wasn't hard to see why: she'd made a habit of it whenever she encountered adults who showed
themselves to be well-read and intellectual. These kinds of people were rare relative to the overall
population of wizards, but at the same time were too common for Tom's comfort.

He thought it was incredibly undignified for Hermione to fawn over them in admiration. They
were years older—of course they'd read more books than she had. Yes, it was a rare occurrence
considering Hermione's insatiable appetite for books, but it wasn't anything to make a fuss about.
Red was the rarest of naturally occurring hair colours but no one saw Tom Riddle worshiping the
likes of Albus Dumbledore. Tom had reasoned that it was the same way people treated Christmas,
when he personally didn't care a whit about 'seasonal cheer'.

"I wouldn't say that having magic is the sole decider of a person's worth," said Tom, trying to sound
diplomatic. "But if we must throw around terms like 'superior' and 'inferior', and if there must be a
designator of superiority, a base requirement before one is allowed to participate in magical society,
then it should be magical blood, not magic."

In his first year at Hogwarts, Tom had been told magic ran in families, and from that he concluded
he and Hermione must have got their magic from somewhere. He found it easy to accept that—the
idea that Hermione's parents were of a separate class than the dregs of South London like the
misbegotten children of Wool's and their useless progenitors. In terms of social class, that was true,
for all the Grangers' idealistic egalitarian opinions and open denial. If there was an inborn, physical
difference between one group and the other... Well, Tom's disdain for his inferiors would be fully
justified, wouldn't it?

He'd read of the case of 'Typhoid Mary', a woman who had the disease, could spread the disease to
others, but showed no symptoms of the disease herself. Why couldn't magic work the same way?

He had seen no evidence to disprove such a theory, but then again, he doubted there had been much
work done in the field of magical heredity. He had looked in the library for information on his own
talents and had found very little worth his time. Of course it was interesting to know that wizards
could produce magical offspring with humanoid species such as goblins and veelas, but it wasn't
very useful, was it?

(Some part of him wished he hadn't known, because now he would never be able to read about
centaurs without wondering where they came from.)

"In Britain," he spoke in a confident voice, "control of the national currency supply is granted by
treaty to the goblins, so it wouldn't make sense to limit worthiness to only wizards and witches,
while designating everyone else as beasts or slaves. Not unless wizards want to understand the true
meaning of what Muggles call a Depression. Besides, I wouldn't ever fight for Grindelwald's
cause," Tom continued with utter certainty. He would never fight, not at the risk of his own life, for
anyone's cause but his own. "His platform is the 'future of wizardkind'. Something like the 'future
of magic' would come across as much less divisive, and would alienate fewer potential followers."

At this point, Mr. Pacek did the unexpected. He laughed. "God in Heaven, boy! You are not
thinking of becoming a politician in a few years, are you?"

"You'd support me, if I did?" asked Tom.

"In ten or twenty years?" said Mr. Pacek. "I would not oppose you. I do not believe that I could,
were I even to try."

Tom was very pleased upon hearing that. It seemed the wizard knew his place, after all.

"Why wait twenty years?" said Tom. "Why not now? Surely you plan on returning to your home
some day soon, and not in a decade's time?"

Mr. Pacek shook his head, letting out a small chuckle. "You are not even halfway through your
education. Though you may dream of politics, as of now you are a schoolboy, not a politician."

"Not everyone needs a school education to do great things," Tom argued, thinking of the whispered
discussions in the Slytherin boys' dormitory where Nott told them what he knew about the Dark
Lord's expulsion, and all of them had thrown their guesses in for what exactly he had to have done
to earn his marching orders. "Some people are the exceptions to the rule. They are exceptional—"

"—You think you are exceptional, boy?"

"I know I am," said Tom, his eyes glittering, his face alight with hunger. "I can prove it."

It was a moment later that Hermione clattered down the stairs with a large, shapeless sack dragging
behind her.

"Look what I have!" she cried.

"It's not a body, is it?" said Tom, blank-faced.

"It's a magic tent!" she said, flinging the sack at him.

Tom spent a few seconds drowning in fabric before it gave a loud WHOOSH! and smoothed itself
out, the walls climbing up around his head, stiffening into rigid lines and expanding outwards until
he found himself sitting on the floor of a small carpeted room, unfurnished and rather plain
looking.

A flap on the side opened, admitting Hermione and Mr. Pacek.

"Mum and Dad got a magic tent for the cellar," said Hermione excitedly, dashing around the room
and uncovering several other flaps on the walls that turned out to be doors. "For the wards to work,
we had to disconnect the electricity and plumbing. If we're to spend any length of time in here, we
need a bathroom—Dad says he can't count how many times someone soiled themselves during a
drill in the public shelters. It's even got a magical cistern with running water in the kitchen. Did I
mention there's a kitchen?"

"Interesting," Tom said in a flat voice. "Do you know what this means?"

"What?"

"Your cellar is officially a better place to live than your actual house," said Tom, getting to his feet
and circling the interior of the tent. When he poked the walls with a finger, they flexed and buckled
but quickly snapped back into shape. "I already have a bed here. So what are the chances of
talking your parents into letting me move down here for the rest of the summer?"

"What about sunlight and fresh air?" Hermione asked, chewing on her lip in thought. Tom could
tell she was considering putting forth an argument on her own account. "We have only the lamps
for light. They might be magical, but it's not the same as going outside."

"I live in an underground dungeon for ten months of the year; I don't mind it at all," said Tom.

Mr. Pacek cleared his throat. "I could offer a magical solution for this—a window that replicates
the view from your bedroom window. It is similar to those in the imperial palaces of Vienna,
created when one of the old archduchesses wanted a view of the gardens outside her summer lodge
in Bolzano. It is not a true window that will open and close, only a pretty picture that moves. But
it does give you that natural sunlight."

"Can you create more than one?" said Hermione eagerly. "Is it difficult? Does the distance
between windows affect the spell's stability?"

Tom sighed. This was going to take a while.

Bearable was a good way to describe Tom's summer.

Throughout the summers of his past, he had been able to go without speaking anything but basic
pleasantries for days at a time. He'd had his own room at Wool's, his own corner table in the
communal dining hall, and he didn't have to go to school during the holidays, so talking to the other
children was an option, not a requirement. He and the other orphans had come to a silent
agreement years ago that if they didn't bother him, he wouldn't be forced to return the favour.

But this summer, Tom found he had no choice but to put in effort to maintain relationships with
other people—to think of things to say beyond commentary on the weather or the war, the two
topics that had in recent times become the centrepiece of casual smalltalk.

It was endurable, because this time around, Tom had magic.

He considered it a test of fortitude to survive middle class suburban life and come out sane and
unscathed. If Hermione could do it for ten years, then he could do it for ten weeks.

Some things were more of a test than others.

Mealtimes were one of these. Tom preferred to spend as much time as he could in the cellar,
reading and practising spells from this Third Year textbooks. But eating was, to his great
annoyance, unavoidable, so three times a day he'd have to drag himself upstairs, sit at the table, and
tear his thoughts away from magical subjects to follow the conversation. News reports from the
wireless were a common topic at the table. Shortages, National Service, evacuations, Luftwaffe
raids in Scotland and Wales. It was Muggle news that Tom would have deemed irrelevant to his
own interests just last year, but was now uncomfortably familiar.

Life had been so much easier at Hogwarts, where his Housemates knew Quidditch held no interest
for him, and being at the top of their year, he had no need to exchange class notes. Since they were
at school, it was acceptable to bring a book to the table; many of his dorm mates did their
homework during breakfast, scrambling to finish the last few inches of their essays only minutes
before the deadline.

At Hogwarts, he knew he was different. He shared meals, a dormitory, a Common Room, and
seven classes with the students in his House, but he maintained a certain distance, a polite but
impersonal demeanour. He was helpful and sympathetic, but not particularly friendly. No one used
his first name. No one touched him, or touched his things without permission. To be fair, this was
considered basic courtesy by most Slytherins, who'd been raised in traditional, conservative
households where the standards of social conduct had been frozen in place from the early
nineteenth century. He wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Edmond Lestrange's mother addressed
his father as 'Mr. Lestrange' instead of his actual given name.

At the Grangers' home, his differences—and his self-imposed distance—were ignored in the name
of hospitality. Dr. and Mrs. Granger wanted him to feel welcome in their home, with their family,
and it was one of the most disconcerting experiences in Tom's life. It wasn't like his first time at the
opera, where he had immediately settled himself in as if he had belonged there, feeling no
awkwardness at being treated with deference by adults two or three times his age, who took his
coat and poured him drinks and called him 'Sir'.

This was the opposite. It was awkward for the Grangers to pretend that he was part of their family;
they had to be aware of it, how artificial the additional member of the 'family' was. Tom studied
their faces when they smiled and passed him the marmalade in the mornings, looking for the signs
of strain in their eyes and the lines of their mouths, the tells of insincerity in their affected
greetings. One of these days he'd catch them as they slipped; he would prove to them that their
ideas about altruism were nothing but lies they told themselves to feel like better people.

Until then, he took them up on their hospitality. There was no reason why he couldn't make the
best of his current situation. For now, he lacked the options to go around turning his nose up at the
prospect of a bed and three square meals a day.

And it helped that Mr. Pacek joined them for dinner on the weekends. He was an adult, treated as
an intellectual equal by Dr. and Mrs. Granger, acknowledged as an expert in his field—but he was
nevertheless an outsider to the family. He was born and raised amongst wizards, and he was
astounded by electrical contraptions like the telephone, the doorbell, and Mrs. Granger's electric
toaster, which he had got into the habit of timing with his pocket watch. It turned itself off after
ninety seconds every single time, to the man's vocal admiration.

He was also European, which meant hearing news of the British front from the wireless didn't
affect him.

It was only natural that Mr. Pacek didn't react to the news that the Germans had dropped a bomb in
London, a week before the start of the school term. It had landed in an area of central London that
was three miles from Wool's Orphanage.

Tom didn't react either, book propped open on his lap from an armchair in the Grangers' sitting
room, but he could feel the weight of Mrs. Granger's pointed looks; she was the first one out of the
family to have calculated the distance in her head. No one said anything for a few minutes while
the wireless announcer urged all residents of Greater London to proceed to their nearest emergency
shelter. Dr. Granger got to his feet and turned the wireless off.

"Shall we retire to the cellar?" said Dr. Granger, folding his newspaper.

"I'm so glad we had everything finished in time," Mrs. Granger murmured to her husband, picking
up her sewing basket and following him to the cellar door.

For the rest of the evening, Tom didn't make a single complaint about the Grangers, not even in his
private thoughts.
 Autonomy

1940

Hermione couldn't think of a good name to call the holiday between her Second and Third Year. So
in her mind, it went by "The Summer That Tom Riddle Lived In My House".

She hadn't noticed until now that she'd divorced her life into two distinct categories: Magical Life
and Muggle Life. They were separate entities in her mind, not ones whose separation she
acknowledged on a day-to-day basis. But they were always in the background, in the shape of her
thoughts, as natural and intrinsic as the distinctions she made between Right and Wrong or Like
and Dislike.

Magical Life was Hogwarts, her future, a new world to explore, an escapist fantasy for a lonely girl
who liked books more than people, and had been called 'Peculiar' since she was eight. Muggle Life
was London and the house in Crawley, living with Mum and Dad, a world of familiarity and logic,
with sensible rules and adult supervision.

Now the categories were converging, the solid lines between the groups intersecting, knotting
together into a tangled cat's cradle of mental associations.

Tom Riddle had been a form of escapism for her when she was ten years old. He was the boy on
the other side of the letters whose passion and fire made her forget that he was a penniless orphan
living on the rougher side of London. On paper, it didn't matter who he was or who he wasn't; she
never saw his face, only his words—and such beautiful words he wrote! From there, she'd built an
image of him in her mind of what she thought he was, an ideal of sorts. But paper was paper, and
reality was more than two dimensional, and although her image been shaken in the first few weeks
of First Year, it hadn't crumbled. The distance had closed somewhat the following year, after they'd
made their peace with each other.

...But now, the remaining distance was fast disintegrating.

How could it not?

More than one morning, she had trudged across the hall half-asleep, and stumbled into Tom Riddle
in her bathroom, brushing his teeth in his pyjamas. His hair wasn't combed into its normal ruler-
straight side part, but dishevelled from sleep, in a way that was more windswept and debonair than
outright scruffy. Tom was never scruffy.

"Good morning," said Hermione, reaching for her own toothbrush.

Tom rinsed his mouth and dropped his toothbrush into his cup with a clatter. "I may be used to
sharing a bathroom, but I don't think I will ever be used to seeing foot-long hairs in the drain."

"Not all of us were lucky enough to be born with perfect hair," Hermione retorted. "And don't you
think it's too early in the morning for sarcasm?"

Tom shrugged. "I always make time for it, somehow."

That about summed up Hermione's ten weeks of close quarters interactions with Tom Riddle.
Infuriating half the time, enlightening the other half, but at no point during the holiday did she ever
feel like Tom would have been better off at the orphanage. She wasn't heartless; despite her belief
that his descriptions of life at Wool's were mostly hyperbole, she certainly wouldn't want to live
there herself. And whilst Tom allowed his natural caustic charm to shine in her presence, he never
forgot his manners around the adults.

Close quarters interactions with Mr. Pacek were a more interesting experience.

The wizard reminded him of their Potions Master, Professor Slughorn. Mr. Sigismund Pacek didn't
slaver over famous names and prominent families like Horace Slughorn did, but similar to the
professor, Mr. Pacek seemed to have been born of good family, and was accustomed to good
living. He liked his comforts: hot food in quantity, top shelf drink, and quality company, and for
the first time in a long while—perhaps for the first time in his entire life—he'd resorted to working
for it, instead of expecting it as a given due to his social position or the prestige of his occupation.

Like Slughorn, Mr. Pacek was knowledgeable beyond the field of his qualifications. Professor
Slughorn, Hermione remembered, was reputed to be an excellent consultant and advisor, a deft
hand at guiding his protégés from entry level employment to fully fledged professional careers. He
had a silent partnership in a profitable apothecary enterprise, Slug and Jigger's on Diagon Alley.
Tom had looked up Potions Mastery programmes, and it turned out that whilst Professor Slughorn
didn't take many apprentices of his own, being too busy with teaching and collecting dinner party
invitations, he did funnel promising ones off to his business partner, Arsenius Jigger.

("If he's such a successful businessman," Tom had grumbled, "then why can't he buy his own
pineapples?")

Mr. Pacek was a qualified wardmaster by trade, but the breadth of his knowledge extended beyond
that. He had a good eye for colour—"And I can lay enchantments on house fittings and furniture,"
he'd said, "because what is enchantment but warding on a smaller scale? The fundamentals are
very similar, just the runes compressed here and inverted there, with a few reversed incantations to
keep the magic in and stable instead of on the outside—but do not ask me to do your jewellery and
lock boxes and pocket watches; I do not like dealing with the fiddly things!"

Besides that, he knew quite a lot about wizarding culture and history.

When Mr. Pacek was in her room, a carpenter's pencil tucked behind one ear, and his wand behind
the other, it was then that Hermione had worked up the courage to ask him about magical
academia... and the less academic side of magic.

He was, as he'd promised, creating a linked window for the cellar, using her bedroom window as
the base. It was good that Mr. Pacek was doing this now, as Mum wanted to install blackout
curtains on all the windows of the house, and until then, Hermione wasn't allowed to turn on the
electric lights after dark. It was advice given them by a government pamphlet that came with the
month's ration booklet.

If Hermione wanted to read after sunset, she'd need to go down to the cellar—where Tom all but
lived these days, ever since her Mum had put her foot down and told him he needed to sleep in the
guest room and eat at the dining table, because she wasn't going to make up a tray for him and
leave it on the cellar stairs, as he'd had the nerve to request. When Mum had told him off, Tom had
sent Hermione a sideways glance, one eyebrow raised, and she could tell he was running a mental
commentary on the uncanny resemblance between Mrs. Granger and her daughter.
Mr. Pacek was pencilling in numbers and symbols on the wooden frame and sash of Hermione's
window, a step ladder propped against the wall. Hermione had asked to observe, since she'd picked
Runes and Arithmancy as her Third Year elective subjects, and had already started reading the
textbooks, with the older wizard patiently answering the thick stack of jotted-down questions she'd
saved up for his weekend visits.

He was a good teacher, she'd told him, and asked why he didn't advertise tutoring services in the
Daily Prophet.

"Most students do not need tutoring except for their two exam years," he explained, laying out his
tools on a drop-cloth on Hermione's bedroom floor. She'd spotted a bow compass, a pair of set
squares, and a rattling tin which turned out to be full of coloured chalk. "And I have not taken the
British qualification exams. What do they call them here? B.A.T.s and F.R.O.G.s? No matter; I
can tell you that wizarding parents would not hire me to tutor their children specifically for the
exam unless I could provide proof of my own exam scores. And to take them at your Ministry of
Magic is not so simple—I would have to take several months off per exam to study to the British
examiners' standards. Of course, I have passed them all with high distinction at the Durmstrang
Institute, but the theory is taught differently there, although the principles have much in common
no matter what school teaches the subject.

"We, for instance, studied Norse runes like you shall in your class, but not the Celtic and Anglo-
Saxon runes as you have shown me in your textbook. Contrary to the Hogwarts syllabus, we were
taught the Slavonic alphabets, and in my senior years, we studied Semitic and Phoenician scripts. I
believe the French school of magic teaches Celtic and Phoenician scripts, but not Norse runes—so
as you can see, this inconsistency in standards goes both ways."

"That sounds unfair," said Hermione, who considered herself a self-appointed ambassador to
Fairness and Justice. "You can cast the same spells and create the same wards as a British wizard,
can't you? The tools might be different, but you're able to build the exact same things."

"It is to the discretion of the governing body," said Mr. Pacek, with an unconcerned shrug. "It is
just the way things are. I do not believe your father would be allowed to practice his craft on the
same day, if he moved to Argentina." He tied a knotted rope to Hermione's curtain rail and marked
off the lines with his pencil, his lips moving as he counted in a language that Hermione didn't
recognise. "But I daresay that if he moved to France tomorrow they would not complain much, if
at all. France is hard up for doctors at the moment."

"In fact," he continued, rifling through his leather roll of tools for a chisel, before he began to chip
small divots into the paint of the window frame. "The French Conseil is openly seeking wands and
warders to defend their official buildings for when the Grand Minister decides to turn his eyes to
the west. I have had letters from my classmates saying that they will not look into one's papers or
past, or even species. I am sure they would offer me a place in their Légion étrangère, should I
wish it—but the dowagers and housewitches of Britain pay me just as handsomely, and do not ask
me to leap headfirst into the dangers of war."

"Is it that dangerous?" Hermione asked, and then stopped herself. Of course war was dangerous.
"I—I mean, I know about the casualties in the Muggle war—my father served in the Medical Corps
twenty years ago—but I also know wizards have all sorts of potions and healing spells, not to
mention they can Apparate. Is it that bad?"
She knew Tom wanted to join the fight when he was old enough, and though she personally
disapproved of war as a concept, she acknowledged that sometimes one had no choice. It was not
always possible to be a pacifist when there was an enemy knocking at the gates. But Tom had not
wanted to join for patriotism, and he cared little about the preservation of Magical Britain. He
didn't want honour and glory so much as he wanted other people to honour and glorify him.

And he wanted an Order of Merlin. First Class preferably, but Third Class would do. A gold
medal was a gold medal, and according to the book he'd found in the library with the current list of
recipients, it was only the colour of the silk ribbon that differed between the Orders, and not the
medal itself.

("You'd hardly notice the difference between ribbon colours, wouldn't you?" Tom had remarked, his
eyes lingering on the coloured illustration plate in the centre of the book. Like most magical
pictures, it was animated. "Once you've got that shiny bit of gold winking from your chest. I bet
wizards don't bother with gold plating or alloys. It'll be solid gold all through, with a hardening
charm or something, to keep the design from rubbing away after a few polishings.")

"It can be," said Mr. Pacek. He scratched his goatee and gazed out through Hermione's second
floor window, deep in thought. "A capable wizard can cast an Anti-Apparition Jinx, which can be
dispelled if one knows the counter-incantation. An even more skilled wizard can create an Anti-
Apparition Ward, which takes longer to anchor, but does not risk being dispelled so easily. And
with that you have taken the average wizard's advantage of mobility. If your opponent loses his leg
with the right curse, he must resort to more mundane transportation to get himself to a Healer or
infirmary. If he tries to Apparate, despite the Ward, despite the pain of his injury, then he will
splinch himself and lose the other leg and perhaps half of his body.

"And that is fighting someone with knowledge and preparation, which many wizards are, especially
those who call themselves soldiers of fortune. It is an entirely different matter to meet Minister
Grindelwald on the field."

Hermione swallowed. "I heard he was expelled as a student, before he even graduated. He must
not have been a good student, mustn't he?"

"'Good'?" Mr. Pacek laughed. "A man like the Minister does not need papers and certificates to
prove what he is capable of. He was never good. He was—is—brilliant. That is what makes him
so formidable: illegality is no obstacle to him; neither is immorality. I have heard that he has, or
has sought a means to, bring puppets of the dead to the field of battle." He gave a low chuckle,
drawing his wand out from behind his ear and twirling it between his fingers. "But these things are
difficult to verify—there are never any witnesses to it, you understand? However, it is too easy to
believe for a man of his capability."

Illegality is no obstacle to him.

In that moment, Hermione was uncomfortably reminded of Tom Riddle. She took a deep breath
and sat herself down on her bed. The quilted blankets were patterned with pink and purple flowers,
the exact design replicated on the blankets over her bed in the cellar. Mum and Dad's bed and
furniture had identical copies too; their corner of the cellar looked like their bedroom transferred to
an open plan studio apartment the size of the house's ground floor.

Hermione decided to ask the things she had wanted answers to for ages. She would have written
them down with her big list of school-related questions, but wouldn't have put it past Tom to read
her notes when she was in the loo. And now that he could do magic in the cellar, he could
duplicate them wholesale with a wave of his wand. It was best not to arouse his suspicions if she
didn't have to. She knew Tom was very touchy when it came to trusting other people. For
someone who didn't care about laws or codes of conduct, it was funny how he considered betrayal
as the worst crime of all.

"Is there such a thing as a ward that acts as protection against being mind controlled?" Hermione
asked. "I've read that there are spells—illegal spells—that can do it, and if there are dangerous
wizards roaming about who don't care about what's legal and what isn't, surely someone would find
a way to protect themselves against it?"

"You are referring to the Imperius Curse, are you not? The third, but no less dark, of the
Unforgivables?" said Mr. Pacek, his wand stilling in his hand. He straightened up, joints creaking,
and peered at her intently. "An unexpected subject for a young lady of your age to be reading into,
I should think."

She wasn't going to tell him that she had been looking into it from the first week of her First Year.

But... The Imperius Curse? The Unforgivables?

Mr. Pacek had inadvertently given her more information to continue her search, one she had been
contemplating putting off until her Seventh Year, when she could apply for the teacher's note and
gain legitimate access to the Restricted Section. She knew that the lack of information had stalled
Tom as well, and he had been forced to skim through shelves of dusty legal tomes for any extra
nuggets of knowledge.

"I..." Hermione began, wishing she was as good a speaker as Tom, "I think that as wonderful magic
is, it's also... terrifying. And there is nothing more frightening to me than having my will, my
agency, my freedom of choice, and sovereignty over my own mind and body stripped from me. I
think that it's the most horrific thing you can do with magic. If it is called Unforgivable, then I
fully agree with that. Sir, I only want to protect myself, and my family, if it's at all possible."

"The main reason why they are called Unforgivable," said Mr. Pacek carefully, still watching her,
"is because there is no way to block them once cast, short of conjuring a physical barrier. Standard
Shield Charms, defensive wards, and most enchanted artifacts will not work against them. The
secondary reason why they are Unforgivable and illegal is that casting them, like most spells,
requires a concentrated power of intent. One must want to strip away the autonomy of another
living being; they must truly desire the act of domination. If such a defensive ward against the
Imperius existed, someone with the power and ability to cast it would be determined enough to find
an alternative. An overpowered, mass Confundus, perhaps. Or a potion laced with hallucinogenic
ingredients, administered in the form of a vapour, or an unguent absorbed through the skin."

"Sir," Hermione choked out, feeling her toes curl in horror, "you're saying there's no way to protect
myself against being—being taken over, if someone really wants it?"

"There are ways," said Mr. Pacek, in a soft voice, his eyes softening at her shocked reaction. "You
must be careful with yourself, Miss Granger. You are a young witch brought up as a Muggle—you
know what I mean by this. Trust the right people, and keep your friends close. And do not make
the wrong enemies. Why do you think I choose to stay away from the war? I do not seek to make
enemies when I know my weaknesses too well. I know I am a good wardmaster—and widely
recognised in Bohemia as a master of the craft—but I was never a great duellist, and that is also
known by anyone who studied at Durmstrang when I was there. These are spells one must have the
reflexes and spontaneity of a duellist to neutrallise."
"It wouldn't go amiss to brush up on my Defence skills," Hermione said, half to herself. She was
great in theory for every subject, but in wandwork she was not nearly as perfect as she wished. She
could memorise the class spell lists, but she didn't have instantaneous reflexes, which she'd found
out the first time she'd gotten on a broom in Flying Class and had almost rammed face-first into a
Quidditch goal hoop while everyone else was turning the corner.

"Your young friend appears to have a natural aptitude at Defence," Mr. Pacek remarked. "I have
noticed that he can produce a tangible Shield Charm, which I recall studying in my own Fourth
Year. It was a small thing, but it was symmetrical around the axis, not ovoid and dim as were my
first attempts; his were impervious to minor to moderate attacks both magical and physical, which
indicates a very powerful caster." He gave Hermione a considering look, and when he spoke, it
was in a low, tired voice. "He would be a good friend to keep close, if you trust him. I do not think
you would enjoy him as an enemy of yours."

If you trust him.

The implications behind that were puzzling.

Did he think that Tom was untrustworthy? Had Tom done something?

Tom usually behaved himself around adults, most of whom thought him a charming lad with good
prospects and good wits about him, whose parentless background made him endearing and brave,
instead of an object of scorn and pity. Tom acted as if the fawning disgusted him, but she knew it
ruffled him something terrible if he didn't get his special sympathetic treatment on a regular basis.

Perhaps that explained why he hated the orphanage so much. Wool's and the likes of Mrs. Cole
couldn't provide him with the kind of stimuli that Hogwarts offered.

Tom liked that Hermione was honest around him, and refused to give him 'Special Treatment'. He
encouraged her to be brutally honest, particularly when it came to their professors and classmates,
and her sorry attempts were amusing to him. Not that she indulged him by trying very hard. She
didn't care for senseless cruelty. Or Tom's sense of humour, for that matter.

He'd told her that watching her struggle with criticism—even if it was valid—was on par to the
entertainment value in watching one of the orphans eat soap.

("I can tell you're just about frothing at the mouth," he'd observed. "It's not quite as good as the
real thing, but I'll make allowances for you.")

"Why wouldn't I trust him?" Hermione asked.

"Do you?"

"Yes?"

"Why is your answer a question, Miss Granger?"

"I don't know?" said Hermione. She wrinkled her noise and attempted to explain herself. "I don't
think he's my enemy, or that he ever would be." She made no mention of their being friends. "But
I do know that he wouldn't hurt me. Not knowingly, or intentionally."
That... sounded slightly bad once the words had passed her lips. Caveats and exceptions made a
statement refutable. They were like missing bricks in a structure: take out one too many and you
wouldn't have a house anymore. And when it rained, you had better hope you had another house
tucked away somewhere.

Tom would never hit her, push her down a staircase, or tear the ribbons out of her hair, as had been
done in her primary school days by other children during their lunch recesses. He wouldn't call her
the names they used, or denigrate her physical appearance; he considered that sort of behaviour
shallow and juvenile, and above all, Muggle.

That didn't preclude the possibility of using magic on her, if he was experimenting on something
and thought it was for a good purpose. He wouldn't use any lethal spells on her, or non-lethal ones
with lethal intent—she still remembered that conversation from two years ago where he'd
contemplated the possibility of using a Knockback Jinx on a moving staircase. They had used the
Knockback Jinx on one another in a later Defence class, and practising together for their First Year
exams. Nothing had happened.

But a magical accident wasn't out of the question, she concluded. A calculated risk gone wrong.

"Such a double-edged sword is one's freedom of choice," Mr. Pacek sighed. "Ah, the vagaries of
youth."

"Do you not trust him?" asked Hermione, who was perplexed at his reaction, and still trying to
work out why. She wasn't sure she was comfortable with someone making insinuations, however
subtle, about Tom's character. Who were they to judge him? They didn't even know him!

She was allowed to judge him, though. She, out of everyone else who thought they knew him,
actually knew him.

"I'm a guest in this house; I am employed by Madam Granger. I do not see it as my place to trust or
distrust a stranger's child," he said, turning to the window and resuming his work. "If you asked me
if I liked him? I could not say. But I... I am conscious of reasons to be wary around him."

"Has he done something?" Hermione frowned. "If he's pranked you, I'll talk to him about it."

"So," replied Mr. Pacek, as he picked up the tin of coloured chalk. "It appears that you do not
know."

"I'm sorry?" said Hermione, "I'm afraid I don't understand what you're getting at. You think Tom is
evil and you don't like him, but you can't tell me why?"

"I was merely being tactful about it," he said. "Magical theory about illicit subjects is one thing,
how they relate to individuals in one's acquaintance is another. Are you not aware that Mr. Riddle
is... particularly perceptive in a certain manner? Sensitive around some people, able to deduce their
intent, and mistrusting of others?"

"He's always like that," said Hermione, defensively. "He doesn't come from the best part of
London, so of course he's learned not to listen to anyone trying to lure him into a dark alley."

"Have you ever looked in his eyes?"

"Y-yes," said Hermione, her sense of certainty wavering ever so slightly.

Tom's eyes were a few shades of brown darker than her own. Indoors, out of direct light, they
looked black. It reminded her of the Lake in early spring, the dark waters still and placid, the squid
and merfolk tucked away and waiting for warmer days. Black water, twenty feet or two hundred
feet down—there was no way to tell—but she was drawn toward it for some inexplicable reason,
until he blinked and the moment passed and she found herself wondering why she was staring at
him.

"I do not know what names the English use for it. But the boy has what some call a form of 'true
sight'," said Mr. Pacek. "A gift such as true Seers have, a type of magical perception that can be
taught and learned, but most effectively in those with some natural proficiency. It is an illicit
subject at Durmstrang, more than even the Unforgivable Curses, which is permissible to discuss in
their theoretical aspects. But the theory of this form of perception is heavily restricted—and it is as
valuable as it is dangerous. He should not be using it so openly."

He's talking about Tom's ability. The one Dumbledore knows about, and has warned him about.

The one she had warned him about, because she didn't want to see him expelled just when he'd
gotten his chance at a better life than either the orphanage or the Muggle world could offer him.

"Will you tell him you know about it?" said Hermione. "One of our professors at school knows
about it, and knows what he's doing, but won't teach him until he's older."

"Your professor is wise," said Mr. Pacek. "And a more experienced mentor than me, I expect. I
can tutor, yes, but I am no one's parent. I shall not tell him."

"If he suspects you know anything," Hermione spoke unhappily, wishing she didn't have to, "he'll
try to persuade you. And he can be quite persuasive when he wants to be."

"I can protect myself, Miss Granger. I have learned enough of the magical arts to divert his
attention elsewhere if he comes to me seeking knowledge," said Mr. Pacek, and her concerns were
pushed aside with a dismissive flap of his hands. "But you should consider protecting yourself."

"How? Is there a way?"

"You must know when not to look him in the eyes when he speaks to you. And if you do speak to
him, think of something with no relation to your words. The pattern of warp and weft on the
bedcovers, or a flickering tongue of flame of a candle in a dark room—think of one thing, imagine
it in perfect detail to the exclusion of all else, and speak of another."

"I don't know if I can do that..." said Hermione dubiously. It seemed as absurd as rubbing her
stomach while patting her head, one of the exercises she'd done in primary school when the
teachers had taught a lesson about brains and muscle co-ordination. She'd found out later that they
had also been checking to see which of their students were left-handed, but that was another story...

...The point was that her thoughts flowed on connections and strings of associations, drawing from
her personal experiences and books she'd read and half-memorised, and the things she'd heard other
people saying, but Mr. Pacek wanted her to—to detach her thoughts like a caboose from the end of
a train, and send it down another track, while she was in another carriage altogether, in the midst of
holding a conversation with someone else.

"Many things require practice to master," he said. "It is the way of the world."
For a few minutes they spoke of practical exercises that would help expand one's mental flexibility.
Mr. Pacek was a good teacher, as Hermione had noted earlier, but he was incredibly
unconventional. She was used to studying from the dry step-by-step descriptions given her by a
textbook author, and even in class, the teachers followed the general techniques as described in the
book. Except for Flying Class, where there was no textbook, just skill and aptitude and a head for
heights, of which Hermione had none—but Flying hadn't been a real class anyway; they weren't
marked or examined like a proper class subject.

Mr. Pacek, for all his imparted knowledge, didn't resemble anything like a textbook. His hands
fluttered when he spoke, like darting butterflies in front of his face. He was always moving around,
doing something with hands, working or drawing or gesturing for emphasis.

"You have heard of the artists, the Impressionists, Seurat and Van Gogh?" he asked, wiping his
hands of powdered chalk with a stained handkerchief. "They employed a technique called
'Pointillism', where the final image is made of thousands of individual dots of paint. From far
away, you see the picture, but up close, only patterns of dots. Consider the process of the artist
putting down each dot, deliberating on its placement and texture and colour, and how he holds this
process in his mind parallel to the final image he wants to create. This is the level of thought one
must master."

Later that night, at dinner, Hermione watched Mr. Pacek as he ate with her family and steered the
tone and direction of the conversation with a few pleasant comments here and there. He was like
Professor Slughorn, but not like him at all. He enjoyed simple pleasures; he ate their food with
hearty appetite, praising Mum's cooking at every remove. He lauded the quality of the coffee she
served with the pudding course, which was a brand of roasted bean that he had personally
recommended at the Continental supermarket.

But unlike their Potions Professor, Mr. Pacek wasn't blinded by favouritism; he didn't see dinner
company as a means of aggrandisement or self-congratulation. And unlike Professor Slughorn, he
wasn't smitten by Tom's perfect manners, his perfectly phrased answers, his perfect hair—in that
same irritating way that butter didn't melt in his mouth, Tom's perfect hair never got stuck in the
drain—or his perfect—false!—smiles.

The wardmaster was different than what she'd expected from the first letters he'd sent her. She had
expected a scholar, and had got an... an Epicurean. He was scholarly, that couldn't be denied, but
he was a worldly one, when she hadn't known that scholars came in more than one type. She'd
always thought that true scholars were those who loved books so much that everything else paled in
comparison, even—especially—the company of other people.

Like her. And like Tom.

She and Tom didn't really have other friends, or "friends" in his case, except for one another. In
Tom's case, it wasn't that he couldn't make friends. He just didn't want any. (Hermione was prone
to bouts of self-consciousness, which made introducing herself to new people a nerve-wracking
endeavour, while Tom's innate arrogance granted him a blanket immunity to social awkwardness.)

By the end of summer, Hermione supposed that she respected Mr. Sigismund Pacek, and even liked
him. He was of an amiable disposition, and a good conversationalist; he presented a certain
evenness of temper that she saw hints of in Tom, but Mr. Pacek's was genuine, while Tom used it as
camouflage for the bitter dregs of dissatisfaction that roiled beneath his skin.
She might even miss Mr. Pacek's company by the time September arrived and they had to return to
Hogwarts.

Although, this year, the return to Hogwarts wouldn't be such a drastic transition between Muggle
and Magical Life, not when they could freely use their wands by descending a flight of stairs, and
she could show her family everything she'd learned in the ten months a year she was gone. And
while she'd miss her parents—of course she would miss Mum and Dad terribly—they knew, and
she knew, that it was better for her to go away to Scotland where it was safe.

Because the war was no longer confined to Germany, or Norway, or France.

It had reached London.

For most of the summer, Tom had sequestered himself away as often as he could, only appearing
above ground to eat his meals, change his clothes, and sleep in the guest room. The last week of
holiday, after the bomb scare, he'd taken to sleeping in the bed made up for him in the cellar, and
Hermione's Mum hadn't opposed it. Mum had even asked if Hermione wanted to join him.

Hermione had.

Although there was a folding screen enchanted with a Silencing Charm between her bed and his—it
was a similar level of privacy to the Hogwarts Hospital Wing—she could tell by the glow of light
through the semi-translucent screen that he kept late nights. He wasn't just studying ahead for their
regular subjects and the three electives each they'd picked for Third Year, he was prioritising
Defence to a level beyond the upcoming year's curriculum. She only knew this because she'd seen
him scribbling in his textbook on the way back from the bathroom.

She'd observed how he'd kept to himself for the last fortnight of their holiday, especially the last
few days, devouring his books and practising magic with the frenzy of an O.W.L.s student the night
before the exam. She would have called him out on his lack of sociability, but he wasn't so far
gone as to treat her parents poorly or ignore their requests. Besides, she'd reminded herself, it
wasn't like she hadn't been much different the first few weeks after receiving her Hogwarts letter.

Tom had tested the wards in a corner of the cellar by flinging Incendios at the walls, while Mr.
Pacek reclined on a conjured velvet fainting couch with a half-smile on his face, his eyes cast down
on the rune-carved wooden frame that was to be Hermione's bedroom window. Now and again, he
would offer advice to improve Tom's spellcasting, in his usual whimsical way.

"Your casting intent is incomplete—it is not just an image of fire you must focus on, but a true
facsimile in your mind. Think of not just the height of the flame, or the richness of colour, not only
what you can see, but what you can feel: the radiant energy, the exchange of light and heat for fuel
and air; think of the brightest summer day at noon, when you lift your face to the sky and the light
has strength enough to bring tears to your eyes," said Mr. Pacek, his voice rising and falling as if he
was reciting a player's soliloquy. "Gather that light within you and then speak the incantation."

It seemed overdone to Hermione, who'd learned to cast Incendio in class last year, and had gotten a
small, controlled jet of flame each time. Enough to light candles, dispose of scrap parchments, or
work the burner under her cauldron in Potions class.

With the right visualisation and intent and many hours of practice, Tom eventually turned his
version of Incendio into roaring fireballs the size of his head, splashing off the walls and
dissipating, leaving shimmering waves of heat that whistled like a kettle on the boil. Then the
energy of the spell was drawn out by the wards, and Tom was left panting, his cheeks pink and his
hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.

Tom didn't even say 'Thank you'.

Hermione wondered if he even liked Mr. Pacek. In fact, she wondered if Tom liked her parents.
He was polite to them, but then again, he was polite to their teachers, but that didn't stop him from
making uncharitable comments outside of class, on their Transfiguration teacher's choice of attire
wrought with custom animation charms, or their Herbology professor's off-key singing voice as he
watered the Tentaculas.

Tom didn't exactly get along with most adults. Tom Riddle and authority figures was like oil and
water, or as he would put it, "like Professor Slughorn and sobriety".

The journey to Hogwarts was the most subdued that it had ever been—even more than the first
time, when Tom was nursing that petty, month-long grudge about nothing.

The whole family had driven to King's Cross, which had triple the number of soldiers as there had
been a few months ago at the beginning of their summer holiday, many of whom looked quite
young to Hermione's eyes. They were young men not much taller than Tom, with soft faces,
smooth skin, and only a shadow on their upper lip showing that they couldn't even grow proper
whiskers.

There were also very few children. The First of September was the day of the year that most
schools across Britain began the school term, and the station should have been packed with well-to-
do families sending their children off to boarding school. But the children of London had been
evacuated months ago, and the local schools closed for the interim. Today, she and Tom and Mum
and Dad made a rare group of civilians, surrounded by serious men in drab uniforms aiding the war
effort.

Dad shook Tom's hand, and Mum gave Hermione one last hug, pressing a kiss to her cheek before
pushing them off to the hidden platform and the scarlet locomotive.

"I'm joining the Duelling Club this year," Tom announced, after they'd locked the doors of their
compartment and shoved their bags into the overhead rack.

"You have three electives on top of your regular class load!" said Hermione reproachfully, taking
out her Arithmancy textbook and starting from page one for the second time that week. In her first
year at school, she had looked into what kind of extracurriculars Hogwarts offered, but none of
them had appealed to her. The student choir, the Quidditch reserves, Gobstones Club, and an
invitation-only tea salon run by the upper year Slytherin girls.
(The fact that she wasn't good at any of their activities, and had no acquaintances among the current
members of any club was not a factor in her decision to focus on her schoolwork. Yes, definitely.)

"You'd have to cut off my wand hand before I'd have a chance at dropping from O's to EE's," said
Tom. "And even if you did, Slughorn would write me a note to let me re-sit my exams. Not that I'd
need to, of course, but the thought still counts for something."

"You know, Tom," said Hermione, with a loud sigh of exasperation, "I wouldn't mind so much that
you get better marks than me in half our subjects, if only you were more modest about it."

"Like I am with everyone else?" said Tom, propping his feet up on the opposite bench. Hermione
noticed that his shoelaces were green. "'Oh, just read over the textbook and take good notes each
lesson, maybe you'll get first next time around, eh?'" He let out a mocking laugh. "I think you
know the reason why you ever earn first is not because you've read the textbook and taken notes.
All the Ravenclaws read the textbook and take notes, but there's only one top mark."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Yes, alright! But it's not nice for you to rub it in like that."

"What's the harm?" asked Tom. "Silencing Charm on the door. No one's going to hear. And you
aren't going to tell everyone that Big Bad Tom Riddle slaps kittens around when no one's watching,
are you?"

She was relieved to see that he was back in top form. No longer the silent and almost manic
version of himself, but the regular old Tom who'd torn himself out of his books... to tear into other
people. She'd never admit to enjoying his comments; it wasn't light-hearted comedy, and he wasn't
a light-hearted person.

But it was him.

And Tom without his misanthropy was like Professor Slughorn without his nightly tipple.

When they arrived at Hogwarts, the holidays soon became a distant dream under a barrage of
essays and assigned readings and half-awake evenings spent charting the rise of Mars in the
Astronomy Tower. In the quiet peace of Scotland, the London newspapers arrived only
sporadically. There was not a single wireless set in sight, and not a single air-raid siren had broken
her sleep. The dangers of the Muggle world seemed far away. Even the unrest on the magical side
of Continent under the rising Grand Minister felt like it would never reach them.

The first half of the school term flew by, their teachers emphasising that this year would be the
most intensive they'd had yet. First and Second Year were introductions to magic and basic
technique, as well as studying habits for all the students who'd been taught at home or with the
village tutor until they'd gotten their Hogwarts letters. Third Year was the beginning of their
O.W.L.s preparation.

Hermione found that she excelled at Arithmancy and Runes. It hadn't been much of a surprise:
Tom had spent his holidays challenging himself with intermediate Defence spells and learning to
cast the lower-level ones at full power—although why he wanted to be able to cast Lumos brighter
than a bundle of railroad flares going off at once, and in different colours than the standard blue-ish
white, she didn't know. She'd only ever used it for reading books at night, or going to the loo in the
dark.
In comparison, Hermione had spent her holiday going through her electives' textbooks. She'd spent
two years on her core subjects, but this would be her first year with her three electives. She wasn't
going to start on the first day without knowing a single thing. And her family had a professional
wardmaster calling on them once a week, an opportunity for advance preparation that not even her
wealthy, wizard-raised classmates could boast.

Not that she boasted about it. Tom couldn't understand modesty, but Hermione could.

(That didn't sound like boasting, did it?)

She cared about fairness—or the outward observation of fairness, at least—and personally, she
would have been irritated if one of her classmates went on about their private summer tutoring,
having tea with members of the examinations board, or hands-on lessons with a notable textbook
author. Even if they had enjoyed such an advantage over the rest of their year, and she was sure
that a couple of her Housemates did, or had a wizarding parent on hand or an owl away, ready to
explain their coursework—which none of the Muggle-raised students had—it was in poor taste to
make it public.

Well, it would have served them quite right if, for all the perks of their wizarding connections, they
still couldn't take the coveted first rank in any subject.

Even with the extra classes, school seemed duller this year than it had the previous. She put it
down to not having an extracurricular project weighing on her mind, as she'd had when she worried
about the war, the safety of her parents, and her own well-being during the summer. The war had
come; there was no longer any political bickering about appeasement or concessions. Mum and
Dad were protected now, and so she could relax, but somehow she felt... listless.

Because she'd found her solution, and yet Tom was still chipping away at his own personal
projects.

Hermione decided that the best course of action was the one that had never failed her: going to the
library. She'd learned the name of the spell she'd discovered back in First Year, and she was aware
that the most comprehensive information would be locked away in the Restricted Section for the
eyes of older students only. Well, it wasn't as if she wanted to cast those illegal spells anytime
soon. Or even better, at all.

So it didn't matter to her that none of the books would teach her how to cast them; in fact, she
thought that it was probably better this way. Tom would have found them in First Year otherwise.
She wanted to know more about the general magical theory, more than the glancing references she
and Tom had found from reading law proceedings published over a century ago. Because,
truthfully, some part of her was still very anxious about the concept of magical mind control, and
the many forms it could take in the hands of wizards.

And having it confirmed for her by a trusted adult authority?

It was frightening, and she didn't want to be frightened. She wanted to be well-informed, and well-
prepared.

If she could find information in the regular sections of the library—and not in the Restricted areas
—then it would hardly be dangerous information, would it? They wouldn't let dangerous
information be accessible for anyone who stumbled upon it.
Mr. Pacek had said that the theory of Unforgivable Curses, if not the practice, was not against the
rules to discuss when he had gone to school. It wasn't against the rules at Hogwarts, as far as she
knew, because there were books about them in the library, albeit restricted. She also knew that
Durmstrang had a reputation for the Dark Arts, but the wardmaster had studied there, and it was
very clear that he was a wardmaster, and not a Dark Wizard.

With a research project to focus on, Hermione felt a renewed sense of purpose.

She would make Third Year interesting. She was far too young to be jaded about the magical
world.

And later, Hermione rescinded her judgement of Third Year being boring when Tom Riddle set a
wardrobe on fire in Defence, along with a good half of the classroom.
 The Wardrobe Incident
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1941

Tom had the misfortune of being invited to the Deputy Headmaster's office for tea, not long after
Christmas. It appeared that he had made the mistake, once again, of drawing Professor
Dumbledore's eye.

The invitation was delivered by a school owl at breakfast, so early in the morning that many of the
other students who'd stayed for the holiday hadn't even woken up. Why should they? It wasn't as if
they had classes to go to, so most of them preferred to sleep in until noon. Winter in Scotland
meant that following a school day routine would have them getting out of bed before the sun rose,
and few of them were motivated enough to do that.

Tom was motivated. The library opened at eight o'clock. Wasting time with sleep was throwing
away his education.

That motivation, however, began to fade at noon, and was gone completely by three in the
afternoon.

His feet had dragged across the stones of the castle and down the stairs to the First Floor where
Dumbledore's office sat at the base of its own tower. Tom's arm, as if laden with a great weight,
hesitated at the heavy, iron-bound oak door when he raised his hand to knock.

The bells in the clocktower chimed the hour.

One, two, three.

The echo of the last peal faded away into the howling winds of a Scottish winter.

He knocked.

The locking mechanism clicked. The door swung open.

Dumbledore was inside the office, sitting behind the desk, his fingers laced together and thumbs
twiddling to suggest that he had been waiting for a while, but didn't mind it in the least because he
was having a jolly time twiddling away by himself. He wore robes in a rich aubergine purple; the
inner lining of his wide, trumpet-shaped sleeves was in watered silk the colour of antique gold,
which caught the light with every movement of his hands.

The lamps in the room were lit, casting a warm golden light over the desk, and the office was
arranged as it had been the last time Tom had seen it: the phoenix on its golden stand preening its
feathers, the snowy scene behind the high, arched windows, the bookcases and magical
instruments, and the squashy armchair in front of the desk, upholstered in red leather with gilded
wooden lions' paws for legs.
There was a tray on the desk containing a full tea service and tiered cake stand. The teapot was
steaming.

"Good afternoon, Tom. Please, have a seat," said Dumbledore. The interlaced fingers unlaced, and
one hand gestured grandly to the chair in front of the desk.

Tom sat, adjusting his robes so they wouldn't wrinkle.

"Professor," Tom began, his lips parted, his eyes wide and guileless, in that innocent expression that
Hermione called his 'Wheedling Face'. It worked well on adults, and he'd used it during the
summer to stay up another quarter hour past his official bed time. At Hogwarts, it allowed him to
borrow one or two extra books past his ten-book limit at the library.

"Is this about what happened in the Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson? Professor Merrythought
cleared it up right away, and said I was excused for it. Emotions running wild, in the heat of the
moment." Tom looked down at his hands, abashed. Then he glanced up through his eyelashes at
the disappointingly indifferent Dumbledore on the other side of the table. "It was just a bit more
literal in my case, you see, sir."

"As a matter of fact, Tom, that is what I wished to discuss," said Dumbledore. He reached over the
desk and slid the tea tray closer to himself. "But first, let's start with something more important.
Tea!"

Dumbledore picked up an upside-down teacup and turned it the right way around with one hand; he
held the other hand over the tray, his fingers wriggling like flobberworms in a bucket, and the cup
and saucer closest to Tom lifted up and floated over to him. The spoons clinked, the teapot poured,
and the dish of lemon slices made its way to Tom's hand, the silver serving tongs opening and
closing like the jaws of a tiny crocodile.

A basic, single-function animation charm, thought Tom, watching the proceedings with an
assessing eye. Now that he knew more about magic than he had back in First Year, he was more
critical about other people's spellcasting. A minor one that most witches and wizards past their
O.W.L.s can perform, and most that have passed their N.E.W.T.s could do wordlessly. I've seen it
done in half the shops of Diagon Alley. But he did it wandlessly.

And Hermione calls me a braggart.

Tom served himself lemon. When he set the tongs back onto the dish, it lifted up and returned to
the tea tray. Dumbledore picked a few biscuits off the cake tray and placed them on the side of his
saucer, next to his cup.

"Lemon shortbread, Tom? No? They are excellent, if I do say so," Dumbledore said, munching on
a biscuit. "To return to the topic of discussion, I'd like to hear your perspective on the incident
during the lesson. I've heard from Galatea, of course, who says it was an overenthusiastic reaction
from a student who's always been keen on the wandwork, but in all my years of teaching, I don't
think anyone has reacted quite like you."

"What would you like to know in particular, Professor?" asked Tom. He considered drinking his
tea, but thought it might look like he was trying to buy time to fabricate a story. Better to keep his
hands in his lap. "The lesson was... distressing. I don't think I was the only one who thought that.
Plenty of students went to the Hospital Wing afterwards for Calming Draughts."
"I want to know how you set the classroom on fire. Where did you learn that spell?"

"Charms class, last year," answered Tom without a moment's hesitation. "Incendio, the fire-making
charm." He gave the professor a wavering smile. "I suppose I got a bit carried away there. It was
a uniquely disturbing situation for me."

Dumbledore nodded. "I will not deny that facing down a boggart for the first time can be
disturbing. But, Tom, you destroyed it."

"A boggart is an amortal being, according to Slinkhard's Defensive Magical Theory. Similar to a
poltergeist, it's neither alive nor dead, so I can't have killed it," Tom quoted from the textbook.
Hermione did it all the time in class, and the teachers tossed House points at her like they thought
Ravenclaw deserved a chance at winning the House Cup. "And I can't say I'm sorry for...
destroying, as you describe it, a creature—a magical object—that only exists to make people feel
bad. Am I wrong? Am I a bad person, sir, for not being worried about it?

"In my view, I think you should be more concerned with the students accidentally Vanishing or
disfiguring their specimen animals in your Transfiguration class. Those beetles are definitely
alive." Tom coughed for emphasis before he continued. "Or were, that is. I always treat mine with
respect. I, for one, saw Merton Bancroft poke his beetle so hard with his wand that its wing fell
off. If anyone needs watching, it's him—there's something not quite right about how quickly he
goes through his practice animals."

"I will make a note of that when lessons resume next term," said Dumbledore genially, before he
adjusted his spectacles and leaned forward. "However, it seems to me that your moral qualms
would not be an issue at all, if you simply used the spell Professor Merrythought taught in class.
Riddikulus."

"In hindsight, perhaps. But, sir, is it unreasonable for a person to confront their worst fear in the
face, and not be able to call it ridiculous?"

"Would you like to talk about it, Tom?"

"No, sir," said Tom. "I'm not sure how that would help my situation."

"Nevertheless," Dumbledore spoke in a tone that wouldn't permit further quibbling, "I'm afraid that
you haven't explained the 'situation'—" and Tom could hear the emphasis on the word, as if
Dumbledore thought the situation they were in right now was ridiculous, and Tom's reluctance to
speak about it baffling. "—As you see it. I should like to be enlightened, if you don't mind."

But Tom did mind, so he decided to give Dumbledore the abridged version.
The 'Situation', as Tom settled on calling it, not having any better name to use, had its roots in the
summer holiday.

There was no definite single moment or act during the summer that had directly led to the incident
in Defence class. It was a number of things, a compilation of abstract ideas and images that Tom
saw as weaknesses, brought out into the light and paraded in front of half the students in his year, to
be laughed at.

The first moment was when it had sunk in that he was out of the orphanage, the place that he hated,
but for most of his life, was the only place he'd ever known and had expected to know until he was
eighteen. He was in the Grangers' house, and the implications of that offer of hospitality had not
struck him until he'd woken up the next morning in an unfamiliar bed, washed his face in an
unfamiliar bathroom, and when he was more than half-awake, he'd looked into the unfamiliar
mirror.

The mirror was a single rectangular pane, uncracked, no signs of mildew growing between the
glass and the silver backing. It was fogged up from someone having showered a few minutes
before he'd gone in. When he tore back the curtain on the shower, he saw a clean porcelain tub—
no suspicious black rings around the inside of the tub, and again, no mildew or a line of mossy
green under the faucet fixture—and then the foggy steam spiraled out, smelling sweetly of flowers.

A floral scent—a very familiar scent—and in that moment, Tom felt ill.

Ill wasn't exactly the best way to describe it, but he couldn't think of what else that it could be, as
he couldn't remember experiencing this particular malady before. It made him uncomfortable, as if
there was something caught in his throat, not a lump of phlegm, but words trapped inside his chest
like a consumptive cough; he felt as though he was meant to say something, but he had no idea
what to say and why he should speak at all—

He'd already begun dissecting his symptoms and possible causes—diphtheria, tuberculosis,
athsma, anaphylaxis—didn't Dr. Granger have a bookshelf in the sitting room filled with medical
textbooks he could run down and borrow without anyone noticing?—before he realised that while
the discomfort was strange due to its unfamiliarity, he wasn't exactly screaming in pain, coughing
up chunks of bloody lung tissue, or having a seizure on the bathroom floor.

That scent followed him around the rest of the summer. He chose to avoid it where he could, and
focused his thoughts on other, more important things when he couldn't. In the end, he considered it
one of the many ordeals of surviving middle class suburban life, in the same category as making
mealtime conversation, and offering to help clear the table each time, even though he preferred to
go back to his room to study.

He considered himself lucky to have come out of it unscathed.

(In the back of his mind, he still associated that scent with his first summer of unlimited magic.)

The second moment was the day the Germans attacked London.

He'd known already that the German airplanes had targeted other parts of Britain in the weeks
preceding the attack on London. Airfields and supply bases and ports, logistical centres that only
made sense to Tom to go after first. The kind of tactics the Germans had used against their
neighbours were those that disabled their opponents before the opponents had a chance to retaliate.
He had supposed, along with most of the British civilian population who weren't actively engaged
in the war effort, that they could keep their heads down and let the soldiers and generals sort out the
conflict. The German agenda wasn't their own, and the politics behind entering the war, whatever
personal opinions they might hold, was the dominion of ministers and statesmen. They would
ration their resources, follow the news from overseas, but for the most part, life went on, and they
weren't directly affected beyond the rising prices of basic goods at the grocery market, and the
complete disappearance of luxury goods.

Then the bombings began, a week or two before the start of the school term, each night-time raid
growing closer and closer to the centre of London.

Tom spent his evenings wondering what would happen if the cellar door was blocked on the outside
by fifty tonnes of rubble. A Levitation Charm was one of the first spells he'd learned at school, but
they'd practised by lifting feathers and textbooks in class. Tom knew he could lift his bedstead if he
pushed himself, but that was a single solid piece of metal. Lifting a thousand crumbly bits of brick
and asphalt and broken glass was another challenge altogether. How would one use the charm
without having to levitate one brick at a time? Was it a matter of focusing his intent, or a different
wand movement beyond the standard swish-and-flick?

He experimented with variations on simple First and Second Year spells to fill in the hours between
dinner and breakfast. He succeeded in non-verbal casting for a few of them, because after so many
repetitions he didn't need the words to focus his mind on the spell. But as productive as he could be
—and he chose to be productive when he otherwise would have spent the night staring at the
ceiling—some part of him couldn't help wonder if all this effort would be for naught.

The magic tent had a bathroom that ensured they'd never run out of fresh water, but they only had a
limited supply of food, and the only person in the household who could duplicate food and
Apparate was Mr. Pacek, who wasn't really a part of the household at all.

(Neither was Tom himself, for that matter.)

Tom had gone to the Defence lesson tense, without the confidence he'd had in every other lesson,
where he'd known without a doubt that he was the best in the class.

He headed straight for the back of the queue and ignored the pushing and back-thumping bravado
that the other Slytherin boys used to disguise their insecurities. He didn't care about what might
pop out for them when they stood in front of the wardrobe in the centre of the classroom. It was
probably something as stupid, trite, and insignificant as a broken racing broomstick, or their
mothers' likenesses telling them that they were illegitimate bastards who were never going to
inherit the family holdings.

Poor babies, thought Tom. It was pathetic that their sense of self-worth was completely dependent
on their surnames.

Tom was the last to face the boggart.

He stood in front of the wooden armoire, watching the double-leaved doors creak open to reveal the
face of his worst fears.

It wasn't a face at all.

It was a formless pile lumped on the floor in front of his feet. Masonry, loose bricks and powdered
mortar, chunks of torn concrete baring great spears of steel rebar like the ribs of a beached whale.

This isn't very scary, thought Tom, raising his wand and revising the wand movements.

Clink!

A pebble shifted off the pile and rolled over to Tom's left foot. He glanced down at the rubble, and
his eyes widened.

There was a hand, smeared with blood, coated in dust, scrabbling around the debris. Pale skin,
slender fingers, short-trimmed nails, scraping away at the crushed brickwork, to reveal a gnarl of
white wooden flinders. The bodiless hand dug at the rubble, frantically now, uncovering more bits
of wood, all of them smashed into thin splinters, then a bedraggled orange feather, and finally, a
dirty and tattered bit of pink cloth. A piece of someone's clothing—what appeared to be the sleeve
of a little girl's coat, with gold buttons on the cuff winking under a layer of grime...

Tom wasn't afraid when he stared down at his boggart.

He was angry.

He couldn't remember ever feeling as angry as he did in this moment. This wasn't the kind of bitter
aggravation he'd have felt at being sent to bed without supper, or being smacked by the
schoolmaster for speaking out of turn. This was pure outrage, the kind of all-consuming, blinding
fury he would have felt had he returned to Wool's for the summer and seen some grubby little
orphan in his room, sprawled over his bed, dirty shoes planted flat on the blanket, perusing his
books, his trinket collection, all his belongings and worldly possessions...

The stupid boggart was wearing his form.

He'd forgotten he was supposed to cast Riddikulus while thinking of something funny to turn it
into. In that moment, humour was the furthest thing from his mind.

Tom pointed his wand at the wardrobe, and the first spell he thought of, a spell that came
automatically to his hand and mind, was one he knew would make it go away for good.

He cast it without a second thought.

A few seconds later, he felt a wave of heat billow up in front of him, like a thick woollen blanket
pressed against his mouth and lips, squeezing the breath from his lungs; he heard a shrill squeal,
and then clanking from within the wardrobe, like the sound produced by turning on a rusty, half-
frozen tap in the middle of winter. He heard screaming children behind him, the thunder of their
feet as they backed away from the boggart's pyre, and then Professor Merrythought was yelling at
everyone to calm down and step back, and head on out into the corridor until she could get the
mess cleared up.

He hadn't meant to cause the desks behind the wardrobe to go up in smoke, but the wardrobe itself
was definitely deliberate.

When Merrythought had set the classroom back to rights, she'd patted him on the shoulder and told
him that since he was the last, and everyone else had had their turn, there was no harm done. Then
she asked him for his wand.
"What for?" asked Tom, in the midst of brushing the soot off his robes.

"I'd like to see what spell you used," said the professor, "since you cast it non-verbally."

"Oh," said Tom. He could do Lumos, Wingardium, and Silencio, and he was working on
Alohomora, but he hadn't gotten to the point where he could cast Incendio without speaking the
incantation. Well, apparently he could now. He reached into his pocket and drew out his wand.
"Here you go."

Merrythought tapped his wand with hers, and a small, transparent tongue of flame wobbled out of
the end of Tom's wand like the head of burning matchstick.

"'Incendio'," pronounced Merrythought. "Yours was so powerful that it almost looked like a
Confringo, which won't be taught until your N.E.W.T. years. I'd have had to report this incident to
your Head of House for further review if that were the case."

"Sorry for causing all the trouble," said Tom ruefully, shuffling his feet. "But, Professor, I read that
Confringo had a kinetic aspect; it produces fire and force, while Incendio produces only the fire."

"You're correct, Riddle. Two points to Slytherin," replied Professor Merrythought. She handed his
wand back to him. "A Confringo that produces force in ratio with the fire of your Incendio would
have sent the desks flying to the opposite wall, broken the windows, and caused a tornado of
splinters to blast the whole classroom. It's a spell best applied outdoors. So, Mr. Riddle, I should
advise you to stick to the curriculum next time. If there is any difficulty in completing the class
assignment, ask a teacher before you attempt something on your own."

"Of course, Professor." Tom bobbed his head, the anger having faded away to leave him with his
usual low-level annoyance with the people around him. He'd rather not have to smarm it up with
his professor, but he didn't regret setting the boggart on fire one bit.

"We'll call this one an early mark," she sighed. Then she pointed him out the door and told him to
inform the other students that they could go to lunch ten minutes early.

"—And it wasn't so much that there was a body under that rubble, but the fact that it was mine,"
said Tom, setting his teacup back on the saucer. "It reminded me that with the Muggle war going
on, a bomb falling on me while I'm asleep isn't out of the realm of possibility, at least compared to
the other students' boggarts. I admit, the grindylow one was scary, but the one with the giant
talking centipede was just absurd."

"Are you afraid of it coming true, Tom?" asked Dumbledore. He'd eaten his way through two trays
of biscuits during Tom's (abbreviated) recounting of the Defence class incident.
"Who wouldn't be afraid of it?" said Tom. "Students aren't allowed to stay at Hogwarts during
holidays, magic isn't allowed out of school, and the majority of Muggle-raised students don't have
access to the same safety features that their wizard-born peers have. Sir, of course I think it's
alarming."

"Is it the Muggle bombs or the concept of death itself that troubles you?"

"Death, of course," said Tom. "The bomb could easily be something else: being gassed in the
streets, a mis-aimed mortar landing in the wrong place, or being shot in the back and bleeding out
during an actual invasion. There's quite a lot of variety actually, although I do have my doubts on
whether they'd offer me a chance to pick and choose."

He had hated his boggart's appearance, but the pile of rubble was preferable to seeing a magical
representation of Private Fritz stepping out of the wardrobe and pointing a loaded machine gun at
the class. His dorm mates had been respectful of the Incident afterwards, the Slytherin boys
pretending that they weren't curious about why Riddle's greatest fear was a midden, and Tom
pretending that they hadn't screamed like girls on their way out of the classroom. He didn't think
that they would be quite so respectful if they'd seen what was obviously a Muggle man in a strange
uniform as Tom's weakness.

He knew he could produce a decent Shield Charm, but it was shield-shaped, a flat half-dome that
appeared in front of the caster's wand. It wasn't a full protection. He knew from attending
meetings with the Duelling Club that while he could protect his front, someone could always aim
and hit him in the back when he wasn't looking. In London, it wouldn't be a Tickling Charm or
Tripping Hex he'd have to watch out for, but an actual lead bullet or shrapnel grenade.

"Death is not always the worst fate to befall a person," said Dumbledore, calmly gazing at Tom
over the remains of the tea tray. "One tends to enjoy their life more when they accept that it's not
always a final end, but rather, a fresh beginning."

If Tom had been three years younger, he would have gaped at the professor upon hearing those
words; had Tom been six years younger, he would have pushed his chair back and walked out, as
he had done during Reverend Rivers' regular Easter visit to the orphanage. The good Father had
told the flock of orphans that their parents might have left them, but they shouldn't let it bother
them, because Mummy and Daddy were sure to be happy in God's blessed arms, and one day they
would reunite... but only if they were good little boys and girls who listened to Mrs. Cole and
remembered their bedtime prayers.

But Tom was fourteen, and he had become wise to the ways of the world. He knew that some
adults were so self-important as to think that they had been given a greater calling, and if they were
ever placed in a position of power, saw it as their duty to safeguard their lessers. Queen Victoria
had forced her values on British society for over half a century; Professor Dumbledore was now
doing it to Tom. And the next thing he knew, Dumbledore would be slipping Tom pamphlets inside
his marked homework, inviting him to join a wizarding Freemasonry society or something.

If Slughorn could host his own mentoring club right under the Headmaster's nose, then Dumbledore
could do it too.

Tom knew that he was sensationalising the situation, but nothing made him want to pull out his
Devil's Advocate pitchfork as much as someone attempting to set themselves up as his morality
supervision.
"A fresh beginning?" said Tom, cocking his head and mentally sharpening the tines of his
pitchfork. "I'm afraid that I'm not very well-informed on the nature of wizarding religion. Do
wizards believe in re-incarnation?"

"Not a religion as such, but it's my personal belief—and one shared by the majority of wizards and
witches—that the soul of a magical being is immortal and continues on after the physical passing of
the body."

"That sounds like religion to me," Tom remarked, and was tempted to ask if boggarts had souls. He
guessed that since they weren't classified as 'beings' in the textbooks, they didn't. But making a
point out of it, and gloating over the moral implications of the Incident, or lack of them, was
pushing the envelope too far for his comfort. "Are you sure there's not a wizarding Heaven? If
there is, I don't think my Housemates would want it unless they were sure they wouldn't have to
share it with Muggles."

"What happens in the beyond is up to your own imagination," replied Dumbledore, watching Tom
carefully. Tom's expression didn't twist into a sneer of derision as it would have for Reverend
Rivers. He met Dumbledore's eyes calmly and refused to look away or blink, even when he started
feeling his eyelids prickle from holding them open for so long. "But personally, I think of death as
the next great adventure."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Tom, hoping that he didn't sound as incredulous as he felt, "are you
saying that one should look forward to dying?"

"I merely suggest that when the time comes—as everyone's time must come—one ought not to face
it with fear," Dumbledore said, giving him a pleasant smile.

"Well, I suppose I'll keep that in mind when I go back to London for the summer," Tom said in a
flat voice.

"Tom, you have my sympathies. The situation isn't ideal, and I understand if you've felt that the
school authorities are not people you're willing to turn to," Dumbledore spoke earnestly, his eyes
imploring behind his wire-rimmed spectacles, and for a few seconds Tom almost found himself
believing the old man. "I know that I wasn't able to offer you a solution in your first year here, but
it would be remiss of me to disregard your concerns now. I believe I can offer you a solution that
will grant you some peace of mind."

"'Peace of mind'?" echoed Tom. "It's not conclusive proof of wizard Heaven, is it?"

Dumbledore slid open his desk drawer, rooted around for a few seconds, and drew out what looked
like a button on a piece of string. A large button in the style one would find on an overcoat or
mackintosh, round and made out of wood instead of Bakelite, with four holes punched in the centre
where it could be sewed onto a garment.

Dumbledore held it up over the desk, turning it over and showing it to Tom. It really was just a
wooden button, strung on a bit of twine as would be used for tying parcels for owl mail.

"This is a single-use Portkey," he said, "one that will activate if you tap it with your wand and say
the word 'Dumbledore'. I expect you to use it only in the direst emergency. Hogwarts will be
closed for the summer, and I will be travelling abroad during the summer once again, so I cannot be
present to meet you. Instead, this Portkey will transport you to Hogsmeade, to the front step of one
of the taverns. The barkeeper there will grant you lodging until it's safe enough to return to
London."

Tom took the button and ran his fingers over it. It looked like a button and felt like a button, not
like anything magical at all. "And you're giving this to me now, sir?"

"The incident in your Defence class made me hope that you would seek help from others if you
were given help in return," said Dumbledore, closing his desk drawer and setting his hands on his
desk. "I have viewed Galatea's recollection of what happened that day, and the non-verbal casting
technique you demonstrated is one I believe I have seen before. It's a method of casting that puts
power before precision, and is one favoured by schools that teach martial magics—an offensive
approach that isn't taught at Hogwarts, where we emphasise defence. I'm curious as to where you
learned it."

"It seems intuitive to me," said Tom, who had some suspicions of what Dumbledore was trying to
tiptoe around asking. "Strange things used to happen to me when I was younger, but I know now
that it was accidental magic. I didn't know any incantations, nor did I even own a wand for the
proper movements, so it always seemed possible to perform magic without having to follow the
directions from a book. Just wanting or needing something was enough to make things happen."

"Is there anything else you can tell me about it, Tom?"

"No, sir," said Tom. "Nothing."

"Very well," said Dumbledore. "I must ask you to be more careful with that kind of magic in
future. Refinement and precision are useful magical skills that a wizard cannot properly learn if he
only ever relies on raw power. And there are some solutions that cannot be found just by applying
more power. Alchemy, the magical discipline I teach N.E.W.T. students, is an example of such."

"Thank you for the advice." Tom squeezed the Portkey button in his hand, feeling the rounded
edges digging into his palm. "Is that all, sir?"

"I look forward to seeing you in class next term," said Dumbledore, standing up and brushing
crumbs off his purple robes. He pulled his wand out of his sleeve and tapped the tea tray, which
disappeared with a small pop. "You'll find out officially next week, but I am happy to tell you that
you achieved the top score out of the year on the end of term exam."

The Wardrobe Incident, as it was called in the Slytherin Common Room, helped solidify Tom's
reputation in his House. Taking first place in his age bracket in the Duelling Club, and pushing
Fourth Year former-first Abraxas Malfoy to second, cemented it.

It hadn't even been that difficult.

Malfoy was ahead by a year in the Defence curriculum, but Tom had already read through the
textbooks in the library, so he could counter every standard jinx and hex. They were relatively
even in speed and reflexes—Malfoy held a position on the House Quidditch team—but Malfoy's
advantage came in the form of obscure spells Tom had never heard of, likely from his family's own
library.

Tom decided to match him with personal innovation: he cast a silent Wingardium on Malfoy's
robes—the Levitation Charm was most effective cast on inanimate subjects rather than living
things—and immediately followed it up by clipping him with a precisely aimed pair of Knockback
Jinxes on shoulder and elbow, each wand movement swift, the final flick of each spell flowing
efficiently into the beginning of the next, well-practised from his sleepless nights of private
training. Malfoy spun around like a human pinwheel and missed his aim on his next counterspell,
whereupon Tom hit him with a final Petrificus and sent him toppling off the edge of the duelling
platform.

From an observer's point of view, Tom's speed and silent casting made it look like he'd only cast
one spell, not four. Afterwards, younger students pestered him in the Common Room to teach them
his "Spinning Jinx", which they couldn't find in the Defence textbook. Even some of the older
students were curious about it.

His reputation had also been helped when Lestrange had let slip that Tom was a half-blood,
mentioning the meeting in Diagon Alley in the summer before Second Year. The majority of his
House thought it was disgusting for a witch to mate with a Muggle, which was why they'd assumed
"Riddle" was his surname instead of anything more magical—but a witch was still a person of
magical blood, so they kept their mouths shut. Tom didn't correct their assumptions; the best way
to lie and get away with it was to allow other people to build their own lies for him, with him
nodding and tutting at the right points to suggest one thing, but at the same time ensuring his own
deniability. It was better that they think this, as he hadn't the same proof to show them that it was
his father who was magical.

He certainly wasn't going to tell them the "witch" who was with him was Mrs. Granger, because if
a witch mating with a Muggle was bad, then a Muggle with another Muggle was even worse. But
if anyone was bold enough to insult his blood status behind his back—because he'd made them stop
saying it to his face by the end of First Year—they weren't doing it now.

Another thing that happened, although Tom didn't know how exactly it had come to be, was that he
had somehow taken leadership over the boys in his dormitory. It had just sort of... become the
status quo over the course of Third Year for the Slytherin boys to defer to Tom, and to stand by him
when anyone tried to slander him in the Common Room—though this was less and less common as
the months went on, only limited to some of the girls in his year.

Tom didn't understand girls as well as he did boys. They didn't respond to open, straightforward
displays of power like the Slytherin boys. If he had tried his classic "conditioning tactics", a boy
would bear the pain until he snapped, and then Tom was there to pick up the pieces and put them
back together in a manner closer to his liking. A girl, on the other hand, would think it was some
form of feminine ailment and go straight to the Hospital Wing for a potion, and that would be the
end of it.

So he'd turned them on each other by sending Peanut into their dormitory—because there was a
jinx preventing boys from entering the girls' dorm, but a loophole for male animals. Peanut had
gone through the contents of their nightstands, collecting earrings, bracelets, and jewelled hairpins
from all the girls, then hid them inside the trunk of another girl. It was a timeless technique that
had served him well during rainy days at the orphanage.

(And the screeching had been so satisfying that he hadn't even Silenced his curtains for the night.)

Several weeks later, Everard was still not speaking to Sidonie Hipworth. That was the funny thing
about girls that Tom would never understand—their singleminded stubbornness about the most
insignificant issues. Of course, Tom himself could be stubborn with his personal grudges when he
had reason to be, but his reasons were always significant. There was a difference.

The younger students didn't try anything against him, having found Tom less intimidating and more
helpful with schoolwork than the prefects, and the oldest students were too busy preparing for their
exams to bother with the "games of children".

(It was the in-between students like Malfoy and Hastings who were the most trouble, but Malfoy
had been put quite thoroughly in his place, and Hastings had never gotten over his public
humiliation and subsequent nicknaming. He still had his family connections, but had nonetheless
lost Slughorn's eye, and the prefect position he'd apparently had his heart set on had gone to
someone else.)

The first sign of the status quo changing was when Avery began taking the seat next to Tom at
breakfast, trying to wheedle hints about the answers to last week's homework that he was trying to
finish up before class started in thirty minutes. Then it was Lestrange sitting on his other side the
day of the Welcoming Feast in Second Year, the other boy still convinced that Tom cared about his
medical conditions. Travers and Rosier began picking up on the way Lestrange and Avery fought
with each other to be Tom's Potions partner, before Tom had set up a system where they took turns
and paid for any ingredients that weren't in the student supply cupboard.

Nott, for all his father's beliefs in blood purism, had kept to himself for most of First Year, and had
not suffered the same level of disciplinary pranking that Tom had administered to the other boys. It
was only when they'd discussed Grindelwald's march on Europe late one night when the other boys
were asleep—Tom's bed was next to the window, and Nott's was the one beside it—and Tom had
laid out his own arguments as to the feasibility of Grindelwald's agenda, as well as its applicability
to the social structure of Magical Britain, that Nott had grudgingly begun to associate with him in
public.

None of that meant that any of them liked each other. The other boys had realised that Tom wasn't
just some no-name Sorting fluke, not a mistake made by a threadbare old hat whose enchantments
were wearing out, but someone who truly embodied Slytherin virtues. And they recognised from
the growing number of convenient accidents that it was better to be on Tom's side, or behind him,
than to stand in his way.

"I don't agree with lumping Muggleborns in the same category as Muggles. Grindelwald is right
about his 'Magic is Might' slogan; it doesn't make sense to limit his wizarding nation to purebloods
and half-bloods only," argued Tom. "I'm not sure if the Ministry of Magic takes a population
census—and if there is one, I haven't seen it, so I'm only going off how many of our classmates
have siblings. But I know for fact that the average Muggle woman in Britain has three children,
and if she has enough dormant magical blood to produce a magical child, then each child she bears
has a chance at being a wizard.

"Grindelwald, no matter what he might personally believe—he went to Durmstrang, where

Muggleborns aren't allowed to enroll—must recognise that Muggleborn recruits are a guaranteed
way to bolster his army. Their families wouldn't put up a fuss the same way an old pureblood
family would at losing their heir."

It was the same reason why older orphans and the lowest tier of manual labourers went to enlist as
infantrymen in the British army, and why the powers within the recruitment offices would never
give the same first-line trench-digging assignments to The Honourable James Aubrey Fairweather-
Dickson-Smythe III, finding him a much less exposed situation as a minor subaltern in one of the
cavalry regiments, where he'd have a chance to wear a spiffy uniform with gold pips on the
shoulders, but no chance of seeing proper action.

"Besides," Tom continued, "it goes against his agenda of a united wizarding nation if he's split it up
into purebloods and half-bloods plus the honorary Muggleborns who've passed some manner of
arbitrary qualification scheme, and then the rest who haven't. I'm not sure what would even happen
to the legitimacy of such an agenda if a Muggleborn passed the qualifications and publicly refused
to take the rank up."

"That's a pragmatic way of looking at it," whispered Nott from the opposite bed. They had their
curtains pulled closed around their four-posters, except for where their beds faced each other. "But
most pureblooded wizards wouldn't like being in the same rank as anyone who wasn't one."

Tom stood up and tapped his wand against Nott's curtain, casting a wordless Silencio. Instantly, the
volume of Lestrange's snoring from the other side dropped. They would still hear him until they
closed their curtains all the way, but with this, they'd know if any of their dorm mates woke up.

Nott's eyes flicked to Tom's wand, then to his face, his gaze cool and assessing.

"I expect there must be a reason why the Hat put me in Slytherin," Tom replied, sitting down on his
own bed and setting his wand on the nightstand. "I'm only looking at it in terms of what I would do
were I in Grindelwald's situation. If it were me, I would offer equal rights to anyone who can prove
magical blood, and then offer special privileges on top of that to anyone who can prove...
exceptional." Tom's lips curved into a thin smile, then he added, "Most people would be happy
with fair treatment, but you'd have to find some way to recognise the ambitious within the system,
or they'd try to undermine the system from the outside. It's only sensible."

Napoleon had his Garde Impériale, his élite personal bodyguard. The emperors of Rome had had a
Praetorian Guard for their imperial households, which the Emperor Tiberius had put to good use by
pruning his political enemies... although they'd later turned on the Emperor Caligula and
assassinated him. Tom had read of Caligula's eccentricities, but he didn't care how or why the
historians tried to justify it post facto. He was more interested in what kind of precedent it set; it
made him conscious of the possibility of betrayal.

He knew that magic had limits, as it had been one of the first things he'd looked up once he'd
gained access to Hogwarts' library. The five exceptions to Gamp's Law had stated that it wasn't
possible to produce love with magic—but it said nothing about using magic to ensure loyalty. The
idea of rewarding the talented and deserving, and above all, the loyal, sounded immensely
appealing to him. If he ever became Emperor Tom the Great, then he would have to find some way
to share his victory with Hermione, his first... minion?

No, he thought. She would never accept being my vassal, and I would never make her one. It's too
close to 'peon' for my personal taste. No, there must be a better analogy for what we would be.

I think, if I were a Dictator, I should have a Consul.

 Tom the Great, Dictator for Life, because an Emperor by any other name was just as powerful.
And his loyal companion, Consul Hermione the Just, who was accorded the power of veto, but only
used it for good reason—and not every other morning because she thought the great dictator was
taking too long in the bathroom.

He tried to picture how she'd look in laurels. Maybe they'd get so tangled up in her hair that he'd
have to cut them out with a pair of gardening shears, and she would yell at him about how his ideas
always sounded good on paper, but he had no head for the practical aspects. (That was what she
was for.) But it wouldn't matter, because Hermione with golden leaves in her curly hair was not an
objectionable sight, not at all; he thought it would be—

"'Exceptional'," murmured Nott, laying back on his bed and folding his arms beneath his head.
"What exactly do you mean by that, Riddle?"

"I mean that a good leader should always find suitable positions for the intelligent and competent,"
said Tom, re-gathering his thoughts from its strange tangent. He wasn't ill again, was he? He
plumped up his pillow and pulled back the blankets.

"And not the pure of blood?"

"If purity of blood makes one exceptional, then there should be no issue with passing a test for
basic competence."

"Only sensible," Nott agreed. "You might not be aware of it with wherever you came from, but
granting or revoking privileges is a... sensitive subject. A political issue, to those who have had
theirs for generations."

"Hmm," Tom mused, pulling the blankets under his chin. "I'll have to find out what Grindelwald
did with the European old families. He's taken half a dozen Ministries already; he must have found
a way to manage them."

Or keep them in line, more like, he thought. Grindelwald is a Dark Lord; there's only so far he
would go to appease anyone.

"I could ask Father if he knows anything?"

"Don't bother," said Tom, yawning. "I've got my own sources."

"You are a singular fellow, Riddle."

"Good night, Nott."

Chapter End Notes

You know how every time someone writes a fanfic about Tom Riddle, Billy's rabbit has to die?

Well, it turns out that wardrobes work the same way.

 Milk and Honey

1941

When Tom was young, no more than four or five years old, the orphanage had had more babies left
outside its gates than it had carers to watch them. They were lean years, his earliest memories, and
most of them were centred on food: barley soup with turnips, porridge and potatoes, milk thinned
with water, because the proper stuff was reserved for the babies. They should have had their
mother's milk, but their mothers were long gone, and no one of their ilk could afford a wet nurse.
Feeding one was too expensive, when it was cheaper to buy a nanny and feed it on potato peelings.

A nanny, Tom had learned, was a she-goat.

The smell of the nanny was sour and grassy; it reeked with the organic odour of a penned beast
who lived and ate a handful of paces from where it evacuated itself. In other words, it was
disgusting. To a boy who had been born and lived his entire life in a city, who had learned of the
importance of hygiene and sanitation in living a long and healthy life, the animal was the antithesis
of everything he valued.

(He didn't turn down the milk when it was offered, so long as he didn't have to retrieve it from the
animal's body with his own hands.)

He recognised that smell when he ventured to Hogsmeade that spring, when the snow began to melt
and it was not nearly so painful to tear himself out of the comfortable warmth of the Slytherin
living quarters.

The tavern and inn that Professor Dumbledore had offered him as a safe refuge from the Muggle
war was not what he'd expected. When Tom had heard the offer, he'd expected the bright and well-
lit Three Broomsticks, the very popular public house operated by a friendly landlady who could
make haggis taste good, and always poured the house butterbeer with the creamiest, thickest layer
of foam that wobbled over the rim of the glass without spilling a drop.

The Three Broomsticks was rustic, but his Slytherin Housemates didn't seem to mind the
atmosphere or the clientèle; Tom was told that at home, their servant's idea of quality service was to
offer a menu of elaborate dishes served in five to seven courses, or fourteen while entertaining,
dished out in small morsels because their dear mothers had placed orders with the dressmakers and
wanted to fit into them when the gowns arrived. Cod and battered chips was a treat to them—and it
was to Tom as well, since he never ate takeaway in the Muggle world, and the Hogwarts meals
followed a more balanced meat and two veg format.

The other tavern in Hogsmeade, like most of the businesses in the village, could be described as
"rustic" if one was generous. But if it was rustic, it was rustic in all the worst ways.

It smelled like goats.

The Hog's Head was some way off the main street of Hogsmeade. It was three storeys tall, but that
gave no indication of the size of the rooms inside with how wizards used subtle Expansion
Charms. It was built of dark stone, although whether the stones had been quarried that way or
stained from centuries of ground-in soot, Tom couldn't tell. The roof was thatched, which would
have made a twee postcard scene in the winter when covered in snow, but in mid-spring, he could
see where the moisture and constant rain had produced soggy black patches, interspersed with
green where moss had begun to take root.

It looked run-down, and scarcely any better than the orphanage. It looked like the kind of place
that was built before indoor plumbing was invented, and owned by a proprietor who looked like he
didn't care about his customers' comfort. The kind of place where a wizard was expected to use a
bucket in a shed out back in the stable yard, then Vanish his own mess. Tom appreciated the many
practical functions of magic, but this was too far, even for him. He had standards.

There was a small yard and and open-walled shed behind the inn, where visitors were meant to
stow their broomsticks, flying horses, carpets, or familiars before entering. There were no horses
now, but there were half a dozen goats, milling around inside, lying down on piles of straw, or
eating hay from a trough. There was a separate trough containing steaming grain mash, topped
with chunks of fresh apple and kept warm with a heating charm. The goats appeared well-cared
for, even more than the actual human customers.

Tom walked back around to the front, hesitated under the swinging sign of a decapitated boar's
head dripping blood, then pushed open the door and entered the inn proper. His eyes adjusted to
the darkness.

Too cold in here, why is it so cold? I'm so sleepy, I want to go to sleep... but I smell food...

Tom's head turned. A cloaked figure was sipping a drink in the corner. Something rustled from hip
height, and Tom saw the glimmer of scaled skin in vivid green and striped black. The customer had
a snake, and from the size of the scales and the circumference of the bit of it he'd seen, it was at
least a few feet long. The pattern of skin was familiar. He'd seen it in Slughorn's Potions
classroom, kept in a jar in the glass-fronted cabinet at the back, behind an Age Line. For the
N.E.W.T. students only.

He approached the bar, his eyes flicking from table to table, observing the calibre of the clientèle.
There were no other students, just what he presumed to be adult witches and wizards, but he
couldn't tell for sure. For some reason, every other customer had the hoods of their cloaks on, even
in the dimness of the inn where the windows were small and grimy, made of hand-blown glass that
was opaque and hazy with swirling patterns. At the Three Broomsticks, patrons hung their cloaks
up in the coatroom, because the interior was warmed from the three fireplaces and Floo
connections they had going at once.

The barkeeper was wiping the surface of the bar with a dirty rag.

"Are you the owner?" asked Tom.

"Yes," said the barkeeper. The man had long hair, which wasn't unusual for a wizard of the
traditional stripe, as Tom had found, though more common among the older set. Tom personally
thought long hair on men was unseemly, as most of them didn't take the same care as girls did with
their daily brushing and washing. A cleaning spell could remove dirt and grease, but did nothing to
make one's hairstyle look good. The barkeeper also had a beard, but it was so dark in the Hog's
Head that Tom couldn't discern what colour it was. It just looked grey. "If you're not here to order
anything, then get out."

"Do you have butterbeer?"

The barkeeper reached under the counter and pulled out a dusty bottle with a faded label and a cork
stopper bound to the top with a wire catch. The metal was dark, and Tom guessed it was either
very dirty, or very rusty.

Tetanus or botulism? thought Tom. No thank you, I'm not interested in either.

"On second thought," said Tom, "how about milk? Do your goats have milk?"

"Yes," said the barkeeper. Or Tom thought that was what the barkeeper had said. It sounded like
an affirmative grunt.

"Is it any good?"

"Of course it's good!"

"Can I have some?"

"Seven knuts a glass."

Tom put the coins on the counter. The barkeeper swept them up and stomped off to a back room.
He returned a few minutes later with a clean glass—it didn't have any visible fingerprints on the
rim as far as Tom could tell—a crockery jug, and a thin square of white cloth.

The barkeeper set the glass on the counter, placed the cloth over the mouth of the glass, and poured
the milk from the crock. Squishy, yellow-white lumps collected on the fabric.

"I've got to take the fat out," said the barkeeper. "Saving it for my homemade cheese recipe." He
lifted up the cloth, waited for the last few drips to fall, then pushed the glass over to Tom.

"I see." Tom picked up the glass and drank, hoping he hadn't gambled and lost, and if he did lose,
it wouldn't be over his uniform and pressed robes.

Goat milk was different from cow milk, and both of them differed from ration booklet powdered
milk. Goat milk had more depth of flavour, a certain tanginess which became more prominent
when the milk was served at room temperature or warmed. This milk was chilled, very fresh, and
rich with cream, made by goats provided with good feed in generous amounts. It wasn't anything
like a cherry soda squash with white glove service during an opera intermission, or a house special
foamed butterbeer with cinnamon sprinkles, but it wasn't bad.

"It's good," Tom proclaimed, setting the glass back down. The barkeeper hadn't offered him a
coaster. "Very buttery. It'd be interesting to taste it in the form of an ice cream, maybe with an
added flavouring; I shouldn't think most people would appreciate the goaty aftertaste. By the way,
did you know that the patron in the back corner by the window has a boomslang in his pocket?"

"Is that illegal?" grunted the barkeeper, arranging bottles the bottles behind the bar.

"Magical boomslang are a protected species, licensed harvesting only," said Tom. "So not exactly...
illegal."

"None of my business, is it then?"

"Why shouldn't it be?" asked Tom. "He's on your property. At the very least, he owes you a
convenience surcharge for not going over there and asking him to produce his papers."
"Those who want to conduct private business in my inn hire the rooms upstairs," said the
barkeeper. "I don't charge a 'business fee' for those who only come to inspect the wares, so long as
they pay for their drinks."

"Interesting," Tom remarked, sipping his goat milk. "How entrepreneurial. Are there limits to
what kind of business you allow on premises?"

"Why are you asking, lad?"

"Curiosity?" said Tom innocently.

"I don't tolerate hunting unicorns," the barkeeper replied. "Hair is fine, but no flesh, no blood.
Now if you're done with your drink, you can get out."

"I was just asking. I meant no harm," said Tom. He shrugged, then pushed his chair back and
stood up. "Have a good day, sir."

Tom left the barkeeper to his grunting and muttering.

Inside his head, Tom had plenty of muttering of his own to do. What on Earth was that? This was
Dumbledore's idea of a safe refuge away from the war?! It was a dingy pub, populated with
questionable customers, and an ill-tempered barkeeper that reminded him of the Hogwarts
caretaker, Mr. Pringle. But the difference was that Mr. Pringle actually cared about hygiene and
cleanliness and keeping things shipshape, while the proprietor of the Hog's Head very clearly did
not.

What was Dumbledore thinking? Was he even thinking when he made that Portkey and set the
location?

Wait a minute. Tom's thoughts shuddered to a halt. I think I know what this is.

It's a test of character.

He wants me to spend a summer 'building character'.

Tom could imagine it: fair-skinned, city-born Tom Riddle moving in with a grumpy old man in a
small country village. Tom Riddle learning how to milk goats and clean stables and bale hay,
working from sun-up to sunset, wiping down tables and serving customers and learning the
meaning of humility. Finding fulfillment in doing an honest day's labour with the sweat of his
brow and the strength of his limbs, because magic wasn't permitted during the holidays. The
grumpy old barkeeper softening up with a young charge under his wing, a beautiful inter-
generational friendship formed in the dark landscape of a world torn apart by war.

Then on the last day of August, the last day before the start of term, Albus Dumbledore would
appear on the doorstep to the Hog's Head, freshly returned from his travels. Tom Riddle would
serve him a hearty homemade cassoulet with crusty bread and goat milk gathered that very
morning. Dumbledore's first bite of the delicious stew would bring tears to his eyes; he would
proclaim it as good as his mother used to make, and then he would clasp Tom's now-callused and
sun-tanned hand in his own and tell him how proud he was of such a fine young man that Tom was
growing up to be.
"I always knew you could do it, Tom," said Imaginary Dumbledore, a single pearly teardrop
shimmering on his wrinkled cheek.

"Jog on, old man," replied Imaginary Tom, blowing a loud raspberry and upending the table with
the force of his new imaginary muscles.

Tom grimaced in disgust. He kicked a rock on the path in front of him, but his foot slipped on fresh
owl droppings smeared over a wet patch of pavement on the Hogsmeade street, a few yards away
from the owl post office. He stumbled; his shoulder knocked into another body, who squeaked and
tumbled to the ground, scattering a bag and a stack of parcels.

"Tom?" Hermione asked, picking herself up and brushing the mud off her skirt.

"I didn't know you actually went on Hogsmeade weekends," said Tom. "Isn't the library empty on
those days?"

"Oh," said Hermione, laughing nervously. "I'm going back to the castle now. But I, um, I needed
to visit the post office first."

"But don't you have your own owl?"

"Gilles is in London with Mum," she replied, not quite meeting his eyes. "Anyway," she continued,
her eyes narrowing, "you're the one who said Hogsmeade was a waste of time and money, like a
Muggle gambling den, preying on the weak of will and the lacking of sense."

Tom bent down to help her pick up her parcels. They were thick and rectangular and heavy,
wrapped in brown paper, tied with black ribbon, and stamped with an unfamiliar emblem on the top
right corner. A torch, a scroll, and an illuminated letter G in gold, in the style of a mediaeval
manuscript's initial capitals. He didn't recognise the emblem as one representing any of the main
shops in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade.

Gambol's at Diagon, he recalled, had a G-shaped insignia, but they sold novelties and knick-
knacks, like expandable one-size-fits-all pet collars and colour changing bubble bath. What would
Hermione want with anything like that?

"Riddle!" called a voice from a few paces up the path.

Tom looked up, shoving the parcels into Hermione's arms. "Avery. Lestrange. Good afternoon."

Lestrange was holding a paper shopping bag from the joke shop, and sucking on a sugar quill.
Avery had both arms occupied with a big square pasteboard box, pink and printed with blooming
flowers, the budding roses opening and closing every few seconds. It had the Honeydukes seal
embossed on the front. Tom assumed it was from their deluxe line of chocolate gift samplers.

"What are you doing, Riddle?" said Avery, his eyes darting from Tom to Hermione and back again.
"Why are you helping a mud—"

Tom whipped out his wand and cast a non-verbal Silencio on Avery. "Excuse me?"

"—A Ravenclaw," said Lestrange. He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and avoided eye
contact with everyone present, scuffing his mismatched shoes over the cobblestones of the path.
"That's better," said Tom. "You know, if a prefect had heard you, Avery, you would not only have
lost us the House points I've spent all week earning, but you'd have been sent back to the castle for
detention. You might even have your Hogsmeade privileges revoked for the rest of the year."

"Yerble hurrrfff, mmmph hmmph," said Avery, shifting his gift box.

Lestrange glanced at Avery. "I think he's trying to say that no one heard him."

"Only because I made sure of it," said Tom. "I think it best he break such a nasty habit of speaking
like that in such a public place. It's not gentlemanly of him to talk to a girl in that manner. Besides,
if I wasn't here, I think we all know what he would have said, and who knows who would have
heard? What if it wasn't a prefect, but one of the teachers?

"Avery would be sent back immediately, without having a chance to mail those chocolates." He
took a step nearer to Avery, head tilted, his smile thin. "Are these for your mother?"

Avery blinked, then jerked his head in assent. The chocolates rustled inside their box. Tom could
smell them from where he stood: sweet vanilla, cream and honey, toffee fudge, rum and cherries.

"How do you think your mother would feel when her beloved son seems to have forgotten about
her on her birthday?" Tom spoke in a low, controlled voice. "You know how she worries about
you. She knows you have trouble with your schoolwork, when you go through two private tutors
every summer. And disciplinary trouble on top of that? And then not a word from you on her
birthday, only a letter from Professor Slughorn, writing out his concerns with your academic
record, your difficulties at school, your disgraceful conduct. Such a blight on your family's noble
reputation, Avery. It would break her poor heart."

Tom stared into Avery's eyes, compelling the boy not to look away, to remain still, to not move a
single muscle, and ignore his base animal instincts to flee when faced with something as unnatural
and invasive as a foreign entity digging through his fears and baring them to broad daylight.
Peeling back the surface, exposing things that no one else was ever meant to see. Fear and shame,
wrapped in layers of self-doubt and an aching sense of inferiority.

Obedience, Tom knew, could be trained in mice as well as men. "You're too young to break your
mother's heart. Aren't you, Avery?"

Avery nodded, his shoulders hunched.

Lestrange chewed loudly on his sugar quill, pretending that he wasn't listening in. He looked sick.

"And you're a gentleman, are you not?"

Avery swallowed. He nodded again.

"I'm glad you understand," said Tom solemnly. "We should all strive to better ourselves."

With a flick of his wrist, the Silencing Charm dissolved.

"Go on then, your mother is waiting. Be a gentleman and write to her."

Lestrange grabbed Avery by the elbow and hurried him into the post office, neither of them looking
back.
"What was that?" Hermione asked, wide eyed. Her skin was pale, with two bright flushes of colour
on her cheeks. "What did you do to him? Did you—?"

Tom shrugged. "Did I teach him to mind his manners? Yes, I did. Someone should have done it
years earlier, in my opinion. But the real question, however," said Tom, his eyes flicking down to
Hermione's parcels, "is what those are. Care to enlighten me, Hermione?"

Hermione cleared her throat. "Books. I wrote Mr. Pacek about what kind of books he used when
he was at school, since he took Runes at Durmstrang. I wanted more supplementary texts for
extracurricular reading, but the library didn't have them, so I had go through owl order."

"You're making more work for yourself," said Tom, sighing. "And if it's not on the Hogwarts
curriculum, it won't be on the exam."

"Well," said Hermione, her jaw set in stubbornness, "the exam isn't the only thing that matters."

"Who are you, and what have you done with the real Hermione?"

Hermione snorted and bumped him on the shoulder. "Come on, if we get back to the castle before
everyone else, we can reserve the best table in the library."

"Hmm, that's more like it."

On the walk back, Hermione fished a bar of Honeydukes chocolate out of her bag, broke it into
halves, and shared it with him. She'd even remembered that he hated chocolate with nuts.

The rains dried up as the season changed to summer.

The spring buds bloomed. The Forbidden Forest, woken from hibernation, rustled with strange
sounds at all times of the day. The terns and geese returned to their yearly nesting grounds, though
what omens could be read in their flight patterns Tom didn't know. He hadn't signed up for
Divination as an elective, having dismissed it as a waste of his time, for anyone who hadn't been
born a Seer.

As far as inborn talents went, Tom had rolled triple sixes in terms of magical power, mental acuity,
and mind control.

(But he had rolled a one with regards to his domestic situation; the only way he could have landed a
worse situation in life than 'orphaned street urchin' was 'orphaned farm boy'. Which couldn't be
that bad when he thought about it, as he already had a talent with animal training, and could talk to
snakes. Tom hated other people enough that the life of a vaquero or cattle drover in the Australian
bush sounded appealing... No need to worry about prying eyes or the Statute of Secrecy when the
nearest Muggle neighbours were fifty miles away. But there was something ignominious about an
Emperor who held the power of life and death over two hundred subjects, with a hundred and
ninety-nine of them being cows.)

He regarded his looks as useful, but not as important as his other talents. Being pretty wasn't that
rare. Mrs. Granger was pretty, actresses in the pictures were pretty; since Muggles could have it
and wizards could counterfeit it with the right potions and charms, it wasn't exactly Special.

Tom didn't complain (beyond the first few days after finding out that wizards could see the future)
about not having the Sight. None of his classmates had it either. But despite his inability to
interpret migration patterns, he could tell that change was in the air. He wasn't pleased. Change
was something that Tom wasn't fond of accepting; in his experience, change was always for the
worse.

He was proven correct when he and Hermione disembarked the Hogwarts Express at the end of the
school term. They walked out past the entrance foyer of King's Cross Station and into the London
street. In that moment, they saw that the London they both knew was no longer recognisable.

The skies above the city were dark and grey, but it wasn't from an imminent rainstorm, a staple of
English life no matter the season. It was a pall of smoke, stinking of burnt fuel and carrying with it
a mist of fine soot that grimed the skin and blanketed the ground like dirty snow.

The Royal Mail depot at the other end of the road was a pile of bricks and rubble, the top few
storeys blown out and sagging over the first floor and the kerb. The London skyline was different;
it looked as if it had bald patches, spaces that Tom vaguely recalled hadn't been this empty the last
time he'd seen it. Like a row of teeth in a rugby player's mouth after a scrum. With the blacked out
windows, and the golden letters of the nameplates and signage coated in dust, the buildings of
central London had lost some of their sheen, their grandeur and character, and more than a few had
been lost altogether.

London had been... disfigured.

Tom heard Hermione's sharp intake of breath. He felt something brush against the sleeve of his
coat, then the touch of something soft against his left hand.

Her hand squeezed his; their skin pressed together. Her palm was small and warm, her fingers slim
and dainty next to his own.

Tom's natural instinct was to jerk his hand back and smack her across the knuckles.

He had always felt that hand-holding was either childish or improper. The youngest children held
hands playing patty-cake in the schoolyard, or walking to school or church in assigned pairs. The
older orphan girls, a few months from leaving for good, held hands when walking out with a fancy
man. The proper way, according to the donated etiquette textbooks, was for the gentleman to offer
his arm, not his hand. And there wouldn't have been any skin contact by accident either, since
ladies of quality and refinement wore gloves when they left their houses.

Even in the wizarding world, people followed the rules of conduct. Some were more rigorous about
it than Muggles, among the conservative families where a witch of good breeding was expected to
be settled with a family before her twenty-fifth birthday. (In the Slytherin Common Room, he'd
heard Sixth and Seventh Year girls disparage the vulgarity of Muggleborn girls in other Houses,
though how much was due to making public faux pas versus luring away unattached young men he
couldn't tell.)
There was a line between childish behaviour and proper conduct and Tom didn't know on which
side he should stand. He refused to be called childish. He'd never played patty-cake and hopscotch
with other children, and he hadn't considered himself a child since learning to read and feed
himself. And when had he ever cared about propriety, other than paying lip service to it out of
social expectation?

Hermione's hand was warm. Her presence was comforting and somehow soothing; he had
forgotten his worries about the state of London and the war...

He didn't slap her away.

He squeezed her hand as they made their way to the line of parked motor cars, passing uniformed
men and women bearing armbands of one regiment or volunteer service or another. All of them
had small rectangular boxes tied with strings around their necks or swinging from their belt loops.

Gas masks.

There were soldiers on every corner, rifles on their shoulders. He could see bayonets. He felt
uneasy with the number of weapons openly displayed, any of which could be dropped or misfired.
It made him want to draw his own wand, at least that way he could cast a Shield Charm at a
moment's notice—and damn the consequences of doing magic in plain sight of Muggles. It was
reassuring just to have his wand on hand, as much as it was to have Hermione on his other—

"Tom!"

He blinked. "What?"

She jiggled his hand. "I need both hands to get my trunk into the boot."

He let go. The warmth, that press of skin, disappeared an instant later.

It was almost as unsettling a feeling as taking turns being disarmed in Duelling Club. Whilst he
knew it was necessary in order to practice casting technique, and that the loss of his wand was by
choice and it would only be a few feet away from him, there was something he would never like
about it. A wand and a wizard were one. A wizard could perform magic without a wand, but it
was always easier with than without.

A wand was a guide, a focus, and a companion.

He helped Hermione load her school trunk into the expanded boot of her family's motor car. Her
empty owl cage followed it.

"Now yours," said Hermione, reaching over him for the handle of his trunk.

Tom hesitated. "I don't need—"

"A hundred thousand people sleep in the public shelters every night," said Hermione, pushing past
him and grabbing his trunk. "Many of them because they haven't anywhere else to go. You won't
be one of them. I won't let you."

"I still think—"

"Shut up, Tom."

They loaded his trunk into the back, then Hermione flipped down the false cover and shut the boot.

When Tom held the door open for her, he caught a flash of silver in the driver's seat. Mrs. Granger
was re-applying her lipstick with a powder compact, but for a second he'd thought she was
watching them through the rear window, in the reflection of the mirror.

He wouldn't be surprised in the least if she had.

Mrs. Granger was much like Hermione. But they differed in certain ways: Mrs. Granger had half
the tactlessness, but was twice as officious. It was a bad trade either way.

Thus began his third summer in the Muggle world, in the back seat of the Grangers' motor car.

The drive out to the suburbs took longer than it had the previous year, as they had to take several
detours around streets where the road was made impassable by uncleared debris. The largest
thoroughfares had been cleared, but the authorities hadn't gotten around to removing all the
detritus; it appeared that they'd shovelled the gutted remains of fallen buildings into convenient
piles in the areas where the bombs had blown through to street level.

He could see into people's basements from where he sat in the moving motor car. He could see the
architectural arrangements of whole houses, like children's dollhouses unfolded, all the floors laid
open like an anatomical diagram. Here was a servants' attic garret under the sloping eaves of the
roof, but no maids were present, only the collapsed remnants of a chimney. There was the mistress
of the house's guest parlour in the middle, the silk drapes scorched by fire and fluttering out
through the shattered windows. At the bottom was a kitchen, filled with chunks of broken tile and
gleaming lumps of metal where iron pans and steel sinks had melted together into a single solid
mass.

It looked like his boggart before he'd set it on fire, but on a scale a thousand times larger. A
thousand times worse.

A boggart, for all its magical shape-shifting abilities, had a limit to its mass. The pile of debris that
had been Tom's boggart looked imposing on the floor of the classroom, but when he'd meditated in
his dorm room that night, reliving the day's Defence lesson and savouring the frightened squealing
of his classmates, he'd observed in this detached state that it was around the same volume of
material as would fit inside Professor Merrythought's wardrobe.

This would never fit into a wardrobe.

The smell, the smoke, the sun of high summer veiled by drifting clouds of dust, the clean-up crews
with kerchiefs tied around their noses and mouths, the scavengers bent over the wreckage with
wheelbarrows, hiding their faces beneath upturned collars and caps pulled low... None of it could
be replicated by an insignificant boggart.

That scene in the classroom seemed trifling when compared to this.

When the motor stopped, no one questioned him when he took his luggage out of the boot and
headed straight down to the cellar.
A few days later, Mr. Pacek dropped by for a visit.

He brought with him an expanded picnic basket filled with rationed goods: tea, sugar, cooking oil,
eggs, and butter. The brands were unfamiliar to Tom, who was used to the matrons buying the
cheapest of everything, and in bulk quantity. The printed labels on these packages were in foreign
languages.

"Danish butter," said Mr. Pacek. "The Danes have not had the same supply troubles as the English
—since they surrendered last year to the Germans, they have no need to maintain a standing army,
nor conscript soldiers. I find the Continent to be a more restive place these days than England, at
least for Muggle civilians. London is not looking so well, eh?"

"London has been through worse," said Hermione fiercely, putting her hands on her hips. "The
Great Fire of London burnt most of the city in 1666, and it fully recovered. This isn't nearly as bad,
and Mum says they've stopped with the nightly air raids for the past month or so."

Mr. Pacek left the food on the kitchen table and followed them down into the cellar, which was
different from the last time Tom had seen it. The picture windows had been installed, showing the
outside of the Grangers' house from multiple angles, and there were several windows that didn't
match any of the views of their neighbourhood. A grassy hill overlooking a burbling creek, a sun-
washed courtyard filled with potted plants and chirping parrots, a placid sea with a weather-worn
wooden dock and a small jolly boat tied to the pier.

Mr. Pacek pulled up a chair by a new fire pit in the centre of the cellar, which he lit with a wave of
his wand. "Ah, I remember that fire when I was studying for my Mastery. As I recall, the casualty
rate was very low because the local Muggles were given shelter under magical wards—the Statute
came thirty years later, so it was not illegal then. After that, most ministries made it policy to
require fireproof wards around wizarding settlements and villages."

"And people think that Grindelwald is raving for wanting to do away with the Statute," said Tom,
glaring into the fire. "I don't agree with everything he believes in, but I think he's on the right track
with that. Sir, if you're breaking the Statute by warding a Muggle property, then you must agree
with me on that count."

"Doctor and Madam Granger knew about the existence of magic before I ever met them," said Mr.
Pacek, taking a small silver case out of his coat pocket, out of which he drew a cigarette and a
cigarette holder. "I did not violate the Statute, but I will admit that I did break British wizarding
law on the improper use of magic." He set the tip of his wand to the cigarette, which caught alight.
"Though I should like to see them arrest me. If they did, they would tie themselves into knots
trying to convict a citizen of another nation.

"It is interesting that you profess your sympathies with Minister Grindelwald's ideals now, Mr.
Riddle," continued Mr. Pacek, his gaze meeting Tom's. He breathed out a fine mist of smoke that
Vanished with a flourish of his wand. "These last few weeks, I have undertaken a task warding a
building for an old friend of mine in Leiden. He runs a publishing house—now an underground
press—and he has in recent years amassed a collection of leaflets. Last year, you professed not to
have read Grindelwald's words by his own hand, and that is a lack I am capable of making good."

He set the cigarette holder between his teeth, and his hands dipped once more into his coat's interior
pocket, coming out with a sheaf of papers. He spread them out on the thick, stone-walled edge of
the fire pit. It was a set of handbills and pamphlets, the lettering on the coloured cardstock covers
uneven and somewhat blotchy on the edges, nowhere near as fine a job of typesetting as in the
school textbooks he'd bought from Diagon Alley.

A Unified Vision for All Wizards.

On the Advancement of a New Era of Magic.

Für das Größere Wohl: The Duties of Good Governance.

Paternalism: Sine Qua Non of the Wizarding Nation.

"May I?" asked Hermione, reaching for one of the booklets.

"By all means," said Mr. Pacek with a magnanimous gesture of his hand.

"'It has been said, and collectively agreed upon, that the last golden age of great sorcerers has
passed us centuries ago, and that we shall never again encounter an individual with the might and
power of Emrys Ambrosius. With utmost resolve, I discount the notion that we must wait for the
birth of an Emrys to bring us to another golden age. Why must we wait for one single wizard when
we, as a society of wizards, are entirely capable of creating wonders?'"

Hermione read aloud from a random page of a pamphlet, her brow furrowing in thought.

"'I present the idea of a unified nation that transcends geography and language, a global
confederation of wizards that shall supersede any existing institutions, which on the whole are rife
with ineptitude and stagnation. The International Confederation, a feeble alliance of squabbling
politicians, has only one purpose: to enforce a shallow set of century-old ordinances—and not to
facilitate a new era of prosperity for which we as a modern magical society are sorely in want.'"

Hermione closed the pamphlet and set it back onto the pile. "He writes like a demagogue. Like a
Republican. Or an Anti-Monarchist."

"Like a rabble rouser," corrected Tom. "I expect it sounds better in person than on paper.
Ideologies are easier to spread if you use big words like you know what they mean, and don't give
your listeners enough time to think about what you're saying."

"It sounds better in German," said Mr. Pacek, puffing at his cigarette and siphoning away the
smoke. "The English translator does not give him the right tone and rhythm. There are some
words that just cannot be properly translated—the concept of 'Angst' is one such. But in this
instance, I can attest the spirit of the speech is the same in all versions I have heard and read.
Grindelwald identifies a common enemy, and emphasises the same ideas: unity and greatness.
Who would not be drawn into that?"
"You, of course," said Tom.

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Pacek, flicking ashes into the fire pit. "But I studied Philology and language
construction in school, and I notice every time the good Minister uses 'we' or 'us' in his writing. He
is not subtle at all—nor does he have any reason to be. The average wizard whose family cannot
afford a prestigious institution attends a village day school and takes what he reads at face value. Is
it not the same in England?"

"People buy The Prophet in droves," said Hermione. Her nose wrinkled in disdain. "It's the most
widely-read publication in the country. And it's utter nonsense."

"You can't account for taste," Tom remarked. "Think of the people we share our classes with.
What do you think would happen to the Prophet's readership if they started reporting objectively
about things that actually mattered? These people want to see articles on Ministry hit wizards
getting into a firefight with unicorn poachers. Preferably with photographs of the action, followed
by a public naming and shaming. They don't want to see the minutes of the bi-quarterly
Wizengamot review."

"I want to see that," said Hermione, pursing her lips.

"Even if you sat in during the session, wrote an article, and mailed it in without asking for a knut in
royalties, they wouldn't publish it," said Tom. "I think Grindelwald has a point. It's obvious that
he's pandering to the public when he's praising them for having the potential for collective
greatness. He's doing it to make them listen. And once he has them listening, once they recognise
his face and his name, he throws in the real meat. It's just like putting breadcrumbs in sausages:
you have to cheapen your fodder if you want the common man to take it."

"You are correct," said Mr. Pacek, nodding. "These papers are re-printed from originals that are
twenty or thirty years old. The Minister no longer spends his evenings holding debate in local
taverns or guild halls. He already has his legitimate power—though one might question that
legitimacy when his ascension came by holding the voting members of national assemblies at
wandpoint."

"The power he had when he was just a writer is undeniably legitimate, isn't it?" asked Tom. "In a
legal sense, I mean. There are no laws against having opinions, are there?"

"To a certain extent," confirmed Mr. Pacek. "But I cannot say what will happen if your opinion
verges on slandering some important personage or other."

"You'd run into the same problem as me," Hermione put in. "The same way that the popular
publications wouldn't print my opinions, they'd never touch yours."

"I'll make them," said Tom, speaking with certainty. "It's only a matter of making myself
palatable."

"Well, go ahead," Hermione said dubiously. "But don't come to me when you get your first
rejection letter. I'm not sure I want to listen to you complain about how everyone is too shallow-
minded to comprehend your magnificent plan to limit childbearing licenses to those who pass your
silly test."

"It's a sensible solution to a great many social ills, both Magical and Muggle," Tom protested. "I
don't understand why you're so bothered about it; I've already told you that you'd pass."
"It's not enforceable!"

"Not yet."

"Tom! Eurgh!" Hermione cried. "I don't mind being deemed 'shallow-minded' if it means I won't
have to listen to the rest of it."

"They're good ideas. And I don't think I'm the only who's come up with ways to make
improvements around here," said Tom, inspecting his fingernails for signs of dirt and soot. He
observed Hermione out of the corner of his eye. "Aren't you the one who wanted to go on a march
when you found that over three-quarters of the out-of-print books published in Britain are held in
private libraries?"

Hermione sputtered and flushed. "Knowledge should be accessible! It's not fair that so many rare
books are locked away by families who don't even read them!"

"Don't you see how great we could be if we combined our ideas?" said Tom. "For example, a trade
of rare books for the privilege of continuing the line."

"You can offer all the incentives you want, but you still have no way to enforce a law like that if
people refuse," Hermione griped, folding her arms over her chest. "Which they will. And what are
you going to do? Dump potions into the food supply?"

"Oh, I see," said Tom, his mouth curling up in a feral smile. "Now you want to listen to me?"

What does it take to earn an audience of my own? he thought to himself. How easy is it to fool
Magical Britain into taking me at my word?

To be sure, he still wanted that Order of Merlin. He wanted to open a textbook fifty years from
now and see his deeds written down for future generations of children to memorise. He wanted
people to speak his name with reverence; he wanted a hush to fall over a crowded room when he
opened the door.

Most of all, he wanted power.

But—

He was years away from Magical Britain's age of majority. There were few places where he could
use magic outside Hogwarts. He couldn't Apparate, so, should he leave the castle, he'd be limited
by distance: Hogsmeade, where an adult resident or shopkeeper would report him if they saw him
wandering about on a weekday, and Dufftown, the nearest Muggle village where he'd have to worry
about the Ministry's Trace. Neither of them were places he could rack up deeds of valour and
daring.

However... there was more than one flavour of power.

He had always seen himself as the shepherd, and everyone else as the sheep.

And what had Hermione once said?

"You think too often in terms of extremes. You give yourself ultimatums when you don't have to."
Life was more complex than that. The real world involved more than just those who were
shepherds and those who were sheep.

(There were also wolves and sheepdogs, though the only difference he saw between them was that
one wore a collar and the other didn't.)

If Grindelwald can pander to an audience, then why can't I? Tom wondered. Am I not reading his
words today, from a speech he made in Germany, printed in Leiden, and brought to a cellar in
London, thirty years after he made it? These words are his legacy, and will still be even after he
meets his defeat.

Napoleon had met his defeat at Waterloo, and whilst the Emperor had been discredited in the field
of battle, the field of modern civil governance still owed much to him a century later. The Goths
had sacked Rome, but doctors and lawyers and schoolboy toffs—and himself, for that matter—
studied Latin declensions even after a millennium and a half.

He came to a realisation then.

There is more to power than what can be done with magic...

He came to a second realisation, an instant later.

...I want it.

 Spotted Dick

1941

When the holidays ended and the school term resumed, Tom found himself browsing the section of
the Hogwarts library dedicated to household spells and charms.

In First Year, he'd skipped past this section and headed straight for advanced Defence. It wasn't
because he thought household spells were pointless—after living as a Muggle for years, Tom
appreciated the value of magic, and thought all magical disciplines had their uses, even the menial
ones like Care of Magical Creatures where one touched creature scat more often than their wand.

As useful as they were in the context of maintaining a proper wizarding home, Tom had once
thought that household spells just weren't relevant to him. They simply weren't as important to his
well-being as knowing the official Defence spell lists up to Fifth Year. But now, he had revised his
opinions. There was relevance, value even, in knowing his way around domestic charmwork, all
those esoteric spells for peeling potatoes, potting fruit preserves, or mending the lumpy little signs
of pilling on the elbows of knitted jumpers and woollen winter robes.

Pretending to be an expert in magical home care gave Tom an instant audience.

And knowing these things did improve his quality of life in small ways.

According to the theory of basic spellcrafting, the creation of new charms came down to a
combination of words, intent, and wand movements. (Creating powerful curses and hexes was not
quite as simple; potion invention and item enchantment were whole fields unto themselves.) With
the right conditions: specific syllables, spoken with the right intonation, a simultaneous swish of a
wand in the right pattern, a wizard could create a unique magical effect. It stood to reason that
reversing the process—a slight alteration of the established pre-conditions with the aid of
arithmancy—would allow the effect itself to be altered.

He found in one book, A Wizard's Guide to Crup Care, a grooming spell that a wizard could use for
his rough-coated crups when they shed their thick winter fur in the spring. The book had a diagram
of the proper incantation and wand movements, but Tom had found that shortening the vertical
flicks produced a lighter, weaker cut. Extending the wand movement in a flatter, horizontal stroke
made the cut trace around the contours of the skin instead of going straight across and producing
jagged edges.

A closer shave, as it were.

He practised it on the pet cats he found in the Common Room, and when he'd stopped leaving large
bald patches on their fur like the coat patterns of a Holstein cow, he'd moved to testing it on
Peanut. And when he could trim Peanut's fur and whiskers without any unexpected results, he tried
it on his legs, and finally on his own throat and chin, where the pale, wispy imitation of a man's
whiskers had begun to sprout, to his great annoyance.

What he had long been dreading had arrived: pupation.

He had known for years that this phase of life would be unavoidable, even for someone as Special
as he. He had seen the signs of its approach in the scratch and crackle of his voice. He saw it in
the sharpening line of his jaw in the Grangers' bathroom mirror, the straining stitches on the
shoulder seams of his shirts and jumpers, and the hem of his uniform trousers revealing more of his
socks and ankles at the end of each term than at the beginning.

He was changing. He was growing older.

While some part of him relished being seventeen and being freed of the constraints of childhood, at
the same time, it was a reminder that life at Hogwarts was finite. And that there were things, no
matter how Special or powerful he yearned to be, that he was not powerful enough to halt or
control.

Because he knew what else this meant, what else he couldn't control.

He'd known it when Hermione had taken his hand, and he hadn't wanted to let her go. He'd known
it when he let Hermione use the shared bathroom in the cellar's magical tent first, so when it came
time for his turn, he could brush his teeth surrounded by a flowery fog of her scented soap.

It was disgusting.

He was disgusting.

(But he kept doing it until the end of the holidays, and missed it—her smell, her touch, her
presence—once term had started and there were only other boys in his shared bathroom.)

Tom's revulsion had nothing to do with the concepts of Sin and Temptation, the way Reverend
Rivers had spoken of them when he came to Wool's and lectured the children. It had been a
transparent attempt to warn the orphans that funny business wasn't tolerated under Mrs. Cole's
roof... With the exception, of course, that if one was properly married in the eyes of God and the
Church, any funny business being had wasn't his business at all.

Tom's revulsion had everything to do with the fact that somehow, overnight, his priorities had
rearranged themselves.

He still wanted greatness, renown, knowledge, and power—everything the Sorting Hat had told
him that he valued. But he also wanted her—Her—

—Was 'want' what this feeling was called?

Because it felt too much like the fiery abyss of Temptation for his comfort.

It was the fact that he couldn't push it away, cut it off, or spell it into non-existence like all the other
changes that had been forced upon him. That part troubled him the most.

He hoped that as suddenly as these sensations had come upon him, they would go away, as long as
he had the patience and forbearance to wait it out. It was a physical reaction, the same one which
affected stray cats and street mongrels during certain times of the year. After a week or two of
strange behaviour, they always returned to their original states.

Tom Riddle was not a cat or a dog; he was a human—no, he was a wizard. He was better than any
of them. He was better than all of them.
These changes were fleeting; the inconvenient urges were ephemeral; those vivid dreams were
forgotten by morning.

Magic, however, was permanent.

Tom had resolved to spare none of his valuable time on pondering the mysteries of Sin and
Temptation. He had the mysteries of Magic to attend to.

So he'd come up with an altered shaving spell, based off the one meant for grooming crups and
kneazles. And it was better—or perhaps he was just a better wizard—than the spell the other boys
in his dorm used to rid themselves of their unsightly facial hair or neaten their sideburns. He'd seen
them coming out of the bathroom holding a washcloth to their faces.

Apparently their fathers had showed them what to do, and it was a variant of the Severing Charm.
It made sense: the Severing Charm was notable for its versatility. Its intent was centred on
separating a piece from a whole, cleaving one thing from another. A Fourth Year had the power to
perform it—but control was a whole other issue. And control became the issue: the Severing
Charm, no matter how much or how little power one put into casting it, sliced a line straight
across. An adult wizard with years of practice could control the angle and trim his moustaches
with a single swipe of his wand. A student wizard wasn't quite as good.

It meant that there was a niche there, a place where his spell would be useful, a practical application
whose value other people could appreciate.

A market.

It was just another word for an audience.

Exclusive to readers of Witch Weekly:

The Perfect Trimming Charm!

(Turn to next page for instructions.)

Are you tired of having half a dozen different pairs of shears, scissors, and knives for your
daily household duties? Do you want a safe, fast, and convenient alternative to keep
everything in your daily life looking neat and tidy? Here's what you can use the new
Trimming Charm for!

1. Gardening with a wave of your wand. De-thorn roses for your floral arrangements. De-
sting nettles for your potion brewing. Cut blackberries from your brambles—no prickles, no
crushed fruit! A perfect accompaniment for meringue or trifle!

2. Cooking with none of the fuss. For crisp roasted poultry, use the Trimming Charm around
joints and limbs to remove the skin on your pre-plucked chicken, goose, pheasant, or turkey.
Rub butter on underside of the skin, replace, and roast. De-scale fish by applying an angled
Trimming Charm from tail to head, following diagram on Page 3.
 3. Wearing your most daring seasonal robes. The Gladrags' Wizardwear summer dress robes
selection is on sale now! The hemlines may be bold, and the sleeves sheer, but the Trimming
Charm will allow you to entertain in confidence, wearing the Audacia ribbon front day gown
(Page 44) or the Genevieve satin ruffle evening robe (Page 45). Follow the simple
instructions on how to apply the mess-free, worry-free Trimming Charm on Page 4.

All the disgust he felt earlier couldn't compare to the disgust he felt now, laying on the pandering so
thick he thought he could feel the oil leak out of his pores and soak into the parchment.

He wondered if this was what Gellert Grindelwald felt, praising his audience for having been born
with the gift of magic in their blood, even if most of them were sots in a dingy tavern looking for
someone to give their life a greater meaning, not one of them thinking about the work required to
get there. He wondered what Grindelwald felt about having the tavern regulars admire him,
hanging onto his every word, and what the admiration meant to him when he knew it came from
people for whom he held not an ounce of respect.

Some part of him wondered if Grindelwald had his own Foil.

Respect from lesser beings didn't matter if he had respect from the one person—or the few people
—that really mattered. Respect from only lesser beings was... unfulfilling, Tom thought. Respect
and admiration were easily had, naturally accrued when you were better than everyone else. Born
greater. But it was like a Seventh Year student taking the First Year exams—of course he would
rank first in every subject.

It was a victory—that was undeniable. But it was no accomplishment.

Some other part of him wondered what he'd be doing if he didn't have his own Foil.

He probably wouldn't be writing this half-baked article, where every word that came out of his
mouth and out of the tip of his Dictation Quill was as painful as proofreading Avery's
Transfiguration essays. (Which Tom still did because he and Avery were "friends", as the other boy
had accepted his status as a lesser being. By now Avery had acknowledged that Tom was cleverer
and more powerful than he, far better at everything important that Mr. and Madam Avery had ever
hoped to see in their own precious son, and so there was no shame in Avery's asking for help to
overcome his own regrettable deficiencies.)

If Tom hadn't had a Foil, he knew he certainly wouldn't be having clandestine meetings in the back
of the library while the rest of his Housemates were out watching a Quidditch game.

("It's a 'match', not a game," he could already hear Rosier lecturing at him, on the only subject on
which he was an authority. "And if you're talking about the game itself, it's not a game, it's a
'sport'! The greatest sport ever invented!")

Tom put the finishing touches to his wand movement diagrams. He considered them the most
interesting thing about this vapid article, a legitimate intellectual challenge that his school
assignments didn't offer. He appreciated the process of teaching and learning magic; Tom could
disparage the Hogwarts professors all day, but he'd never say the same things about his magical
education. He just didn't understand why other people needed the dull presentation of a fluff article
to think learning new magic was worthwhile.
"Hermione," said Tom, "you're a girl—"

Hermione's quill jerked over her parchment. Ink dribbled down the page. She looked up.
"Excellent observation, Tom."

I could hardly forget, could I? he thought. Antonella Everard is a girl. The Fifth Year prefect,
Lucretia Black, is a girl. But whether people were witches or wizards never mattered to me, only
that they were obstacles or tools. Hermione is a girl, but not just a girl; she doesn't fit into any of
the neat little boxes that apply to everyone else.

Hermione is the first witch I ever knew. That makes her more important than everyone else.

Special.

(He chose to overlook the fact that Dumbledore was the first wizard he'd ever met.)

"If we're going to make sarcasm into a competition, you haven't a chance," Tom said. "My
question was actually that, as a girl, do you believe witches would take lifestyle advice from a
wizard?"

"Are you asking if the average witch would allow you of all people to decide their suitability for
motherhood?" asked Hermione. "The answer is no."

"Not that kind of 'lifestyle advice'," Tom said, rolling his eyes. "No, home decorating tips, fashion
and fripperies, that sort of thing. Things that the married housewitch would occupy her time with
while the children are away at school."

"It depends on the wizard," said Hermione, tapping the end of her quill against her chin in thought.
"Most girls wouldn't listen to someone like Professor Slughorn tell them how to decorate their
dormitory or wear their uniforms. Or any man who signs all his correspondence as he does
—'H.E.F. Slughorn' with a list of his titles and qualifications. Everything about it makes him look
like someone so dusty that he'd consider mayonnaise strange foreign nonsense. Someone who is
more appealing would be... modern. Approachable and modest. Informative without being
condescending..."

She trailed off, then peered at him in clear curiosity. "Are you planning on publishing something?"

"Maybe," said Tom. "It depends on what you mean by 'you'."

"Oh," said Hermione, sitting up straighter in her chair. "You're using a pen name?"

"I was thinking about it. I want a name that I won't be embarrassed about if I ever get rid of it—
something close enough to my real name that I could reveal it one day without anyone questioning
it," said Tom. "But according to what you've said, 'T.M. Riddle' won't do."

"How about 'Tim Roddle'?" Hermione suggested. She covered her mouth to hide her snickering.

Tom glared at her. "That's the most uncreative anagram I've ever heard. I need something better
than that."

"It's simple and modest," she said, "and you shouldn't use a fancy or well-known surname if you
want the average witch to be interested. In the Muggle world, I'd buy a cookery book written by a
Mrs. Drummond over one written by a Lady Penshurst. Just by her name, I'd assume Mrs.
Drummond has recipes that my Mum and I could cook at home, while Lady Penshurst's book asks
for two pints of 'almond cream enriched with aged liqueur of vanilla'. And," she added with a
frown, "I would also assume that it'd be the servants doing the cooking rather than the Lady
herself."

"If you had a pen name, what would you choose?" asked Tom.

"I'd pick one from a book," said Hermione instantly. "No one would recognise it; wizards don't
read Muggle fiction. 'Scarlett Blakeney', maybe, if I was writing as an older witch—it's an obvious
reference to The Scarlet Pimpernel. And if I had to write under a man's name, then... 'Hector'.
Like Hector of The Iliad, or one of my dad's great uncles. My mum might have named me that had
I been a boy, since it's a tradition in our family to have names starting with 'H'."

"You seem to have put a lot of thought into it," Tom remarked. Of the two of them, Hermione had
a greater familiarity with fiction, whereas he personally didn't read fiction if he was offered the
choice. Wizarding textbooks and spell guides were fantastical enough not to need any other types
of reading material.

"Well," said Hermione, "I've thought about writing, too. There aren't as many forms of
entertainment in the wizarding world as there are in the Muggle one—I've seen the plays and
novels, but there's nowhere near as many authors. And wizards don't have cinema or the wireless
at all. You could tell an existing story, and wizards would never have heard of it and believe it to
be original. Though that would be plagiarism, of course, unless you do what Shakespeare did and
changed all the character names."

"If you were to give me a pen name, what would it be?"

"Don't you want to choose your own?"

"I trust your judgement; shouldn't you be flattered?" Tom raised an eyebrow. "It's not like I'm
asking you to name my firstborn son."

Hermione frowned. "But you'll never have a firstborn son. You always go on about how much you
hate children."

"Correct," said Tom. "So that's why it should be an honour to you. It's the closest you'll ever get."

"Hmm." Hermione bent down and rifled through her book bag on the floor. After a minute or two
of shuffling papers and furious muttering, her head popped up from under the table. "How about
'Thomas Bertram'? He's one of the characters from Mansfield Park, the baronet's son. It's a proper
English name, and nothing like the unusual Greek names that you only ever see on old men.
Professor Slughorn is a good example of what not to do—one of his middle names is 'Flacchus'.
No one names their children 'Flacchus' anymore; just by hearing it, you can tell that he was born
last century. And 'Bertram' as a surname doesn't indicate any particular blood status either."

"It sounds... plain," said Tom. There was nothing grand about the name. It could be the name of a
vicar or an accountant, but not an emperor.

('Tom Riddle' isn't an emperor's name either, said the voice of common sense in the back of his
head. He was used to ignoring it; those who only ever relied on common sense became vicars and
accountants, and never emperors.)
"You let me name your pet rat, which you've kept for the last three years," Hermione said. "And
anyway, if you're set on an anagram, there's nothing interesting you can make out of your name.
'Mild Doormat Lover'? Well, I suppose it'd fit an expert on home furnishings."

Tom scowled. "Mockery doesn't suit you, Hermione."

"It's sarcasm, Tom," said Hermione reprovingly. "I thought we were having a competition."

Her nose wrinkled up the way it always did when she was trying to control her facial expressions.
He could tell she was trying to keep from smiling; she lacked the kind of subtlety that would allow
her to impersonate a Good Girl to match Tom's Good Boy—not that she needed to, when she
genuinely strove to be Good. In honesty, Tom quite liked the way it brought out the soft dusting of
freckles over the bridge of her nose.

There were very few things in the world that Tom considered endearing, but this was one of them.

Dear Mr. Bertram,

It is our pleasure to inform you that your submission, 'The Perfect Trimming Charm', will
appear as the feature article in the October 25 (1941/#43) issue of Witch Weekly Magazine.
Payment for a 5 page feature article with integrated sponsor promotion equates to 17
galleons, 15 sickles, and is included in the message pouch. See included receipt for full
statement of remittance. Please mail back the Payment Arrangements form should you wish
future payments to be deposited directly into a Gringotts vault.

We would like to offer you the opportunity to be a regular contributor to Witch Weekly
Magazine, which allows the benefits of further royalties in future re-printing, or cross-
publication in our sister journal, Housewitch and Home. Regular contributors (17
submissions or more within a period of 365 days) will be eligible to receive a Press
Identification Certificate, which grants holders access to:

— Wizengamot sessions, including hearings and trials.

— Reserved interview slots with Ministry of Magic department heads.
— Press box at league Quidditch matches in the British Isles. (First come, first served, seats
are limited. International championship matches not included.)
— Wizarding Britain Society of Journalists' annual dinner and awards ceremony.
— Discounted subscription rate for all major publications, including The Daily Prophet and
Quidditch Quarterly.
— Nomination panel in our annual Most Charming Smile award.

Looking forward to seeing your work in future editions of WWM,

Clementine Wimbourne,
Editor-in-Chief

The pouch of galleons was the first thing that Tom opened when he received his reply during
breakfast. It was heavy—far heavier than the pouch that came with the Hogwarts student fund
every year. It was the most money he'd ever held at once, though not the most he'd ever beheld:
last year, when one of the Chasers on the Slytherin Quidditch team had quit mid-season to study for
his N.E.W.T.s, they'd held an emergency tryout and Lestrange had ordered a new broomstick by
owl mail just to have the extra edge against his competition. There had been a huge pile of gold on
his bed the evening he'd made the order, which he had to split between three owls to carry.

This pouch was only a fraction of those, but it was still sizeable. Converted to British pounds
sterling, this was a fortune.

And all I had to do was write a stupid article, thought Tom, closing the flap on the money pouch
and slipping it into his book bag.

The best part was that he'd gotten away with it with his reputation intact, just like all the instances
where he'd arranged convenient accidents for his own benefit. No one suspected quiet, scholarly
Tom Riddle of teaching his classmates' mothers how to shave their legs.

(It was somewhat disturbing when he thought deeper on it. He wasn't sure it would make for the
most effective bragging material. He likened it to someone in the Slytherin Common Room
insulting someone else's mother: it just wasn't done, because with how interconnected wizarding
family trees were, it was tantamount to slinging mud at one's own cousin.)

The second best part was beating Albus Dumbledore's record. Dumbledore's first essay on magical
theory had been published when he was sixteen, a month or two from seventeen. Though Tom's
authorship credit had been attributed to a Mr. Bertram, there was still satisfaction to be had in
knowing that the real writer wasn't even fifteen. Perhaps one day he would show it to Dumbledore,
and rub it in his long, crooked nose.

He was wary of showing Slughorn. It would just be an excuse for the professor to start inviting
him to Slug Club evenings now, instead of waiting until next year, when Tom was in Fifth Year and
old enough to be permitted an extension to the curfew. Tom was looking forward to new privileges
—and being Prefect—but not to being the centre of Slughorn's interest in filling a gap on his
photograph shelf.

Tom knew that some wizards would say that Transfiguration Today was a more respected, more
sophisticated publication than some low-brow gossip rag for witches.

But the gossip rag had ten times the circulation. It had a legion of loyal readers who would buy
things just because the man in the paper told them to. And this was of a more tangible use than the
non-existent loyalty of a handful of bickering academics who were busy competing with each other
to add another point to Gamp's list of magical limitations, when they could be looking for new
things that magic could do.

If Grindelwald could content himself in starting his journey with the ale-soused dregs of society,
then surely Tom Riddle—Thomas Bertram—whoever—had much greater a potential in canvassing
the comfortable middle class. One characteristic of the middle class was that, no matter the nation
to which they belonged, they were aspirational.
The weeks flew by, but Tom scarcely noticed. He was too busy spending his time writing or
reading or cosying up to the professors for information on specialty spellwork and other magical
shortcuts that were never published in generalist handbooks.

He filled his diary with lists of obscure household spells and all the variations he could make of
them. The Steaming Spell, used to freshen up dirty drapes and press the wrinkles out of delicate
dress robes, could be cast at full power as an alternative to the Smokescreen Spell. In Duelling
Club, Tom found the overpowered Steaming Spell more useful, because while smoke made a
decent visual distraction, it was just magical smoke, not much better than an illusion.

Steam, however, could be used offensively. It could conceal Tom from his opponents, and it could
burn and scald when cast in a certain way, and that was useful after Professor Merrythought had
told him off for his overenthusiastic Incendios, which he was informed were not appropriate for
student-level duelling. The good thing was that wizards, being useless and unobservant, only saw
his charmed steam as a fog of white indistinguishable from a Fumos.

When he included it into his next article, he wrote of using a milder version of the superheated
Steaming Spell to blanch beans, broccoli, and asparagus to retain the bright colours and natural
flavours that were lost in boiling or roasting. He included instructions on how to poach fish in
thyme and lemon with mixed vegetables with one pot and a single spell. And he didn't forget the
obligatory nod to Potage's on Diagon Alley, purveyor of quality cauldrons and kitchenware.

The amusing thing was how no one noticed or cared that he "borrowed" recipes from Muggle
cookbooks, only changing a few ingredients or instructions here and there to make use of the new
spell. The recipes padded out his articles, which served to his advantage when his payment was
based on the number of pages he submitted.

After many years of deprivation, Tom had developed an appreciation for good food. He held the
firm belief that ensuring the general public knew how to prepare dishes more complex than
porridge, buttered toast, or breakfast fry up counted as a social good, on par with ensuring universal
literacy. The more people who knew how to cook, the less need he had of partaking in such tedious
chores himself. It was the same with military enlistment: all the other orphan boys did it, so he
wouldn't have to.

And there was something even more amusing:

Tom got his first fan mail.

Dear Mr. Bertram,

Last week, I used the Super Steamer Spell for suet pudding, and I turned out the most perfect
spotted dick for my daughter's engagement supper. I have always had some trouble cooking
my puddings to a pleasing consistency right through to the centre, but this was tip-top. Your
instructions were excellent, sir, and though I admit I never took the N.E.W.T. in Charms, I
managed well, quite well indeed, with the spell diagrams.
 Our Geraldine and her new fiancé promised that they'd let me host the family Christmas party
this year if I would serve spotted dick once again. I plan to try your steamed custard recipe
next time! Mr. Bertram, please pardon me for the presumption, but if you have not a mother-
in-law already, I should like to make an introduction with my niece, a Miss Nanette Cahill née
Maunders, 31 years old, a widow in good standing...

Alright, that second part wasn't so amusing, but it was proof that his spells worked, and that his
instructions were good enough that even someone who hadn't opened a textbook since they left
Hogwarts could follow them correctly.

Tom wasn't too keen on the idea of making magic so democratic that people who hadn't put in the
time to study and understand magical theory could have access to spells they would not have had in
any other situation. He'd always felt that people who didn't practice magic, live for magic like he
did, didn't deserve to be good at it, a view which Hermione would contest, because she believed
everyone deserved help and guidance if they needed it—that was the reason for the existence of
magical schools. Hadn't the great Salazar Slytherin, a master of magic, one of the most powerful
wizards in British magical history, been a teacher himself?

Tom, for all the indignity there was in being a teacher to common housewives, was nevertheless a
teacher. One who was being reimbursed for his efforts. And he wasn't going to publish the spell
variations he'd used in Defence and Duelling Club, so there were still some secrets left.

Some part of the magic remained Special.

Oh, look. The woman, Mrs. Maunders of Barnton, had even included a photograph of her spotted
dick.

The animated photograph depicted a spotted dick being vivisected by a sharp knife and drenched in
brandy cream.

Tom stared at the photograph, wondering if there was supposed to be a subliminal message hidden
in the picture, a secret code in the framing or presentation.

Or maybe it was just spotted dick.

"Riddle?"

Tom tore his gaze away. "What is it?"

Rosier dropped into the bench on his left side, pulling a plate towards himself and pouring a cup of
tea. "Orion Black and Matthias Mulciber approached me after Duelling Club yesterday," he said,
reaching for the milk and sugar. "Oh, did someone make pudding? It looks good. Shame it's not
the real thing—Pater always lets me and Dru have leftover pudding for breakfast during the winter
holidays. Mother doesn't get up before eleven, so she'll never know."

Tom stuffed the photograph into its envelope and turned back to his breakfast. "What did Black
and Mulciber want?"

"They want to sit at our side of the table."

A slight frown appeared on Tom's face. "They can sit where they like; there aren't any rules about
assigned seating."

From what he'd observed, members of Hufflepuff House sat wherever they liked, and sometimes
with members of other Houses. Gryffindors clustered in the centre of their table, where their
House's Quidditch team chose to sit, and everyone piled up around. In Ravenclaw, seating came
down to whoever got there first.

At the Slytherin House table, there was no official seating chart, but there was tradition. The First
Years sat on the benches closest to the High Table, the seats nearest the Sorting Hat and the
teachers. The Seventh Years sat farthest away, in the seats nearest the door. Prefects were given
more leeway, but past the first two weeks of term, they sat with their own year. At the beginning of
each school year, current members of Slytherin House were entitled to move one section further up.

As Fourth Years, Tom sat somewhere in the middle of the long House table. Black and Mulciber
he didn't know well, but they were younger than him, and he'd seen them in Duelling Club. From
where they were seated today, he assumed they were both Third Years.

Rosier slurped his tea, then set his cup down. "There's the rub. They want to sit next to you."

"Is there any reason in particular?" Tom asked.

Rosier sat with the First Years now and then, but it was only because his younger sister Druella had
just started Hogwarts and their parents sent them gift parcels with the same owl. That was
considered an acceptable reason to flout tradition. Having no reason other than 'Just Because' was
not acceptable. This was annoying after he had gotten used to sitting with Hermione and reading
her Muggle newspapers when the House tables were combined into one big table for the holidays.

"They want to know where you get your spells from, Riddle. You made a smokescreen that caused
boils during the last Club meeting. How did you do it? I had to go down to the Hospital Wing after
to get the blisters cured," Rosier said. He rubbed his chest where Tom had scalded him with a jet of
steam in a recent duel. "That wasn't a normal boil jinx; Black and Mulciber said they looked
through all the books on curses they brought from home, and they didn't find anything. I looked
through mine, and there was nothing in them that looked like what you did. Nothing that counts as
tournament legal, at any rate. And we all saw how Merrythought never stopped or called you off
early."

Tom surveyed the breakfast offerings, picking up the serving tongs while subtly scanning the Third
Year section of the House table. "So they want to sit here and ask me to give up my advantages?
That doesn't seem quite fair to me."

"They're from good families," Rosier said. "They've got advantages to offer of their own. Orion
Black's father was awarded an Order of Merlin a few years back—the official reason was for
services rendered to the Ministry. The semi-official one is that he's got fingers in the nomination
committee and bribes in the right pockets. They're not exactly a family you can just turn down."

"Well, if they're offering something of value, then I suppose we can come to an agreement," Tom
conceded, who thought it somewhat gauche to drop the 'But my family!' line in every other
conversation.
He strongly disliked Slytherins who used their parents' names and accomplishments—if one
counted successful bribery as an accomplishment—to strong-arm their way around the school. It
seemed like the opposite of the cunning that Salazar Slytherin valued so much. In that, he
commiserated with Hermione on her complaints about students who sent their homework
assignments to their parents for advice and sometimes wholesale answers. It was the kind of thing
to make Rowena Ravenclaw roll in her grave.

(It was times like this that Tom almost believed that the magic of the Hogwarts castle came from
the non-stop grave rolling of the Founders, from where their bodies were hidden away in a secret
crypt beneath the school.)

"If they want help with their 'Defence homework', I want to borrow the books they brought from
home," said Tom. "I assume there won't be copies of them in the library?"

"No," said Rosier, lowering his voice and ducking his head so that he was concealed from the High
Table. "They're counted as family heirlooms. Not strictly legal, but Old Sluggy keeps his own, and
doesn't make much ado about hiding them. He doesn't care as long as he doesn't see anyone turn up
in the Hospital Wing with something that can't be explained away as 'Defence homework'. He'd
have to report that sort of thing to the Headmaster."

"Good," said Tom, making a note of that detail about Slughorn for later. "Invite them to dinner
tonight."

He had already known that Slughorn kept questionable ingredients in his personal potions
cupboard. No unicorn blood as far as he could tell, but he thought he'd recognised Sphinx claws,
and weren't Sphinxes rated by the Ministry as beings capable of speech and reason? 'A souvenir
from a colleague in Egypt' was as valid an excuse as 'beloved family heirlooms' when it came to his
Potions professor.

"I want help with my 'Defence homework' too," Rosier said reluctantly, scratching his nose. His
eyes darted toward the Fifth Year area of the table. "I saw the way you took Malfoy apart the other
week. Won't stop him from trying to challenge you again, though—he keeps claiming that you're
getting in lucky hits, but I don't think so. No one can be that lucky."

"Five in a row isn't luck," said Tom in a flat voice. He laid the napkin on his lap and began tucking
into his breakfast. "And I'm not in the business of helping anyone for nothing."

He hoped that new people wanting to sit next to him at meals would be a unique circumstance, and
that they would go back to their own seats the next day. He didn't enjoy being interrupted while
eating, especially with the type of conversation Slytherins liked to engage in, which involved
casual mentions of everyone's parents and what they did or didn't do for a living.

Tom couldn't relate; he had no parents and they, being dead, did no living.

For once, Avery and Lestrange were useful for something—on most days they sat on either side of
him and spent that time stuffing their faces. People found themselves reluctant to interrupt when
those two were demolishing mounds of scalloped potatoes and whole roast chickens between them.

"I can offer you the same," Rosier suggested. "We have a family library too. Not as much variety
as what the Blacks have, but there's hardly any families who do."
Tom considered the offer for a moment. "Do you have anything on mental magic? The Confundus,
Memory Charms, Calming Draughts and other emotion and mind-affecting potions? I've read the
books about them in the library, but the descriptions seem too simple, and I suspect the good books
are all in the Restricted Section."

Rosier looked blank for a second or two. "You're looking for textbooks on Healing, Riddle?"

"Not necessarily," Tom replied. He raised an eyebrow and elaborated no further.

"Ah..." said Rosier, comprehension beginning to dawn. "I think we have some in our collection,
but I'd have to wait 'til the holidays before I can get them. What you want isn't anything I can just
write home for."

"But you can get them, can't you?" Tom asked, his gaze searching Rosier's face for any trace of
deception. For any chance that the value of Rosier's offer had been embellished or overstated.
Tom wouldn't show his own hand if it turned out that Rosier was testing him on behalf of his family
or another's. Perhaps he was setting up an elaborate trick, a frame job like Tom had done to the
Slytherin girls months ago: put an expensive heirloom book in the hands of a student on the
Hogwarts charity list, then pin him for thievery, the same thing as had been done to maids and
footmen from the very invention of domestic service.

Tom had no doubts that if the opportunity presented itself, the majority of Slytherin House wouldn't
hesitate to teach an upstart half-blood to mind his manners and heed his betters. In the Common
Room, he didn't hear them speak of him in that way, as a half-blood who ought to be taught about
the way things were. But in the days leading up to a Quidditch game, they used certain words for
the members of opposing teams who were deficient in blood, if not in skill and talent; on the pitch,
those players were often the victims of dirty plays and name-calling.

It had led to Tom's private belief that most current members of Slytherin were useless, a canker on
the original values of their House's founder—but what most of them lacked in true ambition, they
made up for in cold-blooded opportunism. They didn't care about achieving greatness with the
strength of their own magic, not when they could replicate the effect of being 'greater' by cutting
everyone else down and making them lesser.

"Can you, Rosier?" said Tom softly. The sound of his voice was dark and resonant and laced with
magic, the echo of his words lingering above the clatter of cutlery and the hum of other people's
conversation, as if he'd shouted the incantation to a spell in an empty ballroom. But there was no
perceptible effect, no doves or flowers or floating teacups, just Tom Riddle asking an innocent
question at the dining table, his expression open and sincere.

Rosier looked slightly uneasy, as if he was debating if it was just his imagination or if he'd been
caught in the radius of an experimental spell that a student from another House had cast on
another. His breathing had become a notch more ragged, but he didn't look away; Tom wouldn't let
him look away until he had got the measure of the other boy.

"Yes," said Rosier, lowering his eyes, "but only after Christmas."

"I'll teach you one of my spells for each book I want to borrow," said Tom, leaning back. The
mysterious pressure faded. Rosier sagged against the wooden table. Tom patted the corner of the
napkin against his lips. "The same goes for Black and Mulciber. I can teach them—but if you can't
learn, then that's your own look out."
"I understand." Rosier swallowed. "I'll tell them."

"You'll make sure this stays between us, won't you?" said Tom. "This little 'Defence homework'
study group arrangement. We can't have everyone learning how to top the age brackets in the
Duelling Club, can we? There's no sense in giving everyone an advantage."

"Of course not," said Rosier. He dropped his napkin over his barely touched breakfast plate,
pushing himself to his feet. His knuckles were white on the edge of the table. "I'll see you at
dinner, Riddle."

"I'm looking forward to it," Tom replied amiably.

Tom finished his breakfast and went to class with a spring in his step.

The tides were changing. He could feel it. He was earning his own money, studying magic beyond
the level of his Hogwarts classes, and gaining a following on two different fronts. He could see the
path of his not-so-distant future unfolding before him, dazzling him with its as yet untapped
potential.

He wouldn't need to take the conventional path to respectability after leaving Hogwarts. No low-
level starting position as a secretarial assistant in the Ministry of Magic could ever appeal to him
now. As of now, he knew he was not completely unaccountable to someone else higher up the
ladder, but in this line of work, the things he wrote and made were credited under his name—not
his name exactly, but that wasn't the point—and it was that name which gained recognition. It was
quite unlike the Ministry where the head of the department took credit for his underlings'
innovations, or a professional Quidditch team where the Seeker did most of the work, but the
winners' purse was split with the entire team.

(Tom had a lot of things to say about the ridiculous nature of Quidditch rules and the points
awarding system, but he had long ago learned to keep his opinions to himself. He shared a
dormitory with boys who either played for the school team and reserve squad, or followed the
professional leagues. There was only so much logic could do to in the face of an impassioned
mob.)

In the publishing business, Tom was paid piecemeal. And once he had made his name and
reputation, he could easily take his pieces to another publication if he was offered a better situation
with more benefits elsewhere. It was humouring the readership that mattered; the editors and
printers had little power over the individual writer if he made himself both popular and
indispensable.

He was a true Slytherin—he could be ambitious and an opportunist.

One day, he supposed, he'd get around to thanking Hermione for coming up with the idea. It was
more profitable and less risky than doing other students' homework.

He'd do it once he got over the strange urges that came over him when he saw her in the corridor, or
bent over a book at her House table, or with an ink smudge on her cheek while she wrote her
History of Magic essays in the library. Tom prided himself on his self-control and willpower.
Whilst he hadn't reached over and wiped the ink off, he had still been tempted to; the memory of
her parting embrace on the Hogwarts Express railway platform two—no, two and a half years ago
—had not faded from his mind.
Some days he wanted to forget it had ever happened, or that afterwards, he had wanted it to happen
again. Some nights it lingered, vivid and persistent, in his memories. It was a good job that he
could cast a Silencing Charm to last until morning.

The danger of Temptation, the knowledge of it as had been imparted by the Reverend Rivers, had
revealed itself then and there to be a tangible risk. That was the one thing that Tom would not
allow himself to forget.

It wasn't his immortal soul that was in peril; instead, it was his dignity and self-respect.

But this would soon pass. It was a momentary hindrance.

Adolescence was merely a phase.

Greatness could last a millennium.

 Saturnine
Chapter Notes

I've changed the rating from T to M because we're starting to tread into more mature themes in
this part of the story. Not necessarily romance, but references to/depictions of violence, etc.

1942

For the first time since First Year, Hermione returned home for the Christmas holidays.

She missed her parents, and though she worried less about their safety now, some part of her had
never quite gotten used to spending almost ten months away from them. Hermione's family had
never been the kind to have passed the children off to an au pair at the age of five or six, as had not
been uncommon with the other families in their neighbourhood, where having hired help was
considered a badge of status.

Mum and Dad were familiar lifelines to her, reminding Hermione where she'd come from and why
it was worth it to work as hard she did, and how important a gift it was to have been born with
magic. A gift and a responsibility rolled into one.

She could admit that she was lonely too.

There was, of course, Tom. But Hermione had observed that Tom was busy doing his own things
in recent months. He'd told her in confidence that he was sharpening his writing chops, and that he
planned to use the pen name she'd come up with that Saturday in the library. Since she was the one
who'd encouraged him to re-direct his efforts into productive pursuits like writing original works,
she could hardly justify an excuse to pull him away from it because she had nothing better to do.

Hogwarts during the holidays just wasn't the same. She enjoyed attending lessons, and the daily
bustle of school life, and without them, the Hogwarts experience felt less magical; to her, a school
without students was like a bookshelf without books. She always finished her assignments within
the first few days of the holiday. Without classes to go to, and an empty dormitory, more than a
few mornings had passed where she'd been at a loss for what to do.

Hermione knew she would have been restless if she'd stayed at Hogwarts. There were only so
many walks she could have taken around the draughty castle in mid-winter, so many conversations
to be had with the moving portraits who soon grew bored of answering her questions and tried to
talk her into delivering messages to portraits in other parts of the castle on their behalf. There was
the school library, a place where she'd spent many a free hour, but she had begun to realise that it
was limited in what it could offer a student of her age, with no signed teacher's pass or outstanding
O.W.L. credentials to her name.

In recent months, her extracurricular reading had been occupied with books that weren't exactly
school approved.
It had begun when she'd learned of the existence of the Unforgivable Curses.

The books in the library gave her examples of historical uses when she knew what words to search
for. They were more helpful than the legal codices, but her scholarly side objected to the way that
the authors didn't touch on the magical theory; most instances of the Curses' mention was to
demonstrate that this or that historical figure was a dark wizard who had done evil deeds. It left a
bad taste in her mouth, the same feeling she got when she read military histories recounting
incidents where a commander had ordered a mass execution or the capture of women of the
opposing nation.

(She knew that a thousand or more years ago, both sides of any conflict would be committing
atrocities left and right, but the official narrative often maneouvered the victors into the position of
moral superiority.)

In her search for more information, she'd written to Mr. Pacek, and he had recommended specific
authors and stockists. They were not books that made it to the window display of Flourish and
Blott's. She'd had to turn to Glimwitt's Biblio-Antiquities in Knockturn Alley, a shop that offered
customers a 'gift-wrapping service' for their purchases, which turned out to be a euphemism for
disguising their books with false covers and layering on the repelling charms.

There were three Unforgivable Curses, and it was illegal to use them on other people. The first
caused instant death, the second caused immense pain, and the last was the mind control spell that
she was absolutely certain Tom Riddle had wanted to master at the age of eleven.

If she'd been younger, Hermione knew she would have been horrified by the idea of wizards
turning their wands on each other with the intent to harm and kill. The Hermione of the present
knew that death and pain were not the sole dominion of wizards. There was a Muggle war going
on right now, with millions of young men conscripted to fight the conscripts of other nations,
armed with rifles and tanks and rocket artillery. There were men dying in foxholes and forests; in
the occupied cities of the Continent, partisan forces were struggling to survive on smuggled
resources, each day of resistance bought at the cost of their own blood.

When she'd read in more detail in the books she'd ordered by owl mail, she found that the Killing
Curse caused instant, painless death. The Torture Curse targeted the minds of the victims, but left
their physical bodies untouched. For both of those, she could find worse alternatives in the Muggle
world. What were these spells in comparison to dying of sepsis in a triage tent, or an amputation
without morphine by a surgeon spattered with the viscera of a dozen dead men?

It was the mind control curse that she was the most apprehensive about. There was no direct
Muggle equivalent.

No spell or potion replicated its effect, unlike the other Curses. It was not hard to think up a way to
kill someone with the right spell—Tom's Incendio, the one he'd used on the boggart, could have
done it with less mercy than the Killing Curse, and the incantation was taught to First Years. Or,
with the right potion, one could cause pain without incurring bodily harm. Vanishing a person's
bones, then feeding him Skele-Gro would not affect his physical health, but it would be immensely
painful, especially if done multiple times in a row. On top of that, it could be carried out by anyone
who'd studied a basic Healing manual and had access to a potion that was available in every
apothecary and household medicine cabinet.

None of this was anything Hermione would have done to another living being. However, she took
a logical approach to understanding magic, and from her years of knowing Tom, she had had plenty
of practice in finding legal loopholes, reasonable alternatives that would have been overlooked by
the average wizard or witch.

This didn't apply to mind control. There was no ersatz for it, no other spell that was as fast, direct,
clean, or undetectable as the Imperius Curse.

Which explained Tom's inordinate interest in it.

So Hermione went home that Christmas, looking forward to seeing her family, at the same time
conscious of the fact that Tom had chosen to remain at Hogwarts. She had questions to ask without
Tom's constant loitering about as he had done during their summer holiday, his ears perked for any
discussion of magics that appeared to be obscure or powerful.

Rare magic was Tom's catnip. He was the kind of person who'd put in the effort to learn a complex
spell that grew furniture out of the floorboards, when it was simpler to use a textbook Conjuration
if one wanted a place to sit or prop up their feet.

("Everyone treats magic like it's something mundane," Tom had said. "As if it were nothing more
than a time-saving convenience, no different from electric toasters or laundry mangles. I don't. I
want magic to be as magical as possible.")

London in the winter was... bleak.

The aerial bombings had ceased for the last few months. Evacuees had slowly been trickling back
into the city from their extended holiday in isolated villages across the country. Things felt like
they were returning to normal, whatever level of normality could be found in a country at war.

The city's destroyed buildings, however, had been left untouched, because property owners didn't
want to re-build when there was a possibility that the German planes would one day return. Not to
mention that acquiring the materials, equipment, and labour to repair private buildings that were
deemed unnecessary for the war effort was an impossible task, even for the wealthy.

The money was there—for a loose definition of there: she'd read that several banks had transferred
their bullion to Canada—but nothing else was. It was in this instance that money couldn't buy
everything.

Hermione was grateful that her money had guaranteed the safety of the things that mattered to her.
Her family's house was intact. Shortages, recruiters, and looters had not touched Mum and Dad.

Her parents met her on the Muggle side of the station.

Dad looked tired. He had looked tired when she'd come home for the summer holidays in late June
—in his letters, he'd written of working long hours in the spate of bombings and subsequent fires—
but now it seemed that the fatigue had made itself at home for good, settling into the grey wings of
hair along his temples, and the heavier wrinkles above his brows and in the corners of his eyes.
And Mum, she noticed, looked pale, her skin blue-tinged as she stood in the shadow of a luggage
cart, the brightest colour on her face from a coral-red sweep of lipstick; Mum's brown eyes were
still sharp and animated, but they had lost much of the merriness and warmth that normally lit up
her features during the season of Christmas festivities.

In any other year, her family would have spent their summer holiday in hired cottages at the
seaside, or exploring sites of historic castles and ancient Roman forts in the British countryside.
This year, and the last few years, they hadn't. Instead, the family had spent most of their time,
when they weren't needed at work or shopping for essentials, inside the house and within reach of
the cellar, because no one knew if or when the sirens would go off again. And thus, not one of
them had gotten much of a summer tan.

Now in the shortest days of winter, all three of the Grangers looked rather pale and wan, like potted
plants kept inside a cupboard. It seemed to Hermione that something in her Mum and Dad had
been worn down by the stress of the times, despite official efforts to boost morale and the implicit
pressure of people of their social set to maintain minimum standards of appearance.

But it didn't mean they couldn't try to bring back the Christmas cheer reminiscent of the carefree
days of Hermione's childhood. Hermione was fifteen now, and whatever was left of her childhood
—if it was possible for a child to be a child in the middle of a war—had not long left before it was
gone for good. The circumstances might be strained at the present, but the Grangers had
alternatives. They didn't have to condemn themselves and each other to misery out of solidarity
with the war effort.

So Mum and Dad made that year's holiday a nostalgic Christmas, with a roast goose dinner on
Christmas day, presents under a tree, and a whole new set of clothes for each member of the family,
including new robes and charmed no-run stockings for Hermione. Some part of her was acutely
aware that the rest of London was getting by on canned pork sent by the Americans, and that
clothing rationing had gone into effect in June. As such, most other households would be saving
their tickets to replace an outgrown coat or afford a pair of winter gloves.

Another part of her, one she didn't like acknowledging, was glad that Tom had stayed at Hogwarts.
This was her family, and she liked spending time with them without him nearby; when he lived
with them, she practised restraint to the extent that she felt guilty for any gestures of open affection
with Mum and Dad. Her parents had made an attempt to be inclusive to Tom, but it had still felt
like she was flaunting her family in front of him when he had none of his own.

She was glad that she didn't have to share a family—her family's—Christmas with him.

He'd spoken of his disinterest in family connections, past and future, and she remembered the few
references he'd made about his own mother, the woman who'd saddled him with his plebeian name,
and her death in childbirth...

He had never outgrown his resentment about families in general—it was one of the first things
she'd observed about him when she'd first met him at Wool's all those years ago—that, and his
apathy toward observing the tenets of common decency. This resentment flared up whenever she'd
mentioned the possibility of adoption; it hadn't been more than a handful of times, and only
approached as a hypothetical, but he'd been incredibly vehement about it.

For someone who presented himself as so disinterested, he took it so personally.

(For someone who presented herself as sympathetic to those of lesser circumstance, why on Earth
did his opinions irritate her so much?)

Mr. Pacek visited on New Year's Eve, bringing a hamper of imported champagne—the real stuff,
not the sparkling white wine that the London hotels had begun watering their stock with, as France
had been taken by Germany last year, and the Channel had been under blockade for longer than
that. Blockades were of no inconvenience to wizards, and apparently there were consortia on the
fringes of the Statute of Secrecy who had made a fortune in acquiring luxury Muggle goods,
duplicating them, and supplying the wizarding market. It explained how the Diagon Alley grocer's
cheese and smallgoods counter had dozens of imported varieties on offer, while the local Muggle
delicatessens were putting out horse meat.

The wardmaster had also brought her the books she hadn't dared to order while at Hogwarts. She
didn't know what kind of protections the castle had against students bringing in dangerous magical
artifacts, but this subject was uniformly labelled as 'Dark Arts', even though the books she wanted
only addressed it from an academic perspective. She knew the school had a list of banned objects,
which was comprised of prank items such as Dungbombs and cursed trinkets that many old
families collected in their drawing rooms.

But she hadn't wanted to risk it; she had a perfect, unblemished disciplinary record and wanted it to
remain that way, or at least until she'd earned her very own Prefect badge. (Hermione had found
out back in First Year that Prefects got five extra books added to their library borrowing limit.) Nor
did she want to chance spending her birthday money on a rare and expensive book, only to have it
confiscated before she'd even opened the cover.

The book she was most interested in was a translated dissertation published in 1712 by the
Academy of Magical Scholarship in Padua, a first-hand investigation on the Imperius Curse written
as the third of a three-part study on the Unforgivables. It had been commissioned by the ICW after
the ratification of the Statute of Secrecy to discover the full effects of the Curses, and determine
whether or not unregulated usage would reinforce fears of devilry and witchcraft among Muggles.

In that time period, Muggles died all the time from childhood illnesses and contagious plagues.
Those deaths left signs in the form of pustules on the skin or nodules in the lungs; important
Muggles killed by wizards left no signs to be registered by the coroner's court, which fanned the
flames of paranoia among the churchgoing public. And that endangered magical communities,
many of which were closely integrated with the nearest Muggle villages, and until the Statute came
along, were under the technical jurisdiction of Muggle authorities.

'Upon casting the curse, the subject immediately exhibited the following attributes: a vacant
expression, glazed eyes, slurred articulation, and impaired faculties; he could not produce
answers from a pre-supplied list of questions until compelled under intensifed magical
pressure, in conjunction with additional clauses to further explicate the parameters of the
original commands. Veritaserum is strongly recommended as an alternative for purposes of
efficient and humane interrogation...'

Hermione devoured the book in an afternoon, and when she'd finished it, she had questions.
"Sir," Hermione asked, setting down the book and pulling out a roll of parchment and a pencil.
"The study says that the Imperius Curse is better at making someone act, rather than making him
talk." In the book, she'd read that a long-term subject kept in an underground laboratory would not
be able to tell the day of the week when asked by the interrogator. That made sense; Gamp's Law
of Principal Exceptions said it was impossible for a wizard to create information by magic; if one
did not have an answer, no amount of magic could make him give it. "So the Curse isn't useful for
all circumstances—it has obvious limitations."

"Most spells have limitations," said Mr. Pacek, summoning a chair and transfiguring cushions and
upholstery over the seat. "Unlike with certain potions or enchanted objects, you must be within
casting distance of the, ah, shall we say—volunteer—to use the spell. And casting it leaves traces,
most noticeably the flare produced by a concentrated burst of magical power. The book calls it
'yellow-green', but it has always been 'chartreuse' to me. The precise shade and colour of a spell
cast with proper intent is recognisable to those who have seen it before, and to my knowledge, the
majority of those convicted of illegal use were caught because they were witnessed."

"That must mean that anyone who uses Unforgivable Curses can get away with it so long as there
aren't any witnesses," Hermione mused. "And there are plenty of ways people in the Muggle world
discredit witnesses that I can't see wizards being incapable of doing it too. Cases of divorce are still
nothing but the leverage of a husband's reputation against his wife's."

Until 1923, a divorce was only made possible if initiated by the husband, and only on the grounds
of adultery. Today, it was possible for either the man or the woman to file for divorce, and not only
for adultery. Now it was for grounds of adultery, cruelty, or insanity. From this perspective, she
could understand Tom's disinclination to have anything to do with families and marriage; even if
divorce was possible, applying for it would mean making the reasons public. And to most people,
revealing details of this nature was considered scandalous and simply Not Done.

"Very true, Miss Granger," said Mr. Pacek, who was in the process of decorating a conjured
footstool. "I have heard rumours that Minister Grindelwald has put political opponents of his under
the Imperius—those, of course, who are more useful where they are than under what he calls 'house
arrest'. But they shall remain only rumours because he is very good indeed at hiding what needs to
be hidden."

"I wonder how he's doing it," said Hermione. She frowned. "Exploiting a limitation somewhere,
I'd assume. What happens if you Imperius someone into Imperiusing someone else? Is that
possible? How far can you keep doing it?"

"Legal precedent rules that the person under the Imperius is not responsible for his actions.
Although he might cast an Unforgivable Curse on someone else while under orders, he cannot be
convicted of it," he answered. "From that, I do believe it is possible to create a chain. As for how
many people can be linked in a 'curse chain', I suspect that once you get past three deep, the
command boundaries become unstable. If you tell a 'volunteer' to order the next one down the line
to fetch food for your supper, and so on, the last one may come to your doorstep bearing a live
cockerel."

"That precedent means someone could get around the law if he had an accomplice under Imperius,"
said Hermione, scribbling notes down on her parchment. "Even if the accomplice was witnessed
casting an Unforgivable, or even committing murder in a public area, there would be no
consequences if he shows symptoms of being under the Imperius, or even if he claimed he was
under magical coercion. That's if wizarding court follows the same guideline of 'beyond all
reasonable doubt' as British common law does."

"Exactly." Mr. Pacek nodded. "For someone like Gellert Grindelwald, underlings do much of his
visible dirty work. And for the things he does in person... well, it would be a troublesome task to
find someone willing to speak against him at trial. Political writers and opponents, if they dare to
denounce him, criticise his policy instead of his person."

"And what happens if multiple people cast the Imperius on the same subject?" Hermione asked,
pencil hovering over the page.

"The commands are obeyed until they contradict, and the volunteer should defer to the more
powerful wizard with the strongest will," answered Mr. Pacek, stroking his goatee in thought.
"Dark magic leaves traces, so if that is being done, it would be safe to assume that someone is
attempting to cover his traces up. It confuses certain magical instruments. Dark Detectors, Foe-
Glasses, and the like," he said. Noticing Hermione's look of confusion, he added, "They are
enchanted mirrors that show the shadows of one's enemies, but too many at once will cause the
instrument to malfunction."

"That's interesting," said Hermione, making a note to look up Foe-Glasses. She remembered seeing
them mentioned in the upper year Defence textbooks, but she couldn't recall what one actually
looked like. "Based on what you said, does that mean you could negate one Imperius Curse by
casting a stronger one in its place? In ordering the victim of an Imperius to disregard all previous
orders, you'd create a blanket contradiction without having to know the exact details of the original
instructions. Then you could cure victims who've been controlled, without having to track down
the original caster... and kill him, I suppose. It would be best if nobody had to kill anyone."

"You might," said Mr. Pacek. "But only if you trusted someone to cast the Imperius Curse and then
immediately rescind it without seeing it as an opportunity to take advantage. And that is if you
choose to overlook the ethical implications around casting an Unforgivable Curse on another witch
or wizard, who, being under spell, cannot give true consent."

"Is there any ethical question about it?" Hermione said, pursing her lips. "You'd be curing someone
who's being mind controlled, because while they're under, they could be a danger to themselves and
other people. It might be illegal by technicality, but it'll fix them, make them better. Surely that
makes such an act forgivable. It wouldn't be much different than an inoculation—giving someone
weakened cowpox so they'll be immune to smallpox."

Mr. Pacek chuckled. "It is times like this that I begin to understand why someone like Mr. Riddle is
so fond of you."

Hermione's pencil skidded over the paper. "Excuse me? What does that mean?"

"You are conscientious; you strive to defend others," he said, "but in doing so, you can find reasons
to justify the usage of Dark Arts."

"I'm not using them, or planning to!" said Hermione adamantly. "Studying them isn't the same as
using them. You studied them yourself when you were in school."

"I did," he conceded, "but I do not look for ways to rationalise their use, or detect inadequacies in
the law that would allow me to do so."
"I think it's best to be as well-informed as possible," Hermione said primly. "Why shouldn't I want
to know everything about the magical world? The good parts are as important as the bad parts.
Even if our society or social systems have shortcomings, it only means that there are places where
improvements might be made."

"And in knowing the legal loopholes, and wanting to study such magic, I do not think I am wrong
to guess that the next thing you will ask me is to demonstrate the spell, in the name of academic
curiosity," Mr. Pacek spoke in a very amused tone of voice, his eyes glittering. "As we both know,
the law only protects humans, and Conjured animals, being magical constructs that do not have the
internal structures to eat and breed, are not properly alive by the biological definition."

"But are they alive enough for the spell to work?" Hermione asked, pausing as an avalanche of
questions began to gather. "Can you even use it on inanimate objects? What about the in-between
things like ghosts and plants? And what about real living animals Transfigured into inanimate
objects?"

"I may as well indulge my curiosity too," Mr. Pacek said, sighing. "The wards are well-maintained
here, but I do not recommend doing this anywhere else—and never at school, for I should not like
to see you following the path of Herr Grindelwald. Even if you might have the most well-
intentioned reasons, and a true scholar's appreciation of the magical essentia, you cannot expect
other people to see it that way." A grim smile crossed his face. "Other than young Mr. Riddle, of
course."

He drew his wand and Conjured a small dove with soft grey feathers and pink legs. It flapped
around on Mr. Pacek's vacated footstool, its head bobbing up and down. It cooed and scratched,
and would have been indistinguishable from a real bird.

Real birds, she reminded herself, can't be disappeared with a simple Finite Incantatem. And this
bird Conjuration is better than using a real bird. I wouldn't do it to a real animal, and never to a
sentient being.

Hermione pulled out a fresh roll of parchment and a sharp pencil for some intensive note taking.

When Hermione returned to Hogwarts for the new term, she'd begun to see more differences in
scholarship between herself and other people.

Hermione loved school and enjoyed studying and learning new things, especially if they had to do
with magic or wizarding culture. But in the end, it wasn't for the sake of learning that she studied
—she wanted top marks, but she also wanted to do something with her knowledge. She wanted to
make things better; she wanted to improve the world that was meant to be her birthright, whose
existence she'd only been informed about when she was months from starting Muggle preparatory
school.
Mr. Pacek was studied in magical theory, but he only pursued in depth the subjects that personally
interested him. He was a specialist in warding buildings and fixtures, although his true passion was
in the craftsmanship of magical windows and glassware. In other subjects such as Defence or
Potions or Magical Botany he was no better or worse than the average wizard.

And just as she did, Tom enjoyed learning—he was obsessive about collecting knowledge—but he
preferred magical disciplines for which he could see a practical use. The ones he didn't were
disregarded: History of Magic, Divination, Muggle Studies, and Flying Class. (Hermione could
see what made that last one somewhat useless: Why would wizards need to learn to ride
broomsticks when the other methods of magical travel were faster and didn't involve breaking the
Statute of Secrecy when going further than the outer limits of Hogsmeade? Not everyone wanted
to play Quidditch. And even if they did, there were only seven player positions per House team.)

Top marks were secondary to Tom's stance on magical scholarship. His entire reason for studying
was the pursuit of self-improvement.

In some ways it bothered her, because Tom excelled as a student and a wizard. He had an intuitive
grasp of practical magic where Hermione's neat and logical mind struggled with the fine details—
when it came down to it, magic made no sense. (Why did the official rules state that it was
impossible to Conjure or Transfigure wizarding money, which was made of gold, but entirely
possible to create gold through Alchemy? They'd made metal snuffboxes in Second Year
Transfiguration, so why was one metal an exception, and the others not?)

For all that she had the capability of becoming a great researcher, she could see where Tom could
become a great innovator. But she couldn't imagine a Tom Riddle whose priorities weren't firmly
concentrated on making himself better or more powerful. The idea of a humanitarian Tom Riddle
boggled the mind; she just couldn't imagine any version of him behaving that way, helping a world
that had never given him a genuine crumb of concern. If Tom was altruistic, then there must be
some ulterior motive behind it.

(If Tom could be cynical about the world, then she could be cynical about Tom. It wasn't cynicism
so much as being... realistic.)

Speaking of Tom, she scarcely spoke to him; by the time spring had arrived, she was seeing him
less and less. It seemed that after Christmas, he'd started making "friends" with more of his
Slytherin Housemates, and his side of the House dining table was looking more crowded than ever.

At breakfast she observed Tom and his dining companions. They were all of them boys and she
didn't recognise some of their faces from shared classes, so they mustn't have been Fourth Years.
Wherever Tom sat, they gathered around him. Without conscious intention, he was at the centre,
the heart of the group around which the other boys circled. They ate their meals, played card
games at the table, conversed among themselves, but when Tom looked up from his books and gave
any single one of them his full attention, the rest quietened.

It was... curious.

She wasn't sure what to make of it. She knew him well enough to know that he didn't enjoy it—he
enjoyed shows of respect and deference, obviously, but it was hard to believe that he'd enjoy having
people near him all the time, having their shallow conversations within earshot, annoying him with
the pointlessness of their existence. (When Hermione tried to put herself in the mindset of Tom
Riddle, she couldn't help picturing him as a mean and snappy old tortoise.) Now and then she
could see a flash of irritation in his eyes; although he must have noticed that she was watching, he
never turned his gaze in her direction.

The morning owl delivery arrived, and her line of sight was broken by a mass of feathers and
hooting birds and the slap of rolled newspapers hitting the table from six feet up, and the occasional
metallic clatter when a paper hit the hot chafing dishes containing oat porridge and cream of wheat,
sending the serving ladles flying over the breakfasting students.

There were few reactions and even fewer screams; most Ravenclaw students continued with their
reading and eating. Some of the older Ravenclaws waved their wands to Vanish the mess on their
laps and on the faces of the youngest students around them without comment.

This was considered a regular morning at Hogwarts.

"Oh, look," said Twyla Ellerby on Hermione's other side, flipping through an owl order catalogue
full of bright, animated fashion plates of witches twirling in place and blowing kisses. "Gladrag's
has got their spring collection out this week. I think I'll pop in and have a look the next time I'm in
Hogsmeade."

"Have they?" asked Siobhan Kilmuir, Hermione's dorm mate, who'd dropped down to the seat next
to Twyla and began looking over her shoulder. "It looks alright, I suppose. But they hardly look
much different from last year's—a little less darting on the hip and a bit more tailoring on the
shoulder. Couldn't you just re-use last year's, and change the colours for the season? Witch Weekly
ran a good article the other week on colouring charms by Mr. Bertram, and it'd be a good chance to
try them out."

"Was that the one on the forty-eight hour weekend makeover? Philippa Boyne—you know her, she
was your Herbology partner back in Second Year—asked to borrow my copy and hasn't given it
back. Do you know, I think she borrowed my Defence notes before the final exams last year and
never gave them back either; is it too late to ask for them back too—"

Hermione had been half-listening to the conversation as she paged through her own mail delivery, a
Muggle newspaper from London. It had a front page article on the recent spate of German
bombings in York, Exeter, and Bath, with a casualty count of well over a thousand souls. The
second page had information on National Service, and the mandatory registration of all British men
and women over the age of eighteen.

National Service is nothing but another name for conscription, thought Hermione, skimming
through the details. Minimum age of eighteen, maximum age of fifty-one years old—Dad wouldn't
be exempt from this. Mum has a child under the age of majority in her care, so she could apply for
an exemption for the next few years, and Dad is an experienced doctor; they'd never be moved to
the front, surely—

—Wait a moment.

Her thoughts stuttered as she heard a name she recognised.

Bertram?

Could it be...?

"Sorry," Hermione interrupted, not the least bit apologetic, "did you say 'Mr. Bertram'?"
Twyla and Siobhan shared an amused glance. Twyla nodded, saying, "I didn't know you read Witch
Weekly, Hermione."

"I don't," said Hermione, "I read the Prophet when I see it in the Common Room, but I haven't seen
anyone leaving Witch Weekly lying out."

Hermione tried to keep up with wizarding news, but it was hard to call it 'news'.

The Minister for Magic, Leonard Spencer-Moon, celebrated his birthday yesterday with a surprise
gala thrown by his supporters. A Quidditch supplies shop in Diagon Alley was running a draw for
a ticket package to the Quidditch World Cup that was to take place that summer, open to anyone
who made a purchase at their store before August and registered their owling address. There was a
notice to wizarding gardeners to keep their magical plants in charmed beds or secured hothouses,
due to a recent incident with a wandering Muggle and a flesh-eating shrub.

It was interesting to see how wizards lived their daily lives, but overall she found what they did to
be so... incredibly inconsequential. Where was the news on Grand Minister Grindelwald? What
about the uneasy pact of non-aggression made between Grindelwald and the Headmaster of
Durmstrang? The reports of infiltrators in various European magical governments, including Italy
and France? Mr. Pacek had given her smuggled Dutch newspapers from his contact in Leiden, and
had translated the cover articles when she'd asked about them.

Did the British Ministry have some hold on the Daily Prophet, enough to censor the final product
delivered to subscribers? Hermione could see the Ministry of Magic not wanting to panic its
citizens; they could not be unaware that its fellow European Ministries' vulnerabilities being
exploited by hostile forces meant that there must be vulnerabilities at home. She knew that in the
Muggle world, the British government sanitised its official statements, and the wartime Emergency
Powers Act granted it the ability to censure criticism whenever a publication was found to be
"damaging to morale".

But there is no excuse for total ignorance, Hermione concluded.

For that reason, she couldn't bring herself to give money to the Daily Prophet or any other
wizarding periodical, so she only read them when she could get them for free.

"No one's throwing out their Witch Weeklies, that's why," said Twyla. "There's always something in
it these days that I want to save for later. All the tailoring tips don't work when we're only allowed
our school uniforms."

"What about Mr. Bertram?" Hermione asked. "Who is he?"

"He's an advice columnist," Siobhan put in, "and an expert in Charms. Mum saves his recipes in
her kitchen scrapbook."

"Is his given name 'Thomas', by any chance?"

Twyla sent Hermione a sidelong glance. "Are you sure you don't read Witch Weekly, Hermione?
We wouldn't judge if you did."

"I know you prefer harder subjects like Arithmancy, but Mr. Bertram's Charms articles aren't so
bad," said Siobhan rather reasonably. "It's nothing revolutionary, but he did write a section on
spellcasting patterns to help improve the charmwork of left-handed witches. People forget about us
lefties, even the school textbooks."

"He's so thoughtful," said Twyla breathily, holding her Gladrag's catalogue to her chest.

Siobhan sighed. "You haven't even met him, how would you know?"

"He sounds nice," Twyla said. "Anyone who sounds as nice as he does would never be a bad
person. Believe me, I know these things—I'm top three in our year in Divination. From his signs,
he sounds like he's in the house of Saturn, and do you know what that means?"

"What does it mean?" asked Hermione, who had chosen Muggle Studies in favour of Divination as
her third elective subject.

What little she knew about celestial forecasting she'd learned in Astronomy, a core subject that was
much more scientific than the guesswork and fanciful interpretations of Astrology. Astronomy was
useful for tracking the life cycles of magical animals and plants, and could be combined with
Arithmancy to calculate the most powerful days to brew certain potions and enchant certain
objects; Astrology in her experience, however, was "useful" for determining the romantic
compatibilities of every other boy in their year.

"He's 'saturnine', which makes him deep and brooding, associated with maturity," said Twyla.
"Saturn relates to intellect and authority, in the context of leadership and fatherhood—Saturn was
the father of the main Greek pantheon. See? The signs point to him being a good father, if he's not
married yet." Her brows furrowed in a look of consternation. "I hope he's not married."

"Saturn in the tenth house could mean maturity with a solitary nature," Siobhan pointed out
doubtfully. "Which also twists the 'fatherhood' interpretation. You forget that in the Greek myth,
Saturn fought and deposed his own father, Uranus."

"Alright, 'fatherhood' is a stretch, but it still indicates a personal affinity toward responsibility and
tradition. He's also powerful and a thinker. I wonder if he was a Ravenclaw?"

"He still wouldn't want you—Saturns in cadent are independent thinkers."

"How could he be solitary by nature if he's strong in leadership?"

"Well, you can be independent and a leader—"

"Oh, Siobhan, don't be such a Cancer!"

"What's that suppposed to mean?!"

"Aggression and confusion, according to Cholmain's Astrologia."

"At least I'm not a Gemini; air signs are never compatible with cadent Saturns..."

Hermione rolled her newspaper up and stuffed it in her bag, deciding that it was better to go to class
twenty minutes early than sit and listen to her dorm mates throw horoscope interpretations at one
another. She could always revise her notes in the back of the classroom before the teacher arrived.

As she was waiting for a bunch of Hufflepuff First Years to move out of the way of the door—for
some reason, Hufflepuffs always travelled in herds—she noticed Tom and his friends finishing up
their breakfasts and heading for the door as well.

She left the Great Hall, deliberately slowing her pace so Tom could catch up, and when he was
behind her, she took a step to the left and hissed at him under her breath.

"Tom!"

"What do you want?"

"Can we talk?"

He jerked his head toward an approaching intersection. There was a lesser used corridor that held
rooms used for club meetings on the weekends; the doors would be locked because everyone would
be going to class, but the corridor itself was deserted.

There was a small alcove between a carved stone column and a suit of armour. It was a close fit for
the two of them, since Tom appeared to have grown an inch or two over the Christmas holidays.
The toes of his shoes brushed her own, even as the cold stone pressed up against her back. Tom
applied a few non-verbal Silencing Charms before he slipped his wand back in his robes; she felt
the hem of his robe brushing against her knees, it was such a tight fit.

"What's so urgent that you had to stop me?" said Tom, looking down at her. "You normally save
your complaints for the weekend."

"I found out about your articles," said Hermione. "One of my dorm mates told me."

"Oh?" Tom lifted an eyebrow. "What did she have to say about me?"

"She had plenty of things to say about Thomas Bertram," Hermione huffed, still irritated about the
ridiculous horoscope reading. Really, even in a world where the Sight was considered a legitimate
magical gift, the art of Astrology still had a strong association with quackery.

And a well-deserved one at that, she thought.

"You're not jealous, are you?" said Tom, his eyes fixed on hers, and his expression darkening. His
nostrils flared, and he continued in a low voice, "You know, Hermione, I wouldn't be averse to
offering a collaborative writing credit—if I didn't think the idea of magical cheesemaking would be
too superficial for your tastes."

"Of course I'm not jealous!" said Hermione heatedly. There was a tiny part of her, the tiniest, most
microscopic speck, that was envious, because she'd liked to have seen her words printed and
delivered to a thousand households, or have a prominent segment of the population following along
with her personal opinions. It wasn't envy directed at Tom so much as it was a driving urge to see
herself there, successful, one day in the future. Yes, she decided, it was more like a jealousy of a
person's accomplishments than jealousy of the person's innate talent. And accomplishments could
be earned by anyone, whether they were born gifted or not. It just took work.

Thus heartened, Hermione asked, "Why should I be? You're doing something productive to fight
wizarding complacency. Maybe I'll never use your spells myself, the same way I'll never need a
snuffbox like the ones we make all the time in Transfiguration, but it doesn't mean I don't see the
value in teaching or learning new things. I just wish you'd told me about it instead of thinking you
had to hide it."
"Good," said Tom in clipped tones. "Is that all you wanted to say to me? I do have to ask that the
next time you want to discuss this topic in particular, you'd wait until we're not somewhere so
public. I hope you understand that it's meant to be a secret."

Hermione ignored the fact that this tiny alcove was hardly a public place. It was rather too private,
when she spent a moment or two to take in her surroundings—the alcove was so small she could
touch the three side walls without straightening her arms, and the overhead column's carved cornice
could brush the top of Tom's head if he stood straight. He had to stoop a little and lean forward to
keep from knocking himself out.

He was so close she could feel him breathe; from where she stood, she could count the silver stripes
on his green Slytherin necktie, or the knitted purls on the neckline of his woollen uniform jumper.

"Have you heard the news about the bombings?" said Hermione, tearing her eyes away from his
chest. She dug into her book bag and drew out the morning's paper from London, setting her bag
on the floor between their feet.

Union Jack Flies at Half-Mast, RAF to Fly for Retaliation.

Tom scanned the front page. "It's not London," he remarked with an indifferent shrug.

"I know," said Hermione. "London isn't as soft a target as the smaller cities. But they could still
come back. I wanted to tell you that you can come and stay with my family again. The official
word is that it's 'safe' for everyone evacuated to go back to London, but they still haven't closed the
shelters or ended the blackout curfew."

"I'll consider the offer," said Tom, "but if things go to plan, I won't need to."

Hermione blinked. "What does that mean? You're going back to Wool's?"

"No," Tom said. "I'm planning to hire out a room in the magical world for the summer."

"But that's expensive! And you don't—" Hermione cut herself off. "You're going to spend your
writing money on lodgings? You shouldn't, Tom—you have to save up; Parliament pushed the
National Service Act through, and cut out most of the prior exemptions. Even I will have to worry
about it when I leave Hogwarts, since they've put girls on the list too."

She opened the newspaper and showed him the interior, her finger jabbing at the relevant section
and smearing black printers' ink over her skin.

"Look here: 'Female British residents under thirty required for vital industries at home'. Who
knows when they'll extend the age limit, since they've already raised the men's from forty-one to
fifty-one. My father was aged-out with the old policy, but with the extension, he's eligible again."
She turned the page and showed him another passage. "The only way I can get out of it is to never
leave Wizarding London once I step off the Express for the last time. If I wanted an official
exemption, I'd have to marry and fall pregnant as soon as I'm done with school."
Tom made an odd choking sound from somewhere above her, and Hermione looked up from the
paper. He'd leaned over to read the small lines of black print under her pointing finger, so the top
of her head smacked into the underside of his jaw, which made him stumble on the book bag she'd
set on the floor when she'd dug out the newspaper. As the alcove was so cramped, his toe whacked
into her ankle and caused her to stagger into the wall.

Somehow, she ended up pressed flat against the wall, with Tom pressed against her.

He was much taller than her—it wasn't hard to recall that when she'd first met him, they had been
around the same height—so her face ended up mashed into his collar, and their legs were tangled
together by the straps of her bag. She could feel the rise and fall of Tom's chest; he was breathing
heavily, and it was unexpected because Tom had always made himself appear so aloof and
unflappable.

In this instance, however, it seemed like he'd been flapped.

"I remember you saying that your childbearing restrictions wouldn't apply to me," said Hermione,
one hand reaching down to untangle her bag.

Her knuckles brushed his trousered knees, which weren't as knobbly and sharp as she'd expected
from a boy of Tom's age whose rapid gain in height made them gawky and coltish until they'd filled
out somewhat—but wouldn't it just be fitting for Tom Riddle to have perfect rounded knees along
with his perfect wavy hair that had never touched a roller, and his perfect smooth skin that had
never seen a spot?

(Some part of her recognised the absurdity of their situation, and how indecent it would have been
had they been born a hundred years ago. If admiring a woman's bare ankles was considered the
height of lechery back then, then touching a man's clothed knees wouldn't be quite so far up, but it
had to be in the domain of the irredeemably saucy.)

"That's not funny," Tom muttered. He pushed himself off her, a strange expression on his face. He
lifted his fingers to his mouth and pulled out a few strands of curly brown hair, connected to his lips
by a fine string of saliva, like the silk thread of a spider's web.

Hermione could feel her ears growing warm. "Um," she said. "Sorry about that?"

Tom cleared his throat and glared at her. "I think it's best if we both agree that this never
happened."

"Fine," said Hermione. "Now, what's this about you going somewhere else in the summer?"

"If I keep writing articles during the summer—which I can't do at Wool's—then I can afford to stay
in a wizarding area," he said. "It'll be like a summer job."

"You're still underage," said Hermione, frowning. Tom had turned fifteen a few months ago, and
despite his looks and self-assured manner, she didn't think he could pass as an adult. Not to anyone
who gave him a second glance. "Most landlords wouldn't rent to you because of that, not without
seeing an adult witch or wizard with you. And you'd have to pay for food on top of the rent." She
shook her head. "If you can't find anything, you can always stay with us. I know you hate feeling
indebted to other people, but the most important thing is keeping yourself safe."
"I can look out for myself, Hermione," said Tom. "But if it makes you feel better, I'll write to you
as often as I can."

"It does," Hermione said, chewing on her lip. She tried to direct her thoughts away from Tom's
lips, and that sticky trail of spit he'd wiped off his cheek with the back of his hand. "I worry about
you. About the future."

"You shouldn't have to." Tom picked up her bag and shoved it into her arms. "For now, just worry
about studying and getting to class on time."

Hermione gasped, almost dropping her bag. "We're going to be late for class! What if they give us
detention?"

"Then you spend an hour or two before curfew sitting in the professor's office, asking her advanced
questions that she couldn't answer in class because she had to teach the lesson," said Tom.
"Simple."

"Oh, I'd have never thought of that," Hermione said, stepping out of the alcove and straightening
her robes.

"And once you've done it, they'll never want to give you detention again," said Tom. "Things will
all work out, trust me."
 High-Handed Bastard
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1942

On Tom's return to London that summer, he saw Wool's for the first time in two years.

He was immediately assaulted by a wave of nostalgia.

It wasn't a pleasant reminiscence of the good old days—Wool's had done nothing to produce good
memories—but he held a certain sentimentality for the place, for as humble as it was, he'd been
born there. It had given him reason to better himself, the motivation to push as far as he could
against the limitations under which everyone else lived their humdrum little lives, because every
step he took was one more step away from where he'd come. He told himself that it wasn't
shameful to have such humble origins. After all, one could not forget how many millions of people
dedicated their lives (and afterlives) to a man who'd been born in a stable.

From first glance, Wool's Orphanage looked the same as it always had: dreary and worn, with only
regular scrubbing and a bare minimum of maintenance keeping it from falling into a state of total
disrepair. (Guess who did the scrubbing and repairs? Not Tom, that's who.)

But as he looked closer, he noticed where changes had been made, so small that he caught himself
wondering if it had always been that way. The crumbling asphalt on the road leading up, that
dangling second 'A' in ORPHANAGE swinging in the wind was just as he remembered, but the
dirty windows had been boarded up with rough planks layered over oilcloth, and that pervading
grimness he felt upon walking through the gates...

He used to think nothing of it, passing through the gates twice a day on his way to primary school,
but now it really did feel like Hell on Earth, a place where hopes and dreams were put out of their
misery by a parental substitute assigned by the government, they who moulded the leftover bits and
pieces of children's souls into the much more acceptable values of duty and conformity.

Due to the evacuations, there were fewer children than there had been when he'd left, and many of
them were faces he didn't recognise. It wasn't as if he put the effort into memorising the names of
every orphan who, by chance or misadventure, found themselves sentenced to life in Mrs. Cole's
loving care, but he did assess each new inhabitant for their usefulness upon arrival. These children
were new, thin and grubby and shabbily clothed, and made him realise that out of all the people
he'd seen walking through the familiar tiled halls, he himself had been one of the oldest.

Mrs. Cole was in her office counting out little slips of paper into small piles.

Like the rest of the orphanage, she looked just as she always had: clean, well-kept uniform, sensible
shoes and lumpy, flesh-coloured stockings. But the uniform hung loose on her frame, just as her
skin hung loose on her face, the edges sagging where she'd lost weight, folds and wrinkles
gathering in the corners. He hadn't seen her in years; the aging came as no surprise. Some part of
Tom was quietly delighted to see her in such a state, when he himself was the very picture of
youthful health and vigour; he had grown broader and put on flesh since he'd last stood in front of
her office door at the end of his second year at Hogwarts. He took it as visible proof that he was
better than the other orphans—that he came of superior stock compared to the common Muggle.

In other circumstances, Tom wouldn't have been surprised to see Mrs. Cole dealing out a hand of
cards accompanied by a half-glass of white spirits, as there were only so many diversions to be had
when one's company was limited to the residents of Wool's. But, as he applied his subtle upside-
down reading skills, which he had kept in practice during all those teatime conversations with
Dumbledore over the years, he saw that they were ration tickets.

Men were given more tickets than women, who were in turn given more than children, the category
which comprised the majority of the local population. However, children were afforded extra milk
rations, as well as extra clothing tickets for how quickly they grew. Not that it did much, as a
customer had to hand over the tickets on top of cash for new clothes, and wartime prices had made
everything in the shops much dearer.

(He had once accompanied Hermione to Hogsmeade, where she'd spent an hour at the clothiers'
browsing the selection of stockings and socks. Wizarding shops were cheaper than the Muggle
equivalent now, and no one there even knew what ration booklets were. Hermione had marvelled
at how wizards could knit so well with magic instead of machines, and how the fabrics were so thin
and light without a stitch of nylon, which was expensive and rationed in the Muggle world. Tom
could have lectured her on the technical aspects of the reiterative charmwork in knitting spells... but
he was self-aware enough to know that normal boys were ignorant of such things, even the good
ones who liked helping around the house out of devotion to their beloved mothers.)

She looked up from her desk, lips pinched. "Tom Riddle?"

"Good day, Mrs. Cole," said Tom, slipping one hand into his pocket and feeling the embroidered
edge of a cloth napkin he'd borrowed from his last breakfast at Hogwarts that morning.

"You're back then, Tom? Staying with us for good?" Her eyes flicked down to the stack of ration
tickets. "Not going away with that family in Crawley again?"

"No," said Tom, "I'm not staying with them. But I shan't be staying here either."

Mrs. Cole's lips pinched even further. "You're entitled to your month's tickets to take with you, but
we've already used the ones from when you were away at school."

"I don't want them," Tom answered, quite truthfully. He didn't want rubbery cheese or milk powder
flavoured with ground vitamins; he didn't think he could stomach it after months of proper food at
Hogwarts. "I'm happy for you to keep collecting them in my name—each small contribution helps
in these hard times, doesn't it?"

"You're leaving, then," Mrs. Cole said. "For good, or just the summer? Where are you going?"

"I've found myself a job for the summer. I'll go straight to school afterwards, and you won't see me
back until next year."

Tom drew the napkin out of his pocket. If all goes well, you won't see me back at all.

"Here." Tom slipped an envelope out of the napkin and slid it onto Mrs. Cole's desk.
Mrs. Cole inspected the envelope, which was of wizarding make: thick parchment, mottled yellow-
cream instead of the chemically treated white paper used in Muggle offices. There was a heavy red
blob of wax on the flap, un-stamped with a crest or personal insignia. It would have looked
suspicious to any wizard, but to the average working Muggle who was served with practical
alternatives in lieu of any opportunities for luxury—their stationery came with factory applied self-
adhesive! They put their mouths on it!—this would appear elegant and expensive.

Tom kept his hands behind his back and his posture relaxed. He watched as the matron picked up
the envelope, turning it around to see her name written on the front; she then flipped it to the side
with the wax seal.

She stuck her thumb under the wax, and it crumbled into sharp little shards of red. They dug into
the tender flesh of her nailbed.

"Ouch!" she hissed, and popped her thumb into her mouth. With her other hand, she flicked open
the envelope and scanned the contents of the letter within.

Tom heaved a mental sigh. He was counting on the Muggle lack of familiarity with sealing wax—
the proper stuff flexed and bent but remained solid in order to endure hours of transit flapping
about on an owl's leg. It didn't crumble into bits at a touch, but peeled off into a single piece with
the design intact, which encouraged wealthy wizards to keep buying custom seals.

This wax crumbled, because it wasn't just wax. It contained concentrated Confusion Concoction,
his own altered recipe for it, brewed in a solvent base of dandelion sap mixed with flobberworm
mucus, which cooled down to a thick paste at room temperature. He'd introduced finely diced
goosegrass stems in the cooling stage to both dye the potion red and allow it to be absorbed through
the skin, a tip that he'd picked up from a borrowed Healing textbook; it was used as a treatment
when a patient was incapable of swallowing a conventional potion, but being stored in jars and pots
meant for multiple uses halved its shelf life in comparison to single-use potions in Stasis Charm
stoppered bottles.

"'Tom Riddle...'" read Mrs. Cole in a slow, slurring voice. "'Has... secured a job for the summer.'"

"That's correct, Mrs. Cole," said Tom, nodding along. "It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up."

"'The job... provides food and board. Tom will not need his room. His room will remain...
untouched... until Tom's next return.'"

"Thank you, Mrs. Cole," said Tom, smiling graciously. "I know things might be crowded with new
occupants, but you know how much I like to keep my things in order."

"'A sum of five pounds is given in Tom's name... in thanks for Mrs. Cole's cooperation.'"

"An advance of my pay," said Tom. "It'd please me if you wrote a receipt and made a copy for your
records. Something to remember me by, when I'm gone."

With all the Muggleborns staying at Hogwarts for the Christmas holidays due to the war, most of
them had received care packages from their parents, which included Muggle pounds sterling for
some reason. It wasn't hard to trade them galleons for their pounds at a favourable rate. Their
parents, being Muggles, and themselves, being underage, couldn't open accounts at Gringotts. With
no account, they couldn't write to the goblins to conduct banking transactions by owl mail. And
whilst at school, they couldn't go and exchange currencies with a teller.
Tom had amassed over two hundred galleons from a whole year's writing, which would have made
his trunk quite heavy if the money pouches hadn't been enchanted with a Feather-Light Charm.
Collectively, they'd taken up a good deal of space in his trunk and jingled about unless he renewed
the Silencing Charms on a regular basis. He'd been somewhat relieved to have changed much of
his gold for Muggle banknotes, and was planning to open a Muggle bank account. He'd decided to
keep his extra money in a Muggle bank until he was seventeen, and collect the interest on it. The
goblins didn't offer interest, or very much in the way of investment options at all.

Mrs. Cole smeared drool over her chin as she wrote out a receipt in duplicate. She placed Tom's
copy of the receipt back in the envelope and handed it back to Tom, who took it with a hand
covered by the napkin.

"It seems... everything is in order, Tom," said Mrs. Cole.

"I'm much obliged, Mrs. Cole," Tom beamed. "I'll see you next year, I suppose. I might send a
postcard while I'm away and have the time, but don't look for it."

"Goodbye... Tom..."

Tom shut the door behind him and allowed Mrs. Cole to return to her ration ticket counting.

It had worked.

Of course it had.

He had known it would work when he'd convinced Rosier to rub some of his Confusion Concoction
paste on the door handles of the Gryffindor Quidditch team's changing room the evening before the
last game of the year, on the final weekend of May. Ravenclaw had beaten Gryffindor, though
neither team had scored enough points to top Slytherin House's cumulative point total.

Slytherin had taken the Inter-House Quidditch Cup, and Tom had secured Rosier's esteem, which
the other boy had been dawdling about ever since joining Tom's unofficial 'Homework Club' after
Christmas. It had been convenient to Tom, who had until that point rated Sebastian Rosier as
interesting and as useful as furniture.

Rosier's sly mentions of the Gryffindors' humiliating defeat at dinner that night had convinced
Abraxas Malfoy to be less aggressive in Duelling Club, because as a member of the Slytherin
Quidditch team, he cared more about winning than about good sportsmanship. And if Malfoy
couldn't win at Duelling, he satisfied himself with winning Quidditch matches for the House,
because it would bring him one step closer to the Captainship in the following school year.

(No one but Rosier had known how exactly Tom had done it, and even Rosier didn't know what
he'd put on the door handle—only that he should wear his Herbology gloves while performing his
assigned task.)

That left Tom to drag his trunk two miles to Charing Cross. And he couldn't even charm it lighter,
the same as he couldn't have Confunded and Obliviated Mrs. Cole, and saved himself two hours
dicing ingredients to a powder on top of the three hours brewing and cooling, because whole
potions ingredients didn't dissolve in a paste base as they did in a liquid. At least potions had the
benefit of not being traceable by the same wand test that Professor Merrythought had used on him
after the Wardrobe Incident, which he'd found out later was standard procedure for Aurors and hit
wizards when interviewing potential lawbreakers. It would take a Potions Master to figure out
what Tom had done, and he'd taken with him the only evidence.

For all the preparations he'd put into escaping the Muggle world for the summer, his plans for what
to do after that remained... tenuous.

His main goal was to stay out of the orphanage and ensure himself a situation that provided clean
sheets and proper meals, without ending up on the Grangers' doorstep like a stray puppy, cap in one
hand and suitcase in the other. It wasn't that the Grangers had been cruel or abusive, as other
people were when they took in a parent-less child with no intention of making it a member of their
family—maiden aunts looking for a carer in their old age, or large families wanting a maid-of-all-
work came to mind—but living with them would have been a constant distraction.

They had certain expectations.

They wanted him sociable, agreeable, and convivial.

He could do that; he could meet their expectations if he wanted to; Tom Riddle could do anything if
he put his will to it.

But he knew that it would be an illusion, to shine away the rough edges of his character so that
everyone who saw him would be blinded by his light and see nothing else. Like the glaze of a
china cup, the outer layer of himself would grow brittle over time; constant contact would chip
away at him, and reveal hints of the true colour beneath.

And the true colour was nothing to be proud of, nothing he wanted other people to see—Tom
himself was personally reluctant to address it—because he, in a manner of speaking, was more like
a tamed stray than he ever wanted to admit, at least when it came to how he felt about Hermione
Granger.

It was a combination of the way she smelled and the way she felt—strange and soft and fleshy,
which in theory should have been as appealing as sticking his hand into the barrel of pickled toads
in the potions supply cupboard, but wasn't. He wanted her friendly pats on the shoulder and upper
arm to last for longer than they did; when he saw her absent-mindedly running her fingers over her
owl's feathers at the breakfast table, he imagined himself as the object of her attention; his memory
lingered on the hug she had given him at the platform that very morning, before they'd gone their
separate ways—

Of course he knew what this was.

It had gotten to the point where he couldn't ignore its existence, but he was not so far gone that he
couldn't attempt to govern his thoughts and his impulses. During the school year he had Duelling
Club and the members of his unofficial homework study group on which to bleed off his
frustrations; there was nothing that satisfied an itch within him like knocking people off a duelling
platform like skittles. During the summer, he hadn't the luxury of volunteers willing to face him at
wandpoint, so he'd decided to remove himself from the Distraction in order to get on with his life.
He had better things to do than lose himself to idle thoughts while real, profitable opportunities
passed within his grasp.

That was his reasoning for avoiding the Grangers this summer, as contemptible as it was.
With these thoughts in mind, he found himself beneath the dim, smoke-stained rafters of the Leaky
Cauldron, lugging his trunk up to the counter.

In the late afternoon, somewhere between lunch and dinner, the pub was relatively empty. Most of
the tables and booths were unoccupied. There was the bartender behind the counter, the one who
Dumbledore had told him, to Tom's great disgust, shared his given name. There was a barmaid
with an apron tied around her waist wiping down the scarred wooden trestle table in the centre of
the room, cleaning away the wax drips fallen from the chandelier attached to the ceiling beams by
black iron chains.

In a corner booth, a handful of be-hatted witches dawdled over a late tea, and not dissimilar to the
pubs of the Muggle world, there were also a few grizzled old men nursing single pints for hours on
end at the local watering spot because they had nowhere else to be.

"Excuse me," Tom said, approaching the barmaid, who was levitating fresh candles into the iron
sconces of the chandelier, "how much does a room cost?"

"We're booked up," said the barmaid, not even looking at Tom. "Only room left is a double with
facilities."

"How much is it?"

"Fifteen sickles a night, comes with a breakfast tray. Five galleons and five if you pay for the
week. Cheaper if you split the hire and find someone to take the other bed."

Tom did the calculations. Ten weeks away from Hogwarts would cost him over fifty-two galleons,
an absolute fortune, unless he sacrificed his privacy to share with a stranger, which was worse than
enduring the awkward politeness of the Granger family. For that kind of money he could stay in a
four star hotel in London, or a five star in Leeds or Liverpool. For that money, he could buy
himself a tiny flat of his own in London—a wreck of a place with no electricity, working plumbing,
or a roof, in a bombed-out borough, but it could be his.

(But all of these places would be in the Muggle world, and that would defeat the purpose of
avoiding Wool's this summer.)

"Do you charge for your Floo?" asked Tom.

"Two knuts for Floo powder. Free with any order."

Tom hadn't eaten anything since the last Hogwarts breakfast before getting on the train. He went
through his options as he dug into his pie in gravy with a side of minted peas and buttered
parsnips.

The Leaky Cauldron, as the gateway to the magical world, was the most popular pub in Wizarding
London. There were other inns and taverns in London, but they catered to niche customers. He
knew there was that one pub in Knockturn Alley that served a suspicious "veal" schnitzel with
"brown sauce". But he'd never been there before, and the idea of spending a night there by himself
wasn't the least bit enticing, for all that the proprietors would turn a blind eye to his practising
"obscure magics" in his room, from pages copied from his classmates' heirloom books.

He couldn't imagine spending a whole summer in Knockturn Alley, unless he covered every door
and window with strings of garlic bulbs, and kept his shoes on in bed and his wand under his
pillow.

But what about outside of London?

Tom knew there were wizarding settlements all over Britain, small magical villages in Lancashire
and Devon and Wales. Just as in the Muggle world, prices outside the big city had to be more
reasonable, and with magical transportation, distances meant nothing to wizards. But he couldn't
just travel there; to use the Floo would require knowing the exact name of his destination, and he
couldn't see anything good coming out of jumping into the Leaky Cauldron's fireplace shouting
"Devon Wizard Village!" With that, he was liable to end up in a random family's sitting room,
setting off the burglar jinxes and having Ministry hit wizards summoned for a case of attempted
robbery.

Tom wasn't well-travelled outside of the streets of central London. In London, he always knew
where he was by looking at the height of the buildings, the shape of their roofs and windows, the
design of the street lamps, and the colour and markings of the pillar-shaped Royal Mail post boxes:
the ones in his borough bore the names and arms of Victoria Regina, but the ones in Hermione's
newer suburban neighbourhood were marked with George Rex.

The only other town he was familiar with was Hogsmeade, in Scotland. Not that there was much to
memorise. The town was tiny, with one central village green and road; most of the businesses and
houses were placed around it, so visitors could shop from door to door in the snowiest winter
without leaving the shelter of the overhanging eaves.

The largest building off the main road had been The Hog's Head, the dingy tavern whose
appurtenances must have been installed before the Statute and hadn't been updated since, had
rooms to let for the partaking of "private business transactions". Tom, who had seen the benefit of
living in Knockturn Alley despite the character of the clientèle, couldn't help but recognise the
opportunity in this.

This was guaranteed privacy. No questions asked. And no need to stock up on garlic bulbs, or
sprinkle powdered garlic over his bedsheets.

Tom personally didn't mind the taste of garlic in small amounts—mixed with crumbs of day-old
bread and pressed into the egg-washed surface of a side of chicken, it elevated a meal and pleased
the pickiest children of his readers—but he couldn't imagine being surrounded by the sharp aroma
of garlic for weeks on end. That kind of thing would drive the most composed man into a
homicidal fit.

He'd made up his mind by the time he'd finished his meal.

Hogsmeade it was.

Salazar Slytherin himself had lived in Hogsmeade during the construction of the Hogwarts castle,
along with the three other Founders. According to a book Tom had found in the Ravenclaw
Common Room two Christmases ago, Rowena Ravenclaw, a native Scot, had recommended the
area around the lake as the perfect, private location to build a magical school. The Founders'
families had lived in the village year-round; the book said that Rowena had taken a local man as her
own, and had borne him a daughter who'd been raised in the village.

To Tom, there was no place that was as magical as Hogwarts. But when the school was closed and
the gates barred for the summer, Hogsmeade was the closest he could get.
Too bad that it's still so rustic, thought Tom, having paid for his food at the Leaky, taken a scoop of
Floo powder from the jar, and entered Hogsmeade via the Floo at The Three Broomsticks.

The fireplaces at The Broomsticks were built wide, with a high mantel, so wizards and witches
could pass through without having their hats knocked off. It was well-maintained, with enchanted
magical fires, so there weren't any logs and cast iron grates to trip over. It looked like it could hold
a spitted hog and a brace of ducks and still have room for commuters.

The fireplaces at The Hog's Head, when he pushed open the creaking door, dragging his school
trunk after him, weren't even lit. It prompted Tom to ponder on what would have happened had he
tried to come directly from The Leaky Cauldron. What was that blurry green space he saw when
travelling between Floo connections?

The Hog's Head was empty apart from one customer hunched in a corner. It was daytime on a
weekday, so Tom wasn't surprised—he had only ever been inside the pub once, and it had been on a
weekend. Even then, it hadn't been the most popular place. Wizards didn't look down on drinking
during the day, as it wasn't unusual to have a glass of ale or cider with lunch, but this wasn't an "ale
and cider with a ploughman's lunch" type of establishment.

The barman was behind the bar, spreading dirt on the counter with a stained tea towel.

Tom approached, luggage at his heels.

"How much is a room for the week?" Tom asked. It was better to be direct, wasn't it? In his
experience, he'd always thought that salt-of-the-earth folk felt threatened by what they considered
intellectual types, which included anyone who either used words over five syllables, or spoke
without a regional dialect.

The barman regarded him with a flat stare. "Ten galleons."

"The Three Broomsticks charges four and eight per week."

"This isn't the Broomsticks, lad."

"No, it's not," Tom agreed. "The Broomsticks has a day maid and breakfast options."

"You won't find any such fancies here," the barman grunted. His hands stilled, and he set aside his
dirty rag of a towel.

"I wasn't expecting to," said Tom, reaching into his pocket for his wand. "I can manage on my
own. In fact—" he pointed his wand at a stack of smudged and dusty glasses behind the counter,
"—I happen to be an expert in household charms."

Tom cast a non-verbal Levitation Charm. Three glasses—short and squat, and based on what he'd
seen in the Common Room after hours, were what people used for serving whiskey—rose in the air
and bobbed over to him, hovering a foot above the counter. A slight adjustment to the charm and a
swirl of his wrist caused the glasses to rotate in mid-air.

Tom followed it with a wordless jet of steam, pouring out of his wand like the chimney stack of a
factory, billowing white clouds that split into three masses that he directed around and inside the
glasses. He chewed the inside of his cheek in concentration; he had gotten used to generating mass
amounts of fog in Duelling Club which felt not much different than what he could get from a dorm
room shower. Heated steam with enough water content to give the glasses a perfunctory rinse was
another thing, which he'd practised for an article on the seven uses of the Super Steamer Spell.

(One of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, according to Albus Dumbledore's celebrated essay on it,
had been in wart removal potions. If anyone should be judged, it was the Transfiguration
professor. Dumbledore was the father of inane inventions, as the shelf in his office full of magical
doodads proved, and proud of it.)

The glasses rotated in a white cloud, the surfaces dripping with beads of water which evaporated
before a single drop hit the top of the bar.

It didn't look that impressive, but Tom was wordlessly performing two altered spells at once (two!)
on three distinct subjects (three!). To the more discerning eye, this was N.E.W.T. extra credit level
charm work, the same way casting a Patronus Charm earned extra points in the Defence practical
examination, or successfully brewing a full-efficacy Mandrake Restorative Draught under the eyes
of the instructor won one a recommendation to an apprenticeship program.

Anyone who knew anything about magical theory had to recognise Tom's brilliance—or at the very
least, his efficiency.

The rotation slowed. Tom flicked his wand one final time, and the stream of fog broke off the tip,
dissolving into the air.

When the clouds wisped away, three shiny crystal tumblers were left, not a trace of dirt or a
smudged fingerprint in sight. There were a few scratches on the bottom of the glasses that Tom
couldn't have done anything about—he assumed they'd come as a result of the barman not
providing coasters for his tables.

The glasses, unlike every other vessel and container in The Hog's Head, sparkled.

Tom floated them back to the stack behind the bar, gracing the barman with a pleasant smile. "I'm
also quite decent at Transfiguration, too."

The dirty tea towel rippled, thickening from the centre outwards, fresh fibres growing out like hair,
the colour changing from a dull grey to a clean, crisp white. Another application of the steam spell
followed by an anchored Scouring Charm turned the old rag into a temporary self-cleaning towel,
which began buffing away at the layers of dirt crusted into the bar.

(One could always cast the Scouring Charm on the bar itself, but the spell worked best on smaller
discrete objects. It wouldn't work if you cast it on a house you wanted to clean, but would if you
cast it on a sinkful of dishes. Tom thought it was more efficient to anchor the spell on a single
cleaning implement, instead of having to cast it several times on the bar, and on each table and
glass.)

"As you see," spoke Tom, returning his wand to his pocket, "I'm capable of keeping a place tidy if I
want. In fact, I'd leave the place looking better than it was when I got it. I'll pay a galleon a week
for a room."

The barman glared at him, his beard twitching. The transfigured towel scrubbed energetically at a
crusty black stain. "Three galleons and five."
"I'm not paying any more than two galleons a week," said Tom firmly. "You don't have running
water and plumbing installed in this place, do you?"

"Got water in the kitchen up the back. No plumbing upstairs," the barman said. "Want a bath, use
the tub in the room. But you'll conjure and heat your own water."

"And what about meals?"

"What about them?"

"I'll give you one galleon, two sickles for a week," said Tom, who was hoping that he wouldn't
regret choosing this backwater establishment for the sake of the privacy. A pocketful of garlic and
pale-faced European men with a flair for silk-lined capes couldn't be so bad in comparison, could
it?

"How long are you staying?"

"Ten weeks." Tom reached into his trouser pocket, feeling for the string of his coin bag. "I can pay
a month up front."

The barman eyed him, his eyes glinting in the light of a few lonely guttering candles set at intervals
on the back wall.

"Ten weeks?" he growled. "How old are you, lad?"

"Seventeen," Tom replied, not batting an eye. He clinked the coins in his pocket for emphasis and
kept his expression neutral. He hadn't been to The Hog's Head since that visit last year, when he'd
been wearing his Slytherin robes and his school uniform, which he'd removed and stowed in his
trunk back on the Hogwarts Express. Surely the bartender wouldn't remember him? He'd grown
taller and filled out a bit since then—and his voice had deepened. He also wasn't making inquiries
about goat milk.

(He sincerely hoped that the barman didn't remember him as "The Goat Milk Boy".)

The barman peered at him. Tom peered back, sucking in a slow breath between his clenched teeth
and willing the other man to obey his natural inclinations: to take money without asking questions,
to respect the power of a competent wizard, to think about the other tasks he ought to be taking care
of, such as checking on the state of the goats out back.

The books he'd read on mental magic had said that obedience by dint of magical force took more
power and was more noticeable than convincing people to lean towards their own beliefs. The
Obliviation spell, for example, was easier to cast on someone who had suffered a traumatic event,
who wanted to forget a certain aspect of their past. To cast it on someone unwilling led to having
to subdue them and work as a quickly as possible, which often produced unreliable results in the
form of impaired short-term memory and loss of personality traits. If he was attempting to remove
the memories of the unwilling, of course they weren't people he cared about, so the prospect of
permanent amnesia didn't make him feel guilty in any way. But he didn't want others to judge him
guilty either, not in the context of a criminal conviction, so it was better to hide the evidence—or
anything that could be recognised by someone who'd read a textbook on Healing.

"What's your name?" the barman asked.

"Bertram." Tom's response was automatic. He was a bit put-out at first for having so generic a
pseudonym, but when he needed to be unmemorable, it had its uses.

"If the Aurors come here looking for you, you'll go with them and won't make a scene."

"I wouldn't give the Aurors any reason to," said Tom, sounding offended.

"You best keep your word," the barman grunted. He fumbled around under the counter and slapped
a rusty iron key onto the bar. "Room Four, second floor. The stairs creak, so I'll know if you try to
sneak up any 'guests' at night. I won't have 'em in my rooms unless you'll be paying me for two."

What an imbecile, thought Tom. We're wizards. Don't you know how to use a Silencing Charm?

Suppressing his eye-roll, Tom counted out his coins and stacked them onto the counter. A month's
rent, for less than the cost of a week at the Leaky Cauldron. The bathing situation with having to
fill his own tub didn't bother him, as he'd had to clean himself with a washcloth and a bucket back
in the old days at Wool's when a frozen pipe had burst in the winter and the matron hadn't gotten
around to putting in for repairs.

However, he knew he had to do something about the toilet situation.

But he was a wizard, and if he couldn't transfigure a working plumbed toilet, he could experiment
with anchored self-scouring spells and automatic water-filling charms, which could be useful for
home and garden purposes. Refilling watering cans, pet drinking bowls, tea kettles, bird baths, and
so on.

It looked like he could squeeze an article or two out of this.

It would begin to make up for the deplorable state of his current accommodations.

If worst came to worst, he could always blow his savings on a magical tent and camp out on the
edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Dear Hermione,

You should be glad to know that I've found a room in Hogsmeade for the summer. The
landlord is thoroughly unlikeable, but he has the good manners to leave me alone most days—
though I won't hesitate to declare him the second most irksome wizard I've ever met. I know
that he keeps track of my mail, so from now on, please address your letters to 'Bertram'. If you
plan on sending parcels or sweets, I've opened a post box at the Hogsmeade owl mail office.
The landlord is an uninspired cook and eats anything I've made or stored away in the pantry,
which he calls a "business surcharge" for letting me use his kitchen.
 Yes, I am making my own food, because the sole alternative is eating at The Three Broomsticks
every day, and the barmaids there have become very intrusive as of late. I should think that
any man would dislike being interrupted six times during his meal by waitresses wondering if
he needs a refill on his drink; in that vein, my next published piece shall be on the technical
aspects of the Refilling Charm.

If you've managed to locate some more Muggle cookery books, I ask you to send them my way.

Languishing in obscurity,
Tom

A month into his summer holiday, Tom had learned a few things about the landlord.

His name was "Old Ab", according to a drunken wizard who'd yelled for a fresh round of pints late
one Saturday evening.

Ab hadn't renovated his rooms for a reason. The rooms were kept uninviting so visitors would
conduct their business transactions as quickly as possible, then leave. If they wanted to stay longer
to conduct "funny business", there were places in Knockturn Alley for that sort of thing.

The goats were Ab's pride and joy. Each one had a name and a personality and a custom bell
collar. Some of the milk was sold to a local witch who made herbal soap. Ab himself made a sharp
white cheese out of the rest, logs of which filled the cellar next to the barrels of ale. Selling the
cheese to the local grocery, and the bezoars to the local apothecary, made around half of the man's
cash income.

Ab also had political leanings. Tom had been reading his copied Grindelwald pamphlets while
waiting on his altered Refilling Charm to finish cleaning the pub's dirty glassware—he'd been
working on a variant that produced piping hot water instead of the standard lukewarm water
conjuration used in conjunction with multiple heating charms. The barman had stomped into the
kitchen looking for where the glasses had gone, and spotted Tom thumbing through the well-worn
pages of On the Preservation of the Magical Race.

'I preface this treatise with the disclosure that there is no precise definition of what magic is—
perhaps a force, a phenomenon of nature, or a gift of a greater entity—but it is known that
magic is not only the stuff of the spirit, but a matter of the flesh. Magic is a trait borne in the
blood, carried from one generation to the next. We, as magical beings, have the privilege of
bearing this sacred blood; beyond that, we each of us bear a solemn duty to safeguard its very
existence against all prospective threats...'

Without a single word, he'd ripped the booklet out of Tom's hands, torn it in half, then chucked it
out of the window where it was eaten by a wandering goat.

"Excuse me," Tom said, who recognised this as the perfect moment to call for a wizard's duel—he
would have done it if it hadn't meant he'd be tossed out of his room with nothing but his wand and
the clothes on his back. Pragmatism was truly the nemesis of satisfaction. "That was my book."
The old man glowered at him. "Don't bring any of that rubbish in here again. I won't tolerate it."

"It's just a book," said Tom, blinking innocently at the man. "I find the Ministry of Magic to be as
clumsy and incompetent as any wizard does who has a working brain in his skull, but it doesn't
mean I was going to roll them over and pledge myself to a foreign cause."

Ab's mouth was twisted into a scowl of disapproval. "Then why were you reading it, boy?"

He always called Tom 'boy' when he was in a mood, never mind that Tom had told him he was a
legal adult. To be fair about it, Tom called him 'old man' in his head.

"Why shouldn't I be able to read what I want?" asked Tom. "I get Witch Weekly and you've never
said anything about it. And believe me, there's nothing more rubbish than 'Twelve Ways to
Envigorate Your Marriage'—as if lighting up a candle centrepiece at dinner is going to cure a man's
wandering eye."

"Read whatever you like," snarled Ab. "So long as it's not that German trash."

He grabbed an armful of clean glasses and stomped out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind
him. The dirty glasses on the shelves rattled.

Tom sighed and turned back to the sink, full of soap bubbles and hot water and clinking glassware.

Some people just couldn't help being so dramatic.

Tom and his landlord didn't exactly get along. Their compromise was to not in get one another's
way.

Over the next few weeks, Tom fixed up his room, from repairing and waterproofing the cracked
windows, to blasting off the mouldy wallpaper, and Transfiguring the bed from a lumpy sack full of
dried rushes and dead cockroaches into something he could actually bear to sleep in.

During the nights, he practised magic from his borrowed textbooks and brushed up on his O.W.L.
level spells: he'd be starting his Fifth Year in September, an exam year, and he wanted to be able to
cast a full Stunner and long-range Summoning Charms in the first Duelling Club session.

He practised the Disillusionment Charm too—it was N.E.W.T. level, but it was useful for sneaking
around The Hog's Head and avoiding conversations with its owner. He also used it to avoid other
people; the regular patrons had seen Tom going in and out of the kitchen so often that they thought
he worked there, and assumed that the sandwiches he made for himself were dishes from the pub's
regular dinner menu.
They were misinformed: The Hog's Head didn't have a dinner menu. Actual service was the
domain of The Three Broomsticks. The Hog's Head was the place where hard liquor was sold in a
pint glass, so one could go home and tell his wife he only had one drink; it was the place where a
drunkard could get drunk without anyone judging him for having a "problem".

During the day, Tom wrote articles with borrowed Muggle recipes and his own charm variations.
When he was tired of making and eating sandwiches, he tried his hand at cooking; he didn't like the
thought of all those random housewives being able to do things that he couldn't. It was partly a test
to see if he could, as much as it was a way to tempt his pet rat Peanut into eating more.

Peanut was over five years old now, grey-whiskered with balding patches behind the ears and a
wrinkly tail that resembled a shrivelled up worm. A regular rat had a lifespan of two to three years,
and as magic tended to double an organism's lifespan—wizards living past one hundred and fifty
years wasn't uncommon—Tom had estimated that Peanut's six years were almost up. It wasn't as if
Tom would mourn for Peanut when its time came to move on to the next great "adventure", for a rat
was a rat, but he could regret the loss of such a well-trained minion.

(Tom had no one else who would dig through the girls' laundry hampers to find things to dump into
the upper year boys' dorm and cause dissent in Slytherin, when the House had heretofore valued
unity. It was so easy to create hilarious misunderstandings, since it was tradition for the children of
wealthy families to have their initials embroidered on their smallclothes. There was no Friday
night entertainment quite like seeing well-born purebloods slap one another, causing other
purebloods to jump into the defence; the performance was in a way very Shakespearean with how it
involved a bunch of family members squabbling over affairs of love and honour. And as the master
orchestrator, Tom supposed, it made him the villain.)

It was Tom's belief that skills in cooking and cleaning couldn't be considered "womanly" when
everything was done by magic. The requisite precision and control meant that anyone who could
produce a three course meal in under half an hour was an expert in charmwork. As Tom saw it,
such proficiency was not a sign of a superior homemaker, but a superior witch or wizard.

And he didn't have to touch a single potato when his altered Trimming Charm did the peeling for
him. The eggs whisked themselves, the flour was self-sifting; magical cookery, like everything
about magic, distinguished itself from its common Muggle equivalent in that Tom was never
obliged to get his hands dirty, just the way he liked it.

Around the middle of his second month at The Hog's Head, Old Ab allowed him to prepare the
morning mash for the goats.

Tom didn't particularly like the goats—no one did, apart from the idiosyncratic landlord—but he
found them useful for his magical experiments.

The goats were known around the village to be vicious beasts, so no one went around the back of
The Hog's Head unless they wanted a bite taken out of the back of their robes. They were animals
who made loud bleating noises all the time, which everyone ignored when they heard it, and
Silenced their walls if it was louder than usual. But the most useful thing was that goats couldn't
call the Aurors, so no one knew or cared that Tom was trying to control their minds and alter their
memories afterwards.

"Hello, Laurel," said Tom, levitating a fresh trough of grain mash to the shed in the inn's stable
yard. "Good morning, Curly. How do you do, Moe? Did you sleep well last night?
The goats bleated and gathered around, but not too close—he'd put them under intensive "training"
the last time they butted too hard at his legs and almost knocked him over.

Tom tossed a few apples into the trough and swished his wand back and forth to slice them up with
a Severing Charm, then stepped back to allow the goats to eat.

"Filthy beasts," he muttered under his breath. He watched the goats' square, yellow teeth crunch at
the apples. "There is no better place to find 'disposable animals' than a farm, is there? I bet I could
test potions on you lot all day; the bezoars will keep you going even if I'm feeding you Essence of
Nightshade."

He'd thought about experimenting more with potions since his Confusion Concoction had gone
over so well with Mrs. Cole, but he didn't want to risk Ab finding out about it. Potions, even if they
wouldn't kill the old man's goats, would change the flavour of the milk and make it unsellable. And
if Ab had to choose between his goats and "Bertram" the temporary tenant, it would always be
those stupid goats.

Oh well. He was sure that the pub regulars would serve as a decent substitute; most of them didn't
care about what they were drinking if it came in a pint glass.

And when he got back to school, there were his Housemates' cats, and the members of other
Houses. Tom thought that any student who was willing to eat what appeared to be a buttered scone
sitting on the banister of a staircase deserved what they got.

Perhaps Tom's attitude toward animal welfare was rather blasé, but it wasn't any better than how
Napoleon's armies treated their horses. And even now, as was written in the London papers
Hermione sent him, Russian armies trained their dogs to carry mines under the treads of German
tanks. The Soviets put time and effort into moulding their animals into suicide bombers, and to
Tom, that seemed so wasteful as to be offensive.

Disposable test subjects were one thing; putting in the effort to create a loyal servant and then
destroying it was like setting fire to a stack of banknotes. Although Tom's interpretation of
personal ethics was aberrant in comparison to that of the average fifteen year old boy, even he had
his limits to what constituted acceptable behaviour. It took a great level of concentration to impose
his will on a single goat; he'd found it easier with eye contact, but goats, like most herbivorous
species, had one eye on either side of their heads. Wasn't it better to have and keep a beast trained
to do what you wanted, without having to get into an undignified squat in order to stare it down and
forcibly coerce it?

Tom mulled over the possibilities of animal armies as he Vanished the manure and refilled the
water trough. He'd read the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and whether or not the man had
been a wizard, he'd proven that the combination of animals and mind control could be successfully
used as a means of extortion.

He returned to the inn, washed up in the kitchen, and made himself a Welsh rarebit with the ends of
yesterday's bread loaf and a wedge of goat cheese.

When he pushed open the kitchen door, he saw Ab sitting at one of the tables, pouring a dish of
water for a delivery owl. There was an envelope on the table before him, the directions face-up.
From where he stood, Tom could see the address written out in emerald green ink.

His address.
"Your name's not 'Bertram'," said Old Ab, stroking the owl and regarding him with narrowed eyes.
"And you're not seventeen."

"I could be," said Tom, setting his plate on the nearest table. His hand slipped into his robe pocket.

"You're lying to me, boy. My brother wrote me over a year ago that there was a Mr. Tom Riddle, a
talented student of his, who might come to me asking for help. You can't be more than sixteen."

"Your brother?"

"His friends call him 'Albus'. His family, if there were any around to speak to him, call him 'High-
Handed Bastard'."

Tom's mind made the connections. Old Ab, tall and thin and blue-eyed and irritating, was a
Dumbledore. A scruffy vagrant in homespun in contrast to the colourful hats and spangled robes
worn by the Professor Dumbledore of Hogwarts, but both of them had that air of eccentricity, and a
certain disregard for authority whenever it suited them, which was a very Gryffindor-ish trait.

"You two don't sound very close," Tom remarked.

"Don't try to change the sub—"

Under the table, Tom flicked his wand. A rack of pint glasses behind the bar slid down and
smashed onto the flagstone floor.

The owl squawked; Ab jerked and turned to look over his shoulder.

Tom cast a second silent spell with a twitch of his wand.

Stupefy!

Ab's forehead thudded onto the table, overturning the dish of water. The delivery owl flapped its
wings, gave a reproachful hoot, and flew out of the open window.

Tom got to work.

The first thing he did was pull Ab off the chair and dump him on the floor. The second was to fill
the water dish with beer from the pump behind the counter; Tom slopped that on the floor too, then
sent the empty dish floating into the kitchen. He pocketed the letter from Hogwarts, which in
coming from the school a mile away, had been delivered early in the morning. When he'd lived
with the Grangers, their supply lists had arrived in the mid-afternoon. He noticed that the envelope
was thicker than usual and contained something solid within that didn't feel like paper, but he put
that thought away for later.

Tom knelt down and placed the tip of his wand to Ab's temple.

Should I try to unearth his secrets? I have more of the Confusion Concoction in my room upstairs,
thought Tom, who had never heard anyone speak an unkind word about Professor Dumbledore, and
was curious as to what had passed between Old Ab and his brother. Dumbledore is a powerful
wizard; the Stunner won't keep him down for long. Best take care of him as quickly as I can.

He Obliviated the last ten minutes of Ab's memory, and cast a Memory Charm to create a false
replacement to fill the gap. He'd never done it on a person, only the goats—they'd begun to avoid
him after the first few "training sessions", so he'd made them forget their fear and confusion. A
person was different, but human memory relied on sight and sound, something that Tom understood
and could replicate with a verisimilitude he couldn't recreate in the scent signal and instinct-driven
mind of a beast.

He concentrated on the scene he wanted Ab to remember:

Entering the tavern commons, checking the till, the first thing he did in the morning. Making sure
there weren't any patrons sleeping in the corner, kicking them out if there were, but not before
charging them for the overnight stay. Straightening the tables, picking up empty glasses. Walking
back to the counter, then—

—A slip on a puddle of spilled drink, a fall, a blow to the head from the edge of a table, then—

—Darkness.

Tom repaired the broken glasses behind the bar and set them back on the rack. Then he returned to
Ab, fixing a concerned expression on his face.

"Hello? Ab? Ab! Merlin's whiskers, are you alright?"

Ab's eyes fluttered, and he gave a low groan. "Argh... My head... What happened?"

"I heard something crash and ran downstairs—you were on the floor," Tom spoke in worried tones,
his brows furrowed in distress. "Do you need to go to St. Mungo's? Should I start a fire and
connect the Floo?"

Ab pushed himself upright, scrubbing a hand over his face and wincing in pain. "I think I'll be
alright. Knock to the head won't kill me."

"As long as you're sure," said Tom. "If you need it, I can send out to the apothecary for a pot of
bruise paste. It looks like half your head will be blue by tomorrow."

"Got some in my room; don't bother," Ab grunted, who had settled back into his natural personality
without a hitch. No signs of permanent personality alteration here, alas. "If I can remember where
I put it..."

Ab stumbled out of the room, and Tom quietened the pounding of his heart. What he'd done wasn't
strictly illegal, as the Ministry's Obliviators did this to Muggles all the time, but it was the kind of
thing that went against Hogwarts' code of student discipline, even though Tom hadn't done it on
school grounds.

I won't be caught, he reminded himself. And no one will catch me for performing underage magic
inside a registered wizarding residence.

He was further reassured when he opened the envelope from Hogwarts. Underneath the standard
book list for the new school year, he saw another sheet of parchment emblazoned with the serpent
emblem of his House.

Tom, my boy, I have the greatest joy in presenting you with the badge of Slytherin's newest Fifth
Year Prefect. I expect to see you join me in my compartment for lunch on the Express—I do hope
 you like venison, went stalking with a dear friend at his estate in Norfolk this summer, though I'll
tell you more later—after your Prefect meeting in the Heads' compartment, of course!

Congratulations on a fine achievement, Tom. You'll do the House proud, I am entirely sure of it.

Horace Eugene Flacchus Slughorn,

Potions Master, cert. 1924.
Slytherin Head of House.

Tom couldn't keep himself from smiling.

Being a Prefect meant that he was in charge of enforcing student discipline. And if ever there was
a case of setting a fox to guard the henhouse, it was giving Tom Riddle a Prefect badge.

Chapter End Notes

This chapter was necessary to put Tom on his slippery slope Climb to Greatness. From the
next chapter onwards, we'll start picking up the pace heading into the endgame. This is a
slowburn fic, so things take a while to heat up.
 Prefects
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1942

Hermione wasn't the least bit surprised to see Tom wearing a Prefect badge in the Heads'
compartment on September 1.

Her parents had dropped her off at the station half an hour before departure, her mother wanting to
ensure she ate a proper breakfast because there was no lunch served on the train, her father helping
her unpack and re-pack her trunk for the sixth time to check that she'd remembered every book she
wanted to bring, and that there was no room for a last minute addition.

Tom, for all the years she'd known him, went to the effort of arriving hours early, because after the
weeks of abstention in the Muggle world, the train was the first place he was freely allowed to
practise magic. She was somewhat surprised at the giggling and flushed faces of her classmates
when she'd popped her head into occupied compartments—which she could do now, without being
told to butt out, due to her status as a Prefect—to ask if anyone had seen Tom.

"Hello?" said Hermione, who'd changed into her uniform robes as soon as she'd entered the train.
"Have you seen Tom Riddle?"

The group of Hufflepuff girls looked at Hermione and then at each other.

"Have you seen him?" asked one girl, fanning herself with a magazine.

"No," Hermione gritted out, "I haven't. That's why I'm asking."

Another girl sighed. "I wouldn't mind having detention with him."

"The Hufflepuff Prefects would be the ones organising the detention, even if it was assigned by a
Slytherin," Hermione pointed out, rather peevishly. She had no idea how anyone could speak of
detention as if it was something to look forward to. "So have you seen him, then?"

"I haven't seen enough of him," said the first girl. "I think every girl in our year is going to be
soooo jealous of Sidonie Hipworth. You know, the other Slytherin Prefect."

"D'you think he prefers Slytherins? He helped me re-pot those Wiggentree clippings in Herbology
last year, was perfectly polite the whole time, too..."

"Ugh!" Hermione groaned. "None of you are any help!"

She slammed the compartment door closed and headed for the front of the train, where the new
Head Boy and Head Girl would induct the eight new Prefects and assign duties. The train hadn't
begun to move, but the Prefects would end up gathering there, so she'd see him sooner or later.

She found him in the Heads' compartment reading a textbook titled Arithmantic Theory of
Spellcrafting, scrawling annotations in the margins with his enchanted purple quill. Unlike the
textbooks she'd seen him use for the last four years at school, this book didn't have a scuffed cover
with dinged corners and crumpled pages. His school uniform looked new as well, the wool of his
jumper an even dark grey with no signs of the blotchiness that came from over-washed dye; when
he bent his elbows, she couldn't see through to the white of his shirt beneath.

And instead of the princess-like fair skin, Tom looked as if he'd actually gone outside during the
summer. He'd grown another inch or two; with the healthy colour on his cheeks and a bronze-y
sheen to his dark hair brought out by the sun, he looked like the poster boy for a Muggle druggist's
wellness tonic. In that moment, Hermione realised why the Hufflepuff girls had reacted as they
had: Tom Riddle was handsome.

She'd known years ago that Tom was fortunate in the appearance department. She'd observed, on
an objective level, that his features were symmetrical, his proportions well-formed and seemly; if
the old masters of the Renaissance had taken Tom's measurements, they wouldn't find him far off
the golden ratios of the ideal, in the distance from brow to hairline, or eye to eye, or the breadth of
his shoulders and the span of his arms. But not until now would she ever have thought to describe
his hair as 'luxuriant' or the shape of his lips as 'sensual'—

Nor would I ever, she told herself.

Tom was more than his appearance, which was only a conglomeration of traits that current day
society saw as fashionable, just as powdered white wigs were fashionable two hundred years ago,
and conspicuous bulging codpieces had been four centuries past. Tom wasn't just his looks; he was
more than his social background, his name, or his blood.

Tom was her best friend, the first friend she'd ever made, and the years had never changed that fact.

"Congratulations," said Hermione, dropping into the seat next to him. "I think everyone was
expecting you to make Prefect, but that doesn't diminish the accomplishment."

"Thank you," was Tom's polite reply. He leaned forward, flicking his wand to cast a spell that
muted the conversations of the few other Prefects who'd arrived to the Heads' compartment. "I
personally believe that Slughorn would have dropped dead before he gave the badge to anyone
else."

"Slughorn," Hermione echoed. Her nose wrinkled. "I forgot about him. Does this mean he's going
to start inviting us to his dinner parties?"

"I've already been invited to his lunch do at half-past noon," said Tom, putting his book aside. He
reached into his robes and drew out a sheet of parchment printed with a Slytherin crest letterhead at
the top, and Slughorn's signature at the bottom.

"Are you going?"

"Do you think he'd let me refuse?" Tom grimaced. "I can already tell that he's going to try and
hound me into an apprenticeship with his old friend Mr. Jigger, or an internship at the Ministry with
his old classmate Mr. Travers. We're taking our O.W.L.s this year. That means we'll have career
advisory meetings with our Heads of House. And he's my Head."

"Mine's hardly any better," said Hermione, who respected her teachers and trusted their expertise
within their individual fields, but outside of that, knew that some of them were... questionable.
"Professor Beery encourages us to follow our dreams and slake our creative spirits, but that doesn't
exactly count as actual career advice. I think I'd rather Professor Slughorn, now that I think about
it."

"You're certain you don't want a career in the performing arts?" said Tom, lifting an eyebrow.
Professor Beery, their Herbology teacher, was an avid supporter of theatre, and recruited students
every Christmas to put on a performance of a classic wizarding play. It was one of the many
reasons why Tom made himself scarce during the holidays, dedicating his time to his private
studies. "You'd get to choose an interesting stage name and bring Shakespeare to the ignorant
masses—that's two things I know you'd enjoy."

"Monologuing from The Winter's Tale in my bedroom is different from getting on a stage and doing
it in front of a hundred people," Hermione said, nudging his shoulder with her own. "I don't have
the stage presence for it. Anyway, that kind of career is all about the popular appeal, and there are
plenty of other things I care more about."

"Hmm," mused Tom. "I understand. I can't see you ever being happy in a situation where you're
left reciting lines from someone else's script. I couldn't stand for it either, unless the 'someone else'
writing the script was me under a different name." He paused, and when he continued, his voice
was low and thoughtful. "That's what makes us so alike, isn't it?"

"Oh, Tom," said Hermione, rolling her eyes, "please, please don't ruin the moment by saying
something about how much better we are—"

"Hermione!"

The springs in the compartment bench squeaked as a boy enthusiastically threw himself into the
spot next to Hermione, pushing her into Tom, and pushing Tom into the window. For an instant,
Hermione caught a dark flicker of anger in Tom's eyes, then it was gone, replaced by a friendly
expression complete with a benign smile. Tom helped Hermione settle herself back upright and,
with a silent twist of his wand, summoned his textbook from the floor and opened it up to the page
he'd been reading, the quill marking his spot.

"Um," said Hermione. "Hello, Clarence."

Clarence Fitzpatrick was apparently this year's male Fifth Year Prefect for Ravenclaw. She had
spoken to him a few times a week over the past few years—he gave her his Sunday Prophet during
breakfast, after he took out the puzzle page because he only bought it for the crosswords, or so he
claimed.

In classes and at meals, most students separated themselves by House and sex, the girls sitting with
girls and the boys with boys, for the sake of propriety; in those shared benches, it was too easy to
give or send the wrong message with an accidental knee brush under the table. (Hermione vividly
remembered the feel of Tom's knees in that alcove the previous term, and the thought of being so
close to him had brought a flush to her cheeks even weeks later.)

In the context of academics, Hermione didn't put much stock in what other people thought was
wrong or right. From her first year at Hogwarts, she'd sat with Tom in their shared classes, and in
Potions, a class shared with the Hufflepuffs, she'd partnered with Clarence Fitzpatrick because he
was excellent in Herbology and had an eye for choosing the freshest ingredients. She valued skill
and competence over maintaining the appearance of being proper and modest, and she supposed
that it had formed in Clarence the impression that she was fond of him...
...And that they were "friends".

Clarence was pleasant and conscientious and a good partner for group projects. He felt bad about
peeling the skins off dried salamanders in Potions. Of all the people who could have been chosen
for the position of Ravenclaw Prefect, Clarence wasn't the worst choice. It could have been Merton
Bancroft, who had to be given remedial instruction on how to properly hold his wand after a few
too many spell backfire incidents in Transfiguration.

"I knew you'd be picked for Prefect," Clarence said eagerly. "How often do you think we'll have
paired patrols?"

Tom made a quiet coughing sound, which he covered up by turning a page in his book.

"Not every night," said Hermione in a firm tone. "I've got to study for my O.W.L.s this year. I
picked three electives when everyone else took two."

"We could study together, maybe? Prefects get their own study nook in the Ravenclaw Common
Room."

"I don't mind sharing my notes for Potions," Hermione conceded with a touch of reluctance, "since
we're in the same class. But I've got a partner already for my other subjects."

"You've got an O.W.L.s study group?" asked Clarence. "May I join?"

"Erm..." said Hermione, sneaking a glance at Tom, whose eyebrow gave the slightest twitch.

Tom shut his book with a loud snap. "The Heads are here."

The new Head Boy and Head Girl were Gerald Mandicott and Hortensia Selwyn, of Hufflepuff and
Slytherin, respectively. They'd been chosen on the basis of their leadership qualities and academic
merit, but Hermione had to wonder if prominent family connections played a part in the selection
process. The Prefects were chosen by the Heads of House, and were usually the professors'
personal favourites. But the Head Boy and Girl were selected by the Headmaster, who was subject
to the whims of the Board of Governors more than any other staff member at Hogwarts.

The meeting passed without issue, detailing the list of responsibilities and privileges of the
Prefects. A curfew extension, at the price of going on night-time patrols. The ability to deduct
points and assign detentions, but the requirement to sit those detentions with misbehaving students
if a professor wasn't available to take it. Taking charge of the youngest students at Hogwarts and
introducing them to castle life, in exchange for extended library borrowing privileges—which
Hermione liked—and the use of a special bathroom on the Fifth Floor—which didn't sound so
appealing.

Hermione didn't know what to make of it. So there was some sort of a magical bathtub, but one she
had to share with twenty-one other Prefects, the two Heads, and four Quidditch Captains? What
was wrong with the tub in her dormitory's bathroom, which she shared with five other girls (though
she used the shower on most days), all of whom knew how to keep a room clean and not leave their
hairbrushes and used towels on the floor?

The whole idea came off as very... untidy to Hermione, especially as she learned there was no
official rotation schedule for the use of the Prefects' Bathroom—people came and went as they
pleased. She didn't care about the sex separation in lessons, but this sounded like an out-of-class
thing, definitely nothing to do with schoolwork. Boys ought not to be in the same bathtub as girls,
not at the same time, and from the sly glances shared between the Seventh Year Prefects, they'd
considered such a possibility occurring and were not altogether against it.

The end of the meeting came with a delivery of parchment scrolls, invitations to Professor
Slughorn's lunch. Hermione got one, and so did the new Head Boy and Girl, but she noticed that
not everyone did. Clarence Fitzpatrick didn't, which she was relieved about, even though she felt a
bit guilty for it after seeing him cast hopeful looks in the direction of the messenger.

Clarence wasn't a bad person, and he wasn't greedy and mercenary like Tom—which sounded rude,
but any other words she came up with to describe Tom's character were equally unflattering.
Unlike Tom, Clarence listened to what she said and followed her instructions without debating her
on the number of stirs or the heat of the burner. In fact, he did exactly as she told him to, which
was convenient in their lessons, but made him a terrible conversationalist outside of them; it was as
if he thought being perceived as friendly and likeable came from concurring with everyone else's
opinions. In certain ways, Clarence Fitzpatrick was naïve... which was an unexpected conclusion,
because for many years, Hermione had heard herself called that for never having missed a meal in
her life; she'd been told that the concept of the 'class struggle' didn't apply to her.

Hermione couldn't see herself as being that naïve anymore. She wasn't hardened in the way Tom
was, true. But the things she regarded as brutal and barbaric (corporal punishment of children,
animal cruelty, or crimes of war) served to produce little to no reaction from him; she couldn't tell
whether this lack of concern was a product of his upbringing, or merely Tom's natural disposition.
Hermione's disposition was different, or it had been different, at least before the war. But after a
summer spent reading into the history of what in the modern age was known as the Dark Arts, she'd
begun to understand the murky limits of human cruelty and innovation, which in both the Muggle
world and in the Magical were so closely entwined as to be inseparable.

She was quiet during the lunch of venison sausage served with a salad of walnut and watercress,
sitting in Professor Slughorn's expanded compartment with the new Captain of the Gryffindor
Quidditch team on one side, and Tom on the other. The compartment was crowded with over a
dozen people, each guest squashed shoulder to shoulder from door to window, with Slughorn
sitting in the center like a king presiding over his court.

There was a tray table laid out in between the upholstered benches, hosting a spread of cured meats
and cold poultry, sliced cheeses and pickles, and bread rolls. Their lunchtime entertainment came
in the form of Professor Slughorn rambling on about his holiday in Norfolk, which had a magical
forest reserve that made for good sporting and potions-related ingredient collection.

"...He said to me, 'Horace, old chap, if you can make it past the sixth remove at Flume's you can
make it past that ridgeline over there'," recounted Professor Slughorn, topping up his glass of
claret. "So I told him, 'The last time I had dinner with Flume, he served crystallised ginger with the
pudding course'. Crystallised ginger, have you ever heard of such a thing? I hadn't heard of it, but
I can tell you that I felt it, felt it intimately indeed, the very next day..."
Mr. Pacek had visited every weekend during the summer holidays to dine with the Grangers, and
each visit came with an armload of new books.

Mum and Dad invited him to dinner even when Hermione was at school, because he was one of the
few people they knew who had a good understanding of the national politics on both sides of the
war, on top of his knowledge of the state of Wizarding Europe.

Dad had served in the Great War, and they'd discussed how that War had led directly to this one:
this war hadn't begun just because Germany had attacked Poland, but because the Allied Powers
had been overzealous in redressing their losses, for lack of any better way to call it. It wasn't
something spoken about outside the Grangers' house, because it seemed like anyone who publicly
criticised the British Government would be accused a dissident.

Mr. Pacek had taken it upon himself to make the Grangers' cellar as home-like as he could, because
the three members of the family slept every night underground, and kept the wireless on at all times
when they were upstairs. The bare floors had been carpeted, charmed chandeliers hung from the
high ceilings, and magical windows were placed at intervals so they got to see the sun, even if it
was shining off the coast of Gibraltar and not the lawns and fences of Argyll Street, Crawley. Mr.
Pacek had even Transfigured a few broken milk crates into a handsome set of bookcases to hold
Hermione's growing collection of magical tomes.

The bookcases were of a dark varnished wood with glass doors to keep off the dust. He'd
enchanted the glasswork so it would appear opaque and frosted unless Hermione cast the
appropriate countercharm, and tapping the carved poppies on the side of the shelf would cause an
image of innocuous school textbooks to appear on the other side of the glass, instead of what really
lay behind, which was a series of magical medical books on the physiological theory of
Veritaserum.

"It is basic warding technique," explained Mr. Pacek, showing her the tiny rows of runes carved
under the stems of the climbing poppies. "Illusion, redirection, and repulsion are the three
principles of wardcasting, ranked by their power and complexity. When you want to protect a
physical structure or location, you can hide it by making it look like something else or nothing at
all. You can convince viewers to think of it as uninteresting or unimportant—that is the foundation
of most Muggle-repelling charms and wards. Or you might cast a ward that creates an emotional
compulsion, inciting fear or dread, to discourage enemies or invasions. Many a family castle in the
Carpathian Mountains is protected by such a ward, which has earned reputations among the local
villagers for being haunted sites."

"Compulsion wards," Hermione repeated, trying to remember what she'd read on them. "Wouldn't
they count as a form of magical mind control? They're not as invasive as the Imperius Curse, but
they plant a suggestion into a sentient mind, which is similar to the Confundus Charm, the effect of
which makes a mind suggestible to outside influence."

"Compulsions are general where the Imperius is precise—it is the difference between barbed
concertina wire and a scalpel. In fact, compulsion spells and wards were the precursors of the
Imperius," said Mr. Pacek, who knew more about the Dark Arts than she had ever thought a
wardmaster should know, but he'd always defended himself by saying that it was important to
understand these things in the proper historical context. "But in most jurisdictions, they are not
illegal, nor do I think they would ever be outlawed—there are too many old and valuable
monuments warded with them. Wizarding burial sites are the places where they most commonly
used; if you ever travel to Egypt, you could study the ancient warding techniques for yourself."

"I think I'd like to see them one day," said Hermione.

"You are considering becoming a wardmaster yourself?" asked Mr. Pacek, who appeared pleased
with the idea. "Or a cursebreaker? The more glamorous version of the profession, as I have heard
it called, but also more dangerous."

Hermione shook her head. "For now I want to be able to cast a basic ward. I can't forget the fact
that wards kept my parents safe during the Blitz. It seems like common sense for the average witch
and wizard to learn how to cast one, the way Apparition is treated as a social necessity—Muggles
are the same way when it comes to operating a telephone receiver. For a society where most of us
choose to live so close to Muggles instead of going into total seclusion, it should be an essential
skill. Not just for convenience, but for safety."

"Are you not studying the fundamentals of enchantment in your school lessons?"

"For the last two years we've been learning to read and interpret runes. We translated various
passages for our exams," said Hermione, sighing. "But we won't make anything ourselves until the
final two years."

"You are making it a mission to study on your own?" asked Mr. Pacek.

"Should I? Would you mind helping me?"

"I have eschewed private tutoring for years, but I suppose one can make an exception," he said.
"For what have I done this past year but been your tutor?"

"Thank you," said Hermione, giving him a heartfelt smile. "If the Ministry of Magic had mass-
produced and distributed simple wards for homes in Muggle areas, it would've solved so many
problems."

"Most governments are not known for being clear-headed or far-sighted," he remarked.

"Have you ever thought about making improvements to the government?"

"Have you been talking to Mr. Riddle?" Mr. Pacek asked. "I have often thought governments to be
unnecessary to the trained wizard who can provide everything he needs with his own magic. What
use have I for a committee whose sole purpose is to institute speed limits on broomsticks?"

"I've never met anyone who was genuinely self-reliant," said Hermione, who hadn't met that many
people in the course of her not-quite-sixteen years of existence, but had considered her statement
from a logical perspective. In the Muggle world, education, water, electricity, and sanitation were
public concerns and a necessity for a civilised standard of living. In the Magical world, there were
essential tasks that could not be done with a wizard alone—herding dragons into reserves where
they could provide the raw materials for crafts and potions, whilst remaining out of sight to
Muggles. Or law enforcement and civil justice.

"Tom thinks he's one of them, but he's not. We're humans, not automatons; even the people who
rarely invite the company of others still seek some form of community."
"I do not believe that it is the magical community whose esteem Mr. Riddle truly seeks," Mr. Pacek
observed, and his eyes fixed on hers, as if daring her to counter his statement with one of her own.

"Tom doesn't..." Hermione began, struggling to find the appropriate response. "Tom isn't—"

"Well said, Tom!" chortled Professor Slughorn, toasting Tom with the dregs of his latest drink.

"Tom isn't—" mumbled Hermione, burrowing further into her pillow.

"Tom isn't what?" the pillow asked in Tom's voice.

Hermione woke up.

"What—?" she murmured blearily, rubbing her eyes.

"You said, 'Tom isn't', then you stopped. What were you saying about me?"

The pillow turned out to be Tom Riddle, specifically his shoulder; she'd fallen asleep in the middle
of Slughorn's story and had woken up with a red imprint of Tom's jumper's knitted pattern high on
her cheek, which matched the bright red flush on the rest of her face. That flush stubbornly refused
to go away when Tom had to untangle her hair from where it had gotten stuck to his shiny new
Prefect badge.

"Nothing, it was just a dream," Hermione whispered, glancing up at Professor Slughorn on the
other side of the table, who'd turned to answer one of the older Slytherin Prefects' questions about
magical fauna in hunting preserves and how easy it was to acquire a season license from the
Department of Magical Creature Regulation at the Ministry. Slughorn winked at her. "Oh no, he
just winked."

"Stay still," Tom hissed, unpinning his badge from his robe and teasing her hair out of the clasp.
"And don't look at him."

"Won't he think we're...? Should we say anything or pretend it didn't happen, just like that last time
—"

"It's too late for it," Tom sighed. "I'm going to hear about 'our dear Miss Granger' for the rest of
the year. For the next three years, probably."

"You should have just woken me up."

"You looked tired. Were you up late studying?"

"Revision timetables don't write themselves, Tom."

"Pfft," Tom snorted. "As if you couldn't get Outstandings across the board if you sat your exams
right now."

"On the written papers, yes," said Hermione. "But there's a practical component, too. Defence is
the one I'm most worried about."

"Well, you have me," said Tom, pinning his badge back into place on his chest and using that
movement to lean closer and whisper in her ear. "And I have a 'Defence homework study group'."

The way he said it sounded ominous to Hermione.

"It's your Slytherin study club, isn't it?" Hermione asked, remembering the way the Slytherin boys
in their year gave Tom wide berth when Professor Merrythought told the class to pick partners for
spell practice. The boys who surrounded Tom at every meal in the Great Hall, their seating
arrangement not much different to the way the dozen or so favourites encircled Professor Slughorn
in his private compartment.

"I'm not a Slytherin. None of them like me. That time in Hogsmeade, when we bumped into
Lestrange and Avery outside the post office, they called me a—"

"I took care of it," Tom interrupted. "There won't be any repeat performances."

Or else, was unsaid but very clearly implied.

Hermione enjoyed being a Prefect.

When she was younger, other children had called her 'bossy' because she told them that they had
dirt on their nose or their shoelaces were untied. Now that she had a Prefect badge, she could say
the same things, but that word, bossy, never passed their lips.

They called her responsible, and she'd begun to understand why Tom so relished having authority
over his peers, even if she didn't approve of the way he used his power. To Tom, Prefectship was a
means to stack the deck in his interactions with his fellow Slytherins. His Housemates knew that
Tom could put a star Quidditch player in detention, or he could grant them amnesty for an offense;
he had the power to re-schedule a detention so no player ever had to miss a single training session.

In Ravenclaw, it was a different situation than the Slytherin network of bargains and favours.
Hermione's Prefect status made things so easy when people did what they were told. She could tell
other students to pick up their crumpled parchments and walk over to the bin, instead of balling it
up and tossing it over their shoulders, or worse, trying to Banish them with a charm they'd only
learned last week, which sent wads of parchment flying all over the Common Room. When they
took a book off the shelf in the library, she could make them put it back where it belonged when
they were done with it, and not on the shelf nearest to their study table—Manual of
Dendrodivination didn't belong in the same section as The Almanac of Simple Home Potions
Remedies.

Tom the Prefect wielded his authority like a tool, while Hermione the Prefect found a way to use
hers more responsibly.

The badge made her look trustworthy, or her trustworthiness had earned her the badge. Either way,
one reinforced the other, and now Hermione could go up to her Ancient Runes teacher's desk after
class and ask for a signed note to borrow this or that book from the Restricted Section, and she
would get it.

The power of the badge was great, but she took advantage of it in moderation. She asked for a note
to borrow expensive out-of-print volumes that she couldn't find or afford from an owl order
catalogue. She didn't delve into the darkest of the Dark Arts. The librarian scrutinised every
professor's note and Restricted Section book that passed her desk, and made a note of who
borrowed what. Hermione wasn't as good at talking herself out of corners as Tom was, so prudence
was a sensible course of action.

Tom, on the other hand, could have explained why he was looking into illegal murder spells; when
Tom justified his curiosity as nothing more than academic interest, adults simply took him at his
word. As Hermione lacked his ability—and his propensity—to prevaricate, she contented herself
with obscure but relatively harmless books, Intellectual Indemnity and Elements of Runic
Enchantment.

The first book was an overview of common spells used by researchers and academics, those who
wanted to protect their research until they could get it published, or until they could pass it onto
their designated successors. Before formal schooling was established as the main vehicle of
magical education, young wizards and witches lived in the houses of their mentors, similar to the
apprenticeship programs of today. Wizards were protective of their trade secrets, and even these
days, invented spells couldn't be patented like magical inventions, so magical secrets and
techniques were kept close to the chest. Even in the modern era, textbooks and periodicals were
protected by anti-duplication jinxes so an enterprising wizard couldn't defraud the authors and
publishers whose livelihoods depended on sales numbers.

During the winter and summer holidays, she'd memorised sections of the textbooks that she
couldn't bring to Hogwarts—partly because she didn't want them confiscated, and partly because
she didn't want Tom to know that she had them. She wrote pages of notes and left them in her
enchanted bookcase at home, but she wanted to continue her research while she was at school and
had access to the Restricted Section. She'd also gotten to the point where there was only so much
she could memorise while continuing to add more. Her standard organising technique was to write
colour-coded notes divided by subject with an alphabetised list of references at the end of each
section, and her fingers itched at keeping all her notes in her head—but there was a risk to having
potentially dangerous research notes at Hogwarts, because while she herself was sensible enough to
avoid temptation when it came within her reach, Tom wasn't.

The spells in that book guaranteed Hermione's privacy, because she didn't want Tom to stick his
nose where it didn't belong.

Tom didn't see anything wrong with reading over her shoulder when they studied together; he
thought he was being helpful when he commented on her essay structure or the strength of her
sources. He had a fuzzy definition of what counted as personal property, and whilst he knew that it
was too risky to go around "borrowing" things from his dorm mates, he considered information free
game. The textbooks in the library had anti-copying charms placed on them to prevent students
from cheating on their class essays, but Tom had gotten around it by reading the text aloud to his
Dictation Quill.

With this in mind, Hermione began her first foray into magical enchantment.

In class, she'd learned how to shrink textbooks just like how the shopkeepers in Diagon Alley did
it. The Shrinking Charm wasn't permanent—the spell lasted a few days before it faded away, or as
long as it took for the buyer to bring their purchases home and remove the wrapping papers. It was
one of the most common and convenient charms, and often made into permanent enchantments for
premium luggage and furniture, like the portable stands and viewing pavilions sold to Quidditch
spectators.

She wanted to imbue a common charm with the permanence of an enchantment, and here she was
inspired by the notes she'd seen being passed around at lunch and under the tables during lessons—
students who took a test in the combined Gryffindor-Slytherin classes often shared around the
answers to the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw classes who had the same subject later that day. Hermione
had confiscated a number of them, and it was always a simple Concealment Charm they'd used,
which rendered a sheet of answers into a blank page of parchment, until one cast a simple Finite or
Revelio over it.

She peeled back the endpapers and binding of a memo book she'd intended to use as a study
planner, scraped the glue out with her potions knife, and began to inscribe the inner bindings with a
series of runes: secrecy, stealth, disguise, security, stability, and permanence.

The interesting thing was that enchanting with runes, although time-intensive, was more flexible
than casting the same spell with a wand. If she performed a wand Conjuration of a flower with the
visualisation of a pink tulip, she'd get a pink tulip. If she enchanted a flower pot to produce a
flower with pink petals and monocot leaves, she might get a pink orchid instead of a tulip, and if
she wanted more variety, she could further extend the runes to specify dark pink petals that faded to
white, at the rate of one flower Conjured per day, with two on Thursday.

It reminded Hermione of punch card tabulators, where a set of coded instructions was fed into a
machine in increments—but in her case, it didn't produce a solved equation, it made magic.

She wrote out a long list of conditions in rows of fragmented Futhark; her instructions were
roughly translated from English, complete with questionable grammatical cases, and none of the
poetic elegance of an original Edda. But the intent was clear, and that was what mattered most with
magic: she wanted to prevent the use of copying charms and hide the planner's true contents until a
certain pattern was tapped on the binding with her wand. It was an idea she'd copied from the
enchanted locks used in high security Gringotts vaults, which could only be unsealed by an
authorised staff member touching specific points on the lock with their finger. Without the pattern,
the interior of the planner resembled a standard secretarial daybook, the days of the week marked
out within, printed and labelled in neat square sections.

When she glued everything back together, it looked a bit lumpy and the endpapers had dried
crooked, but everything worked. And she could even use it as a date planner to write down her
homework assignments and library due dates.

It was in her new planner that she marked down the first meeting of the year of Tom's homework
club, on Sunday, September 27.
She didn't know what to expect. Desks and books and studying? A group reading of the assigned
chapters in their Potions textbook? Tom standing at the dusty lectern of an out-of-use classroom,
going around and asking what answer everyone got for Question Eight of last week's
Transfiguration homework?

What she got was a half-dozen boys with their robes off, their ties loosened, and their shirtsleeves
rolled up, which was the most relaxed of an appearance she'd ever seen for Slytherin students; their
House had a reputation for being the most uptight about adherence to the school's uniform code.

She recognised some of the boys from shared classes: Theodore Nott, ash-brown hair, scrawny and
paler than Tom in winter, but whereas Tom's fairness passed as aristocratic, Nott in contrast just
looked wan and pasty; he was the boy whose father, Cantankerous Nott, had written The Pure-
Blood Directory. Sebastian Rosier, wearing his hair with a severe centre part and slicked down
with an oily, brilliantine shine; she remembered him as the one who, instead of paying attention to
the Arithmancy lesson, calculated Quidditch odds in the back of the classroom. Iain Avery, the
rude boy from Hogsmeade over a year ago, whose thin lips seemed perpetually pulled into a
dismissive sneer; he'd paid Tom to do his homework from the beginning of First Year.

There were two other boys she didn't recognise. One was stockily built, with heavy brows and a
dark shadow of stubble around his chin; his sleeves were pushed up to reveal the shiny pinkness of
freshly re-grown skin in patches about his wrists and forearms. The other had grey eyes and black
hair that fell past his ears, worn longer than any decent Muggle school would have allowed for
male students.

He was currently facing down Tom, who unlike the rest of the boys was dressed in his full school
uniform, even though it was a Sunday afternoon. A section in the middle of the classroom was
cleared of desks, which had been pushed back against the far walls and used as seats by the rest of
the boys. They watched in interest as Tom cast spell after silent spell in the other boy's direction.
By the colour of the spell and the wand movements, it was the Knockback Jinx, but Hermione had
never seen anyone cast it so quickly in succession—one blue flash of light was in the air when the
tip of Tom's wand was already glowing in preparation for casting another.

Tom looked almost bored by the time he sent his opponent's wand flying out of his hand, where it
rolled under a pile of chairs at the front of the classroom.

"Your defence is weak, Black," said Tom, summoning the lost wand and handing it back to its
owner. "Next time, take the lateral stance and pick up your feet—present your side at all times,
instead of your chest, and you'll make a smaller target. And your Shield was uneven. Show me
how you cast it."

The other boy must have been a member of the wealthy and prolific Black family who had several
of its number attending Hogwarts. Hermione recalled that Lucretia Black had been in the Heads'
compartment as the Sixth Year Slytherin Prefect, and her brother (or was it her cousin? Pureblood
families made it so difficult to tell) Alphard Black was a Chaser on the Slytherin Quidditch team.
There were a few others, the baby who'd started this year, and to no one's surprise, was Sorted into
Slytherin. Then there was the annoying one in Sixth Year who had the most irritating laugh, which
sounded like the last breath of a dying donkey. Hermione had heard it more times than she would
have liked whilst peacefully minding her own business in a bathroom stall.

Black gripped his wand with white-knuckled fingers and cast the Shield Charm. "Protego."
Like a proper Shield Charm, it was invisible, only showing itself when it took the force of another
spell.

Tom threw a trio of Knockback Jinxes—one to the upper right, one to the upper left, and one to the
lower centre, at knee level. The shield flared blue-white, absorbing the jinxes at its outermost
edges, and revealing that its shape was ovoid and irregular, stronger and brighter on Black's right
side compared to his left.

An unbalanced shield.

"Expelliarmus!"

A red streak of light, then the shield glowed brighter than ever, before it popped like a soap bubble,
and Black's wand was once again clattering to the floor.

"Still uneven," Tom stated, swishing his wand and effortlessly summoning Black's to his hand.
"Your wand movement was correct, but what was your visualisation?"

Black frowned in consideration. "A uniform hemispherical construction, rigid of consistency and
flawless of surface..."

"Hmm," said Tom, turning Black's wand between his fingers and inspecting the carvings on the
handle, "that's Slinkhard's method, isn't it? Word for word."

"Yeah," Black said, with a shrug. "It's from the textbook."

"Well, I know it works, as long as you're doing it right. Which you're not—I can tell that you aren't
concentrating hard enough. You're watching me and what I'm doing, and not paying enough
attention to preparing your own spells. You also focus too much on your dominant hand, your
wand hand, and you leave your left side wide open." Tom returned the wand and lifted his own.
"Let's try it again."

They tried it.

Again. And again. And again.

The wand flew across the room and smacked into the blackboard, and soon Tom began to lose his
patience, so then it was Black's turn to hit the desks.

Hermione found herself stepping in and casting a Shield Charm to block a Knockback Jinx that was
so powerful that the colour was a deep indigo instead of the standard bright blue. It would have
punched through Black's feeble shield.

Hermione was well aware that it wasn't easy for anyone to concentrate while a frustrated Tom
Riddle was staring them down with a wand pointed at their chest.

"Enough!" Hermione cried, and her own Shield Charm flared blue and rippled as the jinx bounced
back in Tom's direction. "It's not working for him, can't you see?"

"He's not focusing hard enough, that's why," Tom retorted, side-stepping the reflected jinx. He
lowered his wand, nostrils flaring. "It's the standard textbook method; it should work for anyone if
they're doing it right. As you obviously are."
"Let me try," said Hermione, gesturing at Black to come forward. "There's another way to cast a
Shield Charm."

"Reciting the textbook at him one more time isn't going to work." Tom pocketed his wand and
smoothed down his robes, which had barely gotten wrinkled in the duel. "I should know—I've
tried."

"I'm not going to use the textbook," Hermione said firmly.

She knew Slinkhard's Defensive Theory back to front, and she'd struggled with the same textbook
instructions for casting the Shield Charm. In that she'd been no different than Black, bleeding
frustration and dissatisfaction, which made each subsequent casting more difficult as she slipped
farther and farther away from the absolute confidence necessary to will magic into existence. The
issue came from the approach: the book's recommended visualisation was a rigid, inflexible barrier
to deflect incoming spells, with an emphasis on ensuring that every point in the shield's ambit was
solid and consistent. It worked in theory, certainly, but it was more than demanding to set one's
mind into that perfect, structured level of thinking in the middle of a duel.

She'd asked for advice during the summer, tired of the repetitive cycle of struggle and failure—
although her own attempts hadn't involved bouncing off stacks of classroom furniture. She'd
remembered the way Tom had improved his Incendio casting during the summer of their Second
Year, beyond what The Standard Book of Spells had ever indicated was possible. She still trusted
the school textbooks to work as they were supposed to—they did work, or else they wouldn't be
published and sold to students. But by now she'd recognised that they weren't the only solution,
just one of many.

Visualisation, she'd learned, was the key to conveying the correct magical intent. There was more
than one way to reach that state of mental focus necessary to cast a spell; on top of that, the wand
gestures and incantation, which her teachers drilled into the students every other lesson, were
optional to the highly skilled. But if Hermione, who struggled with practical Defence—the
offensive part of the curriculum, and anything involving physical stamina, floor dives, dodging, or
all-around athleticism—could block Tom's attack with a Shield Charm, then Black could do it too.

"No textbook? Now I'm curious," said Tom, his brows rising toward his hairline. "Go on, then.
Show me that someone else here knows what they're doing."

Hermione turned to Black, who looked askance at her, then at the boys lounging on the desks by
the door. He shrugged helplessly.

"Um," Hermione began, shuffling over to where Black stood. She'd celebrated her sixteenth
birthday a week and a half ago—she'd gotten a box of rose scones from the girls in her dormitory,
bought from the tea house in Hogsmeade, and a subscription voucher to Minutes of the Wizengamot
Proceedings from Tom, which according to him, was Wizarding Britain's most boring periodical.
(Apparently it was also authored by a Dictation Quill, as the names of the speakers were all spelled
phonetically, with a series of footnotes on the last page added by the printer to explain who was
who.)

She knew she was the oldest student out of their entire year. But all the boys had already
outstripped her in height; even Black, in the year below, was half a head taller. It was hard to
project an air of authority, as Tom did, when she had to crane her head up to look them in the eye.
"Here." She tapped him lightly on the shoulder, then on the elbow. "Relax your shoulders. Lower
your arm; bend your elbow. Don't squeeze your wand like that—you're not trying to choke it.
Relax. Now close your eyes. Yes, I said close your eyes. Erm," she continued, clearing her throat
nervously. "This is going to sound silly, but it's what works for me.

"Imagine a small tropical island, somewhere in the South Pacific, white sand and coconut palms
and a round lagoon right in the centre." The words were hesitant and awkward and recited from
memory, from how she recalled Mr. Pacek making a very similar speech in his accented English,
full of rhotic trills and harsh consonants. It was scarcely any better than reading from the textbook,
but as she spoke, her words slowly gained a measure of confidence.

"It's a perfect lagoon, with clear blue water, not a ripple on it, the surface as smooth as glass.
During a storm—a wild, roaring typhoon, the sort that tosses ships and crests forty feet high—the
little island is in danger of being swallowed up. But this round lagoon acts as a breakwater. The
waves crash, the wind howls, and the water rises and rises and rises, but the lagoon absorbs
everything that comes its way. And when the storm blows itself out, the lagoon and the island are
still there, safe and sound, and the water is as blue and clear as it was before. It wasn't a rigid
barrier; it was never rigid. Its strength was always in its resilience."

"Now," said Hermione, gently nudging Black's elbow. "Cast your shield."

Black took a breath and adjusted his feet. "Protego!"

Tom, Hermione mouthed silently, sliding to the side and out of the way of what she knew was
coming next.

Flash—flash—flash—flash.

Blue, blue, red, white, red.

Hermione's eyes followed the wand movements, as Tom had cast non-verbally. It looked like he
was proficient enough with the Knockback Jinx to abbreviate the movement somewhat, from the
full-arm dip, flick, and flourish that they'd learned back in First Year to a shallow twitch of his wrist
that conserved energy and let him proceed straight into the next spell. Another Knockback, a
Disarmer, that white one she didn't recognise, and the last one was a deep, rich red with a precise
slashing wand movement that she had seen in a diagram printed in this year's Defence textbook, but
had never performed herself. A fully-fledged Stunner, which they hadn't yet been taught in class.

The first four spells dissipated on Black's shield, the boy gritting his teeth at the fizzling sound they
made upon impact, but the final Stunner shattered it, red cracks crawling over the shield's half-
dome shape. The power of the spell was being absorbed, the cracks yawning open, limned in
fading red light that flickered and dwindled to a dusky pink. Black's wand arm shook with the
effort of holding his shield for so long, and then the onslaught was over, and Hermione sucked in a
lungful of air; she'd realised that she'd been holding her breath for the extent of the demonstration.

Black sank to his knees to the dusty flagstones, his right arm flopping down, his left hand rising to
swipe the sweat off his brow and push his fringe out of his eyes.

"Finally," said Tom, not the least bit out of breath from the magical exertion. "Now that you've got
an O.W.L. level spell down, all you have to do ensure you haven't forgotten it by the time you
actually get to the exam."
"There's no need to be so uncharitable, Tom," Hermione sighed. She inclined her head at Black.
"You've successfully cast a Fifth Year charm, and you only started Fourth Year a few weeks ago.
I'm proud of you. Tom is too, only he doesn't know how to say it, so I'll speak for the both of us—"

She pointedly ignored Tom's muttered, "Whatever."

"—And say that it's a wonderful accomplishment, and very practical too, since you're basically
immune to Peeves now, and anyone from Gryffindor who stocks up on firecrackers on Quidditch
match days."

Hermione beamed and helped Black back to his feet.

"Where did you learn that?" Black asked her, brushing dirt from the knees of his trousers.

"From my summer tutor," she said. "He studied at Durmstrang. Class of Thirty-Four."

"Oh?" Black cocked his head, his grey eyes bright with curiosity. "Is that why Riddle invited you
to the group? I'm Orion Black, of the House of Black. Alphard is the oldest of us at school, but
he's in the cadet line, of course."

He offered his hand to her, and assuming he wanted to shake, Hermione took it. To her surprise, he
raised her hand to his lips and kissed the air above her knuckles.

Hermione felt her cheeks growing warm. She'd known that purebloods and most traditionalist
wizards had little contact with the Muggle world, and had thus fallen behind with regards to
modern social conventions. It was a quirk of magical life she'd observed with interest, but only
from a distance, as she was a Muggleborn, and rarely socialised with other students outside of
schoolwork or Prefect-related business. But she'd noticed that boys raised in those families sent
notes via owl mail or left visiting cards on a girl's desk if they wanted to walk her to Hogsmeade,
and the girls complained about how tawdry the knee-length woollen uniform skirts were, fondly
recalling their mothers' days in the Twenties, when the skirts had been calf-length. She definitely
hadn't made an attempt to break into the circles of those wealthy wizarding traditionalists, who
were known to be as snobbish as any group of London society ladies who only lived in the city for
the length of the "Season".

"I—I'm Hermione Granger. Fifth Year Ravenclaw Prefect. I'm here because this is a homework
study group," Hermione said, still flushing, "and I'm the only one in our year who can match Tom's
marks."

"Riddle lets you call him by his given name?" Black inquired, a thoughtful frown crossing his face.

"He hasn't said not to," said Hermione, wondering what Tom and his 'friends' got up to when she
wasn't around. She understood men being more formal than usual when present in mixed company,
which this was, due to her having been invited, but she didn't know how far that formality went
amongst the stodgy, conservative Slytherin contingent. If it was anything close to what got on in
élite Muggle old boys' institutions where institutionalised bullying was a rite of passage, she wasn't
sure she wanted to know.

"—And he also says it's time to get back to work," Tom interrupted. "Who's next? Rosier? I recall
last year that you tried to make up for your weak defensive spellwork with clever footwork. I hope
you've been practising during the summer, because now it's time to prove you can out-run a
Tripping Jinx."
Rosier groaned; Black found a seat between the other boys, who pounded him on the back and
ruffled his sweaty hair.

Tom brandished his wand, paused for a moment, and his eyes fell on Hermione. He gave her a
pleasant smile. "Would you like to give it a go? In class, you've never quite caught up to my
casting speed. How about we give Rosier a fighting chance?"

"Just Tripping Jinxes?"

"For now."

"For now?"

"You'll still need to be able to cast a Stunner for the O.W.L.s," said Tom, his Reasonable Face on
full-force, which was only a few self-effacing smiles and an eyelash flutter away from being his
Wheedling Face. "Isn't that why you're here? It's the best way to build experience for the exam
practical, performing in the midst of a demanding situation. We'll just have to work our way up."

"Fine," Hermione conceded. "I want you standing by to cast a Cushioning Charm if he needs it."

"He doesn't need it," Tom said, and before Hermione's mouth could open to argue, he added, "But
fine, I'll do as you wish."

By the end of the meeting, Hermione felt like she'd made a significant improvement in her
spellcasting. For all that Tom as an instructor was unforgiving and unsympathetic, he was also very
effective at teaching other people. He had an eye for picking out weaknesses and pointing them
out, showing where they could be corrected or counterbalanced by one's individual strengths.

She didn't go so far as to call him fair-minded, an attribute of a good teacher that he apparently
lacked. Hermione noticed that Tom gave her better treatment than the other members of the group;
he settled the others into pairs and took her as his personal duelling partner, spending more time
talking to her and only making training-related conversation with the others. He advised her on a
series of traditional duelling stances that had him standing quite close to her and adjusting the
angles of her shoulders and hips—something she didn't see him doing for anyone else.

Afterwards, the boys left to wash up and change for dinner. She and Tom stayed behind, clearing
up the mess. Tom dusted and scoured, washing sweat and scorchmarks off the floor, his household
charmwork graceful and effortless. Hermione repaired the broken chairs and desks, her wand
movements not nearly as fluid as his, but she'd put in a good amount of practice in recent weeks
helping the First Years—many of them hadn't known how to pack their trunks, and she'd had more
than a few students bring her broken picture frames and self-winding alarm clocks.

"How was that?" Tom asked, when they stopped to inspect their handiwork.

"It was... interesting," Hermione replied honestly. She had never been exposed to this many
Slytherins in close quarters. In classes, she sat with other Ravenclaws, and even the shared classes,
the only Slytherin she really spoke to—the only Slytherin most people of other Houses spoke to—
was Tom, whose reputation for helpfulness had only grown since becoming a Prefect. "But I
thought your club would have more people."

"Travers is hosing down Greenhouse Four for Beery—couldn't get him out of that one," said Tom.
"And Lestrange went to Quidditch practice. Still a good showing, and if you plan on staying, we'll
be going over textbook theory at the start of next term."

"I think I might." Hermione sat down on one of the cleaned desks and fiddled with the hem of her
skirt. "They respect you, Tom. I wasn't expecting that."

"Why shouldn't they? Don't you?"

"Well..." Hermione began. "I do, but I like you too. I don't think they have that, not with you; I see
that they're closer with one another than they are with you. It feels like the difference between an
army officer and the enlisted—the more you prove you can teach them, the more that distance
grows. Tom, if you started this group to try and make some real friends at Hogwarts before you
graduate, instead of having a bunch of 'friends'," Hermione put particular emphasis on that word,
"I... I'm afraid that it isn't going to happen."

"You've seriously been worried about how many friends I have?" Tom laughed, and settled next to
her, desk creaking under their combined weight. "Oh, Hermione. You shouldn't be worried about
that. I don't need them, and I wasn't trying to collect 'friends'. You're more than enough for me."

"I thought we weren't friends," said Hermione, remembering the Tom of First Year who had derided
his Housemates as a bunch of gullible inbreds. That Tom had told her friendship as a concept was
foolish and shallow.

"Of course we're not," Tom stated, standing up and offering her his arm. "We're more than that.
Now may I escort you to dinner?"

"This isn't because Orion Black kissed my hand earlier, is it?" Hermione asked. "You don't have to
put on the gentleman dandy act to fit in with them."

"It's because Sidonie Hipworth keeps following me around if I don't look like I'm in the middle of a
conversation with someone else," said Tom, holding the door open for her and locking it behind
them, placing a jinx on the doorknob so a casual Alohomora wouldn't pop the lock.

"And because I want to," he added, his smile as benign as ever. "You must have noticed that I'm a
Prefect now... which means I can do whatever I want."
Chapter End Notes

Just another day for Prefect Tom and Prefect Hermione...

Hermione: I don't know, Tom, that sounds like a bad idea.
Tom: Oh, Hermione, when have I ever led you wrong?
Hermione: Yesterday, the day before, last Saturday...
The picture turned out how I imagined it, showing Baby Tom and Baby Hermione grown up
but not all the way there yet, and still sort of looking like the original cover image set on the
front page. Tom just wants to rub his cheek on Hermione's soft, floofy hair. They're so cute!

If you want to re-blog the illustration on tumblr, here's the credit link.
 Pride and Accomplishment
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1942

Tom enjoyed being a Prefect.

But his enjoyment was overshadowed by two things:

The first was his awareness that the job of Prefect only existed so that teachers could off-load their
duties onto someone else, permitting them to put up their feet after class and drink in the staffroom,
instead of patrolling the castle and doing actual work. Prefectship meant nothing in the long run.
Although they did get to keep their badges after they left, even the Head Boys and Girls only got
their names engraved on a plaque that was shared with all the other Heads of the last decade. Tom
had visited the Hogwarts Trophy Room, looking for any other Toms and Marvolos and Riddles and
finding nothing, and there he had seen that most of the trophies were dusty relics, monuments of no
importance. Especially that Medal of Magical Merit awarded to A.P.W.B. Dumbledore in 1899.

(As for House Points and Quidditch awards: the House Cup was a joke—for God's sake, the prize
was eating one meal at the end of the year under the winning House's banners. This, in exchange
for a whole year's worth of academic merit?! But it was like religion or fiat currency, the way the
points system was indoctrinated into the minds of impressionable children. It had value because
other people gave it value, and Tom, who saw himself above consuming the opium of the masses,
could nevertheless recognise its usefulness.)

People who were famous were remembered for real deeds and accomplishments. The lists of deeds
on the back of the chocolate frog cards never said, 'He was also a Hogwarts Prefect for the years of
1752—1755'. No one became famous by virtue of being awarded a Prefect badge; ergo, being a
Prefect was not a real accomplishment.

Thus came the physical proof of real accomplishment: in the last week of October, a nondescript
owl arrived to the Slytherin House table during breakfast, bearing a thick envelope with an official-
looking seal in sparkly carnelian pink wax.

Dear Mr. Bertram,

We are pleased to offer you an invitation to the Wizarding Britain Society of Journalists
(WBSJ), the premier society of contributors and creators in the business of printed media.

Enclosed within is your Press Identification Certificate and Press Badge, engraved with your
credentials and personal identification number. We urge you not to misplace it. WBSJ
members attending hearings or official appointments at the Ministry of Magic must present
their badge at the reception desk after wand weighing; the Badge is registered with the
Ministry and charmed to allow entry to court sessions closed to the public. Lost or misplaced
 badges must be filed with the MOM Department of Administrative Registration, which charges
a fifteen galleon service fee for replacements.

The WBSJ Annual Dinner is set for Friday, 18 December. The invitation and RSVP ticket is
enclosed with your nomination slip to our Most Charming Smile annual award. We request
that all seating reservations and paperwork be owled at your earliest convenience.

Our sincere congratulations,

Clementine Wimbourne,
Editor-in-Chief
Witch Weekly Magazine

It came from a year's worth of writing and studying and practising magic within the closed drapes
of his dormitory four-poster, spending the free hours he had between meals and curfew in the
library, combing through the shelves for simple spells he could re-purpose and promote as a
groundbreaking solution to a common problem.

It came from the late summer nights spent in his room in The Hog's Head. The heat sweltering in
the small room, so hot and humid that the windows dripped with condensation, but he didn't risk
opening the window because anything was better than the fragrance of sweaty goats. In that room,
he'd devoted himself to magical experimentation, wet socks squishing between his toes, broken
porcelain scattered across the splintery floorboards from yet another Transfigured chamber pot
whose structure could little withstand a water conjuration charm under high pressure.

It was a year of self-education outside of the Hogwarts curriculum, combining what he'd learned
from his classes into a sum greater than its parts. It made him question why they separated Charms
from Transfiguration from Defence when they could be so much more powerful combined. Magic
was magic; the divisions between disciplines were arbitrary and placed out of convenience than any
fundamental distinction. Alchemy was the blurred line between Transfiguration and Potions.
Defence was just Charms cast with martial intent. Many of them, such as the Severing Charm or
the Banishing Charm, were useful for both housework or self-protection.

He found his Press Badge to be a more meaningful achievement than his Prefect Badge, which
came from buttering up the professors for the last four years, on top of earning all those House
Points for turning in his homework on time and for knowing the answers in class, which was like
being rewarded for cleaning one's plate at dinner, or flushing the loo after doing one's business. It
was such a non-achievement that he had imagined everyone's expressions of shock and horror if
he'd launched the badge into the Lake and renounced his Prefectship in the middle of the Great
Hall.

But those images never manifested themselves in reality; Tom kept them locked away within his
imagination, and when the time came, he accepted the Prefect badge with gracious smiles and
counterfeited modesty.

The duties of being Prefect aside, it still had plenty of privileges to make it worth the bother. For
example, he could now loiter in the corridors after hours without anyone daring to tell him off.
That was where his new Prefect status was overshadowed for the second time.

When Tom had been in First Year, and the walls of Hogwarts had been the extent of the magical
world as far as he had been aware, he had looked forward to being a Prefect. He wanted the power,
the authority, and the ability to eject people from the many hidden alcoves and out-of-the-way
classrooms, because there were better purposes they could be put to than serving as rendezvous
spots for various upper year students' amorous ambitions.

Perhaps that was petty, but he'd been a child, and his horizons back then were narrow and
simplistic, with a limited view on what tools were available to him. In First Year, there had only
been himself, Hermione, and Peanut.

But Peanut's ill health had dampened his high spirits. He'd eagerly anticipated roaming the
corridors with his loyal minion in his pocket, sniffing out the curfew breakers, the contraband
smugglers, and the lovesick fools. Searching for the parts of the castle that had been off-limits to
him in the past, like the kitchens, the laundry room, the caretaker's office—where did all the coins
that rolled under the sofas end up?—and the Common Rooms of Hogwarts' other Houses.

(If it hadn't been for the Common Room library and the freedom to visit Hermione outside of class,
Ravenclaw would have been disappointing; he'd been back after that Christmas just to see if the
word puzzles improved, but they hadn't.)

Instead of his obedient and dependable Peanut, Tom had gotten Miss Sidonie Hipworth as his patrol
partner.

Hipworth wore her hair in stiff, curling blonde ringlets, courtesy of hair charms rather than nature,
quite unlike Hermione's naturally fluffy curls. Hipworth wasn't as pompous and overbearing as
Everard, or as vacuous as Chuffley, Summers, and Preston; he'd heard that Hipworth's family had
earned rather inherited their way into modest fortune, and as such, she understood the value of
dedication. To Tom's annoyance, however, its manifestation in Sidonie Hipworth came in the form
of shameless attempts at social climbing. She was in the top quarter of their year by marks, and he
remembered that she'd asked to be his Potions partner a few times before Tom had begun leaving
his bag on the seat next to him. His regular Potions partners were Lestrange or Avery, who made
up for their near-illiteracy by being good at taking orders; beyond that, they could mash slugs and
de-bone bat wings without being squeamish about the blood.

The girl had apparently wedged herself into that much-prized intersection between Acceptable
Academic Records and Notable Family Connections, which had been enough to convince Professor
Slughorn to acknowledge her existence, to the extent of handing her a badge and remembering her
name. Tom was consoled by the fact that Hipworth's existence hadn't made so strong of an
impression on Old Sluggy to merit invitations to his Slug Club dinner evenings. There was only so
much of her that Tom could tolerate; she didn't even qualify for being one of his "friends".

(If it hadn't been for Peanut's poor state of health, Tom would have considered pranking the girls'
dorm again on the off-chance that a public humiliation would force Miss Hipworth to hand her
Prefect badge to someone else less annoying.)

Tom had set Peanut up in a shoebox under his bed, lined with the feathers pulled out of someone's
pillow, and a hand towel taken from the dormitory bathroom.

Nott caught him coming out of the bathroom, and had asked him about it. "The Prefect with the
non-approved pet? Aren't you going to assign yourself detention now?"
"I have a permission slip from the Deputy Headmaster," said Tom, brushing past Nott, shoebox in
hand. "I can have whatever pet I want."

"And you got a rat?" Nott's eyes widened in disbelief. "You could have gotten a snake! Why didn't
you get a snake?"

Because snakes are temperamental and boring, thought Tom. He didn't understand why the
members of his House worshiped them so much. They were fine as symbolic or heraldic animals—
and if he had to choose, a serpent was miles better than a badger—but in reality, most breeds of
snakes were rather dull and pre-occupied with their base urges.

Tom had talked to snakes when he and the other orphans had gone on trips outside the city. All a
snake wanted was food and a warm place to sleep; Tom could imagine himself spending a week to
build and charm the perfect heated terrarium for a pet snake, and then being woken up in the
middle of the night because the snake wanted the temperature adjusted. Snakes could be as callous
as cats, but at least the average house-cat maintained some semblance of domesticity.

"Because I didn't want a snake," said Tom. He tried to push past Nott to get to the door, but the boy
didn't budge.

"Are you sure you were meant to be in Slytherin, Riddle?" Nott asked, folding his arms across his
chest. "The others mightn't have noticed, but I have. You're making questionable choices, and it's
showing: you invite that Granger girl to our club, then you fawn over her like a moonstruck
puppy. It makes me wonder if you're really a Slytherin at all. Maybe you should've been in
Ravenclaw. Or Hufflepuff."

Tom stopped dead. His fingers tightened on the shoebox; he could hear rustling from inside as
Peanut woke up and shifted about. Nott was trying to provoke him. Nott had always been more
perceptive than the other boys who saw new spells and novel magical tricks and didn't question the
person providing them. Nott was quiet; he watched and observed, and despite not being as vocal
about his opinions as the other boys back in their First Year, he had kept his distance from Tom.
Things had warmed up since the Wardrobe Incident in Third Year, but Nott, though outwardly
respectful, still chose to remain withdrawn and reserved, even as the rest of the boys grew closer as
a group.

If Tom were to count the Slytherins who actually possessed traits that Salazar so valued, Nott
would be one of the rare few.

"This isn't about what kind of pet I picked, is it? It's about Granger."

"That speech you made about special privileges and exceptions," said Nott, his eyes narrowed, his
lip curling into a derisive sneer. "That was about her, wasn't it?"

"I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"Come off it, Riddle. You know what I'm talking about," Nott said contemptuously. "Don't you
know how it looks? How you act around her? You've talent and ambition, and we both know it—
Slughorn's already picked you for a winner. You're going to be someone important when you leave
this place. But what I can't comprehend is why a man like you is wasting his time and potential on
chasing a bit of skirt, let alone one like her. There's no knowing what kind of muck flows through
that blo—"
Tom felt his anger rising, the air growing heavy and stifling, a warm tingle running across his limbs
and down to his fingers. His fingers itched; a hot pressure built up behind his eye sockets, and he
could hear the thump of his own pulse roaring in his ears.

The cups and toothbrushes on the shelf by the sink rattled. A tube of hair lotion rolled off the edge
of the sink and plopped onto the floor. Tom settled the shoebox in the crook of his left elbow, while
his right arm rose up as if performing an act of divine benediction.

Tom flicked his wrist.

The bathroom door slammed shut with a bang, and Nott followed, his body propelled backwards
until his back struck the wooden door, the handle driving into his kidneys from behind and
expelling all the air from his lungs with a loud whoosh.

Nott wheezed for breath.

Tom drew his wand from the interior pocket of his robes, stalking forward over the green tiled
floor.

When Tom was within arm's reach of Nott, the tip of his yew wand brushed against the other boy's
throat, tracing a complex, looping pattern down his clavicle and the line of his sternum, over the
pristine uniform jumper.

This was a spell he'd learned from a Healing textbook from Rosier's family library. One that was
meant for field surgeries and medical emergencies, it constricted blood vessels and slowed the
beating of the heart, in order to reduce blood loss while a Mediwizard sealed open wounds and
waited for a Blood Replenishing Potion to take effect. It wasn't Dark Magic, which left traces on
the body and in the caster's wand, nor was it something useful for fast-paced duelling, but it looked
to be useful here and now. Tom had tested it on Old Ab's goats during the summer, while he'd held
their eyes open and made them stay still.

He'd felt what they felt, and while it wasn't dangerous unless, according to the book, one had pre-
existing heart conditions, it was still incredibly unpleasant. He could describe the sensation as
something akin to holding his breath, but that would be an understatement; for a healthy human
who had no restorative potions in his system, the arterial constriction was closer to being held
upside down in a tepid pool of water and slowly starved of air.

"They called me 'Mudblood' back in First Year, as you may recall," Tom spoke in a quiet voice,
looking down into Nott's eyes. The pupils were dilated, the white of his sclera visible around the
iris, and his breath rasped in his throat. "You never said it, but I know you heard them, and you
thought it. You and everyone else. Back then, my name meant nothing, my magic was an accident,
my blood was tainted. But I wonder..."

Tom leaned closer and dug his wand into Nott's chest. "If we were to have a look at your blood,
what colour would it be? Would it be the same shade, have the same consistency as mine, or even
Granger's? Do you know what I think?

"I think there would be no difference. But we could always check, if you wanted to make sure of
it."

Tom pulled back a few inches and twisted his wand in an intricate counter-pattern, reversing the
spell. Nott sucked in a slow, croaking breath between his clenched teeth.
"There's a reason why I 'waste my time', as you call it, with Granger," said Tom in a conversational
tone, pinning Nott down with his eyes. Tom felt the spine-prickling itch of an unease that wasn't
his own, mutating into a sharp flicker of alarm that crawled up his throat like bile—

And then he was assaulted by a succession of images: a looming shadow in the corner of his eye; a
vast, polished table in a room lit by candles; a little boy and a regal, grey-whiskered wolfhound
hiding beneath a desk; a veiny, be-ringed hand turning the brittle and yellowing pages of an old
book—

He blinked and the images were gone.

"It's because she understands the meaning of loyalty," continued Tom, deciding to pursue that
strange episode at a later date. "In fact, that's what makes her exceptional and worthy of my time—
it was never about name or blood or sex. You see, Nott, I haven't the time to spare for anyone who
is anything less than loyal to me. And those who are loyal, who do prove themselves deserving?
I'll give them whatever privileges I want. That's what I understand to be the mark of sensible
leadership. If you learn anything from our little discussion, I hope it's that."

A few taps of his wand and Nott's collar straightened itself out; the wrinkles fell out of his robes
with a soft puff of steam. Nott himself was paler than usual, his skin clammy with sweat, and he'd
sagged onto the floor, but Tom couldn't do anything about that. He levitated the other boy out of
the way of the bathroom door.

He spent a moment adjusting the shoebox, which had been tucked under his arm the whole time,
and ensured its contents were secure before he opened the door.

Lestrange and Rosier, who had returned to the dormitory in the time Tom was having his talk with
Nott, turned to look as the bathroom door opened.

Rosier was sitting on his bed, unwrapping his green-and-silver Slytherin scarf, quilted leather
mittens and woollen cloak laying on his bedcovers; his shoes were half-laced, leather tongues
pulled open to reveal a flash of green socks adorned with fluttering golden snitches. Lestrange was
in the midst of changing, his numbered team jumper halfway over his head, wearing mud-flecked
white Quidditch breeches with heavy pads buckled over the knees and shins. It was obvious that
they'd come back from the Quidditch pitch, Lestrange to play, and Rosier to spectate.

Tom stood in the doorway, blank-faced. Behind him, Nott was getting unsteadily to his feet.

Rosier's eyes darted to Lestrange, then back to Tom. "Did something happen while we were out?"

"Nott ate something that disagreed with him," said Tom.

Nott said nothing.

"It might be best to leave him alone for a bit, actually." Tom glanced over his shoulder at Nott, who
really did look ill. "If you need to use the loo, you could go across the hall and ask the Fourth
Years. Black or Mulciber would let you in if you knocked on their door."

"Aww," Lestrange groaned; he had by now pulled his jumper over his head. "Can't you just take
points off like a normal person, Riddle? I wanted to use the shower."
After that incident in the bathroom, Nott put as much space between them as possible, removing
himself from his usual spot at the House table and moving down to the point where the Fifth Year
section met the Fourth Years. Mulciber, who had been joining the Fifth Years for dinner from the
previous year, took Nott's vacated spot. Orion Black came and went as he liked; as the heir to a
prominent family and closely related to a number of upper year students, he was invited to a
different spot at the Slytherin table every other day.

Nott's enforced distance didn't stop him from attending Tom's homework club, which was held
once per fortnight and included every other resident of the Fifth Year boys' dorm. The
awkwardness also didn't stop Nott from observing Tom's interactions with Hermione, in the casual
setting of the club and in the more structured setting of their mixed classes.

It prompted Tom to begin evaluating his own actions.

Did he really give Hermione special treatment?

Yes, in fact, he did.

Hermione was Hermione. He was accustomed to the small physical displays of affection they
shared. He didn't mind the nudges and pats and the way she leaned against him at the end of the last
lesson on a Friday afternoon. Those student desks were the same ones they'd picked in First Year,
but they'd both grown since then, especially Tom, whose knees now pressed against the bottom of
the desk. Contact was unavoidable, and there was nothing inappropriate about it.

Did he fawn over Hermione?

No. No, he didn't.

He counted fawning to be what the younger girls in his House did, pouting their lips and speaking
in stupid childish voices, as if they hadn't had governesses from the age of six to teach them how to
sign each other's dance cards in formal French. Tom had stopped studying in the Common Room
because there was always several groups of girls who did nothing but giggle, whisper, and sneak
glances at him from behind their textbooks, daring one of their number to go up and ask him a
question about Third Year elective subjects.

His dorm mates found it amusing to watch thirteen and fourteen year old girls grow red and
flustered when Tom looked in their direction, and downright comical when one of them tripped
over her own feet and fell on her face. It wasn't so hilarious to Tom, who as the Prefect in
attendance, was expected to escort her to the Hospital Wing to the sighs and envy of her
classmates. Perhaps they would have thought differently had Tom been anything other than
indifferent to their advances, as more than a few of the girls had been nominal purebloods with all
four grandparents being magical. (They weren't Sacred Twenty-Eight; those girls might look, but
they'd never be so bold as to countenance a match to a man with a Muggle name, who happened to
be a half-blood at best.)
Did he like Hermione?

There were many ways to answer that question, because Tom's feelings about her were...
complicated.

He enjoyed her company, which came without the expectation of payment or obligation; spending
time in Hermione's presence was the opposite of the dull evenings frittered away in Slughorn's
office pretending to be grateful and pleasant, while he had one eye watching the sand in the
hourglass, counting the minutes before he could make a polite departure.

He also found her appealing in a deeply visceral way, something that he hadn't noticed until the last
year or so. There was no fawning involved, but when Hermione plaited up her hair and wore it
tucked over her shoulder, Tom's eyes were immediately drawn to the small bumps at the back of
her neck, once hidden but now revealed. One, two, three, four—he'd counted them, the evenly
spaced bones of her vertebral column, before they disappeared under the white starched collar of
her uniform blouse. It was an alluring sight on a level far beyond the vulgarity of simple titillation;
he was at once entranced and dissatisfied by the implication presented by such a display.

In the end, he concluded that he did like her, though to what extent he was still unsure. He did feel
that if Hermione had formed a friendship with anyone else other than him, it would never have had
the depth of connection of what she had with Tom; she would have been wasted on anyone else,
and Tom would have gone his entire life without knowing his Foil, which was so appalling a notion
that he could scarcely bring himself to contemplate it.

It brought him to his last question:

(Which was perhaps Nott's last question, too.)

Did Hermione like him?

Of course she did—she'd said it before, and more than once.

But how far did that go? Was it the same amount that he liked her? Was it more, was it less?

Objectively, it didn't matter, but he couldn't help but be curious about it. It was silly to worry
overmuch about it, as the Muggle girls at Wool's did when they plucked the petals one by one off
daisies and played a game of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.

Although he couldn't stop himself from wondering if Hermione found him appealing in return. He
knew that other girls liked looking at him, admiring his silky hair or his soulful eyes or what have
you.

(Honestly, didn't they have better things to do? Like, for instance, learn magic?)

Hermione was different in every way possible to those random giggling Third Years, most of them
too afraid to say a word to him. If he unbuttoned his collar and showed her the vertebrae on the
back of his neck, would she appreciate it? Or maybe she liked knees instead? She'd been awkward
about touching his knees since that morning last year, in the alcove near the club rooms.

Someone coughed.

Tom blinked.
He looked down. He'd written KNEES over a page of notes listing the concessions agreed upon
between the Ministry of Magic and the Goblin Nation in the Treaty of 1755.

Around him, students were drooling on their desks, playing Hangman, doing homework for another
class, or in the case of one Gryffindor, sleeping while wearing glasses charmed to look like open
eyes.

Was it possible to get an Outstanding N.E.W.T. for History of Magic without showing up to any of
the classes? Why was History of Magic a mandatory class for O.W.L.s when few people even
bothered continuing on to the N.E.W.T. level class, and unlike Charms or Arithmancy, no employer
looked for good marks in History on a student's school record? In the Muggle world, such an
arrangement was likely due to the interference of an interest group or political lobby who wanted to
over-inflate student fees or flog textbooks.

Those questions were more interesting to contemplate than the rest of the class lecture, which
detailed the Ministry's progressive tax rate on goblin-manufactured artefacts.

Peanut died on the second day of the Christmas holidays.

Tom checked on Peanut each morning before he went to class, so it wasn't unexpected for him to
open the shoebox one day and see a dead rat instead of a live one.

He took the velvet wrapping cloth that his Christmas present from Lestrange had come in—the gift
had been a silver cloak brooch in the shape of a snake, with matching cuff buttons, which could be
used to pin back one's robe sleeves to leave the hands free for duelling—and folded it around the
stiff, curled body of the rat. The rat went back into the shoebox, which was then covered with the
lid.

Tom put on his winter cloak, gloves, and scarf, striding through the empty hallways without passing
a single student; even the portraits were still asleep at this hour of the morning. Up and out of the
dungeons he went, and into the freezing air of a Highland dawn.

The grounds were white with snow, the Forest silently ominous, the footing on the carved stone
steps down to the edge of the Lake slick and treacherous. Drifts had gathered on the frozen surface
of the water. Other than the whistle of the wind and the clatter of an unsecured shutter in the
nearby boathouse, there were no other sounds to disturb the solemn occasion of Tom's first proper
funeral.

He had seen dead bodies before, of course.

The victims of industrial accidents or traffic collisions, the occasional corpse fished out of the
murky depths of Regent's canal, the youngest children of the orphanage, who were the most
susceptible to pneumonia or pertussis. Outside the orphanage, he'd heard talk of suicides
committed by underemployed men fallen on hard times, and fallen women who chose death over
disgrace. But these were people whose passing hadn't warranted a service or a grave marker; most
of them hadn't even gotten a coffin, only a bedsheet and a hole in the ground shared with a few
other random bodies, an arrangement that came at the generosity of the local borough council.

When he was younger, he'd wondered if that was where his mother had ended up. He didn't even
know her name—the little he knew of his parentage was limited to his given name and surname,
and the speculations he'd made over the years: that his special "talents" were hereditary, that there
was a good explanation for his father being absent at Tom's birth and Tom's mother's death, and that
his looks had to have come from somewhere.

None of that mattered now that Tom knew he was a wizard, and was old enough not to need parents
anymore; he possessed the skills to earn his own keep and manage his own household. He had
made his own memories worth preserving, and they were leagues above the idle daydreams of
things that had no basis in reality, no matter how hard he'd wished for them to be true when he was
five years old and trying to drown out the sound of other orphans coughing themselves to sleep.

But back to the funeral—

What did people even say at funerals?

Tom's experience with funerals had been in seeing them at a distance when the orphans had gone to
church and he'd passed mourners in black on the way out. He hadn't been inside a church since...
1937. By that time, he'd been old and well-read enough to debate theology with the matron, and
instead of trying to argue with him, she'd given up and let him spend his Sunday mornings how he
wanted to.

(Perhaps she couldn't contemplate sharing an eternal afterlife with Tom Riddle, after a lifetime of
dealing with him in the mortal plane of existence. Or perhaps she'd convinced herself that, being
paid to clothe and feed young children, the same duty of care did not extend to ensuring their
spiritual well-being. If Tom himself didn't care about it, why should anyone else?)

Tom decided to do things his own way. It had always worked before.

"Incendio!"

The shoebox caught on fire, and quickly, before his hands began to burn, Tom slid it over the ice,
skidding ten, twenty, thirty feet away from the shoreline before friction took hold of it and brought
it to a stop.

The box burned over the ice, red flames over white. The sun rose slowly above a jagged line of
white-capped hills. Tom stood on the icy shoreline and watched the rising pillar of grey smoke,
reminded of the day two years ago when he had set a wardrobe on fire. He had confronted his
fears, and he'd destroyed them. He'd learned from that, and he'd learned from this as well: physical
existence was frail and limited, but knowledge and information persisted beyond that.

Peanut was dead, and the years of training were lost for good. But in Tom that knowledge lived on;
he remembered how to find his way through all the winding passages and dead-ends and dusty
storerooms of the dungeons. He'd learned how to subdue animals with a thought. And he'd
recognised that unquestioned devotion—loyalty unto death—was a gift that couldn't be bought.
Tom cast a warming charm over his cloak and pulled his scarf tighter around his throat, watching
the ice melt in a circle around the charred box. Eventually, the ice thinned and the blackened
remnants of velvet and cardboard plopped into the freezing water.

When it was done, he turned back to the castle, climbing the two hundred stone stairs up the rocky
face of Hogwarts' foundations. Entering the grounds proper, he noticed a figure emerging from the
treeline of the Forbidden Forest. A large figure, too big to be a student, wearing a cloak with the
hood pulled low.

Tom held back and watched.

Heavy, lumbering footsteps, something small and lumpy swinging from each of the figure's hands.
In the soughing wind, the flutter of the cloak revealed inner robes in school uniform black... lined
with red.

A student.

But not just any student—this had to be the one student that members of his House called the 'Half-
Breed Oaf', because if there was anything worse than a wizard who didn't meet their standards for
blood, it was a wizard who needed a hyphen to accurately describe his species.

This particular student was the bane of the mixed Slytherin-Gryffindor Potions classes, someone
Professor Slughorn tried to avoid, because from one glance he knew that Rubeus Hagrid would
never be worthy of The Shelf. Even Tom Riddle, the penniless outcast of Slytherin, despite the
unfortunate circumstances of his upbringing having prevented him being told of his magical status,
had in his First Year won the praise of his all his teachers by the end of his first term. To Tom, it
was proof that wizards and witches weren't inherently equal by dint of having magic.

Tom decided to follow Hagrid. The Forbidden Forest was off-limits to student. There had to be an
explanation for the oaf's breaking of school rules. And was it not Tom's duty to uphold student
discipline, as one of the few Prefects who'd remained at school for the holidays?

Realising that wearing black in the snow was rather conspicuous, Tom concentrated on casting a
Disillusionment Charm, a N.E.W.T. level spell for a reason: holding it for long periods could be
tiring, which made the camouflage effect fade from near-invisibility and reduced one's extremities
to blurry dark shadows. Wizards who wanted to perform hidden surveillance for hours at a time
would do better with items enchanted with concealment spells, like Invisibility Cloaks.

Hagrid entered the castle, Tom following at a reasonable distance, the snow dried off his clothes
with a quick application of the steam charm, his shoes Silenced against tapping on the stone floors.
From up close, he could see that Hagrid carried dead rabbits in his enormous hands.

I hope he's not going to eat them, thought Tom, who had heard in the Slytherin Common Room that
Hagrid was half troll.

Hagrid stopped at the door of a broom closet on the Second Floor, one of the many hiding places
Tom had discovered back in his First Year. He unlocked the door with his wand, looked both ways
down the hallway—missing Tom, who was holding his Disillusionment without an issue—then
slipped into the closet. The door shut behind him.

Tom waited.
Two minutes passed, then five.

He began reciting the major grammatical cases of Latin, then moved to translating short sentences
in his head.

You await the oaf. I am waiting for the oaf. He waited for the oaf.

After ten minutes, the door creaked open, Hagrid's head popping out to check the hallway again—
nothing to see, move on—before he locked the door and went up the nearest staircase, not looking
back. The dead rabbits were gone.

Tom waited for a minute, then began to cast Silencing Charms on the door, which unlocked with a
simple Alohomora.

He entered the room, locking the door after him, not knowing what to expect. He raised his wand,
tip alight with a non-verbal Lumos.

A dusty cupboard, bare shelves on the side with a few empty bottles of furniture polish and
cauldron de-greasing potions, their labels faded and unreadable. A dirty mop and a dustpan
missing the brush lay on the floor. He identified a strange smell that wasn't the herbal, astringent
scent of cleaning solutions; there was also a metallic whiff of spilled blood, and then something
earthy and stale and organic, reminding him of the nest of baby mice Mrs. Cole had once found in
the back of the linen pantry.

At the back of the cupboard was a school trunk, wooden with battered brass latches. Tom could
hear a soft tapping from within, and a scraping sound like fingernails being dragged slowly over a
chalkboard.

What has Hagrid done?

Tom didn't think it was a boggart; they weren't living beings, so they didn't need proper food. And
it was obvious that Hagrid had fed whatever it was inside the trunk those dead rabbits.

Tom pointed his wand at the trunk and with a well-aimed Banishing Charm shoved open the lid.

The thing inside the trunk had eight eyes, all of them gleaming in the light shed by Tom's wand.

"Hagrid?" it spoke in a quiet, wheezing voice, with a peculiar whistling quality to it, like a flautist
at the end of holding a long note.

"Stupefy!"

Tom cast a Stunner with as much power behind it as he could, then slammed the lid of the trunk
shut, binding the latches with a Sticking Charm and a jinx against unlocking charms. After a
second's thought, he layered on a few anchored Silencing and Feather-Weight Charms. They
wouldn't be permanent unless he enchanted the trunk with carved runes in the Arithmantically
circumscribed locations—but he wasn't in the right state of mind right now to sit down and ponder
the finer details of planar geometry.

That thing was a spider. A spider the size of a large cat.

Hagrid had a baby Acromantula.

Tom's first question was where Hagrid had gotten it.

Tom took Care of Magical Creatures; it had seemed the most useful class subject out of his
remaining elective options, which were Divination and Muggle Studies. He'd read the textbook,
and knew that Acromantulas were native to the Malay Archipelago, could live for decades, grew
ten feet wide, and produced a highly toxic venom that was used in rare potions.

His second: Who on Earth thought it was a good idea to give or sell an Acromantula to a
Hogwarts student?

Hagrid was a Third Year, with less than four months' experience with the Care of Magical
Creatures curriculum. He might have been a six-and-a-half-foot-tall oaf whose uniforms had to be
fitted on him with an Engorgio or two, but he only had a couple of years of magical training under
his belt. He was an idiot, but he was also a child.

What was Hagrid doing with an Acromantula? Was it supposed to be a pet, because he found the
standard list of Hogwarts approved pets to be either boring or useless?

Then the third question dropped, and Tom's thoughts took a different direction.

If I had an Acromantula, what would I have done with it?

The parts could be useful as potions ingredients, he knew. A fresh specimen, even a small one like
this juvenile here, could be sold on the black market for dozens of galleons. The summer Tom had
spent in The Hog's Head had educated him on the trade of magical artefacts, imported animal parts,
and Muggle-made luxuries like cigars and fine artwork—things the Ministry of Magic didn't
approve of due to the implicit suggestion that some wizard middleman out there was skirting the
Statute of Secrecy and defrauding innocent Muggles.

Tom was aware that the venom was the most valuable part, and like the golden eggs laid by a
golden goose, killing it would cut off the supply.

But while money was nice, it was only a means to an end. Tom wouldn't mind being rich, but piles
of gold only mattered inasmuch as it could provide for his essential needs and comforts while
allowing him the freedom to pursue his higher objectives.

Namely, studying magic and becoming a powerful wizard.

Here was where the Acromantula could be very useful in pursuing his studies.

Acromantulas, as he'd read in the books, and had witnessed just now, were capable of speech and
reason. They were sentient.

But they were also creatures, which meant that the legal protections which applied to wizards,
witches, and various humanoid magical species like Veelas, didn't apply to them.

Tom had never had a sentient creature to try his mind control powers on before, and the incident
he'd had with Nott in the bathroom had stirred his curiosity on what else he was capable of. He
didn't dare try it again with Nott, not until he knew more about what he was doing. He remembered
killing his first few rats with aneurysms when he'd pushed too hard. People would surely notice if
Nott ended up brain-damaged. Nott wasn't as dull and feckless as Avery; he did well in academics,
and his father was a well-known author and genealogist who had close connections to all the old
families of wizarding society.

Using Nott was too risky to be worth the trouble.

(He made no acknowledgement of the promise that Hermione had squeezed out of him back in
First Year, when he'd agreed not to experiment on other students.)

The Acromantula it was, then.

This was the perfect opportunity, anyway. No one would be harmed, except for maybe Hagrid's
feelings—but then again, it was his own fault for bringing a dangerous creature into the castle and
trying to hide it in a room that could be unlocked with a First Year charm. He shouldn't have had
an Acromantula; it was only Tom's Prefectorial responsibility to confiscate it, the same as he would
have done for any student caught with Dungbombs in his pocket.

His mind made up, Tom transfigured the dustpan into a trunk similar to the one holding the
Acromantula, scratching up the interior with a few thoughtfully placed Severing Charms. He broke
the lock on the left side of the trunk and placed it on the floor, eyeing the two of them side by side.
They weren't exactly identical, but student trunks only came in one standard size and shape. One
was pretty much like any other, once you took off the luggage tags, custom engraving, and
personalised stickers. He then cast a Disillusionment Charm on the original trunk and levitated it
out of the room, leaving the fake one open on the floor. He didn't lock the door when he left; let
Hagrid believe that his own stupidity and incompetence had allowed the escape of his pet spider.

How did anyone expect to keep a sentient beast as a pet and not expect it to figure out a way to
escape?

(Keeping it as a pet was a whole different situation than keeping it as a captive. The person who
did the latter was more inclined to take the proper precautions with what the textbook classified as
a wild beast known to be capable of killing trained adult wizards.)

Tom brought the trunk into lowest levels of the dungeons, cold year-round and freezing in the
winter. Few students explored this far down, and of the few, most of them were Slytherins who
were either lost due to unfamiliarity with the castle (First Years) or lost their way due to ordering
too many glasses of Firewhiskey on a trip to Hogsmeade (Seventh Years).

He found a storeroom that held folded piles of moth-eaten tapestries and began cleaning it up,
Vanishing the dust and steam cleaning the salvageable fabric. He cast warming charms and ignited
the sconces with magical fire, and when he was finished, he set the trunk on the floor and pointed
his wand at the latches.

The spider uncurled its hairy limbs and clicked its mandibles.

"You're not Hagrid," it said. "Where is Hagrid?"

"He's not coming back," Tom replied. "From now on I'll be the one bringing you food."

The mandibles clicked some more. "Why did Hagrid leave?"

"It doesn't matter anymore," Tom told it. "You'll soon forget about him."
"But I wa—" it began in its soft, piping voice.

"Petrificus Totalus."

When the spider was frozen stiff—not Stunned; Tom's mind magic didn't work well on an
unconscious subject—Tom dropped to his knees and gazed into the shiny black marbles of the
Acromantula's eyes.

Willpower was the key to any magic, and Tom had discovered this form of it before he even knew
what magic was. He could have pulled out the distributive tables from the back of his Arithmancy
textbooks and tried to jury-rig his own spell with a calculated pattern of wand flicks, and a Greco-
Latin incantation with the right meter and syllable count. Perhaps he could combine several words,
like Mental-Spectate or Psyche-Perception. It would have been the formal method for focusing
magical intent if there was no pre-existing spell to use.

Or he could do as he'd done from the age of six years old: use his power and raw intent to infiltrate
someone's consciousness. He'd used it in the past to hurt people when they deserved it, or persuade
them to do things that he wanted, but the most useful function it had served was to show him the
integrity of their character. He always, always knew when people lied to him.

Now it seemed he could do more than gauge their trustworthiness.

He'd seen what lay in Nott's mind.

Tom couldn't tell if it had been Nott's thoughts or his memories, but he knew there was more to it.

And if he'd done it once, he could do it again, replicate the circumstances and direct the precise
intent, just as he'd done when he forced the truth out of anyone who dared tell him a lie.

Let me see. Show me!

A great pressure began to form behind his sinuses, a growing strain that made his eyes water and
his eyelids twitch.

Then he blinked and his vision had gone blurry; he could hardly see his surroundings—they'd
dissolved into a featureless mass, unidentifiable with the exception of the strange, drooping black
lump in front of him that stirred the air with its flapping wings and its loud, puffing breaths. This
thing was warm and fleshy, just as his Hagrid was, but it wasn't Hagrid—nor was it weak; his
instincts had designated it as one to be wary of, a greater predator despite how ungainly it was in its
movements, dragging along the ground in clumsy motions that could be felt through the sensory
hairs lining the lower segments of his—

Hold on a moment there...

Sensory hairs?

Tom pulled himself back, rubbing his eyes. His vision swam back into its normal state.

What was that?

I think I just saw into the spider's mind, and through its eyes, Tom concluded. This... this has
promise.
 If only it wasn't so unpleasant to see the world through eight eyes and smell it through a million
strands of leg hair. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad once he'd gotten used to it.

Tom stunned the spider and locked it back in the trunk when it was time to go to lunch. He had two
weeks of Christmas holidays left; there was no reason why he had to rush his research now.

He might run into complications once the holidays ended and the school term resumed, since the
spider needed to be fed regularly if he wanted to keep it alive and in relative good health.

But Tom was a Prefect now, and although Prefects could travel the castle how they liked, most
patrols were assigned to the areas around their own House Common Rooms, as they were the
places where one could most frequently catch students out of hours. Ravenclaw Prefects,
according to what he'd seen on Hermione's patrol schedule, were assigned to the eastern wing of
the castle, including the Astronomy Tower, which was reputed to be a romantic place to view the
sunset.

As a Slytherin Prefect, he had a reasonable justification if he was found wandering around the
dungeons late at night.

Tom decided that having a Prefect badge wasn't as terrible as he thought it would be.

Chapter End Notes

— If it wasn't made clear, Nott is buttmad that Tom brought a girl into the Boys' Club, and she
is going to ruin everything like Yoko did to the Beatles. He kind of has a point there, because
Tom does give uneven treatment, and is an unreliable narrator. (I hope this is clear in the
differences between Hermione's PoV chapters.)

— "Did you know that the mind control spell is only illegal when used on an unconsenting
human being?" —Tom, Chapter 9. I mentioned (in various reader comments, don't know if
you guys read through them) that the Canon CoS plot wouldn't go the same way in BoaF.
Things that aren't butterflied by the AU will make an appearance.

— On Tom and Hermione: My interpretation of Tom (and how I've written him in BoaF) is
that he's mostly aromantic. He enjoys validation from other people (special treatment,
acknowledgement for being the best), and spending time with Hermione, but he doesn't
necessarily need to be in a romantic relationship to have that. Of course, these labels and
definitions didn't exist in the 1930's, so Tom has trouble articulating his feelings. I also believe
that if Tom felt attraction to another human being, it wouldn't be in the same way of boys in
his age group, because they are filthy peons and he is not. He wouldn't be interested in period-
typical pin-up girls; instead he'd be attracted to power and intelligence first, and physical
attributes second. Not the size of a gal's milkducts, but the size of her brain!!! (Or a fixation on
some other body part, maybe.)

I've seen fics where Tom sleazes it up with half the girls in his year, and it doesn't jive with
how I view his character as a neurotic, narcissistic nerd with daddy/mummy/everything issues.
If you've seen the meme: "While you were having pre-marital intercourse, I was
mastering the blockchain deepest mysteries of magic!"

Feel free to share your own opinion on this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 Sympathiser
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1943

Hermione showed Mr. Pacek her study planner when she went home for the Christmas holidays.

It wasn't the prettiest planner she'd ever seen, as she'd bought it from a Muggle stationers' for less
than two shillings. The ones the girls in her classes owned looked nicer, embossed with prancing
unicorns in silver foil, or bound in richly dyed dragon hide; those ones were heat and potion
resistant, for any girl who did her homework on the same desk where she charmed her hair or
concealed her spots. Hers hadn't come with any novelty features, but she didn't really want an
automatically updating moon phase chart, not as much as she needed discretion and privacy.

"What do you think of it?" asked Hermione. "I don't suppose it's something someone would pay
for, is it?"

Mr. Pacek opened the cover and inspected the bindings, drawing his wand along the seams. "It is
certainly functional... and inconspicuous."

"I used the information you sent me on redirection wards," she said. "I thought that the best thing
to do was to not draw anyone's attention in the first place. Do you think you could break the
enchantment?"

"It is not a matter of if I could, but how long it would take." Mr. Pacek stroked his goatee and
tapped the spine of the study planner with his wand. "I could tear the cover open and counter your
runework with my own, or I could try the faster route and cast an overpowered Finite, which has a
good chance of destroying the object before any information can be retrieved. Which brings to
relevance the concept of ancillary effects: self-destruct mechanisms and tampering indicators.
Rather harmless defensive techniques, but offensive warding and enchantment crosses over into the
realm of dark curses—which I presume would bear little interest to you. And of course, they are
not undetectable by your school authorities."

"I don't want to risk destroying it..." Hermione said reluctantly. "It's not as if I spent ages on
writing out the rune sequences—I know I could create another planner if I had to, maybe a new one
for next year—but all my research notes are in there. And I can't just... just destroy them."

Hermione's conscience shuddered at the prospect of destroying a book. Yes, it was a planner, not a
rare manuscript with illuminated calligraphy, and yes, she'd tossed her fair share of essay drafts in
the past. But destroying something that resembled a book in all ways, and contained valuable
information as all books did... Well, it felt close to blasphemous to her.

"Have you read much on the subject of magical linkage?"

"Linkages? Isn't that what they use to make Vanishing Cabinets?" she asked. She'd read about
magical inventions a few years ago, when she was looking into Mastery programs and what the
requirements were to complete one. Those Cabinets could revolutionise magical communication if
they weren't so expensive and time-consuming to build. But it took a skilled artisan weeks to
create a single pair, and wizards of that calibre were so few and far between that the Muggle
concept of the assembly line just would not be feasible.

"That, and a number of other inventions. Magical mirrors and windows—my personal specialty—
enchanted lighting systems, alarm systems. In fact, I had a classmate at Durmstrang who carried a
fob watch linked to one of the bell towers of Kraków, on which he had to place a Silencing Charm
because it would ring the hour, every hour," said Mr. Pacek, his eyes glazing over in fond
reminiscence. "Enchanted linkages are very practical, and very versatile. I had the thought that
you might create a secondary book, linked to your original one, so that whatever was written on
one would appear on the other—and if you had to destroy it, the copy would remain."

"Oh, that's something I'd like to learn more about!" Hermione's expression brightened up
considerably.

Practical, useful magics were what interested her the most about the magical world, in stark
contrast to Tom's preference for obscure spells with grand effects. She considered practical spells
the wizarding world's equivalent of the Muggle world's industrial mechanisation; their existence
meant that seven people out of every ten were not forced by the needs of society to spend their
entire lives labouring on farms.

It was this type of magic that gave witches certain freedoms that women in the Muggle world were
still fighting to achieve. Witches had career opportunities outside of the home, as magic made it so
household tasks were not the sole dominion of any one sex. Although witches and women alike
were still under the expectation that they would do their duty to, ahem, propagate the species.
(Hermione had decided to be as scientific about it as possible; Hogwarts didn't have a biology class,
as they expected students' parents to inform them on these things—so she had no idea what terms
wizards used, or even if magic made wizards a separate subspecies from Muggles.)

"After dinner, I hope," said Mr. Pacek, rubbing his stomach. "I believe I can hear Madam Granger's
treacle-glazed ham calling my name."

At dinner, Hermione's Dad carved the ham, which was crispy and studded with cloves on the
outside, and on the inside, savoury and tender. Mum served the roasted potatoes, and Hermione
poured herself a glass of milk.

"Will Tom be joining us during the summer?" Mum asked, after everyone had finished passing
around the plates and figuring out which pair of tongs went with which dish, because cross-
contamination was gross. Nobody liked cauliflower in their chutney.

"Where did he end up going last summer?" said Dad, uncorking a bottle of wine for the adults.

"Oh," said Hermione, who wasn't expecting Tom Riddle to come up as a topic of conversation
during her family's Christmas dinner. "Um. He got a job in the village near the school. He lived
there instead of going back to Wool's."

"A job that paid enough for board?" asked Dad, a hint of disapproval in his tone. "Or did the
employer provide lodgings? He's your age; he must have been fifteen at the time! You should have
invited him to stay with us—it'd be safer here than out there with no proper guardianship. You
don't know what sort of people out there are willing to take advantage of a young boy."
"I did offer!" said Hermione. "But he refused it. And it worked out alright for him, which means
that he'll want to do it again next summer."

"If Tom wants to work, we can't tell him otherwise," said Mum, the voice of reason. "We aren't his
parents. And I think having some sort of work experience in the summer wouldn't do him any
harm. Hermione, have you thought of doing the same thing?"

"Taking on a job, you mean?" Hermione frowned, fork hovering halfway to her mouth. "But
where? At the clinic?"

"Well, darling, when you were younger, you'd always seemed so interested in pursuing medicine,"
said Mum. "And you've only a few years left at Hogwarts. When you finish, and if you decide to
stay in London, we could find you a place at the clinic, and if you wanted to enroll in a university,
we'd help you there as well. With the war the way it is, taking a job on the reserved occupations
list would meet the National Service requirements."

"The holiday is only ten weeks. I'm not sure I could do much good there—by the time I've gotten
the hang of how to keep the books or operate the switchboard, you'd have to find someone to
replace me."

"Then there are a few charity events during the summer I'm sure we can find time for," said Mum,
who could be just as stubborn as Hermione when she'd found a cause worth supporting. The letters
she'd sent Hermione during the school year had indicated that Mum had taken an interest in
veterans' affairs, because soldiers who'd made it out as well as her father had were in the minority.

"We don't mind if you want to study for your Hogwarts exams during your holidays, but it would
do you some good to get out of the house now and then," she continued, eyeing Hermione's winter
skin and her faded freckles. "Your father's old army group has a fundraising evening that you
might be interested in—there'll be specialists in attendance, and it'll be a good chance to ask them
about career opportunities. And to introduce yourself, too."

"There'll be a pathologist. And a few chemists," Dad offered. "If you like the idea of research
more than practice, it would be a good place to ask. I'm just a general practitioner, after all."

"You're not just a G.P.," replied Hermione adamantly. "You're my dad! Of course I'll go—I haven't
made any firm decisions about what kind of career I want after Hogwarts, but it wouldn't hurt to
learn more about my options."

"If you want to pursue an occupation in the Muggle world," Mr. Pacek suggested, tapping his wand
to the half-drained bottle of wine to refill it, "I recommend that you make your connections as early
as possible. Once you have your foot in the door, so to speak, you may find it easier to keep it there
if the war ends and the soldiers return en masse looking for work of their own."

"He's right," Dad agreed. "Veterans were and are given preferential treatment; it was for that
reason that I didn't challenge the recruitment office when they sent me my papers last time. I knew
that if I'd tried for the Non-Combatant Corps—the service that the pacifists and objectors were sent
to—it would be on my records and I'd have had a great deal of trouble applying at hospitals
afterwards to finish my training."

"And then we'd never have met," added Mum, smiling at Dad.
Dad looked at Mum. Mum looked at Dad, and then they seemed to be communicating across the
table without saying a single word; the conversation had suddenly and without warning drawn to a
standstill.

Hermione busied herself with her baked carrots. It wasn't like it was embarrassing. They had not
done anything but exchange glances over the platter of glazed ham.

But it was remarkably intimate, and some part of Hermione hoped that one day she would find
someone who looked at her the way Dad looked at Mum.

When the holidays ended and term resumed, it was as if all the students who had been relaxed in
the beginning of the year had remembered that they had exams in less than six months' time. The
library was crowded, the professors' supplementary books missing off the shelves and reserved for
weeks; even trying to track down and buy the books by owl order was met by apologies from the
booksellers, who were back-ordered for months. It hadn't bothered Hermione, as she'd asked for
and read through the recommendations list back in September.

On top of that, there was also a spontaneous string of emotional outbursts where a student would
burst into tears at the dining table or in the middle of a class lesson, and soon you'd have three or
four people follow suit.

Hermione didn't feel that she was particularly equipped to deal with this sort of issue, Prefect or
not. She'd resorted to handing them off to the Hospital Wing for a Calming Draught, and conjuring
handkerchiefs when she spotted the first signs of tears. She wasn't the best person to come to for
emotional counsel; she tended to approach problems—other people's and her own—from such a
logical perspective that she came off as unsympathetic.

(What was she going to tell them, anyway? "If you'd started your exam revision last year, you
wouldn't be crying on the floor of the girls' bathroom today"?)

One of the few places where she felt like she could study productively was in Tom's homework
club.

The members, for the most part, were the children of wealthy and prominent wizarding families, so
they didn't treat their exam marks as the sole entry or barrier to their future careers. Of course,
good marks in school were never a bad thing, but they were all Slytherins, so they were aware that
perfect marks weren't the only means of getting them where they wanted. And being Slytherins,
Professor Slughorn was going to be writing them a glowing recommendation letter when they left
Hogwarts, no matter how they did.

Hermione couldn't quite bring herself to approve of their lackadaisical attitude toward academics,
but there was something appealing about being able to study in a place where her fellow students
weren't trying to make studying a competition. In the Ravenclaw Common Room, she'd heard
people bragging about studying twelve hours straight and going to class in the morning with only
three hours of sleep and a pot of tea brewed as thick as tar. That sort of thing was unhealthy and
only served to fuel her exam anxiety.

True to his word, Tom had moved from practical Defence wandwork to textbook theory, and on the
prompting of the study group's members who needed help with their homework, to Charms and
Transfiguration theory.

"—You can turn a needle into a matchstick, but there are reasons why you—by that, I mean you in
the individual sense—can't just transfigure that matchstick into a broomstick."

Avery scratched his head. "But they're both made of wood. Isn't Transfiguring like to like
supposed to make the result more stable?"

"Transfigurations are dependent on other factors as well, not just how alike one object is to
another," explained Tom, who in trying to simplify the fundamentals of magic that he'd read and
understood from First Year, looked like he was getting closer and closer to tearing out his hair.
"Apart from structural affinities, the stability and longevity of Transfigurations are also determined
by magical power, intent, visualisation, and mass."

"But we Transfigured cups into cushions in class," said Avery, "and they aren't the same size."

"It's not just size—it's mass," Tom answered. "Or more specifically, mass and gravimetric density."

"What's density?"

Tom stared blankly at Avery for a moment, before he schooled his features, shut his textbook, and
walked to the door of the classroom.

"Tom?" said Hermione, watching him reach for the door handle. "Where are you going?"

"I'm taking a walk. If you could finish the review of Chapter Six while I'm gone, I'd more than
appreciate it."

"Aren't you coming back?"

"Probably not," Tom admitted, giving her an apologetic shrug. "Teaching Remedial
Transfiguration is like being stuck in a revolving door, only without the door. I'll see you next
week, alright?"

Hermione sighed. "This is your study club."

"The ultimate goal is to get an Acceptable or above on the exam. I could easily tell them how to
answer the questions, and write an essay for them to memorise verbatim, but I'm sure that it would
go against the spirit of academic integrity," said Tom, his brows furrowed in an expression of
earnest concern. "But you care about their educations, don't you?"

"Fine," she conceded, rolling her eyes. "But you'll tell Selwyn that you're going to take my curfew
patrols for next week."

"Deal," said Tom, leaning closer to whisper in her ear without being overheard. "Don't hesitate to
be harsh on them if you need to; sometimes you have to take a firm hand if you want something
done right."
Tom left, and Hermione, with some amount of reluctance, resumed the review session on Inanimate
Transfigurations.

In dealing with those of 'lesser ability', a diplomatic way to call it, she had more patience than Tom,
who grew frustrated when other people couldn't grasp abstract concepts as quickly or as intuitively
as he did. Tom was used to being the fastest to complete his classwork during lessons, and had
long since designated everyone else, with the exception of Hermione, as his intellectual inferior; he
therefore considered it a waste of time to continue teaching them a concept if they struggled to
learn it.

Hermione didn't give up quite so easily. She commiserated with these pureblood wizards who had
never gone to primary school before starting Hogwarts, which was not far removed from
Hermione's never having heard of the wizarding world before the delivery of her Hogwarts letter
and her subsequent cultural immersion. It was only reasonable that they should be unfamiliar with
modern scientific concepts that Tom and Hermione had studied as children. Their Muggle
educations had instilled in them basic skills in logical thinking. It made Transfiguration, one of the
most systematic of magical disciplines, easier for them than those brought up in the wizarding
world, where logic was an option and not a necessity.

So she stayed and tutored the Slytherin boys, who were uncomfortable with her at first—to her
relief, they didn't make any comment about her blood status—and by the end of the session, had
stopped gawking at her like she was a talking monkey. Perhaps they were intimidated by witches,
or a witch lacking a magical pedigree who was clearly better at magic than they were. Or perhaps
they were unused to someone who showed no sign of intimidation or condescension in her
interactions with them; as patient as Tom had tried to be, he couldn't hide all traces of disdain
directed at the people with whom he'd shared a dormitory for the last four and a half years.

Slytherin really was an unpleasant place, or so Hermione thought. But at least the Slytherins didn't
hold Tom's condescension against him. It appeared that snobbery and élitism were the natural
course of things over there, so to them it was shocking for Hermione not to disparage any club
member who worked at a slower pace than the others.

She called it a success when she'd gotten everyone to complete their Transfiguration homework
without leaving a single question blank. And she called it progress when they called her "Granger"
without drawing out the syllables in an annoying sarcastic drawl, because that was apparently how
Slytherins were taught to greet students of other Houses.

When the other boys had packed up their books and gone to dinner, Hermione went to wipe the
chalkboard clean of her wand movement diagrams. Nott, who had lingered in putting away his
parchments, came up to the front desk.

"Granger," said Nott, eyes darting from side to side to ensure there was no one left, "I need to talk
to you."

"Is this about Transfiguration?" asked Hermione. "Because you managed it well enough in class; I
don't think I can give you any advice, unless you want recommendations for supplementary
reading."

"It's not about the exams," he said, his voice lowered to a hiss. "It's about Riddle."

"What about him?"

The way Nott was looking at her was... suspicious. She didn't trust him; she'd noticed him looking
at her and Tom oddly from before the Christmas holidays. She'd assumed that as a Slytherin, and
one who believed that a witch or wizard's blood status was directly correlated to their worth as a
person, her friendship with Tom was some kind of rare spectacle. To outsiders, Tom was a very
competitive person, and on the duelling platform, she'd been told he was ruthless, aggressive, and
pushed the boundaries of what the rules called 'reasonable force', while Hermione was a goody
two-shoes who, outside of class, was quiet and slightly awkward and could be found in the
Hogwarts library more often than not.

They made strange companions, for anyone—which was everyone—who didn't know them like
they knew each other.

"You can't trust him," Nott said, clutching his wand so hard that his knuckles had turned white.
"Riddle's not the perfect Prefect everyone thinks he is. He's... dangerous."

Hermione glared at him. "Look here, just because Tom beat you in the Duelling Club doesn't mean
you have to be sore about it—"

"He's a Legilimens!" snapped Nott.

There was a moment of silence.

"He's a what—?"

"Honestly, Granger," said Nott with a sneer, "you spend all your time with your nose in a book, and
yet you're still so hopelessly ignorant."

"Not everyone has access to private family libraries," Hermione countered, folding her arms across
her chest defensively. "Just tell me what it means."

"It comes from the Latin root Legere, which in the infinitive case means 'read', combined with
Mentis—"

"—Tom Riddle reads minds," Hermione finished for him.

Nott's eyes widened, and for a second or so, his jaw hung slack. He quickly collected himself and
remarked, "I see that it's not news to you."

"Um. Sorry," said Hermione. "Should it be?"

She'd seen Tom do magic—back then she'd thought it was telepathy—at the age of ten years old.
He'd called it mind control, and it was how she'd thought of it too, and she'd been afraid of it. In
imposing his will over hers, there was nothing she considered more invasive; it was the removal of
her personal autonomy; it was a profound violation of self.

Mr. Pacek had called Tom's ability a unique form of magical perception, without using that word
that Nott had just dropped, Legilimens. Mr. Pacek had told her that meditation would help her
counter Tom's unique persuasive abilities, advising her on techniques that she had made a good
attempt to practise over the years. But her mind was not a calm and tranquil place; Hermione often
found it difficult to sleep due to all the thoughts buzzing around when her eyes were closed. She
kept her planner on her nightstand in case she came up with an idea that she wanted to study later.
She admitted that she wasn't as good at meditation as she wanted to be—but there had been no
urgent reason to prioritise it over her extracurricular projects. Tom hadn't tried anything since the
beginning of First Year. She knew he could tell when people lied to him, so she made sure to never
do it in front of him; she had gotten decent at deflection and omission, and when she'd looked him
in the eye while doing sums in her head, he had made no indication of ever being suspicious of her.

If she took the time to think about it, she trusted Tom.

He'd learned to restrain himself over the years. She knew he wasn't a perfect Prefect—but then
again, neither was she. And she knew that he could be dangerous—but everyone who owned a
wand had the potential to be dangerous. That Tom was skilled and magically powerful didn't
automatically make him dangerous, or a danger to society. And it certainly didn't make him
untrustworthy.

Hermione was suddenly reminded of that incident with her dorm mate Siobhan Kilmuir, who had
accused Tom of being a cheater, back in Second Year. Siobhan had been correct, but she hadn't had
solid proof other than hearsay, and Hermione had defended Tom.

And here was Nott, accusing Tom of... of being a mind reader?

Evidence or no, it wouldn't change the fact that Tom did possess some sort of magical control over
minds.

She didn't know what to do now. Deny it, and cover for Tom? Or try to get more information out
of Nott? He, very irritatingly, had access to resources that Hermione didn't.

"It doesn't matter," said Nott. "So. You know. How did you find out? Did he...?"

"That's none of your business."

"Yes," said Nott, who hadn't put his wand away. "It is. Don't you know what it means?"

"Since I'm so 'hopelessly ignorant', why don't you enlighten me?" said Hermione irritably, sliding
her hand into her robe pocket.

"Riddle's, what, fifteen? Sixteen? And already he's a Legilimens of uncommon power, which
suggests that he's been trained for years by a master, which I know he hasn't," said Nott, rattling off
facts while pacing back and forth in front of the chalkboard. "I remember his first days here, when
he was Slytherin's mis-Sorted Mudblood boy, with his second-hand books and his cast-off robes,
his grubby Muggle name. No one would have looked at him twice, much less taught him
something as valuable as Legilimency.

"The other explanation is that he didn't have a teacher—that he didn't need to be taught. From that,
I surmise that he possesses some natural propensity to the art," Nott muttered, and whether he was
talking to himself or Hermione, she couldn't tell. "A gift of the blood. Inherited magic—magical
heredity—his name is Riddle; he's a Mudblood... unless he's not."

Nott stopped in his tracks. "Granger, what do you know of Riddle's family?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Hermione spoke with unconcealed ill-temper; she was growing
increasingly uncomfortable with Nott's impertinence and presumptuous manner. She was familiar
enough with wizarding culture to be fully aware of what kind of language was considered
acceptable in or out of mixed company, and Nott was completely out of line. She was within her
rights to put him in detention, but that would mean sitting in a classroom with him for hours at a
time... and his presence right now was more than too much.

"Because he doesn't like me. He'd start asking me why I'm asking him questions," said Nott, trying
and failing to hide a wince. "But for some unfathomable reason, which I cannot account for at all,"
and here he looked pointedly in Hermione's direction, "—he likes you. Surely you could get
information out of him."

"Surely," Hermione repeated in a flat voice, rolling her eyes.

Nott continued, ignoring her. "All you'd have to do is undo the top two buttons on your blouse and
lean over a desk; Riddle wouldn't be able to resist—"

Hermione had had enough of him. She drew her wand and pointed it at him. "Flipendo!
Expelliarmus!"

Nott, who hadn't been paying attention, smacked into the chalkboard, wand flying out of his hand
and into hers.

She hesitated for the briefest moment, then twisted her wand into the curl-and-flick she'd practised
in her parents' cellar during the summer. "Confundo!"

Nott slid down to the floor, back to the wall, chalk dust raining down over his shoulders. His eyes
were bleary and unfocused.

"Why are you so obsessed with Tom?" asked Hermione, bending over him, his wand held tightly in
her left hand, and her own wand pointed at his chest.

"Because... because he thinks he's perfect," Nott said dazedly, his words slurring together. "Perfect
Prefect Riddle. Sluggy thinks he's the second coming of Merlin. Edmond-bloody-Lestrange would
cut off his lopsided left foot if Riddle told him to. Does anyone else see it? Has everyone but me
gone completely mental? Am I the only one?!"

"Why does it even matter?"

"Because he's a Mudblood!" Nott shouted, spit flying out of his mouth.

Hermione leaned back, grimacing.

Nott spoke again, his voice lower, barely above a whisper. "It doesn't make any sense."

Her anger dissipated; all she could feel for Nott now was pity. He made a pathetic sight, slumped
on the floor of the classroom, chalk on his tailored robes and hair falling over his brows. His eyes
were wild and bloodshot, his fingernails digging red crescents into the pale flesh of his palms. Like
the teary-eyed girls Hermione had seen hogging bathroom stalls over the last few weeks, Nott
looked as if he was experiencing a hysterical fit.

Wizarding children were deprived of the comprehensive education that the Muggle government
provided to everyone under the age of fourteen. Hermione had gotten six years of science,
arithmetic, grammar, geography, and history before she'd even heard of Hogwarts. She'd come to
Hogwarts already knowing how a library was organised, how to write an essay, and how to read,
research, and draw her own conclusions. The classmates of hers who had been raised in the
wizarding world only got as much of a primary education as their parents thought fit to give them.
In the case of pureblooded children—

If she called what their parents did as 'indoctrination', she didn't think she'd be far off the mark.

Nott was one such victim of childhood conditioning. But he was her age, sixteen or thereabouts,
one year away from the age of majority in Magical Britain. He was old enough to assert his own
beliefs, living at school as he did for ten months out of every year, so when he repeated the words
and dogmas he'd heard at home, he wasn't some poor, innocent victim who didn't know any better.

He was a... a chauvinist sympathiser.

(The London newspapers used the word 'sympathiser' with the same tone and insinuation as the
word 'heretic' had been used five hundred years ago.)

Hermione sat down next to him, just out of arm's reach. She chewed her lip, thinking.

Nott wasn't a nice person. He'd just slandered a fellow student, and used that word.

But it wasn't as if Tom was totally innocent, not if Theodore Nott knew that Tom could read minds.
Tom wasn't blameless, and he wasn't nice; he was insensitive and cynical, and just like Nott, he had
created a separate category in his mind for the people whom he'd decided were beneath his notice.
The word he used was 'peon', and the way he said it was not much different than the way Nott said
'Mudblood'.

If Hermione dismissed Nott for good—and she could, because he hadn't done a single thing to earn
her goodwill—and yet remained on good terms with Tom Riddle, then she might as well build her
own separate category, label it 'Hypocrite', and jump into it headfirst. In this entire affair, not one
of them had clean hands. Not even Hermione, who could have reported Tom a dozen times over
for cheating in First Year to abusing his Prefect privileges in Fifth.

(She knew for a fact that Tom only volunteered to oversee detentions if it benefited himself, even as
he spoke the words 'falling standards of acceptable conduct' with a straight face.)

"I think you're an absolute scrub," said Hermione, watching Nott's breathing slowly even out as the
Confundus Charm wore off. "And you're acting like a spoilt child. Tom Riddle is better than you
at magic, so you have to grasp for an excuse to justify your own narrow little worldview that blood
status means something? And what about me? I get better marks than you on every test, and I've
no more of a prestigious lineage than Tom. How do you explain that?"

"Hector Dagworth-Granger. Looked it up. Made Grandmaster of the Society of Potioneers in

1902. You have a wizarding name," said Nott, further adding, "though there's not much to say on
the quality of the blood or the size of the fortune."

Hector Granger?

She wasn't completely certain, but she'd remembered an Uncle Hector on her family tree
somewhere. Dad wasn't very close with his extended family, and Hermione hadn't grown up with
cousins, so she couldn't say for sure. But her interest had been caught on one main thing: Dad was
a Muggle, yet she (supposedly, if Nott's word could be trusted) had wizarding family? How did
that work?
She resolved to look up wizarding genealogy the next time she was in the library.

"I don't understand your logic," Hermione said, having decided to treat Nott like a child, which
included speaking in the same stern and disapproving tone that her Mum used to do when
Hermione stayed up past her bedtime to finish a book. "And I'm not sure what your goal is. You
want to prove that Tom isn't a Muggleborn?"

"Maybe you're too ill-bred to know any better, Granger, but there's a natural order for all things in
our society," said Nott, his tone making it unambiguous as to where he stood in such an
arrangement. "Everyone should know their place, whether they happen to be wizards, goblins,
house-elves, or Muggles. Or upstart Prefects.

"From the the very first day Riddle arrived here, he was intent on ignoring the order of things,
because he thought he was too good to know his place—or that the rules didn't apply to him.
Arrogant bastard." Nott scowled, then continued, "I gave him the benefit of a doubt at first,
because the Hat put him in Slytherin. But we've come to the point where we ought to confirm the
facts. Why was Riddle Sorted into Slytherin? Is he of proper wizarding stock, or is he a fraud
who's tricked half the House into licking his boots?"

"If I accept your assumption that any of that even matters, I don't see how it changes anything,"
Hermione sniffed. "Tom might be Merlin re-incarnated or Grindelwald's long lost great-nephew, or
he might be a Muggleborn. But everything's still the same: he's still Prefect, he gets all
Outstandings, and he's swept the brackets in Duelling Club for the last two years."

"It changes everything," said Nott. "The fact that you don't understand it is why I'm in Slytherin
and you aren't." Nott paused for a moment, his eyes narrowed in calculation. "I saw the way you
looked when I used a word whose meaning you didn't know. Information for information,
Granger. I'll lend you my family's books on Legilimency, and in return you'll tell me what you
know about Riddle."

Hermione was tempted.

She didn't know much about Tom's family, so she'd be giving up barely anything as her part of the
trade—not that Nott knew. And in return, she was being offered books she'd never have access to.
Legilimency, what little information about the subject that Mr. Pacek had divulged to her, was
heavily restricted; the few books that might have been printed on the subject had never been sold
on the open market; instead, like most books on rare magic, they had been bought directly from the
authors and hidden away for years in family libraries and private collections.

(Hermione had researched Alchemy when studying the illogical rules of magic. She'd learned that
there were recipes for permanent Transfigurations of base metals into precious metals, and not just
the traditional formula of lead into gold, but iron into a magically-enhanced metal that the
wizarding world called 'Goblin Silver'. Of course, what she'd read was more speculation than fact,
because the details on how it worked were closely hoarded for being trade secrets. And there was
nothing in the world—Muggle and Magical—more maddening to Hermione than being given a
single page's worth of information and then being told she wasn't allowed to read the rest of the
book.)

"What's stopping me from leaving right now and telling Tom what you're doing behind his back?"
inquired Hermione, knowing that anything she did would have consequences, and even if this
seemed like a good deal, there was such a thing as something that was Too Good to Be True.
"Why would you?" Nott sneered. "You'd throw away an opportunity and get nothing in return.
That was a nice try at Slytherin-style thinking, Granger, but in the end you're too much of a
Ravenclaw. What you have to realise is that people like Riddle don't have friends."

She didn't bother arguing that last point. "Fine," she conceded. "You'll lend me a book regardless
of how helpful my information turns out to be? And you won't throw another fit about whatever
answer you get?"

"I don't throw fits."

"And I'm not hopelessly ignorant."

"Alright!" Nott gritted out. "I'll get the book and you'll find us a place to make the trade, since
you're the one with the Prefect badge."

Hermione groped inside her book bag for her study planner, turned to the nearest unused page—
January 16, 1943—and tore it out of the book.

"Here," she said, shoving the page at Nott, along with the wand she'd taken off him earlier. "We
can't send owls to each other because Tom knows what my owl looks like, so if we need to arrange
a meeting, use the paper. Whatever you write on it will appear on another copy I have in my dorm
—but do try to write small because I haven't figured out a way to erase the ink and reuse the paper
without de-stabilising the runic sequences."

Nott took the paper, trying to hide his interest in the enchantment, folded it into quarters, and
slipped it into his robe pocket.

He left the room without glancing back.

Three days later, Hermione found herself stamping her feet in the snow of the East Courtyard,
behind the statue of Hipparchus the Stargazer. Hipparchus was stationary now, as it was daytime,
and his sightless eyes were coated by a velvet rime of frost; ice had gathered into the crevices of his
face and the folds of his toga. His features were distorted and blurry, and the unforgiving months
of winter had rendered him more of a lump than a man.

She had arranged meetings behind the statue when she was in First Year because it was placed in a
corner of a quiet courtyard near the rocky edge which overlooked the Lake. It wasn't en route to
any outdoor classes, and few people passed through the area unless they were arriving from outside
the castle grounds—and that number was limited to parents visiting severely injured children in the
Hospital Wing, members of the Board of Governors, or any official guests invited by the
Headmaster or the Heads of Houses.

The area behind the statue couldn't be seen by anyone unless they were looking out of one of the
windows on the upper floors. The closest windows were the ones in the Hogwarts clocktower, and
students only climbed to the top in their First or Second Years, as it was one of those sights that
defined the quintessential 'Hogwarts Experience'. Similar to walking through a ghost, being paint-
ballooned by Peeves, or splashed by an exploding cauldron in Potions, having done it once, one
was happy to never do it again.

To keep herself occupied, Hermione began tracing a rough outline into the snow, a basic warding
scheme she'd put together with Mr. Pacek's help over the holidays. The Stargazer statue was
convenient for this, since it had compass directions marked out on the plaque; Hermione could
have told north by the angle of the sun, but in the tail end of winter, most days were wet and cloudy
with no hint of sunlight or warmth.

North, south, east, west: the cardinal points were marked in the snow by the tip of Hermione's
wand. They were followed by a series of runes in the corners, a few she'd used in enchanting her
study planner, and some others she'd found in a book on wizarding woodcraft. She'd read that
campers and naturalists used them when they wanted to hide their tents from Muggles, or their
blinds from rare magical wildlife.

Not long after, she heard footsteps crunching over the layer of snow that coated the ground.
Peeking around the edge of Hipparchus' toga, she saw Nott crossing the courtyard, the hem of his
black winter cloak powdered white. He wore a fur-lined hat pulled low over his eyes; his chin and
lower face were covered by a green-and-silver House scarf.

"Granger? Where are you?" he called. His head turned from side to side. "This had better not be a
trick. I'm not here to play games!"

He passed in front of Hipparchus, digging into his pocket for a folded square of paper, and he didn't
notice Hermione's presence until it was too late and she'd dragged him by the elbow, and then they
were behind the statue and inside the diamond-shaped rune boundary.

"Sorry," said Hermione, who wasn't apologetic at all, "but you were making too much noise." She
pointed at the runes melted into the snow at their feet. "If you stay inside the lines, no one will
notice us."

Nott's gaze flicked from Hermione's face down to the ground.

"Algiz," he muttered. "And thurisaz reversed. I've seen this before—this is the Poacher's Pall, isn't
it?"

Hermione had seen the logical applications of a ward that could hide a wizard from magical
animals; the same spell that could hide a researcher from his subjects could easily do the same for
a hunter and his quarry. She didn't approve of poaching, and as a native of suburban London, the
concept of hunting for sport was far removed from her personal experience. Perhaps if she was
younger, she'd have seen the value of restricting information from the general public in order to
prevent its abuse by those of unscrupulous intent, a necessary sacrifice for the protection of
innocent endangered creatures.

She was older now, and she'd been at the affected end of a number of information restrictions, so
her view on censorship had developed a shade of nuance over the years. Academic magical theory
was one thing; practical application was another. The lives of wizards and witches should be
guided by moral principle, but adherence to morality was an individual prerogative. She therefore
considered the use of magical knowledge a personal responsibility, and not a public responsibility
to be taken upon the shoulders of a governing council or committee.
This was Hermione's respectful way of saying that she wasn't going to give up her book collection
at home, questionable subject matter or not. And that she understood why wealthy families kept
private libraries and never made it public what titles they had or didn't have. She didn't like it, but
it was the standard way things were done in the wizarding world, and for now, there was nothing
she could do about it.

"I can't cast a Disillusionment Charm," Hermione admitted. "Not for long, at any rate. I'm sure
you can't do it either, so this works for both of us. And no, this isn't a poachers' ward. I've only got
the visual concealment down, without the scent or thermal components, so we're only safe from
being seen by students and teachers, not animals.

"Anyway," she said, knowing that a lecture on ward substructure was not why they had arranged to
meet in a deserted corner of the castle grounds, "did you bring the book?"

The material of Nott's cloak rippled as he rummaged in the book bag hitched over his shoulder,
under his robes. He drew out a thick book with a worn leather cover and deckled pages, so small
and compact that if Hermione pressed her hand flat on the cover, the tips of her fingers would stick
out from the top end.

Nott turned the book over to show her the title. Insight of the Mind was embossed in gold foil on
the leather cover, though half of it had rubbed away. The light tan leather showed the signs of use,
too: the corners were worn shiny, and there were several darker oval marks the size and shape of
fingerprints pressed into the front and back covers.

Hermione took the book from Nott, turning it over and rubbing the spine.

Soft, buttery leather on the outside, fine onionskin paper on the inside, the font-face within smooth
and regular, but lacking the serifed strokes of typecast text. Instead of being printed like most
books sold today, it had been copied with some sort of enchanted quill. She'd seen books like it at
Glimwitt's, the antiquarian book dealer, and the shop assistant had told her that books produced in
small runs didn't merit the use of a printing press, where each page had to be set in metal type
before it could be printed.

In the past, specialty and rare books were produced on commission and advertised through word-
of-mouth and personal connection; a buyer would arrange a copy with the author directly, bringing
with them their own ink and quill and paper. Afterwards, they'd have the covers made to their
specification, often with heraldic crests on the cover and custom anti-theft enchantments in the
binding, so that the book couldn't be removed from the family library unless it was by a member of
the family.

"Have you read it?" Hermione asked, tearing her attention away from the book and back to Nott.

"Over Christmas," he said. "I knew what Legilimency was years ago, but never thought I'd need to
learn about the particulars of it... until very recently. It's rare magic, and a rare book—the Blacks
might have a copy, but I can't think of any other family library that would. This is my family's
copy, so if you get it confiscated, you will be breaking into a professor's office to get it back."

"I know how to take care of a book," Hermione retorted, holding the book close to her chest. "And
how to disguise a cover."

"Now," Nott prompted, rubbing his gloved hands together for warmth—or in hungry anticipation,
"what about my side of the deal? What do you know about Riddle?"
"Not much," said Hermione honestly. "Tom is a private person. And he doesn't trust people
easily."

"I already knew that," Nott said. He gave an irritated huff, and white steam whistled out between
his teeth. "Come on, give me something I can work with."

"He's an orphan," Hermione said, organising her thoughts and sorting out what was safe to share.
Which things were secrets and which ones weren't. "He's never known his parents. His father's
name was 'Riddle'."

"'Father's name was "Riddle"', was it? Someone owl The Prophet, we have a headline for
tomorrow's edition," Nott said, lip curled in a mocking sneer. "I didn't take you for a swindler,
Granger."

Hermione's nose wrinkled in distaste. He had just lent her a rare book, near-priceless in value by
her estimation, which almost made up for the fact that Nott was a unrepentant rudesby.

"His middle name is 'Marvolo'. I assume it's after a family member, but I don't know who, or
which side," she said.

"'Marvolo'," mused Nott. "I've seen his initials but didn't know what the M stood for. It must be a
given name, if it's his middle name. Shame there's no family name to go with it, otherwise I'd have
tracked down the bloodlines within the week. Is that all you've got?"

Hermione only had one other piece of reliable information. "If I tell you this, it's under the
assumption that it'll never leave this ward boundary, alright?"

"I don't know," said Nott, a speculative smile forming on his face. "I'll take any advantage I can
over Riddle, especially if it's something useful I can hold over his head."

"Well, if you go around sharing this one, I can't see it going very well for you," Hermione spoke in
a cold voice. "The last thing I can give you is about Tom's... Legilimency. He's been able to do it
since he was a child, before he started Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore knows about it and
suspects it to be inherited from a parent, but since they're both dead, he doesn't know for sure.

"On the subject of his abilities: Tom always knows when people are lying to him. Always. And I
believe that he has a good sense of when people are hiding things from him, too. So if you try to
gloat over him by saying that you know things you shouldn't, I'm sure it'll go over well for you."

"I haven't anything concrete... not yet," muttered Nott, kicking at a chunk of ice with his shoe.
"Legilimency isn't an ability anyone announces to the public—makes it hard to trace it by blood
when it can be hidden away, unlike the Metamorphs or Maledictions. But I know there are a few
old families who claim it; it's only rumours but there's always some truth in those... The
Wizengamot's chief interrogator last century was one, they said, who was it—Claudius Price? No,
Claudius Prince, but there's no proof it being hereditary..."

He glanced up at Hermione, brows furrowed. "How do you know about it? You never answered
how you knew what he was. He—he didn't try anything on you, did he?"

"I didn't think my personal welfare mattered to you."

"You're right," Nott agreed. "It doesn't. But it's the principle of the thing, Granger. A proper
wizard wouldn't molest a witch like that, and for all that you don't act like it, you're still a witch.
We're civilised people, not Muggle brutes. Though with a name like 'Riddle', I can't say I'm
surprised. Blood always tells."

"For your information, he hasn't 'tried anything'," said Hermione, her tone chilly. "And that's the
last thing I'm going to tell you. We're done here. You can go now."

"Very well," Nott said stiffly, "I want my book back in two weeks. If you want to borrow anything
else, then you had better have something good for me. And I don't care how you get it."

With that, he stomped out of the warded boundary and back up to the castle, grumbling to himself.

Hermione sighed, then looked down at the book in her hands.

This book was what she'd traded some of Tom's secrets for.

I hope it's worth it.

She opened it up to the first page.

Legilimency is not, as the name suggests, and as it is commonly understood to be, a means of
reading the mind. It is more than that: Legilimency is both art and magic, skill and
explication; it is the ability to delve into the far reaches of human consciousness and interpret
the convoluted layers of conscious thought and subconscious impression. It can be learned
with sufficient instruction, it can be practised with or without a wand, and may come easier to
the rare practitioner who possesses an inborn gift. Despite being an exceptionally useful and
versatile talent when honed to the level of the master, Legilimency is not indefensible: it may
be neutralised by its equal and opposite talent, the art of Occlumency, a meditation-based
approach to achieving complete mental self-discipline...

This was worth it.

The questions she wanted the answers to, the answers that Dumbledore had withheld from Tom all
those years ago. She had them now, right here in her hands, and it had only cost her a few minutes
of candour with Theodore Nott.

She drew her wand from her robes and began casting a charm to disguise the cover of her borrowed
book. When she was done, she melted the runes of the concealment ward and stepped out from
behind the statue.

I'd never had expected it, thought Hermione, with the advantage of hindsight, that the few people
with whom I can be perfectly forthright are two Slytherins and a Durmstrang alumnus.
Chapter End Notes

Meanwhile, the plot thickens...

Tom and Hermione are intelligent characters, but to maintain story balance, other characters
are intelligent too. The difference is that they have opposing motivations, or they're working
on limited information compared to what our protagonists have. Even our protagonists have
limited information, as Tom and Hermione have no idea what the other is doing when they're
not around.

Tumblr credit for the illustration.

I'm a bit salty at the movie designers who ruined Ravenclaw merch for all the IRL Ravenclaws
out there. Blue and silver with a raven mascot animal, instead of blue and bronze with an
eagle! At least the Ravenclaw Diadem design has an eagle on it, but it just goes to show how
annoyingly inconsistent it is. This fic uses some elements from the movie (school uniforms,
Hogwarts layout and general aesthetic, CoS Tom's perfect hair), but the books' blue and
bronze is official for me.
 Career Advice
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1943

By the time spring had arrived, the students of Fifth Year began marking the days before the exam
on their calendars.

Tom counted the days before Hogwarts closed its gates for the summer. He didn't care about the
O.W.L.s. Out of the entire Fifth Year cohort, it seemed as if he and Hermione were the only
students who weren't stressing over the impending exams, at least not to the extent where they were
vomiting in public or found weeping on the floor of the Common Room, surrounded by a stack of
notes.

Whenever Tom opened his dormitory door and from the hallway saw Bronwyn Summers lying on a
pile of parchment like she was making a snow angel, he closed it, took a deep breath, then cast a
Disillusionment Charm before going about his day. This wasn't his responsibility, and neither was
cleaning up a Second Year girl's bloodied bedsheets at five o'clock on a Saturday morning when she
woke up, woke everyone up with her screaming, and made her dorm mates fetch the the nearest
Prefect, preferably 'the nice one, you know, the dishy one with the good hair'.

Slytherin had two female Prefects and a Head Girl. Hogwarts had a Hospital Wing with a licensed
Mediwitch. Why did they they wake him up to deal with it?

(He learned later that it was because Hipworth believed it to be unacceptable to be seen in her
nightgown outside of her dormitory, and it took twenty minutes for her to make herself decent. For
some reason, it didn't matter to her if people saw Tom in his nightshirt and pyjamas, which he
personally thought rather unfair. As unfair as it was for other people to count his magical
accomplishments secondary in favour of his hair.)

Tom's reputation had preceded him by the time he was invited to Slughorn's office for his highly
unanticipated career advisory meeting.

He'd already known what to expect from the meeting, with Avery and Lestrange having gone
before him. There would be tea, and a plate of biscuits, and Professor Slughorn recommending
career options, their number and variety directly proportionate to how much potential Slughorn saw
in the student sitting across from his desk.

Rosier and Travers, waiting in the Common Room with him for their appointment—they'd all been
assigned time slots, ordered by their surnames—weren't worried about their futures.

"I've always wanted to be a Quidditch commentator," said Rosier, fingering the slip of paper that
marked his appointment for half-past three on Saturday afternoon. "All you have to do is show up
to the pitch and spout your opinions into a speaking trumpet. And free tickets for every match!
What's not to like about it?"
Tom didn't mention that he already qualified for free Quidditch tickets, as a perk of having the
Press Badge awarded to him last year. Rosier would probably be appalled by the fact that Tom had
never written in to request a single ticket; if he knew, Rosier would have tried to talk Tom into
using his Prefect privileges to sneak him out on a Hogsmeade weekend to attend a game. Tom
didn't mind breaking school rules, for the right price, naturally—but there was something
disgraceful about doing it for Quidditch.

"Your family wouldn't like it," Travers put in, fingers picking at the buttons on the leather
chesterfield sofa. The Slytherin Common Room was littered with chesterfields and wingback
armchairs in black leather and green velvet. At night, when the fires were lit and the Seventh Years
commandeered the best seats for their weekly whisky social, the place more than not resembled an
exclusive gentlemen's club. "Mine wouldn't; it's off to the Ministry after Hogwarts for me."

Quentin Travers was a sharp-featured young man whose temperament leaned towards dour on the
best of days. His family were considered to be of good name and blood, but they hadn't the
affluence of the Blacks, the Malfoys, or the Lestranges; instead, the Travers family had built their
reputation on generations of civil service. Travers' father had been a former head of DMLE. He'd
since retired, but remained on the Auror training standards commission, a sinecure position that let
him in and out of the Minister's office on a weekly basis.

Rosier pulled a face. "Pater wouldn't approve, but commentator is better than player, in his eyes. I
s'pose I could try out for the Department of Magical Games and Sports—you think I could get a
myself a spot where I wouldn't have to sit behind a desk all day? I've done more than my share of
it already."

"If your father rubs elbows with the Director, I don't see why not," said Travers, shrugging. "I've
heard that M.G.-and-S. always have a few bludge spots open for the bucks. They're never meant to
be long-term though—if you're not there to make a career of it, they expect you to resign for fresh
meat as soon as you settle yourself with a witch."

"I'll never get myself a witch, then. Simple as that," Rosier spoke candidly. "Pater has already
started talking about getting a husband for Dru. She's looked forward to having her own house for
years. I say let her have it, and let her carry on the family legacy."

Travers grunted in concurrence. "What about you, Riddle?"

Tom lifted his eyes from the pages of Anatomica Arthropoda. "What about me?"

"Got any plans for when you leave Hogwarts?"

"A few."

"Oh, come on, Riddle," Rosier coaxed, leaning forward and looking expectantly at Tom. "Do tell.
Do you want to join the Ministry and shuffle parchment with the best of us? Or be a professor?
You're heaps better than Merrythought, the old bag, and Sluggy would love to have you at his side
for every meal at the High Table."

"'Professor Riddle'," said Travers in a slow, thoughtful voice. "Doesn't sound terrible; it all but
rolls off the tongue. And could you do any better than that? Not everyone has the wherewithal to
do whatever they want, like Edmond's family."
Lestrange and Avery were in the position of being able to choose their post-Hogwarts situations at
their own leisure; of those choices, they were given the opportunity to do nothing at all.
Respectable unemployment came part and parcel for those of their social standing. They had large
family estates; the estates had land set aside for breeding magical creatures or cultivating magical
plants which were then processed for sale and export by estate personnel. The members of the
family didn't have to lift a single finger to keep sitting on their piles and piles of gold.

"You talk of sitting by Slughorn's right hand three times a day as if it's a good thing," Tom
remarked. "Believe you me, if you were made to sit through dinner with him trying to push one
last piece of pineapple on you, then take another one 'for the road', you'd realise how vastly
overrated it is to be in the Slug Club. Slughorn's useful, but sometimes he makes himself more
trouble than he's worth." Tom glanced at the clock, noting that the time was ten to two. "Now if
you'll excuse me, I've an appointment to get to."

Tom closed his book and got to his feet, to the farewells and well-wishes of Travers and Rosier.

When he arrived to the door of Slughorn's office, it was closed, suggesting that whoever had their
appointment before him hadn't yet finished. Tom had arrived early in any case, so he was content
to wait in the hallway and think up reasonable ways to refuse Slughorn's career suggestions.

I can't be a Mediwizard, sir; I get frightfully sick at the sight of blood. Herbology's out for me,
sorry. I'm allergic to compost and any kind of fertiliser that came out of an animal's rear end. I'm
afraid I can't accept that trainee post at the Department of Administrative Registration; I once got
my hand stuck in the library's card catalogue and now filing cabinets give me night terrors—
remember that time I set that wardrobe on fire a few years ago? That was because it gave me
flashbacks, terrible things. Sometimes I go nights without sleeping a wink, Professor...

Two o'clock came, and a few minutes past the hour, Slughorn's office door opened to reveal Nott's
anaemic-looking face.

Nott's eyes widened; he took a half-step back upon seeing Tom standing at the threshold.

For a fraction of a second, their eyes met, and Tom got a sense of the churning emotions that Nott
was attempting to suppress: anxiety, dread, concern on behalf of someone else, a person he
strongly associated with powdered chalk and winter frost, then a sudden wash of mortification at
feeling such concern—

Nott dropped his gaze to the floor and brushed past Tom, muttering "Riddle" in a desultory greeting
as he walked away, shoulders hunched.

That was curious, thought Tom, watching Nott's retreating back. He knocked on the doorframe.

"Professor Slughorn, sir?"

"Ah, Tom! Right on time!" Slughorn waved him into the seat in front of the desk. "Sit down, sit
down."

Similar to Dumbledore's office, Slughorn's office tended toward clutter over asceticism. While
Dumbledore had his self-invented magical gadgets and enchanted doodads, Slughorn's collection
consisted of memorabilia that he'd been given over the years by his former pupils and protégés:
Quidditch player miniatures spinning about on animated broomsticks, small statuettes of carved
whalebone and soapstone in the shapes of seals and Egyptian cats, a Polynesian tiki mask and an
Oriental lacquered box containing what appeared to be brushes and thin black sticks of dried ink.
Behind the Professor's desk was the shelf that took pride of place—Slughorn's real collection, row
after row of framed photographs of his favourite students. Some of them were signed, and most of
them contained images of young men and women waving and smiling at the camera.

Tom sat, adjusting the drape of his robes, bought for the first time with his own money and not the
pouch of galleons given him through the Hogwarts Relief Fund.

(During the summer, he'd replaced his old clothes for all new things. He'd long since thrown away
the threadbare grey pyjamas he'd brought with him from Wool's, and outgrown the clothing the
Grangers had given him in the summer after Third Year. After receiving his badge in the mail, he'd
decided that as a Prefect, he ought to make a proper showing of it, and he couldn't do it with his
cuffs riding up and his trouser hems skimming high.)

"Have you put any thought into your future occupation, Tom?" asked Slughorn, shuffling
parchments about his desk. "I hold that you'd make an excellent Potions Master; I can't recall
marking your work for anything less than an O for all your years here. Top marks on the essays,
perfect potion every time, never seen anything like it!" In a conspicuous false-whisper, he added,
"Last year, I sent your Pepper-Ups to the Hospital Wing with my own batch, and no one was the
wiser, hoho!"

And that's not irresponsible at all, thought Tom. "I'm always happy to help when I can, sir.
Hogwarts is a second home to me."

"Helping, eh?" Slughorn stroked his moustache. "With your current marks, you'd be set to take
N.E.W.T. level Potions next year. St. Mungo's is always in need of good brewers and apothecary
assistants—they'd take you on as an apprentice if you've got a recommendation or two to your
name. You'd only have to ask, my boy."

"I'll consider it," Tom replied politely. It was predictable for Slughorn to try and steer him into an
occupation of the professor's preference; it might have even worked on a student who was more
aimless than ambitious in their future aspirations. "But what about my other classes? I've done as
well in them as I have in yours—that's not to say I don't like Potions, which I do—but I've been told
that I'm doing quite well in both my core subjects and my electives."

Slughorn deflated a bit, his moustache drooping down like the whiskers of a dejected terrier. "Well,
Albus has always kept a keen eye on you, asking me how you were doing and so on. If you like
Transfiguration or have an interest in Alchemy, I suppose some arrangement can be made..."

Obviously, Tom couldn't tell Professor Slughorn up-front that none of the options appealed to him.
And he certainly couldn't say, "This is a waste of time, I've got better things to do", and walk out of
the office. He had a job already. It wasn't a conventional desk job with appearance guidelines, an
office with an owling address, and a Gringotts vault transfer that arrived on the same day every
month. But it paid him good money, and all he had to do was submit a minimum of one article a
month to be credited as a regular contributor. One article, and then he could spend the rest of the
month on the kind of magic he wanted to study.

During the holidays, he'd begun thinning out the meat of his articles and padding it with filler
content, answering the questions readers sent him in their fan mail. His responses came in the form
of handy housework tips on how to de-crust an oven, renew lighting charms on Christmas baubles,
or layer an Impervius over a heating charm on Wellington boots so that one spell didn't end up
nullifying the other.
(No one, either readership or editorial staff, seemed to care how low-effort his submissions were; in
fact, it only reinforced the impression of his being caring and sympathetic to the point that Witch
Weekly had created an official Mr. Bertram Advice Column, complete with a header graphic of a
wand superimposed over a crossed spatula and dish brush.)

Tom just had to sit there and pretend, just like he pretended to be worried about the O.W.L.s, or that
he cared about the feelings of twelve-year-old girls who filled their diaries with detailed accounts
of that time Tom the Prefect asked them to pass the salt cellar at dinner.

"I'm rather partial to Defence, sir."

"Oh, yes," said Slughorn, failing to hide his disappointment in Tom's ambivalence towards a
Potions career. He rifled through the parchments on his desk. "I see you've gotten first place in the
practical exams every year. The Auror Training Program would have you if you applied—they
want five N.E.W.T.s of Exceeds Expectations or higher, which I can't see you not getting, not with
your ten O.W.L. subjects this year."

"The Aurors?" Tom inclined his head. "Sir, what's the difference between Aurors and hit wizards?
I see them mentioned all the time in The Prophet, involved in various inquiries for the Ministry, but
I wasn't aware of the distinction. Is one better than the other?"

"Hit wizards are our everyday law enforcement," Slughorn explained. "Burglaries, Muggle baiting,
lost Kneazles, and so on—hardworking fellows they are, my boy, but you could do to set your
sights higher. Aurors are the élite: they deal specifically with dark wizards, and with the Dark Lord
on the Continent, it would be a coup on their part to recruit a young man of your potential, Tom—
not that I want to see you in such a dangerous job, of course, but it's a worthy service. Very
respectable, a good start for someone wanting to climb the ladder, as one might see it."

"Dangerous, sir?" Tom's expression morphed into one of concern. "What does that mean?"

Slughorn dithered for a moment or so. "My dear boy, dark wizards aren't the most friendly of
characters. I know that Defence Against the Dark Arts does its best in teaching students how to
prepare themselves for everyday life, but what you learn in class is far, far removed to chasing after
and hunting down violent criminals."

"I see," said Tom solemnly, looking down at his lap and then at the professor. "Is it possible to
learn more about what the job entails? I don't think it would be a good look to set my sights on the
Training Program and then resign the first week for it not being what I expected. I'd still have all
my N.E.W.T.s, but I can't see the Ministry being happy about someone so new sending in a request
for an inter-departmental transfer."

"It's always well-advised for students to think carefully about their futures," Slughorn said sagely,
nodding his head. "I should hate to see any of my Slytherins squander their talent. The Ministry
can be ungenerous at times—unless you happen to know the right people—and it would be my
greatest shame to see you wasted in Magical Maintenance or, Merlin forbid it, the mail-sorting
office."

Slughorn's head gave a rueful shake, jowls quivering in imagined indignation. Then he fumbled in
his desk, drawing out a library slip, on which he jotted down a few titles and signed his name at the
bottom. "There are a few Auror training manuals in the Restricted Section. For the ordinary
student, I would refrain from recommending such serious reading material until after the O.W.L.s.
But your records, Tom, are beyond exemplary—I trust that you'd never let your marks slip."
Tom ducked his head bashfully. "Thank you, sir."

"Do come to me if you have any other questions, Tom," Slughorn said, folding the library slip in
half and holding it out to Tom. Just before it dropped into Tom's waiting hand, Slughorn asked,
"I'll see you at the next dinner evening, won't I?"

"Of course, sir."

"And do give our dear Miss Granger my regards." Slughorn tipped him a huge wink, and
continued, "I hope you'll bring her with you next time; she's a lovely girl. I only wish she could be
one of my Slytherins, but if you've already spoken for her, then I daresay that's good enough for me,
oho!"

Tom visited the spider as often as his patrol schedule allowed.

'The Spider', as he called it, had been given another name by Hagrid, a peculiar and troll-ish
sounding name that he'd discovered late one night while tearing through the creature's memories.

Doing so had given him a headache, as the spider's mind, having some semblance of organisation
due to its sentience, didn't have anything that resembled human senses. Its memories weren't based
on images like his own, but a succession of feelings and impressions: the movement of air
currents, or the lack of them, within its egg, then the quiet stillness of the trunk in which it had been
hatched; the texture and temperature of the half-frozen rabbits Hagrid snared in the Forest; the
thermal variation of the room that Tom had locked it in, cold near the floors, but with bright points
of heat on the far walls where the magical fires burned in their sconces day and night.

Tom checked in regularly to maintain the spells that kept the room clean and warm, as the
Hogwarts dungeons were well known to be freezing in the winter. And he ensured that the locking
charms on the door remained secure, so that what he had done to Hagrid could not be done to him.

He didn't like the spider, and from probing into its mind, saw that it didn't like him. It saw him as a
threat, a danger, an unknown entity. Nothing Tom did—not that he did much—changed its view on
him, since he always kept it at wandpoint in order to "train" it to keep its distance from him. He
had also told it firmly from the start that Hagrid was never coming back, which made the spider
chitter in agitation before Tom got tired of it and shoved it back in the trunk.

A few minor memory charms had faded those memories of Hagrid, but it turned out that
Acromantulas had some form of imprint memory that never went away, a fact that hadn't been
mentioned in the bestiaries.

It meant that Tom never turned his back on the spider, and the spider always kept alert when Tom
drew his wand; several visits after the day its ownership had been 'transferred', the spider had come
to understand that the white stick of wood meant bodily paralysis and darkness.
It was also getting to be quite irritating as the spider grew larger and its mind developed the
capacity to think beyond its sleeping arrangements and the delivery of its next meal. Tom was
therefore glad to have found some books that offered a solution to his problems.

Chapter One: An Introduction to Dark Wizardry

Practitioners of the Dark Arts have been many and varied over history, but they share one
thing in common—the use of spells, potions, magical items, and dark creatures to perform
illegal acts with malicious intent. To the modern Auror, the most indisputable exercise of Dark
Magic is in the casting of the three Unforgivable Curses, whose use on a human being invokes
the strictest of all penalties for magical crimes: a life sentence to an island in the North Sea
known as Azkaban Prison...

"Huh," said Tom, putting the book down and marking his place with a quill. "There are only three
so-called 'Unforgivable' curses. I'd have thought there'd be more, knowing how much havoc one
competent wizard can create with the right motivation. But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised;
competence among wizards is like finding a diamond in the muck, and you're proof of what I'm
talking about, aren't you?"

The spider didn't reply. In the passing months, it had grown to the size of a dog, only fitting inside
the trunk if its legs were folded in and squished down. The fangs had elongated and were now
capable of producing a weak venom on top of its digestive fluid—an acid that was currently
dribbling into a bowl of cold chicken, liquefying the meat before it could be sucked up through the
spidery mouthparts.

Tom didn't stare too long at it. He'd packed his charmed lunchbox with a chicken sandwich of his
own, carved from the same roasted bird that the spider was eating, and it would only put him off his
own food to wonder what liquid chicken tasted like.

When he'd finished his sandwich, he returned to the book, skimming over the first chapter to move
on to the next, which contained a summary of the Unforgivable Curses.

He spread out a clean roll of parchment on the floor of the abandoned classroom, set the tip of his
Dictation Quill to the top corner, then began making notes as he read.

"The Killing Curse," said Tom, setting his shoulders back and clasping his hands behind his back.
"Spell colour: green. Six syllable incantation, banned in competitive duelling, not recommended
for combat duelling. Leaves no marks, an obvious sign of foul play by a dark wizard. Conclusion:
obscure or fast-metabolising lethal poison is just as effective, and cause of death will not
automatically be associated with dark magic.

"The Cruciatus Curse. Spell colour: red. Three syllable incantation, banned in competitive
duelling. Potentially useful for combat duelling due to its short incantation, relatively direct intent,
and shield-piercing ability. Commonly believed to leave no marks, but may cause potential
nervous and neural damage from extended use. Aurors look for signs of broken fingernails,
bloodied tongues, residual jitters, and heart palpitations. Conclusion: useful within limits. Can be
substituted with a less detectable spell, such as the localised vascular constriction spell, or a hair-
growth charm altered to produce ingrowths.

"The Imperius Curse," Tom dictated in a clear voice, slowing down as he waited for the quill to
copy down his words. "Spell colour: yellow-green. Four syllables, not recommended for duelling,
commonly believed to leave no marks. Aurors look for signs of unfocused gaze, milky eyes,
inexplicable personality shifts, unusual behaviour, and an inability to answer standard security
questions. Conclusion: extremely promising, but requires thorough preparation."

The quill scribbled the last word down and went still, poised over the bottom of the parchment.
Tom picked it up, read it over, then dried the ink with a swish of his wand.

These were the spells he'd chased after from First Year. And now that he had them in his grasp, he
couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed at how very underwhelming they were.

It wasn't as if they were bad spells. They weren't.

They were tried and true magical classics, a dark wizard's bread-and-butter for the last few hundred
years. The spells had a whole section in the Auror's handbook dedicated to identifying and
resisting them. They were infamous to the extent that speaking of them in company was apparently
considered poor form, which explained how none of the Hogwarts teachers had ever mentioned
them in class, not even by glancing reference, despite how advantageous it would be for the general
public to know the symptoms of their use. In criminal trials, the court adjudicates refrained,
whenever possible, from referring to the Curses by name, preferring blanket euphemisms such as
illicit magics or grievous magical assault.

Therein lay a problem: these Curses—this dark magic—might perhaps be useful, but they were
analogous to trademarked tools passed from hand to hand. A blacksmith's hammer and anvil,
handed on to his journeyman to carry the noble craft into the next generation.

Like a hammer, these Unforgivable Curses were blunt.

Like an anvil, when all your works were built on it, everyone knew you to be a blacksmith. Or in
this case, a dark wizard.

It was hardly inconspicuous for a wizard who wanted to go about his business without the Aurors
blasting his door down. And these days, the Aurors were on high alert with the number of dark
wizards gallivanting about Europe, most of whom were the agents of the darkest of dark wizards,
Lord Grindelwald. The Aurors were willing to arrest on the barest suspicion; in these chaotic
times, public confidence mattered more than reasonable doubt. And thus it made the use of
textbook dark magic more of a liability than an advantage.

Some part of Tom, the part of him that was repulsed by conformity, at the notion of being ordinary,
was loath to use those spells, despite—or rather, because of how traditional they were.

Tradition.

In Tom's eyes, that was another word for 'unimaginative' and 'uninspired'.

But he decided it was worthwhile to study them anyway, because the other parts of him were
realistic and practical; they recognised that something couldn't ascend to the status of a tradition
unless it was effective.
(He recalled a dinner table conversation from years ago, on the subject of crystal balls and human
sacrifice. Dark wizards wouldn't be throwing around Unforgivable Curses if there was a kinder,
non-dark alternative that worked just as quickly and effectively. A spell intended purely for human
torture—and wasn't dark—seemed a bit of a stretch, but had anyone even tried their hand at
inventing it?)

Tom took a deep breath and drew his wand, pointing it at the spider.

One of the spider's eight eyes caught the movement. The disgusting clicking and slurping of liquid
chicken stopped. It lifted up its front two forelegs, hooked claws poised for action.

"The Aurors say this won't leave a mark," Tom spoke softly, staring down at the dog-sized
Acromantula. "Let's see if they were right."

The spider leaped at him.

"Imperio!"

A beam of yellow-green flashed from the tip of Tom's wand.

In the middle of its jump, the spider's limbs curled up around its abdomen, and when it hit Tom's
Shield Charm, only its back made contact with the shield, before it bounced off and rolled onto the
floor in a compact ball.

Tom kept his wand trained on the beast as its legs unfolded and it backed away from him, forelegs
gathered under its thorax, hooks pressed to the floor. The black marbles of its eyes had lost their
shine.

So, thought Tom, holding his wand steady and concentrating on maintaining the spell, A successful
casting of the Imperius is nothing but a contest of my will against another's.

All he had to do was wish for the spider not to hurt him, but as it had already jumped when the
order came, its compliance was limited by both inertia and its own physical strength.

That was a weakness there: the Imperius Curse wasn't infallible. Its effectiveness directly
corresponded to the limitations of the spell's subject. The spider would bite people if he
commanded it to, but it couldn't sneak into the Restricted Section at night to transcribe books with a
Dictation Quill, because it couldn't read. (And Tom was not interested in teaching it; he'd had
enough of this with the members of his homework club, who'd shown him that devising magical
methods of self-lobotomy could be a more constructive use of his time.)

"I wonder what else the book got right," Tom mused, mentally ordering the Acromantula to remain
still. He lowered himself to his knees and peered into the eight milky eyes, wand held at the ready.
"Show me."

For an instant, there were two Toms in the classroom, one Tom Riddle looking down at the floor,
and the other looking up into the familiar dark eyes and pale features of his own face. His
perception was split between ten different eyes pointed in six different directions, his senses
expanding in a disorienting manner to encompass the entirety of the room, from the cold draught
slipping through from under the door, to the wafting warmth of the lit torches on the walls, and the
smallest scrape of shoe soles on the stone floor; it was not just the sound of it he heard, but he felt
it, too—through the lightest of brushes against his skin, every tiny movement translated into a
sequence of vibrations that he could just barely separate into its individual elements; it was like
having a cup of sand poured from a height into his palm, then discerning the journey of a single
grain.

A blink—a flicker—a forceful press of will—

Then Tom moved from the exterior senses, piercing into the spider's inner mind; he felt what it felt,
and what it felt was...

Comfort.

It was pure sensation that swept through him—it—them, of being secure and sheltered, darkness
curving around them on all sides in the egg, then the firm and gentle hands of Rubeus Hagrid
peeling back the shell to reveal the shape and colour of the world.

It was the contentment of being held, the tender caress of a kindred spirit, reassurance by way of a
powerful, irresistible connection that was not merely physical, but something greater and more
profound. They were made glad by the warmth of this feeling, and they wanted this feeling to
continue; they wanted nothing more than that. There existed nothing else in the world that
mattered more—

Tom pulled his mind back and broke eye contact, immensely disturbed by what had transpired.

So this was how the Imperius Curse worked.

No wonder people used it all the time. He himself had almost been drawn into it, tempted by the
false sensations it offered. And it was false—extremely so. It was artificial to the point of
offensiveness, a pale forgery of what he knew the real thing felt like.

Tom was torn between a mix of disgust and discomfort. He felt as if the spell had infringed upon
something personal, taken something private and... and special, then produced a distorted imitation
of it, which was then tossed in his face—the same way the boggart in Merrythought's wardrobe had
dredged up his deepest fears in the middle of the classroom.

He cleared his throat, adjusted his wand grip to keep his hand from shaking, and said, "Well, that
was one down. On to the next, then."

Tom bumped into Hermione after lunch that Sunday, when he was returning the Auror handbook to
the library. Hermione had her own armload of books and was waiting impatiently for the librarian
to finish stamping the return date slips in the back cover of each book.

"Tom!" said Hermione, waving at him.

"Shhh!" said the librarian.

Hermione hand flew to her mouth. "Sorry," she whispered.

The librarian's only response was to purse her lips and continue stamping books at a glacial pace.
Stamp the slip, dab the stamp into the inkpad, open the next book, repeat ad finitum. For all the
practice she'd put in over the years, Tom thought she was terribly slow at her job. One would think
that at some point the Board of Governors would have stepped in and replaced her with an
enchanted stamp.

Tom waited for Hermione to collect her books. When she had trouble fitting all of them into her
bag and had to dump everything and re-organise the contents to make room, Tom grabbed the
books and motioned to the door. They left the library together.

"That was a book on Aurors you returned," Hermione remarked, once they'd removed themselves
from the librarian's jurisdiction. "Is that what you want to do after Hogwarts?"

"Not particularly," said Tom. "I just needed an excuse to keep Slughorn off my back, otherwise
he'd keep thinking I want to be the next Potioneer Grandmaster. And I remember you saying how
Slughorn's career advice would be better than Beery's—a book turned out to be more useful than he
was. How was your career advisory session, by the way?"

"Ugh." Hermione grimaced. "Professor Beery gave me a pocketful of leaflets. One to an amateur
production of The Lake of Shining Waters, and a few W.A.D.A. pamphlets."

"'W.A.D.A'? Never heard of it."

"The Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts," said Hermione. "He said it was very exclusive, but
when I asked what the N.E.W.T. requirements were, they have didn't have any!"

"What an outrage," Tom agreed.

By this time, they'd reached the door of the classroom that served as the homework club's
headquarters. Tom had charmed the lock so that only he could open the door. It wasn't his
intention to prevent other members from using the room for practice sessions during the week,
when he wasn't around—he simply didn't trust them to clean up after themselves. He liked the
floor clear of blood and the furniture intact, thanks. He didn't want to sit down on a chair and have
it fall to bits right under him; there wasn't an ounce of dignity in his being forced to prise splinters
out of the seat of his pants.

It was half an hour before the other boys were scheduled to arrive, so for now, he and Hermione
could discuss topics unrelated to school assignments or the upcoming exams. Muggle news and
Britain's contributions in the war, for instance, were things that he didn't speak of in the presence of
other Slytherins.

"Have you made plans for the summer?" Hermione asked, taking her newly borrowed books out of
his arms and laying them on a nearby desk. "I can't imagine that you'd want to go back to Wool's.
The rationing's gotten even stricter these days; they're no longer giving out civilian petrol tickets, so
Dad has to save his for work emergencies—no more driving me to Diagon Alley every week like
last summer."

"I'm not going back to Muggle London," said Tom. "I'll find a wizarding place to stay. If it's not
the same one as last time, I'll give you an address or a post box to write to."
He wasn't sure about risking another summer at The Hog's Head, as he'd almost been caught out
last time and had only just fixed the problem with his own quick thinking. Had he been out for any
longer—gone to The Broomsticks for a breakfast fry-up, or the Hogsmeade grocer to pick up the
day's bread—and had Old Ab been more of a Slytherin instead of confronting him head-on in
typical Gryffindor fashion, things would have been much worse for Tom.

As it was, he'd avoided Ab every time he went near or into The Hog's Head. From then on, as
everyone else did who frequented the place, he went in with the hood of his cloak on and ordered
the house slop without complaining about its strange taste, Vanishing it wordlessly from under the
table. (He wasn't sure if everyone else did that too, but if they didn't, they should definitely start.)
He knew that if he hadn't made an effort to pass as a regular when hawking vials of Acromantula
venom, the other patrons would have formed suspicions of his being a plainclothes Auror on the
hunt for smugglers.

"I was wondering," Hermione began nervously, her hands fidgeting over the stack of books; she'd
been sorting them by size in order to fit them into her bag, "about the summer..."

"What about it?"

"My Mum volunteered me into going to a veterans' fundraiser event. It sounded like a good idea
when she introduced it to me—I've always wanted to do something to help with the war, since
Mum's church group evacuated out of London and we can't visit children's homes and orphanages
anymore—but then I found out yesterday it wasn't just a fundraiser," said Hermione, the words
pouring out of her in a breathless rush.

"And?"

"It's a—a charity gala!" she squeaked. "A ball!"

"How exciting," said Tom. "Although I'm not sure of its relevance to me."

"I wanted to invite you as my, um, guest," Hermione said, the pink in her cheeks accentuating her
freckles. "I saw the guest list—they're old army contacts, Dad's classmates, their wives and
children too, and I just know that they'll be asking me why I didn't go to Donwell Prep. I haven't
been to a Muggle party since before Hogwarts, and I'm no good with making up stories, and, and
—"

"And I am?" Tom raised his eyebrow in question.

"You have a gift for... interpreting facts," Hermione confessed. "I'm not saying that you have free
rein to lie to them. Just make it seem like I'm getting a proper education, so it won't be strange if I
ask them later on for a reference to enroll in a Muggle university."

"'Muggle university'?" Tom frowned. "What's this—you're going Muggle after Hogwarts?"

"I'm keeping my options open," said Hermione. "I'm not going to W.A.D.A., but I understand
Professor Beery's reasons for offering it as an option: it's because most of the top offices in the
Ministry are buttoned up by a handful of closely connected people whose families have held
positions there for generations. Anyone who doesn't have those connections has to start from the
bottom and work their way up, knowing that promotions will be few and far between. I don't have
'friends' like yours to help me out, Tom. So I'll have to rely on 'friends' I can find on my own."
"I can't say I'm fond of Beery's recruitment technique, but he's got a point about the Ministry," said
Tom, who had been reading in bed while Rosier drafted letters to his father on the subject of
inviting the director of the Magical Games and Sports Department to dinner during the summer.
The other residents of the dormitory had found scrunched-up wads of paper inside their shoes for
days. He let out a slow breath. "I'll go with you to your charity ball... but I want something in
return."

Hermione regarded him with scepticism for a brief moment, before she appeared to have made up
her mind. "What do you want?"

"You'll go with me to Slughorn's dinners for the rest of year. No excuses, no Prefect patrols—ask
Mandicott to assign someone else to oversee detentions if you have to," said Tom. "He'll give in if
you tell him it's for the Slug Club."

Tom was unlucky that one of the Heads this year was Hortensia Selwyn, a Slytherin. As a favour
to Professor Slughorn, who'd given the recommendation to Headmaster Dippet that she be made
Head Girl, Selwyn made sure the Slytherin Prefects had some or all of their Friday evenings free of
official duties. This meant that the Prefects of other Houses took up the slack, but most of them
didn't care about Slughorn's social club as much as the Slytherins did.

Hermione's nose wrinkled. "But there's eight weekends 'til the end of the year! Eight for one, that's
unfair!"

Tom gave an indifferent shrug. "When have I ever cared about fairness?"

"Fine," Hermione sighed in resignation. "But you'll pretend you wanted to come to the ball, instead
of moaning about talking to Muggles or having to wear a bowtie—and yes, you'll need a tie and
tails! You'll smile for the photographer, shake hands with people even if you saw them lick crumbs
off their fingers after eating the canapés, and be a Good Boy for Mum and Dad..."

"And pedal a unicycle backwards?"

"No, dance at least once."

"Even worse."

"It's five minutes at the most—what could go wrong?"

"I could tell you right before the music started that no one taught me how to dance."

Hermione choked. "Are you playing a joke on me, Tom? If you are, it's not funny!"

Tom gazed at her impassively. "Does it look like I'm joking you? Where would I have learned?
Wool's didn't have a wireless set, and the only place I might have done is at a Muggle music hall—
if they'd have let me in at my age. I haven't exactly spent much time in Muggle London since
Second Year."

"I'll teach you," said Hermione quickly. "It wouldn't be music hall dancing, anyway—not in an
event meant for selling tickets to rich people. All you have to do is count the time and keep off my
feet. Here—"
She held out her hands, glanced down at them, wiped her palms on her skirt, and held them up to
Tom again. Her eyes were bright and expectant.

Tom looked at her hands as if they were the last crushed beetle at the bottom of the student
ingredient cupboard's communal jar.

"We made a deal," Hermione reminded him. "Please?"

Tom was very rarely confronted by the proof of his own ignorance. In class, he knew most of the
subject material months or even years before they started. It wasn't hard when Flourish and Blott's
kept a book list for years First through Seventh at the front counter, for all the students who'd
forgotten their lists at home when they arrived to Diagon Alley to shop for their school supplies.
When he learned something he didn't know, it was usually some small and irrelevant detail that
wasn't written in the textbook, like the fact that Tentaculas were more docile when handled in low-
light conditions.

This particular situation put him in mind of First Year, to his first broomstick riding lesson in
Flying Class. It had shown him that there was only so much that a textbook could prepare one for.
That he couldn't be an undisputed expert at every subject straight from the start. And that there
were certain things that couldn't be learned through reading a textbook—at least not as well, and
not as thoroughly, as being taught in person.

The person teaching him now was Hermione Granger.

Why shouldn't her knowledge be made his knowledge, too? There was no reason why it shouldn't.
Hermione had never felt resentment about sharing information when they were younger, when all
the books that he'd kept in his wardrobe at Wool's were books that had once belonged to her. And
he had not resented her, at least, not after the first year or so when seeing her name on the interior
bookplates had filled him with bitterness—but he'd quickly gotten over it after she'd initiated their
friendship arrangement.

He begrudged her no longer. There was no reason why he should refuse her now.

He took her hands, and some detached part of his mind observed how slight they were compared to
his own, and how every time he saw her, there was a different ink stain on her fingers. He
remembered the first time when her hand had reached for his—he had wanted to slap it away. He
couldn't recall why. Seeing her, having her close enough to touch, brought him to the verdict that
nothing about it repelled him; instead he was drawn closer and closer, his gaze lingering on the
delicate blue tracery of veins that ran from her soft palm down her wrist and into her sleeve.

"Eight for one," said Tom, tearing his gaze away. "The deal goes both ways."

She clasped his hands tightly. "Just do your part, and I'll do mine. Here," she nodded toward their
feet, "watch and copy what I do."

She took a step to the side, and Tom followed. Then a step back, another step to the side in the
opposite direction, then forwards.

"Just think of it as ornamental walking in the shape of a zigzag within a rectangle, repeated over
and over," Hermione explained. "The point isn't to go anywhere, but to stay in one place until the
music stops."
"I can't see why anyone bothers," Tom remarked.

"Socialisation, I suppose," said Hermione. "It was the only way young men and women in the old
days could talk to each other privately. People cared about supervision back then, to an almost
excessive degree."

"Hm," said Tom, who had picked up the steps and was now attempting to walk in reverse, so that
he took the lead instead of Hermione. "What do you think they were talking about, if they needed
the privacy for it?"

Hermione snorted. "Probably asking if they could address each other by their Christian names
instead of Mister This and Mademoiselle That. Things were rather mild in those days." She
glanced up at him, noting the lift of his brow and the glint in his eyes. "Why, what did you think
they'd be saying?"

"Oh," said Tom, a smile curling up the corners of his mouth, "I don't think I should say it; we
haven't any supervision, after all."

"Well, I'm not sure if I want to know anymore," said Hermione, her steps faltering. She looked at
him somewhat dubiously, brows furrowed in consternation. "When you say mysterious things and
act intentionally vague like that, it's never a good sign."

Tom's grip on her hand tightened; he leaned in close and said, "To everyone else but you,
Hermione."

A second later, the doorknob rattled and turned. The door was flung open, to admit the members of
the homework club, laughing and chattering amongst themselves. Avery was burdened by a
number of class textbooks, Rosier a stack of colourful magazines. Lestrange was crunching on an
apple, while Mulciber was working on a thick wedge of Bakewell tart wrapped in a cloth napkin.

Upon their entering the classroom, the laughter withered away.

Hermione tugged her hands free and stepped away from Tom, her cheeks reddening in quiet
mortification.

"Are we practising footwork today, then?" asked Black, his question echoing in the sudden and
uncomfortable silence. "I've never seen anything like that on the duelling platform."

"They weren't duelling, you idiot," someone hissed from the back. It sounded like Nott.

"Yeah, I know," Black replied over his shoulder, "but someone had to say something. Riddle has
his killing face on."

"This happens to be my regular face," Tom interjected, exuding charm through a placid smile fixed
on his face, in plain contradiction to the tense atmosphere of the room. His gaze traversed the
length of the classroom, regarding each member of the club with a second or two of eye contact.
Nott glanced away immediately, his scrawny frame ducking behind Avery's much larger one.

"Er," said Black. "Same difference?"

He could sense their discomfort, the prickle of it feeling as if the hairs on his arms and the nape of
his neck were being tugged with a gentle pressure. Concentrating more, delving further, he sensed
in them a mix of embarrassment, nervous regret, and then, for one brief moment, a flash of
curiosity intertwined with sordid appreciation.

"If there's anything you'd like to say," he continued, gesturing at the door with an open hand. It
swung shut without having to draw his wand or speak an incantation. "You have my permission to
speak. As members of this group, I value all of your opinions." He paused, but aside from a few
shuffling feet, chewing sounds, and the rustle of paper, no one made a peep.

"No?" said Tom. "Very well, then. The topic of today's meeting is Inanimate Object Conjuration
and Vanishing. Granger will help me demonstrate."

The session that followed was the most productive they'd had the whole year. No one asked to go
to the bathroom or fetch something from their dormitory—a five minute task that some members
had in the past stretched to near half an hour. No fires were set, nothing exploded, and by the end
of the lesson, even the Fourth Years could reliably Conjure and Vanish a functional chalk duster.
Chapter End Notes

— If Professor McGonagall is the "Have a biscuit, Potter" kind of teacher, then Professor
Slughorn is the "Have a pineapple, Riddle" teacher. Just imagine him passing over the box of
crystallised pineapple with his fingers coated in powdered sugar like the old "Pass me the
controller, bro" meme with the Cheeto dust.

— Next chapter is the last of Fifth Year, which covers the end of the school year and the start
of summer. No basilisk Chamber of Secrets subplot for now, sorry guys. It doesn't fit with the
current sequence of events and I dislike railroading canon plot elements where they don't fit. If
you've read Harry-centric AU fanfiction where he was born a Metamorphmagus, yet somehow
goes through the whole plot of Book 1 with exactly zero changes to the original plot, you'll
know what I'm talking about.

— The Veterans' Gala is not just a fanservice-y Yule Ball equivalent. It's got a plot relevant
payoff, I promise! It's also a way to balance out the tone, because Tom is not being much of a
Good Boy in this chapter.

Tumblr credit for the illustration.

The Slytherin Common Room is a place that screams old money, and isn't actually that
comfortable to sit in, but it's still good for them Instagram photos. And for some reason, I
imagine that it smells like swimming pool chlorine.
 Major Revelations
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1943

Hermione had put so much preparation into taking the O.W.L.s that she was shaking on the walk to
her assigned exam desk. An inkwell was set into an indentation in the desk, and beside it lay a
brown quill, its metal nib stamped with the words 'Patented Anti-Cheating'. There was a cover
sheet on the desk marked with the insignia of the Department of Magical Education, the time and
date, and the name of the subject being examined. Beneath that was the official exam paper.

When the proctor announced the start of the exam and allowed the students to turn over the cover
sheets, Hermione couldn't help but feel disappointed.

Question 1.a: Discuss the effect of the Stunning Charm when cast on a human wizard,
magical creatures (Redcap, Erkling, Dragon), and an inanimate object.

Question 1.b: Give reasons for why the potency of the Stunning Charm may be affected by its
subject. Include examples.

Question 1.c: List three common precautions taken when using the Stunning Charm to defend
against a subject of unknown quality and quantity.

All of the questions were straightforward, practical, and phrased in such a way that she could tell
what answers the examiners were looking for. Many of the theoretical concepts underpinning the
practical magic (which was a separate part of the exam) overlapped with her other subjects.

Anyone who had read about the basics of magical theory knew that the increasing rate of difficulty
between Vanishing a button and Vanishing a rabbit was a direct parallel to the difficulty in Stunning
a rabbit versus Stunning a dragon. She had studied this topic for her Transfiguration exam, and she
ended up quoting from the same authors and textbooks for the Defence exam. She was glad of the
Anti-Cheating Quills; if the exam markers noted that her answers were suspiciously similar, the
Quill proved that she wasn't copying from a smuggled answer sheet.

Hermione came out of the exam relieved that there hadn't been any surprises.

(A few weeks before the exam, she'd had a dream of turning over the cover sheet and finding that
she couldn't answer a single question. She had screamed and fallen out of her four-poster; Twyla
Ellerby had tossed a vial of Calming Draught from the stack on her nightstand before going back to
sleep, pillow over her head.)

Well, no surprises to her, at least. When she left the exam room she could hear Clarence Fitzpatrick
anxiously asking a few other Ravenclaws what they'd put down for Question Sixteen, 'Explain the
meaning of a "Counter-Jinx" and how it differs from an "Anti-Jinx". Name an example of each.'

She found herself congregating with the Slytherins in the antechamber outside the Great Hall; she
recalled that they'd waited here back in First Year, before they were led in by Professor
Dumbledore for the Sorting Ceremony.

"Last exam of the year. Wonder when they'll send us our results," she heard Lestrange saying.
"Mother said that if I get seven O.W.L.s, she'd buy me a new broomstick for next year, and I need
time to practice. It's Crockett's last year—Sluggy'll have to pick a new Captain and Deputy this
summer."

"Pater promised me tickets to the England versus Wales Quidditch trials if I get three or more
Outstandings," Rosier bragged.

"My father said I'd be spending my summer learning the ropes at the Auror Dispatch Office no
matter what marks I got," said Travers glumly. "I had better get at least five Exceeds Expectations.
Or else."

"I've got one exam to go," said Tom, who'd made no mention of parents or summer plans, "so
unlike the rest of you lot, I've not yet had a chance to relax."

"What exam do you have?" Hermione asked, joining the group. "They've finished the last of the
core exams, so it's only the electives left."

"Muggle Studies," said Tom, his face impassive.

"But you're not even in that class!" Hermione cried. "I've never seen you there!"

"You signed up for that rubbish?" said Nott, his expression torn between a mix of scorn and
disbelief.

"I don't take the class," Tom explained, one brow raising slightly at the vehemence of their
reactions. "I asked Slughorn to put me on the exam roll as a bit of an experiment, you see. Is it
possible to get an O.W.L. in a subject I don't take, provided that I've studied the subject from the
textbooks? If it's at all possible, then I might as well keep History of Magic on for the N.E.W.T.
next year, since showing up to the lesson is no different from not going at all."

"And Professor Slughorn let you do that?" said Hermione, scowling. She didn't want to feel jealous
about it... but it honestly was a good idea. Why hadn't she thought of it too? She wasn't fond of
Divination as a magical discipline, but she did quite well in Astronomy, and interpreting star signs
and Tarot cards came down to memorising long lists of qualifiers. Care of Magical Creatures was
the other Hogwarts elective she hadn't signed up for, but the exam had a practical component on
animal handling, and she didn't think she could complete it with nothing but textbook instruction.
"That's unfair to the rest of us."

"Slughorn lets me have anything I ask for," said Tom with supreme smugness. With one finger, he
flicked the Prefect badge pinned to his robes so that it gave off a sweet chime. "I'd go so far as to
say that he's quite fond of me."

The rest of the boys snickered, Lestrange looking at him in servile admiration. Nott, however,
looked just as disgruntled about the situation as Hermione did.
Nott glanced in her direction, his eyes darting to the door.

"I'm heading back to the east wing for some revision," Hermione announced. "See you later, Tom."

She turned on her heel and left the group, whose conversation had devolved into a comparison of
whose parents had offered the best gifts and the worst punishments for their impending O.W.L.
marks. She personally found it distasteful that most of them had to be bribed or coerced to do well
in school, as if they had no motivation of their own to study hard, no personal investment in
ensuring their own success.

But things were different for their sort, weren't they? Success wasn't a personal achievement to
them—success was an extension of a family legacy. Those Slytherin boys were accessories to a
notable lineage, and their success was a reflection of prestige on a family name, a name that
overshadowed any one individual identity or accomplishment.

Perhaps they admired Tom Riddle because Tom didn't care about their family names. He didn't
care who was related to whom, or whose family controlled the most seats on the Wizengamot. He
was talented and successful without the benefit of familial advantage; he treated one and all with
the same cold disdain. He was a consummate egalitarian... until he encountered the rare person
who earned the title of 'Special'.

She puzzled out the strange friendships of Slytherin House on her way to the East Courtyard, where
she was met by Nott a few minutes later, who kept checking over his shoulder to make sure he
hadn't been followed.

Hermione cast an alarm jinx to warn her if anyone approached the vicinity of the statue.

"You were right about Tom being a Legilimens," she said, somewhat reluctantly. "I think he's been
using it on other people for weeks. According to the book, comprehensive Legilimency requires a
wand and an incantation, but surface level sensing only needs prolonged eye contact."

"Weeks?" Nott gave a snort of derision. "It's closer to months. He's been doing it more and more
lately, and the others haven't noticed a thing. I'm not good enough to block him—not if he's drawn
his wand—but I can feel it when he's looking at me."

Months.

Hermione didn't volunteer her suspicions that Tom had been using surface level perception for
years.

The book she'd borrowed, Insight of the Mind, had described examples of the many finer
applications of Legilimency, and as she'd gone through the list, she'd found herself ticking box after
box of things that applied to Tom Riddle. She'd recognised them at once; there had been too many
coincidences over the years for it to be some fluke of accidental magic.

Perception, projection, transference, intrusion.

The second time she'd met him at Wool's. The few throwaway lines in the letters he'd written her,
saying that he prided himself on judging others on their character. It wasn't the Muggle concepts of
telepathy or hypnotism, but Legilimency that explained Tom's ability to spot those with dishonest
intentions towards him. It was why he had allowed Hermione to be his 'friend', because he had
seen that her offer of friendship had been made in goodwill. Tom's natural intuition; the way she'd
heard his voice in her head; his special 'technique' of training animals. Sienna and Peanut in First
Year, her owl Gilles in the summer before Second.

Of course, she couldn't say that he'd been doing any of it out of malicious intent, but he also wasn't
doing it for any other reason but his own advantage. And if Hermione asked herself whether or not
Tom would consider performing Legilimency out of malice, then the answer was a solid and
resounding Yes.

"You've been studying Occlumency on your own?" Hermione asked. "I've noticed that you never
look Tom in the eye anymore, not since Christmas."

"If I can help it, I try never to be alone in the same room as Riddle," said Nott, shoving his hands in
his trouser pockets. "I don't know how you stand being around him. In fact, since Christmas, I've
rather noticed you cosying up even closer to him."

"He's an interesting person once you get to know him. There's no one else in our year who
understands magical theory like he does," Hermione said defensively. Then she glowered at him,
adding, "And cosy or not, that's got nothing to do with you."

"I prefer it that way," Nott retorted, his lip curled in evident disdain. "That part of it is none of my
business. Frankly, I find it all rather sickening. And in any event, you already know what I want
to know."

She could hardly forget it, nor the deal they'd made.

Hermione would have felt guilt about sharing his secrets, if Tom had wanted his unique abilities to
be kept a secret. But he hadn't, had he?

Before he'd known he was a wizard, he'd used it on her, and Hermione had doubts that she'd been
the only one affected. The way he'd spoken to her, more like ordered her to tell him the truth,
couldn't be a spontaneous fluke—not in the most generous person's interpretation of 'reasonable
doubt'. It was practised, and he'd known what he was doing. Even before Tom had met her; before
he'd known about the jurisdiction of magical authorities, or the legality of mind-affecting spells, he
would have had no reason to restrain himself, especially as not one of the people around him had
merited his concern or respect.

And now—even now—he was using Legilimency almost casually.

They hadn't been secrets she'd shared, anyway. Tom's full name, address, and guardian status were
a matter of public record. Professor Dumbledore, who had visited Tom in the orphanage in the
delivery of his Hogwarts letter, knew. Professor Slughorn, as Tom's Head of House, knew. The
Board of Governors and the Headmaster, who signed off the bursary records indicating which
students were to be given financial support each year, would most likely have access to that
information as well.

So, they weren't secrets, not as such.

They were more like uncommon knowledge, just like the locations of each House's Common
Room, which the average student assumed was a secret confined to members of each House... but
anyone enterprising enough could find the other Common Room locations if they asked the right
people or looked in the right books. Hermione knew that the Hufflepuff Common Room was on
the Ground Floor somewhere, near the Kitchens. And the Slytherin Common Room, which
Slytherin students were told had never been seen by non-Slytherins for centuries, was somewhere
in the dungeons. She'd deduced this from the references made by the Slytherin boys when they
excused themselves from the homework club classroom to fetch a book from their dorms; they
always left and came back within ten minutes, which ruled out any of the castle's towers.

(Hermione had figured out years prior that Gryffindor's Common Room was in one of the west
towers, because of the red and gold banners they hung out of their dormitory windows during end-
of-the-year Quidditch finals. When it came to subtlety, Gryffindors were sorely lacking in it.)

"I'm afraid there's nothing else I can tell you," Hermione said, tracing the carved vines on her wand
with a finger. "Especially since I know that what you really want is something to hold over Tom's
head. It's worth repeating how much of an awful idea that is."

She didn't have more information, anyway. From First Year, she'd tried to impress the importance
of responsibility when it came to Tom's use of magic. It was one thing for him to delve too far into
his magical research and run afoul of the law due to his own carelessness; it was another thing for
Tom to find himself in that situation because she had, intentionally or not, incriminated him. And if
that happened, it would be a tremendous waste of Tom's talent, when he could have been better off
directed towards pursuits that were intellectually stimulating and far from being labelled morally
unsound or socially objectionable.

"Is that a no?" said Nott, refusing to be turned off so easily by her refusal. "Not even for a book on
Occlumency? Dream Divination or Animagus transformations? How about unpublished potions
recipes? I think we have a book on brewing Memory Enhancement Potions—obviously, they're
classed as a restricted substance by the Wizarding Examinations Board, but they're otherwise fine
for everyday use." He fumbled into his pocket and came up with a folded slip of paper, offering it
to Hermione. "If you learn anything new during the holidays, these are my directions. I have
access to the whole library when I'm at home—I'm sure there's something that might convince you
to re-evaluate your position. Something to make it worth your time."

She took the paper, and looked at the contents.

The Mews
Broxtowe Abbey
Nottinghamshire

"'The Mews'?" Hermione read. "You live in a stable?"

"You could try and make an effort not to sound so common, Granger," said Nott haughtily. "For all
his faults, Riddle at least pretends he's not as common as dirt, and he makes it believable. I live in
a manor house. The Mews are where we keep our owls and hawks. I won't have you sending
letters to the house, so address them to the Mews and our elf will collect them when she cleans out
the roosts."

Hermione had forgotten how antiquated the lives of pureblooded wizards were. For the most part,
they wore the same uniforms and spoke the same English as everyone else at Hogwarts, although
their accents tended to be closer to the drawling refinement of the British aristocracy compared to
the accent shared by Tom and Hermione, which was the London standard of the educated classes,
spoken by Mum and Dad and the broadcasters on the wireless.

She'd known that members of prestigious houses married young to preserve family names and
family money, a custom she considered beyond archaic. From proofreading papers in the
homework club, she'd noticed several boys spelling connection and choose as connexion and chuse,
with Unnecessary Capitalisation all over the Place, which she thought an amusing quirk that made
their writing sound like a treatise by Pepys or Swift. She hadn't expected—though she shouldn't be
surprised, now that she thought on it—to find that if they didn't understand modern scientific terms,
then it wasn't so unusual for them to be using words whose meanings had changed in vernacular, or
rather, Muggle English.

(She understood the reasons for it, but not why Nott had to be so condescending about it.)

"There's little chance I'll find anything new during the holidays." Hermione lowered her voice,
peering around furtively to check on her alarm jinx, before she continued, "It's not something that
comes up in normal conversation."

Nott set his jaw in obstinance. "Can't you find a way to introduce the subject?"

"You know," said Hermione, flicking her wand to disable the alarm, "you sound as obsessed about
Tom as those girls who just about lose their minds when the professor announces a new group
project."

"Mum says we'll have to meet up in Diagon Alley next week so you can get fitted for your jacket,"
Hermione told Tom, as they put away their uniform robes on the Hogwarts Express. "The tailor in
Diagon does alterations on Muggle clothes if she has a pattern to work from, and we've moved our
custom there since many of the London shops have closed due to the war. The ones that are left are
only making uniforms for officers."

"And naturally, you told your mother the minute I said I'd come," said Tom, pressing his temple
against the cool glass of the window.

"Of course I told her," Hermione said, observing the downward curve of Tom's mouth; he'd been
lukewarm about delivering on his side of their agreement. "Oh, poo-poo for you. There's no
reason why you can't be gracious about it—it's as much of a career opportunity for you as it is for
me. Mum paid for the tickets and your formal fittings, which you'll get to keep; you could wear it
under a dress robe if one of your 'friends' ever invites you to a wizard party."

"I can't imagine that she was pleased about buying the extra ticket."

"Why shouldn't she be?" Hermione asked. "It's all going to a good cause."
"Hm," said Tom, gazing out at the rolling miles of farmland, green and lush and ripe with wheat. "I
just had a feeling."

Hermione bought a few bars of chocolate for her family when the sweets trolley came by. With
sugar rationed for the last three and a half years, sweets were hard to come by, and chocolate was
one of the small luxuries that was sorely missed in most British households. The Grangers had
toured the confectionery shop in Diagon Alley before the start of the war, and wizarding chocolate
had been her parents' favourite out of the vast selection. They'd never developed a taste for the
strange jelly beans or the squeaking peppermint mice, and they hadn't been courageous enough to
try the cockroach clusters, even though the shopkeeper had assured them that they tasted like
peanuts and nothing else.

Chocolate, however, was universal.

She was excited to see her family again. As much as she loved Hogwarts, her love came from its
being a centre of learning, and Hermione's love of learning was different from her love of family.
Hogwarts wasn't home to her; it didn't mean the same thing to her as it meant to Tom.

She always looked forward to the end of the year, because it meant going home to Mum and Dad,
who for most of her life had guided, cared for, and loved her. The professors at Hogwarts guided,
and cared—as much as was required by the terms of their employment—but she was one of a
hundred Ravenclaws to Professor Beery, her Head of House. For most of her time at Hogwarts,
they were distant figures while she was expected to be self-sufficient, and after the issuance of her
Prefect badge, she was herself expected to be a carer to the Ravenclaw First Years.

(She was only supposed to take care of the First Year girls, with Fitzpatrick as the guide to the First
Year boys, but after a week or two of Fitzpatrick bumbling about when answering their questions,
his default response had turned to, "Go ask Hermione". Her know-it-all reputation had
transformed into an advantage overnight, though she couldn't say she was entirely happy with the
increased workload.)

It was difficult to express her thoughts about it, because Home was more than a specific house on a
specific street, more than familiar rooms whose every inch she'd explored over the years, or the
right people who knew her favourite stories and cooked her favourite foods. It was a combination
of all of the above: connection and attachment, closeness and familiarity, all the things that couldn't
be reproduced by magic, no matter how powerful the caster.

These thoughts occupied her mind when she and Tom waited on the platform for the crowds to
clear out of the way.

"Where should I send my letters?" asked Hermione, setting her owl cage atop her trunk. She got
onto her toes and peered into the crowd, which was obscured by the billows of steam pouring out
from the locomotive's boiler. She sighed; there were dozens of people waiting to pass through to
the Muggle side of King's Cross.

"I'll be at the Leaky Cauldron for the summer," Tom said, who had grown tall enough that he didn't
have to crane his neck to see over the heads of other people. "It's dearer than Hogsmeade, but I
booked early this time, so they didn't try to shove a double on me like they did last time."

"You're in London—that's fantastic news!" Her smile began to wane. "Oh, I wish they hadn't cut
our petrol tickets; I'd have liked to visit every other day."
"Try a Refilling Charm on the petrol tank," suggested Tom. "Liquids are easier to duplicate than
solids, especially if it's not food. The visualisation is always harder when you have to make sure it
tastes right."

"I've never practised refilling anything other than water," Hermione said, her brows knitting
together while she parsed her way through Tom's suggestion. She'd made it a habit of doing so
when it came to Tom; whenever he came up with grand ideas he often left the logistics of them up
in the air. 'Operation: Order of Merlin' was one such example of his 'ideas'. "I'm afraid to cause
an accident if I was experimenting with petrol. According to The Theory of Transformative
Charmwork, a perfect duplication copies all the original object's physical properties, which
includes the phase states—and petrol in any open container produces vapours. It sounds terribly
dangerous to me."

"You know, Hermione," said Tom musingly, "I can't see how the Sorting Hat ever thought you'd
make a good Gryffindor. A Gryffindor would have just done it with no questions."

"And blasted off his own eyebrows."

"And that," Tom agreed. "How about practising on paraffin wax or petroleum jelly first? They're
quite similar on a structural level, and if you've learned to duplicate them, you can always
Transfigure them to petrol if you can't cast a Refilling Charm."

"No," Hermione shook her head, "I'm going to master the Refilling Charm this summer. It's on the
N.E.W.T. curriculum—"

"—We just finished our O.W.L.s a few days ago."

"Which means we have to start worrying about the N.E.W.T.s," Hermione said, but Tom didn't try
to refute her statement; he just gave her a look of fond resignation and waited for her to continue.
"Refilling a cup of wine is on the Charms practical exam, so only being able to do water isn't good
enough. If I can successfully Refill a petrol tank, then I can try learning to enchant with it—if our
motor's tank tops itself off, then Dad won't have to count his ration tickets whenever he has to visit
a patient."

"Enchanting Muggle artefacts now, Hermione?" remarked Tom, a pleased smirk creeping across his
face.

"It's for a good cause!"

"If that's what you tell yourself, I wouldn't dare to correct you."

"Well!" Hermione planted her hands on her hips, eyes bright with defiance. "If it lets me visit
Diagon Alley every day, then you'd benefit from it too."

"Would I?"

"I'd help you with your writing; no one researches like I do. And you'd help me work out how to
add more enchantments to the motor. It stands to reason if I can Refill the tank, I could Silence the
exhaust or Cushion the suspension, too."

Tom's smile grew wider and wider. "Oh, what's this? Could it be what the Ministry calls 'Improper
Use of Magic'? Is our dear little Hermione finally seeing the light?"
"Hey!" cried Hermione, who was older than Tom by several months and hadn't hesitated to point it
out when they were ten years old and exchanging letters. At that age, the difference of several
months was counted as something significant. "I'm not little!"

(She could deny that particular point, because Tom was right about the other one. The Ministry
wouldn't approve, but the Ministry wouldn't know, so it was all moot.)

"Don't complain about it," said Tom, patting the top of her head. "It's endearing."

Tom's fingers were in her hair.

Somehow—and despite the tone of his words—it didn't feel at all condescending. It had nothing in
common to the primary school hair tugging done in class by little boys who sat one row behind
little girls. Instead, it was soft and gentle and Hermione found that she'd leaned into his hand, and
was leaning in rather close to Tom's chest by the time he'd pulled his hand back, the slightest touch
of colour high on his cheekbones, although that could have been explained by the combination of
high summer and the radiant heat produced by a dozen locomotives in the enclosed structure of a
busy train station.

Tom cleared his throat. "The queue's gone now. Come on, let's go."

Dear Tom,

When I tried to duplicate petroleum jelly, I keep getting a thin, oily liquid mixture. It should
be a semi-solid state at room temperature. What am I doing wrong?

Dear Hermione,

Your mistake is trying to duplicate too much at once, from too small a sample of starting
material. If I had five loaves of bread, and was told it had to feed five thousand people, I
wouldn't immediately try to multiply one loaf into five thousand. I'd do it in batches of one
loaf into three or four, although most people would find it hard to maintain focus on anything
greater than that number. A lower ratio keeps the spell boundaries more stable, resulting in a
more stable product.

Dear Tom,
 It worked! It seems that it's easier to refill a half-used container of petroleum jelly than it is to
fill a container that's all used up apart from a few smudges at the bottom. I wish I'd known
that before I spent two hours casting the spell over and over on a near-empty container...

Dear Hermione,

Simpler materials are easier to duplicate at higher ratios. It would take a master level wizard
to turn a single crumb into a whole cake, but a competent wizard should be able to duplicate a
scoop of flour or sugar into a large bag in one go. The reason why wizarding grocery stores
are still in business is because the average wizard is terminally incompetent.

I have a question of my own: Why is it unacceptable for a woman to fix her lipstick at the
dinner table?

The first few weeks of the summer holiday passed in a daily exchange of short notes about magical
theory on Hermione's side and women's insecurities on Tom's, because apparently targeting his
readers' self-esteem was the most efficient way to sell lifestyle advice.

On one hand, Hermione was pleased that Tom's choice of occupation was so innocuous, and that
focusing on writing his articles meant that he no longer seemed to be interested in mind control
spells or going out and joining the Anti-Grindelwald volunteer resistance. On the other hand, it
didn't mean she was happy to see Tom condoning wasteful materialism, or encouraging lady
hostesses to turn their summer parties from a friendly gathering of family members into a petty
battle of dominance between herself, her neighbours, and her mother-in-law.

("They actually believe that the mark of a good wife and mother is the ability to stack a trifle ten
layers high," wrote Tom in one of his letters. "If they believe it—as ridiculous as it is—why should
I dissuade them from it? Why shouldn't I sell them on a temporary Hardening Charm technique to
build their meringue up to fifteen layers? It's mutually beneficial for the both of us.")

One evening, when Hermione was summarising the progress of the day's studies in her homework
planner, she realised that Tom had not become a better person by taking up writing as his hobby
and summer job. He'd merely exchanged one form of manipulation for another, and the form he'd
chosen was one considered socially acceptable.

Her consolation came from the fact that readers had a choice whether or not they took Mr.
Bertram's advice; what he shared was magical knowledge, a different and more accessible format
that differed from the clinical style of a textbook, but the effect was the same. The intent with
which they used the knowledge was up to the readers' determination, and it wasn't Tom's
responsibility to decide for them. That was what separated it from the manipulation of the Imperius
Curse, whose malicious potential didn't involve consent from the parties involved.

Despite her misgivings, it wasn't enough to make Hermione reconsider inviting Tom to the
Veterans' Charity Gala. The tickets were already ordered, the clothing prepared, and the travel
arrangements made.
The evening of the event, the Grangers drove the motorcar to Charing Cross, where they picked
Tom up outside the Leaky Cauldron, and proceeded to the hotel off Hyde Park where they'd once
shared an afternoon tea after shopping in Diagon Alley. That had been several weeks before the
start of the war, and Hermione hadn't been back since, so the changes due to wartime austerity were
more striking than ever.

The taxi ranks were empty, and the street in front of the hotel was quiet for what should have been
a popular thoroughfare of central London. The retraction of the civilian petrol ration had taken its
toll on the segment of the population who owned automobiles. Hermione had noticed the quietness
when she'd returned for the summer to the house on Argyll Street, where most of their neighbours
had owned motors, but now it was only the Grangers who regularly drove anywhere—and even
that, for the most part, was limited to medical emergencies.

Hermione had, after a few weeks of practising, successfully managed the Refilling Charm on
petrol, after working her way up from petroleum jelly, cooking oil, and kerosene. At first, she had
been nervous about testing her product, but she'd realised that she didn't have to test the burn rate of
an open bowl of petrol by throwing a match on it and running. She was a witch: she could stand
well back and cast an Incendio at a distance, and protect herself with a Shield Charm in case it
exploded.

She'd filled up the family motor car, and was planning to fill several jerry cans for when she left for
Hogwarts in September. She hadn't quite got the hang of enchanting the tanks to fill themselves up,
but she had speculated that it would be similar to the way the cistern in their tent's bathroom never
ran out of water.

Until then, she and her family could drive around London at their leisure. Mum had even offered
Hermione driving lessons since they had the fuel to spare, and the roads around their
neighbourhood were empty of other motorists. Hermione had accepted. She hadn't liked
broomstick training back in First Year, but operating a motor car involved sitting in a padded seat
while turning a wheel and moving a few pedals around. It wasn't physically demanding, so surely
it couldn't be too difficult?

Hermione recounted the story to Tom as they sat in the back of the Grangers' motor, while Dad
drove around the back of the hotel to find a parking space.

"...We stopped on Willoughby Street because I flooded the engine and it overheated, so Mum and I
got out to wait. A man came out of his house and asked what happened, then another man
appeared, and soon enough we had four strange men arguing with each other about what had gone
wrong with our motor," said Hermione, who had not enjoyed the experience of being out on a hot
summer day, with an engine that burned at the touch. "And then one of them said that this was
what happened when women were allowed to drive. Mum got so cross at him."

"I'm not certain I'll like the end of this story."

"Everything ended well," Hermione assured him. "Over half the farms in Britain are being run by
the Women's Land Army. If women hadn't learned to drive, no one would have anything to eat."

"They wouldn't," Tom pointed out. "But they're Muggles."

"Tom!" Hermione cried, peering out of the window to check if there were other people nearby.
"You promised you'd be a Good Boy! One of the conditions of our deal is that you can't say the
word 'Muggle' for the rest of the night. You know that the Ministry urges wizards to blend in when
out in public."

"By that they meant wizards should take off their pointy hats when leaving Diagon Alley. But
since you sat through eight of Slughorn's dinners," sighed Tom, "I suppose I can refrain from using
the 'm-word' for the rest of the evening."

"Good," said Hermione brightly, patting him on the shoulder. "You can start now."

She opened the passenger door and slid out of the motor car, Tom following behind her.

The exterior windows of the Royal Aspen Hotel were covered by black-out curtains as a deterrent
to German aerial bombers. By contrast, the interiors dazzled. The hotel was well-lit and well-
appointed, with gleaming parquet floors, a grand staircase in the foyer where several couples were
queuing up to have their portraits taken by a hired photographer; crystal chandeliers were the
centrepiece of the ballroom, the walls of which were draped in regimental banners representing the
prior services of the veterans in attendance. Hermione's eyes lingered on the snake within a laurel
wreath that was the insignia of the Royal Army Medical Corps, her father's service.

"I wonder what the soldiers would think of all this," said Tom, waving a hand at the table loaded
with finger-foods, and the section at the end where a hotel attendant was ladling punch and pouring
sparkling wine for the guests.

The food wasn't as sumptuous as it would have been before war rationing, as she could see by the
square edges on the potted meat served on crackers that it had come out of a can. The devilled eggs
were more devil than eggs, and she was sure that the hotel chefs had used salad cream instead of
proper mayonnaise. Even the drinks weren't really from Champagne or Bordeaux; the punch was
more seltzer and syrup than actual alcohol—not that Mum would accept that as a valid excuse for
Hermione to have a glass.

There was more than enough for everyone, but it lacked the extravagance of the past; the event
organisers had done their best with what was available. Hermione acknowledged that a spread like
this was better than hardtack and pork hash or whatever soldiers were served in the field.

"I don't think it matters," she said. "Not if it means the money raised ensures supplies and comforts
for the soldiers. And besides, it's not like they'll ever know about this party."

Looking around the ballroom, Hermione saw that she and Tom were two of the younger guests in
attendance. The rest of the guests were veterans of the Great War and their families, and by the
uniforms she saw them wearing—which were decorated with rank badges and medals—they were
mostly commissioned officers. There were also a few young men in modern uniforms with
officers' pips on their shoulders; she presumed them to be the sons and nephews of the ladies who'd
organised the evening, visiting London on leave.

"Should we introduce ourselves around, or eat something first?" Hermione asked, glancing at Tom.

Tom regarded the food table with a look of disdain. "There's nothing here that I find appetising. I
think I'll just have a tray sent up when I get back to The Cauldron."

"Fine," Hermione huffed, grabbing him by the elbow. "Let's go make some acquaintances."

"I've never seen you like this at Slughorn's dinner parties," Tom noted.
"That's because Professor Slughorn is always asking about other people's families, and since they're
all wizards, there's no one I know or recognise," said Hermione. "But these are people I do know.
Oh! Over there! That's Roger Tindall—his father and mine are members of the same Alumnus
Society."

She dragged Tom in the direction of a slender young man with curly hair that was a shade between
brown and blond. He had a few moles on his cheeks and the side of his chin that detracted from the
overall symmetry; nevertheless, they gave him an interesting and not unpleasant appearance when
viewed as a whole. His eyes were a clear blue, his features charming enough, not that she paid
much attention to how people looked when she could focus on what they said and how they acted.
Like Tom, he was dressed in civilian garb: white tie and stiff white shirtfront under a black tailcoat
and pressed black trousers.

"Roger!" Hermione called, and he turned aside from his conversation to examine the new arrivals.

"Hermione? Hermione Granger?" he said, his eyebrows rising up in surprise. "I haven't seen you
in years."

Roger Tindall came from a well-regarded old family whose wealth lay in the breadth of their
connections. He was a few years older than Hermione—he must be nineteen or twenty now—and
their mothers used to have tea together at the Royal Aspen before the war. She'd known him then,
but that was before she had gone to Hogwarts, and since Hogwarts, she'd had very little contact
with Muggle friends and their families. In fact, the people (who weren't family members) with
whom she spent most of her time outside of Hogwarts were limited to Sigismund Pacek and Tom
Riddle.

"How do you do?" said Hermione. "Mum said that you've gotten into Sandhurst. Congratulations!
I'd have never taken you for having military inclinations, but I suppose everyone wants to do their
part these days."

"I'm well, thank you. Give Mrs. Granger my regards," replied Roger, who had gotten over his
surprise and was now looking her over. She expected she was rather different to the ten or eleven
year old Hermione he'd known in the past; she couldn't say she'd grown that much taller, but she
was a bit more confident now after learning about her magical birthright. And she was wearing a
new dress from Gladrag's which had been tailored to size by the saleswitch, and professional
magical tailoring was just as good as Muggle bespoke.

"You look very well, Hermione," continued Roger, "I heard you got into Donwell, though I
would've been shocked if they hadn't let you in. As for military inclinations: I can say I've no
interest in going to the front—not that Mother would let me even if I wanted to. I find that I'm
rather set on Military Intelligence. There are a great many opportunities to study thermionic
tabulators with them that aren't offered to civilians."

"Computers!" said Hermione excitedly. "I've only studied the old punch card tabulators—
mechanical, of course—but I hear there are great strides being made in electronic tabulation. A
great deal more complex, to be sure, but anyone invested in secrecy wouldn't dare code information
so simply that it might be broken by hand."

"Exactly," Roger nodded. "And you, Hermione? When we were children, I recall that you wanted
to be the next Doctor Granger. Should I expect a stethoscope and Gladstone bag when next I see
you? Though I should hope that won't be in ten years' time."
Hermione laughed, cheeks flushing. "Perhaps you will. My parents have offered to start me in the
clinic when I'm eighteen, although that's as much for wanting to support the effort as it is to stay on
the vital occupations list—just as you said, I've also got no interest in the front. But there are other
things that I feel I'm up for."

"As tenacious as I remember!" Roger toasted Hermione with his glass of punch, then his attention
turned to Tom. "She must be a handful at times, Mister—? Pardon me, you seem to have me at a
disadvantage."

"Tom Riddle," Tom spoke smoothly, offering his hand.

Roger shook it, very briefly, and seemed to wince when he drew his hand back. He studied Tom
for a few seconds, his eyes tracing Tom's features, with a puzzled look in them, as if he was trying
and failing to place Tom Riddle as a familiar face in the family compendium of social connections.

Tom stared back at him unflinchingly.

"'Riddle'," murmured Roger, taking a deep swallow of punch. "Any relation to the North Riding
Riddles?"

"Tom is an—" Hermione began.

"Yes," said Tom.

Roger's momentary confusion dissolved, and he nodded politely to Tom.

Hermione's head whipped around to Tom. "Tom..."

Tom's hand brushed against hers, then she felt her hand being squeezed by his—a fleeting gesture
of wordless reassurance—and then he let her go and was inclining his head toward Roger Tindall,
his face smooth and blank of all expression, except for the flicker of twitching muscle on his cheek.

"I am," Tom said. "My father is also named 'Tom Riddle'. You've heard of him?"

"Not personally, no," said Roger. "But I believe my grandfather knows him. Fought with him in,
what, Ninety-Nine? I say, that's half a century ago! They were in the Nineteenth Regiment—" he
jerked his head in the direction of the wall, hung with banners. "That black one, the crown and
cross, that's theirs—Princess Alexandra's Own. But enough about him. What do you do, Riddle?"

"I study at a boarding school in Scotland. It's small and very exclusive, or so I've been told," said
Tom, whose shoulders had stiffened at Roger's words; he now appeared to be vibrating with
impatience for the end of their conversation.

"You're a Gordonstoun man, then?" Roger asked.

"The school's farther north, actually," said Tom. "It doesn't have Gordonstoun's reputation or
renown, but that might be a good thing as I've never seen any use for their famous discipline."

Roger chuckled. "I went to Charterhouse, and the worst they had was cloister football—and that
was strictly optional. Never saw the use for Gordonstoun's methods, but then again, I've never
been one in need of the old 'straightening up'. I shouldn't expect you to be one either; Hermione
wouldn't put up with a chap who can't keep his nose squeaky clean. Isn't that right?"
"Yes," Hermione agreed, giving Tom a sideways glance. "And that goes for boys who can't keep
up with me. Tom's always been a good boy on both counts."

"And I never forget her birthday," Tom added, returning her glance with a fond smile of his own,
which was for Hermione's benefit as much as it was for Roger's. "She says it's my best quality.
Speaking of good qualities, do you mind making an introduction to your grandfather? If he served
with my father, I'd like to pay my respects to him."

"We'd like to," Hermione corrected him. "It's been years since I've seen Major Tindall; I wouldn't
want to leave tonight without a 'How do you do' at least."

"Er, of course," said Roger, whose expression had shown the barest hint of disappointment in
Hermione's imminent departure. "He's over by the corner, in the smoking section. Not one for
mingling, as you can tell."

Roger led them over to where the older veterans had congregated, their uniforms pinned with more
gilt and ribbons than on any of the younger men. They'd lit cigars and cigarettes, the burning
tobacco eddying in a smelly haze around them. Someone had broken out a snifter of brandy, if the
short glass tumblers filled with amber liquid were any indication.

Hermione could see why these old gentlemen weren't interested in the social mingle; a number of
them had canes leaning against their chairs.

Major Tindall was one of them. He was heavy-set and moustached, looking comfortable with a
smouldering cigar in one hand and a brandy glass in the other. He wore a white waistcoat—the
buttons of which were clearly straining at the stomach—under a uniform mess jacket with thick
gold braid on the shoulders and white piping along the sleeves, marked with a pip on each cuff in
the shape of a crown. His left leg was propped up on an unoccupied chair, the hem rolled back to
show a length of his upper foot and ankle, which, contrary to one's expectations, was not wrinkly,
liver-spotted flesh, but a carven section of smooth wood.

"Grandfather," said Roger, greeting the old Major, "may I introduce a few guests? This is
Hermione Granger; she came to Annabelle's birthday, that year Father got us a pair of puppies—"

"I remember her," Major Tindall interrupted, dropping his cigar into the ashtray at his elbow. "Dear
Helen's little girl! My word, you're not so much of a girl anymore, are you? Roger, m'boy, you've
better eyes than this old man—surely you've noticed—"

"Ahem," Roger coughed, looking away in embarrassment. "Helen Granger's daughter, yes. Quite
accomplished in her own right, but I digress. Grandfather, may I acquaint you with Hermione's,
um, friend? Riddle, this is my grandfather, Major Walter Tindall."

"Tom Riddle," said Tom. The lines of his body were rigid, but his eyes shone bright with
eagerness. He offered his hand. "Pleasure to meet you, sir. From your grandson, I understand that
you served with my father. Nineteenth Regiment, I'm told."

Just as Roger had done, Major Tindall fell silent for a moment. Taken aback, as if experiencing a
split second of uncanny déjà vu.

Major Tindall swept Tom over with his eyes, squinting at him and even tilting his head.

"Sir?" Tom prompted.

"Oh... Oh my! I say!" Major Tindall pressed one thick-fingered hand, which had a minute earlier
been holding a cigar, over his chest. The other hand lifted his glass of brandy to his lips,
whereupon he took a fortifying gulp. "Thomas, you sly old dog. No! Don't tell me—you didn't
—!"

"I'm sorry," said Hermione, eyes flitting from the Major to Tom. "What's happening?"

"I don't know," whispered Roger. "Grandfather?"

"Riddle," Major Tindall mumbled through a mouthful of brandy, "Lieutenant Thomas Riddle, I
knew him—was his superior officer during the war. Went mufti with him in the Transvaal for a
fortnight—shot ourselves a good half-dozen antelopes each—they called 'em springboks over there,
as good as beef but twice as lean. Never took that man for a rakehell; oh, certainly he could charm
a girl—I remember there was that lovely little Flemish farmer's daughter who had her eye on him—
Saskia van Something-or-Other, a sweet young thing, dead shot at eighty paces with a Mauser, if I
do say so myself. Took the recoil with nary a flinch..."

Major Tindall cleared his throat and went on, "Riddle always got more than his fair share of looks
whenever we billeted the troops. But he found himself a wife and brought her home right after the
war ended and he left the service, while I stayed on for the next war." He nodded at his left leg.
"And you can see what I got for it—got one foot in the grave, hah, as the old army sawbones called
it."

"The war?" said Tom, returning the conversation back to the subject of his interest. "You
mentioned the Transvaal. I assume you're talking about the war with the Boer states of Africa?
The second war ended in 1902."

The Boer War.

Hermione remembered a book she'd had—she remembered most books she owned—that she'd
given away years ago in a Christmas donation. It was military history, full of maps and battle
diagrams and casualty lists; it was informational, but not at all enjoyable. She'd put it in the charity
box, because she recalled there was a boy at the orphanage who had liked that book on Napoleon,
another book she had had no qualms about parting with.

Skirmishes of the Second Boer War.

Tom obviously remembered it too.

"Yes," said Major Tindall, who looked a fraction more composed, though his eyes still lingered on
Tom's face. "He married his girl in Aught-Three or Four. Good God, that must be forty years ago!
You can't be more than twenty, can you?"

"I'll be seventeen come December."

"Goodness. Poor Mary," Major Tindall muttered to himself, setting aside his brandy. "The shock
of a lifetime, dear Lord. Of course she'll have to be told; it's the right thing to do. This isn't the sort
of thing one can keep hidden away forever... A proper gentleman ought to take responsibility if he's
any man at all..."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Tom, "but who might this Mary be?"
"Mrs. Mary Riddle," said Major Tindall. "Lieutenant Riddle's wife. She'd be your, ah, step-
mother? Roger, have the young folks got a name for it? I can't for the life of me think of better."

"I'm afraid not, Grandfather," Roger answered, who was looking rather pale. "Riddle, are you sure
you're not their lawful son...?"

"I've never met a Mrs. Mary Riddle," Tom said. "I've never heard of her until just now. My mother
named me after my father, and I was born and raised in London. If they're the Riddles of North
Riding—Yorkshire, I presume—I don't suppose you have their directions? I'd very much like to
contact her—them—if it would be at all possible."

"It's been years since I last spoke to 'em," said Major Riddle regretfully. "They don't partake in the
London life—" here he gestured at the ballroom and the crowds of milling guests. "They live in the
country and as far as I know, keep to themselves. I can't recall their address, but I'm sure that if you
know someone at the Military Records Office, they'd pull his directions from their files."

Tom's eyes darted to Hermione's, and they shared a significant look. This was a lead they should
follow up on, as soon as possible.

For the next half hour, they made conversation with Major Tindall, who had a large trove of
amusing anecdotes from his military days, although Roger's pained expression indicated that it
wasn't that large, and that he'd heard the punchline of every story before. Roger's discomfort didn't
fade by the end of the story, which was about an enlisted man in their company who had gotten
drunk and traded his rifle for a native's spear, then showed up to parade the next morning with it.

In fact, it grew more pronounced as Major Tindall waxed nostalgic about the good old days when
men were men, and not scoundrels like the Lieutenant Thomas Riddle, or milksops like his nephew,
who had apparently got a doctor to diagnose him with something serious enough to have him struck
off from potential service, and whether or not the ailment was real was made ambiguous. The
Major then started on Roger Tindall's hopeful future service, all the strings pulled for Sandhurst,
just for a desk commission...

"I, personally, find it very admirable," Hermione put in, during a lull when Major Tindall went to
refresh his throat with a second helping from the brandy snifter. "I think everyone should find a
position that suits their strengths. Not everyone has to be able to shoot a rifle or dig a trench to do
their part for Britain. I couldn't do that—in fact, I get tired digging up carrots in the local victory
garden."

"No one's expecting you to do any of that," said Tom quickly, searching for some way to settle any
contention and take his leave politely. "General consensus says that each sex's strengths lie in
opposite directions. And for men, that's manual labour."

"I don't see why what they say matters," said Hermione. "Few people understand the concept of
differencing algorithms, and there's no sense in throwing away talent just because certain people
expect things due to other people being born a certain way."

"Very well said." Roger gave Hermione a relieved smile, which looked slightly forced. The whole
situation must have been desperately uncomfortable for him, Hermione realised. Being made privy
to the tawdry details of other men's personal lives could do that to anyone's composure. "The
band's warming up. Grandfather, do you mind if we bid our adieus for now?"
"Get on, then," Major Tindall waved them off. "Take her for a turn around the floor, Roger. I'd
volunteer myself, but these old bones have let me down one too many times. Riddle, stay and keep
me company, won't you?"

"Hermione?" said Roger, offering her his arm. "Would you like to dance?"

"Oh," she said, glancing at Tom, who was topping up Major Tindall's glass. Did the brandy snifter
look fuller than the last time he'd poured from it, or was that just her imagination? Hadn't there
been around a quarter left? "Um. Why not?"

She took Roger's arm, following him to the dance floor as the musicians began to play.

"So..." Roger began, hesitantly. One hand reached for Hermione's, the other for her waist. "Your,
ah, friend Riddle is someone's natural-born son. Grandfather can't keep his mouth shut, so half the
veterans will know by the end of the evening. Good job the Riddles live in Yorkshire; they'd be the
centre of a scandal if the news broke with them in London."

"Tom has never met his father," Hermione replied, with as much confidence as she could muster.
Half her attention was spent making sure she didn't squash Roger's toes beneath her low-heeled
slippers. "He's never been to Yorkshire. He deserves to know who his family is."

"Some family," said Roger, shaking his head. "If my memory is accurate, then your Tom has an
older brother—half-brother—twice his age, also named Tom. Family name, of course, but it'll
make things terribly messy, especially when you throw the inheritance into question."

"What inheritance?"

"The Riddles own a village up in the north. Old family—they made a fortune in coal back when the
mines were running flush. The mines are mostly closed these days with the men all gone, but the
land around them is still theirs."

"I see."

Hermione could see Tom being pleased by that—coming from an old, wealthy family must have
been every orphan's dream. But she could see him equally bitter about it, because he'd been raised
as a nameless and destitute orphan, his magical birthright denied to him until he was eleven years
old, his familial connections a mystery until tonight, only revealed to him by an uncommon stroke
of fortune.

"Hermione," spoke Roger in a quiet voice, over the strumming of the band, "he's not done anything
untoward, has he? He might have old blood, but I can tell he's not been raised that way—not if his
father is the scoundrel that Grandfather thinks he is."

"No!" said Hermione fiercely, squeezing Roger's hand with more force than she'd intended. "I've
known him for years, and he's never been ill-mannered to me. Tom isn't his father; he can't be, not
if he's never even met the man."

"I'd have worried about you," said Roger. "And I still am. You must see, Hermione, that he's not
exactly our sort, is he?"

"I'm not sure what you mean by that."

"Just... be careful, please?" he said. "I know men like him—he's a smooth one, a charmer. I can
tell that he's going to go after the family money, and he won't take no for an answer."

That sounds like Tom, she thought. He can be incredibly single-minded when he sets his sights on a
goal. The only way to dissuade him is to distract him with something of equal value.

"He's entitled to have it," replied Hermione. "He's part of the family too."

"He also looks at you as if he thinks he's entitled to your company," Roger whispered, then his eyes
followed the movement of something over Hermione's shoulder. "Here he comes. By the look on
his face, I don't think he likes me. Right, Hermione, I'll see you later?" He dropped a perfunctory
kiss to the air by Hermione's cheek, then let go of her hand. "Write to me; my mother forwards my
correspondence when I go back for the new term."

Roger made himself scarce, just as Tom stepped up to his vacated position and offered his own
hand to Hermione, his face peculiarly blank, his expression unreadable.

"Come on, didn't I promise you a dance?" asked Tom.

Hermione let him take her hand and set his other hand on her waist; he held his arms at stiff angles
from his body, and she guessed that he was unused to this particular form of nearness. She couldn't
recall many instances of his touching other people in or out of class—not willingly at least—and he
hadn't had his hand on her waist when they'd practised dancing that day in the empty classroom.
She could feel his fingers curling around the ribbon sash sewn to the waistline of her dress; they
were close enough that she could discern the direction of hair growth beneath the line of his jaw,
the follicles ever so slightly dark from where he'd shaved that morning. She noted that it would be
years yet before he could grow a full beard: the area between his chin and upper lip was far from
being connected.

She had to wonder if Tom was looking at her in the same way. Was he observing how the part in
her hair was off-centre? Did he notice black smudges above her eyelids where her mascara had
smeared? Mum had helped her apply it with a tiny toothbrush, but Hermione had worn cosmetics
so rarely in her life that she hadn't gotten into the habit of keeping her hands from touching her
face. She wasn't so much self-conscious about her appearance—she'd never known Tom to be
overly concerned with other people's comeliness or their lack of it, or even his own vanity—as she
was curious about what things suddenly became prominent in such close quarters.

Tom held her a lot closer than Roger had, and it turned out that this was so he could murmur in her
ear without being overheard, his mouth so close to the curve of her ear that when they turned with
the rest of the dancers on the floor, she felt the lightest graze of his lips.

"We are going to break into the Military Records Office."

Hermione jerked back. "That's a horrible idea!"

"Shhh!" Tom looked quickly over his shoulder, but no one had noticed.

"It is!" whispered Hermione. "We can't use magic outside of the cellar without the Ministry's Trace
finding us. And those aren't the only rules we'd be breaking. What do you think will happen if the
police are called? Getting expelled from Hogwarts is only the least of it; they'd execute us as spies
if they caught us!"
"If you've a better idea, let's hear it, then."

"I'm going to tell Mum," said Hermione in her most assertive voice, ignoring Tom's scowl of
displeasure. No doubt in Tom's mind, the notion of Telling Mum was an infraction equal to Calling
the Police or Dobbing to a Professor. "She doesn't know everyone here, but she knows people who
know other people. And once they know of the circumstances, they'll be eager to help, even if that
includes pulling a few favours."

Tom sighed, and the warm puff of his breath whistled past her ear. "I'm still keeping 'Operation:
Break-In' up my sleeve. Just in case."

"It's going to stay there," Hermione told him. "Because you won't need it."

Tom's response was another non-committal sigh.

Chapter End Notes

— To the readers who complained in the comments two chapters ago that Hermione making a
deal with Nott was "out of character", Hermione of canon "betrayed" Harry and Ron when she
took the Firebolt Christmas present and gave it to McGonagall. She also badgered Harry
through OotP because he wouldn't tell anyone about his weird dreams or Umbridge's torture
detentions, and then continued through HBP when Harry refused to turn Snape's textbook in.
Hermione may be loyal to her friends, but her ethics are just as—and sometimes more—
important, especially if she has to choose between doing the right thing versus standing aside
and letting friends get hurt.

— It should be worth pointing out that Tom is so good at lying that he can do it without
actually telling lies. He also presents himself with a different persona depending on his
audience. Compare the way he acts around The Boys, around Hermione, and around adult
authority figures.

— THE BIG REVEAL. Readers were wondering about how much the canon plot would be
reflected in this story, and part of that was the reveal of Tom's family. I wanted it to be organic
here, so while Tom gets some information, it's not all the information. Just to clarify: Tom Sr.
isn't Tom's half-brother, but they don't know that. Though that would be pretty wild if it was
true...

— This chapter covers the end of Fifth Year and the beginning of summer. Summer will
continue for the next 1.5 chapters, before Sixth Year begins.
 Legacies
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1943

After Major Tindall's shocking news, the rest of Tom's evening passed in a confusing welter of
emotions.

He was asked to dance a few times by other guests, which he refused. He was asked to pose for the
photographer, and since it was Hermione who had asked him, he couldn't refuse without reneging
on their deal. Later, Tom tagged along as Hermione engaged several academics in an animated
discussion about the newest medical breakthrough, some anti-infective treatment called
'Penicillin'. Apparently it was extracted from fermented fungus, which to him was just as off-
putting as milking Murtlaps for their tentacle secretions. Murtlap Essence, the magical world's
equivalent of Penicillin, had been invented by wizards several centuries ago, so Tom found the
Muggle invention not as much of an achievement as all the doctors and scientists thought it to be.

He listened with only half an ear, his thoughts churning from one idea to another; there were so
many things he wanted to do, courses of action he could take instead of standing around and
sipping seltzer water while hearing old men reminisce about the days when laudanum was
considered the Magic Bullet of modern medical science.

The options that he'd come up with were to:

Go back to his room at the Leaky Cauldron, throw up a Silencing Charm, then toss the furniture at
the walls until nothing was left but broken wood and scraps of bedsheet. (That was equivalent to
saying farewell to his room deposit, unless he repaired everything before the day maid arrived to
deliver the paper and change the towels.)

Go back with the Grangers and set fires in their cellar. Incendio, Confringo, Bombarda, Reducto,
some of the more destructive spells in his répertoire, but had never had a place to cast at the
magnitude that he knew he was capable of, over and over until he was wrung out and trembling
with exhaustion.

Go to the Office of Military Records in Westminster, less than two miles away from the hotel,
which would be closed from tonight until Monday morning. He could sneak around the back and
try to pick the locks with magic—wandless magic if he could manage it—and at this moment, Tom
missed Peanut more than ever. He could use his wand if he had to; Travers, whose father worked at
the Ministry, had said that underage wizards got two or three strikes unless it was a serious offense,
and anything not serious could be appealed by knowing the right person.

Go to King's Cross Station, less than a mile away. Hop on the next train out to Leeds or York, then
look for his family. There could only be so many Riddles, and he knew where to start—Major
Tindall had told him that Lieutenant Thomas Riddle was a few years younger than he, born in or
around 1880. A prominent family in the area, the Riddles were, one that sent their sons to
expensive public schools. There would be records in the archives of the civil authorities.
And then what? Hermione would ask. He could already hear her voice in his head, reciting facts
and figures from her encyclopaedic brain. York is two hundred miles from London. The train goes
fifty miles an hour and stops at every other major station in the Midlands. If you leave now, what
are you going to do when you get there, assuming you aren't forced to wait for transfers?

Knock on their door at four in the morning? Shout, "Lo and behold, the prodigal son has returned!"
while they're standing at the door in their dressing gowns?

Laying out his options like this showed him that, while he could think of many amusing things he
could do to people for whom he had no reason to like, there was no clear objective to his actions. It
was an emotional response, which he would have enjoyed—just as he would have enjoyed seeing
Lestrange permanently crippled, Hastings made a laughingstock for life, or Nott brain-damaged
beyond repair—but there was no tangible gain beyond his own amusement. A few years ago, he
might have deemed it worth it, and to be truthful about it, some part of him still did.

However...

Wasn't it wasteful?

What if they could be useful?

He'd never know, not if he incapacitated them first and realised later that he had questions he
wanted to ask.

("When you've purged your senators," Hermione had once asked him, "who will collect your
taxes?")

There were things he wanted to know, questions missing their answers.

He wanted to hear them answered.

(Another part of him wanted to hear them plead.)

Were you so confident to think that no one would ever know?

Was it but a momentary lapse of judgement to you?

What did you think would happen?

Why were you so weak—

How could you—

How dare you—

And in that instant, all of his emotions narrowed into a sharp point, a single focused bead of rage.
A wave of righteous anger blazed through him, a sensation that smarted in his throat like his first
taste of brandy, setting his skin afire; it was burning heat from his eyes to his veins to the very tips
of his fingers, and his right hand—his wand hand—curled around something that should have been
there and found nothing.

In his chest there grew a blistering cold, unfurling itself in the crucible of his wrath, itching,
stinging, aching—
Numbing him from the inside out, immune to the raw burn on the surface of his skin, freezing his
limbs where he stood; it held him breathless and speechless and motionless, held him like a fist
clenching around his heart.

How dare he?

They would see how he dared.

They would see it at four in the morning, in their dressing gowns and nightshirts and carpet
slippers.

Why should it matter to Tom what they wore? What he wore, what he ate, where he slept—none
of that had ever mattered to Thomas Riddle.

His hand slipped into his jacket, feeling for the narrow pocket along the breast that the Diagon
Alley tailor had added to a Muggle-made pattern for a few extra sickles.

"Tom?" came Hermione's voice from behind him, the heels of her slippers clicking over the floor,
"are you alright? I told Mum, and she said she would start making enquiries tonight, and ringing
people up tomorrow if they might know something and aren't here now. You must be excited; I
know how you've always wondered who your family were."

He blinked. Intention drifted from thought; thought dispersed from the vague stirrings of action;
the connections between What-Could-Be and What-Will-Be began to dim and dwindle, pulling
apart like a length of fraying rope, half-formed threads vanishing before they reached an
irreversible point of convergence.

His hand stilled from where it pressed over his heart, over the carved yew handle warmed by his
skin, a layer of worsted wool between it and him.

Tom stared down at the picked-through selection of things-on-crackers laid out on the canapé
table. The hours had drawn toward midnight, and the families who'd brought young children were
long gone. The remaining guests were the old men nursing their brandies, and the younger couples
who wanted to enjoy the festive ambience and live music for as long as they could, before they had
to go back to their war-fraught lives. A life where casualty lists were announced on the wireless
each evening, and newspaper headlines each morning warned of enemy saboteurs behind every
corner, or some new directive by the government meant to safeguard the populace, but only served
to curtail personal freedoms.

He had wandered off to a corner of the ballroom, far from the dance floor, and out of range of the
tobacco smoke drifting from the veterans' section.

Cigarettes. He had never liked them, even as a child who had seen tobacco use as a near-universal
habit among the adults of South London. Nowadays, he considered it a vice shared by the stupidest
and weakest-willed members of society, much like addiction to drink, gambling, or solicitation of
the flesh.

Street proselytisers called them Social Evils.

Tom saw them for what they were: filthy Muggle habits.
Their existence had, a few years ago, inspired Tom's childbearing license system, which Hermione
had rejected out of hand within minutes of his pitching the idea to her.

"My father is a M—" Tom stopped before he finished the word, then continued in a hoarse voice,
"a You-Know-What. No wizard would volunteer himself in a war against farmers and tribesmen."

Hermione blinked at him in disbelief. "Does it matter? My dad's not a wizard either. He went to
war; he's a veteran just like yours. You should be proud that your father served Britain—and he did
it as an officer, too."

"I assumed for so long that he was the source of my... unusual gifts," said Tom. "That not having
given me anything else in my life, at least he'd given me a legacy of some worth."

"Why is a legacy even important?" said Hermione, pursing her lips in as she always did when she
was clearly frustrated with him, but still trying to follow his thoughts to their logical conclusion. "I
don't have one, and it doesn't bother me. I've never cared if other people had one or not, since
nothing about it changes who they are as people—not their achievements, or their potential. With
or without a legacy, you're still Tom to me. The Tom I've always known, who likes the colour
green, reading about Roman history, chocolate without nuts, or the smell of new books.

"The people who read your articles don't care a whit about legacies—they don't even know the real
person behind the pen name. Yet they still like what you've written, they listen to what you say,
and you've won their recognition on your own merits. If anything, having your gifts be a result of
another person's legacy diminishes your own efforts, as if someone else is to be given credit for the
work you've done. And I don't like that, not in the least, because nothing about that is fair!"

Tom was silent for a half minute, contemplating the merits of her argument.

Avery and Travers: they were two boys who had grown up shouldering their respective family
legacies. Avery bore the weight of a dusty old name that struggled to remain relevant in a society
where those old names were becoming an ever smaller minority, due to the influx of Muggleborns
and war-displaced émigrés. To stay afloat in his academics, Avery took remedial tutoring with
magical newcomers Riddle and Granger, all while hoping his noble parents never found out what
their once proud son had reduced himself to.

Travers, on the other hand, lived his entire life in the shadow of his father's career—Auror by
twenty, fast-tracked to Head Auror, then head of one the largest Ministry departments, the DMLE,
which was only rivalled in importance by the DIMC, International Magical Co-operation. Travers
got private summer lessons, but had never once ranked among the top five in Hogwarts' Duelling
Club. Lacking the most of basic Auror instincts, he was physically unco-ordinated and fumbled his
wand draw during their speed duelling sessions.

Tom had very rarely examined the lives of the people he interacted with, beyond what it took to
manipulate their thoughts and actions into a more convenient direction. Other people were like
starlings to him, their lives irrelevant to his own. If he was a star, then they were bits of orbiting
asteroid; if he was the steak sirloin—and he was really scraping the bottom here for these
analogies, but he did what he had to do to make a point—they were the parsley garnish. When they
weren't making themselves useful to him, their ground state of existence revolved around proving
him to be superior in every possible way.

"The Roman Republic had a concept they called the Novus homo," said Tom in a conversational
tone, while Hermione looked puzzled at his apparent non-sequitur. "It means 'New Man', and it
referred to someone who was elected to Rome's highest public office, someone who couldn't trace
his ancestry up the line to a family member who had served before."

"I'm sorry, but... what?" said Hermione, perplexed by this shift in their conversation. He'd observed
years ago that Hermione thought in straight lines, making logical connections between Points A
and B, through to Point Z at the end with no deviations along the way. It was useful at times: for
example, when he wanted her to check that his recipes and spell diagrams were written with the
right sequence of instructions. At other times it was self-limiting, or so Tom believed; his personal
thought patterns could be described in terms of intuitive leaps. Illogical to Hermione, who
complained about it when she read over his notes and the first drafts of his articles, but it wasn't
nonsensical to him.

It was brilliance.

"You've always been clear about how much you dislike the Ministry of Magic, the whole idea of
working your way through the ranks for a run at the Minister's office." She paused. "Unless you've
changed your mind about that?"

"I'm not interested in being Minister—"

"But you said that there's never been a Muggleborn Minister before!"

"I never said I wanted to be the one," Tom interjected. "I was going to say that the New Men of
Rome earned their right to rule; through their achievements, they elevated their entire lineage to the
rank of nobility, and forged their own legacies."

"So," said Hermione, tilting her head, "you were going to say that my argument was valid?"

"Possibly..." Tom gritted out.

"And that I'm right?"

"Not in so many words, no."

"Oh, Tom," Hermione sighed. "You can lie through your teeth all you want, but no one can lie
through a hug."

And having said that, she flung her arms around his chest and squeezed him in a tight hug.

He was struck by a bizarre clash of familiar and alien sensations: Hermione smelled the same as
she always did, sweet and floral; it was a scent that clung to her skin and clothes so that when she
shed her outer robe during duelling practice, he always knew which robe out of the pile of
shapeless black uniforms was hers. Her skin was soft, her body a warm and solid weight, her hair a
gentle tickle against his own skin.

But some things were so completely different that his memory stuttered halfway through dissecting
the differences between Then and Now, where Then was a fond recollection that he'd analysed
from all possible angles during late night meditation sessions in his four-poster, and Now was
Hermione Granger in a ribbon-trimmed evening gown pressed against his chest. This version of
Hermione was inordinately small compared to the one of his memories: this time, her arms didn't
reach all the way around, and the top of her head stopped right under his nose, leaving her fluffy
hair to whisk against his lips.
She lifted up her face to look at him, and said, "I think I'd have been devastated if someone else had
been made Prefect instead of me. No, not 'think', I know I would have been. And every time I saw
someone with a Prefect badge—it doesn't matter what House—I'd look at it and ask myself why I
didn't have one. I'd be crushed if I got my O.W.L. results and saw an Acceptable where I'd
expected Outstanding. I'd spend weeks questioning myself, wondering what went wrong. Was it
me? Did I not study enough? Did I finish the test without noticing that the back of the page had
questions I never even saw? Did the professor teach the subject poorly, or was it the examiner and
the textbook author?"

She gave him a wry smile and pressed her cheek to his starched white shirtfront. "I bet all of that
sounds stupid to you. And honestly, it is remarkably silly, only I'd never know it unless I'd stopped
stewing in my own misery. Because the truth of it is that it doesn't matter. So what if I never got to
sit in the Prefect compartment? So what if I got an A, or even all A's? None of that would ever
change the truly important things: that Mum and Dad love me, and will always love me no matter
what. That if I had to run away right now and live in a tent for the next three months, you'd come
with me. And that I'm a witch who can do the impossible with a wave of my wand. Nothing could
ever take magic away from me. Not even a Troll mark."

In a much softer voice, she added, "There are things you'll always have, too. You're a wizard.
You're brilliant. You're good at teaching and writing. You have ridiculously perfect penmanship.
You have magic—and nothing else can ever compare to that."

His arms rose up, wrapping tightly around Hermione's waist. She was scarcely more than an
armful—at what point had she become so small? He couldn't remember, as he had never gotten
into the custom of returning her hugs; it was always Hermione who designated the location and
duration of each hug, while he stood stiffly and allowed her to do so. He did enjoy it while they
lasted, something he wouldn't have admitted a year and a half ago, but until now he'd always
refused to participate, believing that there was something undignified about the whole concept of
extemporaneous physical contact.

Tom rested his chin on the top of her head. "I also have you."

("Why on Earth do I need friends like them?" a twelve-year-old Tom had once asked. "I have
you.")

"Don't be silly," said Hermione. "We have each other."

A minute of reflective silence came and went.

"I read in a book," Hermione began, starting her sentence in the same fashion as she had a hundred
times before, "that in Ancient Rome, many Romans chose their own families. They used to adopt
children left and right back then. And not just children, but grown adults, too."

"They also chose their own ancestors," Tom said. "Every other Emperor, once he got himself
crowned, claimed descent from the gods."

"I don't think that's the same thing, Tom."

"Of course it is, Hermione. Which of us is the designated fact interpreter here?"
For the next several days, Tom joined Hermione at the Grangers' house after breakfast at The Leaky
Cauldron.

Ostensibly, they'd decided on this arrangement for practical reasons.

Hermione wanted to practice driving while her magic use was restricted during the summer, a skill
she deemed useful in the event she decided to stay in London after leaving Hogwarts, or if she was
faced with an emergency. In the meantime, it would be useful to get around Muggle London when
they lacked access to the Floo Network. (The lack of a Floo Connection was acknowledged by the
Granger family as a terrible inconvenience, but Hermione couldn't lodge the registration forms until
her seventeenth birthday, which was less than three months away.)

So she drove the family motorcar thirty miles from Crawley to Charing Cross to pick him up, since
she knew the roads well from being chauffeured by her parents over the previous summers. Her
father had attached a Medical Corps sign to the rear window, civilian motorists having become rare
to non-existent due to the constriction on petrol rations.

Tom used their time together to work on various projects: for Tom, it was writing articles for his
advice column, which the Editor-in-Chief had wanted published fortnightly if possible; for
Hermione, it was enchanting the motorcar to ensure her parents could still use it when she was
away at Hogwarts for the school term. She had considered using the Refilling Charm on a dozen
jerry cans for her father to top up the tank when it was empty, but the idea of leaving that much
petrol laying around when an aerial bomb could fall at any moment made it a more dangerous idea
than it was worth.

"Every time I get in, I feel like I'm boarding a metal death machine," remarked Tom, gingerly
closing the passenger side door from where he sat inside the Grangers' motorcar. "How do
Muggles even trust these things?"

"I trust them," said Hermione primly. She tugged on her driving gloves and started the motor into
neutral. "This 'metal death machine' was built on an assembly line. Every part is identical to a
part used in thousands of other motorcars, and if they combusted spontaneously on contact, I'm sure
someone would have noticed." Looking both ways, she peeled the motorcar out into the thin flow
of traffic, adding, "I don't see how it's any different from trusting the Hogwarts Express, which was
built by Muggles—stolen from them without payment, I'll have you know—but everyone gets on it
every year, even the purebloods, and no one complains about it... Well, they do about the trolley's
snack selection, or the lack of it. But that's a separate issue."

"The reason why they don't complain is because the Express has the Minister for Magic's seal of
approval on it," Tom pointed out, leaning back into the leather upholstery of the front bench seat,
one eye watching Hermione work the foot pedals with her plimsolled driving shoes.

Driving a motorcar was less intuitive than a wizarding broomstick, where one merely had to shout
Up! at it to get it started, then lean to change directions or altitude. Simple enough for an eleven
year old to operate, although some specialty skills weren't taught in Flying Class—he'd heard
Rosier and Lestrange debate a technique called 'countersteering' from their Quidditch magazines,
which involved turning the broom in the opposite direction than the way you wanted to go;
apparently it was something the professionals had come up with to turn fast corners on the brand
new Comet 180's.

"Even though it was a major breach of the Statute to steal the train, the Minister back then signed
off on it, and made the Obliviators hush it up," Tom continued. "Purebloods complaining about the
Minister being a Muggle-lover for using their contraptions wouldn't have a leg to stand on because
everyone saw how she robbed them blind. Platform Nine and Three Quarters used to be a part of
King's Cross, and she took that too—not only can't the Muggles see it, but they've forgotten that it
exists."

Hermione's eyes darkened; her hands gripped the steering wheel, leather gloves creaking at the
seams. "Don't they realise how contradictory it is? Muggles produce inventions that are worth the
effort of taking, but not worth compensating them for? The whole thing must have happened last
century, based on the design of the Express, but somehow I doubt that anyone since then has ever
thought about giving it back. I know the average wizard doesn't think much of Muggles—"

Not just the average wizard, thought Tom, but he kept that comment to himself.

"—But even if they overlook who the victims were, they can't deny that theft is a criminal act!"
Hermione scowled, shoulders hunched inwards. "It's wholly indefensible. It's unconscionable!"

"Wouldn't things be different if you were in charge?" asked Tom in an innocent voice.

"I, for one, wouldn't sign off on institutional thievery," Hermione bit out.

"What would you sign off on?"

"Heaps of things!"

"Hmm," said Tom, his eyes half-lidded in the bright sunlight streaming in through the windshield.
"You'd never sign anything if you stayed in Muggle London."

Hermione shook her head in bemusement. "I know what you're doing, Tom."

"It's called 'helping'," Tom replied, folding his arms behind his head. "Or, to be more precise,
helping you to help yourself help other people."

"Sometimes I wonder if you ever listen to yourself talk," said Hermione, her lips pressed together
where she was suppressing a smile.

"All the time," Tom answered, "and I never tire of it."

"Sometimes I wonder if we'd be friends now if we hadn't been limited to sending letters to each
other back then." Hermione looked aside, her left hand reaching for the gearshift as they entered
the Grangers' neighbourhood of Argyll Street. "If I had to listen to you speak at length—without
knowing you—I can't say I'd have been won over."

"But I managed it in the end, didn't I?" asked Tom, in a distracted tone, fiddling with the handles on
the inside of the passenger door. Why did the passenger even need a side mirror? "With the help
of my ridiculously perfect penmanship, naturally."
Hermione flushed. "You're never going to forget that, are you?"

"I'll always remember such a heartfelt speech; I'm not afraid to say that it won me over." Tom, who
had been gazing out of the window, suddenly straightened up in the bench seat, cocking his head.
"Someone else's motor is blocking your drive. You'll have to park in the street."

"Right," said Hermione firmly, knuckles tightening over the steering wheel. "Hold on to something
—I haven't quite got the knack of parking parallel."

They made it into the house twenty-five minutes later, after Tom had discovered the purpose of the
passenger's side mirror. With the mirror, he could see where Hermione had drawn up to the kerb at
an angle instead of being level with it. Hermione had had to reverse the motor, then inch back in
until she'd gotten it straight; Tom had almost begun to regret pointing out Hermione's mistakes, as
he hadn't expected she'd take the Drivers' Road Regulations Handbook so seriously.

"You'll have to move the motor once whoever parked in your drive leaves," Tom was saying. "The
third time was almost straight enough; no one would have noticed that you were off by ten
degrees." His shoes had only touched the footpath outside the Leaky Cauldron before he'd slid into
the motorcar, but he wiped them on the doormat anyway, as it was both the hygienic and polite
thing to do.

Hermione unbuttoned her driving coat in the vestibule, hanging it up on the coat stand inside the
door. She hesitated, one arm raised over a hook, eyeing the row of coats occupying the other
spaces.

"That's funny." Hermione's voice came out soft and subdued, as if she was speaking to herself, "I
can't remember Mum ever having a mink in this colour. She usually keeps her furs boxed away
until September."

"Maybe she bought a new coat?" Tom suggested, willing to humour her, but nevertheless impatient
to dive into his magical projects. There was an article he'd written on vanity charms that he wanted
to show Hermione; she'd always had a good sense about what things best appealed to the average
witch.

"Mum hasn't bought any new furs since before the war," said Hermione. "And she wouldn't buy
any now—with the rationing on, she's been careful with what we get from Diagon Alley. I don't
think this is her coat."

Upon saying that, she stuffed her driving gloves into the pocket of the matching coat, leaving them
hanging in the vestibule. She ventured cautiously into the house proper, looking both ways, one
hand pressed to the pocket of her skirt. Tom followed her, reaching for his own wand.

Hermione's soft-soled shoes padded quietly over the linoleum floor tiles of the entrance-way,
passing an umbrella stand in the corner, Wellington boots on a floor rack, and a series of framed
botanical illustrations on the walls, depicting the various stages of a mushroom's life cycle. Tom
didn't understand why anyone had chosen them for home decorating, but he supposed that to the
scientific sort, mushrooms were a natural curiosity, being something in between animal and
vegetable without falling into either category. For some reason, people liked collecting curiosities.
He himself enjoyed rare spells, particularly the more gruesome medical ones: one of his recent
favourites was the Debridement Spell, which the Healing textbooks recommended for removing
warts or cleaning wounds before applying potions, but could be cast at a greater power to pare off
flaps of skin as easily as peeling a potato.
The dining room, when they peeked in, was empty. So was the family sitting room, where a basket
of yarn balls occupied the squashy armchair closest to the currently silent wireless set.

The Grangers' formal parlour, however, was not empty.

There was a stranger sitting in the parlour, looking mildly distressed by such a vivid representation
of the middle class lifestyle. She clutched her handbag in her lap as if she was afraid that someone
would jump up from behind the settee and snatch it out of her hands. The way her lips were pursed
was familiar to Tom; he'd seen it on many a Slytherin girl when they passed the latest victim of one
of Peeves' pranks in the corridors, or the unlucky girl they'd unanimously decided to shun for the
week. (As Tom limited his contact with the girls in his House, he didn't know how the winner was
chosen. Not that he particularly cared; they were interchangeable to him for the most part, being as
that they rarely said anything interesting or did anything useful.)

The stranger—she was a woman—hadn't glanced their way when Hermione entered the parlour,
hand to her pocket. She sat stiff, with her posture straight and her legs crossed demurely at the
ankle, dressed in a matched jacket and skirt in a handsome hacking tweed with a line of pearls
peeking out at the throat, a heavy gold filigree brooch pinned over her breast, and shiny heeled
shoes on her feet that bridged the gap between sensible and fashionable. While her clothes were an
indication of her station, her hair was an indicator of her age: it was a rich brown streaked with
grey and tightly pinned up at the back of her head, showing that she was much older than either of
Hermione's parents. Its severity suited the tight lines around her eyes and mouth, which was
pinched together as if she was in the midst of doing something she regretted, and was halfway to
changing her mind and taking her leave at once.

"Excuse me?" Hermione stepped away from the door and into the parlour. "I'm sorry, but who are
you?" she asked, but the sharpness in her tone gave the impression that her real question was, 'And
what are you doing in my house?'

The woman's eyes flicked over her, noting Hermione's fluffy hair and her casual summer clothing
—white blouse with a girlish round collar, pleated skirt, knitted stockings—all of which were
unremarkable for a school student during the holidays.

"Mrs. Mary Riddle of Hangleton," the woman said, not rising from her seat. "Pleasure to make
your acquaintance." Her manner of speech was precise and crisp to the point of frostiness, with not
a single extended vowel or dropped consonant that one would expect of a Yorkshire native; in fact,
it had very little to distinguish it from the urbane public school dialect spoken by Roger Tindall and
his set.

"Pleasure," came Hermione's automatic response, manners taking over in lieu of the tactful affront
that Tom could tell she'd been prepared to deliver. "I'm Hermione Granger, daughter of Doctor and
Mrs. Granger of Crawley. You must be Tom's—"

Mrs. Mary Riddle's attention was suddenly diverted from Hermione, having noticed the figure
standing behind her at the doorway.

Hermione glanced over her shoulder, then at Mrs. Riddle sitting before her in an itchy, horsehair-
stuffed formal armchair. The woman stared at Tom, eyes scanning him from top to toe and
lingering on his face; her expression morphed from one of shock, to a kind of misplaced familiarity,
then to a queer delight, her eyes brightening up and the lines around her eyes not quite as cold and
severe as they had been.
Tom stared back.

"You look just like your father," she breathed.

Those two words, Your Father, had never in Tom's life represented anything good. When he was a
child, it was something that other children had but which he had never known, and all his tricks and
talents could never seize it from them to bestow it upon himself, to cleanse himself of the ignorance
that they flaunted in his face. When he was old enough for school, they were words that fell from
the mouth of Reverend Rivers, spoken in tones of solemn disapproval, describing a majestic yet
remote figure who was more discipline than guidance, more symbol than man. Your Father was
Everyone's Father, omnipresent and universal, and hearing the Reverend read his sacred words to
the orphanage flock had only made the six-year-old Tom feel smaller and more insignificant than
he already felt.

And in his most recent memories, Your Father was a character known second-hand, talked about in
muttered voices among the people who knew of him. A disgrace who had fallen from social
esteem; a gentleman in only the economic sense of the word, lacking the true gentility of his rank
due to the public airing of his misbehaviours.

Tom's hand dropped down to his trouser pocket, groping for the yew handle that stuck out past the
edge. As his fingers closed around it, he felt the tight clasp of another set of fingers closing around
his wrist.

He'd taken a step forward without conscious thought.

"Tom!" Hermione hissed. "What are you doing!"

She pushed his arm down where he was fighting her to lift it up, raise his wand—point it—aim it—

"Hermione? Tom?" called Mrs. Granger from behind them. "I've just put on some tea. There's
butter cake, too—I know you've never been partial to the ones shortened with margarine."

Mrs. Granger bustled past them, burdened by a loaded tea tray, unaware that Tom had almost drawn
his wand on a Muggle. On a houseguest.

But Hermione knew it, and she took hold of his right hand, fingers twining through his, pulling him
away from his wand and over to a settee.

"This is my house, not Diagon!" Hermione's voice was a harsh whisper. "You can't do that here!
You'll get me expelled!"

She didn't let go of his hand as Mrs. Granger set the tray on the coffee table and began passing out
cups and teaspoons. In addition to the teapot, there was a platter containing a sugar-dusted Victoria
sponge, and several small pots on the side with sugar cubes for the tea, and beaten cream and
lemon curd to go with the cake.

Mrs. Granger, as the hostess, poured the tea without spilling a drop, and after the circulation of the
sugar tongs and the cream, brushed off her hands and took a seat at the sofa opposite Tom and
Hermione.
"I suppose the introductions ought to come first," Mrs. Granger spoke, smoothing down the folds of
her apron. "Mrs. Riddle—?" she nodded in the direction of the other woman, "my daughter,
Hermione, and her friend from school, Tom Riddle. Tom, this is Mrs. Riddle, your grandmother
and your new guardian."

Hermione coughed over her tea. The serving knife in Tom's hand skidded over the platter,
splattering cake crumbs and globs of cream over the coffee table.

"Guardian—?"

"Grandmother?!"

They spoke at once, both of them utterly flabbergasted. Hermione's face was pink where she'd kept
herself from spraying tea over the sofa; Tom himself had paled, his eyes wide in shock, clutching
onto the knife when he couldn't go for his wand, which had, for the last few years, been the solution
for the vast majority of his life's problems.

(When Gordian's knot had been brought before Alexander the Great, the Emperor had taken his
sword and solved the puzzle with one swing. Tom's yew wand was the same thing—a single wave
could obliterate most obstacles from existence.)

"I should explain," began Mrs. Riddle, setting her spoon by the side of her saucer with a definitive
clink. "A week ago, a vicious rumour which began circulating around London was brought to my
attention by a group of concerned souls, including Mrs. Granger and Mrs. Blanche Tindall of
Weybridge. This rumour cast aspersions upon my husband's character, made insinuations upon
myself that I could not indulge, and thus I sought to redress them. And to my surprise, I found that
this rumour had its root in something that could not be brushed aside for being unworthy of my—
my family's—consideration."

Mrs. Riddle undid the clasp of her handbag and drew out a small square of paper, which she turned
the right way around and placed on the coffee table, clear of the spilled cream and cake crumbs.

A photograph, a few inches per side, black and white.

Hermione's face smiled up at him, and at her side stood Tom in his tailcoat and evening whites, his
expression stony and cold. His brows were set stubbornly on his pale face, his eyes shadowed in
contrast to the fairness of his skin; his dark hair fell over one side of his forehead in an elegant
wave. In the photograph, he made a striking sight, even in the static image produced by a Muggle
camera.

"I've come to London to rectify a great disservice," Mrs. Riddle continued, and her gaze fell once
again on Tom, as if she was attempting to devour him with her eyes. "My son Tom—he shares
your name—in some flight of youthful fancy, took up with the daughter of the village tramp and
married her near twenty years ago. He and the girl moved to London, living in dissolution, until he
ran out of the banknotes he'd brought with him; then, coming to his senses, he left her—your
mother—and returned to Yorkshire."

Mrs. Riddle held up her hand as to forestall Tom when his mouth opened to comment. "I make no
excuse for his deplorable behaviour; neither myself nor my husband look very well on it. I
consider it a stain upon our family, one that has only grown with the recent rumours. But you must
understand that he is our son, our one and only child, and as his son, you are our family. And after
the name of that girl, a Merope Gaunt Riddle, was traced to a marriage registrar in York, the
connection is unquestionable. As such, I've had arrangements made with the matron of the—" her
nostrils flared in pique, "—the orphanage, to have your guardianship transferred, and your
adoption papers processed. Your belongings have been collected for our return to Yorkshire with
the morning train, which will be departing King's Cross at half-past ten tomorrow—"

"I'm not going," Tom interrupted her.

A chilly silence descended upon the Grangers' formal parlour.

"Tom," murmured Hermione, nudging Tom with the sharp point of her elbow. "She's your family!"

"I don't need one," Tom said, lifting his eyes to meet Mrs. Riddle's. "I've gone without one my
entire life, so I don't see why I should need one now."

Mrs. Riddle had blue eyes, and within those eyes, Tom sensed first and foremost a sour streak of
forcefully repressed mortification, then a weighty and palpable tension induced by the constraints
of her current situation, a public scandal that she had had hopes of quashing, only to find her hopes
quashed, and now, all the options presented to her were unequivocally unappealing, and yet she
knew she had no choice but to take one of them.

A series of vague impressions stood out to him: a letter in the morning post, a black and white
photograph sliding out onto the breakfast table, then a burst of fearful apprehension at the violent
flight of tableware, glass and porcelain crossing the room in a blink of an eye and sparkling in
pieces on a Turkey carpet, hot tea and wheat porridge soaking down to the floorboards.
Arguments, bitter and cutting, slammed doors; arguments, sharp and imperious, slammed
telephone receivers; arguments, displeasure and vexation, papers and banknotes swapping hands.

"Family is not a business of need or want," said Mrs. Riddle. "You have one, and that is that."

"Then I choose to un-have it," Tom replied in a cool voice, his chin lifted in challenge. "If a child
can be disowned, then so too can a parent. I'm a year and a half from eighteen—hardly a child at
all. If a child was what you wanted, then you should have picked one up at Wool's. The place has
plenty of orphans who would be more grateful for a family than I am."

"Indeed, any orphan should be grateful," Mrs. Riddle said, "but you're not an orphan, Tom."

But I could be, thought Tom. It would be so easy; they're only Muggles.

"No," she went on, as the tea went cold and undrunk in her cup, "you're the beneficiary of my
husband's estate. A thousand hectares and a country house—they'll be yours one day. As of now, if
our solicitor has earned his retainer, it's your new home. The matron at that ghastly orphanage
won't have you back; your room there has already been cleared out."

"I already have a place to stay," said Tom. "I've hired a room in Charing Cross. It's paid up for the
rest of the summer."

"Before you go to Professor Dumberton's charity school, is that right?" Mrs. Riddle sniffed. "I'm
told that you do well in academics; I hope he's been preparing you properly for Oxford or
Cambridge when you finish."

Tom pushed his tea and cake away, his appetite gone. "Excuse me."
He stood up from the settee and stalked out of the room, taking the very familiar path down the hall
to the entrance of the Grangers' warded cellar.

The door flew open with a jerk of his wrist, and then his feet were pounding down the stairs, his
wand flown up into his hand, lighting the lamps on the walls and illuminating the vast space with
magical fire that began as the soft blue-white of the standard spell configuration, to the warm
yellow colouration used in the corridors of Hogwarts, then to an eye-searing red.

Black shadows wavered over the walls and under Tom's feet; his skin took on a red cast, the pale
wood of his wand coloured red in his red hands; he imagined that this must have been the boggart's
view from the inside of the burning wardrobe—what Old Ab's goats, Laurel and Curly, saw when
the blood vessels of their eyes burst under Tom's wand—what the spider's compound vision
perceived when Tom went down the list of Unforgivable Curses and found the one whose power
manifested itself in a scarlet jet of light.

The book said these Curses were among the most difficult spells to cast, and the Aurors' handbook
had provided no pronunciation guide, no wand movement diagram. Only intent was described, and
that had been enough for Tom, who had found it laughably simple to focus his mind on generating
the right emotions, visualising the right images. Intent and willpower; he had more than plenty of
each, enough that the tip of his wand was crackling with red light before he'd even spoken a
syllable of the incantation.

"Tom!" cried Hermione from the top of the stairs.

She shut the door behind her, her own wand held aloft, a bobbing point of white in the shifting
shadows of red and black as she scrambled down and made her way over to him.

"Tom," she said, lowering her arm, wandlight dimming but not extinguished.

Tom took a deep breath and turned around, a deep scowl on his face. "Who does that old hag think
she is?"

"She's your grandmother," said Hermione. "Your family."

"I don't want her."

"That doesn't change the facts."

"We're wizards—the facts can be whatever we want! Lure her down here, alter her memories, then
send her away. She'll never know what happened; she's just a Muggle—"

"I'll know the truth! So will my Mum."

"But you'll keep it quiet, and your mother will too, or I, I—"

"Shut up, Tom!" shouted Hermione. "Accio wand!"

Tom's wand flew into her hand, and then Hermione was clutching his wand and her own close to
her chest, her eyes wet and glittering in the red light of the flickering lamps.

"You should think before you speak, or before you do something stupid," she snapped. "Mum went
out of her way to find Mary Riddle—"
"For all the good that's been!"

"She's done nothing but good for you, Tom." Hermione spoke hoarsely, wisps of hair flying out of
the neat pins she'd been wearing earlier than morning. "You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Mum.
I'd never have met you that day at the orphanage, if it wasn't for her. You'd never have stayed here
over the summer if Mum had said no. Mum allowed it because of me—because I wanted it—
because that's what families do when they care about each other. Question Mary Riddle's
incentives all you want, but at least she's doing something instead of hiding away in her country
house and pretending you don't exist. She came all the way here for you; you could at the very
least show her some respect, and—and give her a chance."

"A chance to replace her worthless son with the next best thing, you mean," Tom interjected
sourly. "You must have noticed how she kept looking at me."

Hermione sniffled, then she fell silent for a few seconds. "She's not perfect, but that's the thing
about families—none of them are." She swallowed, and when she continued, Tom could hear that
she was trying to hide a quaver in her voice. "Another thing about families is that they keep trying
anyway. The decent ones, at least."

Tom's eyes narrowed. "You want me to go with her."

"I don't want you to throw this away! This is how you'll never have to worry about money again.
You can get any job you want in the Muggle world; attend any university, with or without the
entrance exams, and on top of that, your family connections will see you out of conscription if the
government ever comes around with your papers." Then Hermione added in a forceful voice, "In
one swoop, you've been offered everything that people like my Dad have worked years to have!"

"There's an issue with your logic," Tom pointed out, "in that none of it applies to a wizard."

"Only if you don't want it to," Hermione retorted. "But I know that Llewelyn Caldwell had the
sense of mind to take advantage of it."

Tom's face went blank. "Who's Llewelyn Caldwell?"

Hermione huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "Gryffindor Prefect, three years ahead of us.
Muggleborn—but his mother's father was an earl. Honestly, Tom, don't you pay attention?"

"Was he that poncy one? The one who wore knickerbockers and gaiters every Sunday?"

Tom vaguely recalled one upper year Gryffindor who'd stayed at Hogwarts during all the holidays,
and because there were no classes, had showed up to each meal in Muggle clothing. Not knitted
jumpers sent from home that a few Muggleborn students—including Hermione—wore over their
white uniform blouses, but entire curated ensembles that made him look as if he was minutes away
from popping off to the greens for a round of golf. The Slytherin girls had whispered to each other
about Caldwell's taste, or his lack of it, which was an affront to the name of wizard... but Tom
wondered if they whispered about other things as well, since Caldwell made no pains to hide the
signet ring on his finger, which was as heavy and ornate as any pureblood heir's.

"I'm sure he'd be pleased to be remembered by his clothing choices," said Hermione, sniffing.
"Yes, that one. He's now studying marine magizoology, and plans to convert one of his family
estates in Wales into a reserve for selkies and other magical creatures, where the money made from
collecting parts will go into his personal research. The Ministry's Department of Magical
Education would never have given him research funding due to his lack of connections, but that
didn't matter, because his family supported him!

"Mr. Pacek told me," she continued, gesturing with her hands, Tom's wand in no danger of slipping
out of her grasp, "that they've restored the crumbling old family castle with magic at a fraction of
the cost it would have taken with Muggle labour. And now that the land is registered as a
wizarding residence, the Caldwells can bypass the new estate taxes that the British government put
on the Peers to pay for the war. So, you see, there are advantages to keeping a foot on both sides—
and you'd throw it away when it's offered to you, because you're too proud to take it?"

Hermione made a frustrated harrumph, rather similar to the sound a cat made when someone sat
down in the Common Room without first checking the sofas. "It never seemed to bother you
before."

"You're trying to use logic on me," Tom said accusingly.

"Is it working?"

"It won't change my mind about Mary Riddle," said Tom. "I've a good mind to believe that she's a
pretentious shrew who thinks that 'all boys need a good thrashing to become men', and only regrets
that her own son wasn't thrashed enough. And that she complains about every penny the
greengrocer charges, even though she's the richest old harridan in town. I know her kind; she's the
worst sort of cheek-pinching Granny God-botherer. And to top it all off, she's my granny."

"And your guardian, too."

A sullen silence descended between the two of them. The red light cast eerie, jaundiced shadows
over their faces, until Hermione flicked her wand at the walls, the shadows shifting and the lights
brightening up to yellow-white, resembling natural sunlight rather than the electric bulbs used
upstairs or the enchanted candlelight of the Hogwarts classrooms.

"You'll be seventeen in December," said Hermione. "And I'll be seventeen in September. If you
have to live in Yorkshire, you can visit every day once we open a two-way Floo Connection. And
we'll have Apparition licenses by summer of next year, too."

"I'll be eighteen when I finish Hogwarts," added Tom. "She won't have a hold on me by then."

"Are you going to tell her you're a wizard?"

Tom's laugh was brittle and humourless. "Forget Oxford or Cambridge; she'd try to talk up sending
me to a seminary."

"Well, if you need to get away from her, I'll always have a tent you can borrow," Hermione offered,
jerking her chin in the direction of her family's magical tent, which had the dimensions of a
portable changing stall he'd seen on the annual seaside trips taken with the rest of the orphans.

"Once we've gotten rid of her, I'll have a mansion," Tom said, a flicker of a smile on his face.

Hermione's nose scrunched up. "Tom!"

"Hermione!"
Hermione heaved a great sigh of exasperation, then tossed his wand at him. "Come on, we should
go back up. They'll be wondering what happened to us."

When they climbed the flight of stairs back up to ground level, they came upon a very unwelcome
sight: in the parlour, Mrs. Granger and Mrs. Riddle were sharing a pot of tea, their heads bent over
a large book, the pages of which were pasted with a neverending series of family photographs.

"This one was taken when we went to the opera; a Puccini, I think—that was for Christmas of
Thirty-Seven. Look at how small Tom used to be!" said Mrs. Granger, turning over the page.
"This one's from the summer of Thirty-Nine. We got Hermione a pet owl that year, and here's Tom
feeding him. You'd think it'd be a messy business to turn owls into pets, but the place that sold
them trained their birds like homing pigeons."

"Oh, this one is darling," murmured Mrs. Riddle, pointing at a photograph on the new page. "He
looks like his father at that age. He must be thirteen here?"

"Fourteen," said Mrs. Granger, "taken in the summer of Forty-One. Tom shot up like a weed that
year; he'd have eaten any other family out of house and home. If you're amenable to it, Mary, I can
have a set of copies made for your own family album."

Tom and Hermione exchanged glances, their expressions exact mirrors of one another: complete
and utter horror.
Chapter End Notes

— As you might expect, Tom has a troubled relationship with his family, and this chapter isn't
the end of it. Tom is milder when he's around Hermione, and this is why he isn't flying off the
handle like Canon Tom... but he goes darker when he is off on his own. This will be a
continuing theme for him.

— The Riddles in HP canon were not nice, kind, and charitable people. They are not nice
people here either, and making Tom part of the family isn't motivated by niceness. However,
like all the other characters in this fic, they have shades of nuance and won't be 100%
irredeemably selfish snobs because that makes them boring characters.

— As mentioned in the comments section and chapter notes, starting from Chapter 19
(beginning of Fifth Year) the pacing will be slower compared to the earlier chapters, the
timeskips will be smaller, and plot events will be spaced closer together. You can see that this
chapter follows directly off the events of the previous. It may give the impression of the
slowburn feeling slower, because less time passes during each chapter, and yes, I'm aware of
that. I'm attempting to balance that with narrative plot progression, as this is, and was always
intended to be, a plot-centric and character-focused story. Shipping characters for a HEA
ending doesn't work unless the characters are mentally and emotionally prepared for it.
 Ad Hominem
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1943

The next few weeks were excruciatingly awkward for Hermione and her family.

Tom refused to leave London for his grandparents' home in Yorkshire. Mrs. Riddle couldn't impel
him while the solicitor was still finalising the adoption, transferring Tom's status from a Ward of
the Crown to being in their charge, a beneficiary in equal standing to their own son, whose
existence Mrs. Riddle did her best not to acknowledge in casual conversation.

The Grangers' home was used as a sort of No Man's Land, neutral ground where the two
contentious parties could meet in as much mutual cordiality as each side could muster.

And meet they did: every weekend, Mrs. Riddle would take the train down from York, let a room
at a first-rate hotel, and come to the Grangers' house for tea, or else invite the Grangers—and Tom
—to the tearoom of her hotel, where she would turn back and forth from interrogating Tom about
his childhood and the state of his education, to attempting to cajole him into moving into the
Riddles' stately home in the Yorkshire countryside. She didn't quite try to present Tom with a
freshly-weaned puppy or a pony tied up with a bow, but Hermione had a feeling that if it would
work, then Mrs. Riddle would offer.

Mrs. Riddle was firm on one thing, however: the paperwork would be completed by October,
Tom's official address settled for good, and so he would be expected in their home for the
Christmas holidays, and the summers away from school as well.

Tom had looked irate at that, and the conversation had gone stilted.

"The school allows students to stay for Christmas," said Tom, glaring across the table at Mary
Riddle. "The professors organise a supper feast so no one misses out on any holiday festivities."

"Ah," said Mrs. Riddle, swirling her tea around with a languorous twist of her wrist, the silver bowl
of the teaspoon never once jangling against the side of her cup. "I've written to the professor in
charge of student enrollment. The matron gave me the directions to one Professor Dumberton, the
man who brought over the scholarship offer—and he's assured me that he'll do his best to see you
off at the school station come December."

"Pardon me," said Tom in a rather strained voice. "You wrote to Dumbledore?"

"Yes, darling; do keep up," replied Mrs. Riddle. "Furthermore, he seems like a sensible chap; he
was delighted to hear the news that you've left that awful orphanage to be reunited with your proper
family. A family man, I take it," she declared emphatically. "We surely need more men like him in
this day and age."

Tom grimaced, looking as if he was debating the merits of debating his grandmother in a public
venue. Hermione knew that Tom had never liked Dumbledore from their first meeting; she also
knew that Dumbledore was unmarried and had no children, and for all their years at Hogwarts, had
shown no evidence of his romantic inclinations, either Magical or Muggle, British or of more
exotic persuasions.

As much as Tom might dislike it, Hermione was glad that Professor Dumbledore had written back;
many wizards would have ignored post that arrived in the Muggle fashion, and would never have
gone to the effort of sending their responses through the same. By the way that Mrs. Riddle hadn't
mentioned an owl flying through her drawing room window, Hermione assumed that the response
had been sent in a standard postage-stamped envelope. Which represented more than the
Professor's sympathy toward Muggle sensibilities, but also his active interest in Tom's personal
affairs.

Hermione hadn't appreciated the ambivalent way the Hogwarts professors had dealt with student
safety during the years of London's evacuation and the ensuing aerial bombings. Professor
Dumbledore had been one of the teachers who had disappointed Tom in that regard, to the extent
that Tom no longer appreciated the man's advice when it wasn't related to schoolwork or
academics. But she did appreciate—to Tom's annoyance, no doubt—that drawing Dumbledore's
notice meant any clandestine plans Tom had made to "get rid of" Mrs. Riddle would have to be
abandoned for good.

(She wasn't sure to what extent that off-the-cuff comment had been made in Tom's brand of
sarcasm, but Tom was capable of many things in a moment of great passion, and nothing made him
more passionate—in an overzealous, reactionary way—than being told what to do by white-haired
elders.)

"I'll come and visit you during the holidays," Hermione ventured, glancing at Tom, Mrs. Riddle,
then at her Mum, who had been shafted by necessity into the rôle of mediator, just as she had been.
"If you'll have me, that is."

It was uncanny how alike and unalike they were at the same time: Tom was decades Mary Riddle's
junior, dark of hair and eye, the softness of his chin and cheeks dissolving into the more angular
lines of true adulthood, blooming with the energy of youth, with the subtle hum of magic crackling
from his eyes and the ends of his fingers when he was feeling particularly incensed. Mrs. Mary
Riddle was thin and straight-backed, fair of complexion, with papery skin and greying hair; she was
stiff and polished like a department store mannequin—and she was as modish as one, judging by
the parade of furs and jewels she wore to tea and dinner each weekend.

But in common with Tom Riddle, Mrs. Mary Riddle possessed a certain commanding air shared by
any person who, for most of their life, was used to being obeyed and unquestioned, who had rarely
if ever been confronted by the evidence of their own shortcomings. In them was such an ingrained
surety that the universe was more likely to be at fault rather than themselves.

So of course they'd find it difficult to agree on anything, and to get anywhere, it was up to
Hermione to step in and force a compromise.

"I seem to recall that I'd have a room appointed for me," said Tom, inclining his head in
grandmother's direction. "Would it be so difficult to slip in a trundle bed? If you can't spare the
space, I'm sure Hermione wouldn't mind sharing with me, however it can be managed."

Hermione kicked Tom's shin under the table, which caused him to wince and glare at her.
"Tom's joking about that—obviously, a separate room would be the most proper thing to do,"
Hermione said quickly, biting back a nervous laugh. "I also know that Tom reads in bed all night
and never turns the light off, so I wouldn't want to share with him anyway. Even if he was gracious
enough to offer."

Tom's lips twisted into a faint smile. "At least I don't talk in my sleep," he countered.

"That was one time!"

"And you never told me what that was about."

"Well, you'll never find out, so that's that."

"We'll see," Tom began, before he was interrupted.

Mrs. Riddle cleared her throat. "Hermione, dear, if you see to it that Tom arrives to the station at
the right time and place, you can have your pick of our spare rooms. We've a dozen guest suites
and a library, too. Your mother has said how much you enjoy reading; we hardly use the library
ourselves, so you'll be free to make use of it as you wish. You can even pick out new additions, if
you'd like—my father-in-law had an interest in buying first editions, but the collection hasn't been
touched since then."

"Hermione's too clever to fall for that—"

"First editions?" said Hermione eagerly. "Oh, I just can't wait to read them, Mrs. Riddle."

Tom grumbled to himself, probably about being condemned to a Circle of Hell lower down than the
"Suburban Purgatory" that he called living with the Grangers. Purgatory was one of Tom's overly
theatrical exaggerations, because Mum and Dad had always tried to be welcoming to him, and
didn't expect him to take on any household chores outside of changing the linens, folding his own
laundry, and tidying up after himself in the bathroom—which was what students were expected to
do when living in the Hogwarts dormitories.

But Hermione still wondered whether Tom had a point about the downsides of living with the
Riddles, because their country house was on the edge of a village, which was as far a cry from the
clean, lamp-lit neighbourhoods of Crawley as Crawley was from the hustle of London's Oxford
Street during the morning shift change. Villages didn't have well-stocked news agents with dozens
of different papers and magazines on offer every day, so that Hermione could pick and choose the
one with the most informative articles. Villages had small, closely-knit communities where all the
residents knew one another and had a shared disdain for uppity city folk with their airs and graces
and dissolute city ways.

Hermione had always tried to be open-minded about things: while she supported Britain's
contributions to the war, she also sympathised with the civilians on the other side, whom she
couldn't lump into the category of being a "Danger to British Sovereignty and Freedoms", as the
morale broadcasters wanted the population to believe. To add to that, she'd never prayed for the
souls of British soldiers overseas, and her church attendance was also rather spotty—yet another
black mark against her as far as a hidebound village traditionalist would see it.

Soon after, their Christmas holiday plans were arranged between Mum and Mrs. Riddle, and the
dates set in stone. After Hermione examined her reservations about the matter with a logical eye,
the only person still unhappy about it was Tom, but then again, he did like to complain—but that
was his problem for having such ridiculous standards about everything.

(She was sure that if she quoted the Beggars Can't Be Choosers line at Tom, he would just grace
her with one of his inscrutable expressions and ask her why she thought it had any relation to his
situation. Tom Riddle had no equal, in more ways than one, and that was not always a good thing.)

The final weekend of the summer was marked by a dinner party at the Grangers' house, to which
the Tindalls, the Riddles, and Mr. Pacek were invited.

It was strange for Hermione to think of The Riddles in plural; for almost ten years, she had thought
of Tom as the Riddle, a singular being whose uncommon appearance and temperament she had
never encountered in anyone else, before or since going to Hogwarts. At school, whenever
someone, teacher or fellow student, referred to Riddle, she knew instantly that they were speaking
of Tom Riddle, the top duellist and all-around star pupil, a credit to his House and a standing
counterargument to the common-held attitude that Slytherins were arrogant or unpleasant.

But then she met Mr. Thomas Riddle, who had arrived with Mrs. Mary Riddle the evening of the
dinner party. When he hung up his hat in the vestibule and turned around, arms laden with a fine
vintage cognac and a box of cigars for Dad—who didn't smoke—she saw why Major Tindall had
only taken an instant to make his guesses at Tom's paternity.

Thomas Riddle was an older gentleman, tall and lean and looking distinguished for his years, his
hair thick and shiny, though lightened with streaks of grey about the sides and temples. He wasn't
an exact copy of Tom, far from it, but the more Hermione looked, the more similarities she saw:
the perfect waves of hair, of course; the same high-set arch of the brow; the angular structure of jaw
and chin; a trim and elegant figure that could make second-hand robes look brand new. Mr. Riddle
had a greying bottlebrush moustache and longer sideburns; Tom's eyes were darker, his skin paler
and much less lined—but the familial connection between the two of them was undeniable, and if
the truth had not been made known, Thomas Riddle could have passed as Tom's much older father.

Tom noticed it too; it was unavoidable that the subject come up, as the arriving guests could not
help but comment on it, crying: "Oh, here's Tom! He looks just like your old tintypes, Thomas; I
saw the resemblance in one glance!"

The introductions wore on, with Tom getting grumpier and grumpier, because there was nothing he
liked less than being compared to someone else. In Hermione's experience, Tom was used to being
the standard of comparison to whom other people were compared, and when it happened, it only
made the ways in which they fell short of Tom's accomplishments even more obvious. Tom's
sulking grew when Mrs. Blanche Tindall complimented his darling manners, which caused Mrs.
Riddle to lay her hands over Tom's shoulders and preen over him like a horticulturist and her blue-
ribbon begonias. It was all very disturbing to Hermione, who had years ago tried to imagine what
Tom would be like adopted into a family of his own, and given it up after drawing a blank.

"I don't think anyone expected this," Hermione remarked to Mr. Pacek in a corner of the room, a
glass of iced grenadine soda dripping over her hands in the heat of late summer. "Least of all Tom.
He looks like his soul is shrivelling up."

"They lack a certain je ne sais quoi, to put it delicately," said Mr. Pacek, observing the Riddles out
of the corner of his eye. "I expect young Mr. Riddle was disappointed about it—I have long since
taken him to be one who puts stock into the distinction between 'our kind' and everyone else."
Hermione sipped her grenadine, wiping off the sweaty glass on the hem of her skirt. "That's funny,
because I'm sure they see themselves as a different kind than the rest of us."

"'Apples and trees', or however the saying goes," Mr. Pacek said, nodding sagely. "I do not agree
with many of our dear friend Gellert's ideas, but I believe he is correct in the notion that what we
are is borne in the blood—and some people may find that it is further up the line for them than it is
in others. But perhaps it will do Mr. Riddle some good to accept that there are few, if any, inherent
differences between us and them."

Further introductions were made when the guests were led to table, seated in the formal dining
pattern of alternating male-and-female, which had only been done in the Grangers' house once or
twice over the course of Hermione's entire life. Having been accustomed to one knife and fork per
person, she was surprised to see that her family even owned this many sets of tableware.

"I'm given to understand that you are Hermione's private tutor?" said Mrs. Riddle to Mr. Pacek, her
tone shying just an inch short of sounding overly intrusive. It was her genteel, ladylike presence
that did it, turning prying questions into a matter of well-meaning concern.

"I am," Mr. Pacek confirmed, brow arched and returning her question with an equal amount of
frosty politeness.

"And what do you teach? Music? Dance? Déportement?"

"Languages."

"Hmph," said Mrs. Riddle, with a disdainful toss of her head. "Children these days are not getting
as much of a comprehensive education as they used to. I had a French governess as a girl, and my
son had an Austrian piano master when he was a boy. But nowadays you can hardly find proper
help—the ones these days have the gall to interview you, instead of the other way around!" Mrs.
Tindall put in a polite chuckle at that, and Mrs. Riddle continued, "Though I do admit that finding
service was a much easier task back then; during the last war, so many of us had to resort to
foreigners, which was still better than it is now—so long as one didn't mind the unintelligible
Continental accents. Of course, I do compliment you on your English skills, sir; they are very good
for what you are."

Mr. Pacek put on a pained smile, while Hermione winced internally.

Her tutor was fluent in at least five languages, having being taught Czech and German from birth,
the latter of which had various dialects he'd also learned, as the Viennese-style German he spoke
was disfavoured by his Durmstrang professors, who preferred the Saxon and Prussian ways of
speaking. He was expert in a dozen written alphabets as well, but these he didn't speak as they
were historical languages and all the original speakers were dead. And here Mrs. Riddle was,
blustering on and on about her French governess!

As for Tom, if Orion Black's notion of a 'Killing Face' was a real thing, then it would apply to the
expression which was slowly creeping over his features. Hermione didn't think that Tom cared
about someone else being complimented so back-handedly, but rather that it was his own relatives
doing so, and in such a low and common manner. For someone of Tom's level of self-regard, he
must have considered it unnecessary to verbally demean other people to establish one's own state of
superiority; instead, that superiority should be made obvious by the manner and authority in one's
very presence. It was not one's place to remind other people of their own inferiority, but other
people's place to acknowledge it in themselves.
(It had taken her years to understand Tom's distorted approach of looking at the world, and even
Hermione, being the one person that he was closest to, struggled to comprehend it. It was like
immersing herself in a strange sideways, upside-down universe; she likened it to moving to rural
Australia, a locale where she knew the meanings of each individually spoken word but couldn't
discern their meanings put together, because their version of spoken English was a subspecies of
the King's English she was used to.)

Roger Tindall, who had hitherto remained silent, ventured a question to deflect the growing
awkwardness: "Whatever happened to your son? I heard that he went to Harrow as a boy, but I
don't recall seeing him on the registers at Sandhurst or any other finishing college."

That shut Mrs. Riddle up immediately.

"He's retired to the countryside and sees to estate business," said Mr. Riddle, speaking up for once.
"We've never been one for city living, never have been. The smoke and noxious airs are the least of
the things we object to about the city. The war's made things dangerous; these past few years have
been troubling indeed for Britain and her cities: all those German bombs, and then the hordes of
refugees from who-knows-where. I'm not sure how any of you have managed to put a foot out of
doors without fearing for your lives."

"Of course," added Mrs. Riddle, her words dripping with lofty pomposity, "danger or not, we'd
brave them all for our darling Tommy, wouldn't we?"

"Of course, dearest."

The flowers on the sideboard wilted under the force of Tom's glaring.

Mum and Mrs. Tindall exchanged meaningful glances several times during the course of the dinner,
neither of them impressed by the Riddles' opinions; both of their families had been living in
London for the last few years of the war, including the Blitz—and they'd each done volunteer work
during the worst of it. It was clear that the Riddles hadn't lifted a finger to help, not even going to
the effort it took to observe simple rationing courtesies. Mr. Riddle carelessly slathering his bread
roll when the butter dish came around proved that point, as everyone else had taken a small scrape,
even the Grangers, who got butter from the wizarding grocer and had no need to conserve it, but
did so anyway to be diplomatic about the short portions everyone else in the city was getting.

Roger Tindall kept his eyes trained on his plate to stop himself from laughing, while Tom's
expression grew blanker and blanker, as if he was retreating into the depths of his own imagination
as a means to escape the vacuous mediocrity that had become his current reality.

Afterwards, when dinner was finished and the adults had retired to the formal parlour, with the
children heading to the family sitting room, Roger clapped his hands and said, "Top show, Riddle!
Absolutely smashing! I've never had dinnertime entertainment quite like that before—though my
own grandfather has cut it close after a bottle or two of the good sherry. I'm certain I'll remember
this night for the rest of my life."

"Roger!" cried Hermione, glancing at Tom and hoping he wouldn't take the phrase 'rest of my life'
at face value.

But Tom didn't seem to have noticed or taken offense. "They were lying," he said slowly. "He's in
the countryside, but he's not had anything to do with estate business. Now why would they lie
about that?"
"Your father, do you mean?" Roger asked, finding a vacant armchair and propping up his feet on
the nearest ottoman. "Rumour has it that he's an invalid. The Riddles must be trying to hush it up
like a Mad Bertha."

"They made you an equal beneficiary," said Hermione. "It's nice that they would ensure a trust for
you directly, instead of following tradition and giving it all to your father, but they haven't struck
me as people who'd care about being... nice."

"No," Tom said, "the quality they've displayed best was how very ordinary they are." His tone
indicated that ordinary was the worst possible insult anyone could receive.

"They're certainly not the highlight of anyone's social calendar," Roger agreed. "I'd offer my
congratulations on finding your long-lost family, Riddle, but it'd be off-colour in these
circumstances—you can have my sympathies instead. Rather you than me, it goes without saying."

"You ought to save your sympathies for Hermione," said Tom, his dark eyes turning to look at her.
"She'll be suffering through Christmas in Yorkshire with me."

"Oh?" said Roger, leaning forward in his armchair. "Is that true?"

Tom and Roger gazed at her expectantly. Tom had one eyebrow cocked in anticipation of her
response.

Hermione couldn't stop a red flush from blossoming over her cheeks. She held her hands up to
cover them, feeling the heat through her fingers, though she couldn't properly articulate why she
was feeling this way. These were people she knew, had known for years, so why did she suddenly
feel as if she were standing in front of the wizarding examiners at the O.W.L. practical
demonstrations?

Perhaps it was because she was as tongue-tied for a reply as she had been back then. The Defence
examiner sitting in the centre seat of the judging panel was Mr. Arsenius Jigger, Professor
Slughorn's old business partner and author of The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts. She'd
felt a sudden shyness strike her when she'd asked him to autograph her textbook, and this—
whatever this was—was the exact same thing.

"It's not important news, nothing of the sort," said Hermione, her tone guarded, swallowing her
self-consciousness because right now such a sentiment was both useless and unwanted. "But Tom's
lived in London his entire life, and now he's moving away, so I thought there should be one familiar
face with all these new changes. The Riddles might not be the most pleasant people, but they own
a big house in the country with hundreds of acres; surely with that much space, it won't be too
difficult a job to run and hide whenever we see one of them coming down the hall."

"Huh," said Roger, "well, many happy returns in advance, then. If you'd rather spend Christmas in
London, I can arrange passage for you on one of the military trains. Civilian tickets are hard to get
these days, and it'll be worse by the holidays—but I'm an officer cadet and that ought to count for
something." He met her eyes and added, "But that's if you get tired of the Riddles, obviously."

Tom made a noise of disapproval, and his mouth opened to speak, but before he could, Hermione
elbowed him in the side and said, "That's a very generous offer, but I'm afraid I've already promised
Tom that I'd come. I can't possibly imagine it would be that bad."

"One never knows," Roger replied tactfully and left it at that.

Tom quietened after she'd set down a firm refusal to Roger's offer, but he didn't leave her side for
the rest of the evening.

She engaged Roger in a discussion of technological miniaturisation, and how the war had restricted
resources in the civilian markets, funnelling them off into military research and production. It
appeared that many new inventions were being kept top secret in the name of the war effort, but
once the war was over—which Roger hoped was far enough away that he could graduate and apply
for a spot on one of the cutting-edge research teams, but not so far that he'd be pressed into the
service for the rest of his life—there would be a veritable rush of inventions ready to revolutionise
the average British family's standard of living. An affordable television set in every home, imagine
that!

Hermione clasped her hands together in clear enthusiasm at the idea, while Tom just snorted to
himself, patently unimpressed by what he no doubt deemed 'Muggle ingenuity', an oxymoron of the
highest degree.

Later that night, after the Tindalls had gone home, and Dad had driven the Riddles back to their
hotel on Hyde Park, Tom came down to the cellar while Hermione was picking through her book
collection to decide which ones would earn a spot in her Hogwarts trunk for the upcoming school
year. They were going back for the new term in a week, so she was already halfway through her
packing, a task that she undertook each year with the utmost gravity.

Tom had elected to stay in his old bed in the Grangers' cellar that night, instead of sharing the
motorcar with his grandparents. Hermione's dad had firmly declared that he wasn't going to take
two round trips to central London and back just because Tom couldn't stand to be alone with them.

She'd kicked off her shoes and peeled off her stockings, while Tom had his jacket unbuttoned and
his necktie off, all new things that Mrs. Riddle had bought him. Every visit, she brought Tom
expensive presents: a shaving kit with a folding blade and several bars of fine Castile soap, a
wristwatch in a polished silver case that had his initials engraved on the back, and boxes of clothes
that were more 'befitting of his station', which was not only an excessive gift due to the current
clothing rationing, but made worse by the fact that Tom would likely outgrow them in a year or
two.

Tom had accepted these gifts with a look of resignation on his face, and although he didn't
contradict his grandmother's high-handed estimation of his 'station', it was clear that he neither
appreciated her taste in gifts nor her coddling. Over all the birthdays and Christmases they'd
shared, Hermione knew that Tom preferred books and magical appliances over anything bought in
the Muggle world. She'd noticed that he still used the lunchbox that she had given him for
Christmas of Second Year, the one with a permanent stasis enchantment.

"Your mother likes Roger Tindall," said Tom, flopping onto his bed and throwing the neatly stacked
pillows into disarray.

"He's a very likeable young man," Hermione's response was distracted, as she'd drawn her wand to
Summon her hairbrush from the bathroom. Magic came in useful in so many ways; she never had
to poke through five different drawers for a lost hairpin, not when a simple Accio would fetch it for
her. "He's an officer and gentleman, and not one of the silly ones who'd send a cavalry brigade
against entrenched artillery. Those are rarer than you'd think."

"Do you like him?" asked Tom, his tone of voice strangely lacking of any inflection.
Hermione shrugged. "I don't have any reason to dislike him."

"But he's a Muggle."

"What has that got to do with anything?"

"He's not our kind," Tom insisted. "We're bending the Statute by fraternising with outsiders. In
America, they outright ban non-family interactions—and even here, you know it's highly
discouraged."

Hermione let out a huff of disapproval. "I'm not the one drawing my wand during morning tea,
unlike someone else whose name I've conveniently forgotten. And anyway, if you're going to quote
the rules at me, then you must already know that they allow certain exceptions."

"Yes, I know," said Tom impatiently, scowling darkly at her. "But you're not going to marry him."

"Who says I'm not?"

"I do!"

Hermione tossed a pillow at him, which he deflected with a non-verbal Shield Charm and Banished
back to her with a flick of his wand. "This is just like your silly childbearing license idea again,
isn't it? 'Anyone who can't multiply four-digit integers need not apply', et cetera. I told you then
that you can't go around giving people 'lifestyle advice' like that. Not that they'd ever listen to
you."

"They already listen to my 'lifestyle advice'," Tom grumbled under his breath. After a few seconds
of silence, he propped his chin up on the heel of his palm and asked, "You've already thought about
being married?"

"A bit," said Hermione. "Not much. I don't know—it seems so far off in the future right now. I'd
rather concentrate on finishing school first, because marriage is only a possibility, while the exams
are a certainty." She sighed and pointed her wand at the silencing screen between their beds. "I'm
tired and going to sleep. If you've any more questions, ask me in the morning."

The screen unfolded itself and slid across the floor, separating Hermione's area from Tom's. The
lights on her side dimmed to nothing.

When she rolled over, she could see the faint glow around the edges of the screen where Tom still
had his lights on, but after she pulled the blanket over her head, complete darkness enfolded her.

On the First of September, Hermione met Tom on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
He was dressed in his uniform already, tie in a perfect knot and Prefect badge pinned to his lapel,
having come through the Floo via the public fireplace at the Leaky Cauldron. What stood out the
most to Hermione was how polished he looked compared to the press of harried parents chasing
after their half-dressed children, who had on Muggle coats to cover the House emblems on their
uniform jumpers, or wore their Hogwarts robes over the loose smocks and breeches that made up
wizarding children's casual clothing.

Tom had always taken care with his appearance, so this wasn't unusual. But today, his turnout was
flawless to the extent that the crowd left a bit of space around him instead of pushing through as
they did for every other bystander. It was something about his indefinite air of self-assured
authority, his uniform as well-cut as the ones in the display windows of Diagon Alley, or the way
his eyes searched through the masses of wizards, witches, caged pets, uncaged pets running free,
and levitating stacks of luggage, his attention directed to something beyond the ken of the common
man.

Or something like that, Hermione guessed. Tom always did like putting forth a perfect first
impression.

"Tom!" cried Hermione, and his head snapped around to look for her.

She elbowed her way to him, dragging her trunk behind her, and threw her arms around him in an
enthusiastic hug.

It seemed that hugging Tom had also changed from what she remembered of it from years past, and
she was a little sad about it; everything about today was so different from the first time she'd
arrived to the station with her parents in tow and the train ticket clutched tightly in her hands,
looking around for Tom, not finding him anywhere on the platform, and realising that she was
going to have to ride the train to Hogwarts alone.

Where Tom had been thin, almost bony, in First Year, he had filled out through years of better
eating than what the orphanage provided—though he still remained lean of build with sharp,
angular features, neither of which would ever disappear with age. Upon hugging him now, she
couldn't tell each rib apart from the next; he wore uniform robes over jumper over shirt, but beneath
all the fabric she could feel a firm layer of flesh, something she had never paid attention to before
but couldn't keep herself from thinking about now. A tinge of nervousness crept into her thoughts,
and would have induced her to let go of Tom if he wasn't hugging her back and in no rush to let her
go. Yet another change on the ever-growing list.

Tom must have felt the shift in mood, because he looked down, a small crease forming between his
brows. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm just..." Hermione stammered, "just a bit sad. We'll only have one more 'First Day of School'
before we're done with Hogwarts for good. It's been so fast that it hardly seems real sometimes."
She sniffled. "It's just a touch of melancholy; I'll get over it by the time we find a compartment."

She definitely wasn't going to tell him that she was thinking about their hugs and his recent habit of
reciprocation thereof. Ever since the day of the Veterans' Charity Gala, he no longer stood still and
let her 'do all the work', so to speak. It was as if the act of hugging had crossed some sort of
internal line from endurance to enjoyment, and now that he'd decided that it wasn't unpleasant—
having taken him years to get there—he was free to return the physical demonstrations of her
affection. It was strange, and rather startling at first, but it was nice, and despite Tom not being a
soft person in either form or demeanour, she could admit that she enjoyed it too.
She felt Tom's hand smooth down the creases of her blouse, an unexpectedly comforting gesture.
His open palm lingered on the small of her back. "No slight against you, Hermione, but I don't
believe your imagination could come up with someone like me. Nor, for that matter, could mine
create you. That means this has to be real—or at least we have to be."

"That encouragement was... something," said Hermione, giving one last squeeze before she
untangled her arms from his robes. "But thank you anyway."

On the train, a number of their fellow students stopped them during their Prefect patrol to
congratulate them on their O.W.L. scores.

"Eleven Outstanding O.W.L.s," Siobhan Kilmuir exclaimed. "And ten Outstandings for
Hermione! The examiners wrote an editorial in The Prophet saying that Hogwarts hasn't had such
a promising cohort in years!"

"Is that how everyone knows about our marks?" asked Hermione, who had received her sheet of
exam scores with the Hogwarts supply list in the second week of August. "They published them in
The Prophet?"

She hadn't expected they'd be made public—not that she was ashamed of how she'd done—but she
didn't subscribe to any wizarding publications and had no access to them when she was away from
the Ravenclaw Common Room for the summer.

"They only post which students got Outstandings for the O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s in each subject,"
said Siobhan, turning around to dig in her bookbag for a rolled newspaper. "It would be
embarrassing to name who failed which subjects, especially if it was a student whose family might
send daily Howlers to the editor, so it's only the top students, ranked by the points they scored in
the exam."

She offered a battered-looking newspaper to Hermione, who flipped it around and tried to read
around the creases. Tom, giving a small sigh, reached around her and tapped the paper with his
wand, which caused the folds to flatten themselves out.

"'Hermione J. Granger: one hundred and three percent in History of Magic, highest O.W.L. score
for the subject in the last fifteen years'," she read aloud. "That's interesting—the score card in our
Hogwarts letters only gave us our letter mark, with no numbered grade. No past exam rankings
either."

Looking over to the next page, she was gratified to see that the Outstanding mark Tom had gotten
for the class he hadn't attended, Muggle Studies, wasn't a perfect O of one hundred percent. It was
still an O, a score of ninety percent or higher, which was what most people cared about, but it did
support her personal belief that listening to the class lessons—actually going to class—was just as
important as reading the assigned textbooks from cover to cover.

Tom leaned over her shoulder. "'Tom M. Riddle: one hundred and ten percent in Charms, highest
O.W.L. score in forty-six years. Acquired all possible points in the written portion, and all extra
credit in the practical component.'"

"Forty-six years seems oddly specific," remarked Hermione, eyes darting over to Tom.

Tom's eyes narrowed, as if he'd come to the same realisation as she had. "It doesn't matter anyway,
since O.W.L. marks only determine which N.E.W.T. subjects the teachers will let you sign up for."
He pocketed his wand, then stalked off down the aisle, younger students shuffling out of his path
without his having to say a word to them.

Siobhan gave Hermione a sideways glance. "Maybe he needs another hug."

Hermione let out a deep breath, folding the newspaper up and handing it back. "Is everything that
either of us does going to invite commentary from now on?"

"You two were on the platform, and it didn't look like you were trying to hide anything," said
Siobhan, giving a careless shrug. "So don't be surprised to get more than one type of
congratulations."

"It's not even like that!" Hermione said tetchily, but as the words left her mouth, she found herself
wondering what exactly that was, and if it came to it, would it necessarily be bad if that was a
thing?

Hermione had until now forgotten the conversation she'd had with Tom a week ago, the night of the
dinner party. She'd gone to bed, and Tom hadn't asked any other questions in the morning, so she
hadn't thought further on the topic he'd brought up: the future, or the part of it that was unrelated to
her career prospects.

Had she thought about being married and having a family of her own one day in the future?

Truthfully, it was a distant concept to her, as far removed from tangible reality as the end of the
war. It was a concept that one appreciated from afar; it was as laudable a goal as it was vague,
because she had no earthly idea how to get from her current state to such a far-flung situation. It
was understood that if she met a special someone, and if they came to a mutual understanding, the
next step was filing an application for a marriage license—or an elopement to Gretna Green to have
it finished overnight. She knew the technicalities of such arrangements, but the finer details—how
they pertained to her specifically—remained ambiguous.

The other girls in her year had discussed the subject in Potions, waiting for the liquid in their
cauldrons to come to a boil. They spoke of it in the back of the classroom, in the few minutes of
free time they got after finishing the assigned classwork. Hermione herself spent this time on her
homework, because starting on it now meant that she wouldn't have to do it later. There weren't
many Ravenclaws who participated in these conversations; it was mostly Slytherins, as they were
the ones whose futures were arranged for them by their parents. Marriage to them was an
inevitability just like the final exams, as they had their husbands picked for them, or else picked
their husbands from a selection offered to them at a summer garden party.

It was an archaic tradition, but she kept those thoughts to herself. It wasn't so long ago that a King
had been forced to abdicate because the general public—the citizens of Muggle Britain—had
refused to let the twin crimes of divorce and Americanism taint the Royal Establishment.

The details might be vague, but from Hermione's own perspective on matrimonial unions, she was
sure about some things: if she married, it would be out of love and choice. She might love
someone and welcome a family one day, but it wasn't something she could contemplate sacrificing
her career ambitions for. Someone who loved her and supported her goals without asking for—
demanding—a sacrifice...

That was an ideal she favoured.

But there was a reason why this future was kept at a distance for now. The minutiae of it seemed
too complicated for her current situation, being as it involved finding some other person to stand
the rôle of her 'better half', or so it was called. She knew she wasn't the most popular student in her
year. She liked things done a particular way, whether it was books organised on a shelf, potion
ingredients prepared in a certain order, or group projects completed by a specific date (which was
always weeks before the final deadline). She'd earned herself a certain reputation, one that put her
as someone far from making the most affable company. She took it as a mark of merit, because
she, out of all the other girls in her House, wore a Prefect badge as the proof of her diligence.

Few people understood what the badge meant to her. Yes, she was aware that some of her fellow
students respected neither the office of Prefect nor the badge as a symbol. And there weren't many
—outside of Ravenclaw House—who would have liked to be known as a human encyclopaedia, or
a friend of one. She also knew that the badge was inconsequential in the grander scope of things,
when every year two people of each House were picked for the job, even if they fit the description
of being the least offensive in their year, rather than being a truly excellent student.

When she thought about it, it seemed like the only person who could understand the personal
significance was Tom Riddle.

It made an intriguing prospect to envision Tom as the other relevant party, as he was one of the few
people who liked her without reservation, without adding on stipulations that she brush her hair,
keep her mouth shut, or listen to her betters. But that vision was also highly unrealistic; the first
letters he'd written to her had showed his disdain for conventional institutions like marriage and
family—and religion and government too, but that was a debate for another time—and now that he
had a family of his own, he had not shown himself to be very pleased about it or willing to change
his mind about it. She couldn't imagine that he would change his mind about the Riddles anytime
soon, and thus she couldn't expect him to reverse his opinion on one day founding a family of his
own, which, for most people, had the prerequisite of a legal marriage.

Tom was very stubborn in that regard. It was one of his defining quirks, and was immensely
irritating when it was directed at her.

That reminded her: when Tom was done having his little tiff, he'd be in the Heads' compartment
with the other Prefects for their annual induction meeting.

Later on, she saw that Siobhan's assumption was correct; there were other people who'd observed
her and Tom from the windows of their train compartments. And judging by Clarence Fitzpatrick's
dispirited expression when the Prefects met up with this year's Heads, he was one of them.

But that might just be due to Hermione giving away the seat he'd been saving for her to the newest
Ravenclaw female Prefect. Or perhaps it was Hermione informing Fitzpatrick that she could no
longer be his Potions partner, now that she was taking her N.E.W.T.s. At this level, it was a mixed
class that included all four Houses, not the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff split they'd had since First Year.
She didn't tell him that his own Outstanding mark in the Potions exam, as reported by the The Daily
Prophet, was largely due to sharing her notes with him the previous school year, as his written
essays had a tendency to meander—in sharp contrast to his competent practical brewing. For
N.E.W.T. Potions, Hermione needed a partner who could pull their weight in both theory and
practical, and there was only one person who met that standard.

(There was only one person, observing Hermione break the news to Clarence Fitzpatrick from his
side of the train compartment, who could exude that much smugness without opening his mouth.)
The Heads' meeting followed the same format as the previous year's, with a different pair leading
them this time: Ashley Bledisloe of Gryffindor for Head Boy, and Lucretia Black of Slytherin for
Head Girl, which must have been yet another feather in Slughorn's pointy hat, as last year's Head
Girl was also a Slytherin. Slughorn must be counting on a hat trick for next year, Hermione
suspected, as the recent O.W.L. results put Tom ahead of all the boys in their year.

After dinner, Hermione helped the two new Prefects escort the Ravenclaws up the corkscrewing
stairway to the door of the Common Room, where the eagle-shaped door knocker asked a word
puzzle and they had to stand there for five minutes, waiting for one of the new First Years to come
up with the answer. She was glad that this year she wasn't required to walk the new students back
and from the Owlery and all their classrooms the day before lessons began, as this was an official
duty of the Fifth Year Prefects. She did, however, have to help them choose what electives to take
for Third Year, but the sign-up slips were only due to be handed out in May of next year.

When she finally got up to bed, she spread her study planners out on the quilted silk bedcovers and
eyed each of them in turn.

The first was her original planner, battered around the corners, the pages wrinkled where she'd
knocked a cup of tea over it during breakfast last year. She'd applied a Hot Air Charm to dry it off,
but the last two dozen pages had soaked for too long; drying it had only warped the pages and left
them stained. The tea stains had been transferred to the second planner, the linked duplicate she'd
made in case the original was lost or destroyed. She found it interesting how the physical signs of
use had not been copied from one planner to its linked pair, only the stains and written ink, so that
the second planner looked almost as clean and new as it had when she'd bought from the stationery
shop.

The third and fourth were her study planners for the 1943-1944 school year, crisp and empty apart
from where she'd copied her class timetable into the front pages.

In having the four books before her, Hermione realised that the convenience of the linked book
system would diminish within a handful of years. At that point, she'd have to carry a dozen
journals around, as she'd copied important passages from supplementary textbooks and referred to
them regularly after the original books had been returned to the library. And whenever she tore out
a page to keep someone else in contact, she'd have to hold onto the corresponding book to check for
new messages.

It was already unwieldy, since the four books she'd packed in her trunk this year meant four books
she couldn't bring from her private library at home.

She thought of Roger Tindall, and his interest in innovative technologies. In the past, semaphore
and telegraph had been the primary mechanisms of communication; they were both methods of
relay transference, and relied on an unbroken chain to ensure the person waiting at the end of the
line got their message. The most common tool of mass communication today was the wireless, a
method of information transfer that involved a central broadcaster sending out to a number of
recipients, and it didn't matter if one person turned off their set that day, because hundreds of other
people would have heard the message.

There were advantages in both types of communication, but she saw the disadvantages, too. The
technology allowing for multiple-way communication, in which listeners could respond to the
central broadcaster and each other, was so complex as to be beyond her level of knowledge, even
though she'd kept up with her Muggle school textbooks and took Arithmancy at Hogwarts.
(Numerology was an important subset of Arithmancy, but she couldn't take it as entirely scientific,
even though it was much less wishy-washy than Charms. Because how on Earth had Wenlock
decided that seven was the most magical number? With other counting systems, she could prove
two, three, or ten to be just as powerful.)

It was something Roger was interested in, with how much he talked of setting the new tabulating
machines to solve iterative functions that a human mathematician would have taken weeks to
complete. Hermione was an instant convert; this was a subject beyond the level of wizards: the
Floo Network, the most advanced magical example of Muggle communications technology she
could think of, was limited to linking only two people or locations at any given time.

She sighed, then looked down at her study planners. The second pair she'd made for this year were
cleaner looking than the old pair, no messy glue and crooked seams, the interior runework she'd
refined during the summer at the same time she'd worked on enchanting the fuel tank and chassis of
her family's motorcar.

Perhaps it would be possible to further refine her enchantments so she could fit in more features in
the same amount of space. The redirection effect was good, and so was the disguising
enchantment, although that one was a little rough—any sheet torn out retained a link to its
matching pair, but could no longer switch from an innocuous datebook page and back.

She remembered that she'd torn out a page last year and given it to Nott not long after Christmas
break. She'd barely thought about him during the summer, being too busy with her own projects,
then dealing with the intricacies of Tom's complicated personal life...

She hadn't written to the owling address he'd given her; he must be tearing out his hair right about
now, having seen her from across the Great Hall during the Welcoming Feast.

With a snort, she opened the duplicate of last year's study planner, flipping to the page whose pair
she'd given to him.

It was covered with variations of the word "Granger".

Granger?

Granger!

GRANGER! ! !

GrAngER!!!!!!!

She flipped over to the other side, on which Nott's incoherent rambling continued.

Summoning a pencil from her nightstand, she wrote, What do you want? down at the bottom,
where there was still some empty space.

Not long after, words appeared, black ink with blotted cross-strokes, crooked letters hastily
scrawled.

Something's different about Riddle. He's much too smarmy about himself. It's unnatural...
Please tell me that you and he didn't—

Before he finished his sentence, Hermione wrote, NO! in big letters.

You have to know something about it.

Pure speculation, she wrote back.

They don't call you a know-it-all for nothing, Granger. Unless you're really a know-nothing-at-
all. But if that's so, I can help you. I've a book on Occlumency memory retention exercises that
has your name on it.

Argumentum ad hominem? Did you think that would be convincing rhetoric, Nott? Good night.

GRANGER!!!
Chapter End Notes

— When I wrote the first half of this chapter, it somehow turned into a Austen-style comedy
of manners. To be honest, when there's a period fiction piece with upper class British
characters, it's inevitable that you get mild social commentary. If anyone is a fan of Jane
Austen or Downton Abbey, Tom Riddle Senior in canon is described as the "squire's son"
which means the Riddles have the rank of landed gentry like the Bennets and Darcy, but are
several steps down from peers like the Crawleys of Downton. The Riddles are still of the true
upper class, not having or needing proper jobs, unlike the Grangers, the Tindalls, or the
Dursleys of HP canon who are all comfortably upper middle class. (Vernon Dursley was the
Director of Grunnings and went to Smeltings, a fancy private school. The Dursleys had
money, and both Petunia and Lily married up from their working class Cokeworth origins.)

— To give some historical context, the two World Wars ruined many upper class families
when many sons were killed, and no one could afford the huge houses and staff of fifty
servants. After that, the distinctions between classes became much less rigid. This is why Mrs.
Riddle is willing to socialise with the Grangers and pander to Hermione, when it would have
been unthinkable in Lizzie and Darcy's era. Also her standards for future daughters-in-law are
considerably lower now than they would have been 20 years ago. Thanks, Merope.

— I feel like an evil tease wringing out the slow burn. In the meantime, you may admire
Hermione's teeny tiny feet.
 Living Death
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1943

Libatius Borage described Living Death as a powerful enchantment in which the affected would
descend into a state of suspended animation, no longer reliant on the necessities of life—air, water,
sustenance—and yet at the same time, be unable to perish. In a potion brewed with ingredients of
the highest calibre and efficacy, the Draught of the Living Death would halt ageing, and as long as
the body of the affected was kept safe and secure, grant a form of immortality.

Borage's last footnote warned readers that brewing the potion for self-consumption would produce
an 'eternity without attainment, and a life without living'.

Tom thought Living Death was an accurate synopsis of his summers outside Hogwarts.

That summer, he'd made arrangements to stay in Diagon Alley, funded by his writing job and the
profit that came of selling Acromantula venom to some shady patrons at The Hog's Head—which
was less than he'd wanted, as the price had been bartered down after his buyers had found out that
the 'donor specimen' was only a few months old. Nevertheless, during the time he'd spent in the
Leaky Cauldron, he had no adults standing over his shoulder telling him when to go to bed or when
to get up. And best of all, he had access to magic without the encumbrance of the Trace, and that
was a vast improvement to what would have been his regular place of residence: Wool's
Orphanage.

Wool's Orphanage was now no longer his place of residence, official or de facto or anything else.

He was still conflicted about it, because he was perfectly aware that the Tom Riddle of years ago
would have been exultant about his change of circumstances. For many of the early years of his
life, it would have been one of his greatest desires: freedom from the shackles of poverty and
orphanhood, absolved of the stain of illegitimacy; he would never have to walk through the
creaking iron gates up to a tiny cell of a room whose far walls he could brush with his fingers if he
spread his arms to their fullest extent.

The Tom Riddle of years past spent his days with his nose pressed against the grimy, painted-shut
window of his third floor bedroom, watching motorcars rumble their way through the maze of
London's streets. That Tom dreamt of his eighteenth birthday, of unlimited independence and
future glory, vivid images of his What-Will-Be painted behind his eyelids in gold leaf and Tyrian
purple.

That Tom had only known himself to be different, and called himself Special.

But the Tom of the Here-and-Now was not just Special, but magical. He had not slept on his
orphanage room's thin mattress on its narrow iron bedstead since the age of twelve. No longer did
he care about poverty, for its official definition (those who survived off less than a hundred pounds
sterling per year) had no bearing on his current life, when everything he saw in the shop windows
of Tottenham Court Road could be his with the application of the right spell.
This Tom could buy anything he wanted, even if he didn't know the right spell, because he had a
doting old granny who thought that money could buy his compliance, and a lot of money could buy
his affection.

The Riddles.

Their very mention set him on edge.

Once he had had the time to speak to them and see them and know them, and now that he was away
from them until Christmas, he felt qualified to make his judgement on them.

His judgement: he hated the Riddles. It didn't matter who they were, or that they weren't his
parents by blood, or that he hadn't even met his real father and would never meet the fortune-
hunting village tart who had whelped him in a London orphanage. The idea of them was enough.
He hated the abstract idea of their very existence, and the part of him that had once stopped to
listen to the street corner Socialist agitators hated them for what they stood for. In reality,
disassociated from sentiment, Thomas and Mary Riddle were nothing but a pair of inconsequential
Muggles. Just like Mrs. Cole had been, legal guardians or no. But despite how carefully he
maintained his indifference around them, nothing could change the fact that they shared his name—
or that he shared theirs.

His family...

Those two words rang discordant across his thoughts whenever he remembered them, brought to
mind whenever he overheard the drawling articulation of their speech in the echo of a passing
conversation, or witnessed their mannerisms reflected in the tilt of a head or the insouciant gesture
of a hand on the other end of the House dining table.

He hated them for what they were, in equal proportion to what they weren't. He resented the things
they gave him, because their generosity was inseparable from their selfishness, and when they
offered him their wealth, it was not so much a guarantee of independence as it was a reminder of
obligation.

He saw the metaphorical aspects of the Living Death reflected in his summer holidays. He had
been given a glimpse of a life that was his entitlement by right of name and birth, served up on a
silver platter... but consuming it was the slow and leisurely death of dignity, doled out on a silver
spoon.

The literal aspects of the Living Death, however, applied quite well to the Acromantula's relatively
uneventful summer.

On the last day before the holidays, Tom had cast an Imperio on the spider, before he'd forced it to
ingest the Draught from a bowl. When it had gone still, he'd stuffed it into its trunk and secured the
lid with a number of locking and anti-intruder charms.

When he'd finished with his Prefect duties after the Welcoming Feast, a tin full of leftovers in his
bookbag, he had gone straight for the abandoned classroom in the depths of the dungeons, his wand
already moving to unlock the door and light the sconces.

The lid of the trunk creaked open and nestled within, safe and sound, was the Acromantula.
Tom took a moment to appreciate the sight. His Draught of the Living Death—N.E.W.T. textbook
standard, perfect in colour, sheen, and viscosity to Borage's description—had worked as expected.
The Acromantula, as now revealed, was still a juvenile, not having aged in the ten weeks of
summer holiday; its limbs were pliable, the joints flexing when he prodded them with the end of his
wand. If the potion failed and the spider had died while locked in the trunk, the limbs would have
gone stiff, curled up under the thorax in rigor mortis.

The antidote took twenty minutes to produce an effect, and while he waited, Tom enlarged the
trunk and reinforced the layers of locking charms. If he'd enchanted the trunk, the permanent
charmwork would render it unnecessary to check the spells every time he visited. But enchantment
was a magical discipline that Tom had never thought worth the effort for the effect it produced; he'd
rather learn a number of Stinging Hexes to keep the spider in line than create an unbreakable
container. Besides, once an enchantment was laid, he'd no longer be able to alter the size of the
trunk without de-stabilising the runework and having to go through the trouble enchanting it again.

Enchanting was Hermione's personal interest, he'd observed during the summer. She had the
patience to actually enjoy what he found a chore, a time-consuming task that would have him
consulting multiple reference tables scattered through half a dozen textbooks to determine the most
"resonant" places to carve runes, with respect to the sympathetic alignments to the time of year, and
the natural properties of the wood from which the trunk had been built. Hermione had spent days
dithering over enchanting her family motorcar's fuel tank, its "rounded corners!" upsetting her
calculations when she'd gotten around to unbolting a few panels and seen the motor's interior with
her own eyes.

He'd humoured her, proofreading her Arithmancy work while she edited the rough drafts of his
articles, but he couldn't understand her hobby himself. There was no market in enchanted Muggle
motorcars, as most adult wizards could Apparate and all of them could operate a Floo. There was
no novelty value to it either, since any wealthy wizard with the money and time to collect trinkets
would be dismissive toward most Muggle nonsense—with the exceptions of Muggle fine art and
Muggle alcohol, which shared enough pre-Statute tradition with the wizarding world to make them
universally understood and enjoyed.

He found his own areas of interest to be of more practical value than Hermione's, and he was
proved right when the Acromantula began stirring in its trunk, hairy joints raking against the
interior in an arrhythmic chorus of muted scrapes.

"I'm hungry," it said. Its voice had deepened as it had grown, still retaining a reedy, whistling
quality—but now it had a greater resonance and peculiar echoing timbre, each word it spoke
issuing from deep within the chitinous shell of its exoskeleton.

The Imperius he'd cast before the holidays, when he'd forced the spider to drink from the bowl of
potion, had faded during his weeks away. That was interesting to know, as the Auror handbook had
said that the Imperius was the longest lasting of the three Unforgivables, not requiring line of sight
like the Killing Curse or sustained concentration like the Cruciatus. The commands set by the
caster of the Imperius would remain in effect once the subject left their presence, but it appeared
that regular reinforcement was required over the long term to maintain the spell.

Tom brought out a box of leftovers from the feast: slices from a side of mutton, roast pork, carved
chicken, and a handful of baked chipolatas, still warm and shiny with grease.
He Summoned the spider's regular food bowl, cleaned out the dust with his dependable Super
Steamer spell, then dumped the food in. He floated it over to the spider, which had used its hooked
claws to drag its ponderous front half out of the ragged-looking trunk.

It made Tom wonder if the trunk had been Hagrid's, and if so, what Hagrid had used to carry his
things home for the summer. The replacement trunk he'd Transfigured had been a quick job, and
would eventually have reverted to being a dustpan after a few weeks or so. That must have come
as a surprise to the oaf, though Tom didn't feel sorry about it; when he was in Third Year, he would
have been able to perform and reverse such a Transfiguration without breaking a sweat.

The spider slurped its meal while Tom watched, his wand held loosely between his fingers.

How thin the line was between Beast and Being, and how arbitrary and yet immutable.

(Had Tom been more soft-headed or philosophical, he would have contemplated the line between
Man and Beast. But he wasn't one for reflecting on the allegorical potential, as he already knew the
answer: Man was not Beast. He was as certain about it as he was about the fact that Magic was
Might, and those that had it were superior to those that didn't.)

He'd seen Merfolk from his dorm room window, cutting leaves from the kelp beds that littered the
floor of the Black Lake. They sang to each other, brushed one another's hair, netted fish and
gathered shellfish, without a single care for the lives and problems of wizards. In the early
mornings when he attended practical lessons for Care of Magical Creatures, he sometimes
glimpsed centaurs at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. They were lighter on their feet—or hooves
—than one would expect, and left distinctive footprints in the snow around the greenhouses and the
groundskeeper's cottage.

They were classed as Beings by the Ministry of Magic, and the Department of Magical Creatures
had an official liaison office with an appointed wizard representative. Wizards didn't respect non-
human creatures, not even the ones that had human faces and spoke human languages. But they did
respect civilisation, or at least the trappings of it that came in the form of mercantilism, as
evidenced by the various goblin treaties that Professor Binns did so like to drone on about. Wizard
liaisons were more often tasked to exchange magical trinkets for rare plant cuttings and animal
parts, than actually uphold non-human legal rights to the Wizengamot.

It was funny—and convenient—how none of that, as limited as it was, applied to Acromantulas.

They fell squarely into the 'Beasts' category, with no one endorsing their re-classification anytime
soon. Perhaps it was due to their lack of thumbs. Everything else in the 'Beings' category had
thumbs.

Or maybe it was the clicking, finger-long mandibles that leaked a flesh-disintegrating venom.

The spider looked up from its bowl of liquid meat. "The stones that were warm before my
hibernation are now growing cool."

"Yes," said Tom.

"How long was I asleep?"

"Ten weeks, give or take a few days."

Its hairy limbs twitched in agitation. "Hagrid brought me outside two times before I grew too big
for his pocket. I wish to see the sky again."

"No," said Tom.

"I will be obedient." It emitted a high, keening hiss, claws scratching against the flagstone floor. "I
will return to the box afterwards. Just let me see the sky once more."

"That's still a 'No'," Tom repeated, lifting his wand up. "If you've finished eating, get back into the
box."

The spider twitched its forelegs, picking up its head so the points of its mandibles faced Tom,
oozing with venom.

"You are fearful," it said, black eyes fixed on him. "I can sense it. What is it? What makes you
shy away, Master?"

Tom's eyes narrowed; he tapped his wand impatiently against his thigh. "I'm not afraid."

"I sense..." said the spider, voice rising an octave in its eagerness, "that you deny me in fear of
being snared by a greater menace. Is it true, Master? Does Master have a master of his own?"

"No," Tom replied, who was growing tired of the stupid spider's antics. Did it think it could
manipulate him? "Dinner's over; time for bed."

"Who is it?" the spider continued heedlessly. "Hagrid spoke of a man who invited him to learn, and
paid for his wand and his shell coverings. He called him 'A Great Man'. Ah, I feel it! Your blood
grows warm beneath your flesh; you recognise the name—"

"I might," said Tom, raising his wand. "But Hagrid lied to you: he isn't very great at all."

"He is, he is!" it chirped. "One day he will come for me, I know it! And then he will come for
you!"

"Deripiendo!"

Tom had never cast this particular spell on an animate object. Beyond its Healing applications, he'd
discovered that the Debridement Spell could pare vegetables and cut the crusts off bread, because
for some inexplicable reason, there existed some people who thought that crusts had a different,
worse, taste compared to the rest of the loaf.

He had no idea what would happen when the spell was cast on something that didn't have any skin,
but he wasn't surprised to see a long, peeling strip of exoskeleton sheared off one of the spider's
legs, which was followed by a dribble of clear, blue-tinted liquid.

The leg went limp; the spider listed to the side like a ship in rough water.

He quickly shot a Body-Bind at the spider, and when it had gone still, he rammed through to its
inner mind, rifling through a succession of dark, blurry images of the inside of the storage
cupboard; the array of images was soon followed by the very unsettling sensation of being caressed
by large, hairy-knuckled hands, filling Tom with the urge to vomit. He pushed those memories
aside and re-doubled his concentration.
An animal's imprint memory was part physiological, so an Obliviation spell that exclusively
targeted the mind would never be of perfect effectiveness. He couldn't wipe out the spider's earliest
memories of Hagrid, not unless he physically attacked the brain, which he was reluctant to do: a
single mistake could blind the spider or cripple one or more of its legs, or damage it to the point
that it lost its sentient mind—and then it would be no better than a regular spider.

So, bearing down with the force of his mind, his wand gripped tightly in his right hand, he
rummaged through the spider's memories, detaching sensation from association from recollection,
shattering the links between the visual and the tactile, the connection of each image to its sensory
echo. From there, he proceeded to attach impressions of Hagrid's face and clumsy hands to the
darkness of the closed trunk, the loud slam of its lid, the blast of red light from the tip of a wand,
the nerve-searing pain and writhing convulsions on a cold stone floor.

He tore the spider's memories apart, isolating scenes from their context; he then spliced them
together out of their original order, muting the sensory impressions of some scenes and
exaggerating them in others. Like mental celluloid these memories were, so conveniently arranged
in a chronological sequence, laid out from the first rupture formed on the surface of its egg, all the
way to the present point in time. Tom knew just where to start his re-organisation, which memories
to excise, and the ones he deemed the least important he left unattached, strewn loose on the cutting
room floor of the spider's mind.

This level of organisation was what separated this sentient creature from the simple minds of
Peanut or Old Ab's milch goats.

It was much easier to break the memories into pieces than to put them back together, Tom found, a
bead of sweat trickling down his hairline and soaking into his collar. He had done this before, a
few times, minor memory alterations to see if he could, and how the spider would react to it, but
he'd never had a reason to go this far until tonight. He discovered that not all memories fit together
well, and those that were too incompatible had a tendency to drift apart when he turned his
attention away to focus on another section. He also saw that minds, especially those of a juvenile
creature like this, possessed some measure of natural resilience and could heal themselves over
time; the few memories of Hagrid he had altered back in the early days of spring must have re-
formed in the passing months, as the spider grew in size and its intelligence grew with it.

His necktie felt too tight, suffocating, but he ignored it and kept his hand on his wand and his eyes
fixed on the spider's eyes until the job was done and the trunk was locked for the night.

'A great man'. How absurd a declaration.

He expected that once the spider regained its faculties of speech, it would never say such a thing
again.

When Tom returned to the Slytherin living quarters, it was with a dull throb of a headache building
pressure within his skull. The hour was late, and the sofas around the fireplaces were empty apart
from a handful of upper year students putting the last touches to their summer homework. The
boys in his year were in the process of getting ready for bed, their pyjamas and sleeping robes laid
out over their beds, along with a messy scatter of loose socks, extra neckties, monogrammed
handkerchiefs.

Tom's own trunk lay at the end of his bed, his dorm mates giving it a wide berth due to the anti-
theft jinxes he had a habit of applying to all his belongings. Their avoidance was also due to his
trunk looking significantly more impressive this year. It was a new one, bought by his grandmother
—his fingers itched for his wand whenever he thought about their family connection—a sturdy
construction of wood and tacked leather with polished brass bands and hinges. It had his initials
tooled into the leather surface and foiled in gold, an ostentatious feature which did little to improve
the overall aesthetics, or so Tom thought. All the other boys in his year had their luggage done this
way, so it was difficult to discern the owner of each trunk, unless one put in the effort to learn each
person's first, middle, and last name... and Tom hardly saw the value in that.

Travers greeted him at the door with a mumbled, "Riddle", and the rest acknowledged his presence
with a polite nod, except for Nott, who had turned around to pour himself a glass of water from the
ewer on his nightstand.

Tom ignored the unspoken snub and jabbed his wand at his trunk, snapping open the latches and
raising the lid. Wordlessly, he levitated the various bits of his school uniform out of the trunk,
slicing off the string and paper wrappings in which Thomas Riddle's Savile Row tailor had
packaged his shirts. A non-verbal spell steamed the wrinkles out, then sent them flying into his
wardrobe, followed by his socks, underclothes, and ties into the lower drawers of his bureau. Non-
verbal magic was considered N.E.W.T. level by the school textbooks, and the fluency with which
he levitated multiple objects, without any of them going off track and flopping to the floor, showed
a level of control similar to that of a qualified adult wizard with years of training.

It was amusing how easy it was to impress others with such simple household magic, especially his
dorm mates, who had no idea how simple it really was, because their mothers or servants cleaned
their bedrooms for them. It wasn't so amusing to remember that he himself had been impressed by
Dumbledore performing this same spell with a tea tray back in First Year—but then again, once he
examined those memories of First Year again, he was displeased to remember that his eleven-year-
old self had been a nearsighted boy who was far from truly comprehending the value of having a
Foil of his very own.

A Foil.

His Foil.

There were many things he hated about the end of the Hogwarts term and the beginning of each
summer, when he was forced out of the wizarding world to mingle with Muggles. But spending
time with Hermione was not one of them, and this year had been an uncommonly good one. There
had been one afternoon when he'd invited her to lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, and then she'd come
up to see the room he'd hired for the holidays. He'd shown her his collection of glossy, animated
magazines with his pseudonym credited on the front covers—the name she'd given him—and
they'd read the articles together on the bed, laughing at the asinine questions he'd answered in his
reader advice column. She'd spent the next few hours helping him pen responses to his fan mail,
and when she left for home, his pillows were left smelling of her hair.

A glorious summer indeed.

It almost made up for the annoyance that was his 'family'.

"So..." ventured Rosier, buttoning up his nightshirt, "did everyone have a good summer?"

"No," grunted Travers. "Worked as a Junior Dispatch Clerk every day of the hols, now I'm
knackered. 'Night, fellas." He slipped into his bed and yanked the curtains shut.
"I got my new broom. Comet One-Eighty, with professional-grade braking charms," Lestrange
said. "Mother was happy about my O.W.L.s, so thanks for that, Riddle."

"And you, Riddle?" asked Rosier. "You look more... chipper than usual."

Nott stifled a snort from the bed next to Tom's, but when Tom shot him a sharp look, he just turned
away and shut his four-poster drapes.

"I got eleven Outstandings, as everyone knows," said Tom.

The boys murmured their congratulations.

"But is that all?" Rosier inquired. "You always get Outstandings, and they never make you smile
like that."

Tom's expression hardened. "I wasn't smiling."

"Alright," said Rosier warily, glancing at Lestrange, then Avery, neither of whom seemed eager to
proffer a comment in support or contradiction. Rosier's throat bobbed, then he gave a sheepish
cough. "Of course you weren't."

The other boys fell silent while Tom gathered his pyjamas and headed for the bathroom to wash up
and brush his teeth, and when he went to close the door behind him, Rosier had already changed
the subject to an analysis on the current state of the Slytherin House Quidditch team, now that
Abraxas Malfoy had been chosen as its Captain.

Tom wondered if he had been smiling. There weren't many things in his life that consistently
brought him to high spirits.

Confirmation of his power or influence was one of them, shown in the deference given him by the
other Slytherins, or the adulation in each and every bit of fan mail he was sent. He had opened up a
post box at the owl mail office in Diagon Alley, because there was no way he was going to have
owls mobbing him at the breakfast table, hanging around and leaving droppings over the sausage
platters until he'd written out a reply to their impatient owners.

Mastering a difficult piece of magic was another, made even better when other people saw proof of
this expertise.

Then there was one, which he had trouble fitting into the same category as the others, that was his
singular connection with Hermione Granger. She had confirmed that he was different the second
time she'd met him; she'd known from the start how Special he was, and unlike every other person
within his limited circle of acquaintance back then, that opinion had meant something to him.

If he had been smiling, it was none of the other boys' business why that was. Especially if it had
been for the third reason, which was private and personal, and not for the grubby minds of teenage
boys who would have misconstrued it for something that it wasn't. They'd have tarnished it with
their tawdry speculation—as if it was on equal standing to a crude broomshed rendezvous with a
third-cousin-once-removed when Mum and Dad weren't looking—and that was something Tom
wouldn't allow. He had never been one for religion, and so he had no difficulty in labelling that
special attachment he shared—along with all his thoughts and feelings about her and it—with the
word sacred.
Yes, sacred.

The more he thought about it, the more it fit.

He had long ago, when living among the sticky-fingered orphans of Wool's, deemed his own person
as sacrosanct. It was only natural that his most prized possessions—his magic, his innate
brilliance, his earned accolades, his special bond—be classed as sacred.

It made perfect sense.

After he finished changing into his pyjamas and got into bed, the smile was still there.

The first Saturday of the term, an owl dropped a letter onto Tom's crumpet, smearing butter on one
side of the envelope and over the purple wax seal stamped with the Hogwarts crest in relief.

After wiping off his hands, Tom cracked the seal with his butter knife and tipped its contents out
onto the breakfast table. Avery and Lestrange, sitting on either side of him, had gone silent upon
observing a sheet of parchment covered in swirly handwriting in a matching purple ink, which they
recognised as the same writing that had marked up their essays. Professor Dumbledore, for some
reason, preferred annotating student essays in purple ink when the other teachers used red.

"You're not in trouble or anything, are you?" asked Lestrange. "Do you need someone to say they
saw you in the Common Room yesterday evening?"

Tom picked up the letter and skimmed through Dumbledore's message. "Unnecessary, but I might
take you up on that offer another day. It's just an invitation to tea with the Deputy Headmaster."

"Well," said Lestrange, going back to his fried eggs on toast, "you'd have more to talk about than I
would. Good luck with that, Riddle."

The letter was forgotten to all but Tom for the rest of the day. Instead of moodily counting down
the hours, he found a book and a seat by the Common Room fire; it was an earnest attempt on his
account to practice some restraint, and had he been more lacking of control, he could see himself
pacing in circles and hexing any student who spoke louder than a low whisper.

After insinuating himself into their confidences from Third Year, and making himself privy to their
personal opinions, Tom hadn't been surprised to hear that the majority of Slytherin House held no
great fondness for their Transfiguration professor. They respected his skill and power, as his
academic awards and numerous publications couldn't go overlooked, but that was the only thing
about him that they could respect. The rest of Albus Dumbledore, the public image he presented of
himself, was far from impressive: the endless collection of spangled robes and whimsical habits
were one thing, the disloyal position he took towards the magical nation of Britain was another.
Dumbledore was known for professing support of Muggles, while being neglectful of his support of
Magical Britain's safety, shirking all the summons to action that the general public, the newspapers,
and the Wizengamot had been sending him for years.

Dumbledore had described himself as 'Just a humble schoolteacher', and therein lay the crux of
Slytherin's disapproval: the man, although he ranked as one of the most learned and powerful
wizards in the British Isles, was completely lacking in ambition. He remained a schoolteacher,
publishing yet another interesting household application of distilled dragon blood in his spare time,
while his true magical potential went wasted.

It also didn't help that while Dumbledore was fair on subtracting points from all Houses, whenever
he noticed spontaneous performances of good deeds and rewarded them with points, it was usually
to the students of Gryffindor.

Inevitably, the hour of the appointment came upon him. Tom made his farewells to his yearmates,
then left the Common Room to take the long walk out of the dungeons and up to the
Transfiguration corridor on the First Floor.

When he arrived, Dumbledore had a tea tray on his desk, containing a matched set of pot and cups,
and a cake stand with a regular assortment of the professor's favourite teatime treats: lemon
shortbread, sandwich creams, and jam dodgers.

The lamp on his desk had been activated, emitting a circle of yellow light over a few sheets of
paper; as soon as Tom entered the office, Dumbledore turned it off and adjusted his spectacles,
pushing the paper to the side to make room for a pair of teacups and matching saucers.

"I'm sure you have surmised why I asked you to tea today, Tom," said Dumbledore, smiling at him
from the other side of the desk.

Tom took a seat and returned the smile with one of his own, biting his tongue the whole time.

The papers Dumbledore had been reading were actually made of paper—pulped and processed
wood chips—not the magically manufactured wizarding parchment, which was sturdier than
Muggle paper, came in long rolls that students cut themselves to fit the essay length requirements
assigned by their teachers, and had a semi-translucent quality when held up to direct light.

The size of the paper was another clue to its origins. There was a difference in dimensions between
the paper in his lined primary school composition books and stationery paper, which Hermione had
used in her correspondence when they were children, made in a size that matched standard postage
envelopes. The paper on Dumbledore's desk was of the second sort, covered with well-formed,
well-spaced handwriting, with room left on the top for what appeared to be an elaborate letterhead
design.

"I couldn't begin to guess," Tom replied. "Has it anything to do with my O.W.L. results? I believe
we scored the same number of marks for Charms, or so The Daily Prophet tells me. They say it's
quite an accomplishment."

"That is indeed an accomplishment. Madam Marchbanks compliments you on your lively casting
—there have been too few students who can take the textbook lessons and turn out a show with that
much personal flair. A natural hand at Charms, commendably done; your performance has caught
the interest of the Examinations Board." Dumbledore gazed calmly at him from over the frames of
his spectacles. "However, I had looked forward to discussing what I consider a success of greater
significance. Namely, this delightful letter I received this summer from your grandmother. I must
admit that I was rather bewildered at first to have received mail addressed to a 'Professor Albert
Dumberton', but after opening it, the surprises just kept coming."

Dumbledore beamed at Tom over the loaded tea tray.

"Pleasant surprises, I hope?" asked Tom, his gaze darting to the papers on Dumbledore's desk, then
back to his professor.

"Oh, absolutely wonderful," replied Dumbledore. He began to pour the tea, sending a cup and
saucer sliding over to Tom without slopping tea over the edge. The sugar bowl and creamer
followed, Dumbledore watching Tom serve himself with a bright twinkle in his eyes.

"We've updated your records, so in future, your school supply lists will be owled to—" he paused to
turn over a sheet of paper on his desk, "—Ah, let's see. 'North Corner Room Two, the Riddle
House, Hangleton, Yorkshire'. The owls will be instructed to deliver to this room in particular,
instead of wherever you happen to be in the house, as most of our Muggleborn students prefer—
and as preferred by the Ministry, in adherence to their standards for wizarding secrecy, of course."

Tom gritted his teeth, concealing the movement behind the rim of his teacup. He could read
between the lines and discern what Dumbledore really meant. This was no helpful intervention to
keep bird droppings off the dining table, or Muggle neighbours wondering why nocturnal animals
were swooping around in broad daylight. It was a way to ensure that Tom remained in his room
during the holidays, even past the age of legal adulthood, because there would be no other way to
get his letter if he left for London or Hogsmeade. No way to get his justly earned Head Boy badge,
too.

(Tom was counting on Sluggy to procure the nomination to Head on his behalf; unlike Dumbledore,
that man knew the meaning of the word 'helpful'.)

"Thank you, sir."

"Not a problem, Tom!" said Dumbledore, with a genial chuckle. "There is another matter I wished
to discuss, with relation to that topic. You must have noticed that your latest school supply list
lacked the usual pouch of coins from the Hogwarts Student Relief Fund. I'm afraid that from now
on, you'll no longer be eligible to receive this disbursement. That won't be a problem, will it? By
the state of your uniform, I assume that you were able to purchase better than second-hand this
year, which the Relief Fund sadly limits its recipients to."

He had noticed it. Not on the day of his letter's delivery, but a few days later when he was doing
his shopping in Diagon Alley. At the time, it hadn't bothered him as he had more than enough of
his own money to buy his supplies, half of which he already owned. He'd gotten the Advanced
Defence and Advanced Charms textbooks the previous summer, when he was living at The Hog's
Head.

He hadn't noticed that the envelope was lighter than usual when the owl had arrived, because it
wasn't—it had contained his O.W.L. results, with an extra card containing the examiners' feedback
for each subject that had a practical wandwork component. His, unlike the ones of his dorm mates,
had commentary on the back of the cards, detailing the extra points he'd been awarded for
performing the spells non-verbally, or with interesting non-textbook variations.

"It's not been an inconvenience," said Tom. "I got everything on the list, and there won't be much
to buy next year, since the N.E.W.T. curriculum textbooks are the same for both Sixth and Seventh
Year."

"I am glad to hear it," said Dumbledore. "Your family are looking forward to having you for
Christmas. How are you settling in with them? The staff every year try our best to make Christmas
at Hogwarts a happy occasion for the students who choose to stay, but for all that we try, nothing
comes close to spending the holidays with family. I'm overjoyed to see that you have found yours,
Tom—family is a precious gift that ought not to be squandered or taken for granted."

Dumbledore gazed mournfully at Tom, and, as if in sympathy, the phoenix perched on the golden
stand behind the desk let out a soft croon, like a single, silvery note blown from a flute. For an
instant, Tom thought he had burned himself with his tea; his chest and throat felt constricted all of a
sudden, too hot, as if he'd swallowed too large a gulp at once. He felt it strongly, but somehow it
wasn't painful; it was an internal pins-and-needles sensation that made him vaguely uncomfortable,
but not so uncomfortable that he let it show on his face. He wouldn't let it, not with Dumbledore
sitting across the table from him.

"Wizards live such extended lives that it's easy to lose track of those who don't," continued
Dumbledore. "We so easily forget those who matter most to us—or rather, those who should."

"I suppose I'm still getting used to the idea of having proper guardians," said Tom, trying to finagle
his way around telling the entirety of the truth. From the age of eleven, he'd been aware that
Dumbledore knew more about mind control and mind magic than he was willing to share, and if
Tom at that age could tell when he was being lied to, it only made sense that such an ability was
within Dumbledore's reach as well.

"We hardly know each other, and you might say that it's an issue with a simple solution: spend
more time with them, since it seems I won't be offered the choice to stay at Hogwarts over the
holidays." Tom made an effort to keep any hint of his bitterness about this decision from showing
in his voice or demeanour. "But, sir, there are other—incompatible—differences between us that
can't be so simply overcome, no matter how often we entertain one another's company. And to be
frank, I find it unrealistic to expect people to get along in spite of them."

One of the many enchanted gadgets on the shelf in the back of the office let off a buzzing sound,
but Dumbledore paid it no attention. He steepled his hands over his half-drunk tea and asked,
"What makes you think that? Am I wrong to assume that these differences are due to their being
Muggles?"

"I hope you aren't implying that I hold Muggles as lesser beings because they lack magic, sir,"
returned Tom, who did not believe that Muggles were equal to wizards, but had ensured that his
phrasing had made no assertion of his personal beliefs.

"And do you, Tom?"

"Our differences have less to do with them not having any magic," said Tom. "And more to do
with me being a wizard."

"I am afraid I don't understand," Dumbledore said, dipping a piece of shortbread into his tea with
one hand, while he stroked his beard thoughtfully with the other. "Could you explain what you
mean by that?"

"I know that magic is inherent, and there's nothing I can do about their not being wizards, as much
as I can't help being a wizard myself," Tom said. "So the only option I see there is to accept our
differences in that regard. But then there are other differences between us that aren't so inherent,
residing in personality as opposed to identity. They're ones that can be changed, but no one is
particularly eager to do so—and with these, I can't see us getting past them and getting on, not for
the long term, at least."

He refrained from saying, But it won't really matter in the end because, as a wizard, I'm likely to
outlive them all.

Dumbledore's mouth tilted into a thoughtful frown; he brushed soggy biscuit crumbs off his beard,
and when he was done, he said, "It isn't common knowledge, but my mother was Muggleborn, and
my father pureblood. They disagreed on things, as all couples do, and one of those things was on
the subject of dealing with Muggles; even to their last days together they had reached no resolution
on the matter. From this, I can observe that it is not unusual to have differences of opinion amongst
individuals, but that is far from saying the people involved are utterly incompatible."

"There are instances where opinions can be incompatible," said Tom, giving an earnest attempt not
to stare at Dumbledore's biscuity beard. He knew that beards were a proper wizardly tradition, like
long hair and pointy hats, but he had never seen the appeal himself. The modern wizard, as he'd
decided to be, shouldn't have to rely on the traditional wizarding uniform to demonstrate that he
was powerful. Merlin could have performed the same magical feats in his royal regalia as his
nightshirt and slippers.

(Besides that, he found robe sleeves cumbersome during meals. He had learned in First Year how
to keep his sleeves out of his food, but not all of his fellow Slytherins had. It quite put him off his
dinner when he reached out to ladle himself some scalloped potatoes and saw that some other
student's potion-stained sleeve had already been dragged through the communal platter, leaving a
forlorn trail of cheesy lumps smeared over the table.)

"I recall being told years ago," Tom went on, "that wizards have no formal religion, but believe in
an immortal magical soul of some sort that goes on adventures upon a wizard's death. My family—
my Muggle family—are members of the Church of England, and believe in immortality by
salvation. Those two beliefs are hardly concurrent. Surely if there's anything that can divide a
family beyond repair, it's a matter of this nature."

"I see it as your choice to make an issue of contention of it," said Dumbledore in a maddeningly
kind voice. "I support the peaceful co-existence of all beings, including wizards and Muggles, but
that is an ideal entirely based on personal initiative."

"Isn't it also one's personal initiative to believe whatever they want?" Tom asked.

"Of course. And it is my own to believe that the love of one's family is beyond price."

"There aren't enough galleons in the world to buy it, sir," spoke Tom confidently, knowing that he
would never love Mary Riddle regardless of how many coal-seamed acres she and her husband
bequeathed him.

"In that, we are in agreement," said Dumbledore, nodding in approval.

For a minute, they sipped their tea, Dumbledore refreshing his cup from the pot and levitating a
biscuit over to his pet bird. With interest, Tom noted how the phoenix had the flexibility of a
parrot, able to grip a biscuit with its claws and lift it up to its beak, whereupon it devoured it in a
spray of crumbs. Unlike Dumbledore, who used his beard to catch his crumbs, the phoenix had a
tray under its stand which was filled with a mix of fragrant wood shavings, bird droppings, and a
layer of fine ash that glittered like gold dust. Tom was almost tempted to take some, as phoenix
dust was a rare and expensive potions ingredient, but he was put off by the thought of putting his
hands in poo, even if it was magical poo.

Returning his cup to his saucer, Dumbledore asked, "Do you still practice meditation, Tom?"

"Every other night before bed, sir," said Tom, lifting an eyebrow in question. "I've found that
meditating over the day's lessons is a good way to revise for the next day's."

"And are you able to organise your thoughts?"

"I suppose so, Professor." Tom looked askance at Dumbledore. "If you asked me at this moment to
characterise sequential Transfigurations, then determine how suitable it is for a given situation
versus, say, modular Transfigurations... I believe I'd be capable of it."

"That is well and good, Tom, but not quite what I was after. If I asked if you could clear your
thoughts, would you be capable of that?"

"Clear my thoughts?" Tom cocked his head. "I'm not certain what you mean. Think of nothing?"

"Exactly!"

"I expect I could," said Tom, who had never in his life liked admitting that he couldn't do
something—at least, not aloud.

Dumbledore wriggled his bony fingers at Tom. "Go on then, Tom."

"Sir?"

Dumbledore's brows undulated on his forehead like a pair of red furry caterpillars.

Tom took a deep breath and closed his eyes. This was ridiculous, but this was also Dumbledore.
Nothing about the infuriating old man had to make any sense to anyone but himself. But there was
also something incredibly galling about being incapable of performing an action that Dumbledore
spoke of in such unceremonious terms, as if it was a simple and commonplace feat for him. Tom
saw himself as no one's lesser, especially not Dumbledore's, so of course he'd try it and see if he
could do it too; it definitely hadn't anything to do with wanting to indulge Dumbledore's mysterious
objectives.

Clearing my thoughts? How does that work? Tom mused, behind the red-tinged darkness of his
closed eyelids. He adjusted his breathing, relaxed his shoulders, and set his hands in his lap, palms
up.

It must have something to do with visualisation, he decided. There was a good chance that
Dumbledore was going to show him an interesting magical trick, and most things about magic were
intuitive to Tom. And he'd known, from his years of experimenting, that visualisation and
imagination were essential ingredients in successful magical casting.

A vision of the night sky, aglow with wheeling constellations, formed in the back of his mind—the
same glorious sky he'd denied to the tiresome Acromantula locked in the trunk. A million stars,
scattered across a void of blue-black velvet, glinting like snowflakes fallen on his winter cloak.
Clear them away. Tom breathed out. Think of nothing.

The snowflakes melted into the black wool. The flickering stars, one by one by one, were snuffed
out, leaving behind an empty velvet void. There was a yawning chasm opening up before him; it
swallowed him whole and left nothing behind—no flesh, no weight, no senses—not even the sound
of his own pulse thrumming through his ears, the quiet whisper of each breath passing through his
nostrils, tinged with the aroma of herbal bergamot tea, or the soft gurgle of his stomach digesting
the masticated remnants of lemon shortbread.

The chasm widened, growing endlessly wider. It was endless, giving him no sense of dimension,
no indication of how far it extended; it was at once a featureless blankness and immeasurably
infinite. Neither time nor mass nor distance mattered, nothing mattered, not in this empty space in
between thinking and dreaming.

Nothing.

Tom opened his eyes.

"What is this meant to achieve, sir?" he asked.

"It's a practical lesson," said Dumbledore, peering at him intently. "A rather unique educational
exercise."

"Is something supposed to happen?"

"Continue as you were, Tom. Try not to lose your concentration."

"Professor?"

Tom waited for Dumbledore to answer, but the man just gazed in his direction, twiddling his
thumbs aimlessly, a pleasant smile on his face.

This is a waste of time, thought Tom. I could be doing so many other, more productive things, right
now.

It was a Saturday afternoon, early on in the term, when the threat of looming exams had not yet
crossed the horizon in the minds of the average student. His yearmates would be outside enjoying
the last warm days of autumn. Tom could find better things to do; the N.E.W.T. curriculum wasn't
that hard, but the homework had begun to shift away from what he was long accustomed to. What
had once been essays that could be written by summarising the textbook had turned into large
projects involving the practical demonstration of all the skills and spells taught over the term.
Again, not difficult—but terribly time consuming when he had other projects to work on.

He had a half-completed draft of his next article, which he'd tentatively titled, 'Course Correct:
Temperature Charms for Perfect Mealtime Service'. It would be accompanied by a set of wand
movement diagrams, instructing readers on how to charm their servingware so hot meals were kept
hot, with a reversed spell that kept drinks and desserts chilled. He could see it being useful for
wealthy witches who wanted their main courses to remain hot even if their guests lingered over the
apéritifs, and for the working housewitches who needed dinner ready for hungry husbands
returning from their evening shifts.
It was an idea he and Hermione had come up with in his room at the Leaky Cauldron, after she'd
remarked on how he still used the enchanted lunchbox she'd gifted him years ago. It had turned
into a debate on the merits of enchanting versus spellcasting: enchanting was harder to learn and
teach, and this had a significant influence on the number and value of enchanted objects;
spellcasting, Tom argued, was more flexible, simpler to teach, and here was the most important part
—it had a certain populist appeal. After all, few wizarding families could afford a full set of
enchanted dinnerware, and although many families had one or two pieces in the dining room china
hutch, they were usually wedding gifts or inherited heirlooms rather than enchanted by hand.
However, most wizards could learn to cast a temperature charm on their food and drink.

If he hadn't been invited for tea and tiddlywinks with Dumbledore, he and Hermione would
probably be working on spell diagrams, or another one of their class projects. Weekends were their
main opportunity to see each other outside of class, now that the summer holidays had ended. He
dared to entertain the idea that he missed her; unlike everyone else in their year—everyone else he
knew in general—Hermione's presence didn't grate on him after a few hours. He enjoyed
collaborating with her on magical projects, and even things that had nothing to do with magic or
schoolwork were still enjoyable in her company.

And when she was gone...

During the summer he'd consoled himself, in her absence, with the interesting books and
periodicals she'd brought for him, including an article on the proper notation of magical
instructional diagrams, or a history on the Roman and Anglo-Saxon occupations of Yorkshire.
There was also the reassuring scent of her that remained in his room after she left, a subtle
combination of shampoo, bath soap, laundry flakes, and the natural fragrance of her body, which in
the summertime was not as nonexistent as he supposed most girls wished it to be, but to him it was
far from unappealing.

She'd be mortified if he mentioned it, so he didn't. Nor did he mention that he liked it, that once or
twice during the night, he'd pressed his nose to the pillow she'd reclined on during her visit. In
doing so, something had pressed rather insistently against the placket of his pyjama pants, and then
he had had to press his hand against himself to relieve the pressure; it was a filthy habit whose
filthiness his rational mind took no notice of during times like this...

"Tom!" Dumbledore's voice interrupted the meander of his thoughts. "You've lost your
concentration."

Tom blinked.

"My apologies, sir," he said automatically—and then his attention returned to the original context
of their conversation. His eyes narrowed. "Concentration, Professor? How—how did you know—
you knew what I was—"

He cut himself off, feeling heat rise up his neck and bloom across his cheeks.

Dumbledore had been listening to his thoughts.

It was disgusting on both sides—that Dumbledore knew the direction that his thoughts had taken—
that Tom had been thinking those thoughts in the first place—that he'd allowed himself to be out-
manoeuvred by an interfering old man.
The teacups rattled in their saucers; silver and porcelain tinkled on the tea tray, and behind the desk,
the phoenix squawked loudly and buffeted its feathers.

"Tom!"

Tom bit his tongue. The rattling ceased.

"Sir," said Tom, swallowing the words that he'd really wanted to say, "what was that?"

"A basic introduction to Occlumency, of course," Dumbledore answered, giving no sign that he had
been disturbed by the display of accidental magic, or by the theme of Tom's personal musings.
"Occlumency is an uncommon magical discipline whose function is to allow wizards and witches
to fortify their conscious minds and protect the privacy of their thoughts. It is a difficult bit of
magic, even to the adult wizard, and requires a consistent, applied focus that few children are
capable of. And it was for that very reason, years ago, that I recommended you practice meditative
techniques. I came to the decision today that you were ready to be taught. Do you think you're
ready, Tom?"

"Yes, sir," said Tom. "I'm ready to learn. But... Sir, you can read minds?"

"I have learned to dabble in this and that over the years," Dumbledore said evasively, before he
waved his hands over the tea tray and made it disappear with a Pop! "I believe we have the time to
try once or twice more, before I send you off to clean yourself up before dinner. Remember, Tom
—clear your thoughts."

For the next half hour, Tom forced his thoughts to remain on the blank, black sky in his mind,
noticing that each time he began to drift away to thoughts of other things, it was accompanied by a
faint tugging sensation that seeped its way into his consciousness. It was strange—foreign—a
pressure so subtle that it wasn't much different from the brief touch of a fly alighting on his skin.
His awareness of it was minimal unless he concentrated on following the feeling to its source, in
the same way he'd learned to interpret each sensory signal of the Acromantula's tactile 'vision'.

Every time he traced that feeling to wherever it came from, he could feel the growing throb in his
temples of an imminent headache, but Tom didn't allow his concentration to waver. Once or twice,
he thought he saw Dumbledore showing signs of his own headache, though he spoke not a word on
his personal discomfort.

Dumbledore's piercing gaze didn't relent, and to his relief, the professor made no more reprovals
for the rest of the session.

(Dumbledore didn't comment on what he'd gleaned from Tom's private thoughts, either. But Tom
was still too put out to feel thankful for it.)
Chapter End Notes

— Tom-centric chapter, because his character needed some time to internalise the last couple
of major plot events. He has a family now, and that needs to sink into his patented Tom
Logic™. This chapter also covers Tom's independent adventures and character development.
Next chapter will cover Hermione's independent adventures, and continue her storyline with
Nott (Yes, it is going somewhere, please hold onto your pants.) I know some people want to
see Tom and Hermione interact all chapter, every chapter, but that's impossible if they're to
develop individual personalities, strengths, and motivations.

— Tom and Dumbledore have a weird miscommunication thing going on where each person
lacks crucial insight on the other, but they have next to no awareness of it. For example, the
concept of "Family" to Dumbledore versus how Tom sees it. It's not helped by the fact that,
due to each of them knowing Legilimency, they assume the other can't lie to them... but that's
not the same as being 100% honest. So even if they aren't constantly at each other's throats
like Canon Dumbledore and Canon Tom, this version of them will never be friends on equal
terms.
 Amortentia
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1943

Amortentia, as described by Hector Dagworth-Granger, was a potent mood-affecting compulsion

that manifested itself in the following symptoms: lowered inhibitions, impaired judgement,
increased libido, and an obsessive fixation on a single target; long-term exposure and withdrawal
was purported to result in chronic mood instability. Amortentia was as dangerous a potion as it was
difficult to prepare, but that didn't diminish its reputation among wizarding consciousness. For all
the troubling implications around its use, Amortentia maintained an air of mystery and romance—
the latter of which Hermione found remarkably literal.

Air of romance, indeed, thought Hermione, in her first N.E.W.T. level Potions practical lesson,
where Professor Slughorn revisited the fundamentals and moved on to advanced techniques with
ingredients from his "special cupboard", which were too valuable to be stocked amongst the other
ingredients of the student communal cupboard.

Slughorn demonstrated the process of pulverising moonstone into a fine dust, tilting the mortar for
all the students to peer inside and observe the texture and consistency of the powder. After the
moonstone, he showed how to clean a mortar to avoid cross-contamination with the next
ingredient, freshwater pearls.

"...And this was how I learned to do it back in my old apprenticeship days, when my primary job
was cleaning the master's cauldrons and grinding his knives. As a professional, one must keep his
tools in tip-top shape, naturally; the first lesson any brewer learns is that good tools and good
ingredients are what makes a good potion. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, including any
overzealous apothecary assistants trying to convince you that an ounce of bicorn horn is equal
substitute for two ounces of unicorn, hoho! Feels like just yesterday, let me tell you, when I learned
that lesson first hand..." said Professor Slughorn, rambling on nostalgically. He kept his lessons
informal, encouraging student participation; it gave his lectures a conversational feeling, albeit a
conversation that was rather one-sided and contained so many extraneous anecdotes that Hermione
had years ago stopped taking notes on them.

Hermione glanced to the side, where Tom wasn't taking any notes at all. He had his chin propped
in the heel of one hand, his eyes half-lidded, looking oddly meditative. Looking around, she
observed that most of the class had glazed expressions on their faces, more than usual for a lecture
where Slughorn had strayed off-topic; where he'd started on his talk about preparing the day's
potion, he'd ended up in a diatribe on the rising price of Ashwinder eggs, and the nerve of any
suppliers who'd dare to mislabel inferior specimens as premium ingredients.

It's the potion fumes, Hermione realised.

She'd identified the contents of Professor Slughorn's sample cauldron at the start of the day's
lecture, earning points for Ravenclaw. By now, the fumes had dispersed across the classroom,
although she and Slughorn—and possibly Tom, who looked distant and bored in most classes
where he already knew the subject matter back to front—seemed to be the only people who weren't
swooning over their desks.

For her, the fumes were a combination of a library and a stationery shop: new parchment, leather-
bound covers, bottled ink, and the fragrant lemon oil wood-polish that she associated with
bookshelves and study nooks in the Hogwarts library. More subdued notes she could also discern:
she smelled the tea she liked to drink during late night studying, a nice treat any other time of the
day, and then the fresh scent of some sort of soap. It wasn't her own, which was more floral than
herbal, and she couldn't recall if it matched the brand of laundry powder her Mum bought back
home, or any of the cakes of soap her dorm mates used in their shared bathroom.

She found her lack of response to the Amortentia—the dazedness, the loss of mental clarity—to be
somewhat unusual. Of course she'd noticed the allure that the textbook described as the potion's
Air of Romance, but it wasn't that compelling to her; it was something that could be analysed in a
specific state of mind, while the rest of her mind remained perfectly lucid. When she did it,
directing all her attention to a single element of the scent, in the same way it was possible to
concentrate on one particular flavour from an open spice rack, it was easier to overlook the
Amortentia's unnatural appeal.

This was a meditative technique that Mr. Pacek had told her about years ago, and one she'd seen
mentioned in the book she'd borrowed from Nott. A minor technique, as the book described, that
was a prelude to training oneself to completely emptying the mind of conscious thought—the mark
of a trained Occlumens. She would have considered it an impossible task if not for the book
confirming that it could be done, though not without much effort and practice.

The ideal: to narrow the the focus of the mind, withdraw conscious thought from bodily perception,
create separations—compartments—between each mental function so that a trained Occlumens in
desperate need could choke down raw whalemeat without wincing at the taste, or tourniquet and
cauterise her own limbs in a life-or-death emergency.

Hermione found those examples extreme, but she could see their utility: this was about learning to
ignore impulses, whether it was a natural, internal reaction to pain, or an external compulsion
produced by magic.

Legilimency, as she'd read, was only one of many ways to sway the direction of human thought.
Other things could affect the mind: Compulsion charms, the Confundus, the Imperius, the innate
abilities of certain magical species such as Veelas, Sirens, Dementors, and Phoenixes. Potions, this
potion in particular, and its fumes could do it, although there was very little the mental art of
Occlumency could help with if Amortentia was ingested into the body rather than simply inhaled.
It made sense that a Potions Master like Professor Slughorn had learned to immunise himself
against the side effects, though it was interesting, very interesting, that Tom appeared to be just as
composed as she was.

Tom's chest rose and fell as he breathed deeply of the fumes, as everyone else was doing, but his
eyes hadn't glazed over. It seemed as if Tom was enjoying the smell without falling under its
allure. Hermione enjoyed it too, but it wasn't her fault; Amortentia was brewed for the purpose of
beguiling the unwary.

When class ended, Hermione asked Tom about his thoughts on the lesson.

"I haven't seen anyone worried about Amortentia, and how dangerous it is," Hermione remarked,
on their way to the Great Hall for lunch. "I saw that half the class were drooling over their desks!
The textbook has a list of warnings in the footnotes, but no one reads them, and instead of going
over it, Slughorn spent more time explaining how to substitute cultured pearls for a budget brew.
As if any of us were ever going to brew Amortentia ourselves."

"Some people might do," said Tom, "if they buy into the belief that the smell of Amortentia is an
indication of who they'll marry in the future... But since they're the same people who trust
horoscopes so much that they'd stay up three nights without sleeping to chart the rise of Venus,
their judgement is probably not to be trusted. I'm not certain how that works, anyway; the textbook
says that food smells are quite common. Surely even the oldest of old maids out there would
hesitate about marrying a kidney pie."

"Did you get a food smell?" asked Hermione. She'd gotten a drink, but that was close enough to
count.

"Among other things," Tom said nonchalantly.

"Oh?"

"What did you get?"

"Books and parchment. The good kind, you know, the heavyweight ivory parchment that
Scrivenshaft's sells by the inch," Hermione said, picking the scent that she had identified first, the
one she knew without a doubt what it was, unlike the last one she was still puzzling over.

She was referring to the expensive rolls of premium parchment at the back of Hogsmeade's one
stationery shop, which required the assistance of a clerk to cut sections off upon request. Students
restocked their supply with the cheaper parchment from racks at the front, but it was that expensive
parchment which Hermione lingered over at every visit. It was so thick and weighty that the ends
didn't curl up as soon as she turned around; the standard quality stuff needed inkwells and
paperweights to keep it from scrolling up in the corners. This was the paper that Hermione couldn't
justify buying for everyday use, only for her final term projects for her favourite classes,
Arithmancy and Runes. And it was the paper used in the most valuable books in the Restricted
Section, the antique grimoires written by hand and quill, instead of being mass-produced like their
school textbooks.

"I got that too," said Tom, sounding very pleased with himself.

"There was something else..." Hermione spoke uncertainly, pausing for a moment to allow a group
of Hufflepuff First Years to overtake them. They were holding hands to keep from getting lost in
the maze of corridors that led out of the dungeons, a sight that made Tom scoff quietly under his
breath.

"...I couldn't tell what it was, but it smelled familiar," continued Hermione. "Like some sort of
soap, or cologne. I still don't know what it is. I think I'll have to go up to my dormitory before
dinner to see what the other girls are using."

Tom's eyes narrowed. "You've actually thought the potion smelled like one of those Ravenclaw
girls? What a preposterous idea—who on Earth would it be? Gutteridge? Shelton? It had better
not be Ellerby; she's a twit."

"Don't tell me you believe in Amortentia Divinations," said Hermione, with a trace of reproof. "I
fail to see how everyone thinks it's romantic; Professor Slughorn skimmed over the dangers, but he
was very clear that nothing about it had anything to do with real love."

She didn't believe in the mystical powers of Divination, especially if the predictions came from any
of her classmates who claimed to have the Sight, just because they had a nightmare about doing
poorly on an assignment and it came true.

Hermione was also aware that, in spite of whatever her personal thoughts on the subject might be,
the Muggle world would never have permitted the marriage of two inverts, as it was called in the
journals of psychology she'd found in her father's study at home. A 'mental condition', she'd read—
and it was only in writing that she'd learned about it, because it was not a subject trotted out in
casual conversation, not in primary school or the family dinner table. She wasn't even sure that
Magical Britain allowed it by law, but from what her dorm mates had told her about Jasper
Hastings and his 'deviant inclinations', certain things were tolerated so long as the people involved
(for a given value of 'people', as she was almost convinced the Sorting Hat was sentient) didn't
make a public spectacle of themselves.

(And if they performed their duties first, if that was required of them by their families. That was
something that went unspoken, but was nonetheless understood.)

Either way—and if Divination by Amortentia was a real thing, which she highly doubted—she
couldn't imagine herself living with one of her dorm mates for the rest of her life. Though they
might clean up after themselves in the communal facilities, and had the courtesy to Silence their
curtains if they snored, they weren't more than token friends, and distantly at that. She couldn't
remember the last personal conversation she'd had with any of them; she was the only Muggleborn
out of the group, and wasn't particularly invested in Wizarding culture to the extent that she
followed the news to the day, or recognised specific names dropped in gossip.

'Friends' and study partners she and the other Ravenclaws might be, but that was a far cry from
being a true friend or a partner for life.

"I don't believe in them," said Tom quickly. He glanced around to ensure that the hallway was
clear, before his voice lowered to a whisper. "I think you could do better than that. You're meant
for greater things—greater than some trite, romantic nonsense that came out of a cauldron, at least."

Hermione sniffed. "Just because I don't like the idea of artificial romance doesn't mean that there's
something wrong with romance in general."

While she could admit to enjoying the melodramatic idea of romance, the fictional portrayal of it
that involved balcony serenades and the obligatory Act Three double suicide, it wasn't anything she
actively sought to incorporate into her own life. That sentimentalised version was all fine to read
about or see performed on a stage, as a form of entertainment where she was safely installed behind
the Fourth Wall. Romance as a concept, however, which encompassed everything from courtship,
reciprocated affection, closeness and constancy into the far distant future... well, that was
something her parents had, and that realistic version of romance—which didn't come without its
faults and setbacks—she wouldn't mind knowing on her own terms.

Logical reasoning was an intrinsic part of Hermione's nature. There was no excuse for why
romance, of all things, couldn't be approached with realistic, reasonable expectations. Doing it this
way would avoid all those sticky endings that star-crossed romantics found themselves stuck in.
Death by heartbreak was a fate she intended to avoid; it was something that wouldn't do her future
aspirations any favours.
"Is that something you want? Romance?" Tom's mouth twisted into a scowl. "Love?"

"Doesn't everyone?" she answered.

Tom said nothing to that.

Hermione sighed and stepped closer, taking his hands and lacing their fingers together. "Just
because you might think of yourself as different to everyone else, doesn't mean you can't want what
I want—what everyone else wants. It's not beneath you, or beneath anyone to value that. You can
consider romance trite and common if you want, but it's not the same thing as love, and one day I
hope you'll see that."

"You know," said Tom, "you sound an awful lot like Dumbledore when you say things like that."

"Well, I think he's right about some things," said Hermione. "Love is the most powerful magic of
all."

"Wrong, actually." Tom shook his head solemnly. "Magic is the most powerful magic of all."

Hermione laughed at the graveness of his expression, and after a few seconds of trying to maintain
his serious manner, Tom gave up and smiled with her.

On the walk to lunch, Hermione debated Tom on what other natural and conceptual phenomena
could pass as magic, if wizards counted Love as magical. Gravity? Luck? Entropy or Time?

Dumbledore had mentioned before that Music was a great magic, but Hermione was dubious about
it, having never seen it quoted in a textbook. But for once in his life, Tom agreed with Professor
Dumbledore on that count, as music was a conscious amalgamation of imagination and intent, just
as spoken or written language were, as used in magical incantations or runic enchantment. And
intent was a basic principle of magic.

However, Tom did acknowledge certain exceptions to the rule: he held that there was nothing
remotely magical or even likeable about Muggle dance hall rags or the singing minstrel variety
hour broadcasted on the wireless. And in that, Hermione agreed with him.

She was so engrossed in the debate that she didn't notice they'd reached the Great Hall until Tom
straightened his tie and fixed his expression to one of thoughtful severity, as befitted his status as
Prefect and overall top student.

He glanced down at their connected hands and loosened his grip; she felt the edge of his nails drag
briefly down the flesh of her wrist before he removed his hand from hers. He strode purposefully
into the Hall and over to the Slytherin House table, but before he sat down, he turned to look over
his shoulder at an empty seat at the Ravenclaw table, which was situated so that they'd be able to
look at one another during lunch.
Hermione's long-awaited seventeenth birthday came and went, and instead of celebrating it with
Firewhisky, cake, and a pack of Gambol's Colour-Changing Sparklers, she spent it in the library.

There was plenty to research on the subject of her rights and obligations as an adult citizen of
Magical Britain, and it would be remiss of her to waste valuable research hours, particularly at this
time of year, when she didn't have to fight for a seat that wasn't squeezed between a Fifth Year
preparing for their O.W.L.s and a Seventh Year their N.E.W.T.s. This early on in the term, all the
books in the card catalogue were available to be read, without her having to sign her name on a
waiting list at the librarian's desk.

The by-laws of the Ministry of Magic were a bureaucratic labyrinth to navigate, but it was a task
Hermione had been bracing herself for, having in the summer acquired forms from Gringotts so she
could owl them in after her birthday. This would allow her access to wizarding currency without
having to visit a teller in person, and with that, she could transfer the administrative charges
associated with having her family's house in London properly registered as a wizarding residence.

It was all very tedious to go through, as the Grangers owned a Muggle house in a Muggle
neighbourhood, and there was a long checklist consisting of multiple sections and sub-sections that
the Ministry required for the application process.

17.5.c: Magical organisms (non-wizard). Include species and number of all live pets, pests,
flora, beings, beasts, and all non-living ghosts, poltergeists, or non-beings on property.
Proceed to form 17.6.d if any organisms exceed MoM Department of Magical Creatures
rating of XXX or higher. (Please refer to Appendix G12 for rating schema.)

It was tempting to ignore the reams of paperwork and continue on as she had been doing; for years,
she'd been eschewing the Ministry altogether, hiring a third-party to ward and inspect her house,
without the authorities ever knowing about or looking into it.

She was browsing the wizarding law section of the library for more information when she heard a
voice on the opposite side of the bookshelf.

"Psst!"

Hefting Volumes One and Two of The Wizarding Patents Registry of Experimental Hybridisation
from the shelf, then setting them on the floor to create a gap, Hermione bent her head down and
peeked through to the aisle on the other side.

A pair of blue-grey eyes stared back at her.

"Nott," she said, "what are you doing?"

Nott's eyes darted left and right, checking for anyone approaching his section, before his attention
returned to her. He hissed through the gap, "You've been avoiding me, Granger!"

"No, I haven't!"
"Yes, you have!" he snapped. "You never wrote back during the summer, and whenever I try to talk
to you in class, you pretend you're busy."

"That's because I am busy!"

"Busy hiding something, I'd say," Nott insisted. "What did you find? And I know you have
something; you've got that same face you make when someone else has his hand up in the air
before you do."

Hermione wasn't aware she made any sort of face when the teacher awarded points to another
student in class. Tom had never made mention of it before.

(Tom was the only other student whom she counted as academic competition in any of her subjects,
but he usually waited for other students to have a go first before he modestly volunteered his own
answer to win points for Slytherin. He enjoyed beating her when the question was a complicated
one, as answering it first would further cement his reputation as a model student in the eyes of the
professors and the rest of the class.)

"First, I don't make a face!" said Hermione waspishly. "And second, I don't even know why you're
looking at me in the first place."

"One can learn a lot through looking," said Nott in a cold voice; through the gap in the shelf,
Hermione saw his nostrils flare with poorly contained impatience. "For instance, I've noticed that
you've been hovering about in the section between Wizarding Patent Law and Prosecution
Transcripts of the Eighteen-Nineties. The only books there are on property law. And I've seen you
with parchments stamped with the Ministry's seal. What are you doing there, Granger? Buying a
magical property?"

"That's none of your concern," Hermione retorted.

"It could be," said Nott. "I don't know if you know this, but those hundred page applications don't
matter at all. When you owl them in, the clerks at the Ministry never even read them—they only
flip to the last page, and then they either stamp their approval right away, or it gets lost in the
system and you never hear back until you show up in person... That's when they claim you never
sent anything in. What really matters is the last page on the form, the statutory declaration."

"I was going to get my Head of House to sign as witness," Hermione bit out.

The Statutory Declaration form, which confirmed her identity as an of-age adult and legitimate
registrant, wasn't just for property purchases—what Nott thought she was applying to the Ministry
for. It was a sheet of parchment imbued with Anti-Forgery charms, a variant of the spell that the
professors used on Hogsmeade permission slips when any Third Year brought one in with the
signature looking like it was done in a child's handwriting.

"Beery?" Nott snickered. "He's a joke. That's the fastest way to get your form floating around
someone's In-Tray for the next six months."

Hermione frowned. "How does anyone put up with this level of inefficiency?"

"Ah, that's the thing," said Nott, his tone annoyingly insouciant. "Not everyone puts up with it.
My family certainly doesn't."
Her frown deepened. "Don't tell me it's due to your connections."

"Five points to Ravenclaw," Nott said with a smirk. "I wouldn't mind sharing my connections, if
you'd like, Granger. All I ask is for you to share something in return..."

He trailed off meaningfully.

Hermione chewed her lip, tempted as much as she was conflicted.

At this point in the term, she might be an adult, but she was still a student, and she couldn't go
haring off to the Ministry in London, be bounced between administrative departments, all to finally
get to the one office that had the approval stamp for her specific application.

It was best to get her family's home registered as a wizarding residence as quickly as possible,
which would ensure her parents could have the Floo installed by Christmas, and the whole house
protected with a full set of anti-munitions wards instead of just the cellar. With that, her parents'
safety would be assured in every room of the house, in case the house were to be bombed during
the day when Mum and Dad weren't sleeping underground. With wards over the entire house, she'd
be able to use magic in the kitchen, sleep in her childhood bedroom again, and even practice
Apparition indoors. Doing it inside a registered house was permitted by the Ministry, as an
alternative to finding a deserted alley to Apparate.

(Alleys were nonexistent in the suburbs outside of central London, and the textbook she'd read to
prepare herself for the official lessons next term said that beginners were often very noisy with their
Apparitions. Hermione wasn't eager to practice Apparition outdoors if the gunshot sound, created
by the air displacement, would have her neighbours ringing the police every time.)

She also knew that Nott had no spirit of generosity; he was not a kind-hearted soul who yearned to
help the disadvantaged and less fortunate. He always wanted something in return, and though he
had never cheated her out of any exchange so far—which was limited to all of one time—he was
not above exploiting her, her ignorance and inexperience, if it suited him.

On one side of the scale, there was information on Tom's family, which she'd learned from Major
Tindall and Roger, and if it had been a secret, it wasn't now. Mrs. Riddle and her husband had had
to acknowledge Tom's parentage in public, because an affluent selection of London society had got
wind of it and taken an interest in a young man who'd been poorly neglected by his blood family.
In the aftermath, a scandal two decades old had been revived, one which the Riddles thought had
run its course and gotten buried in the passage of years.

On the other side, there was Hermione's family, whose lives had been much improved by
Hermione's gift of magic. They were doing much better than other families still living in London,
enough that they could afford to send the surplus of their larder and table to those of lesser means,
because they had access to the wizarding markets. Hermione wanted to increase that access—
secure it permanently—by bringing magic in and making their home magical, so even if Hermione
moved elsewhere in Britain, or if she was away visiting Yorkshire, she could guarantee that her
parents would always be close by and within easy reach. Safe.

There was a choice she was being offered, and when she looked at and weighed up the worst
possible outcomes, she would choose Tom ignoring her for a handful of weeks, or a few months if
he was going to be obstinate about it, as he'd done that last time he'd assumed she told Dumbledore
about him. (If he tried to go without speaking to her, he would have a jolly time of it now, as their
N.E.W.T. subjects had consolidated classes without regard for separation by House.)
Having Tom ignore her was better than Mum or Dad being injured or—it was difficult to
contemplate such a ghastly prospect—killed in a completely preventable situation.

What use was being a witch if she couldn't protect her own family?

Unlike some other people she could name, she had a family whose presence she appreciated,
valued, rather than suffered.

Tom didn't care about his family.

So why should she care? As long as she limited any information she shared from being detrimental
to Tom himself, then it wouldn't matter, would it?

"How can I trust you?" asked Hermione. "You talk of connections, but I know you wouldn't be
allowed to visit London to chat up whatever cousin's cousin you've got working at the Ministry."

"I'll write out a letter to my father's solicitor in front of you. You can read it over my shoulder,"
said Nott. "Make a copy of the forms, owl it with my letter—you can choose a school owl and
watch me send it off—and he'll sign your declaration slip and hand-deliver to the right Ministry
office."

"The forms have my personal information on them!" Hermione protested.

"Solicitors are contracted to client privacy," Nott countered. "And our community is only so large
that a prominent family denouncing a person's reputation would ruin him for years, if not for life."

Hermione considered the offer for a minute or so. "Write the letter out first."

"And then you'll tell me what you know?"

"I'll tell you what I found out this summer," said Hermione, choosing her words carefully. There
were plenty of things she knew about Tom that she'd learned years ago, and while she didn't know
if Nott could tell whether or not she told him the truth, she did know that there existed magical
means to ensure honesty. It was better not to risk it; it was better to tell selective truths than
outright lies.

"You have a deal, Granger," Nott said. He glanced over his shoulder, then his face disappeared
from the gap between the shelves. He reappeared once more an instant later, holding a stack of
books, which he shoved back onto the shelf, closing off the connection.

Hermione returned the patent registry books on her side of the shelf. She leaned against the
wooden frame and drew in a shaking breath.

Unimportant information only, preferably if it was also accessible to the public.

It would further reaffirm her honesty; in the event it ever came into question, she could point him to
look it up, if he ever deigned to go rummaging into the dusty depths of Muggle bureaucracy, where
his family connections would be of no help. Public information meant that it was as far from
confidential information as the Wizarding Law section was from Astrodivination.

She'd decided that she wasn't going to tell Nott anything that Tom had told her personally; that
would be betraying his confidence as a friend. Even when she'd asked Dumbledore about Tom's
Legilimency, she'd never used his letters as proof against him—she'd only told the professor about
her personal experience with his mind magic. So there it was: anything she'd gleaned through her
own investigations or experience, or had been apprised of by other parties: she found that morally
acceptable to share.

Nott came around the corner of the shelves, dumping his bookbag on the nearest table. His wand
flicked, and a roll of parchment flew out, followed by a bottle of ink sealed with a wired cork
stopper, the label on the front identifying it as Scribbulus' Best Indelible Formula #16.

The parchment was unrolled, corners pinned into place with a textbook, and then Nott picked up a
quill and began to write.

To A. McLaird of Slant and Associates, 84/C Diagon Alley, London:

As pertaining to the extant retainment contract, authorised and renewed in 1933 by C. H. Nott
of the House of Nott, your legal and administrative services are hereby requested. Immediate
assistance is required in lodging the following applications on behalf of one H. J. Granger...

Hermione read the letter over Nott's shoulder, noting that his writing was not as beautiful as Tom's
—Tom always finished his Y's and J's with elegant looping tails—but it was extraordinarily clean.
Nott handled the quill with the ease of someone who'd been trained from childhood to use one, his
right hand working over the parchment, his left hand keeping the page from rumpling, smoothly
reaching out to dab the blotter at the end of each line at the same time he began a new one. When
he went to refresh his ink, he didn't violently jab the quill nib into the inkwell as she'd seen younger
students do; with care, he wiped off the excess before he continued writing, so that there were no
splatters or blobby ink drops on the first stroke he made, and each line, each word, was consistent
and uniform to every other.

Despite her own feelings on Nott's personality, Hermione appreciated the efficiency. She herself
had never mastered this level of proficiency, having several years ago saved up her birthday money
and bought an enchanted No-Blotting nib that she could swap around on her collection of quill
feathers.

Another thing she had to appreciate was how he could draft a legal letter in situ—a skill that wasn't
taught in any class at Hogwarts—with the correct modes of address, the concise yet formal passive
voice, and references to specific clauses to the Notts' contract ensuring that any details Mr. T. E.
Nott shared with the family solicitor would not somehow wind up on the desk of Mr. C. H. Nott
when the quarterly billing form arrived.

She felt a pang when she realised that she could have learned this skill herself, had she gone to
Donwell Prep and taken the secretarial course that had been offered there. Magical Theoretica was
an interesting subject to pursue, but it was a sobering thought to realise that delving into the purely
academic side of her magical studies came at the cost of picking up useful life skills.

It was another sobering thought to acknowledge that she might have surpassed all the pureblooded
students in her year with her O.W.L. scores, but there were other areas in which they were her
superiors in knowledge and expertise.
Nott blotted the final sentence, drying the ink, and slid the parchment over to Hermione. When she
indicated that it met her approval, he drew out a stick of green wax from his quill case, then slid the
ring off the third finger of his right hand to create the seal. He melted the end of the wax stick with
his wand and dribbled the melted wax by his signature. When he removed his ring from the
cooling wax, Hermione observed that his family's coat of arms was of a shield held between two
crossed oak boughs in leaf.

"How many wizarding families have arms?" Hermione asked curiously, inspecting the seal. The
wax was green, but the surface had a pearly silver sheen.

Nott shrugged. "Sixty or thereabouts. Some houses are gone in the male line, some are gone
altogether, and some don't use them anymore because they want to be—" he scoffed, "—modern."

"That's funny," Hermione said, "aren't there only twenty-eight families on your father's official
list?"

"Twenty-eight worthy families," corrected Nott. "That distinction is important."

"Whatever you say," replied Hermione, who thought sorting groups by worthiness to be a
ridiculous, arbitrary task, with the end result bearing no objective weight. Anyone might decide
that raspberries were the most worthy fruit, and relegate strawberries and gooseberries to be the
"Devil's Berries", as if such a classification meant anything.

"It's your turn now, Granger," Nott prompted, cocking his head and suddenly looking quite eager,
his hands gripping the edge of the library table with white knuckles. "What do you know?"

Hermione pursed her lips, taking a few seconds to review the facts and select the ones she deemed
safest to share.

"'Riddle' is a Muggle name," she admitted. "You were right about that."

"I knew it!" cried Nott, eyes glittering in triumph. His mouth twisted into a cruel smile, baring a
flash of white teeth. "I knew Riddle was Muggle riff-raff from the start. You know, his first day in
the dormitory, he smashed the mirror in the bathroom because it talked to him. What kind of
savage doesn't know that enchanted mirrors give grooming advice?"

"He's not riff-raff," Hermione said defensively, glaring at Nott. "His family are actually wealthy
land-owners in Yorkshire. Not too far from where you live, actually."

"That doesn't change the fact that they're still Muggles," said Nott.

"It changes nothing about Tom," Hermione said. "To gloat over this because you have nothing else
to gloat over... that's just pathetic."

"Oh, whatever you say," Nott said in a mocking voice, echoing what she'd said a few minutes ago.
"I assume his mother is a filthy Muggle as well? Shall we make it two for two?"

"I don't know for certain," Hermione confessed. "There isn't much known about her."

She wasn't going to mention the few things she knew about Tom's late mother, which weren't
flattering in the least. There was no way to make the descriptions of 'village tramp' or 'fortune-
hunting tart' sound anything better than belittling, and she felt uncomfortable repeating such
disparaging language aloud. Seeing as these descriptions had been used by the likes of Mrs.
Riddle, she had her doubts that they were an objective fact; Hermione was more inclined to believe
that after twenty years, Mrs. Riddle was still offended that her highborn son had been stolen away
by a woman of the working class.

"Well?"

"Um," said Hermione. "All I know is that her name was 'Merope Gaunt Riddle'. I assume that
'Merope Gaunt' was her maiden name—'Gaunt' doesn't sound like a middle name to me."

Nott's gleeful smile froze; a muscle twitched under his eye. "Did you say 'Gaunt'? Spelt 'G-A-U-
N-T'?"

"I believe so," said Hermione, who'd never seen the name in writing. "Are there any other ways to
spell it?"

"Fuck," muttered Nott. Then louder, he repeated himself, "Fuck!"

"Shhh!" Hermione hissed at him, glancing around for any sign of the librarian. "You can't swear
here! This is a library!"

"'Gaunt' is a wizarding name," Nott spat between clenched teeth. "A proper family name, on the
list of worthy families."

"It could be a coincidence," Hermione suggested. "'Black' is a pureblood name, but there are plenty
of people with it who are Muggles."

"It's not a coincidence." Nott shook his head. "You told me that 'Marvolo' was his middle name,
and now that I know which surname it's connected to, it all makes sense! There was a 'Marvolo
Gaunt' listed in Father's Pure-Blood Directory—died in Twenty-Seven, but they've got to be
related. There are too many connections for it to be coincidence. Riddle is a Legilimens. The
Gaunt family are rumoured to bear that particular trait... and another, more famous one. If he has
one, then why not the other?" He leaned in, voice lowered. "Tell me, Granger, have you ever seen
Riddle talk to snakes?"

Hermione blinked. "What? Why—why would he do that? Snakes can't talk!"

"They can, and they do—but not to just anyone," said Nott very mysteriously, eyes narrowed in
calculation. "I have a theory... The Sorting Hat decided Riddle was worthy of Slytherin. It knew
something, didn't it? It had to know—he spent minutes under there back in First Year; he was
almost a Hatstall. I always thought it was debating dumping him in Hufflepuff, or another one of
the lesser Houses—offense intended, Granger—but now I think that it had to have known
something... and Riddle must have been hiding it the whole time, the sneak..."

"The whole time he was a half-blood," said Hermione, who was trying to pluck the facts out of
Nott's half-mumbled rambling. "Is that what you mean? He's not a Muggleborn, if his mother had
a wizarding name. She... she must have been a witch!"

This was a theory she had discussed with Tom years ago when they'd learned they were magical,
and that magic had a tendency to run in families. Back then, Tom hadn't known his mother or his
father, believing himself to be an orphan, and Hermione had assumed that there was a chance that
either or both parents could have been wizards. Tom had dismissed the idea of his mother being a
witch; what he knew of her was limited to the information he'd been given by the orphanage
authorities: that his mother had stumbled into Wool's in mid-winter and had him right there in the
foyer, then died a few minutes after naming him.

What pregnant witch would choose a Muggle orphanage as the perfect place to drop a baby? Why
wouldn't she go to St. Mungo's? It was dangerous for a witch to Apparate in labour, but there was
the Floo Network, and plenty of places in London had public Floo connections. Furthermore, the
hospital was run off the donations of wealthy families who liked to see their names engraved on
plaques hanging by the front doors. Medical care was free for those in need, and an imminent birth
counted as an emergency.

For years, Tom had been under the assumption that it was his father who had been the wizard, the
man who was the source of his unique ability, and it was only this summer that he'd met the Riddles
of North Riding in person. Hermione suspected that, at this point in time, Tom no longer cared
about his parentage—that he'd dismissed both sides of his family tree as useless outside of the
material advantages they offered. (Which for now was limited to Mrs. Riddle's indulgent
promenade of expensive trinkets and clothing.)

Being a Muggleborn herself, she whole-heartedly supported this reversal of opinion, even though
she didn't care much for the callous way Tom spoke of the Riddles, as if he was just waiting for
them to expire of old age so he could collect his inheritance and spend it all on rare spellbooks. (If
Hermione had come into a large amount of money at once, that was what she'd have spent it on; she
and Tom differed in a number of ways, but not in this.) It was somewhat disturbing to know that
Tom had looked up average British life expectancies, and had been pleased to discover that the
census of 1940 reported that British men were expected to live to an average age of sixty-five. Mr.
Thomas Riddle, current owner of the Riddle estate, had turned sixty-three this year.

Mr. Riddle liked wine with lunch and dinner, brandy and cigars for afters, and plenty of meat and
butter with every meal. Hermione was the daughter of a doctor, and despite having no medical
qualifications—or any training in the magical art of Divination—she found it safe to predict that he
wouldn't live past his eighth decade, and even seven would be a stretch. But she still felt a touch of
nervousness knowing that Tom wasn't one for patience, that he had always been greedier than was
good for him... Surely he wouldn't try to rush things, would he?

(When Tom joked about his inheritance, was he really joking?)

Nott made a face. "She was a pureblooded witch. Distinguished lineage, perfect unmixed blood,
and a sacred surname—that is, until she went and threw herself away on a Muggle."

"Unmixed blood," said Hermione in a flat voice. "Does that mean she was inbred?"

Nott brushed the insult off with an indifferent wave of his hand. "All purebloods intermarry if they
want to stay pure; don't get your lowly Muggle sensibilities wound up about it." He grimaced.
"Urgh, I'm sure that makes Riddle my sixth cousin or something. I swear there was a Corvinus
Gaunt who married an Injeborg Rowle in the Seventeen-Eighties, and a Rowle of that generation
who married Celandine Nott."

"Well, if the connection is by marriage, that puts at least one remove between you and him,"
Hermione pointed out.

"Haha, Granger," Nott grumbled. "Very droll. I'll have to investigate this—this is the best lead I've
got; assuming it isn't a hoax, then this information is much too promising to pass up."
He pushed himself up from the table, shovelling his quills and ink into his quill case, clearing up
his space of books and parchments and chucking them all into his bookbag. It must have been
enchanted with an Expansion Charm, because Hermione heard them rattling around inside until
Nott closed the flap and buckled it shut.

Nott ran a trembling hand through his hair, mumbling to himself.

"Hey!" said Hermione, hurriedly picking up her own books and parchment, "What about the letter?
We still have to go to the Owlery to send it off!"

"Fine," Nott grunted. He jerked his head in the direction of the library doors. "Let's go, then.
Hurry up; I've got things to do."

On the walk up to the Owlery, Hermione peppered Nott with questions on the Gaunt family, which
turned out to be a minor and relatively obscure house on the official list. She'd never read The
Pure-Blood Directory, having been aware of the Muggle equivalents which were nothing more than
regularly updated lists of British Peers. She'd not been impressed by the conspicuous self-
aggrandisement that underpinned these books' entire existence, and if her lack of enthusiasm
toward the concept of the Directory had been evident in her tone, she didn't bother to correct
herself, not even to spare Nott or his father's feelings.

She learned that the Gaunts were secretive and extremely conservative, even more than the average
pureblood, to the extent that they'd secluded themselves from wizarding society. They chose
homeschool over allowing their children to go to Hogwarts via the awful Muggle contraption that
was the Hogwarts Express; last century, when Minister Ottaline Gambol had stolen the Express
from the Muggle builders, she'd put out an ultimatum that all school enrollees had to ride the train
to Scotland or forgo their Hogwarts education, and apparently the Gaunts had been one of the few
families who had put their foot down in a refusal to expose their children to such Muggle
degeneracy.

The Gaunts' heraldic animal was the serpent, and they alleged descent from many notable historical
figures—but as it was through the female line only, even professional genealogists like
Cantankerous Nott had found no solid, undeniable proof in support of their claim. However, the
purity of their blood was unquestioned.

"They're not pure anymore, unfortunately," Nott remarked, when they'd reached the high tower that
was the Hogwarts owlery. There were several hundred steps to reach the top, and Nott sounded
winded by the time they'd reached their destination, which had bird droppings smeared all over the
floor and walls, and niches carved out for owls to roost when they weren't hunting or out delivering
letters. "Not if a Muggle man got a son on Merope Gaunt. What a shame: another good family
struck off the list. This'll have to go in the next edition, of course."

"Tom still has magical blood, whatever surname he bears," said Hermione. "He's a Legilimens;
you'd be a fool if you discount his ability due to the 'purity' of his blood."

Nott's jaw tensed. "Trust me, that's the last thing I'll forget. Now hurry up and pick an owl."

Gilles fluttered over to Hermione's shoulder, when Hermione cast about looking for an owl to take
the letter. He butted his head up against her hair, sharp talons pricking through the wool of her
school robes. Hermione patted his head soothingly, explaining that they needed an anonymous owl
to make a delivery, while Nott tapped his foot in irritation, toes crunching on straw stalks and
desiccated owl pellets.
They tied Nott's letter to the leg of a barn owl, with Hermione's application tied to the other. The
owl, one that belonged to the school, hooted at them while it tested the unbalanced distribution of
weight between its two legs. But soon it flung itself out of one of the tower's large windows and
winged away into the late afternoon sunset.

"Are you going to tell Tom?" Hermione asked when it was done.

Nott gave her a disgusted look. "I'm not stupid, Granger. I know better than to go and do that."

"Well, now you know better than to call Tom names for his blood status," said Hermione starchily.
"Since you're probably cousins."

"Half my House are distant cousins; it doesn't mean anything." Nott rolled his eyes. "There are
plenty of other names, unrelated to Riddle's blood, that I could think of to call him."

"But you won't," said Hermione, tilting her head. "You're afraid to even think too loud around
him."

"You're a fool for not being afraid of him."

"I've nothing to be afraid of."

Ever since the evening of the Gala, Tom had been more affectionate around her than he'd ever been
before. He didn't hesitate to return the small physical demonstrations of their friendship, and now
he initiated such contact on his own. It was nice—Tom was nice—and however unexpected it was,
she valued the changes that she'd seen in him. Was it perhaps the harsher edges of his personality
mellowing out as he transitioned into adulthood? Was it due to finding his family, and now that he
knew he wasn't an orphan, he no longer had to act like one, no longer had to cling onto the anger
and distrust that had formed in the years of orphanage deprivation?

Whatever the reason for the change, she liked this version of Tom. She didn't think he'd ever
become altruistic and all-loving; that was too far a stretch. At present, Tom was more thoughtful
around her, more attentive to her feelings, instead of the other way around where Hermione had had
to take special measures when in his presence. In the past, mentioning a specific topic could have
him going silent and brooding for hours at a time. After the first summer that Tom had lived in her
house, discussing the state of the war or the German air raids was enough to send him into a day-
long sulk.

"You're too trusting, Granger," said Nott, shaking his head in disappointment. "Riddle is a
Slytherin, and that means trust lasts only as long as it's convenient. And convenience won't last
forever."

Hermione couldn't bring herself to contradict him; in a debate on trust and trustworthiness, she
didn't think she was prepared to vindicate her own position. So she held her tongue as they made
their way back down the circular staircase of the Owlery tower.

"One of these days, Riddle is going to stop pretending to be everyone's favourite Prefect," Nott
went on, taking Hermione's silence as tacit agreement. "The two of us know better than everyone
else what he's like—what he's capable of. When he decides to make it known, he won't be needing
any infantile attachments." Nott's gaze flicked over to her, before continued with, "He's clever
enough to know how useless they are in the grand scheme of things, compared to how useful it is to
court the establishment, as it were. If it's known that Riddle has the proper blood, if not the proper
name, doors will open for him once he learns the right way to turn the handle..."

Hermione let him blather on, having decided that Nott was a prat whose opinions were nothing
more than self-important hot air. Nott might be able to score Outstandings in his class subjects
without relying on the right group partners or the best student tutors, but that was as much a
measure of his individual academic aptitude as his astounding lack of charisma. He had dozens of
distant cousins, but she couldn't name anyone in their year who could pass as a genuine friend of
his. He had some sort of grudge—grudging obsession, more like—against Tom Riddle, and made
derogatory remarks about Tom with every other breath... but he still loitered around the edge of
Tom's group, because there weren't any other people with the patience to put up with him.

Nott was a rather pitiable person, the more she thought about it. She wasn't the most charismatic
person either, but at least she could hold a conversation with the other girls in her dormitory, and
even if she didn't share the same priorities or personal beliefs as they did, she didn't go out of her
way to insinuate they were morally or intellectually deficient for it. It was discomfiting to
contemplate that in Nott's imaginary Anti-Riddle Society, he would have counted her as a founding
member, because there was no one else he was on 'friendly' terms with, or, really, on any terms at
all...

Upon turning the last curve of the spiral-shaped stairwell, she and Nott bumped into Edmond
Lestrange going the other way, a sealed envelope clutched in his fist.

"Nott," said Lestrange in greeting, giving the other boy a polite nod of the head. Then he noticed
Hermione, who was standing too close to Nott for the two of them to pass it off as a random
encounter during a routine mail run. "What are you doing with Granger?"

Hermione sent Nott an apprehensive look, before she said, "Sending a letter. Why? What did you
think we were doing?"

Lestrange gazed at Nott, who seemed as pale and twitchy as he usually was, then he turned to
Hermione. He studied her face intently.

Hermione felt her cheeks heating up under his intense scrutiny.

"You shouldn't be chumming it up with her, Nott," said Lestrange. "You'll be giving people the
wrong idea."

"Excuse me!" Hermione interjected. "I can 'chum it up' with anyone I like."

"And what's it to you?" Nott scowled. "Mind your own business."

"It's nothing to me," said Lestrange, shrugging his meaty shoulders. "But maybe Riddle would
have something to say about it."

"And you're going to tell him, are you?" asked Nott contemptuously.

"He'll be interested to know," Lestrange said, a dark glint of malicious glee flashing in his eyes.
"Maybe he'll remind you of that day you sicked up in the bathroom. What did you even do to him
to earn it? Y'know, we never found out what happened—but if you've been pawing over Granger,
maybe there'll be a public encore and Riddle will give us all front row seats."
He let out a nasty laugh.

"Shut the fuck up," Nott snarled, drawing his wand. "You have no idea what you're on about."

Lestrange drew his own, and for several seconds the two boys eyed each other from where they
stood on the staircase of the Owlery tower.

Hermione reached into her robe pocket—

"Furnunculus!"

"Melofors!"

Two flashes of light erupted from the ends of their wands, yellow from Nott's, and orange from
Lestrange's.

Hermione cast a silent Protego, bouncing Lestrange's spell right back at him, and the combination
of that and Nott's own spell flung him down a half-dozen steps and against the wall of the tower,
where he crumpled into a dazed heap on the floor.

"Duelling in the hallways is grounds for detention," said Hermione, casting a reproachful look at
Nott for a brief second, before she rushed over to Lestrange, dropping to her knees on the floor at
the base of the staircase. She checked the pulse at his wrist and throat, examined his breathing,
then began on the counter-curse for the first of the two jinxes, which had raised a series of swollen
pustules across his skin. "But since assigning you detention means you'll have to serve it with
Tom... Just try not to do that again."

"You aren't going to change your mind on that?" Nott asked, making his way down the stairs.

Hermione shook her head, busy thinking back to her Defence textbooks' counterspell diagrams.
Nott's jinx had been cast with a demicircle in between two vertical strokes, hadn't it? What was
Lestrange's? There'd been two jabs; how did the textbook explain the reversal for those...

"Good," said Nott. "Obliviate!"

"What was that for!" Hermione cried, her head twisting over her shoulder; behind her, Nott had his
wand trained at Lestrange's face.

"If he tells Riddle," Nott said, "then that's the end of our arrangement. And I can't let that happen."

His brows knitted in concentration as he purged the last few minutes of Lestrange's recent
memories—which made Hermione wonder how and where he'd learned Obliviation, as it wasn't
taught on the Hogwarts curriculum. Hermione had understood the reason for it: the book on
Legilimency had said that most magics related to the mind required thorough training in mental
discipline to cast. That Nott knew how to do it was an implicit statement of how much benefit
there was in having been born into an influential wizarding family.

Hermione wasn't jealous about it. She tried not to be, at least. The theory of Obliviation and
memory modification had been discussed in the Legilimency textbook she'd borrowed, and she
expected she could cast the spell based on the written instructions. She hadn't made an attempt;
finding a test subject was a risky prospect, not that she wanted one, of course. Nott, however,
appeared ambivalent about the risk of causing permanent damage.
Nott gave a quick turn of his wrist, murmured "Colovaria", and inspected his handiwork as
Lestrange's hair became a vibrant, eye-watering crimson, with his eyebrows and eyelashes turning a
shade of cornsilk yellow so pale they all but disappeared into his skin.

Hermione sucked in a slow, measured breath, her fingers tightening over her wand. She could see
Nott was trying to frame this as an "accident", and while she wasn't entirely pleased about it, she
couldn't think of anything better. Bringing Lestrange to the Hospital Wing, perhaps—but the
Mediwitch on duty would ask her too many questions. Hermione had already countered the effects
of the jinxes, so Lestrange wasn't in dire need of medical attention.

When she'd finally composed herself enough to speak, she said, "I don't understand why anyone
would want to be Sorted into Slytherin."

"People don't want to be in Slytherin," said Nott matter-of-factly, slipping his wand up his sleeve.
"They either are Slytherins, or they're not."
Chapter End Notes

— Note that Tom never answered what his Amortentia smelled like.

— The history of the Hogwarts Express is on Pottermore, if you want to read more about it.
The references to it made in earlier are "canon" if you consider JKR's supplementary
information as legit.

— This chapter is the first time an f-bomb has been dropped in the story. It feels like a
milestone, but maybe that's just me.

— Repeating the disclaimer from Chapter 1, character opinions are accurate to the culture and
time period, and do not necessarily represent my own beliefs.
 Snakes on a Train
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1943

As the days of Sixth Year rolled by, everyone but Tom looked forward to Christmas as a reprieve
from their studies.

For the first decade or so of his life, he had been ambivalent about Christmas, both the secular and
religious interpretations of it. Christmas was a hollow experience to Tom, who had nothing to
celebrate—not that the orphanage could have afforded much of a celebration. Christmas; his
birthday; winter in general: to most people, including Tom, these things had an emotional
significance. In Tom's particular case, the so-called Season of Merriment was associated with
privation and resentment, and a miserable, biting cold that burrowed so deep into his joints that it
hurt to sit up and get out of bed in the mornings.

Until Hogwarts, he had never known what everyone else saw in Christmas, and even now, it was
still unknown to him. Nevertheless, the season had formed its own significance over the years.
Christmas to Tom wasn't about conjured tinsel on charmed trees or endless slabs of fruitcake; it was
a taste of adult independence, no classes or teachers or minders, all the books he wanted to read,
and all the magic he wanted to study in a Common Room he had to himself.

He'd spent Christmas at Hogwarts for every one of the past five years, and a Hogwarts Christmas
had become the status quo, his personal ideal of what Christmases ought to be. It was a special
occasion worth celebrating, in his own way of doing it.

And now Dumbledore and Mary Riddle were upending Christmas for their own selfish schemes,
while at the same time assuring him that it was all for his own good.

Tom counted the passing weeks with growing disquiet, each sign of winter's arrival a reminder of
how long he had left to live his life as a wizard. The first morning frost in October coating the
fallen leaves, crisp under the soles of his shoes when he marched out to the greenhouses for
Herbology; the darkening of the water under the Lake which made it necessary to keep the
fireplaces in the Slytherin Common Room lit throughout the day; the mealtime offerings in the
Great Hall changing from sweet ices and fresh fruit jellies to hearty roasts and baked puddings...

Hermione didn't understand his feelings about the Riddles—not really.

She found the Riddles to be disagreeable, but not irredeemable. They were set in their ways as
much as Tom was, but were willing to accommodate him, and she thought it was only fair that Tom
do the same. Despite not being able to undo the years of his life in which he'd resigned himself to
being an orphan, the Riddles were making an attempt to rectify it, giving him all he was entitled to
as a member of their family.

"I never asked for it," Tom had said, in response to Hermione's presenting her views on the matter.
"Surely I have the right to refuse it!"
"No one ever asked to be born, let alone given a choice of how and what they're born with,"
Hermione pointed out, "but we do the best we can with our circumstances."

"I can do better on my own," said Tom. "But they're... they're forcing me to be one of them."

The last word was followed by a grimace; Tom maintained an internal separation between me and
them, the latter of which encompassed all the distaste he felt for the Riddles' mediocrity and
ordinariness. The only thing remarkable about them was their wealth, which they had through no
effort of their own; Mary Riddle had married into it, and Thomas Riddle had inherited it from his
forebears.

"It's only for a few weeks out of the whole year," replied Hermione, who, rather annoyingly, wasn't
as sympathetic about Tom's state of affairs as he wanted her to be. "It's not that bad. Young
women were, and still are, forced into much worse situations than yours all the time—and not just
for Christmas, but for the rest of their lives. So I can't see any way to say it better than this: you're
just going to have to close your eyes and think of England."

This made Tom grumble a bit, until he remembered that Hermione had volunteered to spend the
holidays with him. If England was going to be thought of this Christmas, he was pleased to know
he wouldn't be thinking alone.

On the day the Hogwarts Express was due to leave Hogsmeade Station, the Slytherin boys packed
their trunks—lacking the forethought to begin packing earlier—and dropped Tom's Christmas
presents on his bed.

His Second Year, Lestrange and Avery bought him token Christmas gifts. From Fourth Year, every
single boy in his dormitory gave him something, and that number had only grown to include
Slytherins from other years, as well as some non-Slytherins he shared his classes with. Most of it
was useless trinkets. Tom had no use for glittery handmade cards; he couldn't eat that many sweets
—nor would he risk touching anything that looked obviously homemade or tampered with. The
glow-in-the-dark enchanted bookmarks, chess sets, and gilt inkstands he didn't need doubles of, so
he pawned them off at the Hogsmeade odds-and-ends shop, pocketing the money to buy the things
he actually wanted.

(It seemed like Hermione was the only person who knew his tastes and gave him things worth
keeping.)

Tom sent the wrapped gifts flying into his trunk, Summoning his scarf and cloak from his bureau.

"You're not staying at school?" asked Lestrange, whose hair had only just returned to its original
colour a fortnight ago. He had been anxious about going home with his hair charmed Gryffindor
red, the result of some sort of harmless inter-House pranking when he'd turned his back on the
wrong person.

"I've been offered a place to spend the holidays," said Tom, "and I've accepted."

"If you were taking invitations, I'd have offered," Travers groused, digging through the top drawer
of his nightstand for his enchanted earmuffs, imbued with a permanent Silencing Charm.

He wore them to sleep whenever the other boys stayed up late playing cards or passing around a
dog-eared book that Lestrange had turfed up in a dusty corner of his father's library. Tom had
glanced at the book when it was passed his way: Le Jardin Parfumé, a title printed and sold last
century by a magical bookseller in Wizarding Paris. He'd not been surprised to open up a random
page and get more of an eyeful than he'd expected—or even wanted—to see. The book itself was
rather harmless, an anthology of short stories written in French that he could decipher with his
passable grasp of Latin, but he assumed that the boys didn't care about that. It was the animated
lithographs on every other page they were interested in: sultry, doe-eyed odalisques lounging on
divans and feeding each other grapes, swathed in shimmering veils that left very little to the
imagination.

(In the charmed illustrations, the girls batted their eyelashes, and their silken veils fluttered about in
a beguiling manner; overall, it was suggestive and encroached on—without intruding into—the
truly obscene. Tom had shoved the book away in disgust. They were pictures, mere illusions, and
the way the other boys wrestled with one another for their turn to look was nothing more than
pathetic.)

"Father likes meeting the top Defence students each year," continued Travers. "Usually sends
someone to Sluggy's dinner dos, but with the Dark Lord and his people running amok, the
department can't afford to spare active-duty Aurors on going around the social circuit."

"If you offer an invitation this summer, I might accept," said Tom noncommittally. "I'll have my
Apparition license by then."

"Are you joining the Auror Trainees?" Rosier said. "Slughorn's been dropping hints left and right
that the Ministry would take you in a shot—is that what he meant?"

"I've looked into it," Tom answered. He wrapped his scarf around his throat and cast a silent
Featherweight Charm on his trunk. "But signing up for the training means three years before they
let you see any action, and I can't see the sense in that. For other people, yes, but for me? I think
I'd die of boredom before I'd even met a single dark wizard."

Rosier laughed; Nott scoffed.

"You think you can take on a dark wizard, Riddle?" Nott asked. "An Outstanding on the DADA
practical only means you know your textbook jinxes. Real dark wizards have got a bit more bite to
them."

"The average dark wizard has a three spell répertoire. A 'bite' is hardly impressive when everyone
who takes them on knows how to counter them."

"Everyone knows the Unforgivables can't be countered," said Nott.

"They can't be blocked by standard Shield Charms," corrected Tom, "which isn't the same as being
countered. And anyone can counter an Unforgivable if they're fast enough at Conjuration."

"And you are?"

Tom studied Nott with interest. Ever since the Bathroom Incident of a year ago, Nott had avoided
making conversation with him at meals and at the weekly homework club meetings. He preferred
to sit alone in class in lieu of joining the members of Tom's group, who'd gained a reputation as an
élite fraternity of top students: all the members who had taken their O.W.L.s the previous year
scored Outstandings in Defence, and were the highest ranked members of the Hogwarts Duelling
Club.
(With the exception of Hermione, who hadn't joined the Duelling Club. She was something of an
auxiliary member to Tom's group in that she was friends with Tom, but not with the other boys, and
sat with her own Ravenclaw classmates table during meals.)

"I've gotten quite decent at non-verbal casting," said Tom. "If you'd like to have a go, I'm sure we
can arrange a friendly duel sometime after the holidays."

Nott shifted from foot to foot, preventing Tom from making eye contact. A sheen of sweat
glistened on Nott's upper lip, while one hand smoothed distractedly over his robes, as if he was
feeling for the presence of his wand. The other boys watched their exchange with undisguised
interest, as it had been years since anyone had challenged Tom on his duelling skills. The last had
been, what, Abraxas Malfoy, two years ago? Malfoy, the petty loser he was, had quit the Duelling
Club wholesale with the excuse that he wanted to concentrate on Quidditch and his exams, leaving
Tom as the undisputed first.

He hadn't thought Nott would be the one to pluck up the courage to challenge him. But in the
magical world, if pigs could be made to fly with some creative Transfiguration, few things should
be counted as genuinely surprising. Nott wanting to be made an example of in an exhibition duel
was nothing; he ought to save his astonishment for the day Nott announced his engagement to a
Muggleborn.

"No," muttered Nott after a few seconds of internal debate, shaking his head. "No, that won't prove
anything. An Unforgivable Curse cast by a student would only be mild at best, anyway."

Saying that, he grabbed the handle of his trunk and elbowed his way out of the dormitory, leaving
Tom and the rest of the Slytherin boys to finish packing.

Avery spoke up when Nott was gone. "Do you know how to cast Unforgivables?"

Tom's gaze flicked to Travers, who had been trying and failing to pretend he was incurious about
the conversations going around the dormitory. Travers' father was a Ministry official, so it would
be foolish to make a public admission where it could be repeated unwittingly to outside ears.

"Anyone who reads the right book can know how they're cast."

It would also be ridiculous for Tom to admit that he couldn't do something.

The journey down to the station was subdued. Tom was busy immersing himself in his own
thoughts, and something of it must have shown on his face. He was left to walk alone until
Hermione joined him, peeling off a group of twittering Ravenclaws to bounce along beside him,
her school trunk bobbing in the air in front of her upraised wand.

"It's eight hours from here to London, and then we'll have to transfer at King's Cross for the express
from London to York—that's four hours—and from York to, what was it..." Hermione fumbled
through the contents of her bookbag until she'd retrieved her datebook, flicking to the page marked
with a length of ribbon. "Great Hangleton, that's it! Then there's another six miles to Little
Hangleton. We'd be lucky to get there before midnight; I do hope they've made arrangements to
collect us at the Hangleton station—I can't imagine a town of that size would have hackneys for
hire..."

Nott, the first to have left the dormitory, had reserved a compartment for the rest of the group,
chasing off any other students who saw one person sitting alone as an excuse to take over.
On the last two journeys to Hogwarts, Tom and Hermione sat with the other Prefects in the Heads'
compartment. On the ride back to London for the summer, it was tradition for them to secure a
compartment for themselves; for their first few years, that was the last time they'd be guaranteed to
see each other in person before the start of the new school year. Tom hadn't liked the thought of
being separated from Hermione, and was pleased to see that she thought the same thing, as she'd
tucked herself in the corner of the compartment closest to the window, levitating her trunk into the
overhead rack.

Nott sat on the opposite window seat, a book on the Hogwarts Founders open on his lap, showing
coloured cross-sections of each Founder's wand and wood source. He ignored the juvenile antics of
the rest of the boys as they tossed their bags into the rack, peeled off their robes and ties, and
rummaged around in pockets and coin purses for snack money.

Tom had long wondered why Nott bothered to remain a member of the homework club, when he
rarely participated in the usual Slytherin camaraderie that the other boys shared. Nott was wary
and guarded around Tom, and had not shown any particular fondness toward Hermione. The only
other reason he could see was Nott not wanting to fall behind in class, as the months of tutoring had
set this year's Slytherin cohort ranks above the rest of the school, with Tom, naturally, taking his
place at the very top.

Nott could dislike Tom all he wished, but it was far too dangerous to underestimate him. That,
Tom surmised, must be the explanation for Nott's continued association with the group.

Greatness inspires envy; envy engenders spite.

That was a quote that Tom had come up with one dull morning in Charms class, and he'd liked it so
much that he'd inscribed it on the first page of his diary. He'd seen Sidonie Hipworth and some of
her friends write inspirational quotes with colour-changing ink on the covers of their revision
notebooks, or a few lines of poetry on the importance of dreams and love. Tom found his own
version to be vastly superior—of course it was; there was no competition between a quote he'd
coined himself versus a snippet of sentimental folderol taken out of its original context.

There was an empty spot next to Hermione that Tom immediately took over, satisfied that his dorm
mates had been trained to remember his personal seating preferences. There'd been a bit of a mix-
up on the first day of N.E.W.T. Potions where he'd had to correct Lestrange's assumptions; the boy
had showed up thinking that he and Tom would be partners as they had been back when the class
was split with the Gryffindors.

As Hermione had gotten rid of Fitzpatrick, her previous partner, Tom had been obliged to do the
same to Lestrange. He hadn't noticed either of them feeling an ounce of remorse about the
decision.

The train journey was quiet, with Hermione busy scribbling away in her datebook, and Tom
reading a treatise on Latin-based spellcrafting. Lestrange, Avery, Rosier, and Travers had broken
out a pack of cards, their playing stakes in the form of wrapped sweets piled in the centre seat.
Occasionally, other students would knock on the compartment door to arrange holiday invitations
with one of the occupants, often on behalf of their parents, but as Tom's family were Muggles, he
himself received no invitations, and offered none of his own.

While Tom had never been keen on deferring to anyone's rules, he understood the reasoning behind
wizarding secrecy. He'd learned as a child how tedious it was to be put under psychological
examination by people who thought that being Special was just another name for being mad. And
it wasn't as if his family would appreciate the marvels of the magical world. They were the type
who'd choose village cricket over the windy heights of the spectator stands during a championship
Quidditch match; they'd go to see a moralistic Christmas pantomime over a W.A.D.A. production
of The Lady of Shalott.

(Not that Tom personally found much entertainment in Arthurian myths, but everyone revered
Merlin as one of the greatest wizards of British history, and Tom wouldn't mind seeing some of his
most famous feats replicated on stage, with magical effects. It would be an opportunity to learn
how to replicate them with his own techniques.

They said imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, but wasn't one man's flattery another man's
plagiarism? Tom believed he could do better than that; where other people imitated, there Tom
could innovate, and then one day those same people would be flattering him.)

Those agreeable daydreams helped him pass several peaceful hours, and he was only interrupted by
a strange voice from beneath the upholstered bench seat of the compartment. It was a very strange
voice, indeed: Tom didn't recognise it as anyone he knew, and of those he knew, none of them
spoke in a soft, sibilant whisper that was imperceptible to everyone but him.

He glanced around the train compartment, noting that the door was closed and locked. Travers had
gone to sleep, his earmuffs on and a newspaper draped over his face to block the light. Avery and
Lestrange were sorting through several boxes of jellybeans, picking out the greenish looking ones
—those were either vomit, bogeys, or grass, which even people with low standards in life had
apparently learned to avoid. Hermione had started her holiday homework, curled up in the corner
of the seat; Nott, seated opposite, had his attention fixed firmly on his book, his jaw clenched. No
doubt he was struggling to keep his opinions about his co-commuters to himself.

In the months since Tom had had to explain his standards of acceptable conduct, as was expected of
a Prefect and student leader, Nott hadn't said another word about Hermione. Nott went out of his
way not to speak to her, even when directly addressed, and this habit applied to Tom as well.
Perhaps Tom's actions had not won over Nott's esteem, as he had for every other student in
Slytherin, but he had the boy's deference, his complaisance, and in most instances, that was just as
useful.

"...What is this place?" said the voice, faint and whispery. "I smell fresh food. Big food. Hsssss.
Plenty of big food!"

A snake.

"Warm things, very slow moving things, yes, yes, which one to start with..."

There was a bloody snake on the train.

There was a bloody snake right under their seats.

"Hermione," said Tom, taking care not to make any sudden movements.

Hermione's fountain pen juddered to a stop over her page. "Yes?"

"Do you mind moving your legs this way?"

She looked at him blankly. "Whatever for?"

Tom grasped for the best excuse he could contrive, one which wouldn't send her into a panic. "You
have interesting knees."

A pink flush bloomed on her cheeks, causing her to look away and down at her lap. "I can't tell
whether or not you're trying to make a joke, but it's not funny!"

"Do I look like I'm having fun?" said Tom, his expression grave.

"Er," Hermione hesitated. "No?" With clear reluctance, she said, "A-alright. I still don't know if
you're having a go at me, but this had better not be a joke."

Holding the hem of her skirt down for modesty, she swung her legs over to the aisle space in front
of his seat.

Tom grabbed hold of her ankle and pulled her closer, until the backs of her knees were hooked over
his lap.

Hermione yelped, her arms flying out and scrambling to keep the edge of her skirt from flipping
up. "Tom!"

"Hermione," Tom sighed, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her close. "Please don't
panic."

"This seems so... so unnecessary!"

"There's a good reason for all this."

"If you wanted a hug, I would have given it, you know," Hermione said reproachfully, placing a
tentative hand on his shoulder for balance, her legs dangling over his lap in a way that would have
looked undignified—if it had been anyone else but him in such a position.

Tom took a slow breath, savouring Hermione's familiar scent, the real version, which was
indistinguishable from the forgery produced in a cauldron. This real version was much better,
being not just scent alone; it had a solid weight to it—touch and texture—that made it all the more
satisfying than any illusory attempt at replication. His free hand rose up and cupped her knee, palm
curving over her grey woollen stockings; he could feel each twitch of muscle as she shrank back in
reflex, but in the end she didn't pull away from him.

She had such small knees, such delicate ankles, her physical proportions built on a smaller scale
than his, but with so many shared, congruent points between the two of them. There was a joint of
bone protruding at the ankle, the end of the fibula, and Tom's fingers traced down from her knee,
down her calf, to that gentle swelling shape covered up by her prim uniform stockings.

He didn't know if she liked his knees, but in that moment, Tom knew that he liked hers. And there
was more than her knees he rather liked...

"Tom!"

"Hmm?"

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, just looking."

"It seems to be a lot more than 'just looking'!"

"Should I stop, then?"

Hermione's face scrunched up. "Yes—I don't like it when other people are looking at us."

Tom tore his attention from Hermione's knees, and realised that his explorations had drawn curious
glances from the other occupants of their compartment. They didn't quite dare to meet his gaze, but
he saw how their eyes darted over to where Hermione was half-sprawled over his lap.

He drew his wand.

Magazines were suddenly brandished, cards shuffled with great aplomb, and chocolate bars
unwrapped in studious silence.

A swirl of his wand, a silently cast Hover Charm, and Tom had the snake out from under the seat.

The snake undulated in the air, a few inches past two feet long, as thick around as Hermione's
wrist. It had brown scales, patterned with a dark line of conjoined diamonds down its back, and a
narrow, triangular wedge of a head from which gleamed a pair of red eyes. It didn't appear to enjoy
the experience of being levitated in mid-air.

"What is this? What is this!" it hissed, its head swaying from side to side, trying to discern the
cause of its unexpected translocation. "Too bright, my eyes, hssss!"

"Tom?" said Hermione, her hand tightening on his shoulder. "Was... was that under our seat?"

"Yes," Tom confirmed, keeping his wand pointed at the snake. "How do you think it got there?"

"Well, it wasn't me," she said. She reached for her own wand. "Look at the pattern, the eye colour.
That's a common European adder—it's venomous! And it's December, so it should be in
hibernation at this time of year. It must be someone trying a silly prank..." She let out a huff of
indignation. "Someone could've gotten hurt! We're hours from London and Hogwarts, and even if
the Heads have their Apparition licenses, it's impossible to do it from a moving train. If I find out
who did it, they'll be getting detention for a month."

"Forget detention," Nott interrupted, leaning away from the hovering snake, "what are you going to
do about that damn snake?!"

Tom flicked his wand, and the snake flipped around and swung towards Nott.

Nott squawked and fell back against his seat, his arm upraised to protect his face.

"Hssssss!"

The snake's jaw fell open, revealing the soft, white flesh of its mouth. From the upper jaw, there
protruded two needle-sharp fangs, glistening with a clear venom. The snake jolted to a stop, one
scaled coil passing within a whole foot of Nott; it didn't touch him, but that didn't stop him from
making a scene and screaming loudly.

"Tom!" cried Hermione, fingernails digging into the meat of his shoulder, which wasn't that
unpleasant when he considered it. He basked in the sensation, clutching her closer around the
waist.
"What the fuck are you playing at, Riddle!" Nott shouted, fumbling for his wand. "Granger just
said it's venomous!"

"Riddle," Rosier ventured nervously, looking around at the other boys, who didn't seem eager to put
in their own opinions, "we don't mind the show, but, um, if you want to settle something with Nott,
you might... you might want to maybe do it outside mixed company?" He sent a pointed look at
Hermione. "Witches are sensitive about these kinds of things."

He was right; Hermione didn't look happy that he was playing around with a venomous snake,
which he didn't consider particularly dangerous—he was certain that his reflexes were good enough
to hit it with a Petrificus before it sunk its teeth into anyone.

And he was careful enough to adjust the Hover Charm so its head was always kept facing away
from himself and Hermione, so if anyone was at risk of being bitten and dying—a tiny chance with
a snake of this size—it wasn't anyone he'd miss.

"Fine," Tom said, rolling his eyes. "Finite!"

The snake didn't disappear.

"Oh," he observed, "it's not Conjured. That's interesting."

"Someone must have Summoned it," said Hermione, "if it's a real snake. We're moving too quickly
for Summoning to work, unless whoever did it wanted to rip their hands off trying to grab
something from outside the train window. That means someone put that snake here before we got
on the train."

"'Murder on the Hogwarts Express'," Tom said in a thoughtful voice, looking at each of his fellow
occupants in turn. "And so the plot thickens."

No one else seemed to get it, apart from Hermione, who sighed heavily into the crook of his neck.

Tom raised his wand, concentrated, and cast the spell: Evanesco!

The snake disappeared, vanishing into nothingness, and with that went the visible tenseness on
clear display in bearing and countenance—with the exclusion of himself, naturally. He sensed the
slow shift in atmosphere, the near-panic simmering down to a low-level unease which fluctuated
whenever he held eye contact for more than a few seconds at a time. To his disappointment, Tom
found no traces of guilt or deception in the minds of anyone he studied with a touch of applied
willpower.

Things went back to normal, or as normal as things ever got when Tom Riddle was present and
involved. However, the conversation, when it returned, was not as spirited as it had been before,
the card games and betting stakes lacking in liveliness and enthusiasm. Tom didn't mind it, as he
had more interesting things to focus on. There was the mystery of the snake, which he hadn't found
an answer for—skimming through his dorm mates' surface thoughts a few more times hadn't given
him any conclusive proof that one of them had done it.

So he couldn't name any one person as his culprit. For now.

Then there was the mystery of the feminine form, which he hadn't thought a mystery when the
relevant information could be had from any anatomy textbook, or from Lestrange's illustrated
novel, if he was that way inclined.

When it came to the feminine form as it related to Hermione Granger... well, that was a mystery
that wasn't written down in any book, or published in any manual. And Tom, who had a curious
nature and a vigorous appetite for knowledge, was eager to learn more about it, textbook or no.

With all the mysteries floating about, by the time the Express had arrived in London, he'd managed
to piece together one bit of substantiated fact: knees had a power that not even the greatest of
wizards should ever underestimate.

The Hogwarts Express reached London at a quarter to seven, which gave Tom and Hermione
twenty minutes to grab their luggage, buy a hot pie and a bottle of milk each from the station tuck
shop, then transfer to the platform where the London to York train was due to arrive in a matter of
minutes.

By the end of the day, Tom would be at his grandparents' estate in Yorkshire. He'd seen
photographs of it, enclosed in the letters written to him by Mary Riddle. The estate consisted of a
sleepy country town with the largest buildings, a church and a post office, erected around a village
green, with side streets branching off, filled with rows of terrace houses and small cottages let out
to various tenants. And overlooking the town was a house on a hill, 'the Big House', as the
villagers called it, occupied by a Family of Quality—as his grandmother called it.

Tom didn't know what that meant exactly, but from context, he assumed it was his grandmother
attempting to dissociate the Riddles' social ranking from the likes of the villagers. The villagers
might work for the Riddles, and the Riddles might depend on the villagers' labour, but that was to
be the extent of the relationship; Riddles and villagers certainly didn't entertain one another's
company, except after church services and at formal functions—Empire Day, Royal Jubilees, and
other commemorations. Riddles certainly did not make advances upon them. (By the way Mary
Riddle's pen had blotched up the page and created indents visible through the other side of the
paper, it appeared that she hadn't gotten over her son's great 'betrayal'.)

This place, this town, the Big House—this was to be his new home. He couldn't tear his thoughts
away from that word, Home, as he boarded the First Class carriage with Hermione at his heels,
their tickets in hand for the conductor's inspection. Once inspected and approved, they were shown
to a compartment, and their luggage stowed for them by a porter, whom they were obliged to tip a
few pence for the service.

"This isn't much different from the Hogwarts Express," Hermione observed, looking around the
interior of the compartment. "Padded seats, curtained windows, sliding doors—not as much space
as in the Express, but I'm sure that has some Extension Charms built into the frame; I can't see how
Slughorn could invite a dozen people into his compartment otherwise, even if we were all squeezed
in together by the end. Did you know that the Third Class carriages only have wooden benches?
They don't have any compartments, porters, or ashtrays."
Tom made a face. "The ashtrays make the upholstery smell like old cigarettes."

"Oh! I can fix that!" said Hermione brightly, shutting the compartment door and drawing the
curtains closed, before she pulled her wand out of her pocket and cast a few cleaning and
freshening charms on the seats. "I'd almost forgotten I can use magic now that I've had my
birthday. It makes things so much simpler!" She paused for a moment, then added in an uncertain
voice, "I ought to have put a Featherweight Charm on my trunk before the porter took it. I couldn't
decide which books to bring, so I brought all of them, and the charm I used in the morning must
have worn off. I think he almost put his back out trying to lift it..."

"Forget about him," said Tom, who hadn't even wanted to tip the Muggle porter when he knew he
could have done the job himself with a silent Wingardium. "There are more important things to
think about. For instance, will the Trace activate when magic is cast in a moving vehicle, or in the
presence of an adult witch outside a wizarding residence?"

"Interesting questions," Hermione said, putting her wand away and plopping down into the seat.
"I've been researching Ministry of Magic policy in the library, and the books I've read said that the
Ministry detects and records all magical anomalies, but doesn't follow up on them unless it involves
Muggle witnesses, students practising underage magic, or anything else that's blatantly illegal. If
they weren't selective about who they pursued, they'd be sending owls around the country every
hour of the day and night."

"Is it worth testing out?"

"Of course not!" Hermione exclaimed, glaring at him fiercely for even thinking about breaking the
law.

"I've two strikes to spend before my birthday," said Tom, taking an opportunity to fully appreciate
Magical Britain's tradition of excessive lenience. The rule of strikes was tantamount to every
underage wizard being granted permission to break the law at whim, at the time and place of their
choosing. The exemptions handed out by the negligent Ministry showed that they clearly didn't
believe underage wizards were capable of anything greater than harmless joke jinxes.

(Tom could think of more than a few ways a well-placed Accio could cause major havoc in the right
situation. Summon a sharp knife at the right speed, and the end result would be written off as an
unfortunate accident and a case of Children Being Children.)

"You can't 'spend' them, Tom!" gasped Hermione, scandalised by his lack of concern. "They're
official warnings, not... currency!"

"It seems a shame to have saved my strikes for an emergency, and not end up using them," Tom
said. "It'd be an awful waste if it was all for nothing."

"A clean record isn't nothing," Hermione pointed out. "You might not be interested in applying for
a Ministry job one day, but that doesn't mean your records disappear for good when you turn
seventeen." She shook her head. "Can't you keep from doing magic until your birthday? It's less
than two weeks away."

"You get to do magic and finish your homework," Tom said, "while I have to humour a bunch of
Muggles. Mary Riddle keeps forwarding me letters through Dumbledore; I can tell she won't leave
me alone as long as I'm living there."
"I think it's sweet," said Hermione stubbornly. "I'm sure you'll see that they're nicer people than
you give them credit for—Mrs. Riddle invited me to stay for the holidays, after all."

"One day you'll admit that they're worse than you thought they were," said Tom. "And then I'll be
the one to say, 'I told you so'."

"Well, I don't think that day will be today."

Tom could allow her those delusions for the time being. They were harmless delusions, so in the
end, they were tolerable.

Hermione had always been persistent about her beliefs, and her (misplaced) sense of common
decency had long been a barrier to acknowledging that sometimes people were worthless lumps of
matter. This courtesy extended to people Hermione didn't even like, people that nobody liked.
Leaving the Hogwarts Express, she'd given her farewells to the other boys—including Nott—while
Tom hadn't bothered with it himself. But her politeness was different from making friends with
them; greetings and farewells and How Do You Do's were not on the same level as wasting her time
mucking about on the Quidditch pitch, or ogling painted harem girls with a group of lechers
disguised as art appraisers.

He called them lechers, based on how the tone of casual dormitory conversation had devolved in
the last year or so. The boys, purebloods all of them, were of the age where their parents were
beginning to arrange matches for them, and being unhappy with their parents' tastes in future
partners, they sought to indulge their own tastes in the limited means available to them. This meant
late-night games of ranking all the girls in their year in order of their physical attributes, then
debating which of the aforementioned attributes was the most attractive.

(No mention was made of intellect or magical aptitude, so it was easy for Tom to discount the tastes
of his dorm mates as thoroughly plebeian. If this was the way the average wizard selected his
spouse—when not placed under an artificial limitation of witches with suitable blood and fortune—
it explained why the population of Magical Britain as a whole was so gullible and inept.)

Miles of farmland sped by as the train chugged northwards. The light, dimmed by the soggy clouds
of winter, had bled out of the sky hours ago, leaving the view outside the windows as an
impenetrable black void. While Hermione passed the hours writing in her datebook, and the
conductor went around the First Class compartments inquiring if any passengers needed hot water
bottles or lap blankets, Tom meditated. He catalogued his own feelings and practised the art of
Occlumency, as Dumbledore had taught him. It gave him a measure of control over his emotions,
the ability to subdue the raw edges of the anger and outrage that itched at his skin when his
thoughts turned toward his family; it would let him interact with them without wanting to hold
them at the point of his wand; it would let him be the Good Boy that they expected him to be.

What Hermione expected him to be.

He could be a Good Boy, if he wanted to be.

He could be anything he wanted to be.

As midnight approached, the night grew colder, and the inside of the train windows misted from the
warmth of the carriage. He and Hermione brought out their Muggle coats when they reached the
station in York, and were glad for it upon transferring to Great Hangleton, which was a minor
country stop with two platforms. It was desolate, the station master's office the only light they
could see, the platform itself icy and slick under their feet. It was colder than London; colder than
Hogwarts too, where every morning he cast a warming charm on his uniform robes and winter
cloak to last the whole day of classes.

"They were supposed to pick us up," said Hermione worriedly, turning back and forth as if she was
expecting the Riddles to pop out from the nearest dustbin. "Do you see a motorcar?"

"If they don't show, we should go back to London," Tom suggested. "How much Muggle money
do you have?"

"I'm sure they haven't forgotten," Hermione said, laying her trunk onto the concrete paving slabs
then standing on top of it for an extra foot of height. She drew her wand from her pocket and cast a
Lumos, lighting a bright circle around the two of them.

The honk of a horn shattered the frozen silence of a winter night; it was followed by the rattling
growl of an approaching motorcar, which was preceded by a pair of yellow headlamps that cast a
wide yellow arc of light on the black streets. Whitewalled tyres churned through patches of slush,
throwing up a spray of icy pellets when the motorcar was brought to a stop right in front of the
station entrance.

The headlamps dimmed and flickered, but remained on.

The driver's side door opened; a man stepped out onto the footpath, his arm reaching inside the
motorcar for something on the front bench.

"Evenin'," he said, his walking stick tapping on the kerb. "I'm lookin' for a Master Riddle and Miss
Granger."

"About time," Tom muttered.

"Good evening, sir," Hermione spoke over him, hopping off her trunk. "I'm Hermione Granger,
and this is Tom. Have you been sent by the Riddles?"

"Frank Bryce," said the man, offering his hand to Hermione. Hermione shook it, and then he went
to pick up her trunk with one hand, while his other hand continued to lean on his stick. "The
Riddles' driver, groundskeeper, and man-of-all-work."

"Oh," said Hermione, bending over to help him, one hand behind her back still holding onto her
wand, "let me get that!"

Frank Bryce was a young man in his twenties, and on top of that he was a servant; surely he didn't
need any help doing the job he was paid to do: sort out their luggage and put it in the boot. The
man looked perfectly fine, dressed in a rugged shooting coat over a thick knitted jumper and
shirtsleeves, trousers tucked into a pair of wellies, and on his head was the standard flatcap that
appeared to be an indispensable part of the Yorkshire working man's uniform. He didn't look like
an invalid, and he hadn't asked for help. Tom thought it patronising of Hermione to volunteer her
assistance, which came with the implicit suggestion that Bryce was incapable of doing the job the
Riddles had hired him for, just because he had a gimp leg, or whatever it was that was wrong with
him. Perhaps the Riddles had had to let their standards go due to the shortage of young men, most
of whom would rather be soldiers than estate servants.
In the shadow of the headlamps, Bryce didn't notice Hermione tapping her wand against her trunk,
then Tom's, applying a silent charm to reduce the weight. He hoped that Hermione had been
careful enough not to charm the trunks to be weightless; there was bending rules when it was
convenient, and then there was flouting the Statute, which was not far from giving up the game and
ruining it for everyone else.

When their trunks were strapped to the boot, he and Hermione got into the passenger bench of the
motorcar, and Frank returned to his seat behind the steering wheel.

"You'll tell me off for my permanent record," Tom whispered in Hermione's ear. "But you're the
one doing the—" he took a second to think of an appropriate euphemism, "—the m-word in front of
a You-Know-What!"

Hermione looked both ways before she returned, "Did you see his leg? A man his age—he's got to
be a veteran, discharged for injury. The least I could do is help!"

"Yes, well," said Tom in a voice pitched too low to be overheard, "he didn't ask for help. Let him
have some dignity."

"He wasn't going to ask for help." Hermione's jaw was set in stubbornness.

"You don't know that."

"I know men rarely ask for help," said Hermione, giving him a pointed look. "For some reason,
they think their 'dignity' matters more."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Tom replied, his expression one of curious
incomprehension. "Are you still talking about him, or someone else?"

Hermione snorted, but she didn't argue the point.

By then, the motorcar had begun turning up the long, winding drive to the top of a broad slope,
upon which was situated the great square lump of masonry and gabled roofs that was the Riddle
House. The house was three storeys tall with an attic, the tallest structure for miles, and it
dominated the local skyline, which Tom supposed was the purpose of his long-dead ancestors
having chosen the site to build their house. As the motorcar crawled to the top of the hill, he could
see the lights of the town a half-mile away; from the top floor window of the Riddle House, he
expected he'd be able to see Great Hangleton, and on a clear day, perhaps the city of York in the
distance as well—or at least the blur of smoke produced from thousands of households and dozens
of factory furnaces.

Not long after, Bryce unloaded their luggage on the front steps of the house, before he got back into
the driver's seat and circled the motor around the back of the house. Tom glanced at Hermione,
fidgeting nervously next to him on the top step, then he lifted his finger to the doorbell and pressed
the button.

A minute later, one half of the double-leafed front door swung open, revealing the face of a young
woman in a sombre black dress and a lace-trimmed apron.

She studied Tom's features for a few seconds, the intrigued tilt to her head soon shifting to
something that suggested she was well pleased with what she found.
"Oh," she said, her hand rising up to her mouth, twin patches of red emerging on her round,
pockmarked cheeks when she appeared to have remembered her manners. "Oh! Mister Tom's son
has come home at last!" She dipped down into a low and clumsy curtsy, which had obviously seen
little practice.

"Leave your luggage there—Frank'll bring it in once he's locked up the motor for the night. I'm to
show you to your room. Mr. and Mrs. Riddle had the North Wing done up for you special; they've
already gone up, but you'll see them at breakfast in the mornin'. We serve the meals like so—" she
babbled in a breathless voice, with nary a pause for breath. "Breakfast at nine, luncheon at one,
afternoon tea at four, and supper at half-seven. You'll be expected to dress for it, o' course, but the
rest of the meals are more casual-like." She appeared to notice Hermione's presence for the first
time. "Err... And I s'pose that goes for you too, Miss—?"

"Granger," said Hermione, giving the woman a polite, if slightly frosty smile. "Hermione Granger,
pleasure."

"Frances Crewe, senior housemaid," the maid answered, bobbing her head with much less
deference than she'd given Tom. "Though we don't make a big to-do about titles on account of
there's only me and Becky who work as maids here, and Sara thrice a week to help with the
launderin'."

The maid showed them the way to the North Wing, explaining the layout of the house, which was
built on a central line of symmetry as had been the fashion back then, and had two main mirrored
wings around a square-shaped courtyard. The North Wing was where Tom's suite and Hermione's
guest room were situated; the South Wing had the Riddles' living quarters, including Mr. and Mrs.
Riddle's formal master suite and private sitting room, but they were off-limits. If assistance was
required, he had a bell pull in his room which would summon a maid. She was eager to explain
that the maids started at six in the morning and finished at ten at night, but if Tom needed anything,
anything at all, then he just had to ring and someone would come over to help him.

Hermione scowled as the maid ingratiated herself to him, standing much too close to him for
comfort. And then, to Tom's revulsion, she kept throwing hopeful glances in his direction,
ignoring Hermione entirely, before Hermione was, without further ceremony, pointed to the room
set aside for her. In plain contrast, the maid opened Tom's bedroom door and took the time to
demonstrate the use of the fixtures in the attached bathroom, then the fully stocked writing desk,
the fireplace, and the brand new wireless set over the mantle.

Tom's disturbance was magnified when the bookshelf by the desk contained all the Muggle books
he'd kept in his wardrobe at Wool's: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Chemical
Warfare Tactics of Ypres, 1812: La Campagne de Russie, The Principles of Political Philosophy,
Skirmishes of the Second Boer War.

Mary Riddle had been inside his room at Wool's.

Not his room anymore—no doubt they had assigned it to some other orphan when they'd taken his
things out of it—but it had been his for as long as he'd lived there, his when he'd had very little else
he could say belonged solely to him. She'd have seen it, the creaky bedstead, the dingy window
and the cracked paint, the collection of faded uniforms with frayed elbows and too-short hems.
Was she disgusted by it? The display of poverty that had been his entire life up until he'd gone to
Hogwarts; he himself was disgusted at the very thought of it—of his shabby, mean existence at the
hands of Mrs. Cole, who called him a foundling, when he was in actuality no better than the
commonest beggar...

Then, on the lowest shelf, sat a battered shoebox with dinged corners and peeling paper labels on
the lid.

"I'm sorry, can this wait another day?" Tom said, cutting off the maid in the midst of her speech
about special meal requirements to send to the cook. "I've been on trains all day, or transferring
between trains, and I'm rather tired right now. And since it's past ten, you must be tired, too—I
think you really ought to be putting up your feet, instead of attending to me. I wouldn't want to
take advantage of your kindness, not when we've only just met."

He gave her a sincere smile, lowering his eyelids and softening the line of his brow to convey his
exhaustion, and that was all it took.

The maid stammered something unimportant, and Tom didn't pay attention to it; he was glad to see
the back of her when she shuffled off back to whichever cupboard or dusty pantry the Riddles used
to store their servants when not in use.

He closed the door with a satisfying click of the latch... and then he lunged for the shoebox.

Under the various bits and bobs of orphanage detritus—a yo-yo, a thimble, a handful of grotty
ha'pence, a commemorative coin that schoolchildren Britain-wide had been given at the coronation
of George VI, a few scattered fountain pen parts—was a thick stack of letters he'd collected in the
first few years of his mutual arrangement with Hermione Granger.

Peeling open the envelopes, he saw that the letters were there, inside and intact. Untouched. Still
sorted by date, the paper still bearing a slight scent, the lines of her handwriting not as neat or
refined as the way she wrote now, but it was recognisably hers. The address written on the front of
each envelope was out-of-date, but her voice—Hermione's charmingly deluded opinions, her
intractable arguments, her ridiculous visions of social progress—they were just as familiar, just as
perfect, as he remembered them to be.

He read them over while lying in his new bed, and when he'd gone through half of them, he felt
content enough to fall asleep in the midst of all this unfamiliar luxury.

That tentative illusion of peace lasted until breakfast the next morning, whereupon it was shattered
for good, and his Christmas holiday, which Tom had not thought could get any worse, did.

That morning, Tom met his father for the first time.

It wasn't something that Tom thought the Riddles had planned. They were just as surprised and
discomfited about it as he was, and some inner part of himself enjoyed gloating over their being
forced to swallow a taste of their own medicine, in the dining room of their own house, no less.
They must have known that the family reunion was an inevitability, but perhaps Mary and Thomas
Riddle had wanted it to be a formal introduction, befitting of the standards to which they held their
family. As much as it was possible to uphold these standards with Britain's present state as a war
economy, as well as the collapse in standards surrounding the circumstances of Tom's birth.

That morning, he and Hermione had come downstairs to see place settings at the dining table, with
silverware, crisp napkins, and a soft-boiled egg in a cup by each plate. Thomas Riddle sat at the
head of the table, a tweed Norfolk jacket worn over starched tattersall and silk necktie. He perused
the morning edition of the Yorkshire Post, while the maid from the evening before came around his
left elbow and ladled egg scramble with chive garnish onto his plate.

Mary Riddle had on a twilled gabardine jacket and matched skirt, with a pair of pearls the size of
his fingernail dangling from each of her earlobes. From her seat, she directed the maid about in
serving the hot dishes from chafing dishes kept warm on the sideboard. By the number of platters,
it seemed like the Riddles hadn't forgone any of their usual comforts due to the rationing. Milk,
butter, cheese, eggs, ham—all that the housewives of London saved their tickets up and queued at
the greengrocers' for were on casual display at the breakfast table.

Domestic was the right word to describe such a milieu.

It was so normal that Tom could scarcely reconcile himself to the notion of this being his life.

His impressions were reinforced when Hermione complimented Mrs. Riddle on the food, which led
to Mrs. Riddle puffing herself up over her cook's skills; the cook was a former kitchen maid who'd
accompanied Mrs. Riddle to Yorkshire upon her marriage to Mr. Riddle several decades ago, back
in the old days when "inheriting" servants had been a common bridal gift. This insipid line of
conversation was interrupted by a man at the dining room door, whose heavy footfalls and loud
voice drowned out Mrs. Riddle's lacklustre attempts at self-effacement.

"Mother, I'm taking Diamond to the creek and back," said the man, going straight for the toast rack
at the sideboard without greeting anyone at the table. "A clear day is too rare to pass up this time
of year, and the dear gel hasn't been put through her paces in weeks. Don't expect me for luncheon
—I'll have it down at the village."

He was dressed for riding in a swallow-tailed coat, jodhpurs, and polished boots; a riding crop and
hat were tucked under one arm. Some people would have admired the dashing figure he cut in his
well-tailored ensemble, but Tom's attention was drawn to the man's face, to the arrangement of
familiar features that resembled his own so closely as to be near identical.

The man had a few extra inches in height over Tom, a more solid build with a greater breadth of
shoulder, and a firmer shape to his chin, which had the slightest cleft where Tom's own chin was
smooth. His skin bore the rosy tint of an active outdoors lifestyle, in contrast to Tom's porcelain
pale complexion. But so many things were the same between the two of them, many more
similarities than between himself and Thomas Riddle: the hair, thick and dark without any
sweeping wings of grey; the elegant proportions of cheek, brow, and jaw. What unsettled Tom
most was the man's voice. His accent was different, an immaculate Public School Standard lacking
any traces of Tom's London origins—but the tone, range, and character were exactly the same as
Tom's own voice. He recognised it intimately; he'd listened to his own voice hundreds of times
from the sensory organs of the animals whose minds he'd entered.

Years ago, he'd consciously decided to hate Mrs. Helen Granger the first time he'd seen her from
the window of his bedroom at Wool's, her fur coat and motorcar the most expensive things he'd
ever seen anyone own. Now, without any conscious intention on his part, an instant loathing
formed within him for this man—this spoiled overgrown brat who'd spoiled the lives of the people
around him—who could be none other than his own flesh-and-blood father.

Tom pushed himself up from the table and addressed the man. "Good morning."

The man turned, a piece of toast in his mouth, just now noticing the inclusion of two strange guests
at breakfast.
"Good mo—" he began, then his words choked to a stop. "You!"

Their eyes met, and this was one other mark of difference between them: Tom's eyes were darkest
brown, while this man—his father—had eyes of hazel green, the sclera traced with bloodshot
vessels all around where they'd widened in recognition—shock—terror—upon seeing his mirror
image sitting on the opposite side of the table.

For an instant, a series of impressions flickered into Tom's mind, a confusing, non-linear stream of
images and sensations: a dark room, the only light emitted from the thin join between door and
floorboards; a soft and crooning voice, hands stroking his hair, fingers tracing down the line of his
jaw, gentle kisses to his brow.

A parched throat, a tongue furred with thirst, and a glass of water on a tray that for some reason—
he couldn't remember why; his memories blurred themselves into unintelligibility whenever he tried
to cling onto them—he refused to drink it—wouldn't touch it—denied it to himself until the passing
hours turned into an entire day, and in a moment of weakness, he couldn't help himself, and then it
was too late to stop the veil from falling over his eyes—

Too late—

"You!" he repeated hoarsely, his riding crop gripped between white and shaking fingers. "I won't
have you here—not here—Mother, Father, I told you I didn't want him!"

There was a clink! as the maid set the teapot down and tiptoed to the door.

"You will sit down and behave yourself," said Thomas Riddle coldly. He folded his newspaper and
put it down to the side of his plate. "It's time you took responsibility for your actions."

"Mother," the man pleaded, turning to Mrs. Riddle and gazing at her imploringly, "please, please, I
don't want him here—he can't live here—please, Mother, if you love me, send him away!"

Mrs. Riddle's eyes glistened, but she turned away from him and said, "You'll listen to your father,
Tom. We're trying to do the right thing for our family, and the sooner you understand that, the
better."

"That boy is not our family," said the other Tom Riddle, pointing a trembling finger across the table
at Tom. "He's not mine; I won't acknowledge him—"

"It doesn't matter," said Mrs. Riddle, "we've already signed all the forms. We're his guardians, not
you. It's out of your hands."

"Then have it your way," he snapped, and the plaintive whine in his voice was suddenly, jarringly,
replaced by a tone of biting acid. He tossed his half-eaten piece of toast onto the platter of smoked
kippers. "I wash my hands clean of this. Have Mrs. Willrow send my meals up on a tray—I shan't
be sitting down for supper so long as he's here."

With that, he swivelled on his heel, coat-tails flapping, and marched out of the dining room,
jamming his hat on his head. In the distance, a door slammed.

Tom sat back down in his seat, at a loss for words. His father had never been graced with his
presence until today, but somehow, seeing the face of his long-lost son had triggered an instant
flash of recognition. The man had been afraid of him. What did it mean? What had his father
been thinking about, when Tom had peeked into his surface thoughts? The dark room, the empty
glass; without context, he didn't understand any of it, and he was reminded of the incident last year
when he'd looked into Nott's thoughts.

In the seat beside him, Hermione's face was pale and stricken, her fingers scrunching around the
napkin in her lap.

"I had hoped that he would behave himself," Mrs. Riddle sighed.

"You know that he's always been a high-strung one. This is what comes of too much of your
coddling, Mary." Thomas Riddle picked his newspaper back up, grumbling to himself, "If you
hadn't tried so hard to set Cecilia on him, then perhaps he wouldn't have gone after that ghastly
girl..."

When breakfast ended, they were finally able to excuse themselves. Hermione tried to make light
of the situation by saying that she hadn't thought anything could be worse than the time the Riddles
had had dinner with her family during the summer.

Tom, who often argued with her for the mere sake of arguing, couldn't disagree.
Chapter End Notes

— Credit for the illustration goes here. Follow if you want to look at more art content, I
guess.

— If this story was set 60 years in the future, the quote "I have had it with these motherfucking
snakes on this motherfucking train!" would be very relevant.

— "Greatness inspires envy; envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies" is a real Voldemort
quote from Dumbledore's memory in HBP, when Tom interviews for the DADA position.

— Historical newsreel footage has helped me research in writing this story. If you want to see
what real life Britain was like during the war, have a peek. The Riddles, living in farm country
(and owning farmland) have the money and influence to get things off the black market, and
don't care about rationing allowances, which are way stricter in late 1943 than they were in
1939. They wouldn't stand for that tiny little meat portion as shown in the video. The video
also shows the kind of old-timey Mid-Atlantic-style Received Pronunciation accents upper
class people would have used back then, though it goes without saying that the Yorkshire
locals sound much different.

"On the Ration: A selection of films looking at food rationing during the Second World
War."
Length: 5m26s.
 Nobility
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1943

Despite living in a castle for most of the year, Hermione was impressed by the Riddle House.

She supposed it was due to the fact that the sprawling grounds and non-Euclidean architecture of
Hogwarts were shared by hundreds of students, and with the ghosts and talking portraits, it wasn't a
place in which one could truly find themselves lost. In comparison, the Riddle House, a grand old
Georgian-era home built to emulate an older Jacobean style, had three proper residents—or four,
now that Tom had been adopted into the family.

The house, she saw as she explored each floor during her stay, had over a dozen bedrooms, a long
hallway that doubled as a family portrait gallery, a wine cellar, and multiple single-purpose rooms
dedicated to smoking, playing billiards, sewing, reading books, and cleaning boots. There was
even a room in the South Wing of the house for storing toys, lined with shelves of soft animals,
baskets of painted wooden blocks, and folded quilts in colourful prints.

That was another mark of difference between here and Hogwarts: the rooms and corridors at
Hogwarts showed signs of wear from thousands of young witches and wizards over the thousand
years since the school's founding; it felt ancient, storied, but never old. In comparison, much of the
Riddle House felt dusty and desolate, as if it were a museum exhibit depicting everyday scenes
from a bygone era of British history. It might be centuries more recent than Hogwarts, but the
anachronistic armour and tapestries and gargoyles of Hogwarts had never felt antiquated to her,
while the signs were everywhere in the Riddles' home. The pictures on the walls showing stiff-
looking boys in sailor suits were one, and the holes cut in the wallpaper for the installation of
electric light switches were another.

Mrs. Riddle came upon her when she was inspecting the black-and-white photographs in the toy
room.

"Do you like it? The nursery?" asked Mrs. Riddle, standing at the threshold. "Of course, you'll be
able to decorate however you like when you put the room to use."

"I beg your pardon?" Hermione said. "But why would I need this room?"

"When you decide to have children, where do you think they'll be raised?" spoke Mrs. Riddle in a
patient voice, as if she was addressing a young child, or the hard-of-hearing. "I should imagine I'd
drop dead before I'd permit any great-grandchildren of mine to be brought up in a London flat."

"Great-grandchildren?" Hermione only just kept herself from gaping in the most unseemly
fashion. "You think that I would—that Tom and I were going to—"

"Produce children?" she finished for Hermione, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. (It
was, well, a natural thing, but that wasn't the most alarming thing about their conversation.) "I'd
certainly hope that you'd marry before it happens, but whichever order you choose doesn't matter as
much as your doing both of them, and in a timely manner, too. I think this family could do with a
little less public gossip, don't you think?"

"I'm sorry," said Hermione, feeling more and more out of her depth, "but Tom and I, we're not like
that, not what you think we are. We're just friends, Mrs. Riddle."

"'Friends'." Mrs. Riddle cast her a calculating look. "And yet, you know that he reads in bed all
night, and he knows that you talk in your sleep. When I was a girl, this would have been
considered the furthest thing from mere friendship."

"It's not what it sounds like," Hermione said quickly, "and it wasn't anything improper, I promise!"
She was uncomfortably aware that generations of young men and women had said these same
words to their elders, but perhaps just this once, she would be taken as truthful. "Anyways, these
are modern times; standards have changed in the last generation. I'm not against the idea of
marriage or children, but I've worked hard in school and would like to do something with my
education when I'm finished. Having a certificate to hang on the wall isn't enough for me."

Mum's education hadn't just been a decoration for the wall, either. She'd married Hermione's Dad
in the middle of completing her nursing training, but that was because of external factors to do with
housing and living expenses: it was cheaper to rent a flat together instead of two separate boarding
houses, but landlords did not like letting properties to unmarried couples. Mum and Dad hadn't had
Hermione until her Dad had finished his stint as a house medical resident and they'd started their
own practice. As a result, her parents were older than many of the parents of her primary school
classmates. Not that it was a bad thing, as it meant Mum and Dad had established careers and a
spacious family home in Crawley for Hermione to crawl around in as a baby.

(She wondered if Mum and Dad's late start was why Hermione had been an only child, as it
wouldn't have been easy for an older couple to keep up with multiple young children. But
Hermione still liked the example they set, and appreciated the emphasis they put on educational
diligence and good career choices. If it meant not having the three to five children that was the
average for the British woman, then she'd accept it without complaint. She worried over the
Ravenclaw First Years enough that the addition of any other children—her own children—to the
mix was positively overwhelming.)

"You're interested in going into... trade?" asked Mrs. Riddle, using the word as if it left a bad taste
in her mouth.

Trade was an old word, outdated. The more acceptable modern terms were employment or
vocation, when these days earning one's living from things other than collecting rents was no
longer held in social contempt. But Mrs. Riddle's face went sour and her lips still pursed up as
though Hermione had confessed to wanting to join the circus.

"If I'm capable and qualified to earn my own income, why shouldn't I?" said Hermione. "It isn't
about the money—my mother works and volunteers, even though we'd still be well enough off if
she didn't. But she wants to, and she makes a difference in the world because she does."

"How very modern." It was curious how the most innocuous of words from Mrs. Riddle's mouth
could sound so vaguely insulting. "I suppose that your mother's idea of taking a proper interest in
your education was in keeping to her position; far be it from me to tell another woman how to raise
her own child."
Mrs. Riddle sniffed, then went on with, "You may find that a woman of means can just as easily
'make a difference', but only rarely does it necessitate common labour. You see, when one is born
or raised to a lifestyle of gentility, such privilege does not come without its obligations. Social rank
entails social responsibilities: we are expected to lead by moral example; be pious, virtuous,
charitable, and honourable, and through it set an example to our lessers. 'Noblesse oblige', as they
call it, is the mark of true nobility—in both one's station and one's character."

Hermione couldn't stop herself from staring blankly at Mrs. Riddle, unable to articulate a
satisfactory response. She understood the concepts of virtue and the moral imperative, but she
wasn't expecting these sentiments to come from Mrs. Riddle, of all people. The Riddles were... not
exactly wicked people, but from what she'd observed of them, they were hardly virtuous. They
lived comfortable, sheltered lives—lives of leisure—and there was nothing inherently wrong with
doing so. But the most charitable thing she'd seen them do, outside of being courteous hosts to
herself and Tom, was to put money in the collection plate, and treat their servants with basic
politeness.

Remembering the names of the household staff, employment "perks" like allowing them to take
dinner leftovers home to their families, first pick of unwanted clothes and old linens before they
went into the charity bin, and a half-day off on Sundays for church attendance—that was what the
Riddles called kindness, which smacked of demeaning condescension to Hermione's liberal eyes.
She hadn't seen Mrs. Riddle knitting socks and rolling bandages, or Mr. Riddle opening his home to
convalescing soldiers, nor had she seen Tom's father take it upon himself to lend a hand to the
maids who kept up the house and estate. He was an able-bodied man who, for some reason, hadn't
been taken into the army, and yet it was left to Mr. Bryce, a man who lurched around on a crutch, to
do the yardwork and clean the stables.

Tom's father—the similarity of their names was getting to be a bother—did nothing but slam doors
in a petulant manner, then go out for rides when Mr. and Mrs. Riddle ignored him. They paid more
attention to Tom, asking how he was settling into his room and if he needed extra blankets, or if he
wanted the maid to leave hot water bottles in his bed after dinner so it would be warm and toasty by
the time he went up for the night.

"I think there are more important things than trying to look noble," said Hermione. She didn't have
Tom's silver tongue for charming adults; she was much too straightforward in discourse to match
Tom's sheer persuasiveness, and while Tom found it endearing, it didn't help in the rare instances
when she wanted other people to not only find her arguments valid, but find her person likeable.
"It's an admirable goal—privilege isn't something one should take for granted, of course—but I've
always wanted to make a more active contribution to society. Public affairs, civics, or perhaps even
governance."

"Oh, Hermione, my dear," said Mrs. Riddle, sounding immensely relieved. She patted Hermione
on the shoulder and continued, "If that's what you wanted, why didn't you say? I'm certain I can
arrange a position at the North Riding municipal office when you've finished with school. It's just
north of the vale from here, and close enough that you'll be able to live here instead of boarding up
in Allerton—a rather dull little parish if I'm to be the judge of it."

"A position? In municipal government?"

"In the aldermen's offices. They're always in need of competent secretaries."

Once again, Hermione was sent floundering for a response. While she tended towards frankness in
conversation, she managed to retain enough self-control to steer clear of unsalvageable rudeness.

"Oh," she said, "well, that's generous of you to offer, Mrs. Riddle."

"Noble is as noble does, dear," said Mrs. Riddle magnanimously. "I do want you to feel welcome
while living here."

"Oh," she repeated, a little lamely. "If that's the case, do you mind very much if I use your motor?
I know petrol is rationed now, but I promise I won't use much of it. I... I've wanted to see the
village up close, and I shouldn't like to walk up and down the hill in the snow, especially if the
weather changes while I'm on the way back."

She had magic to refill the tanks; they wouldn't miss any, even if she borrowed the Riddles'
motorcar and drove to York and back. But she wasn't interested in going that far—the far edge of
Little Hangleton was the farthest she was planning on exploring. There was information she was
looking for, important information that would answer questions she'd been wondering about for
weeks, and the village was the best place she knew to go searching.

"You may take the Sunbeam out," Mrs. Riddle replied. "That's the older one of the two—Bryce
will know which one if you ask him; do let him give you a proper driving tour when you visit the
village. Thomas doesn't like having mud on his Rolls when the weather gets as dirty as it does
during the winter. And my Tom—" she sighed, "—prefers his horses, and never likes going past
the property lines these days, so he wouldn't be put out for it either."

The Riddles had two motorcars? Somehow, Hermione wasn't surprised at that; by what she'd seen
of their lifestyle, they were obscenely wealthy by the standards of the average family back in
Crawley. And Mr. Riddle had a Rolls-Royce! She'd read several automobile manuals during her
driver training that summer, and while she didn't have a preference for one make over another—the
Muggle equivalent of how young wizards obsessed over the newest racing broomsticks—she knew
that some firms produced more luxurious models than others.

It was a car that cost in the thousands of pounds. Hermione's parents had paid one-hundred and
fifty pounds sterling to have the rest of their house warded after Nott's solicitor had the registration
papers approved by the Ministry. On top of the fees for lodging the application and having two
fireplaces in their house renovated and connected to the Floo, the total cost, in the hundreds of
pounds, was dear enough that Mum and Dad had to have several serious discussions on the
household budget. In the end, they'd decided that it was worth it, as Mr. Pacek was giving them a
good rate on account of their friendship, and it wasn't as if they could shop around for a cheaper
alternative to having their home secured against bombs, gassing, fires, and mortar strikes.

These thoughts lingered in the back of her mind the next morning, when she checked her study
planner one last time. Reading the message that had appeared in the night, she stuffed it into her
bag and headed down to the Riddles' garage, which was situated behind the house and invisible
from the front drive.

The back of the house was less grand than the front, lacking the Gothic ostentation of the
balustrades on either side of the front steps, or the rooftop's sculpted parapets. A flagstoned
courtyard was the centre of the space, iced over in the winter, with the occasional black lump
visible in the hard-packed snow where a horse had evacuated itself and it had frozen into a solid
rock before anyone could shovel it away. It was surrounded by the functional buildings necessary
for running a great house like the Riddles' home: the garage, the stables, the dairy, the kitchen
gardens, and a glass-walled conservatory for the keeping of fresh herbs and hothouse flowers for
the Riddles' table.

The nicker of horses was audible over the scouring wind, and Hermione tucked her scarf in tighter
around her throat, cast a Warming Charm over her Muggle coat, and ducked into the garage, which
she knew had the largest doors out of any of the house's auxiliary buildings.

Inside, she found a room that smelled of petrol and metal—over the pervading smell of horse
manure, which wafted in when the wind blew in the right direction—and contained a small
carriage, and what appeared to be a drover's wagon, tipped on its side to make room for the main
occupants of the garage, the two motorcars.

One motor was black and rectangular, a commercial model that didn't look much different than the
one her parents had—although the one the Grangers' owned was blue. It had a spare tyre strapped
to the runningboards, and she remembered seeing that tyre when Mr. Bryce had gone to Great
Hangleton to pick her and Tom up from the station. This must be their daily-use car, and indeed the
wear was noticeable, in the dings in the body and the dirty streaks of mud splashed across the
whitewall tyres; it must have been put to use quite recently.

The other motorcar was silver-grey, with a spotless chromed grille, slimmer runningboards, and a
longer front bonnet, which was topped with a shiny metal figurine—the manufacturer's mark.

Hermione was slightly unsettled upon realising that this motor was worth twice the fees of putting a
student through a first-rate education at Oxford or Cambridge. And in terms of performance, there
wasn't much that separated it from the Riddles' affordable motorcar, the Sunbeam. It was close
enough in dimensions to the Grangers' that Hermione knew she could enchant it with the same rune
sets, and therefore make it better than the Rolls-Royce.

For now, she'd use her wand to cast a few Cushioning and Warming Charms for comfort. The
spells would last a few days at most before the effects faded, but it was a quick job that only a took
a few minutes. That'd do, for now. She wasn't sure that the Riddles, even if they allowed her to
drive their motorcar, would extend that courtesy to letting her carve mysterious symbols under
various panels. Her suspicions lay with an abject refusal; the Riddles might have been relatively
carefree with how they spent their money, but they were not uncaring about the state of their
belongings.

(When the Grangers had been invited to dinner in one of London's more exclusive restaurants, Mrs.
Riddle had ordered lobster bisque for their starters, and had made a fuss about sending everyone's
plates back to the kitchen after Hermione pointed out a bit of shell she'd gotten in hers. Hermione
had picked it out and laid it on the side of her bowl, but once Mrs. Riddle had seen it, she'd all but
dragged the maître d'hôtel to their table by his ear.)

Once settled into the driver's side of the front bench, the engine turned on and the carburetor
warming up, Hermione opened her bag and laid out a pair of books. The first was a surveyor's
handbook on the area of Hangleton and the surrounding valleys, which she'd found digging through
the Riddles' extensive private library. It was published in 1889, when the North Riding was
established as a separate civil district from the South, East, and West Ridings of Yorkshire. The
maps inside the book depicted the main roads and village boundaries of Little and Great Hangleton,
which should allow her to find her way around without having to stop every few minutes to ask a
local for directions. The second book was her enchanted study planner, which had, in the last week
or so, been very useful in keeping her informed of Nott's convoluted plan to discover the
whereabouts of the Gaunt family.

The Gaunts.

They were the mystery at the centre of all this.

A wizarding family, the Gaunts had isolated themselves from the rest of British society for the last
century. Nott had gone through the historical records and family trees kept in his father's study, and
found that before their self-imposed seclusion, the Gaunts had owned properties in Ireland. The
trail had stopped there: their lands had all been sold off before the birth of Marvolo Gaunt, the man
who'd given Tom his middle name. Marvolo, according to one old tapestry whose recording
enchantments had worn off a few decades ago, was Tom's maternal grandfather, and the last
recorded Gaunt in Cantankerous Nott's Pure-Blood Directory.

In many enchanted tapestries, woven by experts in the magical arts, the names and likenesses of
witches weren't recorded in as much detail as the wizards. The magical world had a far superior
record of granting witches basic economic and civil rights—owning businesses or property, or
participating in politics or diplomacy, in contrast to the official status, or lack of it, accorded to
Muggle women. However, just like in Muggle society, it was traditional for a witch to take her
husband's name after marriage, and therefore "lose" her own. From what Nott had written, a witch
of the "best" families took a hyphenated name if her mother's maiden name was superior in status
to her father's, or if her own status had greater significance than her husband's. However, most
creators of magical family trees left the witches out past the first generation if they married out,
tracing the main male line instead, which resulted in maternal bloodlines becoming a convoluted
trail of dead ends and unresolved questions.

She'd resigned herself to putting up with Nott as her co-collaborator if she wanted to solve the
puzzle.

The growing list of reservations drifted into her thoughts, as she steered the Riddles' motorcar out
of the garage, down the hill, and to the main road that passed through the centre of the village.
There weren't many other vehicles on the road. A few horse-drawn drays, oil cloth tamped down to
protect the cargo, a bicycle or two, but no motors. The wagon drivers tipped their caps to
Hermione as she overtook them, going slowly over the slick bitumen. Yorkshire in winter was not
much to look at: the land was coated in a layer of snow, dry stone walls and hedge fences
separating one tenant farm from the next. They made a grid of dark borders, rising above the
square-cut shapes of wintry pasture; it gave the North Riding countryside the overall appearance of
a big white quilt.

The meeting spot was a patch of road outside the village proper, out of view from the Muggles...

There!

A wooden signpost rose out of the packed snow on one side of the road, its two arms pointing in
opposite directions.

Great Hangleton, 5 miles.

Little Hangleton, 1 mile.

She eased down on the brake pedal; the motorcar coasted to a stop over the icy road. Stepping out
of the magically warmed interior and out into the wind was painful, but she managed it, and trotted
over to the signpost, shoes sinking into the frozen crust of now.

"Nott?" She peeked behind the sign. "Hello? Where are you?"

A rectangular section of air shimmered and Nott appeared, dressed in black robes under a thick
winter cloak with a fur collar, a gold clasp at his throat in the shape of an oak branch sprouting with
acorns. His wand pointed at the ground, where a series of runes had been melted into the snow.
Hermione eyed the rune sequence, translating each letter in her head, placing their meanings into
context with one another.

"Hey!" said Hermione, looking up from the ground to glare at Nott. "That's my rune pattern! You
even took the idea of writing it in the snow!"

"Does it even matter where I got it?" Nott shrugged. "No one will ever believe you."

He blasted the marks off with an Incendio, and when he was done, he shook the slush off his boots.
"Do you know where to go?"

"Yes," said Hermione. She hesitated, then added, "Well, I have a map and a general idea of where
to search. But it'll be faster if we go by motorcar."

Nott narrowed his eyes as the motor. "That thing? Is that what Muggles use for carriages? It
smells strange—and where are the horses?"

"There aren't any. The smell is from the petrol."

"Petrol?"

Hermione sought her memory for an alchemical term that wizards would understand. The
textbooks on the subject she'd read always used Salt of This and Oil of That to describe what
modern Muggle chemists called Sulfates and Nitrites. It wasn't as if the wizarding alchemists of the
past—or present—were ignorant or stupid, but they were hidebound to old conventions, and one of
those was the use of traditional ingredient names. She expected it was partly due to how long
wizards lived, and alchemists in particular tended to live even longer than the average.

"Um," she said, "distilled and refined naphtha? It's used as the fuel."

"How barbaric," said Nott. "How fast can it go?"

"Forty-five miles an hour, I suppose," Hermione said. "Maybe sixty on a good road going
downhill."

Nott gave a snort of derision. "The new Cleansweeps can go up to eighty miles an hour."

"But you can't fit two people on one and eat lunch while in the air," Hermione pointed out. "And I
have a basket of chicken sandwiches under the seat; I'm sure if you tried to eat them at eighty miles
an hour, you'd have a pleasant task of picking frozen mayonnaise out of your nostrils."

"Ugh, Granger, do you really have to make everything into an argument?"

Hermione scoffed, but resisted her impulse to take Nott at his word. And she kept her mouth shut
while Nott got into the passenger's seat on the left side, wrinkling his nose at the Muggle-ish
interior, which had not been placed with a minor Expansion Charm like the Hogwarts horseless
carriages. At least her charmwork had ensured the inside was comfortably warm.

She got the motor moving again, and they rolled up and down one of the many low hills that made
up the valley. At the bottom of the valley was nestled the village of Little Hangleton, and on the
opposite ridge, at one of the highest points, was the Riddle House. On the opposite side of the
village was another ridge, dark and wooded where the Riddles' hill was a clear and well-maintained
patch of lawn blanketed in snow, bordered with ornamental shade trees.

This wooded ridge was the outer boundary of the village—and, according to the surveyors' maps,
where the Riddles' ownership ended.

There was a minor road that led off the main road, a pounded dirt track instead of smooth asphalt
layered over macadam that was the standard for public motorist roads across England. This was an
indication of where the private property began, and with a yank of the gearshift, Hermione steered
the motorcar down the track and into the copse of dark trees. Instantly, the watery sunlight of late
December dropped away behind a canopy of snow-laden branches, as if twilight had come upon
them in the blink of an eye.

Nott drew out his wand and cast a Lumos. Hermione, rolling her eyes at him, flipped on the
headlamps to light the path.

They turned a corner, the motor set in the lowest gear. Nott didn't put his wand away, but held it
between his fingers in a duellist's grip.

"This is the place," Nott breathed. "Stop the carriage, Granger."

Hermione pulled the gearshift down to neutral. Nott hopped out of the front seat, took a few steps
off the track and up to the edge of the woods, where he began digging under a leafless tree. A
minute later he came back, and in his gloved hand was a thorny stem topped with a handful of tiny,
bell-shaped grey-ish violet flowers, brittle and damaged from winter frost. It looked well past its
harvesting season.

"Bettony," he explained, peeling open the flowers to inspect the stalk-like filaments within.
"Wizarding bettony. We grow this year-round in our solarium at home."

"Also called 'Vettonica' or 'English hedge nettle'. Commonly used in healing potions and
antidotes," Hermione recited from memory. She'd read the entry years ago in their Herbology
textbook, One Thousand and One Magical Herbs and Fungi. "Best picked in late September when
the petals are fully developed and have taken on a deep violet hue. The dried and powdered leaves
are often steeped and used in hangover potions. The anthers can be plucked and crushed into a
poultice to cure—"

"—Snake bites," Nott finished. "Keep going. If their herbs have escaped their garden and grown
in so close to the Muggle road, then it means they haven't maintained their wards. They won't
know that other wizards have crossed into their property."

"It's illegal for a property owner not to keep their wards maintained when living so close to a
Muggle settlement!" said Hermione, scandalised. "Especially when there are magical plants or
animals involved. They made a big fuss in The Prophet a few years ago when someone's flesh-
eating shrub took the leg off a Muggle postman."

"You can report them later," Nott said, looking unconcerned about having found evidence of
flagrant lawbreaking. "After we've got our information. Not that it'll do much, of course—Muggle
welfare is well low on the list of things the Wizengamot cares about these days. The Aurors have
more important things to do than write out minor fines." He cut himself short as the motorcar
turned the next corner. "Not that these people could afford to pay them, I'm sure."

In between the scraggly, bare trees was a modest little cottage, its low roof sagging under a thick
crust of snow. Thick icicles dangled off the eaves, inches from scraping the snow that had built up
around the walls of the house, which had been cleared from around a rough door constructed of
splintery planks. A thin thread of smoke wisped out of the cottage's crooked chimney. All in all, it
looked... uninviting.

Weren't the Gaunts a pureblood family? Hermione thought, looking the little house over. That's
what Nott's book said they were.

She supposed a witch could live in there; it was the classic fairytale depiction of a witch's house, a
place where disobedient children became plucky heroes over the course of a bedtime story. That
had been her idea of magic before Hogwarts, and after learning that she was the witch, she knew
better these days. These days, she understood that pureblooded witches and wizards had manors
and servants and family libraries full of books that she'd never find on a shelf at Flourish and
Blott's.

The mystery deepened.

"I have to stop here," said Hermione. "If I keep going, there won't be enough room to bring the
motor around. If I can't turn it around, I'll have to drive it in reverse up to the main road—and I
haven't got the hang of that yet."

Nott muttered something about Muggle contraptions, but gathered his cloak and straightened his
robes before he pushed open the door. Hermione buttoned up her coat and made sure her wand was
in the right-side pocket before she turned the engine off and got out from her side.

It took them a few minutes to walk up from the dirt path to the front door, and in that time, she'd
made a few observations of the area: the snow had settled in regular oblong shapes by the side of
the house, and out of those poked a few hardy weeds. There had once been garden beds here, a
wizarding apothecary or herb garden, but it had gone to seed over several years of neglect. The
property wasn't surrounded by any sort of potent ward; she couldn't feel any compulsion effects to
turn around and walk back to the road, nor could she feel the tingling that meant her presence had
been detected and set off a linked alarm inside the house, the magical world's equivalent of a door
bell.

And once they'd reached the house, she and Nott observed the most disturbing sight: there was a
desiccated, frozen body of a snake nailed to the door. Its scaly skin was flaking off in long strips,
like some sort of ugly mummified banana, and in the gaps between the skin and shrivelled grey
flesh were dozens of thin stripes—rib bones—connected to a knotted line of vertebrae.

They exchanged a wary glance.

"You knock," said Hermione quickly. "I'm faster at casting the Shield Charm."
Nott grimaced, raising his gloved fist to the door, looking for the cleanest place to touch. He settled
for a spot a few inches above the snake, but he had to awkwardly raise his arm over his head to do
it.

Knock, knock!

They waited for a minute. Nothing happened. Nott raised his hand to knock again.

The door was torn open, and out of the dingy depths of the house lurched a strange creature with
bedraggled hair and matching beard of indeterminate colour, dressed in mismatched layers of sack-
like clothing that gave him the appearance of a vagrant. The most curious thing about him were his
eyes, quick and dark and with a peculiar searching quality that came from, as Hermione registered
with startlement, being pointed in two directions simultaneously.

The creature—an oddly deformed man—opened his mouth, full of broken teeth in varying shades
of yellow and brown, and in reflex, Hermione cast a silent Protego.

He bounced off the shield, stumbling a few steps back. And then he hissed, spittle flying out at her,
while a hand rummaged through his rags for his wand.

Hermione kept her own wand out, her concentration directed on holding the shield. Out of the
homework study club's members, Hermione was one of the better spellcasters, and next to Tom, the
best in terms of focus and consistency.

Nott stepped in front of her, keeping himself within the protection of the shield. "You there—do
you know of a family by the name of Gaunt?"

The man cocked his head.

"Ministry man, are ye?" he said. The way the man spoke was like someone who'd learned English
as a second language; his consonants were warped and inconsistent, as if his palate was unformed,
unused to shaping such precise sounds; in contrast, certain syllables came out oddly sibilant.

"No—"

"I don' want your sort here," muttered the man. "Who do they think they are..."

"I'm not—"

"...Them filthy mudbloods, goin' 'round and tellin' me what to do... me!"

"Will you shut up and let me speak?" snapped Nott. "You really don't know who you're talking to,
do you, you stupid brute?"

He tore off the glove from his right hand and flashed his signet ring in front of the man's nose.

"I'm Theodore Erasmus Nott, son and heir to Cantankerous Nott and Annis Celyn-Gamp of
Broxtowe, pure of magical blood to the last eighteen generations. I'm not from the Ministry, and—
most importantly—I'm not," Nott's lip curled up in a truly contemptuous sneer, "a mudblood. I'm
looking and willing to pay for any information on the Gaunt family. Information on the late
Marvolo Gaunt and any heirs of his name or body, particularly the whereabouts of a Merope Gaunt,
presumed daughter of Marvolo. Are you their tenant? Do you know where they are?"
The man, who had been eyeing Hermione's drawn wand, turned his full attention to Nott, whose
youth and fur-trimmed cloak rendered his identity an uncertainty. The robes he wore beneath his
cloak were clearly of wizarding make; from out of his flowing sleeves peeped linen cuffs adorned
with pearl buttons and fine blackwork embroidery. Nott had made no effort at all in blending in
like Hermione had, with her driving coat and Muggle-made jumper and skirt. In Hermione's forays
into magical law, she'd read that it was recommended for wizards to don Muggle garments and
blend in when conducting business outside wizarding settlements, and for Ministry employees,
those recommendations became official policy.

The man's lopsided gaze lingered on Nott's ring, a thick gold band on his middle finger with his
family's coat of arms cast in reverse.

"What's it to you, then? What're you after Merope for?" said the man angrily, stepping back from
them, but not removing his hand from his wand.

"Do you know her?" Nott dug around into the satchel bag he wore beneath his cloak and drew out
a small velvet pouch that gave off a metallic jingle when he pulled at the drawstrings.

"She's a little thief, she is," the man spat, his eyes taking on a greedy shine. "A thief, a liar, a slut,
my sister." His expression sharpened, and his unkempt beard undulated. It took Hermione a
second or two to realise he was scowling. "What're you askin' all these questions for?"

"I'm a genealogist studying pureblood bloodlines." Nott pulled a book out of his bag and opened it
to a pre-marked page, flipping it around to face the man. The marked page showed an animated
illustration of a family coat of arms: a green shield with an engrailed border that rippled like waves
at sea, and on top of it was a serpent in silver coiled in the shape of a circle. "The House of Gaunt.
According to the records and tapestries kept by other families, the most recent scion of the house
was a Mr. Marvolo Gaunt, son of Morganus Gaunt, born in 1877 and died in 1927."

Nott turned to the next page, which had a branching family tree with little pictures of heads by the
names of the male entries. "If there are no other family members left, then the next edition will
have to reflect the extinct status of the name and blood. But... you say Merope Gaunt is your
sister? Then you are a Gaunt yourself?"

"I am!" said the man fiercely, "Morfin Gaunt, son of Marvolo." He thumped himself on the chest,
and continued, "Centuries of pure blood in these veins, I have—and not a single drop of filth!"

Nott coughed and tried to hide his look of mocking amusement at the man's words.

"What's that?" said the man, Morfin Gaunt, his eyes dark flashing with ire. "You think I'm jokin',
do you, then? You may have your fancy books, but my blood's better'n yours."

Morfin raised one grubby hand up to Nott's face, just as Nott had done, and on his finger was a
golden ring set with a black stone. Where Nott's ring had an elegant design, the oak motif of his
family cast into its face, Morfin's ring looked to be nothing more than a simple carved stone.

"I've got one of 'em too, just like you; don't think you're better'n me," Morfin said. "I'm the last
living descendant of Salazar Slytherin, I am! I wager that's more'n you can say for yourself, hah!"

Out of the corner of Hermione's eye, she noticed how Nott's expression shifted, then smoothed
itself over. Where he had been disgusted and bored, he'd regained interest in the conversation with
the thoroughly unwelcoming Morfin Gaunt. Nott looked intrigued.
"Is that so, Mr. Gaunt?" asked Nott. "That's a remarkable claim to make. A unique claim, if true.
One worth recording with your name in the next edition. But there's one thing I need, though I
don't expect it should be much trouble to provide..."

"Of course it's true!"

"Prove it," Nott said. "Speak to a snake."

"They've all gone to sleep for the winter, haven't they?"

Nott took a deep breath, composing himself. Then he raised his wand and incanted,
"Serpensortia!"

A small, foot-long grass snake fell from the tip of his wand and onto the snow at their feet.

Without a trace of fear, Morfin bent over and picked it up, stroking its sinuous body and crooning at
in a strange, hissing voice. The snake hissed back, twining around Morfin's fist, and for a good
half-minute, they appeared to have an avid conversation.

Nott's eyes widened, and for a moment, his air of disdain dissolved away into undisguised awe.

"Parseltongue," he murmured. "No one's heard it spoken in Britain in centuries."

"Now, how's this, then?" Morfin prompted, untangling the snake from his fingers and then—
carelessly—tossed it over his shoulder.

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but Nott shot her a warning look.

"I never thought I'd see it," Nott remarked. "An authentic claim. Pardon me, Mr. Gaunt, but did
your sister possess this ability, too?"

"Aye, she did."

"Do you..." Nott began tentatively, "do you know what became of her?"

"She run off with a Muggle boy years ago." Morfin shrugged. "Saw him, fancied him, took off
with 'im, never came back. He come back, though, he did—went back to his big house over the
dale, that way—" Morfin jerked his head in the direction of the dirt track, "—but I never see him
come 'round on his horse since then." He broke off into a cackle, fingering his wand in sinister
glee. "If he does come back, he'll get what's comin' to 'im. Serve 'im right—who does he think he
is? Muggle rubbish! Filth like him, defiling the blood of Salazar..."

"Thank you, Mr. Gaunt," said Nott, cutting Morfin off in the midst of a tirade. He graced Morfin
with a short bow, then tossed the man the pouch of coins; Morfin snatched it from the air and tipped
it out, pouring out a stack of bright golden galleons into his dirty palm.

Morfin shoved one between his stained teeth, while Nott winced and tried to maintain his polite
demeanour.

"I'll be going now. Have a good day, Mr. Gaunt." Nott backed away from Morfin, who was
counting his coins and rubbing them between his fingers. "By the by, Mr. Gaunt? You ought to
clean up your garden and put your wards back up in case any Ministry inspectors ever see this...
place."
Morfin wasn't listening, so Nott just rolled his eyes and turned back to the track, gesturing for
Hermione to lower her wand and follow. In a low voice, he whispered to Hermione, "You can
report him at your leisure now, Granger. What an utter travesty."

They stomped their way back to the motorcar, which was as warm inside as when they'd left it.
Hermione, who'd kept her wand out the whole time, siphoned off the mud and dried the melted
snow off her coat and stockings.

She was still struggling to comprehend what she'd seen. The man had talked to a snake. She hadn't
known what they were talking about, but she was certain snakes didn't behave like that normally—
they didn't listen and wait for a response like that little grass snake had, when it and Morfin had
hissed back and forth in front of them.

That man was Tom's uncle.

"So..." said Hermione, grasping for conversation. "Is that what pureblood inbreeding looks like?"

"That's what the worst sort of pureblood looks like," Nott answered through gritted teeth. "We
trace our bloodlines for a reason, and it's not just for vanity—it's so we can avoid things like that.
Did you see his eyes?"

"I tried not to; staring's impolite."

"He had some rudimentary skill at Legilimency. Weak and untrained—nothing as sophisticated as
what Riddle can do—but Gaunt knew right away when I was making light of his boasts."

"Are you really going to put him in the next edition of the book?"

Nott's jaw clenched. He glared out through the passenger side window. "He's a pureblood, and the
Heir of Slytherin, a true descendant of Salazar Slytherin. He's disgusting in every way, but the title
is rightfully his."

"Couldn't..." Hermione ventured hesitantly, "couldn't it be Tom's title, too? You said you were
looking for Marvolo Gaunt's heirs in name and body. Tom doesn't have the Gaunt name, but he has
the blood. Doesn't that mean something?"

"I didn't think you were one to put stock in our 'meaningless' courtesy titles."

"I..." said Hermione, who had scoffed at Nott's Pure-Blood Directory and the 'Ancient and Noble
Houses' with their pretentious Latin mottos, "I don't like the idea of Morfin Gaunt having them,
having any official recognition for something he did nothing to earn, which goes to vindicate his
wretched opinions even further. And even you think he's gone too far down the deep end."

Her hands squeezed the wheel, leather driving gloves creaking. "He's perfectly rotten—did you
hear the names he called his own sister?" In the few minutes of conversation in which he'd spoken
about Merope Gaunt, Morfin had used language worse than she'd ever heard from the Riddles, who
held no fondness for the woman. "And what he did to that snake! He just threw it away, like it was
nothing! It might be an animal—but it's one he can speak to! And he had one nailed up to his
door!"

"Calm down, Granger," said Nott, holding onto his seat, "you're swerving all over the road!"
"Sorry." Hermione drew in a deep breath, straightening the motorcar out and loosening her grip on
the steering wheel. "What do we do now?"

"We?"

"Well, of course, we can't tell Tom about it! He doesn't know his mother was a witch, or his uncle
is a nasty old blood purist." Hermione let out a tired sigh. "If Morfin Gaunt can talk about Tom's
father like that, just because he's a Muggle—and if he'd go so far as to insult another pureblood—
then he wouldn't hold back if he ever met Tom. Tom doesn't like being insulted; his feelings are
very sensitive, you know—"

"—Sensitive," Nott repeated in disbelief.

Hermione ignored him, and continued, "—And I just know Tom would be tempted into doing
something stupid, and get himself into trouble. So, obviously, we have to keep this between us, for
his own good."

By this, she meant Morfin Gaunt, who would hate Tom for merely existing, and whose existence
would offend Tom in return. Some people were so far at odds in ideology and disposition that they
were best kept apart, keeping the peace for the greater good. It was common sense. She'd learned
back in primary school that if two parties couldn't get along, then it was easier to separate them
until they could shake hands and reconcile. It was to everyone's benefit: one could look to the
example set by the Partition of Ireland two decades ago, which split the island into a sovereign
Republic in the south and a British-governed section in the north.

(She had been called naïve for thinking that such a separation could cool tempers, but she earnestly
believed it could. It was the rational solution when the other option had been war.)

The rest of it—the inherited legacies—didn't have to remain a secret... but she didn't anticipate the
prospect of bringing Morfin Gaunt or Merope Gaunt Riddle into the light. His family and the lack
of it in his childhood and youth were sensitive subjects to Tom, who had felt he'd been unfairly
wronged by the world from birth; just now the Riddles were giving him a taste of what he was
properly entitled to, and it would be devastating to discover that both sides of his family were, to
the core of their beings, ridden with carelessness and selfishness, having possessed the ability to
help but had instead forsaken one of their own for so long. It troubled Hermione to imagine it, for
what were magic and money but the means to enact change in the world?

And it would undo the recent strides Tom had made in learning to become a great wizard and great
person in his own right. Hermione worried about Tom; she knew he was capable of great
selfishness himself—the idea of the Unforgivable Curses had not fazed him back in First Year—
and on top of that, he was never one to let injustices stand unanswered for. This would have been
similar to Hermione's personal stance on injustice, if Tom was not so singularly focused on only
those injustices directed toward his own person.

(Having to keep her hand on his under the table during meals at the Riddle House was fast
becoming a routine.)

It was best to be circumspect about how the news was broken, at least for now.

Nott fell into a thoughtful silence. "You wouldn't be opposed to a 'pretentious fictional style'
associated with Riddle's name, if the alternative was Morfin Gaunt having it?"
"They're harmless, aren't they?" Hermione asked. "Like clan memberships in Scotland. They don't
do much these days, as most modern Scots speak English and make their livings in cities—they
don't even wear tartans day-to-day. I don't know what an 'Heir of Slytherin' does, but if purebloods
think it's important, then I'm sure Tom can put it in with his references if he wants to apply for jobs
after Hogwarts. Maybe it will stop him from thinking that people will only take him seriously if he
has an Order of Merlin."

It was Hermione's opinion that the ranks of peerages and nobility were a hallmark of the past. They
had historical value, contributed to the formation of the modern Union, and had some influence in
Parliament's House of Lords, but in this age, that was more a nod to tradition than an assignation of
political power. She didn't mind if those who had titles used them; it was a link to one's heritage,
and for the most part, it was no different than tracing her own heritage to the tribes of ancient
Britons, or the Anglo-Saxon lords that followed. If she wanted to claim that she was descended
from Iceni warrior queens, what harm could it do? If she didn't put on prideful airs like Mrs.
Riddle, or behave as abominably as Morfin did in his self-assured superiority, then she found it
somewhat acceptable, if not whole-heartedly encouraged.

(But she also wasn't encouraging anyone to throw out their guillotines anytime soon. They were
worth keeping; it was only fair that historical value go tit-for-tat.)

"The 'Heir of Slytherin' isn't a title to be claimed," said Nott. "One can't just put it on a piece of
paper and have other people believe it—it has to be proven."

"Like what you asked of Morfin?" Hermione frowned. "Tom has to talk to a snake, and then he can
add it to his qualifications? Well, if that's it, then it's not that hard, is it?"

"It's something like that," said Nott, scratching his chin thoughtfully. He didn't elaborate on what
that meant.

Hermione parked the car at the top of a hill that gave them a scenic view of Hangleton, then
unpacked the lunch that the Riddles' cook had packed for her that morning: curried chicken
sandwiches, a crock of potato salad with crisp pickles and quail eggs, and a pair of small, tart
apples harvested from the estate orchards. She pointed out the local landmarks to Nott, who was
lukewarm to the tour, unimpressed by the size of the town—which had fewer than a thousand
residents—or by the Riddles' estate at one end of the valley, which looked much less grand when it
was so far away it couldn't loom as it did up close.

"My family's estate is around the same size," said Nott dispassionately. "Greater, if you count the
area added by Extension Charms on the house and grounds. My ancestors put them up before the
Statute was passed—the Ministry later banned them from personal use, to protect the fragile minds
of wandering Muggles, because Merlin forbid they see something that's bigger on the inside than
on the out."

"Extension Charms weren't banned by the Ministry," Hermione corrected him. She liked accuracy
when it came to referencing laws; in that same fashion, she couldn't stand it when she heard famous
quotes mangled in public rhetoric. "Their use was only restricted to certain licensed registrants and
specific applications. Trunk-makers and enchanters can still use them for magical luggage, and
anyone who had them before they tightened the rules weren't expected to take them down."

Other people, including Tom, thought her pedantic because of this tendency—although she couldn't
tell if it was because she knew the rules better than they did, or if it was because she made sure they
knew she knew. Either way, wasn't it a citizen's duty to know the laws of her nation? The
Wizengamot's pretentious Latin motto, after all, was Ignorantia juris neminem excusat, or
Ignorance of the Rules is No Excuse.

"You know, Granger, I used to wonder what you saw in Riddle," remarked Nott in a bland voice.
"Or what he saw in you. Then I realised that the two of you were equally insufferable, and the
effect is only magnified when you're together."

"If I'm so insufferable, then why are you here?"

"Because I seem to enjoy tormenting myself," Nott said. With his wand, he poked a parcel of
greaseproof paper tied up with string, which gave off a small puff of steam. Inside was a sandwich
cut into triangular halves, containing spiced chicken and fresh greens from the herb garden.

"Besides," he continued, "You're plenty insufferable, but when the pair of you are being
insufferable in public, you've somehow gained the ability to make other people do as they're told.
It's remarkable, really—and rather useful. And I also happen to know which side my bread is
buttered. For now, it may be good enough—but it's even better to keep it buttered on both sides."

"That's an elaborate way of justifying your self-interest."

"If you were a Slytherin, a justification wouldn't be necessary."

After lunch, Hermione drove Nott back to the Hangleton signpost, their original meeting point.

"I suppose I'll see you next term," said Hermione, in lieu of a farewell.

"Unless you've found more information," Nott said, brushing the last of the crumbs off his cloak.
"Now that I've got the lie of the land, it should be easier for me to come back later through
Apparition."

"How did you get here, if you didn't Apparate?" Hermione asked. "We only start our Apparition
lessons in the spring."

"Magic, what else?"

With that, Nott snapped his fingers, and with a small pop! of displaced air, a scrawny, goblin-like
creature appeared before them. It had large amber-coloured eyes that bulged out of its thin face, as
disproportionately sized as the apple in the mouth of a suckling pig. Enormous, membranous ears
stuck out from the side of its head, the skin so fine that it was translucent in the noon sunlight. It
appeared to be dressed in an embroidered towel knotted over each shoulder, though its most
distinctive article of dress was a thick, golden torque engraved with runes that was wrapped around
its neck.

Nott offered his hand to it, and without hesitation, the creature laid one knobbly-fingered little hand
onto Nott's waiting palm.

"Amity," ordered Nott, "take me around the back; the south-side corner of the stableyard should do
it."

The small creature bowed, and this time, with a louder pop! they disappeared into thin air, leaving
Hermione staring at a pair of footprints in the snow.
Shaking her head, Hermione returned to the motorcar, which she drove back to the Riddles' garage,
parking it next to Mr. Riddle's Rolls-Royce. When she got out, she cleaned the snow and mud from
the body and bonnet, then topped up the petrol tank with a Refilling Charm.

She might not be interested in the 'nobility of character' that Mrs. Riddle had talked about, but the
least she could be was polite.
Chapter End Notes

On values and inflation:

Mr. Riddle's Rolls-Royce Wraith cost £2000 in 1938. That is worth £115 000 today.
A modern Rolls-Royce costs £300 000, or ~$500,000.

The inside of the Riddles' daily driver car (1932 Sunbeam Coupé) looks like this. There are no
seatbelts, so the passenger should probably hold on if the driver is a noob.
 Implications
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1943

Over the next few days, Thomas and Mary Riddle did their utmost to pretend that everything at the
Riddle House was perfectly normal.

It was a valiant effort, but in the end, a failure.

At meals, Tom's grandparents spoke of the Christmas pageant being put on by the villagers, and the
church service they expected him and Hermione to attend, as a way of introducing the newest
additions of the family to the curious local residents. When they used the word family, he caught
them glancing at an empty seat at the dining table, but the subject of Tom's father never entered the
conversation.

Tom Riddle, Senior—and how fiercely that name rankled, as much as it did for the title he bore, of
father—had, since that first breakfast, refused to appear for meals. For all they knew, the man had
locked himself in his apartments until Tom returned to school in January.

That didn't stop Tom from trying to find out more about him, however he could; Tom had little else
to entertain himself with, as he didn't turn seventeen until New Year's Eve, and until then, he was as
feeble and helpless without his magic as every single one of the Muggles that shared his
grandfather's house. He hadn't had to live this closely among them since 1939, but the last few
months, to his disgust, had involved more Muggle posturing than he'd been forced to perform for
the last few years.

Adjusting to the Riddles' version of a Muggle lifestyle didn't involve lard sandwiches or turnip
soup, which would've convinced him to pack his trunk and leave, whether Dumbledore liked it or
not. But there were plenty of other inconveniences that made him wish for his comfortable room at
The Leaky Cauldron. The bathrooms there never ran out of hot water, and the blackened iron
sconces, despite being ancient and ugly, were charmed to keep the corridors warm and the draughts
out. The simplest of enchantments would have saved him the nuisance of dealing with the maids,
who had every morning found some excuse or another to loiter in his room while ostensibly tasked
with cleaning the fireplace grates or changing the linens.

The Riddles had a somewhat traditional view on what they called Service: they expected the help to
be neither seen nor heard, invisible but available, anticipating their employers' needs before their
employers had come to the realisation that they were in need of anything at all. It would have been
a trying task for a full complement of household staff in the heyday of great houses: for the Riddle
House of the previous century, there had been twenty-two indoor staff and nine outdoor. In the
present decade, the upkeep of the house was stretched between a skeleton crew of five, and even
with modern electrical appliances to help with the housework, the maids rotated between the
kitchen and scullery, chambers, laundry, dining, and parlour duty. The most senior of the maids,
Miss Frances Crewe, was also assigned to Mrs. Riddle's toilette, which would have been
unthinkable in the years past, when Mrs. Riddle had been known to Society as Miss Mary
Fenstanton-Coates.
(Tom had discovered this from an afternoon spent in the family portrait gallery. There, he'd learned
that his grandfather's middle name was Reginald, that his great-grandfather's middle name had been
Thomas... and that there had been at least one boy named Tom or Thomas every generation for the
last century and a half. Tom, who had always found the results of his investigative abilities
entertaining—having cut his teeth in Mrs. Cole's office from the age of five—was not pleased by
this discovery.)

That Tom, unlike his grandparents, was willing to acknowledge the maids' existence and, on top of
that, help them lift the heavy mattress when they laid the fresh sheets (which he did to get them out
of his room faster rather than out of kindness or charity) put him in their good books. A few polite
smiles, greetings in the morning and evening, and they were ready to answer his questions. Ready
to uncover the old skeletons, too, information he knew that servants hoarded, especially if they
were overlooked by employers who spoke too loud and drank too much for their own good.

Tom wanted questions about his father answered.

It was a good thing that when it came to digging up the family dirt, the subject of his father was the
motherlode.

"Mister Tom's been the village's most eligible man for nigh on twenty years," said the second
housemaid, Becky Murray, as she vacuumed the carpet around the fireplace. To Tom's relief, she
wasn't as annoying as the first housemaid, Frances; most days, Becky finished her work as
efficiently as possible so she could go back downstairs and drink tea and eat the Riddles' luncheon
leftovers with the cook.

(From what Hermione had told him after a few days of dining with Mary and Thomas, the Riddles'
leftovers made better eating than what a servant could prepare for themselves, on their own time,
with whatever ingredients they could acquire from the government ration booklets. Tom had come
to the conclusion that the cook deliberately made the portions too large, even after accounting for
the inclusion of two guests.)

"There were a few years early on, after he run off with your ma, that the title went to Vicar Elton—
but then he up and left for the parish at Stokesley, so it went back to Mister Tom. Everyone says
your pa is the finest man in the dales, but he's never looked at any woman twice since comin' back
from London. He don't even like us girls comin' in to clean his room, makes such a fuss about it,
like tha'd never believe—Oh! I s'pose you saw him at breakfast the other mornin'—he does that
now'n again. He had his better days when there were a valet in the house to wait on him, back
before the war, but then his man enlisted and that were that. We have Frank now, but he en't the
same; he can't make it up the stairs so easy, so he has to keep himself to the grounds."

She cast him a speculative glance, eyes narrowed in thought. "In a few years, all the girls in the
village'll be lookin' to you, sir, if tha'll pardon me for sayin' so. Mister Tom, as fine as he is, won't
be gettin' any younger. But I can't expect tha' will be eligible for much longer, eh? The girls'll be
disappointed by it, o' course, but it en't the first time it's happened."

"Sorry," said Tom. "But what exactly do you mean by that? 'Eligible'?"

The maid tapped her nose. "I'm sure you know what's meant by that, sir!"

Tom could only give her an expectant look.

"Miss Hermione," Becky said. "She's got to be your steady girl, hasn't she? Your grandmama
surely thinks so!"

Steady girl, thought Tom, what an awful colloquialism.

If there was anything he thought worse than Quidditch-related jargon (blagging, blatching,
blurting, and so on) it would be the slang terms of Muggle vernacular. He had grown up amongst
people who spoke in nothing but local idioms, and it was somewhat disturbing how most of the
terminology (nobbling, feaguing, scrumping) revolved around acts of varying illegality. Not that
he had an issue with skirting laws if he felt like it—he thought them relevant to everyone but
himself. But Tom had no need of criminal accomplices, being able to take care of most things in
life on his own, and thus saw no sense in perverting the English language in the creation of an
impenetrable gutter dialect.

"...She has a picture of you and the little Miss framed in her dressin' room, next to Mister Tom's
school portraits," continued the maid with a heartfelt sigh. "It's the sweetest thing I've ever seen;
we all o' us thought she'd given up hope of having another lady in the house, ever since Miss
Cecilia stopped callin' on Mister Tom all those years ago—though I shouldn't be sayin' any more on
that; that's confidential business, that is—"

Tom interrupted her. "My grandmother thinks Hermione and I are... courting?"

"Well, sir, what else is she to call it when you're holdin' hands under the table?"

He coughed and turned away, biting the inside of his cheek.

They weren't holding hands!

Hermione was just overly insistent on reassuring herself that he wasn't going to draw his wand on
the Riddles in the middle of one of their dull mealtime conversations. These conversations always
revolved around something that neither he nor Hermione cared about: Mr. Riddle drew up plans
for a shooting party with some old chums of his who lived in Thirsk, and Mrs. Riddle discussed the
possibility of the family driving to York for a day of shopping and entertainment as a special treat
for Tom's birthday. 'Treat' was what she called it; but in reality, he could already tell he'd be
expected to sit for tea at a fancy teahouse and be introduced around to the wealthy patrons, friends
and associates of the Riddles. Because apparently everyone in Yorkshire who made above a certain
income per year shared the same, limited circle of acquaintance.

Tom's fine manners and splendid conformation would be displayed as if he were an entrant in a
kennel show—cue the repeated exclamations of "He looks just like You-Know-Who!", because
almost twenty years later, Tom's father still hadn't been forgiven for marrying so shamefully
beneath himself. (If the upper crust could count anything worse than being convicted for sodomy,
then having been caught consorting intimately with their social inferiors would do it; marrying
them was near inconceivable.) And whilst all this happened, Tom would be dreaming of practising
magic from his spellbooks, as a freshly-minted legal adult by wizarding standards, but still bound
by the Muggle laws which counted him a child and dependent until eighteen.

The only person in the house who understood how tiring it was to be among the Muggles was
Hermione, and instead of listening to him complain about it, she'd gone off to explore the estate and
village by herself. She could use magic, so of course it wasn't hard for her to find other things to do
than go through the Riddles' drawers and cabinets for anything interesting—and since Warming and
Drying Charms were only a wand-wave away, it was no trouble for her to venture outdoors in the
freezing cold.

"Hermione is my friend..." Tom began, but stopped himself.

That wasn't accurate; Hermione wasn't his friend.

She was more than that, more than what could be put into simple words. For years, they'd never
needed words to define what they had—what they were—as if words could ever encompass the
depth of what it meant to be Tom Riddle's counterpart. It frustrated him that people needed to
define their connection; they needed words, denotation and delineation, for a concept that was
beyond the breadth of their comprehension. He had encountered this more and more often in the
passing years, as he and Hermione grew older and they faced censure from people who believed
that men and women weren't, couldn't be, equals.

"She's my—" said Tom. "Mine."

He ignored the maid's knowing look.

"Who's Cecilia?" he asked quickly, changing the subject. "And my father doesn't like his room
cleaned? Why not?

"Oh, Miss Cecilia is no one important—never you mind," said the maid. "Last I heard, she'd
married a businessman down in Sheffield, and the Riddles won't hear her spoken about—not by the
likes o' us, I daresay. As for your pa, Cook—who knew him as a boy—says he's a queer one; it all
happened before my time, y'see, but I heard tell that he never was the same as before he left for
London. But that en't my place to say; your grandmama would have me sacked in a jiffy if she
knew I was tellin' stories about him."

Becky dusted off the mantel, rolled up the electrical cord to the vacuum, and began to load them
onto the trolley. She bobbed a short curtsy, then proceeded to Hermione's room, which was just
across the hall from his own.

Tom shut the door to his room and leaned his weight against it.

They thought his father was strange.

When he was a young boy at Wool's, the other children and the matron had thought him strange,
though not for any discernible reason. (Tom knew he was brighter than everyone else at the
orphanage, adults included, and they knew it as well, but they didn't speak of it, because that was
tantamount to admitting that they were stupid.) Instead, they'd called him a 'funny boy', a phrase
that had nothing to do with his sense of humour. It wasn't ever used in his presence, but he'd
overheard them discussing it in low voices during Adoption Days, when young couples and sharp-
featured housewives came shopping around for the perfect child to fulfill their household needs.

He hadn't let it bother him; he'd known all along that he was different to the rest, and Hermione and
Professor Dumbledore had confirmed it.

That day at breakfast, the first and last time he'd seen his father face-to-face, Tom hadn't gotten any
indication that the man was different—not the good type of different, which in Tom's internal
dictionary was a less brow-raising way of saying Special, when he wanted to bring the concept out
in public to educate the ignorant. Tom had come to accept that the Riddles were ordinary Muggles
through and through, which was a disappointment... But at the same time, it made his own magical
abilities unique, when everything else he had came from someone else—his name, his appearance,
even the expression of cold disdain he used when one of his dorm mates asked him a particularly
nonsensical question was one he'd seen on an oil-and-canvas portrait hanging up in one of the
corridors.

The more he found out about his father, there more things didn't add up, no matter how hard Tom
tried to fit two and two together. He had been told—he had been under the impression—that his
father was nothing more than just another Muggle, as ordinary as his Muggle grandparents.
Wealthier than most, but Tom had seen wealth from the outside all his life, both Muggle wealth and
Wizarding wealth; he already knew that wealth couldn't change the qualities inherent to a person's
character. It couldn't bestow a mediocre person with brilliance, or the unexceptional, talent.

Wealth was nothing; there were other things in life that Tom cared more about than mere money.
Magic was one of them. It had been one of the greatest mysteries in the early years of his orphan
life. Now that he'd left that unpleasant era behind, it was en route to becoming his greatest secret.

What if his father had a secret too? The way everyone in the house spoke of him, how they spoke
around him, seemed to imply that something was off with the whole affair of Tom's father eloping
with a village girl. Had he thrown off another, more suitable prospect, this Miss Cecilia, to marry
Tom's mother? Why had he done that, when all Tom had seen of the Riddles so far was how they
flaunted their superiority in name and affluence?

Tom didn't know what they were hiding; it had to be more than an unfavourable match, or a
romance gone sour. There were other things he did know, however.

His father's first impression of Tom had been one of recognition.

His father's second impression of Tom had been fear.

Why?

Tom resolved to find an explanation before the end of the Christmas holidays.

It wasn't as if he had better things to do with his time.

It didn't take Tom long to decide that the company of the servants was preferable over that of his
own family members.

The maids were annoying, but his grandparents were even worse. Grandpapa and Grandmama, as
they'd asked him to call them—although in his head, he thought of them as "Thomas the toffy" and
"Mary the meddler"—did not heed the standard of formality that the servants observed, one which
kept them from prying past the point of politeness; they understood the rule of 'Speak Only When
Spoken To', and so were more useful for Tom to ask questions of them than the other way around.

Mary Riddle, however, was the opposite: she used her familiarity and her age as an excuse to cross-
examine him, laughing off his chilly reticence with an affectionate pat on his hand and a kindly
encouragement to indulge his loving Nana, who had not long left on this Earth... which meant that
he should spend as much time with her as was humanly possible. Tom had no experience with
grandmothers, but from what he'd overheard of his dorm mates' complaining when they returned
from school holidays, it was not unusual for guilt to be a tool that old witches weaponised against
their grandsons. Tom was dismayed to find that it wasn't something only witches knew how to use,
but universal to all women.

(At least Mary Riddle had the dignity to refrain from pinching his cheeks and ruffling his hair at
every opportunity.)

So Tom chose the servants. It was the lesser of two evils.

The servants turned out to be very useful indeed: they knew the schedules and personal habits of
the Riddles, and once Tom learned them himself, it made avoiding his grandparents even easier.

Mr. Riddle, for instance, spent much of his time in his study, making inquiries of the estate agent, a
man who lived in Great Hangleton and negotiated tenancy contracts with the local farmers and
business owners; other regular contacts were his Fund manager, the steward, the family lawyer, and
various parish notables who petitioned for the Riddles' sponsorship in a children's choir or new
leading for the leaking roof of the village hall. In the evenings, Mr. Riddle confined himself in his
workshop, where he assembled, painted, and rigged model sailing ships—the dullest pastime of
which Tom had ever heard.

Mrs. Riddle's mornings were spent catching up with her correspondence through telephone or
letter-writing, and in the afternoons had Frank Bryce drive her around to call on the vicar or take
tea with other ladies of local significance, who had indubitably earned their position in the
community by marrying a wealthy and significant man. Her hobby was "gardening", or rather, the
well-bred form of gardening that took place within the Riddle House's conservatory, and involved
more flower clipping and floral arrangement in tasteful vases than grubbing about in common dirt.

Tom Riddle, that is, the other Tom Riddle—thinking of him like this, as an alternative to calling
him Father, was going to give Tom an aneurysm some day—went riding in clear weather, or
walked his horse around the courtyard when it was murky. He owned a hunting hound, a collection
of firearms, and enjoyed the typical country pursuits of a man of leisure. This meant that he was a
professional loafer, or in other words, a complete wastrel. In the evenings, whenever Thomas and
Mary went out to dine at a restaurant or watch a stage show in Great Hangleton, Tom Riddle (the
elder; the Riddles' lack of creativity when it came to christening their children really was tiresome)
would raid the cellar or his father's liquor cabinet, proceed to his rooms, then souse himself until
morning.

(Working folk like Mrs. Cole overindulged on cheap gin that reeked of paint thinner, and this was
seen as a Social Evil amongst the morally righteous of South London. But, somehow, it was
considered acceptable for the likes of Mr. Tom Riddle to pickle himself on aged wines and
imported cognac. Such a distinction came from the same sort of people who looked at him and
Hermione and drew their own conclusions. Tom didn't understand it. To him, it was equally
contemptible behaviour in two equally contemptible people; one useless Muggle was no different
from any other.)

All this he learned from the senior housemaid, Miss Frances Crewe, who was an insatiable gossip
on top of her other unpleasant qualities, one of which was her shameless staring; if her eyeballs had
hands, then Tom would have felt extremely violated. He'd learned to discourage her attentions after
a few days: when she'd brought over his laundered clothes, he'd asked her which combinations of
shirt and trousers Hermione might like best as he'd gone about putting them away into the bureau.

The maid had flushed and stuttered, but it had stopped her from trying to invite him downstairs if
he was ever in need of a "midnight snack".

It had led Tom to the conclusion that when he inherited the Riddle House, Miss Crewe would be
the first to go, and her seniority could go hang. Her seniority was too much, anyway—she was
around ten years older than him; why would she think that he'd even look at her, let alone consider
her a suitable prospect for the sort of vulgar activity for which she seemed so keen?

Becky Murray could stay, and so could the cook, Mrs. Willrow, whose hard-boiled eggs were never
boiled so hard that the outside of the yolks turned green—something Tom had always hated about
the food at Wool's Orphanage, where the meals also included watery porridge bobbing with chunks
of burnt brown crust that had been peeled off the side of the pot. This Christmas holiday had
earned some credit toward its redemption through the quality of its meals, which equalled the ones
served at Hogwarts, even if the rest of the Riddle House was far inferior to the Slytherin
dormitories.

It was after an excellent luncheon meal of brandy-braised squab with creamed garlic potatoes, a
recipe worthy of being published in Witch Weekly, that Tom continued with his "investigations". It
was a more complimentary way to describe his sneaking about the house in an effort to learn the
more intimate details of the residents' lives.

First he learned everyone's daily routines; the next thing he did was create a plan of the house itself,
made easier when he knew that the architect had been a devout classicist who admired symmetrical
perfection, placing the front door and portico in the centre with two identical wings curving around
to the sides and back. Each wing contained within it the same hallway layout, and from the
outside, Tom had counted the number of windows, chimneys, and gables. To his lack of surprise,
he found that the numbers matched.

The Riddle family bedrooms were in the South Wing.

The corridor was decorated with sombre oil paintings of horses with glossy coats and pricked up
ears. The plaques on the gilded frames were engraved with the year of each horse's birth and death,
and under that, their names and awards. (If Tom had been asked, he'd call their names
grandiloquent to an obnoxious degree—"Prince Selim", "Desdemona", "Coronation", "The
Cypriot", "Dominance", really? In private, however, he could admire their uniqueness; had he been
given a choice about the matter of naming his pet, he'd have picked something in that vein, instead
of Hermione's mundane choice of "Peanut".) The hall carpet, unlike in the North Wing, showed
signs of wear and constant traffic, the pile pressed and faded around two doors, a double-door at the
end of the hall and another single door halfway down. Tom guessed them to be the master suite
owned by his grandparents, and a standard residential apartment, similar to his own, which
belonged to his father.
The doors, to his disappointment, were locked. The handles were stiff under his hands, and refused
to turn when he jiggled them.

Looking both ways down the hall, Tom pressed his palm flat against the keyhole, brows furrowed
in concentration.

He hadn't practised magic like this in years. Once he'd gotten his wand, the day after Dumbledore
had delivered his letter, he used it whenever he could, and carried it everywhere. It was in his
trouser pocket at the moment, the pointed end tucked under the hem of his jumper; even if he was
banned from using it by the Decree Against Underage Sorcery, it was strange not to have it on his
person, just in case. Where his dorm mates left their wands on their nightstands, or in the pocket of
yesterday's robes—which sometimes meant having to dig through a mound of dirty laundry in the
morning before classes—Tom slept with his wand next to his pillow.

Magic could be cast without his wand, he knew. He'd moved things without touching them, in his
early youth: coins, fruit from the piled baskets at the market, bits of chalk, the end of Jimmy
Thurgood's shoelace, and as the boy had been standing at the top of the landing, it had caused him
to tumble down half a flight of stairs. Every time Tom had looked into the eyes of a classmate who
spoke to him or offered him invitations to their study group or the Hogsmeade teahouse, he was
capable of discerning their true intentions without ever drawing his wand.

At Hogwarts, Tom liked having his wand to hand at all times. When he studied in the Library, he
had his wand in one hand and a book in the other. When he worked on his essays in the Slytherin
Common Room or the homework club's classroom, he dictated his drafts to his enchanted quill
while mindlessly running his fingers over the bumps and ridges of his yew wand. This habit of his
had made his dorm mates nervous; it wasn't until several years into his magical education that Tom
realised having one's wand out, when not in the process or preparation of casting a spell, was
considered unmannerly. It was equated to carrying an unsheathed dagger while going about on
casual business: not a gesture of direct threat, but still enough to make passersby approach with
caution.

So he put his wand away in public spaces, and he'd gotten into the habit of not holding his wand
when viewing the thoughts of his peers. If they were anxious, then he'd often catch them thinking
about him, and although it was nice to be acknowledged like this, it didn't give him any information
that he didn't already know.

Magic doesn't need wands, Tom thought to himself, drawing on his newly learned Occlumentic
techniques. He cleared away the memories of his orphanage days, and the unconscious muscle
memory that curled his fingers around a wand that wasn't there, ready to shape the circle-and-swipe
movement that he'd memorised back in First Year.

Magic doesn't need words or gestures.

He had never cast real spells without a wand, only nudged things here and there, outside of the rare
bouts of accidental magic where his anger had lashed out and instilled pain—discipline—on his
fellow orphans. But what was the difference between that kind of magic and spellbook magic?
Was there any difference at all?

Magic was magic.

Intent, imagination, and visualisation were all that mattered in manifesting his will into physical
reality.
He pictured tumblers shifting, the click-click-clicking of each pin as it lifted and settled and was
held in place by the force of his thoughts; it would be followed by the next, and the next, until
they'd all reached alignment, and so the mechanism would begin to rotate, the latch retracting, and
then—finally!—the door handle moved under Tom's questing fingers.

Alohomora, thought Tom, his eyes closed, lips pinched together.

He breathed shallowly, feeling a sharp throbbing in his temple, as if he'd just suffered his way
through an entire hour of Dumbledore's eccentric teatime rambling.

Snick, the door replied.

He tried the door. It opened.

The door swung open into a dark room. A man's kind of room, which Tom perceived upon the first
whiff. His nose wrinkled; living in the Slytherin dormitories ought to have desensitised him against
the smells produced by so many active young men in close quarters. Magic helped quite a lot
there: the curtains on the four-posters were charmed so any unusual smells generated by someone
who'd over-indulged in the ham hock and beans at dinner wouldn't spread over the whole room.

This room had no magic. Or much light. He waited for his eyes to adjust before he stepped
gingerly inside, leaving the door open to a narrow crack behind him.

His first impression was to observe that it was the same size as his bedroom, but visually, it
appeared smaller. It had more furniture, more clutter, and it looked lived-in where his room was
sparse and bare. The style of décor, however, was much the same: it followed the same aesthetic
of the Slytherin quarters, sumptuous and rich, thick with age—not old, but historic. Heavy curtains
in burgundy damask closed off the high windows, lined with gold braid and tassels. Furniture in
dark hardwood, upholstered in gleaming leather and tufted velvet. Light fixtures overhead in
crystal with cream silk shades, the carpets underfoot woven in lavish Oriental brocade.

He took a step further inside, and the floorboards beneath the carpet creaked under his feet.

Tom winced. He would have cast a Silencing Charm at his feet, perhaps even a Disillusionment, if
he had wanted his investigations to be discreet—if his birthday had already been and gone. It was
days away; perhaps he should come back later, when he had the full use of his wand.

But a quick look wouldn't do any harm, would it?

The longer he looked, the more his nose wrinkled in distaste. The end table by the wall was piled
with dirty dishes on a tray, two uncorked wine bottles emitting the odour of mouldering fruit into
the room's general miasma. The bed was unmade, white sheets tangled up on the floor, pillows
scattered over the rumpled covers. By the foot of the bed was a large cushion covered in short,
wiry fur.

Figuring that the desk by the window would be the best place to turn up something interesting, Tom
made his way over, feeling the floorboards shift under his weight. Not every step caused creaking,
but it really was damaging his overall efforts to be sneaky.

Empty glasses cluttered the top of the desk, white rings left on the wooden surface, which was
faintly greasy under his touch. A few tins of dubbin and a flask of whale oil mechanical lubricant
sitting on a pile of grimy rags further demonstrated the lack of hygiene; Tom was faintly disgusted
by the idea of someone putting their dirty boots on the same table where they ate and drank.

Looking inside the desk drawers, he saw that they were filled with odd bits of paper—betting slips,
pocket-sized yardage books containing the scores of old golf games, the sheet music for a Bach
minuet, and at the bottom, a linen-bound notebook with a fraying cover and wrinkly, warped pages
from something that had been spilled across it and dried off.

Once he peeled open the cover and found what appeared to be a series of poems and doodled
illustrations, he couldn't help feeling disappointed.

So his father fancied himself a poet, then? It was too bad that his poems were of the modern
variety, all irregular lines, short stanzas, and intermittent punctuation, with none of the rhyme or
structure of traditional poetry—the type Tom would have preferred, had he any preferences for
poetry at all. (He didn't.) Even the Sorting Hat, an eldritch amortal creation whose sole purpose
was to plunder the minds of young children, could do better than this sentimental tripe.

Love is like bread

It rises, it swells and grows
It is kneaded
It grows stale and cracks apart
It is consumed
And you are told
It is your duty to provide it
Each and every day.

The drawing on the opposite page was of a woman's décolletage, which made Tom scoff. The lines
were shaky and hesitant, which matched the lines of wobbling text in the attached poem. Tom was
sure that whichever woman to whom his father had dedicated the poem—his mother? Cecilia?—
wouldn't have appreciated the way her bosoms were depicted like lopsided sandbags. Like two
potatoes in a burlap sack, with a pendant on an ugly chain necklace sitting in between.

Well, if it had been his mother, it was a good thing that she was too dead to see it. Tom was no
expert in womanly thinking, but he was sure that most women would not like being serenaded with
passive-aggressive poetry.

The following page was similar, and the next, and the next.

He shoved the notebook back where he'd found it, sliding open the next drawer, when he heard the
clink and rattle of the housemaid's trolley rumbling down the hallway.

Time to leg it.

He slipped out of the room, closing the door, pressing his palm against the lock and willing the pins
and tumblers to slide back into place with the force of his urgency, until he felt them catch and fall
into position. The door locked, Tom put some distance between it and him, narrowly evading the
maid who had been assigned to clean the bedrooms while the occupants were elsewhere.
So. It was almost certainly confirmed that his father, like his grandparents, was a Muggle. There
were no signs of magic or magical items in his father's possession. His doodles were static, stiff
and lifeless without the Animation Charms that were imbued into most magical media, from
novelty trading cards to the classified advertisements posted on the Slytherin Common Room
signboard. And what competent wizard would live in such slovenly surroundings, when simple
magic could make cleaning a task of minimal effort? It was true that a Scouring Spell wasn't as
effective by itself as it was in combination with a proper wash in hot water and soap—and it was
advised against using Scourgify on delicate enchanted dinnerware—but most people could manage
a Vanishing Charm on their empty bottles.

Unless they were Muggles, of course.

Tom had been half-expecting it; still, the disappointment came as a blow... but the more he
considered it, the more he was happy to be the only wizard in his family. Magic was an advantage,
a secret skill that only he knew about. It was legally permissible to tell them, as Dumbledore and
the Hogwarts authorities had acknowledged the Riddles as Tom's guardians, but why would he?

He had power, power over them, in keeping his magic a secret. An ace hidden up his sleeve. A
rabbit in his hat.

It suited him well to think of it this way, and gauge himself exceptional; to know that he had risen
above such lowly origins, such common stock, like man had risen above ape. Although he traced
his blood to the Riddles, he didn't call them inferior. No, their blood, their lineage, had produced
him, so they weren't inferior beings. They were merely... undeveloped.

In an unusual analogy, it was like the primitive Celtic wizards of millennia past, who carried staves.
When they encountered Roman wizards for the first time, with their cored wands and Latin
incantations, they were met with a disadvantage, for the Roman wizards had hidden their wands in
their tunics, and were indistinguishable from ordinary Muggle traders and craftsmen, gathering
information and passing it along to the tribunes of the invasion force. They kept themselves a
secret until the day of the first battle, where the Celtic wizards had had no time to prepare their
elaborate rituals to summon great storms or prophesy the best path for the tribal leaders to take.

(That day, years ago, when Hermione had mentioned the possibility of wizards being drafted into
Muggle armies, Tom had looked it up himself in the dusty, untouched section of the library where
the History of Magic books were shelved. He'd never told her what he'd found; she'd be
insufferable about it, in knowing that she was right all along.)

British wizards of the modern age had Celtic blood and were taught magic in the Latin style. And
none of them—not a single one of the purebloods he knew—considered themselves the lesser for
being descended from a conquered people.

He kept these thoughts in the forefront of his mind during the Riddles' Christmas festivities, where
the house was decorated, the tinsel hung and the Christmas tree put up, and Mrs. Riddle ensuring
that there was at least one photograph of him and Hermione posed in front of it, acting like they
were in the middle of putting up the glass baubles.

"This is your first family Christmas," said Hermione, looping a strand of tinsel around his neck like
a feather boa. "You should look like you're enjoying it more."

"I would—if there was anything to enjoy."

"Good food? Mrs. Willrow makes excellent eggnog."

"Hogwarts has better," said Tom.

"How about the presents?" Hermione suggested. "You'll have two sets this year, one for Christmas,
and one for your birthday. I don't think you've ever had a proper birthday party before."

"A Muggle birthday party," Tom pointed out. "Where they'll still consider me a child for the entire
year after that."

Hermione let out a huff of exasperation. "I don't see why you're making this so difficult. This time
of year, most people would be happy to be spending time with the people who care about them. If
you haven't noticed, there's a war on."

"They don't care about me," he replied, picking a thread of tinsel out of his mouth. "It's all just a
show. They like the idea of having someone to inherit the family estate, instead of it going to a
distant cousin who'll auction it off when they see how much the government has raised the
succession tax."

Hermione shot him a look of disbelief. "That's such a cynical way to look at things."

"Sixty-five percent to the Crown!" Tom cried. "It's pure thievery."

"You looked it up?"

"This is going to be my house one day," said Tom, with a haughty lift of his chin. "Of course I'm
going to make sure no one takes it from me, not even the government."

There was a quote, often bandied about at cocktail parties by people who thought they were witty,
that went something like: "Nothing in this world can be said to be certain, except for death and
taxes."

It was a Muggle saying, so Tom had quite naturally assumed it must only be applicable to
Muggles. He was certain that auditors, as fearsome as they were reputed to be, could not be
immune to magic—hadn't Llewelyn Caldwell's family dodged the Muggle tax collectors? And he
knew there were ways to cheat death, if only by technicality. Libatius Borage's Draught of the
Living Death, for example, put one in a stasis that would keep them from dying; in the right hands,
it could buy the time to produce an antidote for someone who had ingested a lethal poison.

(Gamp's Law said there was no way to undo death with magic—that it was impossible to bring
back a life that had already passed from the mortal plane. Tom had spotted the loophole
immediately: undoing death was not the same thing as cheating death—never shuffling off the
mortal plane in the first place.)

"They'll make a Tory of you yet," Hermione remarked. "You must have read enough on military
campaigns to know that armies don't feed and equip themselves. That's where everyone's
inheritance taxes are going to, these days."

"Yes, I know," Tom insisted, "but I don't see why it should come out of my inheritance."

It wasn't his, not exactly, since the estate legally belonged to Thomas Riddle. But the man had only
a few years left to live, so it was perfectly acceptable for Tom to start counting his unhatched
chickens. The only obstacle to collecting his proper dues was Tom's father, who would be equal
inheritor of the less-than-half left by the Crown auditors.

To his irritation, Hermione just laughed and dropped a paper Christmas cracker crown on his head.

"Sometimes I don't know why you complain," she said. "You don't care about them either—but
you like the idea of being heir to a family estate. You have more in common with them than you
realise."

"If you care about them so much, why don't you stay here and deal with them for me?" Tom asked,
pushing up the paper crown from where it had flattened his hair down over his eyes.

Hermione's laughter trailed off nervously at that. "Your grandmother offered. She seems to be
under the impression that I plan to stay here for good."

Tom's expression took on a quizzical cast. "Don't you? You have your own house in London, but
when I get my fireplace connected to the Floo Network, you could come and visit as long as you
like. There's more space here in the country—you wouldn't have to stay in that stuffy cellar all
day."

"I don't think she intended it to be casual weekend calling," said Hermione, shaking her head. She
chewed her lip and continued, "Mrs. Riddle seems to think I was going to move in and... and—"

"And?"

"And give her great-grandchildren," Hermione blurted, turning away from him, her cheeks flushed
a bright and feverish red.

Tom could only stare. "Great... grandchildren?"

"You know—babies—"

"Yes," said Tom quickly, before she could elaborate any further, "I know what they are. I just can't
fathom why she wants them."

Hermione pursed her lips. "I think... I think your grandmother regrets not having found you when
you were younger. And by the way you've treated her and everyone else here—yes, Tom, I can tell
—she knows that you don't think of her and Mr. Riddle as family, not truly. And that's what she's
always wanted, a loving family, a real family that celebrates all the milestones—birthdays,
Christmas, Easter, Bonfire Night—properly. One that looks good for the photos, and doesn't fall
apart when the cameras are put away."

"How does a baby fix that?"

Tom's limited knowledge of young children came from living at the orphanage. As he recalled, his
first experience with resentment had been when he'd seen how the babies were allocated the limited
quantity of fresh milk, while he and the other children had to make do with the tasteless powdered
stuff, artificially enriched with vitamins which, when mixed with water, collected at the bottom of
his cup in the form of a grey sludge. (He'd learned later that it was bone meal, processed from the
carcasses of slaughtered cattle.)
The babies gave off a foul odour, lying in their cribs and crying all day; this confirmed to Tom how
useless they were, and why their mothers hadn't wanted them. Five-year-old Tom didn't see his
own mother as having given him away. She'd died, which was a more dignified fate than leaving
him in a basket on the doorstep. Back then, he'd had hope that his father, a grand and important
man, would find him and bring him to the home he deserved to have.

In Tom's mind, loving families and babies were two separate concepts with no overlap.

"It's the, you know, the implication!" said Hermione, who would normally have a lot to say about
everything, but in this moment seemed like she was having difficulty finding her words. "That you
and I would... w-would make that family for her, just like that!"

"Oh, is that all?" Tom prompted, trying to keep hold of the fraying ends of his patience.

"She also wants me to marry you and live here forever!" Hermione burst out.

"How ridiculous," said Tom.

"That's what I told her!"

"As if I would live in a tiny farming village for the rest of my life," Tom continued. "Having an
estate of my own is nice, but I'd still want to keep a flat or townhouse in Diagon for the weekdays;
it'd save hours and hours of waiting for the owls to deliver notes from the editor."

Hermione gaped at him, her hair frizzing out of her pins like a poked porcupine. "Did you hear
what I said?"

"Obviously."

"But," said Hermione with a deep frown, "I thought you didn't care for marriage."

"I don't," said Tom. "But after Hogwarts, we won't be living in the same castle anymore. If you
know of any other ways where we could live in the same house—see each other every day—
without counter-productive damage to our reputations as Hogwarts' best students this century, then
by all means, suggest an alternative."

Hermione was at a loss for words after that, sputtering out, "What? Is that what I think it is—"

"It's sensible. Not to mention, convenient!"

"It's the least romantic thing I've ever heard—and I've read Darcy's speech a dozen times over!"

As Tom was about to form the first words of his rebuttal, Mrs. Riddle came in with the camera,
having installed a fresh roll of film. She pressed them into posing for more photographs, twee
Christmas scenes with Hermione hanging up the felted stockings—still at a loss for words—and
Tom wearing his paper crown, Mrs. Riddle motioning them to stand closer and closer together and
put on a smile.

Up close, Tom observed that Hermione's smile was as forced as his own, but only half as
convincing.
It was only after the impromptu portrait session with Mrs. Riddle and her camera that the
implications of what he'd said to Hermione began to dawn.

"I thought you didn't care for marriage."

He didn't.

It wasn't something that had crossed his mind, even if the boys in his year had begun to stress over
who their parents were considering for their future wives. Quentin Travers' father prioritised
political influence over other considerations like money or a Sacred name. Lestrange's parents
cared about maintaining their pureblood status, but preferred a girl with a family history of
producing multiple, healthy children. Orion Black was heir to his name, and with so many cousins
of close age, his parents thought to consolidate the family fortune instead of letting it fritter off
through dowries; the Blacks had in recent decades lost a number of noteworthy heirlooms upon the
marriages of the honourable Mrs. Harfang Longbottom and Mrs. Caspar Crouch, who had both
been girls born to the Black family.

These things were irrelevant to Tom, who had never for an instant imagined venturing out on the
marriage market himself.

Tom had also never put much thought into contemplating Hermione's femininity, or her lack of it.

He knew she was a girl, a matter of physical biology that grew more undeniable with every passing
day, but in behaviour she was more laddish than ladylike. Hermione wore skirts with her school
uniform and tied her hair back with a ribbon for Herbology lessons or Defence practice, but she
didn't fuss about with powder or lipstick or aesthetic charms, unlike the infuriating Sidonie
Hipworth who stopped and made him wait outside the girls' loo every time they went on joint
patrols together.

Hermione didn't exactly heed the expectations set for those of her sex, but in terms of social
convention for a person of her birth and class, she didn't deviate too far from the norm. Her beliefs
in what was right and what was wrong fell in agreement, most of the time, with whatever the law
permitted. Her values fell into a similar state of conformity: she didn't like the suffering and
misery of others; she felt concern on others' behalf when it came to the living and working
conditions for the urban poor and the citizens of the British colonial territories; she felt a
responsibility to improve the situation wherever she could; she genuinely, earnestly believed in
being good.

He supposed that someone like Hermione thought of one day being married and having children,
because that was what was expected for people to do once they'd reached a certain age: have a
house and a family with the statistical average of three children and a pet. Tom felt a bit nauseous
at the prospect of there being another girl out there with Hermione's soft brown eyes that lit up
whenever she found the book she wanted in the library returns pile, or her curly hair that ate combs
and spat teeth, and her smooth, freckled skin that smelled like soap and flowers.
(It was preferable that any children Hermione had in future got her husband's looks.)

Hermione's husband.

In Tom's mind, the Imaginary Mr. Hermione Granger had been a faceless stranger who grew more
and more detailed the longer Tom brooded over it.

If Hermione got married, then it was assumed it'd have to be someone whom Tom approved of,
someone who met Tom's exacting standards. This husband would have to ensure that Hermione
was properly taken care of, so he couldn't be a useless lump.

Perhaps it would have been Mr. Roger Tindall, who knew how to calculate an exponential function
and was otherwise competent in his own way. He didn't have dirty grey rings under his nails, nor
did he have gin or cigarettes on his breath, which would have immediately classed him as
unsuitable. It was difficult for Tom to think of and apply positive attributes to other people, so he
settled for checking them off against a mental list of negative traits.

(For some reason, he found it easier to envision Roger as Mr. Lieutenant Hermione Granger than
Hermione as Mrs. Tindall.)

Any husband of Hermione's had to be biddable, of course. A Muggle, though hard to stomach as a
match to a witch of Hermione's calibre, would be easiest to steer around, not having any native
defences against magic, especially Tom's particular brand of mental control.

A malleable Muggle husband would be a man who wouldn't make a peep about Tom's having a key
to their house or Tom calling on his wife every other day. Someone meek and retiring, who'd watch
over the hypothetical children without complaint when Tom took Hermione out to an evening at the
opera, or a weekend visit to the seaside where they'd take walks around the scenic cliffs and Tom
would show her the cave with odd carvings on the interior walls he'd found when he was eight
years old, a few months prior to their first meeting.

The voice of common sense spoke up most inconveniently at that moment.

Hermione is a Good Girl who cares about other people's feelings, it said. Loyalty is one of her
most invaluable traits. Do you think that Hermione would ever allow her husband—Muggle or
wizard—to be treated like that, even by you?

The voice of righteous anger retorted, She would pick someone else over me?

The Spirit of Christmas Past, that part of Tom which would never outgrow his origins as the
penniless orphan boy, chose to speak then. Why wouldn't she pick me?

Because marriage is a scam, thought Tom.

He didn't want a wife and family; after his formative years spent among dozens of grubby young
children, everything about them repulsed him. He didn't even want a woman, not in that way—yes,
he wouldn't deny that he'd imagined it once or twice, what boy his age didn't—but the realities of
the act itself were, to put it lightly, undignified. The mechanics of it were vulgar and unseemly;
everything about it appeared so incredibly... unsanitary.

When he thought of the act, that act, his first association was with the women of indeterminate age
who lingered on the docks and in the alleys. They, these so-called "fallen" women, addressed every
man they met with terms of endearment, because in their line of business, no one used their proper
Christian names.

When he was a young boy, he'd asked the orphanage minders about them, and been told off for
asking, because he was too young to know such things, and anyway, it wasn't anything a person of
any age should want to know about. Being a curious and intelligent child, he'd gone off on his own
and read about them in the books he could scavenge at the Saturday market peddler booths and the
local church's book collection. In the books, he'd discovered that those women were the cause of
the "Dissolution of Moral Society" and a symptom of the "Decay of Modern Values". Further
reading on what these symptoms were had educated him on the existence of what public health
posters quite mildly called "V.D.".

Young Tom Riddle, who hadn't wanted to touch the orphanage's milch goat, wanted even less to do
with that.

Older Tom Riddle, who was better educated about these things, with a greater perspective than he'd
had as a boy of six or seven who had never ventured past the city limits of London, found himself
conflicted.

Hermione wasn't that kind of girl. The words and labels other people used didn't apply to her.

He'd held Hermione's hand, he'd touched her knees, wound her hair between his fingers, and
afterwards, the experience hadn't left him feeling tainted and unclean.

(It had left him... unsatisfied.)

Hermione was a part of his life, but a separate part; she was different—Special—and from their
many years of knowing one another, he'd kept her distinct from all the other bits and pieces of his
life experience. There were hundreds of witches and wizards at school with him, and of those he
had his group of "friends", his circle of admirers and minions. And then he had Hermione, who
was neither. He had his past Muggle life, the ignominious upbringing that he never talked about
when he was at Hogwarts, that he made himself forget when he entered the Magical world—and he
had Hermione, who was connected to it, but independent of it.

Why wouldn't she be different in every other aspect? He called her Friend in public, but she wasn't
his friend the way everyone else used the word, not really. Why couldn't he call her Wife, say that
word for the ears of other people, but signify the traditional definition of what a marriage meant?

Helpmeet.

If God Himself had decided that Man's life was incomplete without worthy companionship, then
who was Tom Riddle to deny Him?

(To be perfectly truthful, Tom denied Him whenever it was convenient to do so. The
commandment of Honour Thy Mother and Father couldn't very well be applied to orphans who'd
never spoken to one parent, and only exchanged a sentence or two with the other, could it?
Anyway, it was God who was responsible for Tom's unfortunate separation from mother and father,
so it was ultimately His fault that Tom didn't care enough to respect them.)

Yes, he could permit that possibility. And wouldn't that solve all his problems, if he allowed the
formation of that kind of relationship?
Once past a certain age, when boys and girls became men and women, society couldn't accept their
being friends without assuming that there was something more between them. It was already
happening; his meddling grandmother wasn't the last of it. His classmates and professors had made
assumptions, Professor Slughorn the most obvious among them. Where once no one had thought
anything of Tom sitting beside Hermione in their shared classes, now they did. They cared, they
gossiped, and they forgot the fact that Tom and Hermione's shared desk had been reserved from the
first term of First Year, outside of the few weeks in the beginning with that awkward disagreement
they'd eventually resolved.

Tom, in First Year, had recognised that he'd been bestowed a Foil of his own, and he'd taken it in
stride, a consequence of being Special. It was a sign, wasn't it?

Slowly, Tom began to countenance the prospect of a Mr. Hermione Granger whose presence he
could tolerate on a daily basis.

He wouldn't be named Mr. Hermione Granger, obviously. That was a stupid name, a conceptual
placeholder who now had no reason to exist.

She would be Hermione Riddle.

Now all he had to do was convince her that she wanted it too.
Chapter End Notes

This chapter was supposed to feature Tom's confrontation with his father, but balancing the
set-ups took so long that some things had to be split up and rearranged. Tom's PoV will
continue directly into the next chapter, which is meant to be read continuously. This one went
past 9k words, and I decided that a ~20k chapter is way too long, but in the interest of posting
an update without delay, here it is. I'm not super happy about the pacing, but it's better than
before, which had too many things happening at once. This chapter gets emotional
progression, while the next one will get the Riddle Senior subplot progression we've all been
waiting for.

Behold, the gold medallist of mental gymnastics: Tom Marvolo Riddle.

— "V.D." is an period-accurate acronym for "Venereal Disease", or STI/STD's, as it was

impolite to use the word "sex" back then. Before the introduction of penicillin and modern
antibiotics, these diseases (along with others like tuberculosis, polio, and measles) were
common and very dangerous to public health, resulting in wartime governments running
shame campaigns to increase awareness. Propaganda posters of the era to illustrate.

This kind of upbringing is why I think Tom would consider most people around him to be
dirty and inferior to him, reinforcing his distance from them, as well as his disdain for
humanity. For this reason, I can't imagine Tom to be a bedhopping playboy, not to the extent
that he is portrayed in fanfiction. I've also said in past Author Notes and chapter comments
that I headcanon Tom Riddle as aromantic; even when he feels attachment to another person,
it's far from romantic, but founded on emotional dependence and entitlement. Feel free to
discuss or debate this characterisation.

Genesis 2:18 (King James Version)

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help
meet for him.

— Helpmeet or help meet is the old-fashioned Biblical term for a partner, spouse, and
companion.

In this fic, I write Tom as an atheist who is raised in a time period when people are culturally
Christian, and it's the norm to say prayers at school, at the dinner table, and before bed. Tom
doesn't do these things himself, but was forced to do it when he was younger, so he's familiar
with Christian ideas and customs. Part of his motivation to study up on them was to debate
adults who tried to make him go to church.
It should be said that if you want wholesome Christian values in your fanfiction, you won't
find them in stories about baby Voldemort.
 Destination
Chapter Notes

Content warning: Implied rape and sexual assault, mild graphic violence.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

1944

Tom had known he was superior to the people around him from a very young age.

It was something that was as much a part of his identity as being Special and magical, or being
British. Which wasn't something he thought of often, but he did consider Britain and the English
language superior to any other in the globe; he respected the power and might that produced
empires, and what modern empire could rival Britain's?

(He did make it clear that respect for the British empire and her imperial hegemony was different to
respecting the monarch or the institution of the Crown. Anyway, there was only one crowned head
Tom would ever respect... There was a bit of a delay with acquiring the crown in question, but that
was a separate issue entirely. And no, that paper crown that he'd slipped between the pages of his
diary as a bookmark didn't count.)

He was superior, but for the first time in his life, his inherent superiority was openly acknowledged
by people who recognised themselves as a rank below him, or as his grandmother would have
termed it, his lessers, a group of people who couldn't help being what they were, and were best
treated with gentle, if corrective, authority. (Mary Riddle called this moral guidance, and an
obligation of the upper classes; Hermione would have called it frank and categorical paternalism;
Tom called it for what it was, which was unwelcome meddling.) This was different from the way
his dorm mates treated him at Hogwarts: there, his superiority came of having established himself
as more powerful, more capable and skilled than they were. They deferred to him because he'd
taught them to; he'd earned it of them, and from them.

Respect garnered from Slytherin classmates or the readers of his articles—that was not the same
deference that was given him—due him—for the status of his name and blood, which he had
experienced upon arriving at the Riddle House. The former was cultivated. The latter was
expected.

Here, Tom was a Riddle, and that meant something in the village of Hangleton.

Here, unlike Hogwarts, people touched their caps or ducked their heads in his presence. They
called him 'Sir', and their being his elder did not diminish the fact that they considered Tom their
better. If he was coming down the stairs while a maid with a basket of laundered pillowcases was
going up, she stepped to the side and allowed him to pass, without his having to say a word—
without her expecting that he drop the obligatory 'Pardon me' and 'Thank you' combination that
was engrained into the psyche of every commuter on the London Underground.
It was a strange and almost heady experience. It was the kind of thing a man could get used to,
and, once he did, find it enjoyable. And once he had become accustomed to it, he would find it
hard to let go of it, to ever contemplate the notion of going without; the dignity of Man would
henceforth be prioritised below the comfort of The Man.

There was a word for what it was: Privilege.

Privilege was getting to ride in the back of Thomas Riddle's Rolls-Royce with Hermione, while
Frank Bryce hitched up the wagon to drive Mrs. Willrow and the maids down the hill to the village
church, because the petrol couldn't be spared for the likes of the servants. Privilege was having a
cushioned bench reserved for his family, his surname carved in scrolling letters across the backrest.

The Christmas morning service from the Little Hangleton village parson was as boring as it had
been in the chapels of London. Tom, who had inured himself years ago to dreary lectures about
things he found neither useful or interesting, quickly arranged his expression into one of earnest
attention. Beside him, Hermione listened with equal attentiveness, although that didn't stop her
from nudging him with the point of her elbow if she caught him snorting when the parson said
something he found particularly amusing.

"One should never fear he that might kill the body but cannot kill the soul," the parson recited from
the pulpit.

The sermon had so far touched on the difficulties of the past years, but offered hope that Britain
would prevail in the current war. There had been a moment of silence dedicated to the many local
boys who had enlisted in the army, leaving their families behind—and some of them, permanently
bereft. One of their number, recalled Tom upon hearing the sniffling of the maids sitting on the
pew behind the Riddles, had been his father's valet.

"Rather, one should fear he who has the power to destroy both body and soul..."

It had been seven years since Tom had last sat for a church sermon, and in coming today, he had
ascertained that he had not been missing anything in the intervening time. In fact, he was reminded
why he'd hated going to church in the first place: the old ladies.

When he had lived at Wool's, the matrons herded the children to church once a week, not just to
have Reverend Rivers add a bit of a spit-shine to their grubby souls, but to peddle the orphans in
front of a congregation of prospective families who might like the look of one of them. That was
what church was: a customer-base containing plenty of good Samaritans, Christian families who
believed in the virtues of charity and goodwill. But there was a limiting factor to making the sale:
the matriarchs of those families who wanted to ensure the quality of the children, picking and
prodding at them the same way their spindly, arthritic fingers felt up the aubergines and rutabagas
at the market.

This time, Tom wasn't paraded around and prodded like grocery produce—as if his grandmother
would let any of the old ladies try, although some of them did eye him up like they were thinking
about it.

His grandmother hovered by his side, introducing him to Mrs. Swindon, Mrs. Perrin-Andrewes,
Mrs. Hutten, and Mrs. Branthwaite, ladies of local significance, which he could tell they were by
their dainty, lace-trimmed gloves, fur stoles, and glossy pocketbooks.
"This is the boy, then, Mary?" they twittered to each other. "Oh, how darling. He looks just like
—"

"Shhh, Bernadette!"

"Are we not meant to talk about—"

"No!"

"But—"

"Wait for them to leave!" one of the women hissed.

"My father didn't attend today, madam," said Tom helpfully. "If you were wondering."

This was one of the things Tom had learned to dislike about the tiny village. In Little Hangleton,
one was allowed no privacy, everyone was acquainted with everyone else, whether they liked it or
not, and the gossip circuit was a closed loop where decades-old news was recycled ad infinitum,
because nothing else happened that was worth talking about in this quaint Yorkshire backwater.

"Oh, we weren't wondering about him," said a lady, Mrs. Swindon. "We're ever so pleased to meet
you; Mary has just been impossible these last few months, after she got the news from London. In
all my years, I'd never seen her so rattled. Why, we heard she had to rescue you right out of the
poorhouse!"

Tom's grandmother spared her a brittle smile. "It was an orphanage, and a thoroughly respectable
establishment, Edith, dear."

"And a respectable sixteen years, wasn't it?" put in Mrs. Perrin-Andrewes, tutting in disapproval. "I
could never have let my Wallace out of my sight for that long; even seeing him off to school each
September is a trial." She gave Mrs. Riddle a sidelong look. "I admire your fortitude, Mary.
You've borne it rather well, all considered."

"It bears repeating that his mother was the cause of the whole quandary," said Mrs. Riddle stiffly.
"I'd never have countenanced it—had I a choice in the matter."

"His mother!" gasped Mrs. Bernadette Hutten, her gloved hand rising up to her mouth. "Is it true
that she—"

"She has passed from this world, for better or worse," said Mrs. Riddle, cutting her off. "May God
rest her soul."

"Amen," said all the women in unison.

"Pardon me for intruding," said Tom. "But did you know my mother?"

He could feel the clawed fingernails of his grandmother's hand digging into his forearm, but he
ignored it.

"Oh, darling, did we know her?" said Mrs. Branthwaite. "Everyone knew her. She and her family...
Well, I'm sure you've heard tell of it, but they certainly were the funniest sort of people in the whole
of the dales."
"I hear the son still wanders about the woods doing who knows what," Mrs. Swindon volunteered,
fanning herself with her hymn book. "I've told our Irving not to take his hounds past the east ridge;
the last time they went out there, his spaniel bitch died!"

"You are such a prima donna, Beryl," snapped Mrs. Perrin-Andrewes. "She was bitten by a snake,
not eaten by the tramp's son."

Mrs. Riddle cleared her throat. "I'm sure Thomas has brought the motor around to the front by
now. Have a happy Christmas, everyone."

Seizing Tom by the elbow, she steered him away from the ladies and out of the front door of the
church, where the Rolls-Royce was gliding majestically up the snow-dusted path up to the front
steps of the church. He could see Hermione through the windshield, sitting in the front passenger
seat and looking down at the dashboard, but when she saw Tom and his grandmother at the top of
the steps, she waved at them.

"You oughtn't to listen to them, darling," said Mrs. Riddle, brushing a sprinkling of snow off Tom's
shoulder. "I don't imagine that I shall ever forgive your mother for what she did to you. Leaving
you in London—not a word to anyone—oh, Tommy, dear—" She squeezed his arm. "We would
have come for you had we known. But you've done nothing wrong, nothing at all. It's not your
fault she comes from such..."

She sighed, falling silent for a moment or two. "You should know that her lack of respectability is
no reflection on you. You're a Riddle, of the North Riding Riddles, and those harpies would do
well to be reminded of that. But once they have, no one will ever forget."

On the drive back to the Riddle House, his grandmother pointed out the gravestones behind the
churchyard, the Little Hangleton cemetery. It was the place where his ancestors had been interred
for the last two-and-a-half centuries, at the foot of the hill overlooked by the great house.

"You were born in the south, Tom—nothing we can do about that—but we'll make a northern lad of
you yet, won't we?" said Tom's grandfather, chuckling. "The last thirty years, half our neighbours
have sold off and moved to the city. Couldn't keep up the houses; too much work, not enough
money. But we Riddles have stayed right here in the valley. This is our home, and one day, it'll be
yours. Won't just be by law, or name." He pounded the steering wheel with a fist. "It's in our blood
and bones."

With a faint sense of unease, Tom catalogued the tone of their words and associated mannerisms—
not the words themselves—to fall under the definition of affection.

Deference was something he was familiar with; he'd learned the meaning of servility in the past
week. Envy was something of which he had intimate knowledge, dissecting the differences
between himself and everyone outside the gates of the orphanage and finding that he came up short.
In recent years, it was what other people felt upon seeing him, rather than the other way around.
And spite was a constant in his life, as ubiquitous to his everyday experience as air and magic.

Affection—this form of it—was tremendously alien.

It was different to admiration, which he'd basked in at the Hogwarts Duelling Club whenever he
débuted a new spell that cleared through the ranks until he had, once again, risen to first. It wasn't
the unrequited longing of the Third Year girls who peeked at him over their magazines at the
breakfast table, trying to keep their staring from being too obvious. Their emotions were simplistic
and shallow, not so much directed at him, but externalised symptoms of someone else's lack of
personal fulfillment.

This was different. It was somehow... less hollow.

The closest comparison he could draw was how he'd felt in the Grangers' house in the summer
before Fourth Year, curled up with Hermione on the sitting room sofa after dinner, the murmur of
the wireless in the background, and the minted raspberry coulis from Mrs. Granger's dessert of
baked apple meringue lingering on his tongue, tart and fresh. He'd been warm, well-fed, and he'd
just gotten his new school textbooks; in that moment of contentment, he'd thought that the world,
war aside, could be a pleasant place. Once certain conditions had been met, naturally.

It wasn't the same thing as he was feeling now, with the Riddles, but nevertheless, it was strange.
Strange and troubling.

He was still thinking of it by the time the motorcar had chugged its way up the hill and into the
garage. Thomas and Mary invited him inside for tea and chocolate as a prelude to their Christmas
luncheon, but Tom demurred. After the service, the fussy old ladies, the impending Christmas
festivities, and the return of his grandmother's camera—if that thing could fit in her handbag, she'd
have carried it everywhere and taken it to church—he wanted some time to himself.

The Riddles' garage (two motorcars, a carriage draped in white dropcloths, and an empty space
where Bryce had taken the wagon), opened out into a paved courtyard behind the house. The
tradesman's entrance was marked out on a sign by the kitchen, adjacent to the small awning that
sheltered the household dustbins and vegetable scrap, the latter of which was carted out twice a
week and fed to the tenants' pigs.

With the Riddles and Hermione returned to the house and the servants having their half-day off to
fraternise with the villagers, the courtyard was quiet; the clump-clump of his feet on the snowy
flags seemed to echo off the high stone walls, as if there were two or three people marching in step,
instead of merely one. The only other sound that broke the stillness was the whinny of a horse
from the opposite side of the yard. The stables.

Tom had never seen the stables. In fact, his only experience with them was Old Ab's goat shed,
which had been converted from stables built in the old days when winged horses were a common
method of magical travel. Since then, improvements in enchanting had made broomsticks and Floo
fireplaces a much faster alternative, on top of being quieter and less trouble to store. These days,
the only people who still kept horses were wealthy estate holders like the Malfoys, who used them
for sport and entertainment, and not for transport.

(Reading about them in the Care of Magical Creatures textbook had made Tom curious about them
—it was said that magical horses, Thestrals in particular, were more intelligent than the wingless
Muggle breeds, in the same fashion that wizard-bred owls were cleverer than wild owls. He
wondered what the inside of their minds looked like, compared to the intelligence of an
Acromantula. Tom's own Acromantula was the brightest of all the animals he'd studied, but it
wasn't a mammal; he'd found that it was possible for him to interpret only a tiny fraction of its
sensory perceptions.)

He supposed that similar economics applied to the Muggle world. The London broadcasters had
urged people to euthanise their pets as a merciful alternative to leaving them at home during air raid
evacuations—and it was sensible, too, as pets weren't allotted a ration and there was only so much
meat to go around for the human members of a family. Owning hobby animals was now an
immense luxury, although he had his doubts that the Riddles would ever indulge proletariat
sensibilities in the name of the war effort, and let their horses pull a plough or be butchered for
meat.

The inside of the stable was eerily familiar, a long row of stables opposite a wall of leatherware and
tack hung on pegs, and a big pile of baled hay and burlap sacks at the far wall, two pitchforks
buried in the stack, tines down. Tom realised that he'd seen the same rafters and haylofts in one of
the paintings outside his father's bedroom. The wooden structures in the painting were golden and
bright, a summer scene with a horse (Prince Selim) peeking its head out of the top of the half-door.
In reality, however, the wood was greyed with age, and the light, where it filtered in through doors
closed to keep out the snow, was thin and feeble. The stables themselves were empty too, with
only one horse in residence, whose name on the feed-bin proclaimed it to be named "Wellesley".

Wellesley, a grey horse with a black mane, came over and dangled its nose out of its stall at Tom's
approach, snuffling at his upraised hand. Tom felt the horse's bristly whiskers scrape against his
open palm, and though he recoiled internally at the sensation—in the year he'd had the
Acromantula, he'd never once touched it with his bare hands—he kept his hand steady and guided
the horse's muzzle down until he could look it in the eye.

The confirmation came within the first minute or so: Muggle horses were rather dull creatures.

The horse's eyes were spaced so far apart that it had trouble keeping the figure standing in front of
it in focus; to Wellesley, Tom smelled and looked about the same as its regular handler, and with
the poor depth-of-field and lack of colour vision, it couldn't see any reason to panic or kick the
doors and walls of its stall, its standard approach to expressing disapproval. Or boredom. Or
anything else, really. Wellesley, for the limited thinking that a horse was capable of, thought it was
fun to kick the stall walls, because that drew the attention of the handler and often resulted in being
moved to a new stall closer to the tasty haystack.

It wasn't much different than what Old Ab's goats were like: the horse was fed, watered, walked,
and cleaned on a daily basis. There wasn't as much herd interaction as the Hogsmeade goats, which
was a clan of female milch animals and a single stud billy. The other horses in the stables were
female, and Wellesley was a castrated male—Tom's discovery of this detail made him shudder.
The Acromantula's being so different from mammal biology was a point in its favour. The pain it
felt never fully translated to Tom's senses when he cast Crucio while observing its mind;
sympathetic pain was only an echo brushed off in the name of scientific initiative.

In the midst of his decision to rank domesticated working beasts at the bottom of his list of
interesting specimens, Wellesley's thought patterns began to shift, from a restive drowse to sudden
alertness. Its ears pricked up and it lifted its muzzle from Tom's hand, forelegs drumming against
the inside of the stable door.

A distant bark echoed off the rafters. Wellesley whinnied.

Attentiveness, the flavour of Wellesley's instinctive response, anticipation with no tinge of concern
or alarm.

Tom withdrew his explorations from the horse's mind, wincing at the return of his binocular vision,
and the colour that burst like magnesium flares across his sight, almost overwhelming him with the
rush of sensation, his eyes all at once discerning the shadow of blue in the snow by the stable door,
the threads of brown striation in the faded wooden struts that held up the roof, the pink skin beneath
the stiff grey hair at Wellesley's lip and nostrils. He shut his eyes, pressing his hand—not the one
that had touched the horse—over his eyes, until he was sure he'd acclimated himself to being in his
own body.

He had just about sorted himself out when he heard the hush-hush of hay stalks swept off the
ground, and the clop of iron-shod hooves striking the floor.

A dog, slender and long-legged, bounded past the corner of the stable, skidding across spilt hay, its
toenails clicking. It hesitated, backing away from Tom, ears lowered, a low growl rumbling from
its chest.

Tom straightened up and eyed it warily, sliding a hand into his coat pocket for his wand.

Slowly, he drew the wand out, keeping his gaze on the dog, picking out the details of its
appearance: a smooth-furred coat of white and splotched brown, a thin, whip-like tail, a sloped
back. It wore a leather collar with a gold-plated ring buckle around its neck. Not a stray dog, then,
which would be starved and mangy this deep into winter. This was a well-kept pet.

The tap of hooves diverted his attention, as a handsome bay-coloured horse turned the corner,
tossing its head.

Tom noticed the man on its back a second later.

Of course it would be him: Tom Riddle, the Elder. His blighted father.

The man noticed him in turn, gloved fingers pulling on the horse's reins in a signal to halt. His
features shifted from one of repose, then one of astonishment, and finally to abject displeasure, his
mouth tilting down and his nose lifting up as if his horse had just dropped a sloppy mound of poo
right on top of his polished jackboots.

The horse shifted from foot to foot, as if sensing the tension in its rider's bearing. Its foreleg pawed
at the ground. The dog trotted over to the horse without turning its back on Tom, still growling.

"What are you doing here?" said Tom's father curtly, looking down at him from the horse's broad
back.

"I live here," replied Tom, scowling. "I don't need a reason to go where I like."

"You live here," said the other Tom, nostrils flaring—in stark resemblance to Mary Riddle. "But
this is my house."

Tom's fingers tightened over the handle of his wand.

"Wh-what's that?" asked the other Tom, his gaze darting down to Tom's hand. "No! Don't you dare
point that thing at me—"

One of his hands dropped from the reins, going to his hip, and suddenly Tom found himself staring
up at the gleaming muzzle of a revolver.

Tom raised his yew wand. A strange sensation swelled in his chest, as if someone had put him
under the vascular constriction spell; he could hear his heartbeat thundering in his ears, and his
muscles tensed as they did when he stood on the duelling platform and Merrythought was counting
down from three; he could scarcely draw breath—he felt his vision narrowing to a small circle of
focus: the gun pointed at his face, and the man pointing it, pale and white-lipped in pure,
reciprocated terror.

"You're just the same as she was," the man breathed, sweat glistening on his forehead, "I knew it—
there wasn't a doubt in my mind. You've taken Mother and Father in; they refuse to hear a word
against you. But I, I won't be taken in—not again, never again!"

"What are you talking about?" snapped Tom, stepping sideways and finding the barrel of his
father's revolver following his movements.

"You know what you are!" shouted Tom's father, and his knee jerked, urging the horse to retreat, to
put distance between its rider and Tom Riddle. "You can't hide it, not from me!"

Tom tried to make eye contact with his father, but the man's eyes were wild and rolling in panic; the
horse, too, was spooked by the anxious atmosphere, fidgeting from foot to foot and pulling at its
bridle, but Tom the Elder maintained his seat with a firm grip of the knee and a tight hand on the
reins.

He got only glimpses of the man's thoughts, the briefest of vignettes, colour and shadow and
impression blurring at the edges into an incomprehensible jumble of noise.

A dirt path on a summer day, chirping birds, a wavering green canopy casting cool shadows in the
afternoon heat. The warmth of a horse's barrel between his legs, a glass of water refreshing him as
he dabbed moisture off his brow with a monogrammed kerchief.

A woman's touch, soft arms supporting his weight as he wobbled on the path, watching his sorrel
stallion trot merrily off and away, tail flicking to ward off flies, reins dangling loose over the sweat-
foamed withers.

A spoon pressed against his mouth, ladling lukewarm soup past his chapped lips. The morning
light blinded him, lifting a darkness that had fallen over his senses; it revived faculty and memory;
he raised his hand to the spoon, adamant on feeding himself, and the light glinted off a golden band
encircling the fourth finger of his left hand...

"Stop it!" roared Tom's father, and the shout roused his horse, which reared and kicked until it was
brought back under control, dancing in circles on the stable floor. The dog barked; the gun
trembled.

Tom took his chance.

"Expelliarmus!" he cried, his left hand—not his wand hand—raised. Intent, willpower,
visualisation—

The gun flew out of his father's hand, flying off behind him, ten feet, twenty feet, until it buried
itself in a pile of feed sacks.

His father gave a wordless shout, and for a second, they stared at each other, father and son, two
empty hands lifted in the air, but Tom still had his wand—his fingers curled around it, his shoulder
twitched, and then, without any conscious thought, the white stick of yew levered itself up, up, up
—
Tom the Elder wheeled his horse about, spurring it into a great leap that glanced against a stack of
hay bales, toppling them over. The dog followed, howling; it dived into the feed sacks and
retrieved its master's gun, while Wellesley brayed in distress, kicking against the wooden stable
walls, adding a rousing counterpoint to the headache that beat with ferocious enthusiasm from the
inside of Tom's skull.

Tom lowered his wand.

For a few minutes, he stood in the middle of the stable floor, grasping for the black sky that
appeared so easily before him when he wanted to drone out Dumbledore's amiable anecdotes and
twinkling eyes. His heart quietened as he seized control of his emotions, his thoughts, and his
temper.

He'd just performed magic in front of a Muggle. The official consequences didn't bother him so
much as what it meant to have lost his secret advantage. Yes, he'd done it because who wanted a
gun pointed at their face? But in doing so, he'd revealed his hand; he'd broken what Muggles
understood to be the natural rules of the universe. He hadn't wanted Hermione to help Frank Bryce
—their worlds were meant to be separated for good reason—and now that the illusion had been
demolished in front of his father's eyes, Tom felt as if he were losing control of the situation.

His father would have to be Obliviated, as soon as possible. Muggles, and that word was
articulated in Tom's mind with disdain, didn't understand magic, or what it meant to be Special. It
wouldn't do them any good if he and Hermione were outed as unnatural; he didn't pay much
attention to Professor Binns, but he knew enough of magical history to comprehend that the Statute
was upheld for a purpose.

But... something stayed his hand, made him hesitate to chase his father down immediately.
Whatever did the man mean by his words?

You know what you are!

His father had reacted with anger and fear at seeing Tom's wand.

Not confusion or puzzlement, or even bemused interest.

You're the same as she was.

A few more minutes passed.

Tom pocketed his wand, brushing the hay off his coat and trousers.

No owls appeared in the sky; no message arrived from the Ministry, warning him for unlawful use
of underage magic.

When he returned to the house, his grandmother had set out a platter of mince pies and iced
biscuits, an accompaniment to the hot tea and creamy cocoa.

Six days left, thought Tom, joining Hermione on the sofa and listening to her prattle on about a
Christmas charity drive for the local children. Then I'll go and find out what he meant, and no one
will be able to stop me.
Midnight in the Riddle House was marked by the chiming and clanging of dozens of mantel clocks,
carriage clocks, and longcase pendulum clocks. The noise, annoying as it was on a regular day,
concealed the pad of Tom's footsteps as he tiptoed out of his room, closing the door behind him.
His wand tightly gripped in his right hand, he made his way to the South Wing, holding his
Disillusionment Charm steady, even as he felt his fingers twitching in anticipation.

Tom Marvolo Riddle was officially seventeen years old.

There were no rainbow sparklers to mark the occasion. An engraved pocket watch had not been
presented to him on the hour of ascending to his majority. No owls would arrive to his breakfast
table, bearing an iced cake and a bottle of wine or firewhisky that his family had put away at his
birth, just for this occasion; he had seen several classmates receive such birthday gifts earlier on in
the year, and had been offered his share of cake slices in the Slytherin Common Room.

Not that any of it mattered to Tom.

What really mattered was that magic and independence, the two things he valued above almost
everything else, were now his to exercise at his own discretion. No Ministry intervention, no
threats of expulsion, no Dumbledore to look at him in pre-emptive disapproval down his crooked
nose.

The lock on his father's door unlocked with a silent tap of his wand.

The drapes, like the last time he'd seen them, were closed, but the room wasn't dark. The lights
were on, the wireless over the fireplace—the interior architectural arrangement an exact mirror of
his own room—was switched on, tuned to an orchestration of baroque string, the filler music
played in the late night and early hours when there was no proper programming on the broadcast
schedule.

Tom turned his gaze to the bed. Bundled under the covers was a formless lump, one hand sticking
out from beneath the sheet. On the nightstand was an empty glass and a dark brown bottle, its
paper label proclaiming it to be 'Nerve Tonic — relieves exhaustion, for a sound and restful
sleep.' By the bottle was a spoon, with a liquid of syrup-like consistency dribbling from the bowl
and beading on the surface of the table.

He stepped toward the lump under the blankets, wand raised.

The floorboards squeaked; the lump shifted. The blankets stirred and produced a low groan.

"Who's there?" groaned the man, his voice rough with sleep. "Mother? Is that you?"

Tom flicked his wand and cast a silent spell.

Stupefy!

The blankets went still.

Shuffling forward cautiously, Tom approached the bed, casting a Silencing Charm on it, and for
good measure, on the squeaky floorboards. On the bed, his father lay slack-jawed in
unconsciousness, waves of dark hair tumbling over the pillow. For a moment, Tom stared down at
the other Tom, noting their similarities—and their differences.

Tom's superiority to the other children at Wool's had been apparent from early childhood. He grew
straight and tall—thin for his height, but that couldn't be helped—while the other children were
short, scrawny, or bow-legged. His teeth came in without crooked angles or gaps; his voice
deepened without warbling and his skin remained clear and smooth, untouched by pockmark and
blemish. In the last few years, his popularity amongst his fellow students had grown, and he
regularly fended off invitations to group projects or outings in Hogsmeade. The boys of the
Duelling Club might have admired his wandwork, but the girls of Hogwarts admired him for his
appearance; he found it immensely shallow of them, but he couldn't discount their usefulness when
it came to seeing who had been lent supplementary textbooks for an independent project, from a
professor's private collection.

Tom supposed he ought to be thankful to his father, a man slumped gracelessly and drooling over
his pillowcase, for these blessings.

Despite being a few years from forty, Tom Riddle Senior had aged well. He had the same clear
skin, sun-darkened over the cheeks and the bridge of his nose, fine wrinkles tracing the corners of
his eyes and the sides of his mouth, but the lines weren't deep and his flesh hadn't sagged like that
of the working men and women of South London. Still as striking as a picture star: there was no
wonder that the local ladies of Hangleton thought of him as the finest man in the valley.

Leaning over the bed, Tom peeled back the man's eyelids with his left hand, watching for any sort
of response. The eyeballs flickered back and forth in reflex, but the man himself remained still and
unseeing, his chest rising and falling in steady rhythm.

Gusts of sour breath wafted over him. Tom winced, bending over his father's face. He inhaled
slowly, relaxing his grip on his wand, allowing the thumping beat of his heart to slow and settle to
an even pace; his body relaxed. His thoughts wandered, drifted, and strayed from an observance of
his own perceptions and into the realm of something less familiar...

By increment, he was drawn into the misty dreamscape of his father's mind, the memories
sweeping him up with the warmth of high summer and the merry jingle of riding tack.

The new stallion, Cirrus, was finally broken to harness, chestnut coat lathered with sweat from
taking the packed dirt trails of the valley at a hard gallop. It was an exhilarating ride; at one sharp
corner, Tom's heel had slipped the stirrup, but in the end he'd kept his seat and let the horse have
his head until he'd bled off all his energy, and now—together—they took the trail at a sedate pace,
both of them panting and glistening with sweat.

The girl was bent over the weeds in her family's garden. Not much to look at: where the fashion
for the modern lady was sleek finger-waves and a Riviera suntan, this girl was pale and mottled of
skin, her dark hair in priggish braids pinned to the back of her head. Her clothing was grey and
shapeless, more like a charwoman's shift than a young lady's dress, the only concession to
femininity in the glint of a gold chain around her throat. Otherwise, there was nothing about her to
tempt Tom into giving her a second glance, not like Cecilia Banbury—now, that was a woman!

Tom remembered having seen the girl around in the village now and again, but she didn't live there,
not as one of their tenants. She was a member of that queer freeholder family who lived on the far
edge of the dale, ne'er-do-wells who had caused trouble on more than one occasion when they got
roaring drunk and set off fireworks in the woods.

Cirrus jerked the reins and came to a stop; Tom only just held on to them, nudging with his knees to
prompt the horse into continuing down the path.

Tom clucked his tongue, leaning forward to press his weight on Cirrus' withers. Cirrus stamped his
feet and pulled at the bit, but refused to move.

The girl got to her feet, brushing the dirt off her apron and tucking her tools into the front pocket.
The wooden handles clacked together as she scurried over to Tom and Cirrus.

"D'you need any assistance?" she asked, and like the other girls who lived in the village, she
couldn't stop herself from staring at him, and Tom felt his breath catch when he saw her strange
dark eyes aligning in his direction, first one, then the other.

She must have noticed his expression, for her face fell in disappointment.

"No, thank you; I'll have him moving in a minute," said Tom, tearing his gaze away; it would be
appalling for anyone to catch him looking at the daughter of the local tramp, even if it was out of
profound horror. "He's just a tad difficult—new to harness, you see. Have a good day... er, Miss."

He needed to get Cirrus turned around, then he could get the horse back in the stable where the
groom could cool him down. After that, Tom could go for a bath himself, sponge off the sweat, and
get himself ready for a dinner with Cecilia, the prettiest girl in Great Hangleton.

The tramp's daughter hadn't stopped staring at him. It was really getting uncomfortable, but he
supposed it would be more uncomfortable to be stuck with that face on a permanent basis.

Her plain features hardened by the slightest degree.

His—their—memories began to blur together after that, each scene muddled into the next, and
chasing them was like catching snowflakes on his tongue in the winter—he saw the briefest
glimpse and then it was gone, melted away on contact and giving way to great stretches of
darkness. The darkness was complete; it was muted and soft and strangely devoid of sensation,
like a dream, a drunken reverie, but it was one in which he was submerged with no means of exit.
Occasional pinpricks of light broke the darkness, small clues that reminded him that he was a real
person, and not a figure created by his own scrambled imagination.

His name. Tom Riddle.

His home. The Riddle House, Hangleton, Yorkshire.

There were moments in time—although time had become a vague concept to him; he registered the
light and dark of a passing day, and the changing of the seasons in the ambient temperature, but he
didn't dwell on it—rare moments in time where he rose up from the deep, ascending to the surface
like a breaching whale. These were the moments when he possessed the greatest awareness of his
own self, at the notion that there was a self, and that self was named Tom Riddle.

Tom Riddle was a person.

Tom Riddle loved horses.

Tom Riddle loved the scent of sweet clover hay, beeswax saddle soap, and the sharp menthol burst
from a freshly uncorked bottle of horse liniment.

Most of all, Tom Riddle loved Merope Gaunt.

That last one seemed strange to Tom Riddle, who was sure that he didn't like Merope Gaunt, the
village tramp's daughter, crooked eyes and crooked teeth and a crooked little stick that she pointed
right at his forehead—

Tom Riddle loved Merope Gaunt.

There was nothing in the world that he loved more than Merope Gaunt.

Merope Gaunt was the light of his life. She was better looking than Cecilia Banbury; she was a
better cook than Mrs. Willrow; she was better company for a ride in the dark than any of the
coursers in the family stable.

Yes, Merope Gaunt was the centre of his existence.

There was no Tom Riddle without Merope Gaunt.

There was no Tom Riddle—

No Tom Riddle—

Only darkness—

Tom clawed at the darkness, resisting its power, struggling against it as it smothered him with his
own weakness. He had spent so long immersed that he'd begun to hate the deadened sensation, the
impotency of his body, the hermetic silence enclosing his mind, stifling him even as he screamed
and railed at his own inexorable helplessness.

His mouth moved to cry out, and a low moan slipped out through his convulsing vocal chords.

The darkness began to recede.

A warm tickling feeling curled around his toes. That was strange—it felt warm and wet, and then...
hairy?

Tom felt himself returning to his own body, and as he was thinking of the growing itch at his foot,
he was struck by an eruption of pain, sharp and sudden and eye-watering, as if someone had just
stabbed him in the ankle with a butter knife.

The darkness dissipated.

When his vision returned, he saw Merope's eyes staring down at him. Dark eyes, brown as beetle
shells, uncannily penetrative. For some reason, those eyes were set in a reflection of his own face.

Was this a dream? He couldn't tell.

He reached under his pillow, feeling for the cool metal barrel, the six-chambered cylinder.

It was there.

It was a clear confirmation to the reality of his situation.

Tom tore his way out of his father's mind, not caring to be gentle about it. The images scrambled
together as Tom's consciousness fell back into his own body.

His wand hand trembled, but not out of anticipation, but disgust. Stomach-churning disgust,
visceral revulsion, sickened astonishment.

His skin felt hot and feverish; the combination of his revulsion, the memories in which he was the
subject—the participant—the headache that came of tearing through another's distant recollection
without regard for delicacy, and spending too long immersed while his own body was relegated to
an empty shell, awaiting his return—all of it converging at once almost made him retch onto the
Oriental carpet.

How much of it was a dream?

He had rarely practised his talents on unconscious subjects. When he used the Acromantula for his
experimentation, he'd cast a Full Body-Bind before looking into its eyes—and it wasn't an issue,
because spiders had no eyelids. Here, he had Stunned his father into unconsciousness instead of
binding him. Binding him would have stiffened his body to the point that his eyelids would be
stuck shut, and then there would be no way to maintain eye contact. With the Stunner, the body
remained pliable, manoeuvrable. The mind, however, lapsed into the subconscious, and while he
avoided having to deal with a constant, bewildering influx of new information, memories in this
state lost their clarity of organisation, their sense of internal chronology.

But that had no effect on the vividness or verisimilitude of the memories. As he had peered into his
father's mind, the man's consciousness began to overlay his, until their two minds became
indistinguishable, and he felt each pulse of his father's heart thudding in his own chest.

His head still swam, making sense of the memories, detaching himself from the sensation of being
the first-hand observer. This was the first time he'd explored so deeply into a human mind, and it
was different from a spider's tactile perception, or even a horse, whose limited consciousness
revolved around its basic needs and its primitive social instincts.

But there was one thing that he latched onto immediately:

His mother, the dark-eyed woman in the memory, was none other than a witch.
An incompetent witch at that, snaring his father through magic and potions, then Obliviating him
multiple times when he'd tried to reject her advances. They were shoddy, amateur Obliviations that
repressed the conscious mind but left the subconscious mostly intact: the memories had returned in
the form of the dreams, and leaked into the waking consciousness upon encountering familiar,
recognisable stimuli.

The mind-based magic had lacked delicacy and skill; even in the memories, he had seen the witch's
—Merope's—wand movements and incantations lacking conviction. In the Healing textbooks he'd
read, it was said that fumbled memory alteration—or even too many Obliviations in too short a
time—risked long-term damage and personality alteration.

A moan issued from the crumpled blankets.

"M-Merope..."

Tom blinked, his vision still bleary, and focused on the man stirring on the bed.

Their eyes met.

Tom lifted his wand. Although his mind still felt as if it was swimming in treacle, he began the
incantation for a Full Body-Bind, as it appeared his Stunner had worn off rather quickly.

"Petrificus..."

"Nooo," groaned Tom's father, his eyes bloodshot, trying to push himself upright.

"...Tota—"

Before Tom could finish the incantation, a large shape rocketed out from under the blanket, barking
madly.

Like being hit by a Knockback Jinx from the far end of the duelling platform, it pummelled into his
chest and then he was driven down to the floor, his wand clattering out of his hand.

The air was driven out of his lungs; Tom was pinned to the floor, dazed and unable to draw breath,
unable to call out for help.

The pain came after—first, the sharp pain of his chest, a heavy weight pressing down on him.
Then, the dull throb at the back of his head where he'd smacked it on the carpet.

Pushing the pain aside, he made an attempt to lift his arm, and with great effort, he reached for his
wand, which had landed a few feet away. But before he could grab it, the weight on his chest gave
a rumbling growl.

That stupid dog.

His eyes narrowed in concentration—continuing to ignore the pain for later, later, anything but the
present—forming the visualisation, he thought the incantation: Accio.

The wand hurtled into his open palm just as the dog leaped for it and grabbed on to the other end,
teeth scratching against the polished yew, pulling it away from him, like a game of Fetch turned
into a Tug-of-War.
Without second thought, without consideration about performing magic in front of a Muggle
witness, or anything else but the thought of getting himself out of the current situation, Tom acted
in his own defence.

Diffindo!

Blood sprayed in a broad arc, hot droplets falling against his face and the collar of his pyjama shirt,
bitterly metallic against his open lips, a rain of red spattering over the floor. The body of the dog
slid off the end of his wand, its brown and white coat squelching on the soaked carpet.

Distantly, Tom watched as his left hand rose up to swab the blood out of his eyes, and then his right
hand lifted the bloodied wand, like peppermint stripes of red on white—

Crack!

Once again, Tom was shoved back down onto the floor, and this time, the pain of it was worse than
the last. It was merciless—it was excruciating—it radiated from his hip in a nexus of heat, the
worst pain he'd ever experienced in his life; he imagined himself to be not a man, not a human, but
a vessel for this all-consuming pain, so intense that it stripped him of awareness for everything but
the heights of purest agony. Searing waves tore up through his nerves and shuddered beneath his
flesh; his spine bowed in reflex, his body curving and quivering and gasping for breath, choking for
air as blood dried tacky on his cheeks and foamed pink on his lips and chin.

Tom Riddle Senior raised his handgun and pulled the trigger.

Tom gripped his wand and closed his eyes.

P-protego—

In a delirium of pain, he imagined himself pressing his nose against his bedroom window at Wool's,
watching a storm that had swirled in from the North Sea, heavy black clouds hovering over the city
like the fist of a sky god, crackling with lightning. He had seen hail rattle against the
windowpanes, chunks of ice fallen from miles up, smashing on the glass, but he himself remained
safe and warm on the other side—

Crack!

Five shots were deflected by Tom's non-verbal Shield Charm, and then the cylinder spun empty.

Biting his tongue—his ears rang with the echo of gunfire and his pelvis must be shattered; he'd
tried to roll himself over and felt the unsettling sensation of something shifting inside—Tom
murmured one last spell, Imperio. With that, his father fell back onto the bed, tossing the gun
aside, forced into a deep sleep that would repress recent memory and blur them into dream, the
most Tom could do when he couldn't summon up the mental direction for a thorough Obliviation.
Immobilisation would do for the moment. He didn't know how long the spell would last, cast in
such a half-hearted way, but this would have to be enough for now.

He drew a shallow, rattling breath, the pain immured in a box in the back of his mind, guarded by
empty space and black velvet and sheer force of will.

Charms.
He needed to cast several charms, to tide him over until he got access to a Healer or Mediwizard.

Charms were the easiest, requiring precision and focus over outright magical power. He cast them,
mumbling the words through his sticky lips. Cooling Charm to numb the heat. Featherweight
charm, Levitation, then a charm to siphon and scour and a Drying Charm to clean himself up. Not
as good as a proper bath, but it would keep him from leaking a trail of blood onto the floor and
down the hall. Sticking Charm to press a scrap of fabric from his trouser leg over his broken hip,
holding down the pressure and stemming the blood.

He was shivering by the time he'd cast the charm to reduce his heart rate, arm twisted at an
awkward angle to point the tip of his wand to his chest and form the pattern, the same one he'd used
on Nott in the dorm bathroom a year ago.

Somehow—likely a monumental exercise of willpower—Tom dragged himself to his feet and half-
stumbled, half-floated himself to the door, leaning on the walls every few metres to catch his
breath.

One step. Then one step more. One more; he could do it.

He repeated those words to himself, over and over, drowning out the shooting bursts of pain that
made each step an agony.

Soon—or not so soon; he hadn't been paying attention to the chiming of the clocks—he left the
South Wing, passed the atrium, still decorated with spruce sprigs and tinsel garlands from
Christmas, and entered the North Wing of the house, which contained his own room.

His room—and Hermione's.

Hermione.

Her name became his new mantra. His new goal.

A destination.

When he arrived to her door—finally—he smacked his open palm against it, once, twice—

The door opened. Hermione stood in the doorway in her nightgown, yawning and rubbing her
eyes.

"Tom, what are you—"

Tom swayed against the door frame. "Pelvis broken. Losing blood. Need Healer."

Hermione guided him to her bed, and he lay on her pillows, absorbing her scent as she fluttered
around him, tossing warmed blankets over his body, shoving a cushion under his legs to elevate the
wound, bombarding him with questions that he couldn't be bothered to answer.

"Tom? I've sent for help; it'll take a few minutes... What happened to you? Do you want anything
to drink? Tom..."

He closed his eyes—

Hermione slapped his cheek.

"Don't go to sleep!" she scolded him. "You have to stay awake."

"I'm fine," Tom murmured. "Just resting my eyes. You'll fix me up soon; I trust you."

"I—" Hermione began, but then there was a strange pop from behind her, as if someone had just
uncorked a bottle of champagne. Well, why shouldn't they? It was his birthday.

Tom couldn't lift up his body or even turn his head to look. Not that he wanted to. The charm that
lowered his heart rate—reducing the blood loss—decreased the oxygen circulation of his body and
drew a veil over his thoughts, dulled his usual acuity and perception. He found himself wondering
if this was how Avery or Mulciber felt on a regular day.

She whirled around, then he heard her say, "Finally! Come on, we have to take him to St.
Mungo's. You've been there before, haven't you? Amity, that's your name, isn't it?"

A familiar voice said, "She can't speak. Father bound her with a silencing collar to protect our
family secrets." Then, adding in a muttered tone, "And he thinks elf-speak is annoying to listen to."

"How... how awful!" Hermione cried. "B-but I suppose it means she can't go and report this to
your father, can she? And she can take us to the hospital? Hopefully someone there can treat this
kind of wound."

There was a rattle of stoneware, and then the other voice said, "She says yes. Here, you ought to
put this poultice on him to hold him over for the moment."

Something cold was poured over Tom's burning hip, rendering the area gratefully numb. He sighed
and turned his face into the pillow, breaths coming a little easier.

"Thank you," said Hermione.

"I'm not doing it for free, Granger. There's a cost to this."

"I can pay," Hermione said quickly. "I don't have the galleons now, but if you take me to Gringotts
in the morning, I can exchange them—"

"Not that kind of cost." There was a pause. "He'll owe me a life debt."

Hermione didn't reply.

"You don't know what they are, do you?" said the voice. "Huh. Well, we can settle that after. Take
his wand and hold his arms down. Apparition isn't the most comfortable thing with this many
people. Come, Amity, take us to St. Mungo's."

The blankets were removed, and Hermione leaned over him, her curly hair tickling his nostrils.

"Mmm, Hermione," said Tom.

"Shh," she whispered, and her hands closed around his wrists, her palms warm against his chilled
skin. "Ready?"

"Ready," said the other voice.

"Hold on, Tom. We'll have you back to your usual self in no time."
"To our eternal regret—" the other person said, but Tom heard no more as he was, without warning,
thrown out of the bed and onto a cold tiled floor, which would have hurt had Hermione's arms not
held him and broken his fall before his hip touched the ground.

Hermione lowered him down, then brushed his hair out of his eyes, leaning in close. She pressed
her cheek against his sweaty forehead.

"Mrs. Riddle will be upset if you miss the birthday party," she sighed into his ear.

Tom closed his eyes, a thin smile cracking the crust of dried blood on his cheek. "Then let her eat
cake."

"Insufferable," remarked the other speaker in a snide voice.

"Oh, shut up," said Hermione, holding Tom tighter in her arms.
Chapter End Notes

He pointed the wand very carefully into the boy’s face: he wanted to see it happen, the
destruction of this one, inexplicable danger. The child began to cry: it had seen that he was
not James. He did not like it crying, he had never been able to stomach the small ones’
whining in the orphanage—
"Avada Kedavra!"
And then he broke: he was nothing, nothing but pain and terror, and he must hide himself, not
here in the rubble of the ruined house, where the child was trapped and screaming, but far
away… far away…
"No," he moaned.
The snake rustled on the filthy, cluttered floor, and he had killed the boy, and yet he was the
boy…

"Bathilda's Secret", Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Tom, why do your plans always backfire?

 Fiction and Fairytale
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1944

Hermione stayed with Tom until a Healer came by with a stretcher to take him in for treatment.

Looking around the reception area, she saw that no one had taken down the wreaths and charmed
icicles after Christmas, which had passed several days ago. The decorations dangled from the walls
and from the gilded frames of enchanted portraits; the inhabitants, dressed in green Healer robes
and matching green night caps, snored away in peaceful repose. This time of the night—or
morning, technically, since it was past midnight—the waiting room was empty, and the magazines
on the coffee table were neatly stacked. The only other person was the receptionist behind the front
desk, too busy working his way through a runic crossword to pay her or Nott any attention.

She approached the desk, waiting to be acknowledged, but as several minutes came and went, the
reception wizard never looked up from his crossword.

"Nine down, 'Whistlestop interrupted by a lost itinerary', isn't Ehwaz. It's Raidho," said Hermione
snippily, who had been waiting at the desk for almost ten minutes. "Ehwaz means 'motion', but its
alternate form is connoted with spiritual journeys—not interrupted journeys. Raidho, on the other
hand, symbolises physical movement. If you haven't noticed, all the abstract entries are in the
horizontal spaces—just look at the next clue for ten across: 'Inner eye and inner ear in alignment'."'

The receptionist set his quill down and gave Hermione an irate look. "I'm sorry, did you need
anything?"

"Yes, in fact, I do," said Hermione. "Is there any information on my friend? He was brought in a
quarter of an hour ago."

With a deep sigh, the receptionist got out of his seat and slunk over to the pigeon holes at the back
of his office. He dug around, then returned with a scroll of parchment.

"He's been classed as Type A: Artefact Accident. These forms must be filled out before more
information can be released. If any space is answered improperly, you'll have to do the whole form
again."

Hermione took the scroll and brought it to the waiting area, balancing the sheets of parchment on
her knees. Nott's feet, clad in shearling-lined house slippers, were propped up on one of the empty
chairs, his cloak wrapped around his body like a blanket.

"'Medical contact owl address'," read Hermione, "'If underage, name or address of parent or
guardian'. Well, I suppose it's convenient that Tom's birthday is today. His family would think a
billing form from St. Mungo's would be some sort of absurd joke."

"'Convenient'," said Nott, incredulously. "You don't think that Riddle got himself bloodied up an
hour after he came of-age... in an accident?"
"No," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose, "Not an accident. I know he did something stupid the
minute he knew he could—brewing potions in his bedroom or experimenting with something he
read in a book. But the most important thing right now is making sure he gets better. Learning his
lesson can come later."

Nott curled his lip. "You're very forgiving."

"It's called 'friendship'," Hermione replied. "It's your own fault if you don't know what that
means."

Anyway, she thought, friendship was something that went both ways.

Tom didn't like Nott, and no one else in their study group knew that she'd kept in close contact with
him. There were bound to be questions about that—just as many questions as Hermione had about
Tom's extracurricular adventures. He'd said that his pelvis was broken, but in transporting him to
the wizarding hospital, she'd seen the circular bloodstain on his hip, oozing with fresh blood after
the flannel of his pyjama trousers had become so saturated that it could no longer absorb a single
drop more. His blood had stained her nightgown and bedsheets, and his wand was crusted with it,
shedding dried flakes into her coat pocket.

She knew enough first-aid medicine to recognise that blunt-force falls, which could break the pelvis
of an elderly man or woman falling down the stairs or into the bathtub, would not produce nearly
this much blood. Breaking the skin was, in fact, a rarity compared to the more realistic
consequence of severe bruising, swelling, and reduced bone density around the affected site. If she
hadn't known any better, she might have assumed from the size and shape of Tom's wound—the
circular radius of the entry point, trickling with thick spurts of blood—to be the result of a gunshot.

But it couldn't be, could it? If Tom had somehow acquired a firearm, and had experimented with it,
she would have heard it from his room, right across the hall from her own. And where would he
even get a gun, if he wanted one in the first place? Somehow, Hermione couldn't imagine Tom
using any other tool but his wand.

Nott snorted and pulled the hood of his cloak over his head. "Wake me up if something happens.
Or if Riddle bites it."

Once she'd finished answering the last question, Hermione brought the forms back to the reception
desk, and was rewarded with a slip of parchment that listed Tom's ('Patient 48529') arrival time,
room number, designation code, and his treatment status, which was 'In Progress'.

"What does 'In Progress' mean?" asked Hermione, turning over the slip and seeing that the back
was blank. "Can I see him?"

"It means 'Wait and see'," the receptionist grunted. "Now if you'll pardon me, I'm busy!"

She returned to the waiting area, where Nott had fallen asleep under his cloak, and paced around
anxiously. A few prospective patients, including one pregnant witch in voluminous maternity
robes, entered the waiting room and were quickly dealt with by the receptionist. For one hour, then
two, she chewed her fingernails and waited, head jerking up to peer at the door whenever she heard
it open.

At four in the morning, Tom was brought out into the waiting room in a wheelchair, his complexion
an unhealthy white and his hair lank and matted with dried sweat. But the rest of him looked so
much like his ordinary self that Hermione's heart ached in relief. The blood had been washed off
his face, and his torn and stained pyjamas replaced with thin cotton hospital robes, fastened at the
throat and wrists with wooden toggles. A Healer in green robes pushed the chair, and it must have
been enchanted, for she did it with only one hand—the other hand was occupied with a small
wooden chest emblazoned with the St. Mungo's seal, the contents of which clinked as she walked.

"Tom!" Hermione cried, leaping out of her seat and running over to him.

"Hermione," replied Tom, and his eyes alighted on her face, unfocused gaze sharpening in
recognition.

"Mrs. Riddle?" the Healer addressed Hermione.

"Sorry?" Hermione choked. "Um, you're talking to me?"

The Healer gave her an impatient nod.

"B-but Tom and I aren't married!" she stammered.

"Do the forms not say that you and he share a residential owling address?" said the Healer.

"Yes," said Hermione, "but it's just temporary, we aren't—"

The Healer harrumphed in disapproval, then shoved the wooden chest into her arms. "'S'not my
business what you young fellas get up to, but since you've listed yourself as his medical contact,
you'll ensure that he takes his potions. Twice a day for three days, then once a day for seven days
after that, and he should stay off his feet and avoid strenuous activity for that time—no Quidditch!

"The pain potions have a bone restorative—we had to use some of his own material to patch the
fractures—and the instruction scroll is inside, with the directions on how and when to take them. If
the bruising and muscle pain haven't faded after that, bring the scroll back and we'll give you
more."

Speech finished, the Healer left the waiting room.

Hermione hefted the potion chest and looked at Tom. "Are you alright? How are you? Does it
hurt?"

"I'm fine," said Tom. "The potions they gave me were brewed with... hmm... root of valerian, I
think. A cheaper substitute for red myrrh oil, to reduce the swelling, but the side effects are...
uncomfortable."

"Is it the soporific effect?" Hermione asked. "Ground valerian is used for pain relief; it relaxes the
nerves, and is a central ingredient in Calming Draughts. But the relaxing effect may cause
drowsiness in some individuals. Oh... Well, at least it doesn't hurt anymore, I suppose."

Tom had a great understanding of how magical plant and animal parts interacted with each other;
she, on the other hand, had always followed the textbook instructions to the letter. Tom was less
precise and more intuitive, experimenting with their class potions, to her alarm (what if he ruined
their brew and earned them a zero mark for the lesson?!) and Slughorn's delighted praise. But her
memory was better than his; when it came to encyclopaedic lists, she, unlike Tom, could still quote
their First and Second Year material.
"No." Tom grimaced. "But I want to go home now—how did you get me here in the first place?"

"It's a long story," said Hermione, looking pointedly down at Tom's hip. "That we should definitely
save for later." She glanced over her shoulder at Nott. "You can summon Amity now!"

Yawning and stretching his arms above his head with the sound of popping joints, Nott got out of
his chair and ambled over. "You're done here? Not going to buy anything from the gift shop?"

"No," said Hermione, "we should get back before anyone notices we're missing. And I'd like to
have a few hours of sleep before Tom's grandmother makes us take birthday photos for her picture
album."

"Right," said Nott. "Amity!"

The little creature appeared at Nott's side, wearing a pair of oversized oven mitts.

"What's this?" said Tom, peering at it; sitting in the wheelchair, they were around the same height.
"Nott? What are you doing here?"

"I invited him," Hermione spoke hurriedly, "because I didn't know anyone else who could Apparate
us here on short notice."

Tom's brow furrowed. "But why would he say yes?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Nott put in, sounding affronted.

"Because you don't like us, or our unacceptable blood status," said Tom bluntly. "And no one likes
you."

"In case you've forgotten, Riddle," Nott said, "Our House was founded by a wizard whose personal
beliefs the other founders didn't like. But that didn't stop them from having a professional
relationship."

"Until they chased him off because he pushed his teachings too far," Hermione remarked.

"They respected him enough to keep the House he founded up to the present day," said Nott
smugly.

"The other founders kept Slytherin around because he was useful—an excellent craftsman and
enchanter. When he finished building his section of the castle, they had no more use for him," said
Tom, turning to Hermione. "History lesson aside, what did you promise him, Hermione? Nott
would never have agreed to help for free."

"What, I couldn't have volunteered out of the goodness of my heart?" Nott asked, folding his arms.

"No," said Tom and Hermione simultaneously.

"Yeah, alright," conceded Nott. "As I interceded at a mortal juncture, by technicality and magical
law, you owe me a life debt."

"Very well," said Tom in a calm voice. "Hermione, hand me my wand—"

"No!" cried Hermione, shoving her hand into her pocket to keep Tom from Summoning his wand
back.

Tom shot her an aggrieved look. "The fastest way to clear the life debt is to put Nott under the so-
called 'mortal juncture'. And the sooner we get it over with, the sooner we can go back home."

"Trying to force it on purpose wouldn't even work," said Nott, giving an uneasy tug to the collar of
his robes. "This kind of magic is based on intent, which can't be forced or faked, no matter how
much power you put behind it. Likewise, not even the greatest wizard can choose his own
Animagus form. But nevermind that—I'll forgo the debt on one condition." His hand dipped
beneath his cloak for his own wand. "Which will render all debts null and void."

"What is it, then?" said Tom impatiently.

"Help me find and unseal the Chamber of Secrets," Nott said, "and I'll consider the debt settled. No
need to try an elaborate plan to cancel it."

"But the Chamber of Secrets is a myth," Hermione said. "Hogwarts: A History said the Chamber
was a legend, a story perpetuated by the students of the three other founders, who wanted to
reinforce Salazar Slytherin's reputation as a blood supremacist."

"Yes," said Tom. "This is just a pointless quest, isn't it? Like finding the tooth of a white-feathered
phoenix. You're just playing for time. Hermione—my wand, please."

"It's not a pointless quest, like hunting the Hallows or the Fountain of Fair Fortune," Nott huffed.
"And I count that one pointless as the treasure was the 'friends they made along the way'. This
one's a more tangible quest like... the Philosopher's Stone, which sounds too good to be true, but it
does exist. From historical accounts and my own research, I have reason to believe that the
Chamber is real. I'll go under Veritaserum to confirm it. I'll even share my research to help find
it."

"If you've done all this, why do you need my help, then?" Tom's features took on a sceptical cast.

"Because," said Nott, squaring his narrow shoulders, "Slytherin's Chamber is rumoured to contain a
legendary creature, according to the myths. And you're the best duellist in the school. I don't like
you, but even I won't deny that you have... unique talents that the rest of us could never hope to
match."

"'Legendary creature'," said Tom in a thoughtful voice. "Hermione—you've read the book, is that
true?"

"Um," Hermione mumbled, "I-I think so."

She was trying to figure out what angle Nott was attempting to play; it was clear he had fabricated
a plan whose finer details—or any detail whatsoever—he hadn't informed her about. And just now,
he'd cleverly stepped around the truth without telling any overt lies, stroking Tom's sense of vanity,
too. She hadn't realised that Nott had been running an ulterior strategy utterly opaque to everyone
but himself. That is, until today.

"In the book, a secondary or tertiary source, the creature was described as a 'horror' left by
Slytherin, so that those that came after him could cleanse the school of the impure or unworthy,"
Hermione recited from memory. "Slytherin was reported to be able to control the creature, and
passed the secret of how it was controlled to his true heir—the book speculates it to be one of his
apprentices, and that the creature itself is something rare and associated with dark magic, and has
an extended lifespan compared to the average wizard-raised magical creature."

"A rare creature?" Tom mused, stroking his chin.

"No one knows for certain," said Hermione, who was suddenly worried by the fevered glint that
had just appeared in Tom's eye. "But hundreds of people over the years have gone looking for the
Chamber, as it's said to be where Slytherin studied rare magic he wanted to keep from the other
founders. No one's found anything, or come up with solid theories of what the creature could be—
a dragon would have died by now, unless Slytherin put an egg under stasis... but I can't see anyone
being afraid of a hatchling dragonet, since a Flame Freezing Charm would work against it at that
size, and its hide wouldn't yet have the magical resistance of an adult."

"Thank you, Hermione," said Tom, lifting his eyes to meet Nott's. "Since it looks like I can't nullify
a debt with a reverse debt, and I can predict firm opposition to the cleanest solution I can think of
to... deal with you, I've an acceptable counter-offer. We have a year and a half left at Hogwarts.
That's the upper limit of how long we can spend looking for the Chamber. If it's not found by the
last day of our last year, then you'll swear an oath of loyalty to me."

Nott scowled. "And is there a time limit to that oath?"

"For life," Tom said, giving him a thin and humourless smile. "It's the most convincing argument
you could make in proving that the Chamber isn't a fairytale quest. A gesture of good faith, you
see."

Nott hunched in on himself, his forehead wrinkling, not looking quite so confident as he had been
earlier. "Fine, fine. I'll agree to those terms. But if I have to swear a loyalty oath, then it's on my
own person and personal fortune, with no inclusion of my family members, present or future, or
assets and properties accorded to the family estate."

"Agreed," said Tom. "Hermione, you're our witness."

Without Hermione being able to slip a word in edgewise, the boys agreed to the deal, setting further
stipulations (that they'd hold each other at a mutual truce for now, that any chambers found must be
clearly proven to be Slytherin's, that the last day of the search was the morning in June of 1945, the
hour the Hogwarts Express left Hogsmeade Station for London). She found it difficult to
understand how two people who made it so obvious that they neither liked nor trusted one another
could come to such an agreement, so quickly, and with this much cordiality. Even after the deal
was made, each boy still eyed the other with wariness; Nott had never taken his hand off his wand.

But then it was over, at a speed that Hermione put down to their sheer pragmatism, an ability
allowing Slytherins to put their differences aside until it was time to divide the spoils produced by
their combined efforts, at which point the previous alliance was forgotten as if it had never existed.
It was a very alien notion to her, until Hermione considered the fact that Ravenclaws were not
naturally cooperative, either; the Slytherins at Hogwarts presented themselves in public as a unified
House, while Ravenclaw didn't even have that. As a Prefect, Hermione had helped introduce the
new First Years to their class subjects, and lectured them on forming good study habits, but no one
had ever tasked her with ensuring that they made friends.

Amity Apparated her and Tom back to Hermione's bedroom, bowing once, before Disapparating
with a pop! back to the St. Mungo's waiting room where they'd left Nott.
Upon their arrival, Tom subsided into his wheelchair, his face white, his brows pinched together in
pain. Hermione rushed over to him, dropping the potion chest on her bed, the covers still stained
with Tom's blood. She took his hands in hers, sliding back the sleeves of his hospital robe, and ran
her thumbs down the inside of his wrists to feel his pulse. It was faint, but steady; the Healers
would have given him a Blood Replenishing potion, but that didn't cure the shock the body went
through when it lost a large volume of blood at once.

"Oh, Tom," said Hermione, sinking to the floor. She felt his fingers caress her hair, which must
look a mess—she hadn't put a thought to her appearance before rushing Tom to the hospital,
throwing on her Muggle coat over her nightgown and a pair of soft driving plimsolls. "I think you
should have a potion—and a few hours of sleep, too, if you can get it. And then we'll have to find
some way to keep you off your feet; we wouldn't be able to explain where you got the wheelchair."

"You never explained why you invited Nott, of all people, to join the party. As far as I remember,
his house doesn't have a telephone line." Tom spoke in a mild tone, but she caught the note of
reproval.

Hermione couldn't stop herself; she let out a little croak of laughter. "You disapprove? We just got
you out of the hospital for whatever you did to yourself!"

"Of course I do," said Tom fiercely—not elaborating on how he'd earned his stay in the hospital—
then he winced, and tried to cover for it by speaking in a clipped voice, "He isn't trustworthy. Even
in First Year, he never lifted a hand for anyone unless he saw the utility of it. You saw him just
now, how eager he was to put a price to a life."

"Are you worried he'll try to get one over you?" asked Hermione.

"No," said Tom. "I can take care of myself—"

Hermione made a scoffing noise.

"—Yes, yes, have your giggle." Tom rolled his eyes. "But I think you ought to be careful around
him. He doesn't like people of 'our sort', and you know it. He only tolerates us because he thinks
we're useful for whatever sneaky little plan he's concocted."

Hermione sighed, straightened up, and dug in her pocket for Tom's wand, flaking with dried blood,
which she tossed onto his lap. She drew her own wand and pointed it at her bedcovers, Conjuring a
stream of water to help lift the bloodstains off before she applied a cleaning charm. She wasn't sure
she could get out every spot, but she hoped that the maids who came to change her sheets would
assume that anything left was her own blood, and not make a fuss about it, other than to
commiserate on the shared difficulties of womanhood.

Without a word, Tom joined her in casting cleaning spells, though the point of his wand dipped and
wavered, and she could see his cheeks hollowed where he was biting his own flesh in single-
minded focus.

"Isn't that the same way you used to think of me?" said Hermione, her question pointed. "Or
perhaps you still do."

"I don't think of you as one 'sort' or another. Nor as a tool, useful but dispensable," said Tom.
"And certainly not as 'one of our unfortunate lessers'," he added, his voice lilting and vowels
shifting to match Mrs. Riddle's distinct manner of speech.
An unladylike snort escaped her, and just like that, the tension between them dissipated, until the
bed had been made as clean as they could. Leaving it as it was, Hermione picked up the potion
chest and began to roll Tom's wheelchair back into his own room, glancing both ways down the
hallway before she snuck in and closed the door behind her.

There was a tightly-furled scroll packed inside the chest, which contained several rows of glass
phials stoppered with wax plugs set into neat, square niches. Scraping off the seal stamp revealed it
to be a standard set of apothecarist's instructions: Take with one glass of water, ensure adequate
food and rest for best results, may contain extract of gingko, consult Healer if allergic to any
ingredient, or if unusual side effects make their appearance, up to and including gassiness, glowing
excretions, or prescient dreams.

Their Potions classes had centred on brewing, but Professor Slughorn had gone over the usage of
various potions—though she supposed it was less to prepare them for future medical emergencies
and more to warn students from indulging in the unhealthy over-consumption of Wideye Potions as
a study aid, or drinking Memory Potions before an exam, which was counted as cheating and
would result in a null mark when detected. Or to dissuade those who'd considered the idea of
mixing two or more potions for double the effect, which was more likely to poison the drinker than
elevate them to academic genius.

She filled a glass with Conjured water, unstoppered the first potion, and handed it to Tom, watching
him with a stern eye as he gagged at the flavour. Most potions had a nasty taste, she'd learned, but
it was only to be expected when the ingredient lists included dried woodlice and dung beetle wing
cases. After he'd emptied the phial, his eyelids began to droop, and the crease between his brows
faded with the alleviation of pain.

Hermione helped him get into his bed, observing that there were no signs of blood on his sheets, no
suspicious grimoires or dirty cauldrons lying about, which would have given her a clue as to what
he'd done to injure himself. Everything seemed to be in its proper place, tidy as was his usual
habit; the only sign of the room's being in use was the papers on the writing desk, where Tom had
been completing his holiday homework.

She'd just pulled the bedcovers back and leaned over to fluff the pillow, when Tom caught her by
the wrist, stroking along her pulse point as she'd done to him minutes earlier.

"Don't go," said Tom, his voice soft, his expression somehow... unguarded.

"Tom," she said, trying to draw her wrist back. He didn't let go. "I'll be just across the hall—"

"Stay with me. Please."

She searched his features, and found nothing but frank and open sincerity. No duplicity, not a hint
of guile.

"I-I can stay until you fall asleep," she stammered.

"Stay until morning," said Tom, shifting over to the side and patting the empty space on the bed
next to him.

"It's already morning!"

"It's also my birthday," said Tom. "You can't refuse the power of the birthday wish."
"Hmph," grumbled Hermione, but tired and unable to think of a convincing counter-argument, she
unbuttoned her coat, threw it over the bedpost, and kicked off her shoes, before climbing into the
bed and letting Tom bring the top of the blanket to cover her.

His fingers—he hadn't let go of her yet—traced down her wrist, down the line of tendon, up and
down, a strange and calming sensation that made her yawn. It occurred to her that she had gotten
as little sleep this whole evening as he had. Up to now, she'd been stressed out of her mind, pacing
circles in the St. Mungo's waiting room, hours of going back and forth between the receptionist and
Nott, both of whom had nothing supportive to say and had ended up ignoring her to focus on the
more productive pursuits of crosswords and napping.

She felt herself drifting off, when Tom wriggled closer to her, so close that she could feel his breath
on her cheek.

"I meant what I said, you know."

"Hmm?" Hermione's response was groggy and far from eloquent.

"I've never seen much use in marriage... but if there was a way to have this every night—not just
one night a year, and without anyone able to say a word against it—then I could see how it would
be worth the bother."

"Mmph," said Hermione, burrowing into the blanket. "Maybe that's why everyone gets married."

"Not my parents," Tom muttered, under his breath.

"Wha—"

"Shhh."

Tom curled up next to her in a rustle of sheets, and the heat of his body warmed her frozen toes; it
lulled her into a peaceful doze that soon deepened to true sleep.

Morning arrived sooner than Hermione would have liked.

She was deep in a sleep of utter exhaustion, dreamless and dead to the world, when she was,
without any forewarning, forcibly revived by Mrs. Riddle knocking on the bedroom door. The
knocking went on, and a voice spoke unintelligible words in the distance, while Hermione groaned
into the pillow and ignored it. A few seconds later, the door was thrown open and the electric light
switched on, a harsh reveille in contrast to the weak winter sunlight that had barely pierced the
heavy drapes at the window.

"Tommy! Have you dressed? Mrs. Willrow cooked a special birthday breakfast for you this
morning. We've been waiting for you to come down; you mustn't let it get cold—"
Hermione made to push the blanket off, but was impeded by a heavy arm draped over her waist,
pinning her down and limiting her movements. In fact, as the muddled dregs of slumber fled from
her mind, she realised that it was Tom's arm. And that was Tom's chest pressed against her back,
his nose nuzzling against the nape of her neck, and his breath that she felt puffing out, hot and
ticklish, against her skin. At some point during the night—or very early morning—she'd wound up
tucked up into his side, her legs tangled into his and in urgent need of extraction.

"Tom," hissed Hermione.

"Hermione," murmured Tom, pulling her closer.

"Tom!" she repeated, speaking louder in an attempt to wake him.

"Tommy!" said Mrs. Riddle, her voice growing louder, as she bustled over to the bed. "Tommy,
darling, it's time to get up."

The blanket twitched aside. Hermione heard a choking sound.

"Hermione!" Mrs. Riddle gasped, the last syllable swerving up a whole octave in surprise.
"Goodness, you two!" She gave a delicate cough before she went on, "Why, I never! Hmph! I do
certainly expect you to sort yourselves out properly when the time comes. And you, Tommy—
you'll make a decent man out of yourself, and I know you can hear me, so don't pretend. For now,
however, I want to see the both of you at the table in a quarter hour."

She dropped the blanket back over them, then went to the door, closing it behind her without
turning off the light.

"Tom." Hermione pushed at Tom's arm. "We have to get up."

He only squeezed her tighter. "Just one more minute."

Hermione sighed.

It wasn't a terribly uncomfortable experience to be in such close quarters with Tom, even if the
rational side of her mind (the one that chaperoned the younger Ravenclaws as part of her duties as a
Prefect, and had deducted her fair share of House points from students caught in the Astronomy
Tower after curfew) recognised that her current actions had crossed the line into inappropriate
fraternisation. This was exactly the sort of conduct that got students sent back from Hogsmeade
early, or polishing trophy cases in detention with the school caretaker. This was worse, because
she'd just now been caught in a very compromising position, and even those students who'd become
the subject of gossip in the girls' loo had been caught with their positions being strictly vertical.

The irrational side of her mind (the one that hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep) didn't find it an
unpleasant experience. It had a lot in common with an extended hug, and it was, just perhaps, even
enjoyable. There was something about the intimate closeness with another person that was
comforting on an instinctive level—the comfort of another's touch, being held, relaxed in the
warmth produced by another human body. And then there was something else which was
comforting and familiar to her: scouring her recent memories, she realised that it was the scent
she'd smelled in the Potions classroom during Professor Slughorn's lesson on Amortentia.

Herbal soap, a faint scent that was almost overpowered by parchment and ink and leather-bound
books.
That day, she'd gone to her dorm's bathroom after class and smelled all her dorm mates' soaps and
shampoos to confirm a match, but she'd come up with nothing. She'd put it out of her mind after
that—all in all, it was a silly thing to worry overmuch about. The perfume of Amortentia was a
figment of imagination, an interesting magical illusion drawn from the depths of a person's mind,
the same way a boggart drew out one's greatest fear. Worth studying and understanding for anyone
who wanted to be a potioneer (or wanted to do well on the N.E.W.T.s, as it would be examined later
on), but a novelty of the magical world beyond that context.

But then the unexpected happened, and in that instant, rational cognisance met irrational
supposition: the herbal soap scent was from Tom's soap.

During the summer, Tom's grandmother had given him a number of gifts, one of which was a
shaving kit with soft white face cloths, a folding razor—which she'd never seen Tom touch—and
bars of imported soap. The few times she'd visited him in his room at the Leaky Cauldron, she'd
arrived early and observed him going about his morning routine. Tom used magic to shave and
trim his sideburns. After shaving, he washed his face with the soap.

She was at once triumphant at having discovered an answer to this months-old mystery, and
disturbed at the implications. She'd smelled Tom's scent in her Amortentia. It had no bearing on
their friendship—Tom didn't even know—but she was aware of what it signified: that he was an
object of... well, if not desire, exactly, but great fondness. A different sort of fondness than what
one felt for parents, siblings, or beloved pets, for Amortentia's 'air of romance' wasn't called
romantic for no reason.

And then there were the other facts: she had good reason to believe that these feelings were
reciprocated by Tom to some extent, because what else would she call her present situation—her
present predicament—but an indication of fondness? He kept most of their classmates at a cool
distance, speaking of them with open disdain (with his one exception being her) and she couldn't
imagine him sleeping by anyone else's side, whether he was dosed on potions or not.

Tom was fond of her.

The more she thought on it, the more she began to feel that the word 'fond' was not the most apt
descriptor. Twyla and Siobhan, two of her dorm mates, were fond of each other, linking their arms
together on the walk to class in the morning, eating off one another's plates during meals, even
sharing toothbrushes (after the use of a thorough cleaning charm) when Twyla's cat made off with
her own. But that fondness had never extended to nuzzling each other on a shared bed.

This was a different sort of fondness, one she couldn't reconcile with her understanding of friendly
fondness.

Instead of having her confusions cleared up, Hermione was only beset by more questions.

"Propriety" and "decency" were two concepts the Riddles clung on to like life rafts; they were rare
points of refuge in the changing tides of modern Britain. What Mrs. Riddle wanted—for Tom to
make a decent man of himself—was an old-fashioned term for something that Tom had not too
long ago reversed his opinion on, declaring that he was in personal support of it, although it
appeared to be more from convenience than any sense of moral obligation.

She hadn't thought he'd meant it...

But now, she wasn't sure at all.

Nevertheless, the day awaited, and Hermione couldn't spend all morning contemplating these
mysteries in bed, tempting as it might be. Eventually, she pushed Tom's arm away and got up,
casting a few Warming Charms to relieve the winter chill that had settled in during the night, after
the fireplace's banked coals had crumbled into white ash. Tom still seemed as if he was willing to
forgo his birthday breakfast if it meant malingering under the blanket for several more hours, but
Hermione summoned a set of clean clothes, refilled his water glass and made him take a vial of
potion; after that he seemed more alert, even if he shuddered at the flavour.

"It's making me drowsy," said Tom, tucking his wand into his trouser pocket. "It dulls the pain,
along with everything else."

"You only have eleven potions in the box," Hermione replied. She'd read the labels and counted the
vials, recognising several ingredients that were found in commercially-prepared Skele-Gro—which
explained the terrible taste. "If you were being treated in the Muggle way, you'd have been laid up
for months. In a plaster cast, too—and Dad says those things always give patients trouble in the
bathroom, since they have to wash around it and then it ends up smelling off after a fortnight. You
should count yourself lucky."

"Lucky," Tom muttered, but that was the only complaint he made before it was time to go down for
breakfast.

Mrs. Willrow had prepared a breakfast feast that wouldn't have been out-of-place for the holiday
offerings in the Hogwarts Great Hall. French toast made from thick slices of white bread was the
centrepiece of the meal, dipped into a rich egg custard, fried, and accompanied by an assortment of
toppings: golden syrup, sweet beaten cream, homemade marmalades, bits of cured pork and fried
game sausage. Tom took some of each, while Hermione limited herself to a small scoop of jam and
cream only, narrowing her eyes at the vast spread of breakfast offerings—the meal had multiple
courses, but was served banquet-style so that the fresh fruits shared table-room with the cheese
omelettes and bacon butties.

Silently, she estimated the expense that had gone into such a meal: sugar was still available, but
each family was allotted enough to sweeten a few pots of tea over the course of a week; the official
ration loaf was made of brown wholemeal flour, and Muggles without access to a wizarding grocer
would have only found white bread flour on sale through the black market. With how much the
Riddles indulged Tom, she shouldn't be surprised by this. They'd cut no corners for their Christmas
dinner, and very likely believed that no amount of saved money was worth eating French toast
made from brown bread.

She was still counting the varieties of fruit preserves on the table while the Riddles tucked into their
breakfast, Mr. Riddle scraping the last of the brown sauce from the jar with a clink of silver on
glass, when a maid rushed into the dining room, her cap askew, screaming incoherently.

"Mr. Riddle! Mrs. Riddle!" she cried, one hand pressed to her heaving chest. "Oh, it's Mister Tom
—he's gone mad!"

"What do you mean, mad?" Mrs. Riddle asked. Her fork, burdened with a bite-sized portion of
egg white omelette, was set back on her plate. "Frances?"

"I—I was bringin' up his breakfast plate," said the maid in a hoarse voice, smoothing down the
pleats of her apron in her anxiety, "and after I set the tray on the table and got to the curtains, I saw
the room was all over with blood!"
Mrs. Riddle's face went as pale as her napkin. "Blood?"

"Oh, tha'd never believe it, Mrs. Riddle—blood on the carpets, blood on the floor—and the room
reekin' of a slaughterhouse!" The maid swooned, laying the back of her hand over her eyes. "And
the worst of 'em all: Mister Tom's hound dead on the floor, sliced open like a river trout! I've never
seen the likes of it—it were the shock of a lifetime, let me tell you!"

Mrs. Riddle stood up, dropping her napkin on her plate. "I shall need to see this." She turned to
Mr. Riddle. "Thomas, send for Doctor Talbot; I don't care if he's off on holiday, get him here at
once! Frances, you'll go and fetch Bryce and bring him to the house."

Mr. Riddle gave a forlorn glance at his half-eaten bacon and set it aside, while Mrs. Riddle took
charge of the servants, leaving Tom and Hermione at the dining table unsupervised.

Tom continued forking bits of crisp French toast into the fluffy mound of beaten cream on the side
of his plate, his expression serene and unruffled.

Hermione stared at him.

Tom kept eating. "Would you like me to pass the butter?"

"Tom..."

"I do recommend it; it pairs well with the peach preserves."

"Tom!"

"Yes, Hermione?"

"Do you know anything about this?"

"Is there any reason why I should?"

Hermione cast him a look of great scepticism. "Maybe... because you were covered in blood when
you showed up at my door last night. When you woke me up, I might add!"

Tom scoffed, reaching over the table to scoop another spoonful of peach preserve onto his toast.
"Hmm. What a coincidence."

"What are the chances of that?"

"I don't know, Hermione," said Tom amiably. "With magic, we can break the physical laws of
nature whenever we want—so what makes you the arbiter of what is possible and what isn't?"

"That's a non-answer," Hermione said, her tone waspish, "and you know it."

"I'm not sure what kind of answer you want me to give," said Tom. "Are you expecting me to tell
you that I slaughtered my father's dog last night?"

"No!" Hermione shook her head hurriedly. "Of course not! I j-just wanted to hear the truth!"

"The truth... is that my father is a very disturbed man," said Tom, his eyes dropped down to his
plate, looking shaken all of a sudden. "He's not been well, not in the head, and not for a very long
time."

"Oh!" said Hermione, feeling abashed. She put down her fork and knife and slipped her hand under
the table to grasp Tom's. "I'm so sorry—I don't mean to pry or anything. I-if you don't want to talk
about it, I understand. But if you do, you know you can talk to me about it. I don't think the
Riddles like anyone bringing up the subject of your father."

"Thank you, Hermione." He squeezed her hand and gave her a soft smile, leaning to the side so
that their knees and shoulders brushed. "They like to say that my father came back home because
he ran out of money, but I've always wondered if it was my mother who left him. It was always
understood that they separated on poor terms, you know. And that was how I ended up at Wool's. I
lived there from the day I was born."

Right then and there, Hermione wanted to tell Tom the truth: that his mother, the late Mrs. Merope
Gaunt Riddle, was a witch. And the unhappy separation between Mr. Tom Riddle and Mrs. Merope
Riddle, if she was to offer her speculations on the matter, would probably have come from Mr.
Riddle, a Muggle, learning about the existence of magic, as he was legally entitled to know the
moment the York registrar's office certified their marriage license.

Her own parents had been shocked about finding out, and they weren't religious people—nor had
they raised her to be someone who paid earnest reverence to God or the church; church for their
family had always been a social habit, not a moral imperative. Mum and Dad's introduction to
magic had come from Professor Dumbledore, and despite the man's eccentricities, he was well-
spoken and astute, a seasoned speaker. He knew how to broach the topic, explain the salient
details, and answer every question about wizarding culture or governance thrown at him. Merope
Gaunt, on the other hand, was a village girl whose family had not allowed her to attend Hogwarts,
due to their uncompromising blood-purist beliefs that even Nott had seen fit to deride.

Merope had lived in a mouldering shack with a strange and disturbing brother, talked to snakes, and
hadn't known or seen much of the world outside of Hangleton, before she'd married Tom Riddle
and left Yorkshire for good. Hermione couldn't see any way that Mr. Riddle would have taken the
news well, or any way that Merope could have delivered it well, either. This kind of thing would
be a stumbling block in anyone's marriage, which depended on honesty and good communication
from both parties, or so she'd observed from how Mum and Dad worked out their problems, even
on their busiest days when they came home exhausted from taking shifts at Dad's clinic.

"It's possible that their disagreement, if they had one, was mutual," ventured Hermione. "It used to
be that only women were the ones at fault in divorce cases, but after the laws were changed so that
either party could lodge their case, it was seen that these things were rarely the fault of any one
person."

"Perhaps," said Tom, sounding dubious. "Though I still think that, no matter how they felt back
then, that my father still had—still has—strong feelings about my mother, all these years since she
died giving birth. He was very young when he ran off and eloped with my mother, you see, and
never re-married or looked at another woman again, even though half the village would've jumped
at the chance of stepping out with him. If I was a romantic soul, I'd chance it to say that it was
young love, the kind of passions that come along once in a lifetime, and he never recovered from
the loss of it. Even regrets his poor choices to this day."

"That's very sweet." Hermione patted his hand. "And sad, how he's let his loss define his life, to
his detriment... and yours, too. I do hope he gets better."
"Some people can't be helped," said Tom sadly.

"That doesn't mean we shouldn't try," said Hermione in a firm voice. "Sympathy goes a long way
—don't you remember how we met?"

"I wouldn't want to forget," Tom replied, giving her one last squeeze before he withdrew his hand
and returned to his meal, the mood lighter than it had been before.

Soon after that, they finished their breakfast, leaving their plates and napkins on the table when no
staff popped out from behind their shoulders to collect them. They spent the next few hours
working on their homework in Tom's bedroom (which was larger and better appointed than hers)
and now that Tom could perform magic, he didn't hesitate to show off the efficiency of his Charms
technique. He could perform many of their textbook spells non-verbally, with interesting variations
that he claimed had won him extra-credit points in last year's O.W.L.s: partial enlargement, for
instance, where he increased the size of a lightbulb's glass bulb while the filament within retained
its original dimensions.

At one o'clock, they came back down for lunch, and saw that Mr. and Mrs. Riddle were absent from
the table. The dining table had places set for two people, and a single maid to serve them—the
second housemaid this time.

Hermione, eager to be apprised of any news, asked the maid, "Is everything alright? Are we to
suppose that Tom's father has fallen ill?"

The maid, who had been carving the breast of a roasted bird, hesitated. "Mrs. Riddle says that
Mister Tom's just had one of his, er, 'episodes'. I've never seen 'im have one since I started here, but
Cook says he used to have 'em all the time when he come back from London years ago. No
worries, Miss, he'll be right as rain after the Doctor comes in and has a look at him."

"'Episodes'?" Tom repeated. "We aren't in any danger, are we?"

"No, no," said the maid, who looked rather uncomfortable and was now carving as fast as she
could. "Nothing dangerous—I expect he'll be pickin' at his supper and sendin' his food back
because the parsley had the wrong colour or looked the wrong shape. Cook said he used to do it for
every meal, and he'd come downstairs to watch her make up his tray, afraid that she were slippin'
poison in his almond puddin' or summat of the like. Harmless stuff, but it puts more work on the
staff." She let out an awkward chuckle. "Though we're happy with our place here, o' course;
service en't easy, but 'tis honest work."

That seemed to be the end of the discussion, for the maid refused to say any more on the topic, her
lips pinched together as she portioned out the meat with a pair of silver tongs. This was followed
by the ladling out of the starter, a consommé with mushroom and leek, and a side dish of marrow
stuffed with spiced pilaf. The finishing touch was a slice of almond and rum cream birthday cake
for dessert, which seemed to be the extent of Tom's birthday celebrations due to the state of
emergency that had fallen over the house. Tom did not appear to show any disappointment about
it.

It was only the next day that she found out what happened to Tom's father: he'd been sent away.

She hadn't dared to ask Mrs. Riddle about it, so it was by chance that she overheard the maids
speaking about it in the stairwell, while she'd been practising on her Disillusionment Charm in
preparation for next year's N.E.W.T.s.
"He's been sent away until the boy goes back to school—put up in a hotel in York for now.
Claimed he'd been bewitched by his own son when the Doctor saw him; the old lady was
mortified!"

One of the maids giggled. "I would've loved to see 'er face."

"S'not worth it when she gets into one of her moods. Did you know, she up and asked me if I
reckoned she were a bad mother? I swear, if someone had told me I'd be signin' up to serve in a
madhouse, I'd have gone to the elders' home in Middlesbrough. I'd still be wipin' invalid arses,
mind you, but I wouldn't have to put up with Their Highnesses' airs and graces."

"Do you believe that he'd got bewitched? No one would've done what he done, not in their right
mind; Her Highness said the carpets had to go, and sent Frank to town to get paint for the walls."

"He's not done anythin' like that before—not while I've been 'ere. I knew he were no gentleman—
the whole village knew he threw over his main squeeze to run off with the tramp's girl—but no one
took him for a madman then."

There was a pause. "Shame, really."

The other maid hummed in assent. "'Tis always the pretty ones."

"...The boy's pretty, en't he?"

A snort of amusement. "Give it up, Frannie, you haven't a chance!"

"How d'you know?" After a brief hesitation, the maid said, querulously, "I reckon I do so!"

"When I went up to change the linens this mornin', I found hairs on his pillowcase—long, curly
hairs! If you wanted to teach the boy what it takes to be a man, someone else has got there first."

Hermione's cheeks heated up, and losing her concentration, her Disillusionment Charm flickered.
Before she could be noticed, she slipped away and back to her room.

Disregarding what had been said about her and Tom—which she wanted to avoid thinking about as
much as possible—what had they meant about Tom's father being a madman? She'd gotten the
impression over the last two weeks that something was not quite right about Mr. Tom Riddle, with
his isolation, his strange habits, and the tantrum he'd thrown the first morning of their arrival. He'd
gone from two extremes of temper, begging his mother for favours, then storming away when he
was denied.

She had never seen anything like it, that wildly erratic shift of mood and attitude; the closest
comparison she could draw was her fellow students' emotional outbursts the previous year, which
ranged from sobbing over textbooks to pitching said textbooks out of the Common Room window.
For most of them, it was stress induced from the exams. But there was a minority—in the ones
who exhibited the worst behaviour—of students who'd mixed spells and potions without following
the directions on the label. One was not meant to mix Calming Draughts with Cheering Charms,
due to their magical intents conflicting with each other. Those who ignored the instructions (and
common sense) found themselves unable to participate in a normal conversation without devolving
into hysterics.
Tom's father was a Muggle, so he wouldn't have had access to anything magical. Thus, Hermione
was left to presume that he was indeed unwell: there was evidence, the more she considered it, that
proved that something was off about him. She still thought it suspect that Tom shown up to her
room bloody, and his father's carpet had been bloodied that same day—with the separation of a few
hours or less. She'd observed without doubt that the blood that stained Tom's pyjamas and her
bedcovers had been his own blood, whereas the blood on the discarded carpets had been from a pet
dog belonging to Tom Riddle the elder, a female whippet hound who had been a loyal hunting
companion for years.

She assembled the other facts she knew about him:

The man was relatively young—not a youth, but hale and able-bodied in a way that Mr. Bryce was
not. He had no formal vocation while other men went off to war or contributed through
volunteering and National Service. If he had been exempted from service, then it would have been
through an internal issue. Hermione's father had performed his share of physical examinations for
prospective soldiers, and most who'd been struck off had had heart dysrythmias, epilepsy, or
impaired sight and hearing. Of those, a tiny portion were exempted for being mentally unfit—more
people who tried to pass themselves off than those with genuine conditions, Dad had said. He'd
been offered ration tickets, off-ration luxuries like spirits and tinned caviar, even cash, to sign
exemption slips for conscripted soldiers. Dad had refused, not wanting to risk the loss of his
medical license, which came with such privileges as extra rations that regular civilians weren't
afforded. Hermione wondered if the Riddles had found a doctor of their own to tempt, and had
succeeded.

Well, it wasn't her place to judge them for it, as Tom's father had proven himself to be legitimately
unwell. She felt guilty for speculating on it, and the slightest bit ashamed for suspecting Tom for
having a hand in the affair. Tom, though he did a lot of talking, hadn't made much comment about
his father; he complained more about Mary Riddle than anyone else at the Riddle House. In fact,
Tom had even been sympathetic about his father's health since his departure to York, offering his
best regards and condolences on what was now looking more and more like a spontaneous fit of
some sort.

It wasn't unheard of, for those who suffered from ailments of the mind. After all, shell shock was a
well-known condition, one that had no external symptoms, and whose internal effects were capable
of re-occurrence: tinnitus, headaches, and fugues, as reported by veterans of the Great War, after
they stood outside a church when the bells struck the hour, or had a motorcar blare its horn when
they crossed the road.

An unpredictable stroke of misfortune, and it was no one's fault, not really.

A day or two later, the rumour arose of the Riddles' having had their son committed for his own
good. Hermione refrained from participating in the speculation, which she had to tell Tom several
times—while reminding him of his own lack of sensitivity—when he kept asking what she thought
of the whole affair. She wasn't qualified to give a formal diagnosis, so perhaps it was for the best
that Tom Riddle Senior got professional attention. Because some of those rumours had proved
true: Mrs. Riddle had Mr. Bryce in and out of the house every day after New Year's Eve, wearing
paint-splattered dungarees and a weary expression. Renovations, if they were ordered, were
something most households did in spring, not winter. And they didn't limit it to one room out of
the whole house, but all of them.
She hadn't much time to dither about the Riddles' affairs, anyway, as a few days into January,
London and the Home Counties were once again beset by German air raids.

The headlines were printed in bold text on the front page of Mr. Riddle's morning Yorkshire Post,
which made Hermione gasp and tear the paper out of his hands, flipping it open to the casualty
listings on Page 3. Mr. Riddle bravely withstood Hermione's increasing alarm, sighing as her
shaking fingers slopped hot tea over his newspaper. He eventually ushered her to his private study
to use the telephone, before retrieving his sodden newspaper to read the business articles on page
14. It took some time for the operator to put Hermione through, but finally she was connected to
Mum and Dad after ringing the house first—and panicking for ten minutes after no one responded
—before she thought to try the clinic.

"Mum! Are you alright?" Hermione spoke urgently, her fingers clutching tight to the telephone
receiver.

"We're fine, safe and sound. Your father's with patients now—he can't come out, but he sends his
love."

"The wards worked," breathed Hermione, sighing in relief. "Oh, I'm so happy I had the house
registered in time."

"I suppose they did," agreed Mum. "We went to bed and didn't hear a peep until the morning, when
it was over. The smoke filter certainly has been useful. Our neighbour—Mrs. Carraclough, you
must remember her—the poor lady had to throw out the curtains from her front windows. She
couldn't get the smoke smell off them, and can't even find replacements with the ration on fabric.
But nevermind that! How are you, Hermione? How was your Christmas?"

"It was... interesting," Hermione said, not wanting to give her mother a reason to worry, not with so
many other things that Mum and Dad had to stress about. "We went to a church service in the
village on Christmas morning, and had a nice dinner afterwards. The village is small, but
charming; I imagine it'd be much prettier in summer. And the Riddles have been very welcoming
to me and Tom. They've made sure we've had enough to eat—though I suspect that they haven't
even heard there's rationing going on."

"If you like it there, then you might consider if you want to visit again during the summer holidays,"
Mum said. "In Mary's letters, there are some rather broad insinuations that she's looking forward
to your staying with them in the summer and after graduation. National Service exempts positions
in both medicine and government, you know."

"I still want to look into magical careers, if there's anything I can apply for on merit," Hermione
admitted. As a child, before she'd met Professor Dumbledore, a career in medicine had seemed like
the natural path to take. She still couldn't disdain the thought of working in her parents' clinic as a
contribution to the war effort, but a week of dealing with the convalescent Tom had shown her that
her bedside manner veered closer to brusqueness than strict professionalism. Who'd known it
would be so difficult to make people take their medicine and follow the Healer's advice? Why
couldn't they sit down, take directions, and do what was good for them?

If they'd gotten themselves into such a scrape in the first place, she thought, then probably not. She
was reminded of the way Tom whined every time he saw her bring out the potion chest; each
evening, he fought against her orders when she told him that bedtime was meant for sleeping, and
not for—for, well, whatever else he wanted to do.
"I'd have the qualifications after Hogwarts, and I wouldn't want to waste my N.E.W.T. marks—and
then there's being able to have a magical lifestyle. I'd never be able to afford it with the wages of a
junior magistrate's secretary, not with the Gringotts exchange rate."

"I suppose it's sentimental thinking of me, but Dad and I would be happy to have you with us as
long as you like," said Mum. "If you decide you want a wizarding career, you could always
commute back and forth, now that we have the Floo connection set up in the cellar. I won't have
you wasting your galleons on renting a flat in Diagon Alley, when it's much wiser to save up until
you can buy outright. You know, your father and I have thought about investing in property; when
the war's over, London's predicted to have a lot of growth..."

Hermione and her Mum discussed career and investment advice for a few more minutes, before the
conversation moved on to more general subjects. Dad stopped by for a minute or two, before he
was called back to treat a patient. Mum reminded her to brush her teeth before bed, not to stay up
too late reading, and to dress warmly before going outside, magical Warming Charms or no.

"Do write to us when you start school again, darling! Mr. Pacek gave us a book for your
Christmas gift, but we'll wait for you to get back to Hogwarts before we'll have Gilles deliver it.
Can't have the Riddles wondering how the pictures move, of course. The Tindalls send their
regards, too—Roger especially; there's a packet of letters from him we'll pass on with your
Christmas presents..."

It was heartening to feel the love of her family, belated Christmas well-wishes and air kisses and
affectionate endearments, even from two hundred miles away. Distance or not, Hermione could tell
how much her parents loved and missed her, and supported her no matter what course she chose to
take in life. In this way, she was given clear evidence of how far of the mark the Riddles fell; she
realised, with some discomfort, that the way Mrs. Riddle spoke to her was closer to a mimeograph
of true affection—there was familiarity and some measure of fondness, but it seemed to Hermione
that Mrs. Riddle wanted the two of them to share a close attachment, for the connections it brought
rather than the sake of the connection itself. It was transactional rather than unconditional, and
although Hermione was too generous to call it disingenuous, something about it still rang false.

Every night for the rest of the Christmas holidays, Hermione went to sleep thinking about how
Mum and Dad were doing. She knew they were safe—that she'd done her best to ensure they were
—but the rest of London wasn't. Their nights would be calm, but in their daylight hours Mum and
Dad would be tending injuries, aware that they'd avoided sharing this fate through their great
fortune in producing a magical child.

(She certainly wouldn't be thanking Nott for his timely intercession with Ministry bureaucracy.)

When Hermione listened to the evening broadcast from the wireless in Tom's room (her room didn't
have one, nor did it have the en suite bathroom that he had) he seemed to perceive her state of
melancholy, and offered what reassurance he could.

They listened to the broadcast together from Tom's bed, Tom having the presence of mind to refrain
from his usual commentary about Muggle foolishness. In the late hours when the presenters signed
off from the programme and played God Save the King, he wrapped her in a blanket and tucked her
in. More than a few mornings, she'd woken up to find herself by his side in the bed, her arms and
legs wrapped so securely within the bedcovers that she could barely move them; Tom had also,
quite thoughtfully, cast a Warming Charm on her toes.

Each time, she wriggled her way free and slipped out of his room and back to her own.
It would be too embarrassing if she overheard the maids gossiping about how they'd gone to change
the linens and seen the bedcovers untouched in the second guest room.

Again.
Chapter End Notes

Operation Steinbock: also known as the "Baby Blitz", lasted from January 2 to May 15.

I was editing this chapter late into the night before I was planning to post it, but realised that I
was skipping over words due to my exhaustion, and each proofing pass kept turning out more
mistakes that I'd missed. But this chapter turned out longer than usual, so there's that.
 Good and Proper
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1944

The sky was black and the wind laced with stinging shards of ice when Tom and Hermione were
handed their coats by the maid. A basket of sandwiches was passed on by the cook, in preparation
for their journey to the Great Hangleton train station, while Bryce, still yawning, took his own flask
of hot beef tea, his tweed flatcap jammed low over his head to cover the tips of his cold-bitten ears.

The Riddles had bought them First Class seats on the York Flyer to London, and the trip was not as
bad as it had been before Christmas, now that Tom could cast his own Warming Charms and shrink
his luggage to the size of a lunch box to keep the Muggle porters from putting their hands on his
things. It saved him a few pence in tips, which he spent on tea and biscuits in the train's dining car
—something he found superior to the Hogwarts Express' snack trolley, where one was limited to a
selection of disgusting sugary confections. (As much he enjoyed being a wizard, Tom had never
learned to appreciate putting frogs, mice, and cockroaches charmed into animation, in his mouth.
Whenever he was offered a chocolate frog by another student—never bothering to waste his own
money on them—he checked the seals and let the charm wear off before he ate them.)

A minor note of awkwardness was Hermione's recent habit of fussing about him, asking if his leg
ached, if he needed a place to sit while they transferred trains, when she went to fetch food or
drinks from an attendant, or if he needed to hold onto her arm to go up and down the stairs that
separated each platform from the station proper. Hermione had been attentive ever since they'd
returned from St. Mungo's, and although he'd finished the potions the Healer had given him, his
legs were still weak from staying off his feet for the last week and a half; he would not be winning
any marathons soon... but he doubted he could have, even before what was spoken of, in whispered
voices, as "The Accident".

The Accident.

To him, it was the sequence of events that led to his bleeding over Hermione's bed, being brought
to St. Mungo's, and striking a deal with Nott when he was dizzy and muddled with pain potions.

To the rest of the Riddle House, The Accident was the death of the dog in his father's bedroom.
According to the maids when they'd cleaned his room, all the staff had been given two bob extra
that week to keep the affair quiet and out of the village gossip mill, until the doctor had sorted out
the problem and the children were out of the house. Nevertheless, that didn't stop the servants from
gossiping inside the house.

It was a factor that Tom saw fit to press to his own advantage.

"I thought there was something off about my father the first time I met him," Tom had said sadly,
his eyes cast down to the pile of laundered shirts on his bed. "It was such a shock, that first
breakfast..."
He trailed off with a deep and melancholy sigh.

Becky Murray, the second housemaid, who was folding his laundry and sorting them into a 'Winter'
section to put away in a mothballed chest, and a 'Spring' selection to pack with his school things,
gave him a consoling nod. "It brought out summat wicked in him. None of us knew he were like
this, sir—Cook's the only one been on staff for more'n ten years. She'd known Mister Tom since he
were a lad, and he did nowt of the like back then, she says."

"I've never had a father before," Tom said. "I suppose I couldn't have known that all fathers weren't
like that. But now... he's gone beyond all definition of normal. It's such a terrible blow to everyone
—to me, as well: I thought we'd all be having a quiet family Christmas for the first time ever."
Tom shook his head solemnly. "If Grandmama is sending him away like I heard, then I'll never
have a chance to know him."

The maid's eyes glistened; she dabbed at them with her apron and sniffled. "Oh, sendin' him away's
for his own good, sir. He'll be in good hands, truly—there'll be people for him who can look after
him proper, to make sure there'll be no more of that... that irregular behaviour."

"Does he really need looking after?" asked Tom. "Is he doing that poorly?"

"Night terrors, I hear," said Becky, her eyes darting to the open door to check that no one was
passing through the hall. "Not for you to worry about, sir. Tha'd better get on with packin' your
school things; Mrs. Riddle wants to see you wearin' the new shirts and trousers she got for
Christmas."

"He's my father; of course I'd be worried," Tom said, his expression mournful. "You only ever get
one. Please, Miss Murray, if Hermione asks for any news on his health, do you mind being delicate
about your answers? She's sensitive, and her father is a doctor back in London—she's always hated
to see people suffering. Just tell her that he's unwell, and has been so for some time. He deserves
his dignity in these difficult times, you see; no matter who he is or what he's done, he's still family
to us, isn't he?"

"O-oh, that's a very kind thought." The maid pressed her hand to her mouth. "S'not a bother, o'
course, sir!"

"Thank you," said Tom, and his grateful smile brought a flustered red bloom to her cheeks.

Afterwards, he hadn't felt bad for how he'd dealt with the servant, steering her through a careful
placement of words, glances, and smiles. It wasn't as if he'd lied to her—he despised being lied to,
and made an effort to avoid lies in his own life; after all, those who relied on outright falsehood
were those who lacked the vision to re-interpret reality, and the imagination to shape it into
whatever form they wished it to be.

Tom didn't tell lies: he told selective truths. Lies might be convenient, but an inconvenient truth
was the most efficient method of settling an argument for good—that is, if he'd wanted to argue,
and on top of that, come out the victor. And unlike a convenient lie, a barbed truth was still truth,
and couldn't be denied.

But this time he could sway the maid's feelings through guilt and pity, and it'd be manipulation, not
lying. Tom's grandmother used guilt all the time on other people, and as far as he'd seen, she hadn't
looked like she regretted it, or even like she was going to stop at it anytime soon. She was
pragmatic; so was he, even though he had some exceptions, a personal standard of integrity, where
Mrs. Riddle had none at all.

Hermione was one of his exceptions.

Tom was as honest as he could be around her, as Hermione was someone who didn't need to be
cushioned and coddled from confronting the reality of her own existence, as his fellow Slytherins
did. Their worlds would fall apart if they were told unequivocally that their names meant nothing
and their magical ability was no different—or even inferior—to that of any other witch or wizard in
the castle, yes, even including the Muggleborns. It was to Tom's great satisfaction that Hermione
had accepted years ago that some people were better than others (or perhaps she'd just stopped
trying to argue with him about it), in ways that had nothing to do with name or lineage, even
though it was oftentimes necessary for the functioning of society to pretend otherwise, a convenient
self-deception in the same category as believing one's local Member of Parliament actually cared
about the public good, or that the funds put in the church collection plate were spent on community
programmes, and not on the parson's personal comforts.

So Tom didn't lie to her, even if he massaged the truth now and again. But if the maid lied to
Hermione, then that was nothing to do with him, was it? He hadn't ordered Becky Murray to do
anything but be sensitive. To be tactful.

The real truth was that Tom preferred to keep his participation in The Accident as private as
possible. He couldn't say that he felt guilty or remorseful for what he'd done to his father (that
would be a lie) but he knew that other people would prefer him to be, or better yet, prefer him not
to have been involved at all. Hermione was one person in particular who was better off blissfully
ignorant; he knew that she would disapprove, and would never consider any justification for his
actions as valid or sensible. He didn't want to argue with her about it (out of the many things they
had in common, one was their ability to settle arguments by not arguing at all—it was better than a
compromise, as compromising more often than not left both parties dissatisfied) and he knew that
Hermione was so soft-hearted that she'd never change her stance if she ever found out about the
death of his father's dog.

That had been an accident, of course, but she'd call it murder and make a big deal out of it, her big
brown eyes swimming with unshed tears for an animal whose existence she hadn't even known
about until it was already dead.

(He had once pointed out, years ago, that her meals had been made from the carcasses of dead
animals, and her reaction had not been to acknowledge and embrace his logic. He'd learned then
how often her reasoning was tainted by sentimentality and emotion, which he couldn't understand
himself, but had come to accept as one of her many charming eccentricities.)

Tom didn't like it when Hermione's eyes looked like that, though he found it difficult to explain
why. He knew that it was better when she was smiling than when she was moody, and when she
agreed with him instead of trying to draw him into a debate that would inevitably slip into personal
criticism when things became too heated. When they weren't rowing, she was more amenable to
inviting him to study with her in the Riddle House's library, sitting next to him at dinner, and of
course—the most important part—inviting herself into his room to listen to the wireless, where,
like clockwork, her eyes would droop at half-past eleven and her head would begin to sag onto his
shoulder.
His Christmas had been dreadful, what with putting on the double pretense of being a harmless
Muggle and a Good Boy, and suffering all the family experiences his grandmother could fit in, as
she'd been under the impression that she had to make up for seventeen years of deprivation with
seventeen sets of gifts for his birthday and Christmas Day. Spending time with Hermione had been
the redeeming feature of the entire holiday, and the best part—the most noteworthy part that he
could not imagine himself forgetting anytime soon—was the first time he'd felt her sleeping form at
his side. His mind had been clouded and his body benumbed from taking a vial of pain potion, but
somehow he'd been conscious the whole time of her soft skin and her sweet-scented hair, every
single breath and shift in position.

Yes, it was preferable that Hermione not be distracted by a bout of sympathetic indignation—as if
his father deserved anyone's pity—from learning the finer details of The Accident. He might be
able to hold his ground in an argument as long as she could, but it would ultimately be counter-
productive to the goal he'd established for himself a week and a half ago: that Hermione would be
convinced to share with him all his future family Christmases, now and after Hogwarts.

The end of their time at Hogwarts was fast approaching, and Tom could not see his way to lowering
himself to the kind of humdrum institutional career path to which Hermione aspired. She'd
suggested he join her in applying for positions, either in a Muggle office or the halls of the
Ministry, once they'd gotten their N.E.W.T. results. He'd refused to participate in this, but
nonetheless, he couldn't see—couldn't dare to imagine—he and Hermione parting ways after
graduation. They had grown up together, studied together, lived together; it was only logical (by
both his clear-sighted rational thinking, and Hermione's girlishly sentimental thinking) that they be
joined in other ways. It would make up for taking their leave of each other during the working
week; it would be a clear refutation to anyone who might mistake an ambitious witch climbing her
way through the rank-and-file for anything but a proper, respectable young lady.

And it would grant him the opportunity to stop by and bring her a homemade lunch, hang up one of
Mary Riddle's many framed photographs of himself in her office, touch her and hug her and hold
her while any witnesses cooed over how sweet it was, rather than how unseemly. For some strange
reason, these worthless labels mattered to people. Simple words and titles and symbols changed
the way society viewed things; Tom found it puzzling how an official document made it an
imprisonable offense for wizards to bait Muggles with magic, but it only took another one to
endorse the wizard who Obliviated Muggles into drooling vegetables.

(He'd come up with another good quote for his diary, after giving it some thought: "There is no
good or evil, only legitimacy and those who lack the foresight to seek it.")

By the time he and Hermione had transferred to King's Cross Station and boarded the Hogwarts
Express, it was still on his mind: maintaining his reputation in the eyes of the Hogwarts student
population was useful, whether it was as an exacting taskmaster to his group of followers, or the
polite and helpful Slytherin Prefect to everyone else. In Hermione's case, her good regard was not
just useful: cultivating it was essential to his goals.

Hermione must have shared his sentiments to some degree; in the interest of maintaining a
convivial atmosphere for the rest of the holiday, she'd never mentioned Nott after they'd left St.
Mungo's. He'd wondered about that, but kept his thoughts to himself until he had the chance to
discern the truth on his own. Until then, he revisited his thoughts and impressions on the boy,
gathered over the last few years of sharing a dormitory.
Nott, he'd observed, had never shown anything but disdain for those who could count Muggles
anywhere in their family tree—or those suspected to have some trace of Muggle ancestry of any
kind. Hermione, on the other hand, had the idea that good company didn't involve having to stop
the conversation every few minutes to explain such basic concepts as significant digits or
dependent variables. This ruled out most purebloods, whose private tutoring informed them only
on the aspects of natural philosophy which fell in between Aristotle and Plato, to Descartes and
Newton.

Tom couldn't see any real reason why they would tolerate each other's presence. Hermione didn't
like it when she was made to feel as if she was anyone's inferior—and for all that Tom was willing
to refute her arguments, he'd never denied that she, as an individual, was anything less than
Special. Nott, like most of their classmates, would have found Hermione insufferable, which was
magnified by her being a witch and not a wizard. Magical Britain was progressive in certain
aspects, but in others it was no different from the Muggle world: witches of good breeding (or the
witches of lesser family who set their life goals on being chosen to incubate someone's heir) were
placed under a similar ideal: a proper woman was domestic and demure, gracious and obliging.
Hermione, though she tried to be a Good Girl with a self-imposed standard of moral rectitude,
made no attempt to be a Proper Woman. Thus, Tom could see nothing in common between Nott
and Hermione but a vigorous and mutual condescension.

It was this which he kept in mind, observing Nott in the train compartment on the way to Hogwarts,
during the dinner put on for the returning students, and on the walk from the Great Hall down to the
Slytherin dormitories in the dungeons.

Nott hadn't made himself a figure of suspicion. His hair was combed, his uniform as neat but
unremarkable as usual. Living in Scotland for most of the year, few of Tom's classmates had
anything other than pale British complexions, but Nott in particular seemed to have an aversion to
venturing outdoors, dropping Herbology as a class subject right after O.W.L.s, even though it was
generally considered an easy way to score an Acceptable N.E.W.T. or higher with Professor Beery's
lenient teaching style.

Nott's milk-white skin had a faint blue-ish pallor, with prominent shadowed crescents under his
eyes and veining down his temples. He twitched whenever he was directly addressed; when he
wasn't, he kept to himself and his books, and trained his eyes on the floor. He spoke to no one
unless spoken to. He drew no attention to himself—he tried to, at least, but it didn't take long for
their Slytherin dorm mates to pick up that something was off when they saw Tom Riddle staring at
one of their number for much too long for comfort.

The opportunity came after everyone had finished exchanging their obligatory greetings in the
Common Room, thanking so-and-so's mother for their thoughtful Yule gifts on behalf of their own
mothers, swapping homework assignments before they were to be handed in during next morning's
class, and comparing who had gotten the best Christmas haul. Curfew came and went; First
through Fourth Years were made to go back to the dormitories, the Fifth and Sixth Years began
peeling off to their own rooms, and a few Seventh Years commandeered the best sofas and broke
out the firewhisky to commemorate the beginning of their last school term.

As the resident Prefect, Tom had to chivvy the stubbornest of the younger stragglers back to their
dorms, so he was the last to get back to his own. That was a convenience: the other boys were
already inside and half-dressed, unpacking their pyjamas and hanging up their cloaks when Tom
entered. With a silent wave of his hand, the doors locked behind him.
"Good evening, gentlemen," said Tom, smiling in what he thought was a benign fashion.

Lestrange coughed. Rosier whirled around, almost dropping his armful of novelty Quidditch socks.

"I hope everyone had a pleasant Christmas holiday," Tom continued, looking at each of his subjects
in turn. "I myself had a rather interesting one, but I won't hesitate to confess my eagerness to return
to Hogwarts. Back to studying, classes, and of course, all of your familiar faces."

He studied their faces: Lopsided Lestrange, his first acquisition, an excellent second in the
Duelling Club, ready to do whatever was necessary to buy an opening for Tom whenever they
participated in doubles duels. Rosier, a sporting fellow with a competitive streak, whose wandwork
technique Tom had beaten into shape after two years of training. Avery, an unimaginative lump of
a boy, a predictable spell répertoire which Tom had taken pains to expand, easily led once the right
idea had been put into his head. Travers, gloomy of disposition, lacking the confidence to put full
force behind his spellwork, but one who toughened up with a careful application of backhanded
praise.

And finally, Nott. Taciturn, a solitary temperament, the keenest mind with a surprising range to his
duelling, though it was limited by his conservatism and caution; he out of the whole group was the
most resistant to Tom's brand of personal instruction.

His gaze lingered on the last boy. "Nott. I'd like to speak to you. In private."

Nott, buttoning up his pyjama shirt, glared at the floor. "If you can say it in front of me, you can
say it in front of everyone else."

"Hmm," said Tom. "You're being very unco-operative, Nott. I thought we had a... an
understanding."

"We do," Nott replied, his brow crinkling. "You can't hurt me. That was part of the agreement."

"You know," said Tom musingly, "you ought to look a man in the eye when you speak to him.
Look at me."

Flinching, his shoulders trembling with the effort, Nott's chin lifted up by degrees. His eyes, under
lowered lids, met Tom's.

Nott spat between clenched teeth, "You can't hurt me—you promised! We had a truce!"

"I can't act against you with the intent to hurt you," Tom corrected him. "Believe me, I don't want
to hurt you. But it can't be helped if you try to resist." His eyes locked on the other boy's, reaching
into his robes for his wand. He didn't draw it; instead, he focused his will on a single command:
Stay still. Don't move.

He doubled the force of his will when he noticed Nott's hand jerking toward his bed, on which had
been laid his folded uniform robes, discarded after changing into his nightshirt. His wand sat atop
the pile, made of a light brown wood with wavy ripples along its length from being cut along the
grain; it had leafy sprigs carved on the handle—a whimsical touch shared with the design of
Hermione's wand, which was patterned with curling vines.
The surface impressions were the first things he sensed of Nott's mind: hot spikes of anxiety, the
prickle of fear-sweat gathering moist and clammy in the lines of each palm, the itch of standing
hairs at the back of the neck, the light-headedness that came of lungs frozen in mid-breath. Nott
shuddered as Tom peered closer, a soft wheeze squeezing out from between his bloodless lips.

"Don't worry, this will be over quickly if you co-operate with me," Tom said, allowing him to
breathe, before he plunged into the boy's mind—

"—His name is Riddle; he's a Mudblood—"

A rain of dry white powder, white on black wool, like sieved confectioner's sugar on bittersweet
chocolate birthday cake icing. It tickled his nostrils; he felt an oncoming sneeze.

"—Does anyone else see it? Has everyone but me gone completely mental? Am I the only one?!"

A geometric arrangement of shapes, runes, on the crusty surface of hard-packed snow. Lichen on
stone that dripped with icicles, the low eaves of a thatched roof heavy with snow and ice, a path in
the snow marked out with a double line of tyre ruts, a few stalks of rotting grey flowers held in a
gloved hand.

"—That's a remarkable claim to make..."

Nott moaned, and the succession of images and sounds began to recede, fading into black
obscurity. A pinprick of migraine blossomed into existence in the back of Tom's own head, gaining
in size and magnitude like an avalanche bearing down to the timberline, drawing more and more
material unto itself as it tumbled into a downhill freefall.

For an instant, he saw himself sitting inside a train compartment, levitating an unhappy snake.

"What is this? What is this!" it hissed, and then—

"What's this, Mr. Riddle? What in Merlin's name have you done to yourself?" said the green-robed
Healer, bending over him with a shining silver knife, charmed to repel blood as it sliced open his
pyjama trousers at the hip. She inspected his wound, then pronounced, "We'll have to perform an
extraction before we go any further with sealing this up. Gordon, fetch the forceps—looks like
there's something strange stuck in here, lodged in the bone. Right there, the upper ilium—"

And then he was off the operating table and sitting upright in a chair. He was a boy, a young one—
there was a dog, a whiskered wolfhound with a golden rune collar, its great shaggy head resting on
its paws—they were in a library full of tall shelves and dusty grimoires, and on his lap was a book
of wandlore, open to one thick vellum page titled with illuminated golden letters: Snakewood and
Horne of Serpente.

The images blurred and congealed, and it became impossible to discern where he was, who he was,
in the whirling tumult of colour and noise. He was tall, and then he was short; he was young, and
then was even younger, and then he was the same as he was now; the view he saw went up and
down, dark and dingy one second, then blindingly overexposed in the next. His fingers throbbed
where he'd been rapped with a wooden spoon for taking more than his share in the dining hall lunch
queue; the pain radiated from the red lines pressed into the whorls of his fingertips where he'd been
plucking the metal harp strings for the last two hours—Mother said the callus would come in and
then it wouldn't hurt as much; this small suffering on his part was worth it to preserve a historic
artform—
He was Tom Riddle, and at the same time, he wasn't Tom Riddle. Time distorted; the years
stretched like taffy, drawn in between two disparate lives connected mind to mind, the resilience of
two melded consciousnesses searching for parallels to counter the force pulling them between
diametric poles.

With the slightest of shifts, the throbbing in his hand morphed into the humming vibrato of a
baroque string quartet played over a crackling wireless—the strings of a zither strummed in a
harmonic duet with Celtic harp, a dog howling along to a lively folk ditty played for the solstice
feast—musicians in white tuxedos warming up on a bandstand, the air hazed with tobacco smoke
and the chatter of a hundred guests, while a girl smiled up at him, one hand reaching for his, the
other settling onto his shoulder...

More and more familiar images appeared and were soon swept away, replaced by others, linked by
a tangential association of sensory context or emotional resonance. They were his memories, and
when they weren't, he saw only blackness: garbled syllables of sound without image, or blurry
moving figures divorced of atmosphere and identity. He tried to look closer, but they fled like
shadows under a moving beam of light, and when he followed, he found himself pressed against a
peculiar wall of resistance, pliant to an extent—but somehow, utterly impassable.

No matter how he pushed, how he grappled and sought for leverage against it, the wall didn't
budge; he willed it to move, imagining a spear point gouging into the black wall, like a ballista
brought to siege...

"Riddle?"

A distant voice broke his concentration. His mental visualisation stuttered and softened at the
edges.

"What's going on?" said another voice. "Riddle? Nott?"

With one disorienting heave, Tom was ejected from the stream of images and back into the physical
world, back to the Slytherin dormitory, to the corner of the room where his and Nott's four-poster
beds stood closest to the green glass windows. His vision swam like he was looking through the
glass, as if he was wearing thick spectacles with each lens ground to a different prescription.

When his vision came back into focus, he saw that Nott had fallen to the floor before him. The
boy's silk tussar pyjamas were wrinkled, the lapel on the right side spotted with vivid drops of
scarlet blood, the same blood that was smeared across his lips and chin and the back of his hand,
where he'd wiped it away with a careless hand.

"What was that?" asked Rosier, bending over to help Nott off the floor and sit up on his bed. "Do
you need a potion? I have some hangover potions in my trunk left over from Christmas."

"What'd you do to him?" Lestrange asked, glancing from Nott to Tom, his eyes alight with hungry
curiosity. "You didn't even draw your wand! How'd you do that? That was incredible!"

Travers cut in, his voice breathless and awed. "It's Legilimency—it's got to be."

"Isn't that a Dark Art?" said Avery, ambling over and eyeing Nott's rather rumpled form with a look
of contempt.
"No," Travers said, shaking his head. "It's restricted magic, though. The only ones who openly use
and study it are the Wizengamot courtroom interrogator and his apprentice. And they would never
let anyone catch them doing it unauthorised, no matter how much your family offers to pay them
for off-the-books tutoring."

"Shame about that," said Avery. "It sounds dead useful."

"I'm righd here, you know," Nott interrupted, his voice nasally from where he'd pinched the bridge
of his nose to stem the flow of blood. By now, he'd retrieved his wand and had started siphoning
the blood from his face.

"It is," Travers agreed. "Wonder who taught Riddle."

At that, all eyes in the room turned to Tom.

"Dumbledore's giving me private lessons," said Tom, with a casual shrug of his shoulders. It was
true.

"Dubbledore?" Nott sounded incredulous, although it was hard to tell with his consonants slurred
together. "B-bud—you're a Slydderin!"

"I must be special, then," Tom said. "You should be sure to remember that, if we're to get along."

"You're nod making id easy!" Nott grumbled.

"Well, I can't deny having a vested interest in seeing you fail," Tom admitted.

Rosier sucked in a slow breath. "What did you do? You didn't make a wager, did you?"

"Id's nudding I can't handle!" Nott said insistently, glaring at Rosier. "Keep oud of id!"

"We've got to hear this now," said Lestrange. "Come on, Nott—what did you bet on? The winner
of this year's Quidditch Cup? The top spot in the Duelling Club? Or who can get up Granger's
skirt first?"

"Excuse me," Tom spoke in a cold voice, "what does Granger have to do with this?"

Lestrange gave a derisive snort. "Nott has been tailing her like a little sneak—"

Nott cut him off before he could finish his sentence. "We bed that I could find the Chamber of
Secreds by our last day of Hogwards!"

A sudden silence fell in the dormitory, and then all the boys began speaking at once.

"It doesn't exist—"

"—It's just a legend—"

"—Someone would've found it by now—"

"—Twenty galleons on Riddle—"

"Quiet," said Tom.

Silence resumed once more.

"Nott thinks it's real enough to stake a wager on it," he said. "We should respect his decision, and
his intention to make good on it, no matter how unlikely the outcome. And fortune, as they say,
favours the bold. A little too Gryffindor-ish for my taste, but perhaps one needs some good fortune
to track down Slytherin's long-lost chamber. And a touch of Hufflepuff persistence, too—they say
that Hufflepuffs make the best finders."

"It is real," said Nott.

"You have no proof," Tom replied, who'd dug around in Nott's head and hadn't found anything but
snippets of dialogue and brief glimpses of childhood memories.

"We'll see."

"Oh, will we?"

"I... I think I have a lead."

Tom lifted his wand.

"I-it's not here right now," said Nott hastily. "But I know where it is. I just need to get it."

"Well," said Tom, giving him an unimpressed look, "go and get it, then."

Nott glared at him, but Tom ignored it, unpacking his own trunk and pyjamas. He changed in the
bathroom and returned to his four-poster, which was just as he remembered: thick, green enchanted
drapes that retained the heat through the coldest nights of winter, embroidered bedcovers and
pillowcases, a carved wooden headboard and posts with a fetching snake motif. Except... the bed
felt smaller tonight than he was used to, and when he rolled around on his back, then on his side, he
couldn't find a comfortable enough position to fall asleep.

As midnight approached, the other boys finished their homework and dimmed their lamps and
wand lights. On the other side of Tom's curtains, he could see that Nott's light was still lit.

January passed in a string of cold and sunless days.

Students wore their House scarves to class and meals, instead of reserving them for the outdoors
and weekend Quidditch games. They huddled together in the mornings, walking to the Great Hall
for breakfast, white clouds of steam puffing out between their chattering teeth. The older students
cast Warming Charms on the younger students, and on the owls when they arrived to deliver the
morning paper, shedding flakes of ice over the food. Astronomy, taking place on the rare nights
clear of heavy stormclouds, had quickly become everyone's least favourite subject.
February came, and with it was the first of the Hogwarts Apparition lessons, taught by a witch with
a Ministry badge and a superior air. She held her wand in one hand and a steel ruler in the other,
one metre long and marked with lines and numbers; the last foot was lettered in red and said
'ACCEPTABLE EXAMINABLE DEVIATION'.

Tom found Apparition an interesting magical exercise. It being a standard rite of passage for
wizarding adulthood, next to one's first drink of firewhisky, information about the theory of
magical teleportation hadn't been hard to find in the Hogwarts library. It wasn't even necessary to
ask for a note to the Restricted Section to pick out a good selection of reading materials.

(Not that Slughorn would have put much effort into turning him down or re-directing him to more
safer subjects of study. He'd signed Tom's Statutory Declaration without reading the text when
Tom had brought it to him after one Friday night Slug Club dinner. Tom had expected to have to do
weeks more buttering up to have the Riddle House entered in the Ministry's records; now he had to
wait until summer to have the Floo installed, as he couldn't see the maids letting in anyone dressed
as wizards usually did, with bathing costumes worn over a cassock, their underwear on the outside,
or displaying the greatest moral transgression of all: cross-dressing.)

Apparition was more like Transfiguration than any other magical discipline. In particular, the
Switching Spells they'd been tested on in last year's O.W.L.s. Only this was more advanced, as it
was not just a switch of two discrete objects—they'd practised in class with two inanimate objects
and moved on to small animals—but one living object and a mass of empty air, which caused the
distinctive popping sound when it was suddenly displaced.

And, of course, it counted as a human Transfiguration, which meant any mistakes were more
serious than when some incompetent student accidentally Switched half their mouse and left the
other half on the opposite side of the classroom. With those, one could just Vanish the mess and
move on, but here, the whole class was put on hold, and Tom forced to spend several long minutes
listening to one of his classmates scream while the instructor and the Hospital Wing's Mediwitch
came over to re-attach the splinched limbs and count how many fingers were still presumed
missing.

The textbooks, from Tom's professional opinion, were a more time efficient method for learning to
Apparate than the official instruction: the core tenets of the discipline were 'Destination,
Determination, and Deliberation', which was not much different from what he'd learned in First
Year Charms, and still applied to his present classes—Incantation, Visualisation, and
Gesticulation. By the end of his first lesson, he'd come to the conclusion that the textbooks had the
same information as the Ministry instructor, and the only practical benefit of attending the class
was the ability to practice in a convenient location, without having to walk a whole mile out to
Hogsmeade, which lay outside the Hogwarts grounds' Anti-Apparition wards.

He treated it as a mental exercise, and after the fourth lesson, had proven himself able to Apparate
in and out of the practice hoop at will. The professors had been impressed, Slughorn awarding him
twenty-five points for being the first to get it without splinching himself, and even the instructor
had come over and asked him to repeat his success just to confirm it hadn't been a fluke.

The trick wasn't just to visualise the destination, the bit of floor within the bounds of a wooden
hoop, but to instead visualise the journey. He imagined his body, all of it, every particle, hair,
organ, and limb, entering an in-between place where things Vanished after being hit with an
Evanesco, and then, once he'd felt the eerie squeezing sensation of his mass being pulled apart and
re-distributed, he focused his mind on the hoop, drawing out every single detail in his imagination:
every crack and join of the stone floor, the flickering shadows cast by the wall torches, the smooth,
polished finish of the hoop, the pattern of wood fibres on its varnished surface.

Crack!

Tom appeared inside the hoop, a little unsteady, but still on his feet. The first time, the sound of the
displacing air had been alarming—it too closely resembled the noise of a discharging firearm, and
nothing about it bore any pleasant memories to him. He'd gotten used to it, refused to let it weaken
him, and from experience he'd figured out that clearer focus in Disapparition resulted in cleaner
Apparitions; the result displaced less air and made less noise.

"Very precise. Commendable effort," said the Ministry instructor, using her metal ruler to measure
the distance between his hoop and the two hoops of the students on either side of him, to check
whether or not he'd cheated on accuracy by moving the goalhoops. "We offer student group
examinations in April and in August, depending on the month of their birth, and their skill level
during scheduled sessions. You've so far showed great aptitude—though I wouldn't have expected
anything less for one of dear old Horace's hand-picked Prefects. Will you be registering for the
April examination, Mister—"

"Riddle," said Tom, smiling pleasantly at her.

The instructor frowned, and her eyes darted to the Slytherin crest on his robes. "A Muggleborn
then, are you?"

"Excuse me, madam!" Hermione interrupted, from where she'd been listening (and fidgeting in
consternation) as the instructor had gone down the row to talk to several Slytherin students and
heap praise on Tom, all the while ignoring her. "What does his blood status have to do with
anything? I don't suppose that question's on the examination, is it!"

The instructor, a thin woman in severe, high-collared robes with a Ministry brooch pinned to her
breast, turned to Hermione. "You might find, Miss, that examinations—important as they may be
—are not the sole determination of one's ability... or one's future. Decorum is one where many are
judged and—" she gave Hermione a sharp top-to-toe inspection, followed by a sniff, "—found
wanting. Proper wizarding pride is another. How are civil servants, representatives and
functionaries of a wizarding nation, meant to perform their duties if they lack an understanding of
their constituents' best interests?"

"Well," huffed Hermione, "that sounds very discriminatory to me! I've never heard 'wizarding
pride' used in any other way but to mean wizarding conservatism."

"Pardon me, madam," said Tom, "but if one has, as you call it, proper wizarding pride—and proper
decorum, naturally—does it really matter if one is a Muggleborn or a half-blooded wizard?"

The instructor's expression softened as Tom put on his Good Boy face and straightened his
shoulders—enough to show his good posture and fine conformation to best advantage, and but not
enough to tower over the woman in an intimidating or aggressive manner. There was a balance to
it, just as there was in widening his eyes so he looked guileless, but not naïve.

"Officially, it is not in the Ministry's practice to inquire on the parentage of prospective employees
and contractees," said the woman, "but unofficially, good impressions and favourable character
references count for a great deal. And that is not strictly limited to the Ministry."
She glanced in Hermione's direction and gave a sniff of displeasure.

"As a hypothetical question, and just a small matter of personal curiosity," said Tom. "I've
wondered: is it possible to be both a proponent of wizarding pride and social reform? I've nothing
against tradition, you see, but... well, I don't know how to put it any better than this: I'm a
Slytherin."

Tom gave her a bashful smile and lifted one hand to sheepishly brush against the lapel of his
uniform robe, where his Prefect badge was pinned right above his Slytherin crest. "I'm also given
to understand that most modern traditions have had to start somewhere, and being a Slytherin—as I
presume that you might have been not very long ago, Madam—ambition on the grand scale would
hardly be a deterrent to us, would it?"

The instructor (Tom hadn't bothered to learn her name) let off a light laugh and covered her mouth,
while Hermione folded her arms and scowled at him; she could tell that he was playing the boyish
charm up so much that it bordered on being a parody of himself. He couldn't comprehend why she
was upset about it: this flattery, obsequious or not, had in the past gotten Slughorn to unlock the
bookcase in the back of his office after one extended dinner, and from that, Tom and Hermione had
had the chance to look at some of the antique potion books in Sluggy's private collection. Old and
faded things they were, and locked up for good reason—the recipes were very dark, and as the
professor had turned the pages to show off the moving illustrations, Tom had seen one or two
ingredient lists that called for human body parts. It was more exciting reading material than could
be found in the library's Restricted Section, and Slughorn was quick to claim that he only owned
them for their historical value.

"Those who venture into the world of wizarding politics choose their words carefully," the
instructor said. "And they learn which ones their audience considers vulgar. The word 'reform',
Mr. Riddle, to many ears, is synonymous with radicalism... and revolution."

"I see," said Tom, nodding politely. "It may well work for the rest of Europe, but I suppose Britain
prefers to remain above all the upheaval."

"Our Ministry is the pillar of certainty in the midst of chaos and disorder," replied the instructor, her
narrow chest swelling with pride.

After a few more minutes of casual exchange about the Ministry and what kind of job opportunities
were available for someone enrolled for ten N.E.W.T. subjects, he had the woman well buttered up,
and she'd made no more reference or enquiry on the nature of Tom's blood status. Instead, she
praised his dedication and ability, saying that it couldn't be clearer proof that he was a 'proper
wizard'. Tom had a business card pressed on him, embossed with the seal of the Department of
Magical Transportation. Reading the directions listed on the back, he learned that the instructor's
name was Madam Elodia Netherfield of the Apparition Licensing and Examinations Office, and her
Floo connection call number was M.O.M. Level 6/39C.

"Can I make a copy of it?" Hermione asked, when the instructor had gone to berate a group of
Gryffindors who had started playing a game of stick-and-hoop with their wands, having gotten
bored with Apparition practice. (It was foolish of them; the Hogwarts lessons were free, and those
who failed were expected to come back next year, or pay for further lessons and arrange their own
exams during the summer.)

"Why would you want her card?" said Tom, handing it over, whereupon Hermione cast a quick
Geminio to duplicate it. "She's a stuffed shirt who wouldn't recognise innovation unless it whacked
her off at the neck."

"Tom! Shhh!" said Hermione, looking both ways to ensure the instructor was still busy brandishing
her long ruler at the Gryffindors. Dumbledore, the Gryffindor Head of House, just looked bemused
by their antics and hadn't subtracted any points. "I've always been interested in working at this
particular department, I'll have you know. Maybe less, now that I've seen what sort of people work
there, but I can also see the need for fresh ideas. Goodness, a 'pillar of certainty'? I don't advocate
for revolution, not the kind of bloody one that Grindelwald espouses, but surely they must see how
easy it is to slip into stagnation with that kind of thinking."

"And you think you can fix it?"

"If they let me!" said Hermione. "Though I should at some point like to confirm how entrenched
this 'wizarding pride' nonsense goes. It did seem very important to Madam Netherfield, even if the
Ministry won't acknowledge it on paper."

Tom shrugged. "It only matters if you give her opinion any weight. Which I don't."

"Well, of course you don't care, it's not like you're a—"

A pink flush stained Hermione's cheeks before she cut herself off abruptly.

"I'm not a—what?"

"A... a witch," Hermione finished half-heartedly. "Men can be career-minded and aggressive about
it, you see, and everyone will praise them for how assertive and ambitious they are. But women in
the workplace—when we're allowed to take the same positions—will be judged as screeching
harpies for behaving in a similar fashion. It's not very fair at all."

"No, it isn't," agreed Tom; for most of his life, he hadn't put much thought into what was fair or
unfair unless it applied to himself. But the idea of Hermione, his Hermione, being treated poorly
by stupid, parchment-shuffling bureaucrats was, for some reason, personally offensive. "You've
more patience for it than I. I don't believe that politics, especially day-to-day office politics, would
ever suit me."

"I'd still like to tour the Ministry offices," Hermione mused. "I don't have a family friend who
works at the Ministry and has visitor passes to throw around. It's a shame that Hogwarts doesn't do
school tours like Muggle schools do—when I was in primary, we visited a steel foundry, although
that was more for educational purposes than a vocational introduction." She looked up at him, her
eyes alight with sudden inspiration. "Tom, don't you have a Press Badge?"

"Yes," said Tom, who kept it with his bags of galleons in the bottom of his trunk, beneath his
collection of spellcrafting textbooks. Not that anyone in his dorm ever went through his trunk to
borrow a pair of clean socks; he'd trained them all too well for that.

"Would you consider lending it?" said Hermione. "Doesn't it let you interview Ministry workers?"

"Presumably. But I haven't ever tried it."

Tom's limited experience with "journalism" didn't involve reporting news, interviewing important
personages, or discussing the personal lives of politicians or the few celebrities that existed in the
wizarding world, which was limited to professional Quidditch players, their spouses and managers,
stage actors, and the spokeswitches for various garment and cosmetic brands. He'd made it a
solitary job, his only point of contact with another person being his editor, who asked for more or
less content depending on how many pages they needed to fill for the next issue, and forwarded his
fan mail when it began to overflow his London post box.

"Well... do you mind if I borrow it sometime—if you're not using it yourself?"

"I suppose I wouldn't mind..." said Tom.

"Thank you, Tom, you're the best," Hermione said, and then she rushed up and threw her arms
around his middle.

"Of course I am," said Tom, resting his chin on top of Hermione's fluffy hair. "You should tell me
when you want to visit, in advance. That way we can arrange a time to go together."

He enjoyed the feeling of having Hermione so close, which he had missed in the weeks since
Christmas holiday. Their brief moments together were nice, but it always felt like a shadow of the
real article, the way a Conjured object was a transient imitation of something grown out of the earth
and worked by human hands. The inadequacies could be overlooked for the first minute or so, but
the more time one spent scrutinising and comparing the two articles, the greater and more
irrevocable the differences seemed to be.

A few seconds later, Hermione's arms dropped from his sides and she made to step away, but
couldn't, because Tom was still holding on.

"Tom?"

"Hermione."

She let out a heavy sigh. "You do this every time."

"And you know that I'll keep doing it."

"But we're supposed to be practising Apparition!"

"We can practise Apparition like this," said Tom. "Just stay still."

"What are you—"

Tom's arms tightened around Hermione, his eyes narrowing as he focused on the hoop a few feet
away. He'd Apparated without splinching, and that was due to having a clear visualisation of
himself, before imagining the transition to nothingness and then out the other side. It was a bit
tricky to add Hermione's mass to his visualisation, but he was beyond passing familiar with her size
and shape.

Pop!

The sensation, as usual, hadn't got any more tolerable the more times he'd Disapparated. If he had
to describe the feeling, it was like passing through a turnstile gate while someone else was trying to
get through from the other direction at the same time, pressing the bars down on him with more and
more force to barge their way past, while another set of bars at his back dug into him like the
springs of his orphanage mattress. It was uncomfortable, but when he considered it, it wasn't as
disorienting as living in two bodies simultaneously, or returning to his own body after accustoming
himself to having eight segmented limbs.

This pain—no, not even pain; he'd learned what true pain was over Christmas holiday, and this was
simply a mild discomfort—was short-lived and worth suffering, for the speed and convenience it
gave to magical transportation.

Hermione staggered and tripped on the edge of the hoop—which wasn't meant to fit more than one
person—but Tom caught her until she'd found her feet.

"Tom!" Hermione cried, looking slightly green, and to his pleasure, she'd resumed her hold around
his waist.

"As you said, I am the best," said Tom.

It seemed that Slughorn agreed with him, for Tom was soon awarded another twenty-five points for
a successful Side-Along Apparition. It wasn't tested on the examination, but it was a fair indication
that one had mastered Apparition. For his demonstration, Madam Netherfield gave Tom an
approving nod and wrote him a note that excused him from the rest of the student practice sessions
up to the group exam date set for late April.

At the end of the lesson, both Hermione and Nott had managed to Apparate without splinching,
which won ten points each for Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

The textbooks said that prior experience with Side-Along Apparition made independent Apparition
easier for the student trainee; passengers felt the squeeze of the transition just as strongly as the
navigator, and learning to grasp that peculiar phase of "non-being" as required was the whole
purpose of their Ministry-overseen lessons. Tom was pleased to note that his own practical
experimentation had culminated in Hermione's own success—though he kept the information to
himself, not wanting to dim the delighted grin that had spread over her face once she'd landed in
her own hoop for the first time.

Nott, he assumed, had prior experience Apparating with his house elf servant, that wrinkly little
thing he'd seen in the hospital foyer that resembled a hairless ladies' lapdog, only overgrown and
walking around on two legs. It even had a dog's collar, which matched the one he'd seen in Nott's
memories, golden and imprinted with runes, sealed around the throat of the grey hound with a
longer coat and sturdier build than the one his father owned.

Had owned, rather.

The memories that he'd gotten from the boy were still confusing, even weeks after their...
confrontation. It was unlike the times he'd delved through the Acromantula's mind, or even his
father's; afterwards, he'd gone back to the room in the dungeons where the spider had been locked
up over Christmas, and tested his skill on it, and he'd found that, no, it hadn't deteriorated over the
break, and he could rummage through the monotonous internal routines of sleeping in a wooden
box and eating melted chicken, just as he'd done months ago.

Nott was the anomaly: he'd resisted Tom's power. Not entirely—Tom had seen him, seen his mind,
been him, in that short time he'd had access to the boy's mind. But it hadn't been free access, had
it? Half the images he'd seen were from his own memories, and the ones that weren't, the threads
of colour and sound that he'd tried to catch and follow to their source, had been barred from his
reach. He'd been told that mind magic was a rare and restricted art; Dumbledore had lectured him
during their teatime conversations, giving a stern warning on the value of discretion and prudence
when it came to exercising his talents outside of the professor's office. If he hadn't been told, Tom
would have suspected Nott of performing basic Occlumency.

It was curious, especially as the first time he'd really used his powers to delve into a human mind, it
had been Nott's mind, in the dormitory bathroom over a year ago. Nott had tried to resist then, and
their connection had snapped after he'd broken off eye contact. It bore further study, as the most
interesting things he'd seen this time around were scenes of Nott's childhood. They were as
interesting as watching Hermione's owl, Gilles, devour garden voles on his bedroom windowsill—
educational, surely, and entertaining if there weren't any orphans in dire need of disciplinary
reinforcement, but in the end they hadn't provided him with the answers he'd been seeking.

They hadn't given Tom anything incriminating.

What, for instance, was the nature of Nott's peculiar relationship with Hermione Granger? There
was no trace of her in his memory. Why would Nott risk his life on what Tom had assumed was a
bluff? Was it even a bluff?

He was absolutely certain that Nott was guilty of something—it was just a matter of finding out
what it was.

The truce they'd made wouldn't stop him from looking for an ulterior motive. It would be foolish
not to look deeper, because people didn't chase wild geese for no reason. They did it because they
believed that those geese were real, and were capable of laying golden eggs.

No one sought the Fountain of Fair Fortune unless they had a magical wish for which they'd risk
the journey. To his detriment, he knew the story that Nott had mentioned, as it had been a stage
play put on a few years ago by Professor Beery and a dozen students who'd stayed at the castle for
Christmas holiday. Tom had also looked up the Hallows in the library card catalogue and had been
directed to a tatty old children's book in the wizarding literature section, a shelf that contained
many romance novels with titles like The Landgrave of Castle Cöpenick or The Mysterious Mister
Maximilian, adorned with lurid frontispieces of pale-faced young men with severe widow's peaks,
frothy lace cravats, and extravagant frock coats. (He assumed that this was the type of literature
that was written for an audience of young witches, the same way Le Jardin Parfumé was prized by
young wizards.)

Those who hunted the Hallows were the same sort of person, who, in the Muggle world, would
have been after Excalibur, the Holy Grail, or bits of the True Cross. These people were under the
mistaken impression that uniting these historical relics would make them the Rightful King of
England, or the next Pope, or grant them divine powers—and that last one was ridiculous to Tom,
who knew that divine powers were a question of birth, not bequest. Collecting magical sticks
wouldn't make Muggles magical, even if they'd once been owned by the likes of Jesus Christ or
Garrick Ollivander.

Nott wanted to find the Chamber of Secrets.

This was a topic not so easily found in the Hogwarts library, falling as it did in the murky area
between wizarding history and magical folklore. Tom knew, as every junior Slytherin did, about
the history of their House's founder, Salazar Slytherin. It had been a story the Prefects had told by
the Common Room fireplace back in First Year, and it was taught more as a moral lesson than an
objective recounting of historical fact. Slytherin had been a great wizard; he'd quarrelled with his
co-founders; he left the castle but was remembered to this very day by his proud successors, which
included this year's intake of Firsties, yes indeed...

Tom, listening to the Prefects, had taken it as an origin story, and like most origin stories—
especially ones imparted to young children—had soon relegated it in his mind as blatant
propaganda at worst, and inconsequential trivia at best.

Who cared about Salazar Slytherin? Hogwarts was the man's greatest work, and he had been so
unwise as to argue with his colleagues three against one, instead of cornering them one-by-one and
persuading them to his side in slow increments, starting with Rowena Ravenclaw. (She seemed
like the most sensible and pragmatic of the three.) That was the real lesson there, that sometimes
one had to compromise, or at least pander to the audience, to get what one wanted from them.

(The most sensible decision, as Tom had deduced after hearing the tale, had been for Slytherin to
outwardly agree with the other founders, while keeping his personal experiments and ideals a
secret. Tom had read in The Times about the concept of the 'Fifth Column', an infiltrator who
undermined a group from the inside, and thought Slytherin could have made a good Fourth Column
had he been more inclined toward subtlety.)

The weeks passed toward April, and Nott set about uncovering more information on the Chamber,
while Tom maintained his distance, indifferent to the prospect of contributing to the quest. There
were other things to distract him: Apparition lessons were no longer on his agenda, but the end of
Sixth Year was drawing close, and with it came Hermione's stressing about the N.E.W.T.s, looking
into career opportunities after school, and her ever-present anxiety about the state of the war.
London and the Home Counties were still being raided by the Germans, and on the Continent, it
didn't look as if the volunteer resistance against Grand Minister Grindelwald was making much
headway.

The Muggles had made some efforts into liberating Southern Europe, but on the magical side,
Grindelwald still had a strong core of support in occupied Scandinavia and central Europe.
Wizards on the Continent didn't pay much attention to modern political borders, but language and
social class were a uniting factor, and members of the monied classes of each magical nation—
those who were both influential and well-placed—had in recent months become targets of
conversion... or destruction.

Hermione had been upset about this, reading the newspapers forwarded to her from the
underground press in Leiden. She compared them to the headlines of The Daily Prophets she'd
borrowed from Clarence Fitzpatrick, which relayed the usual procession of Quidditch scores,
human-interest stories, and gaudy moving photographs of the latest society birthday or engagement
announcement.

"We ought to pay a visit to the Ministry before the holidays," she said. "You're a journalist, Tom!
If anyone could find out what the Ministry of Magic is suppressing, it's you."

"I'd never be able to publish anything classified," Tom pointed out. He doubted his readership, who
had minimal patience for things that couldn't improve the quality of their daily lives, would find
anything of interest in international news.

"No," said Hermione slowly, "but it'll be worth it to know if the Ministry is even doing anything
about the war. And if they're not..." She trailed off, her lips pursing and her expression twisted into
one of conflicted apprehension. "Well, we're both adults by wizarding standards now, so I can't
 stop you from thinking about an Order of Merlin, since I know you well enough to suspect that not
bringing it up in conversation all the time doesn't mean you've forgotten about it..."

"I haven't," Tom confirmed. "But I'm surprised that you aren't trying to dissuade me."

"To be truthful," said Hermione, "I don't think I could. But I know that if I told you to be careful
and think through your decisions—instead of being impatient and greedy—you'd listen to me."

"The fact that you don't believe it when I say that we were meant for each other," said Tom, looking
so intently at Hermione that she looked away and down at her hands, "astounds me."

Chapter End Notes

Another unnecessarily long chapter of delusional Tom being delusional. If this version of Tom
was a Muggle millennial, he'd be the bento box lunch making husband who shows up at
workplace barbecues with duck confit and a homemade lattice top pie and makes everyone
jealous of how Instagram-perfect he is at everything.

"There is no good or evil, only legitimacy and those who lack the foresight to seek it," is a play
on a classic Voldemort quote. It's a sign of how much development Tom's character has
undergone in that he recognises there are other types of power than pure magical prowess.
However, he still doesn't recognise conventional morality.

Credit for the Department of Magical Transportation logo goes to the movie graphic design
team, Mina Lima.
 Authorised Visitors

1944

The concept of 'Slytherin politics' was a blatant misnomer.

First of all, it wasn't anything close to real politics, which was a game of grand visions backed by
gunboats, velvet gloves, vested interests, and demographic solicitation.

Real world politics had costs and consequences, and a reach far greater than the population of one
rambling castle in the Scottish highlands. The 'politics'—if such a word could be applied to
Hogwarts—was not much different to that of Hermione's Muggle primary school; it consisted of a
handful of notables who climbed their way up by cultivating an arbitrary list of personal attributes,
the most important of which was their popularity amongst students and teachers.

And secondly: politicking wasn't limited to Slytherins.

Members of any House could be popular, or be desirous of popularity. Tiberius McLaggen, of the
Grandtully McLaggens, was a Gryffindor and a blusterer; instead of changing into his uniform in
his locker room or dormitory after practice like every other member of a House team, he wore his
Gryffindor Quidditch robes to meals, sweaty and windswept and roguishly dishevelled. Bernard
MacMillan of Hufflepuff, cousin-by-marriage to Head Girl Lucretia Black and the Fifth Year
Slytherin Prefect, Orion Black, made that fact—along with his other connections—clear from first
introduction; he introduced himself to as many people as he could for this very reason.

But whatever Hermione personally made of it, it was undeniable that Tom Riddle was the most
popular student at Hogwarts, favoured by most of the professors and well-regarded by his
classmates and peers, as an "Alright fellow, for a Slytherin", a compliment made even greater by the
lack of any vocal disagreement. Among Slytherins, Tom was much esteemed; he'd soundly beaten
everyone his own age in academics or duelling, and assisted all those younger with schoolwork or
exam advice as part of his Prefect duties. Popular consensus had firmly decided that he would be
next year's Head Boy, and when asked about it during his weekly Slug Club dinners, Professor
Slughorn's typical response was to wag a sticky, sugar-dusted finger and drop a meaningful wink.

Among Slytherins, Nott was at the lowest rung of popularity for their year, which Hermione had
thought odd for someone with a close connection with the infamous book, The Pure-Blood
Directory. But as she'd grown to know him, Hermione realised that he lacked the social dexterity
to massage his own reputation, as Tom would have done, had he been such a figure of notoriety or
controversy. Beyond that, Nott was supercilious to a fault: where his father had alienated a
number of wealthy, prominent pureblooded families—the Diggories, the Potters, the Smiths—for
their political leanings, Nott dismissed anyone he believed to be unworthy of his time and
association, which appeared to include just about everyone at Hogwarts.

It would be unusual—remarkable, really—for Nott to associate with other students for anything
other than academic obligation. For many years, this aloofness had served him well; Hermione had
reason to think that Nott enjoyed being distant and unapproachable—which Tom was too, but he, in
contrast, had constructed an impression of cool dignity rather than Nott's sullen arrogance. And
just as Nott avoided other people, everyone else in turn had enjoyed not having to deal with him.
But now, under the pressure of a time-limited task, it was interesting seeing Nott try to scramble for
favours.

Hermione had gotten into the habit of staying at the library until the librarian extinguished the
lamps at eight in the evening. She knew that Tom would invite her to dinner with Professor
Slughorn on Friday nights, and those went on past ten o'clock before Slughorn finished passing
around the cheese platter and had taken a look at his hourglass. Since she, Tom, and many of their
fellow Sixth Years had observed their seventeenth birthdays in the past half year, Slughorn hadn't
hesitated to break open the wine and his favourite oak-matured mead, and it was due to this that
Hermione had taken to writing off Friday evenings and the following Saturday morning when it
came to her homework schedule.

She was in the library one Thursday evening, not long after they'd had their first Apparition lesson
with a Ministry representative. She'd been frustrated at how difficult it had been to Apparate—
she'd expected to succeed by the end of her first lesson, in the same manner that she always
understood a new concept or mastered a new technique by the time the professor called an end to
the day's class. She hadn't, and it was extremely irksome; she'd decided to read over all the
textbooks that the library could offer on the subject. Perhaps her lack of proficiency had been due
to the Ministry instructor not explaining Apparition well enough. If that was the case, then it was
better to get a second, third, or fourth opinion from multiple other sources.

That was where Nott cornered her, a heavy parchment folio clamped under his arm.

"I've found some more information on the whereabouts of the Chamber, Granger," Nott announced,
striding up to her table without wasting time on a greeting. "You have to look at this!"

He slapped the folio down over her open textbook, scattering quills over the table.

"You're dragging me into this?" Hermione said, sliding her inkwell over to the side before it could
be tipped over by Nott's stack of musty parchments. "You were the one who made the deal with
him—without giving me a word in advance, thanks."

It was that to which Hermione most took offence; she made sure Nott could not mistake her tone
and bearing for anything other than displeasure.

"It has everything to do with you," said Nott, not put off by Hermione's stiffly folded arms and
refusal to budge over to one side of the desk. He summoned a chair from another table across the
aisle and slid it right next to hers. "You're the one who said that Tom Riddle deserved a useless
courtesy title in lieu of his misbegotten uncle, Morfin Gaunt. This is how he's going to get it, don't
you see? The true Heir of Slytherin is the wizard who can open the Chamber of Secrets."

"And you think you can make yourself the next Merlin?" said Hermione.

"What are you on about?" said Nott. "Only Riddle is so arrogant as to think something like that."

"The Chamber—the quest for the true Heir!" cried Hermione. "By tomorrow, you'll be looking for
stones to hide swords in."

"Oh, Granger," said Nott, giving her a sharp look, "you make it sound so blunt and unflattering.
But I do see what you mean. Riddle, as much potential as we both know he has, is a newcomer to
proper wizarding society. Old lineage or not. Can't be helped, but it can be countervailed. Riddle,
if he wants to get anywhere, needs a guide. A mentor. An advisor to show him the way things are
done here."

"Professor Slughorn has been willing to take him on since First Year," Hermione pointed out.
"Why would Tom listen to you?"

"Old Sluggy wants Riddle to join the Ministry and make a respectable man of himself," Nott
scoffed. "As respectable as a man can be when he's the Undersecretary's junior filing clerk and
glorified tea boy." He leaned in closer to Hermione, his pale eyes flinty under the glow of the desk
lamp. "He's better than that—I know it, and you know it. Riddle'll know it too, once he sees and
recognises his true heritage. I know what he's like—too much for comfort lately—and he'll come
around when I show him that the Chamber is real. What it means. And what it's capable of."

"I don't know why you keep saying it's real."

"It is!" said Nott, pushing over the folio to her side of the desk. "I've dug out some new
information—here."

Reluctantly, Hermione opened up the front cover, revealing a stack of crinkled papers, spotted
along the margins with inkblots and red smears that looked to be strawberry jam. There were even
little strawberry seeds stuck between the pages.

The pages, once she began to read them, were in Nott's neat handwriting; it contained a list of
entries that together formed a rough timeline of the Gaunt family. Line after line of genealogical
charts, beginning in the fourteenth century, the Early Modern English almost impenetrable to her
contemporary eyes. The family of Gaunt had planted its roots in Ireland, had branches written out
on half-sheets stuffed in between, forming appendices that listed off-shoots of the family, and
showed a trail of documentation that had petered off by the mid-nineteenth century.

One of the last entries of the eighteen-hundreds—and the most detailed one of that century—was a
bill of transfer copied from the Department of Administrative Registration, notifying the Ministry
of a change in status of an Irish wizarding residence. The property had been formerly registered to,
as the document proclaimed, "The Family of Gaunt"; the lines of tiny text at the bottom revealed
that it was now de-listed, with no new residence recorded under their name, and any administrative
fees for that property would be charged to a new account. There was no name for the new owner,
only a Gringotts vault number and a reference to a Goblin's name, followed by a line of symbols
written in Gobbledygook.

"This was all the publicly available information I could get on short notice," said Nott, watching
her go through the papers. "The Ministry will let you apply for personal records through owl
enquiry as long as they're defunct—the Gaunts don't own that property anymore, but they'd refuse
my request if I asked for the current registration records on Malfoy's house."

"Publicly available." Hermione paused, sifting through his words to find their meaning. She'd
used that phrase herself before, and while it came off as forthright to any casual listener, the
implication was obvious. "There's more information, isn't there?"

"I knew you'd understand," said Nott, nodding in approval. "If there's anything that Ravenclaws
are good for, it's word games."

"What is it that you're looking for in particular?" asked Hermione. She wasn't going to tell Nott
that she was going to fall in with his plan, but there was nothing wrong with hearing him out first.
She'd heard enough of Tom's ridiculous plans in the past, including an absurd one to lure Professor
Dumbledore's pet phoenix out of his office with lemon caraway tea biscuits, then trim its tail
feathers for potion experimentation. "It's got to be something that you think I can find, and you
can't."

"Information on the Gaunts. Corvinus Gaunt, to be precise," said Nott. "I've got a copy of his
basic biography in my family's library, but the Ministry has an archive with more information than
his date of birth and death, his bloodline, his wife's bloodline, and the number of sons he sired on
her. Corvinus was one of the last generations of the Gaunt family to have attended Hogwarts, and
after graduation, served as a member of the Hogwarts Board of Governors. The Ministry of
Magic's private archive ought to have a record of motions he'd brought up to the Board, and what
funding the Ministry approved in his name.

"I've a theory that the Heirs of Slytherin—the scions of the Gaunt line—must have known where
the Chamber of Secrets was hidden. You've said it yourself that people have gone looking for it
over the years, and found nothing at all... But I think it's more likely that people have found it—
how could any modern wardmaster not notice strong magical distortions around a concealment
ward? Magic, especially great magic, leaves traces! But no one's said anything because there's
been a conspiracy to keep it covered up—"

Hermione coughed.

"Sorry," she said, pressing one hand over her mouth, the other waving at him to continue. "Go on.
I'm listening."

Nott shot her an irritated glare. "The castle of today isn't the same castle that the founders built a
thousand years ago. Headmasters of the past have had construction wizards in and out of the
grounds—professional draughtsman, enchanters, and artificers—to renovate sections or bring them
up to modern standards. The clock in the Clock Tower was put in two centuries after the founders
died; before that, they had a bell to mark the hours. The giant orrery and telescopes in the
Astronomy Tower were brought up in pieces and installed four centuries ago. Before that, a student
who wanted full marks in Astronomy took a Supersensory Potion to improve his eyesight for an
exam; he went blind with a bad brew so the Board had to do something when the parents
complained."

"That wasn't in Hogwarts: A History," remarked Hermione, pursing her lips as she tried to
remember the chapters dedicated to the construction of the castle. Building the castle had been the
work of decades, and the village of Hogsmeade had grown around it, housing and feeding the
earliest students when Hogwarts had been one central keep containing the Great Hall and the
founders' original scriptoria, instead of a proper live-in boarding school.

She recalled the few paragraphs saying that Hogwarts had once had a chapel on the grounds, but it
had fallen out of favour not long before the Statute, and students dedicated to their faith had been
escorted to the nearest Muggle village, Dufftown, twenty miles away for their Sunday services.
The Hufflepuff House ghost, the Fat Friar, had once been a school chaplain in the old days when
that had been an official title.

But the book, published this century, had spent more time describing changes made this and last
century than anything older. The biggest change, of course, had been the construction of
Hogsmeade Station to accommodate the Hogwarts Express. That had been followed with the
enchanted carriages and the boatshed; the boat ride into the castle had become a First Year
tradition, when before that, parents brought their children straight up to the path by the front gates,
under the watchful eyes of the winged boar statues.

"Everything's kept in the Board of Governors' records, my father says. He isn't a member, but his
great-uncle was, last century," said Nott. "There was also a big furore back then about the kitchens
—students wrote their parents about the lack of variety in the meals, always frummenty for
breakfast, pease and pudding for dinner, and roasts each feast. They wanted pasties, white bread,
and sweet risen cakes like they got at home, or could buy in Hogsmeade. The Prophet ran the
story, Howlers were passed around, and the Board eventually put a motion in their monthly panel.

"Obviously," Nott continued loftily, lifting up his nose, "it was really a matter of traditionalists who
thought students should have the same things they got when they were in school, and the
modernists who wanted Hogwarts to match up to the standards of the other European schools—the
French one had been selling itself for years on the quality of its dinner menus; they even served a
homemade wine vintage for the older students. As far as I know, the vote came in close, the
modernists on the Board won, and they had wizarding artificers in the next week to replace the old
roasting racks with new ovens."

Hermione found the history of wizarding culture a fascinating anthropological study, whereas Tom
had always been ambivalent about it; he had little interest in the lives of dead wizards unless they'd
invented or done something that he could use in his own magical studies. Nott, on the other hand,
appreciated history, and although Hermione thought his reverence for wizarding tradition was taken
to an unhealthy extreme, his scholarly enthusiasm was genuine.

"So," Hermione ventured, "you're saying that the Chamber of Secrets is hidden in the Hogwarts
kitchens?"

"No," Nott said, his tone short with impatience, "I'm saying that the Board of Governors records
each motion proposed and passed by its members. Officially, they want to keep a record for
posterity, but the real reason is to check the minutes if it turns out a member was using school
funds to invest in his own business—it wouldn't be fair on the other members if they didn't get a cut
too, so they enforced accountability on everyone. But we can use that: Corvinus Gaunt's voting
record is on file in the Ministry, kept in the archives under the aegis of the Department of Magical
Education. If there's anything he tried to cover up during his stint on the Board, it has to be there."

"I suppose it's not the worst place to start," Hermione conceded. "Why haven't you gotten the
information yet? I don't approve of the deal you made with Tom, but you did agree to it, and there
was a time limit involved. Surely you haven't been sitting on your hands this whole time."

"It's not that easy to sneak out of the castle and back without being noticed," said Nott, scowling.
"You'd have a better go of it than me, with your Prefect badge and do-good reputation. If there's
anyone else that the teachers fawn over more than Riddle, it's you."

"Thank you," said Hermione, who had almost gotten used to Nott's habit of sprinkling his
compliments with unsubtle criticism. "But I can't help feeling that you're only saying it because
you want me to do something."

"Cover for me on the day of the Apparition examinations, so I can get to the Ministry and back
before dinner. That's the best date to do it: the Heads expect the Sixth Year Prefects to be taking
their exams and won't assign any patrols on that day, while all the teachers'll be busy ensuring that
no one dies of splinching."
Hermione frowned. "Why do you need me to cover you? If you're earnest about collecting
information to fulfill your side of the deal, then Tom could do it in my place. He is a Slytherin
Prefect."

"Because he'll want to come with me," said Nott, his jaw tightening. "And I prefer to work alone."

"You're working with me!"

"Not because I want to, Granger," Nott retorted, brushing aside her indignation with a dispassionate
shrug. "And because anything is better than having Riddle breathing down my neck."

"It's really not that bad," said Hermione defensively—without considering her words. She hadn't
minded the feeling of Tom's breath on the back of her neck. She quite vividly remembered the
Tom of the holidays who was prickly when he hadn't taken his medicine, but very affectionate and
tactile once he had. It had taken some time to get used to it, but it hadn't been an unpleasant
experience to wake up in the morning with his arms holding her in an intimate embrace.

(She could see why Tom would be so partial to it, and prefer that it not be limited to special
occasions like birthdays or Christmas, but Tom's fumbled justifications on the value of
"convenience" had not endeared the idea to her.)

Nott would have no idea about that, of course, but he seemed to discern the true meaning of what
she'd just said; his eyes widened and his response was cut off by a loud choking sound.

"You'd know better than I, wouldn't you?" was his eventual reply, words spoken with a tinge of
startlement. Nott cleared his throat and proceeded, this time in a cool voice, "Well, out of the two
of us, I have too much dignity than to let Riddle fondle me whenever he pleases. That's why I need
a way to leave the school grounds alone, without anyone—especially him—noticing that I'm gone."

"I... could pretend to catch you out past curfew and get Hipworth to assign a detention on that day,"
Hermione put forward, hesitating. "Or I could go with you. I've never been to the Ministry before
—I didn't even know they had an archive—"

"Unnecessary," said Nott quickly, cutting her off. "You don't know your way around, the people
have never heard of your family name or connections, and you'll only get in my way."

"I know how find my way around a library," Hermione said. "And I'm faster at using the card
index than you are!"

Nott gave no acknowledgement of her argument, continuing on obliviously, "It's more trouble than
it's worth. You don't know how to find the archives, let alone get in and out. You just said you've
never been there before—"

"Well, you can show me. I'm sure I'll catch on quickly."

"I'd be in and out faster if I didn't have to drag you along."

"Then it sounds like you can do perfectly well without needing my help," said Hermione, sniffing
and turning away. She closed the folio over the stack of parchments and shoved it back to Nott.

She'd appreciated that Nott was relatively straightforward when he wanted something, but when he
wanted to be sneaky, he became infuriating beyond belief—not because he was feeding her lies, but
because he had a way of deflecting closer scrutiny through minor personal insults. She was torn
between assuming they were his genuine thoughts and what he exaggerated to fan the flames of
reactionary outrage.

Having figured out what Nott was doing, and aware that he was likely doing it on purpose,
Hermione still couldn't quash her instant affront, artificially engineered or otherwise. He wanted
her to object to his rudeness—he had little tact, but she'd observed in the past that he had more than
this. He wanted her to go along with his plan—intrigue her with a taste of information that he'd
waved under her nose—and reject the opportunity to spend time with in person, after giving her a
taste of the low-level antagonism that she could expect if she did attempt to accompany him on a
clandestine journey off school grounds.

It was crude, and it reminded her of the ham-handed habits of little boys on the playground when
they thought one of their female classmates was pretty. They had no other way to articulate their
admiration, other than to make comment on her appearance or mannerisms in a disparaging
fashion. Hermione, however, refused to entertain the notion that Nott admired her; over the course
of the year that she'd known him, she'd heard his petty insinuations multiple times, and had formed
a solid impression that his words had nothing to do with amorous incompetence, and more to do
with his own unmannerly nature. He didn't consider her a proper lady, therefore there was no
reason to act a proper gentleman.

(One of the things she'd liked about Tom Riddle upon first meeting him was how he never made
reference to her appearance. When he argued with her, trying to counter her points of debate, he
countered them in discourse, without having to resort to discrediting her as a person. He didn't try
to be kind about it, especially when he thought her ideologies too soft to be applicable for the real
world, but at least he understood the workings of proper rhetoric.)

Well, then, she thought. Let Nott try and make plans around me if he wants to. It didn't mean that I
have to go along with them.

She was still frustrated with Nott's plan to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, and draw Tom into it by
baiting him with his own greed. Through that, she had been made aware of the reasons why Nott
had been so interested in the lineage of Morfin Gaunt in the first place, and beyond that, how much
information he'd been keeping close to his own chest. This whole time, she was fully aware that
she hadn't told Nott the full extent of her own knowledge... but that was completely different.

"And if I'm so much of a bother, then I suppose I'll stop bothering you now," she spoke in a clipped
voice, swinging the strap of her bag over her shoulder. "Have a good evening, then."

Hermione drew her wand from her robe pocket and Banished her textbooks to the correct shelves,
gathering her stationery and dumping them into her book bag. She stood up and pushed her chair
back from the table.

Nott was struck silent, gaping at her for a few seconds, before he collected his wits and scrambled
after her, chair scraping over the floor, parchment folio jammed under his arm.

"Granger!" he cried, "Granger, wait!"

Hermione left him at the returns desk, where he'd been stopped by the librarian and berated for
yelling in the library. He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet in his impatience to get
away, but her view of him was soon obstructed by the closing of the library door.
The seeds of Hermione's plan had formed during an Apparition lesson, right after the Ministry
instructor lectured them on the format of the final license-approval examination. The woman had
wandered over to judge Tom's progress as one of the few students who had made some strides in
successful Disapparation, and after their conversation about career opportunities at the Ministry of
Magic, Tom was given a card with the woman's office and department directions.

Elodia B. Netherfield
Senior Instructor and Examiner
Apparition Licensing and Examinations
Office and Floo Network No. 39/C
Ministry of Magic Level Six

The Ministry of Magic was just like any government institution, Muggle or Magical: its primary
purpose, as elucidated by Madam Netherfield, was to serve its constituents. As of last September,
Hermione was an adult witch, a member of magical society with a wizarding home registered under
her name. She'd looked it up, and had seen that she was afforded certain rights, including the
ability to petition the Chief Warlock, or request a trial under the full Wizengamot if convicted of a
crime.

She didn't need Nott to get into the Ministry, did she?

Not when she had a goal (the Ministry archives) and a reasonable excuse to visit the Ministry (an
inquiry about licenses and career opportunities in the department). Large institutions had much in
common with one another: at Hogwarts, she had seen Tom wander about the castle, and as long as
he walked with a purposeful stride and had an excuse prepared about doing this or that favour for
Professor Slughorn, the Head Girl couldn't push him into overseeing a detention in her stead, or
tutor a struggling Fourth Year student for next year's O.W.L.s.

Though Tom was better at "fact interpretation", a euphemism he used when he wanted to fluster her
in public, Hermione disapproved of the way he saw fit to reinterpret facts for any and all
occasions. She couldn't, however, deny its utility in the right circumstance. The "right"
circumstance wasn't frivolous, like Tom fabricating an explanation for why he couldn't undertake a
menial task involving busywork or younger students. The right circumstance, Hermione had
concluded, involved things greater than one's personal leisure.

She'd made up her mind to visit the Ministry of Magic by the end of the Apparition lesson, and
Tom had made up his mind to accompany her. It had made her somewhat apprehensive—not for
the same reason as Nott's unease—but because the Gaunts were tied up with the Slytherin lineage
and the Chamber of Secrets, and it was a precarious position to be in where discharging the life
debt meant revealing the facts she'd discovered in the past year since she'd first met with Nott under
the shadow of Hipparchus the Stargazer.
But once the plans were made and the date was set, there was no way to delay them.

The Twenty-Ninth of April, a Saturday, was the date of their Apparition examinations. Hermione
was nervous about taking them—though not as nervous as she was about sneaking off Hogwarts
grounds without permission from her Head of House, despite being an adult and knowing that such
permissions were a courtesy rather than a legal requirement as the Hogsmeade forms were treated
with the Third Years. Nevertheless, the teachers had a responsibility to care for the welfare of all
students, even the adults, and Hermione felt a twinge of guilt at shirking it when they had trusted
her enough to award her a Prefectship.

Tom, on the other hand, was excited; he kept glancing over to the Ravenclaw table from where he
sat with the Slytherins of his year, most of whom were nervously going through their notes or
scribbling helpful hints on their hands with indelible ink. The Apparition exam was a practical test
without a written portion (a shame, as Hermione knew she would have excelled at it) and thus it
was acceptable, if rather gauche, to bring one's study materials in front of the examiners.

(On the other hand, Apparition was all about a wizard's confidence, and seeing students shuffle
their note cards was a cue to the Mediwizard that he should prepare himself for an imminent
splinching.)

The exam was simple: Apparate into a circle painted on the floor while a Ministry examiner
officiated, then Apparate again into another circle hidden behind a folding screen. Afterwards,
there was a form to fill out for the license itself, of which she got a copy to keep. Hermione was
told to keep the license on her person at all times, but in the many times she'd passed through the
alley behind the Leaky Cauldron or the village square of Hogsmeade, she'd seen plenty of wizards
and witches Apparate in her presence, but no one had ever been asked to present their
qualifications.

Hermione and Tom had volunteered themselves first, with a string of volunteers following after
them, consisting of around a dozen students. Most of them were Gryffindors; the rest were a
handful of Seventh Year students who had failed or deferred the exam the previous year and
preferred to take it with the Sixth Years, as an alternative to going to the Ministry and paying the
fee to take it during the summer.

After receiving their licenses, they had the rest of the day to do as they pleased—everyone else in
their year would be too busy preparing or taking their own exams to look for them. As the first to
complete their exams, they were just in time to slip in with the stream of students heading into
Hogsmeade for the weekend.

Hermione wore her Ravenclaw school robes over a plain blouse and skirt, instead of her full
uniform; Tom wore the same.

Gesturing at her to follow, he led her to The Hog's Head, then behind it to the deserted stableyard,
where they stuffed their robes into their bags, removing their school ties and badges to look like
normal wizarding adults and not Hogwarts students. Tom knotted one of his Muggle neckties
under the collar of his uniform shirt, then threw on a basic black robe to cover it; it was
undecorated apart from a fastening pin in the shape of a silver snake with eyes of jet beads.

Hermione had on a modern witch's coat over her blouse, bought from the discount rack at Gladrags'
the other week. It was a tad heavy for the season, boiled wool in mustard yellow with a quilted
lining, a last remnant of the shop's winter line, but it looked "adult". The lapels were sharp, the
buttons carved horn, and the waist darted in tightly to give it a shape that the Hogwarts uniform
lacked—both boys and girls were sold the same uniform robes, with no distinction made between
sex, only size and seam length.

On a Saturday morning, Hogsmeade was bustling, and the regular patrons of The Hog's Head had
already begun drifting in. Hermione had seen few people venture into this pub during the times
she'd supervised Hogsmeade trips as a Prefect, as most preferred the atmosphere and menu quality
delivered by The Three Broomsticks, located just up the road. She wasn't surprised by the quality
of the regulars today; from a brief glance, she'd seen that none of them cared about good food or a
welcoming ambience. Tom wasn't surprised either; he threw a few looks over his shoulder to the
bar, where the publican was wiping down the counter with a dirty rag, but made no comment as he
ushered her over to the fireplace.

She would have expected Tom to have plenty of things to say about "peons", and the inherent
weakness of character that led to their succumbing to such common displays of degeneracy. But he
kept his mouth shut, stepping gingerly past the occupied tables and wincing when a patron let off a
gassy belch in his direction. He only paused when they got to the fireplace, its bricks blackened
with soot and a strange chunky stain on the hearth, brown with yellowish splatters and sparkling
where it caught the lamplight.

Spilled Floo powder, she assumed, but refrained from thinking more deeply on it as Tom reached
up to the jar on the mantel, and enunciated in a clear voice.

"Ministry of Magic, London!"

Hermione uttered the same location, tossing in a handful of glittering sand, and followed him into
the roaring green flames.

Similar to Apparition, there was a sensation of compression, a disorienting green swirl of images,
as if someone had dangled her upside-down out of a train window, while it was zooming at fifty
miles per hour past a thick woodland in full spring leaf. She was blasted by a great bellowing wind
from all sides, with as much force as standing at the prow of a ferry in a high squall; her ears
popped, and her sensible leather school shoes slipped and skidded as she was tossed out of The
Hog's Head fireplace, pressed through a narrow space like cream frosting in a piping funnel, then
spat out the other end, onto the smooth glazed tile of the Ministry of Magic's atrium.

On a Saturday, the Atrium was deserted of its usual crowd of guests and workers; there was no
queue at the fireplace like she'd seen in the Leaky Cauldron's public room when she'd visited Tom
during the summer. From here, she could see to the far end of the Atrium, a furlong of polished
dark wood that reflected the light of dozens of gilded lamps, up to a gilded golden gate at the far
end of the hall. Her view of the gates and the security desk guarding it was interrupted by an
ostentatious fountain, the central water feature shaped like larger-than-life figures standing around a
proud, bearded wizard holding an upraised wand.

"Come on," said Tom, drawing his wand to clear off the soot stains on her coat. "We should see
what that's about."

The security desk in front of the closed gates was occupied by a witch in brick-red robes, her
sleeves impractically long and flowing. Her lipstick and nail enamel matched the exact shade of
her robes, and she was using those painted nails to flick through the bright, glossy pages of a
magazine.
"The Ministry of Magic requires wizards and witches to state the purpose of their visit and submit
their wands for inspection. Any visitors presenting themselves for court trials, matrimonial,
Animagus, or residential registrations, international Portkey applications, examinations, or license
renewals must lodge their appointment slips during weekday working hours," she recited in one
breath, not lifting her eyes from the pages of her magazine. "If an appointment has not been
booked in advance, the reservation desk opens at nine on Monday morning."

Hermione stepped up to the desk, which was annoyingly set at such a height that she had to crane
her neck to look at the witch sitting behind it. "Reason for visit: to access the Ministry archives."

"The archive is closed to unauthorised visitors on weekends," spoke the receptionist in a bland
voice, giving her a quick glance and, after noting nothing of great interest in Hermione's
appearance, had returned to her magazine with a resigned sigh. "You may mail your requests for
official documents, reports, certifications, and court logs to the Department of Administrative
Registration, and they'll send an answer on Monday."

"Wait—what about authorised visitors?" asked Hermione, who'd had more than enough of the
wizarding world's habit of staffing front desks with unhelpful receptionists. The one at St. Mungo's
had been just as annoying.

"Employees of the Ministry of Magic can go through there." The witch gestured at the golden gate
behind the desk. "If you're not an employee, then you'll have to make an appointment on Monday,
in person or through owl mail. Sorry, dear, but those are the rules."

"I have authorisation," said Tom, speaking up for once. He approached the desk, sliding in front of
Hermione and propping his elbows on the surface, which caused the receptionist to draw herself
back in surprise.

She lifted an eyebrow at him. "You're very young to be a diplomat or an international Auror."

"I'm neither."

"Sorry, doll, but you'll have to—"

Tom reached into his robe pocket and placed something flat and silvery on the security desk.
"Wizarding Britain Society of Journalists official press badge. Does that count as valid
authorisation?"

The receptionist frowned. "Yeees. But only if it's the real thing. May I?"

"Please."

She slid her wand out from the voluminous sleeve of her robes and tapped the surface of Tom's
badge, which lit up and began to glow a ghostly blue-white. "It's real. Very well, then. I'll need
your wands and your names for the records."

Tom, rather reluctantly, handed his wand over to the receptionist, and never took his eyes off her as
she laid it on a scale and peeled a strip of parchment from a slot at the bottom. Tom nudged
Hermione, and she surrendered her own wand, which underwent the same procedure of weighing,
watching, measuring. But it was over soon, and their wands returned, along with a pair of cards on
a length of cord to hang about their necks, printed with the words AUTHORISED VISITOR.
"Your names, sir and madam?"

"Thomas Bertram, journalist. And Hermione... Riddle, editorial assistant," Tom enunciated clearly,
and he seemed perversely pleased at watching the receptionist's quill falter and her hand shake as
she recorded their names into her log book.

"Thomas B-Bertram?" she spluttered. "The Mr. Bertram?"

"I wasn't aware there was any other," said Tom.

"You look nothing like I imagined," said the receptionist, sounding very out of breath.

"Is that a bad thing?" Tom asked.

"No!" the receptionist said hastily. "No, of course not. You're just so... so young!"

"Thank you, I suppose," said Tom. "I find that taking care of oneself is good advice to heed."

"Ah." The receptionist scrambled to find a spare bit of parchment, picking up her quill and dipping
it into her inkwell, before she hesitated and said, "Do you have any tips for looking younger, sir?
You have very nice skin—it's so smooth, not even a single wrinkle!"

"Hmm," said Tom, glancing over at Hermione, whose expression was torn between a mix of
impatience and amusement. "You might try brewing a weekly poultice to enliven the skin. A base
of lanolin, mixed with the following ingredients: powdered arnica leaf to reduce reddened or
swollen skin. Dried kelp soaked in the juice of a medium Bouncing Bulb to firm and rehydrate—
slice it lengthwise and push it through a colander with a wooden ladle, to get the most out of it.
After epilation, use pulped Knotgrass with stems of Motherwort to reduce re-growth and smooth
the skin. I recommend a substitution of Motherwort for nettle oil if you're brewing in winter; it
isn't as good as fresh Motherwort, but its preserved form is available year-round, and it keeps
better."

The witch behind the desk scribbled furiously to keep up, spattering ink over her parchment and the
sleeve of her robe.

"Simmer the mixture to bubbling—don't let it boil over—until the oil is infused, then pass it
through a cheesecloth to filter out the particulates. You should use it while it's still warm, after
cleansing your face with a steamed towel; the Super Steamer spell would be appropriate here. Any
extra poultice should be stored in standard potion vials, or in jars with the food preservation Stasis
Charm I wrote about a few issues ago."

"Issue Thirty-Six, the one with the Kneazle personality quiz," spoke the receptionist eagerly. "I
have a copy of it with me."

"That's the one," said Tom.

"Do you mind signing mine?"

"For a loyal fan?" Tom inclined his head. "I would be happy to."

The witch dug around under the desk, and after a few seconds of rummaging, dropped a magazine
on the counter. She then slid a quill over, which Tom picked up to scrawl his "signature" over the
front cover of the magazine, which depicted an animated portrait of a housewitch in an apron,
floating dishes and cutlery around her head with her wand. At her feet, a fluffy ginger cat batted at
a glistening stream of soap bubbles.

"No one will believe that I met Thomas Bertram," said the witch in a breathy voice, fanning herself
with her magazine, after Tom had signed his 'name' on it.

"If they won't believe it, then I'll add a dedication in next week's correspondence column. 'To my
best fan, Miss...'" Tom paused, looking meaningfully at the receptionist.

"Miss Leonora Gardiner," she squeaked.

"Of course," said Tom. "'To the most helpful Miss Gardiner,' how about that?"

"Oh, I can't wait!" she giggled, reaching for the golden lever by the front desk. "You can go
through the gate now. Down the hall to the lift, press Level Nine for the archives. Take the fourth
left fork, count three doors left, five right, and you're there. Do come back anytime, Mr. Bertram!"

Passing through the gates—when the receptionist was out of earshot—Hermione whispered, "Well,
that was disturbing."

"I found it interesting," said Tom, tilting his head back to peer at the high ceiling, a dome of
peacock blue glass panes set in a golden frame, glittering with alchemical symbols and runes that
drifted along like a spiralling galaxy of stars. It wasn't as grand a display of magic as the Hogwarts
Great Hall's ceiling, but it had a sense of grandeur that Muggle buildings failed to capture, with
their fashion of painted frescoes that only created an illusion of depth.

"I had the one badge," Tom continued, his voice pitched to keep it from echoing in the empty hall,
"but she let us both through. I suspect it went against policy, but she was too flattered to stop me."

At the end of the corridor was another golden gate, this time smaller and single leafed; behind it
was a square black pit, with a pair of silver chains in the centre ascending into darkness. Beside the
grille was a brass panel with ivory buttons, painted with an arrow pointing up, and an arrow
pointing down.

"I didn't know wizards had lifts," Hermione remarked, finger hovering over the buttons, before she
pressed the down arrow. "You'd think they'd use something more magical than this."

The lift gave off a chime. The chains rattled and clinked; they felt the rumble of something
approaching from the shaft beneath their feet.

With a second chime, the golden grille slid open to reveal a spacious square box with a domed roof
that matched the Atrium ceiling, and a floor tiled in a design of a large M with sparks shooting out
of the topmost points. There was a panel on the inside with buttons numbered One through Nine,
which Hermione pushed down, before the grilles slid shut without warning, and the lift jerked into
motion—

—Sideways.

Hermione was thrown off her feet, into Tom's chest; he, in turn, was tossed back against the wall,
one hand grasping for his wand, and the other scrabbling for the railing bolted to the side.
Just as she'd grabbed hold of Tom's sleeve, the elevator dropped down, then shifted to the opposite
side, then up, then to the side again, before it stopped dead and gave off a cheery little ding!.

"Level Nine, Department of Wizarding Administration, incorporating the offices of the Wizengamot
Representative Council, the Wizarding Examinations Authority, the Ministerial Committee for
Experimental Research and Magical Patents, and the Administrative Archives."

The grille slid open.

Hermione picked herself up from where her fall had been cushioned by Tom's chest, clearing her
throat and averting her eyes from his. She offered him a hand to help him up off the floor, then
proceeded to smooth the creases out of her coat.

"Alright," she groaned, making sure her own wand hadn't fallen out of her pocket, "I rescind my
prior statement. That was magical enough for me."

"That was interesting," said Tom, who didn't look like he had minded being used as Hermione's
pillow.

(Thinking back to their Christmas holidays, she couldn't recall him complaining about it then, even
though he'd winced every time he jostled his hip going up and down the stairs.)

"There must be Extension Charms built into the structure if the lift was taking us sideways. I'd
known for years that the Ministry was built under the City of London, but it makes sense that they
built down and expanded the space—there's not enough room at the surface to fit as much as they
need to administer the whole of the Isles; Diagon Alley is crowded enough as it is."

Level Nine wasn't as ostentatious as the Atrium, but it did look as if Tom's guess on the Ministry's
use of Extension Charms had been correct: the hall was bare, with tiled walls and a plain carpet
under their feet, a long runner rug that extended from the lift and went on and on, the vast
passageway interrupted every few feet by a door set with a little brass plaque. The plaques were
engraved with the name of each minor sub-department and office owner; Hermione wouldn't have
been surprised if each of the Wizengamot's fifty-odd members had an office on this level, even if
most of them skipped out on the weekly proceedings and voted on them in absentia.

(For the last few birthdays, Tom had gifted her a year's subscription to the Wizengamot's
newsletter, a transcript of meetings held in the last month. Upon reading them, she saw that there
was only a handful of regular speakers who proposed changes or brought up charges, and when it
came to voting on things like licensing restrictions for cross-bred magical creatures, the majority of
votes were absentees and abstentions. To see citizens so passive about their own government was a
singularly vexing experience, a feeling that grew when Hermione checked the Daily Prophet the
next day and saw nothing but a two line description of the new laws, buried on Page 23.)

Now and then there was a branch in the corridor, labelled with a sign shaped like a pointing hand,
and it was one of these that bore the words: Ministry of Magic Administrative Record Repository
and Archive.

Behind the door was a long, balustraded gallery of iron fretwork, and from it, a spiral staircase
descended into a dimly-lit expanse of tall columns. The columns weren't structural; each one was
around ten feet tall and didn't reach the ceiling, the surfaces honeycombed with little slots that
contained a sheaf of paper or a roll of dusty parchment fastened with a ribbon. Looking at them
from above, Hermione thought it resembled a field of upright ears of corn.
The tops of the columns were flat, round circles, marked with faintly glowing letters. Where they
stood, looking down at the centre of the archive, the letters were marked J-1, J-2, all the way down
to J-10, where the next row of columns began with K-1 through K-10, followed by L, M, and N. It
was an alphabetical organisation system, a simple method for the archivists to store and label
records, but she couldn't commend it on its ease of use—it didn't endear itself to any users
searching for specific names or terms.

"If you start over there, with the A's, they'll probably have a record for the Aurors," Hermione
suggested, peering down from the gallery. "I do hope they have some sub-system for sorting
records by date of entry. The Ministry's been around for over two hundred years, and wizards
never throw anything away if they can help it. If not, Auror reports might be under D, for the
'Department of Magical Law Enforcement'—would that be under 'Magical Law Enforcement'? Or
just 'Law Enforcement'?" She let out a short huff. "I wish there was a guide for using this system."

"I imagine that most people avoid this place if they can help it," said Tom, swiping his finger along
the iron railing. His finger came away coated in grey dust. "Where will you be going?"

"G, for 'Grindelwald'," said Hermione, pointing to the row of shelves somewhere closer to the
middle. "He's not a British citizen, but he's got to be important enough that the the Ministry has a
file on him. Legally, he's the foreign equivalent of a Minister of Magic, no matter how he earned
that title, so the Department of International Magical Co-operation must keep track of him, for
diplomacy's sake."

Tom cocked his head, his expression sceptical. "I suspect that whatever's on public record will turn
out to be rather sparse. When it comes to internal reports on important political figures, they'd only
pass the good stuff around the desks of the Minister and Department heads, and not leave them
where any common parchment pusher can find them."

"Something is better than nothing," said Hermione. "As dull as a financial report can be, you can
use it to fill in the bigger picture if you know where to look. For instance, the occupied Norwegian
Ministry importing Jobberknoll feathers in bulk is a sign that someone up the line is planning on
brewing a big batch of potion. Jobberknoll parts have few other uses outside of potions."

"Flight feathers for memory potions, and down plucked from the breast for truth potions—no
substitutions, unlike most vegetable ingredients in common potions," said Tom in a thoughtful
voice. "Alright, I see that you have a point there. Shall we go down?"

They descended the spiral staircase to the archive floor, drawing and lighting their wands to combat
the darkness. The air was still, stale and dustier than it had been on the gallery, by the entrance, and
Hermione felt a pang in her chest to see a library like this in such a state of disuse.

Holding her wand before her, she noted that the wooden floorboards were inlaid with letters that
matched the alphabetical designation for each row of shelves, and by following them, they could
find their way around without having to climb back up the stairs to look at the columns from above.

"I'll start on the left, then," said Tom. "If I finish first, I'll throw up a sparkler. If you see it, then
send up your own, so I know where to find you."

Exploring the Ministry of Magic archive was a different experience to browsing the stacks at the
Hogwarts library or Flourish and Blotts. The latter two were welcoming places, with helpful staff
and thousands of books on display with their spines out, the titles of each book foiled in gold leaf
or embossed in silver, ready to catch her eye and loosen the strings of her coin pouch. This place,
the dusty departmental archive, wasn't a place that availed itself to browsers; the individual niches
were barely organised, stuffed higgledy-piggledy with scrolls a dozen deep so that when she tried
to draw out a single scroll, the rest of them came out too, flopping at her feet like a brace of fish.

She smoothed them out, re-rolled them, and returned them to the niche in a better state than they'd
been in before, but it was a slow process to work her way down from the very top compartments,
starting from Gabener, to Galbraith and Gamp. Out of curiosity, she spent a few minutes scanning
through those files, knowing the history of the Gamp family as one of great scholars and renowned
academics, and that Nott was an offshoot of the branch by way of his mother. She had to tear
herself away after remembering that they only had a limited amount of time before the professors at
Hogwarts would begin to look for her and Tom. With reluctance, she was forced to put them away
and resume her search.

Finally, she found what she was looking for at the bottom of the shelf, tucked so far away that she
had to drop to her knees and scrape her elbow over the dusty floorboards to peel out the scrolls:
Gaunt.

The file was thicker than she thought it would be, slotted in between Gatwick and Gavroche. Nott
had showed her the Gaunts' entry in The Pure-blood Directory, and it had been a sparse few pages.

The Gaunts, according to the book, were a small and obscure family that had lingered on the edge
of extinction for decades, if not centuries. They'd placed a stricter emphasis on purity than the rest
of Britain's pureblood society, who'd made it a habit to seek wives of foreign blood if the current
crop of British débutantes was closer than second cousins. And on top of that, unlike many great
British families, the Gaunts had no list of modern achievements to add to the prestige of their
name: Arcturus Black, father of Lucretia Orion, had an Order of Merlin awarded to him a few
years ago; Edmond Lestrange's great-grandfather had been the fifteenth Minister for Magic;
Cantankerous Nott curated Britain's largest private collection of genealogical records, and was
frequently consulted by families whose children had reached marriageable age.

The last living member of the family who bore the name, Nott had said, was Mr. Morfin Gaunt, a
man whose seniority gave him better claim to the title 'Heir of Slytherin' than Tom Riddle. Tom
was a half-blood, his claim through the matrilineal line, but his power and abilities all but proved
his legitimacy.

With shaking hands, Hermione slipped off the ribbon enclosing the roll of parchment sheets, then
spread them open on the dusty floor.

She'd expected ancient, crackling parchment, and spidery sentences written in archival ink, filling
the air with the metallic reek of oxidised iron-based pigments. What she hadn't expected was a
thick roll of parchment, the outer layers consisting of smooth paper with ruler-straight edges, with
none of the yellowed, hand-cut deckled edges she'd seen at the antiquarian bookshop. The
outermost page was a coversheet bearing the insignia of the Department of Magical Law
Enforcement, and within it was a witness testimony form filed by a member of the Law
Enforcement Patrol. Following that was a record of the conviction and sentencing of one Morfin
Gaunt.

2 September, 1925
 DMLE routine patrol sent representative to wizarding residence in North Yorkshire to deliver
hearing summons to Mr. Morfin Gaunt. (Archive reference no. 4813967; Breach of Statute of
Secrecy by Adult Citizen, Muggle Baiting, cross reference file no. 3957523 with Department of
Magical Accidents and Catastrophes.)

Representative B. Odgen was assaulted with magic by Mr. Gaunt in presence of two Muggles.
Reinforcements were requested to appear at site to subdue and detain Mr. Gaunt, and
Obliviate Muggle witnesses. Mr. Gaunt was hostile, resisted arrest, did not co-operate with
interrogation by DMLE officers, and was placed in detention to await sentencing until date of
his hearing on 14 September...

On the parchment under that:

Certificate of Death

Name of Deceased: Marvolo Gaunt

Date: 12 March 1926
Place of Death: Azkaban Prison
Cause: Exposure, Infirmity

Sentence: 6 Months
Prior Residence: Gaunt House, Little Hangleton, North Yorkshire
Next of Kin: Morfin Gaunt (Presently Incarcerated)

Further observations: Due for release in less than two weeks, but poor health and advanced
age reduced natural resilience to Azkaban atmosphere. Remains burned and buried on island;
personal effects held in escrow until next of kin's date of release (October 1928).

There were pages and pages of this, official reports spanning from the years of 1925 to 1928, when
Morfin was released and put on a warning list for those who would not be treated with lenience
upon committing any further offences.

Hermione dug through the papers, peeling back the years to glean an outline of a story told by these
reports. The male members of the Gaunt family had been arrested and sent to prison, the Muggles
they'd abused Obliviated and sent on their way, while Merope was left alone in their little cottage.
Morfin had called her a thief; Merope must have taken the family silver and left home, eloping to
York with her Muggle paramour, Mr. Tom Riddle.

Tom's father.

And the two convicted criminals, Morfin and Marvolo Gaunt, were Tom's uncle and grandfather.
The reports lodged by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement were as dry and impassive as
all official documents were, but the list of crimes spoke for itself. Hermione wasn't surprised,
having met Morfin herself; skimming over the multiple counts of Muggle baiting and abuse in
broad daylight, and an attack on Ministry employees, it was hard to believe that these were the in-
laws of the wealthy and refined Riddle family.

She tapped her wand to the parchments, and to her satisfaction, found that they hadn't been jinxed
to prevent duplication like the offerings at Glimwitt's Antiquities or the Hogwarts library. It made
sense: this was a bureaucrat's archive, not a personal library. These files were a reference
collection used by the administrative functionaries of the Ministry of Magic, not some private
collection to be squirrelled away in a family manor.

But for now, she had other things to do. As interesting as this was, this was merely an apéritif to
the main course. She could read this in her dormitory at Hogwarts, on her own time.

At the bottom of the stack, she found what she'd come for, tied up in a separate ribbon that was
sealed with a piece of wax stamped with the logo of the Department of Magical Education.

Corvinus Gaunt. Born 1746, place of residence listed as the wizarding settlement near
Dunshaughlin, Ireland. His name had been entered into the roll kept by the Department of Magical
Education in 1783, as one of the twelve members of the Hogwarts Board of Governors. During his
term as governor and, later, chairman of the board, his greatest contribution to Hogwarts was...

July 1788 Board Assembly — Motions Passed.

Mr. C. Gaunt, Chairman of the Board, is pleased to announce the disbursement of funds from
the Hogwarts Endowment Reserve for the following undertakings:

For personal convenience: installation of new bathing and hygiene facilities. Facilities shall
be implemented in individual dormitories, staff quarters, Quidditch dressing rooms, and senior
student commons.

For greater public health and well-being: installation of foundational operative structures,
linked to sanitation apparatus dispersed across selected locations on each floor.

For the modernisation of an historic institution: accommodations shall be made to raise

Hogwarts to a modern standard for the advantage and practical benefit to students; care shall
be taken during installation for the conservation of significant architectural arrangements, for
we aim to preserve and ensure all aspects of the Hogwarts education are of the highest
calibre, now and into perpetuity...

It was far from the most entertaining read, but Hermione had slogged through textbooks of
wizarding law in the past, and she quickly got to the main point of the governors' announcement.

If there was a Chamber of Secrets, and if Corvinus Gaunt had conspired to hide it, then all evidence
pointed toward its being hidden in a Hogwarts water closet.
 The Bathroom Incident
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1944

Amidst the maze of shelves, it was an easy task for Tom to slip away from Hermione and go his
own way.

Tom had never seen libraries the same way as Hermione did. A library, to him, was a collection of
information; a library possessed a certain breadth and convenience that wasn't offered by the
Hogwarts professors, or at least the ones who'd posted a list of office hours and refused to answer
their doors when students came calling outside of them. (Perhaps this was a good thing; most
Friday evenings, Slughorn had himself a tipple with the weekly Club dinner, and any question
asked of him was answered with a rambling anecdote, on subjects ranging from the latest Daily
Prophet editorial to last summer's Ostrobothnian sweat lodge holiday tour.)

A person, an academic mind, a published work—they were merely tools, and he treated them like
so. But Hermione, always an amusing contradiction, treated them with veneration.

Tom thought it rather strange; he considered few things on this Earth worthy of veneration, and a
person least of all. Most people he'd met over the course of his life he could immediately class as
inferior, and anyone that he didn't would inevitably be found disappointing. This had been a rule
for him, with only one or two exceptions, and as he browsed through the archives, he happened
across one source of fresh disappointment.

Someone, held in high esteem, was proven to be undeserving of it.

How delightful.

On his search for the archive section dedicated to the DMLE, Tom noticed the name Dumbledore
affixed to the side of a niche. Looking into it, he'd expected to see nothing but copies of
commendation certificates from the Department of Magical Education, congratulating a certain
professor for his thirty years of tenure, or his Medal of Magical Merit. Banal, everyday paperwork,
the sort of thing that could be framed for an office wall and declaimed as an accomplishment by an
insipid character who believed in such madnesses as the inherent virtue of the human spirit, or
paisley as the height of modern fashion.

Tom hadn't expected to discover information that thoroughly soiled his Transfiguration teacher's
reputation of being a benign, if brilliant, old man. It appeared that Professor Dumbledore's
eccentricities were hereditary, and far from harmless.

Certificate of Death
 Name of Deceased: Percival Dumbledore
Date: 18 November 1896
Place of Death: Azkaban Prison
Cause: Exposure, Infirmity

Sentence: Life
Prior Residence: Mould-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire
Next of Kin: Kendra Dumbledore (Wife), Albus Dumbledore (Son)

Further observations: Dangerous inmate convicted for attacks on four Muggle children,
resulting in grievous injuries and one death. Refused to explain motive during court
interrogation. Family petitioned to visit after sentencing; Wizengamot jury ruled that inmate
was unfit to appear in presence of children. Wife permitted supervised viewing sessions twice
per annum.

Oh, the nerve of the man!

Dumbledore could lecture at Tom—and he had done so for years—on the subject of his utopian
fantasies, this fanciful idea of harmony between all things Muggle and Magical; he could—and had
—advised Tom to love his Muggle guardians, be they government caretakers or paternal
grandparents. Dumbledore could say that being a wizard did not preclude Tom from treating the
Muggles as his equals, as family. As fellows, in blood and in spirit.

And then the man's own father had attacked and murdered Muggles!

The sheer delusion astounded him.

How could Dumbledore expect wizards and Muggles to get along when the separation of their
respective worlds wasn't a matter of personal choice, but enforced by the magical government? Mr.
Percival Dumbledore had been sentenced for assault, manslaughter, and breaching the Statute of
Secrecy. His victims, according to the DMLE's paperwork, had been healed, their belongings
repaired or replaced. They'd been Obliviated of their traumatic experiences—for their own good,
of course. The dead boy's parents had quietly been made to forget they'd even had a son; the
Ministry had paid out a handsome compensation in pounds sterling, disguised as a winning lottery
draw.

If Tom knew that his neighbour had the power to re-write his memories, alter his entire identity at
their whim, he'd never trust them. He could see no way that Muggles, understanding the full
potential of magic, would ever treat a wizard as an equal. Doctor and Mrs. Granger, model
examples of what Muggles ought to be, were nonetheless wary about magic, and set strict rules to
its use in their home. (No magic in the front rooms that faced the street, wands away during dinner,
all lights out after eleven o'clock. It was unfair! They would never have applied such restrictions
to a visiting Roger Tindall!)

The next items he found were not quite as scandalous: an official caution issued a decade ago to
Aberforth Dumbledore, on his use of experimental and "inappropriate" charms on goats, and an
order from the DMLE to the Department of Magical Transportation to watch and log the use of a
Floo Connection registered to Dumbledore's home in Godric's Hollow. And a copy of an internal
memo from the DMLE ordering a rejection on any Portkey applications made by Albus
Dumbledore. There was a listed cross-reference to a File #PK-42945 at the bottom of the
parchment, which Tom tapped with his wand; it revealed a block of tiny print on the back of the
form:

Floo Connections qualifying for official surveillance:

1. "Undesirables", as recognised by the office of the Minister for Magic.

2. Persons under investigation of criminal activities by the DMLE.
3. Persons convicted of, or formerly sentenced for, criminal activities.
4. Persons under suspicion of collaboration with current interregnum regime in Europe.
5. Persons of interest. Encompassing those of recent European extraction, with business
associations to European firms, or those affiliated with, including alumni of, the
Durmstrang Institute. (See File #DI-682 for further detail.)

Tom found this interesting, as surveillance of Floo Connections was in many ways equivalent to the
Muggle wartime government's enthusiastic interference of private communications. The British
government openly censored wireless broadcasts and newspaper articles for subversive elements,
or anything damaging to the national morale. And not so openly, they monitored private
correspondence: post, telegrams, and telephone calls. During his stay at the Riddle House, Tom
had seen a few Christmas letters passed around between the servants, and the envelopes had large
stamps indicating that they'd been inspected by the Ministry of Information.

(Tom had been glad to be a wizard then. He had owls to deliver his mail; let the Ministry of
Information try to catch one and censor his correspondence! If he'd been a Muggle, someone
would be reading all his private letters, and the idea infuriated him. He hadn't liked the idea of the
other orphans looking at his things while he was away at school; he liked even less the idea of a
government official, some frumpy secretary in a department store twinset and boiled liver-coloured
stockings that she was hoarding ration tickets to replace, looking at the thoughts he saw fit to share
with Hermione.)

This was proof that the wizarding government was doing something about the European unrest,
although Tom wasn't aware how effective surveillance was, especially when the Ministry's net was
so large as to put a whole continent's worth of people under suspicion.

He knew that as a native Briton and a Hogwarts student who had reached his majority a few
months ago, he himself was above suspicion. Not until he'd earned some level of notoriety. But
that designation of "Undesirable", whatever that meant, was so loosely defined. How exactly did
one earn it? How often did the Minister for Magic decide to stick someone with that label? Did it
expire after some time, or did it last forever?

Albus Dumbledore, for some reason, had earned that title for himself. Tom couldn't imagine the
man making himself complicit in criminal activities, even if the late Percival Dumbledore had
indulged in Muggle mayhem. Albus Dumbledore had spoken of Muggle-Magical harmony, but
after all the tea invitations Tom had accepted over the years, it had only been that—talk and nothing
else. Dumbledore had spoken a lot (almost as much as Slughorn) about the state of affairs, both
cultural and geopolitical, and about the numerous branches of magic that existed outside the
Hogwarts curriculum, but he'd made no efforts to enact change. The most he'd ever done was
gently steer Tom away from inquiring about the theoretical potentials of Occlumency, and back to
the humdrum topic of N.E.W.T. level Transfiguration.
In a pensive mood, Tom rolled the parchment back up and made to return it to its niche, but
hesitated for a moment. He doubted he'd have a chance to come back to the Ministry before the
summer holidays, so it was best to make use of this opportunity while he had it.

"Geminio," he muttered, and a second parchment appeared by the first, identical to the last wrinkle
and bit of splattered ink.

He slipped the duplicated parchment into the niche and tucked the original into his robe pocket.

Good, he thought, satisfied by his handiwork. They haven't jinxed the parchment to repel
Duplication Charms; I hate it when they do that.

He wondered what else the archive administrators had done to make this a useful resource, instead
of a dumping ground for centuries of bureaucratic refuse.

"Accio File D.I. Six-Eight-Two," said Tom, reciting the reference number written at the bottom of
his scroll.

There was a rustling noise, like the hush of dirty straw being raked over a stable floor, and half a
minute later, a tightly furled roll of parchment came flying out of the darkness and into Tom's
waiting palm.

When he opened it, he saw the DMLE insignia over a long list of odd-sounding names, arranged by
a sequence of dates.

Sonia Zhitnaya (matric. 1919) — Applied for import license of Class B tradeable materials
on 7 September, 1938; 9 January, 1939, 29 June, 1940.

Oleksiy Kharkovsky (matric. 1924) — Registered wizarding residence 22 November, 1939.

Pertti Lehtinen (matric. 1923) — Applied for apprenticeship position in Ministry Level 10 on
6 April, 1940.

Kazimierz Grozbiecki (matric. 1927) — Registered for N.E.W.T. examinations in Charms,

Astronomy, Ancient Runes, and Divination on 14 April, 1940.

Sigismund Pacek (matric. 1926) — Applied for Portkeys to Ostend on 5 May, 1940. Utrecht
on 19 June, 1941; 28 November, 1941; 7 March, 1942. Wiesbaden on 11 October, 1940; 3
April, 1943. Esztergom on 22 January, 1942.

Cornelis Vonk (matric. 1930) — Submitted formal complaint regarding Breach of Statute on
30 March, 1941.

Steffan Albers (matric. 1929) — Fined for possession of restricted materials on 29 July, 1941.

Salome Kopácsy-Marszalek (matric. 1935) — Registered marriage certificate on 8 February,

1942.

Edvin Lindstrom (matric. 1934) — Applied for Apparition license on 17 August, 1943.
The list went on and on, down two feet of parchment and continuing on the other side.

Next to each name was a column of various dates, and in another column, a list of addresses. This
must be their Floo Connections—what the DMLE was monitoring in the name of national security.

'Matric'.

Tom wasn't sure what that meant, but assumed it was short for 'matriculation', a student's date of
enrollment. To Durmstrang, as Mr. Pacek's name was on the list, and the Durmstrang Institute had
been his alma mater. Or one of his two alma maters; Mr. Pacek had done his apprenticeship in
Prague, but when referencing his qualifications, he'd always used his date of certification, not
matriculation.

This must be a collection of information on every European émigré who'd gone to Durmstrang and
used Ministry of Magic services in the last few years. In contrast to what Tom thought they'd been
doing (which was nothing) this was a decent effort put on by the Ministry. A decent effort, but he
doubted it had produced much of a result. There were just too many names, with no further
distinction to explain why these people were of particular interest. Perhaps there were one or two
of them who were subversive elements involved in espionage, but Tom was sure that most of them
were not.

Mr. Pacek had been on the list. Tom knew him as a man who had studied Grindelwald's writings—
even heard his speeches in person, spoken in their original German—and had kept in contact with
his old friends and classmates in Europe. But he was one so disinterested in the political climate of
his home country that he'd chosen to leave rather than align himself with one side or the other. His
political apathy was proof of a deplorable lack of resolve, but Tom could not fault the man for his
interest in self-preservation.

He wondered if Mr. Pacek knew his name had been put on a list, or if he recognised any of the
names. Most of them were Durmstrang graduates of the present century, and if the school had a
seven year curriculum like Hogwarts, then a few of them would have been studying at the same
time as he had. Even if they had not been close associates, there should be a familiar name or two.

Tapping his wand against the parchment, Tom made a copy and dropped it into his pocket.

He admitted to being somewhat disappointed that this was the Ministry's reaction to the
Grindelwald issue. Grindelwald, unlike the Muggle armies of the Continent, had not attacked
British shores, but he had deposed several ministers and imposed his own regime upon them.
Surely it was only a matter of time before he would turn his eyes to Britain. Tom had not seen
much for which to praise the British Ministry of Magic, but he didn't like the idea of a foreign
interloper taking over, even if Grindelwald had come up with some halfway decent ideas about how
the world should be run, and what ought to be done about the Muggles.

At the age of fourteen, Tom had admired the simplicity of a world without the Statute of Secrecy, as
it meant no more Restriction Against Underage Sorcery, the bane of every child who spent their
school holidays bumping elbows with Muggles, their wands locked away and out of sight. The
world that Grindelwald had so persuasively illustrated in his pamphlets had been one of freedom
and order: freedom to all wizards who chafed in hiding what they were, and a natural hierarchy for
those with talent and power.
At the age of seventeen, Tom knew he had talent and power; he knew that he needed no foreign or
external confirmation of his natural ability. Some tiny, insignificant part of him had also realised
that the wealth and privilege that been bestowed upon him for being born a Riddle would mean
nothing in Grindelwald's vision of utopia. If Tom had not met his grandmother and been informed
of his ancestry, some militant revolutionary, a pointy-hatted German Robespierre, might have seen
the house on the hill and wanted it for his own, and would have felt nothing about removing the
Muggle inhabitants and taking it—the manor house, all the motors and horses, the conservatory and
gardens, for himself.

It was what Grindelwald meant by wizards taking their rightful place in the world, instead of living
in the shadows.

Tom wasn't sure that he agreed with that. Of course he knew that he was meant for greater things,
a higher destiny than other people, but he wasn't fond of the idea of every wizard being afforded
this status just for having magic. And being able to claim whatever piece they liked of the
reformed wizarding world—that seemed wrong, for reasons he couldn't articulate; he felt that it was
acceptable to reform the wizarding world in accordance to his own preferences, but he couldn't
abide the thought of anyone else being obliged the same privilege.

(And he definitely felt no loyalty to his Muggle grandparents; they were a vehicle to granting him
wealth and status, and that was the source of his appreciation towards them, nothing else.)

There, in the dusty stacks of the Ministry archives, Tom decided that his and Grindelwald's political
visions were not aligned, even if they had more than a few things in common in terms of personal
ideology. Tom saw more benefit in upholding the Statute of Secrecy than doing away with it for
good: The British Ministry of Magic had enough on its hands trying to govern a population of ten
thousand souls; he couldn't imagine what heights of incompetence a wizarding government would
reach trying to administer fifty million Muggles in the British Isles, and five hundred million across
the entire British Empire.

The British Muggle government had reformed itself for the war effort, and it was an immense
logistical task to calculate ration allocations for each household in the nation, and not only that, but
deliver the brown loaves, margarine, salt pork, and potatoes so that everyone got a fair portion—or
enough that they could work an eight-hour shift at a munitions factory without fainting. Tom
himself couldn't recall too many instances of true, aching hunger: he had never had as much food
as he'd liked, or of the type he liked (barley, rye, and oats were cheaper than his favourite puffy
white rolls, and he'd become, quite against his own expectations, a connoisseur of goat milk). If he
had gone without food, it had been in the earliest years of his childhood when no one, in or outside
of Wool's, had had much of anything.

The Muggle government had fed him, housed him, clothed him from birth, then sent him to
primary school. The Magical government hadn't known he'd existed until he'd been eleven-and-a-
half years old.

Tom wasn't one to indulge himself in excessive nostalgia, but the differences were stark. Muggles
were common, ordinary. They bred like insects. They had no great destiny waiting for them; the
extent of their ambitions amounted to nothing more than having enough money for a pie and a pint
at the end of the week.

But... the Muggles did know how to get things done. They possessed a valuable sort of efficiency,
one where Tom would never have to involve his own person in the laborious act of acquiring
results. (It hadn't taken him long to tire of dull bureaucratic legalese after an hour of navigating the
archive.)

Muggles, Tom had observed, were also more susceptible to mind-altering magics. His past
experience had shown him that those who knew about magic had proven annoyingly resistant. His
father, for instance, knew after too many shoddy Obliviations done by his dead mother. Nott,
raised in a wizarding household, could defend himself when under attack by a mental probe.

For now, he concluded that the convenience of the Statute of Secrecy outweighed its limitations to
his personal freedom. Anyway, enforcement was reliant on the discretion of the Ministry of Magic,
and it wasn't as if Tom didn't know how to be discreet.

Over the next two hours, Tom rummaged through the archive, looking for any mention of
Grindelwald or Dumbledore, and duplicating files whenever he saw one he wanted to read later.
His pockets filled up; he sliced through the lining of his robe to create more space to store them,
filling that up too until he rustled when he walked.

It was worth it.

It was gratifying to know that beneath Dumbledore's masquerade of academic eccentricity, his
tasselled pointy slippers, spangled robes, and a penchant for the common sugary lozenges sold by
the scoop at every corner chemist's, there was a known Undesirable with a record of suspicious
behaviour stretching back twenty years and more. The evidence hadn't been solid enough to
convict Dumbledore of anything (what a pity, Tom thought) but the Ministry had labelled him an
agent provocateur. An instigator, an associate of the true subversive elements. Connections,
present and former, with members of law enforcement who had participated in capturing
Grindelwald in various overseas operations—and, most importantly, had allowed him to escape.

Much of the information he'd found were copies of copies of mission reports and official
debriefings filed by workers who were told to keep some details off the public record. Tom could
only assume the vagueness was an intentional choice; it was clear that a logbook entry along the
lines of "September 1927: DMLE officials questioned A. Dumbledore on nature of his
companionship with suspect G. Grindelwald" was more than it appeared on paper. It was
disappointing that they only delivered the bare bones when Tom wanted the meat; he concluded
that any information more recent, accurate, and substantial must be kept locked up in the Aurors'
offices several levels up.

When he and Hermione left the archive an hour later, Tom was still thinking about Dumbledore.

The man had been officially acknowledged as a powerful wizard, one of the rare true warlocks
whose ability made him an equal and contemporary of Gellert Grindelwald. And yet he had done
nothing to aid the Aurors. Not then, twenty years ago, when Grindelwald was a rising demagogue
with a handful of loyal followers. Not now, the modern day, when Grindelwald had toppled several
legitimate Ministries and his followers were the citizenry of whole nations.

What was power when one did nothing with it?

What was potential for greatness when one squandered it?

Tom was disgusted by it, and he had always thought himself as possessing a strong stomach. He
hadn't felt this way since he'd learned of his mother, a witch of inborn talent who had chased a
pretty man, gotten a child by him, then died in obscurity. (She, he presumed, was the source of his
gift in discerning truths and falsehoods, his intuitive grasp of mental magic. It certainly hadn't
come from his useless, deranged Muggle father.)

Albus Dumbledore was like his late mother, in a sense: where she'd wasted her magic on love
potions and bedding Muggle toffs, Dumbledore demonstrated party tricks to children and
enchanted miniature gumball machines to decorate his office.

On their way back to the lift, Tom asked Hermione, "Did you find anything good?"

"Oh—" said Hermione, who appeared to be deep in thought, "Um. Yes, I did!"

"Can we use it?"

Hermione shot him an aggrieved look. "Isn't it possible to appreciate information for information's
sake?"

"Perhaps for you," Tom replied. "But I've never seen the use of learning just to be learnèd. That
way is the path to becoming another Albus Dumbledore."

"What's wrong with being like Professor Dumbledore?" Hermione folded her arms across her
chest. "He's very well-respected, I'll have you know. He won the Barnabus Finkley Prize when he
was just seventeen," she said, and her voice rose in a shrill crescendo. "I'm seventeen years old,
and I've never done anything!"

"I found out that Dumbledore's been requested to work with the Aurors for decades, and each time,
he's refused to co-operate," said Tom. "If he won a Finkley Prize, then he could have gotten an
Order of Merlin; they're both awards for acts of exemplary magical performance. If he can earn
one, he can earn the other—if only he wanted it." He sniffed in disdain. "His life is one of
mediocrity, but I suppose that's his own choice. You and I, on the other hand, deserve better."

"I still think Dumbledore's got a lot of worthy accomplishments," said Hermione waspishly.
"There's nothing wrong with aspiring to academic success."

"There's something wrong with letting Grindelwald run about unchecked," said Tom. "And that's
exactly what Dumbledore's been doing for the last twenty years. Grindelwald isn't just a dark
wizard—he's a dark lord. Is it bold of me to assume that the winner of the Barnabus Finkley Prize
would be a good prospect to take him on?"

Hermione sent him a doubtful look. "Sorry, are we still talking about Dumbledore?"

"I suppose never mentioning Dumbledore again is too much to ask," Tom sighed. "I'm certain that
he wants to be as irrelevant as I want him to be—but that's the issue here, isn't it? The magical
world's population is so small that institutions will bow to the individual, as long as he's skilled or
powerful enough. Not even Minister Churchill or King George could influence affairs as much as a
single wizard."

"If there's anyone you talk about more than Dumbledore, it's yourself."

"There is nothing that inspires me like greatness," said Tom, "no matter where it comes from. I
can't help it if it happens to be my own."

It was Hermione's turn to sigh. "Have you ever heard of the concept of 'hubris'?"
"All I need to know is that it's a morality lesson told by parents to scare their children into proper
behaviour," said Tom, his tone dismissive. "I've no need of them; you must have noticed that I'm
not a child, and I've never had any use for parents."

Hermione made a strange coughing noise but refrained from commenting further. Together, they
returned to the Atrium, the row of fireplaces at the end of the hallway dark and cold on a Saturday
afternoon.

Tom lit the fireplace with a silent Incendio, while Hermione took a handful of Floo powder from an
urn on the side, made of glazed pottery on a wrought iron stand that matched the iron boot scraper
on the opposite side. In contrast to the magical lighting and gold décor of the Ministry of Magic,
the interior of The Hog's Head was dark and smokey. Tom's eyes took a minute or two to adjust; he
scanned the bar and occupied tables for any sign of the bartender. He'd Obliviated the man two
summers ago, the first time he'd ever used that spell on a human being. Although he trusted his
own magical abilities—enough to risk his own reputation on them—Hermione didn't, and he didn't
want to get Hermione into trouble.

Not because there was anything inherently wrong about breaking school rules, but because
Hermione would never let him forget it if his carelessness landed her in detention. And she was
afraid of detention, and not as a waste of two good hours before curfew. No, Hermione's fear lay in
having any sort of stain on her academic record. Where Tom expected to be handed the Hogwarts
Head Boy badge after sitting his way through two years of eight course Slug Club dinners,
Hermione had got it into her head that she had to constantly prove herself worthy of such an
accolade by being a model student. A ridiculous notion: almost all Head Boys and Girls were
chosen from the current crop of Prefects, and even if the announcement was made in the summer
before Seventh Year, one could predict who was most likely to be chosen years earlier.

He indulged Hermione's sensibilities, nevertheless. She was more disposed to listen to him when
he presented himself as a Good Boy. And he did like it when she listened to him and went along
with his ideas, especially if they involved sneaking around past curfew or into his bedroom at the
Riddle House.

Circumstances were very different now, weren't they? Once, he'd loathed the thought of grubby,
sticky-fingered orphans going through his possessions, and the desire for companionship had been
an alien notion that Tom had associated with a deficiency of character. But he hadn't minded
having Hermione around now, or having her in his bedroom this Christmas holiday. They'd
studied, practised magic, and completed their homework assignments together. He could see
himself enjoying her company for more than a few weeks a year—for more than this school year or
the next—for the rest of his—

His thoughts were interrupted by a low, hissing voice from a few tables over.

"Let me go! Stop squeezing me, you lumbering boor!"

His head jerked to the left, where two figures were bent over a corner table, one of them wearing a
heavy cloak with the hood on, not unusual for a pub regular. The other person was a large lump
wearing the black robe of the Hogwarts student uniform, lined in red at the lapels and sleeves.
Most students had their uniform robes fitted to them by the saleswitch, the ends hemmed anywhere
between one to three inches above the top of the shoe. However, this student's frayed robe ended a
good half-foot above his ankles.
There was only one person at Hogwarts of that size, and Tom was correct in his guess: Rubeus
Hagrid, Fourth Year Gryffindor, a dependent on the Student Relief Fund, and absolutely pants at
every single core subject on the curriculum. Tom had heard of Hagrid's aptitude at Care of Magical
Creatures, which was an elective subject, not core—but that hardly counted for anything, did it? It
was a subject, along with Divination and Muggle Studies, that required little wandwork, and there
was nothing Tom hated as much as being told to take his quill out and put his wand away at the
beginning of a lesson. To him, a class without wands might as well be Muggle day school.

So what was Hagrid doing in The Hog's Head? With a snake, no less?

He nudged Hermione, who had changed out of her coat and back into her school robes. "That
fellow over there has a boomslang. Aren't they Ministry restricted magical creatures?"

Hermione's gaze darted over; her eyes narrowed. Then she appeared to make up her mind; she
marched up to the corner table, squaring her shoulders and clearing her throat. "Underage students
in Hogsmeade are expected to stay with their year group, under the supervision of their House
Prefects. And not wandering around with dangerous animals!"

Tom watched Hagrid's back turn, his broad features scrunching up like a failed soufflé. "He's
harmless, he is! Look at him; he's just a little one—his teeth haven' even properly grown in—he
won' bite, I swear it!"

To Tom's satisfaction, Hermione's stance refused to soften under the deluge of pathetic excuses.

"I'm sorry, but if you bring that snake into the castle, I'm afraid I'll have no choice but to report this
to your Head of House! Those animals are restricted to licensed handlers for a reason. And you—I
don't know your name—shame on you for showing a dangerous creature to a student! What's your
license number, sir? I'm sure that Madam Gardiner at the Ministry of Magic would be interested to
know if anyone's been violating the terms of their registration!"

The cloaked wizard at the table gave a muffled response, some crude observation or other about the
particulars of Merlin's below-the-belt physiology, before he slid off his stool and stumped away,
stuffing a green-scaled juvenile boomslang into an interior pocket. Its complaining was drowned
out by Hagrid's own whining, and Tom was unnerved to see such a large lump of a boy act in so
infantile a manner.

"He wouldn't hurt no one—if I didn' take him, the man was going ter sell him to the apothecary—I
couldn' let tha' happen to the poor thing!"

"If you want to ensure magical creatures are fairly treated, you ought to petition the Department of
the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures," Hermione told him. "Or ask your Care of
Magical Creature professor to procure one for lessons—he's got a license for handling restricted
animals. Anything is better than endangering other students! What were you going to do, keep that
snake under your bed?"

"My trunk—"

"An adult magical boomslang can grow over six feet long!"

"I've got a big trunk—"

"Oh yes, I expect that'll serve you very well when they make you pack your things if the snake gets
out and someone sees it! You'd be expelled for that, you know!"

Tom found it entertaining to watch someone else bear the brunt of Hermione's officious attitude.
He thought that she wore the mantle of authority well, for all that it was second-hand, bestowed
upon her by the likes of Professor Beery, Headmaster Dippet, and the long arm of the Ministry of
Magic's administrative auditors. The supreme assuredness in her tone and bearing—that came of
someone who believed that they were entirely in the right. It wasn't quite the same as innate
charisma, that rare variety of gravitas which came from within. Conviction, although issued from
an external source of authority, had one thing in common with charisma in its highest form: it could
never be counterfeited.

Hermione had that fierce, unmoderated conviction. And beyond that, she had facts and rules and
logic on her side.

She, however, still had no charisma.

If Tom had been anyone else, and if the subject of reproval had been anyone but Rubeus Hagrid, he
might have felt sorry for the boy. In the end, he decided to slide himself into the conversation; it
was better that he and Hermione make themselves scarce before the bartender came over to see
what all the fuss was about.

"There's no harm done, is there?" said Tom. "No venomous snake in the castle, and no expulsions.
I recommend that you keep it that way, Hagrid. We won't report you or deduct points this time
around, but if you're caught later on, there won't be anything we can do." He gave Hagrid a
meaningful look. "It would be in your best interest to leave The Hog's Head and pretend you were
never here today."

"Oh," Hagrid said gruffly, shuffling his enormous feet. Each foot was the size of a bread loaf—not
the bland, grey, patriotic bread promoted by His Majesty's wartime government, but one of Mrs.
Willrow's yeasty white loaves sliced up for the Riddle family's breakfast toast. "Er, o' course. I'll
thank you lot fer not telling Professor Dumbledore abou' this; he's done me one good turn after
another, an' we wouldn' want to bother him with the small things, eh?"

"Of course not," said Tom. "Enjoy the rest of your Hogsmeade weekend, but do remember that if
you're caught again, whoever catches you won't be as lenient as we were."

After Hagrid had stumbled his way out of the tavern, Tom made a face and turned to Hermione.
"Someone in the Slytherin Common Room said he's half troll."

Hermione's expression was disapproving. "No one ever chooses their parentage. And whatever he
is, he's still a wizard, and shouldn't that be the only thing that matters?"

"I see your point," said Tom, nodding. "At least he's not a Muggle."

"Tom!"

Tom laughed and reached for Hermione's hand. "We've missed lunch and dinner's not until seven.
Do you want to go to the Broomsticks?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "The Broomsticks is always crowded on weekends. Is the food here any
good?"
"No," said Tom. "People only come here for the drinks."

"Are they good, then?"

"Not particularly." Tom paused for thought. "The only decent thing on the menu is the freshly-
squeezed goat's milk."

Hermione ended up ordering a jug of iced goat milk to share, while Tom loitered in the corner
avoiding Old Ab. He did want to question Aberforth about the death of Percival Dumbledore, but
that was best postponed to a time when he was alone with the old man and had a chance to Stun
him with his back turned. To strike a man from behind was considered cowardly by most, but
formal Rules of Engagement were expected and enforced in public exhibition duels; outside of the
public eye, Tom bowed to no expectations but his own.

And possibly Hermione's, he conceded.

He thought she looked rather silly with a milky moustache on her upper lip, but then again, so did
he.

But it was perfectly acceptable because no one saw them.

In the final month of the school year, Tom was granted an opportunity to interrogate Professor
Slughorn. Every Friday night over the course of the year, Slughorn invited students to his dinner
parties. It was a rotating selection of his favourites: those whom he thought had the potential to go
somewhere after Hogwarts due to their academic brilliance, exceptional talent, or advantageous
connections. The parties were always overcrowded in September and October (Tom remembered
the picnic lunches in a cramped train compartment with clear distaste), but by May, dinner
attendance had whittled itself down to no more than a dozen people.

Tom had personally judged the attendees as those who had the most to gain from ingratiating
themselves to Professor Slughorn, and those who didn't care about their exam marks. The exams
were weeks away, and the Ravenclaw members of the Slug Club—including Hermione—had
decided that they'd get more benefit from high marks than from Slughorn's network of associates.

Which left only Slytherins to join Slughorn for dinner that evening: Tom, who knew he'd score
Outstandings whether or not he studied; Lestrange and Avery, who weren't going to work for a
living even if they did manage to score Outstandings; Abraxas Malfoy, the Slytherin Quidditch
team captain who wasn't fond of Tom but had learned to hold his tongue after being tossed off the
duelling platform a few times; Lucretia Black, the current Head Girl and fiancée to a Slug Club
alumnus who'd graduated ten years ago; and finally, Orion Black, who preferred Slughorn's spreads
over the offerings fed to the rest of the student population in the Great Hall. (Mutton and potatoes
were pedestrian compared to the imported Fire Crab croquettes and freshwater plimpies in chilled
lemon aspic served at old Sluggy's table.)
Tom waited until the platter of dried figs and sliced cheese had been passed around before he posed
his questions to Slughorn. By then, Slughorn had chugged his way through his first bottle of red
wine and was well on his way to finishing his second.

"Sir, I wanted to ask you something," said Tom, widening his eyes and lifting his eyebrows ever so
slightly. He was seventeen, shaved his whiskers every other day, and was fully aware that his Good
Boy guise had only a few years before it reached the end of its lifespan. Sycophancy, on the other
hand, had no age limit.

Slughorn smacked his lips, setting his goblet down on the table, a few drops splattering onto the
tablecloth. "Ask away, then, m'boy."

"Sir," Tom ventured, "I wondered, what do professors do during the summer holidays?"

"Planning to apply for a summer apprenticeship, Tom?" said Slughorn.

"Not exactly, sir. I was told that there was no supervision at Hogwarts in the summer, and students
aren't allowed to stay at school for that reason. If that's true, then where do the staff go? Does
everyone have a house they live in for ten weeks a year?"

"Well, many of us do," said Slughorn slowly, stroking the rim of his wineglass. "I do enjoy
spending my holidays with good friends of mine—can't see 'em for most of the year, better get the
most of my days off when I have 'em, you see. But some have their own houses, and others let out
a cottage down in Hogsmeade."

"I heard that Professor Dumbledore's brother lived in Hogsmeade," Tom said. "Are the
Dumbledores Hogsmeade natives? It'd be strange to consider The Hog's Head tavern a family
business... It's not exactly family friendly, is it?"

"Far from it, Tom! They have an excellent dragon's blood firewhisky, reserved orders only, but you
didn't hear that from me," Slughorn chortled, leaning forward and giving Tom a conspiratorial
wink. "Albus actually lives in Godric's Hollow—one of those mixed villages, down in the West
Country. He's on neighbourly terms with batty old Bathilda; did you know? Before Cuthbert came
in for the History seat, she was dear old Professor Bagshot. Retired now, but she deserves the rest;
she must have taught here for over half a century! She taught me, Albus, and half the staff here.
That was late last century, goodness me, how time flies..."

"Really?" said Tom. "You don't look a day past forty."

Slughorn beamed in delight, his wine-flushed complexion growing a shade more ruddy.

"I'm sure you must have some good stories to tell about your old professors. Professor Binns is,
well, not the most engaging when it comes to teaching History. Nothing like your stories—I think
we here can all agree that they're the best part of every Potions lesson."

Tom's gaze flicked over to Avery and Lestrange; on cue, they murmured their assent. To his
disgust, they appeared to be engaged in a competition to see who could stack up the most layers in
a cheese and cracker sandwich.

"Oho, you flatter me, Tom, you rascal," Slughorn said, sighing deeply. "Professor Bathilda was a
great teacher. Knew the material back and front, wrote the textbooks you're using today. No, the
most irregular thing about Old Batty was her sister." He lowered his voice and continued, "It's not
commonly known, but she went and married a German fellow, moved to Europe, and that side of
the family later got itself involved with a bad crowd." He shook his head, jowls quivering. "I
heard tell that Albus struck up a close friendship with Professor Batty's European nephew. That
was before my time, of course, but it's a tricky business, very tricky indeed... Albus still refuses
every call to action the Ministry sends him, you see, and some have started to wonder..."

"Oh?" said Tom. "Wonder about what exactly, sir?"

"Well, it's all just speculation," Slughorn admitted, glancing around the table. Lestrange and Avery
were steadily demolishing the contents of the cheese platter, but every other Slytherin at the table
was listening with avid attention. "But one could begin to understand a certain smidgen of
reluctance... the last place any man should like to see a good friend of his is on the opposite side of
a battlefield."

"I, for one, am shocked at how many well-known British personages have queer connections,"
Malfoy remarked, his thin-lipped face twisted into an expression of disdain. "My father said that
the Rosiers were German sympathisers. Everyone knows they aren't properly British like the rest
of us."

Lucretia Black snickered. "'The rest of us', Malfoy?"

"My family have been here for centuries!"

"If there are any secret German sympathisers out there, why haven't the Aurors arrested them?"
Tom asked.

"It's never an easy job to get proof of these things. Rumours go around, but with important names
being tossed around—respected wizards, proper families, most of 'em—they have to be surer than
sure about anyone they take in." Slughorn shifted uncomfortably. "But on to a more important
subject, Tom—have you considered taking up that trainee position at the Department of Magical
Law Enforcement?"

The dinner lasted until half-past nine, when the last cracker crumbs had been licked off the platters,
and the last grain of sand had fallen into the bottom bulb of Slughorn's hourglass. Tom considered
this dinner less of a waste of time than ones he'd suffered through in the past; instead of being a
mix of the four Houses, the attendees had been Slytherins to the last, so there was no need to keep
up the pretense that any of them enjoyed one another's company.

Lucretia Black couldn't stand Abraxas Malfoy; Malfoy, Avery, and Lestrange weren't fond of
pureblood witches with personal opinions as "progressive" as Lucretia's—she supported the fair
treatment of Muggleborns and half-bloods in the context of professional employment, as opposed
to the counter-argument that one's cousins shouldn't need to apply for work, if they were in need of
finding work at all. Orion rolled his eyes at the ridiculous posturing done by teenage boys trying to
impersonate their fathers, while Slughorn sipped his nightcap, obliviously congratulating himself
on what a fine crop of youngsters he'd gathered here tonight. Tom himself had mentally divided
the group into puppets who regurgitated someone else's opinions, or indifferent toadies who had no
opinions at all until their comfortable lifestyles were put under threat.

Tom wanted to tell Hermione what he'd learned about Dumbledore. She'd bought into the
meddling old man's act, that of the harmless old scholar, and Tom was eager to inform her that she
was wrong. Not for the same reason that Hermione liked correcting people (which was pure
pedantry) but because nothing thrilled Tom's heart quite like watching other people's pre-
conceptions shatter into tiny pieces. They could try to put themselves back together, but the cracks
were permanent, and so was their heightened level of cynicism.

(The dark satisfaction, he recalled with great fondness, was the same as what he felt when he was
six years old and had just told Jimmy at the orphanage that his uncle wasn't actually his uncle, and
his mother—despite all her tearful promises—was never coming back for him. And the best part
about it was no one being able to point their fingers at him and say that he'd broken any rules or
committed any acts of mortal sin.)

On the walk back to the Slytherin dormitories, Tom asked Lucretia, "Did you or Bledisloe assign a
patrol to Granger tonight?"

If Hermione had a Prefect patrol, Tom could catch up to her before bed. He knew he could always
visit her after hours by going through the Ravenclaw Common Room door-knocker puzzle, but
Ravenclaws always liked knowing they were the cleverest students, and it wouldn't earn him much
goodwill if a Slytherin proved he could sneak in at night. Cultivating goodwill mattered; even if he
borrowed books from the Common Room library during the day, the Ravenclaw girls' dormitory
was still off-limits to him and sending Hermione a message required the assistance of one of her
dorm mates.

Lucretia yawned, covering her mouth with a prim hand. "Granger asked for Friday off when I
assigned the schedule last Sunday. I assumed she was planning to join us at the Slug Club tonight,
but then I came across her in the Prefects' Bathroom before dinner. With a Slytherin boy..."

She inclined her head toward him. "You know, I do like seeing inter-House friendships; they're few
and far between for members of Slytherin House. To go without is so self-limiting. We're often
obliged to associate with family regardless of our own preferences, but one ought to be more
discerning when it comes to choosing their friends."

"You disapprove of inter-Slytherin friendships?" said Tom.

"'Friendships'!" said Lucretia, her mouth tilting up at the corners. "What bosh! Only a half-wit
would mistake Avery and Lestrange for friends. Trust me, Riddle, once you get your step next
year, those two will be strutting about the Common Room as if they'd earned the badge
themselves."

"You needn't be concerned," said Tom. "By the time I've made it to Head Boy, I'd have had six
years to train them properly. They'll bark, fetch, and heel if and when I want them to."

"Perhaps I should be concerned on their behalf, then." There was a thoughtful pause, before she
went on, "I should be, but I'm not. Oh well. Have a good night, Riddle."

She spoke the password at the blank section of wall that concealed the Common Room, and
stepped through the gap that opened up. Tom stood still, analysing their conversation for a minute,
before he abruptly turned around and strode out of the dungeons.

The Prefects' Bathroom was on the Fifth Floor, behind a nondescript door hidden between a
tapestry and a statue of a man putting his robes on backwards. It opened to the password, "Birch
bristles".

He'd been here once before, at the beginning of his Fifth Year, just to see why everyone had been so
interested in it on the train. It had been an impressive sight at first glance: a high ceiling and floor
laid with slabs of gleaming white marble, as grand as a Greek monument. Gold gilt, crystal
chandeliers, and stained glass: Rococo magnificence fit for anyone with a royal taste for opulence.
The lavish architecture had appealed to him as much as the theatre had, when he'd watched
Madame Butterfly with the Grangers.

But then his sense of practicality had set in.

Why a private bathroom just for Prefects?

A bathroom.

He'd much prefer a private study or Prefects' common room, which had more uses than just
bathing. And using it didn't necessitate having to take one's clothes off.

(Not that he was afraid of dis-robing or anything, unlike many of the girls who were mortified at
the prospect of changing their clothes in a train compartment, though it was empty of other people
and the doors were locked. As if anyone cared about the colour of their garter belts. Tom just liked
wearing his school uniform; he liked dressing as wizards did, performing feats of magic in robes
with flowing sleeves and cloaks that swept the floor.)

The door of the bathroom swung open, and a bank of scented steam roiled out, thick and white and
smelling of a potioneer's pantry. Tom waved it away, drawing his wand.

Ventus.

The steam shredded, wisping away to reveal a strange tableau.

Hermione and Nott, wading around the bottom of the Prefects' swimming pool, the water ankle-
deep and filled with bubbles. They had their shoes and robes off, draped over a stack of towels in a
corner of the room, their white uniform shirts half-transparent from the moisture. Hermione had
removed her stockings, and dried flower petals were stuck to her bare legs. The tails of Nott's
uniform shirt dangled over his long woollen underwear, the hems rolled up to his knee, darkened
here and there where water had splashed over them.

"I read that Muggle London had wooden plumbing in the sixteen-hundreds, but metal hydraulic
valves are relatively recent," spoke Hermione in her lecturing voice. "Even if the founders built
this as a communal bath house in the beginning, the tub and taps have to be new. I presume that
this was given to the Prefects after they installed new bathrooms for each dormitory..."

"Yes, but do any of these new taps do anything?" asked Nott impatiently, picking up a handful of
bubbles, inspecting them, then tossing them aside. "The best place to hide something is in plain
sight, but there are fifty of these things here."

"Well, we'll just have to keep trying them one by one, won't we," Hermione snapped.

"You were the one who suggested we look here, Granger; no need to tie yourself in a knot about it."

"Why don't you help me instead of whinging, then? Curfew's in half an hour!"

"What curfew? You're a Prefect!"

"I can't just pick and choose what rules to follow!"

"But you let me into the Prefects' Bathroom—are guests even allowed in here?"

"T-that's different!"

"So you tell yourself," snorted Nott.

"Having a pleasant evening, you two?" said Tom, stepping out of the swirling cloud of steam.

There was a splashing sound, someone yelled, "Fuck!" very loudly, then someone else said,
"Language!"

A few seconds later, Hermione's head popped out from the side of the pool. She dragged herself up
a golden ladder, looking somewhat bedraggled—the back of her hair had puffed out in the humid
steam, and the front was damp and plastered to her forehead and cheeks.

"Yes, Riddle, we were having the time of our lives," Nott said snidely, following her up the ladder.
It seemed that, as usual, he was physically incapable of being pleasant.

"Doing what, exactly?" Tom asked.

"Washing our feet," said Nott, a scowl on his face. "What does it look like?"

"Was that really necessary?" Hermione said to Nott.

"It's Riddle; I can't help myself," he replied with a shrug.

"You should be grateful that I can help myself." Tom tapped his wand against his thigh in
impatience. "Now," he said, staring fixedly at Nott, "need I repeat myself?"

"Do you need to do anything?" Nott muttered under his breath, his scowl deepening. In a louder
voice, he said, "We're looking for the Chamber, of course."

"In the Prefects' Bathroom?"

"The plumbing leads down into the Hogwarts foundations, and empties into the Lake," said Nott.
"In terms of classical affinities, Hufflepuff was associated with the element of Earth, and Slytherin
with Water—and that's why their Common Rooms were built in the lower levels of the castle."

Hermione added helpfully, "The Slytherin dormitories are built under the Lake."

"Looks like someone's been sharing House secrets," Nott remarked, before he continued, "If there
are any hidden rooms or chambers in the castle, Slytherin would've hidden them under the castle or
the Lake, having built them at the same time as the House dorms and the dungeons. The other
founders banished him before the castle's construction was completed, and they'd have noticed if
Slytherin had asked to work on one of the towers.

"If you talk to the portraits or the ghosts, they can give you a list of Hogwarts' architectural
features, and the century that they were installed. Of the few features that date back to the
founding, the dungeon network is the only one that makes sense. And the Hogwarts dungeons
include the Slytherin quarters, the Potions classrooms and storage rooms, and everything under the
Lake. The plumbing system goes under the Lake!"
"It's the only thing large enough to hide a monster for a thousand years," said Hermione, who had
been nodding along to Nott's explanation, looking ready to pounce on any logical inconsistencies.
"I think Professor Slughorn would have noticed if someone hid a dragon egg in the back of his
store cupboard. I don't know about the Slytherin quarters, but I'm quite sure Salazar Slytherin was
clever enough not to put a bewitched manticore where a hundred students sleep every night."

"Salazar Slytherin didn't care much for children," Nott put in, "but he did care about blood."

Tom rubbed his chin, his brows drawn together for a brief moment before they smoothed over.
"And this is why you've decided to examine all the bathrooms?"

"This is why we've been looking," Hermione corrected him. "It'll go much faster with another pair
of eyes."

Tom lifted an eyebrow. "Why should I help?"

"Because... because you chose to set that awful, completely unnecessary time limit!"

"Hmm. I'm still not convinced."

"If we don't find anything tonight, at least we'll know what all these taps do?" Hermione tried
again. "This is top-notch enchanting, even if it post-dates the founders."

"You've never used this bathroom before?" asked Tom.

"No," admitted Hermione. "It seemed like such a waste to spend fifteen minutes filling up the tub
for a single person..."

"I've never used it either," said Tom. "Never saw the point. Until now, I suppose."

He reached for his tie and began to loosen the knot.

"What are you doing?" said Nott uncertainly.

"Joining in," said Tom, slipping off his robe and folding it. "What does it look like?"

In the end, they found no evidence of the Chamber of Secrets being hidden in the Prefect's
Bathroom, but they did see what all the taps did. Colourful bubbles, dried flowers and herbs,
scented oil, mounds of foam, perfumed steam, and different temperatures of water, from a frozen
slush to a tea steeping boil.

The hot water was relaxing to Tom, who enjoyed the experience of bathing. Back in the orphanage,
the pipes froze every winter, and bathing was a chore to suffer through once or twice a week, and
involved buckets of snow and kettles of boiling water poured into a tin laundry tub of icy suds.
And then he'd come to Hogwarts, where he had his own towel, clean and fresh every day, and not a
cake of hard yellow soap in sight. The only disadvantage of the Slytherin dormitory bathroom was
the one bathtub shared between the six boys in his year group. (The disadvantage was mostly
Lestrange, who soaked his muscles after Quidditch practice, leaving a ring of mud like a high-tide
mark on the porcelain, which lasted until the tub was magically cleaned overnight. Tom had opted
for the showers instead.)

As relaxing as it was for Tom, he noticed that the beneficial effects didn't extend to Hermione or
Nott. Hermione was pink-faced the whole time, her complexion flushing darker when Tom reached
past her for the stack of towels on the other end of the pool, letting out the most peculiar-sounding
squeak when their bare knees brushed together under the water.

Nott, however, nervously averted his eyes whenever Tom gazed in his direction, choosing to tread
water alone on one side of the pool.

It was strange, as there was no reason at all to be nervous: none of them had taken their
undergarments off—and they weren't even visible, with the heavy layer of foam floating on the
surface of the water.

Tom had no other choice but to attribute their response to shyness.

That must be it, wasn't it?

They were both single children of their families. They'd always had their own showers and
bathtubs—living at the Grangers' house in the summer after Second Year, Tom had seen how
Hermione had had an entire bathroom to herself. Going to Hogwarts must have been the first
instance in their lives that they'd had shared accommodations. And even then, the sharing was
limited: their dormitory bathrooms had individual shower stalls, their beds had canopies for
privacy, each resident had their own trunk, bureau, and nightstand. Their sheltered lives were
nothing like the grim communalism of Wool's Orphanage, where the orphans were expected to
write their names on the inside collars of their shirts, and oftentimes had to cross out several other
names, the former owners who'd outgrown their assigned 'Broadcloth Uniform Smock, Size Four,
Grey'.

He remembered, a year ago, contemplating the column of vertebrae, the procession of little nubs
that traced their way from the nape of Hermione's neck and down the curve of her spine. He still
thought of it now and again when Hermione wore her hair in a plait, and it was a disappointment to
him that she felt, in the here and now, that it was necessary to preserve her modesty behind a wall
of bubbles.

Had she not touched his bare leg, his knees, his skin slick with blood, just a few months ago? She
had seen him then, pyjamas stained and torn, delirious with pain, falling unconscious on the floor
of St. Mungo's. Had she not slept in his bed, so close to his side that he could feel the ridge of her
spine as it disappeared into her bloodied nightgown—his own blood—so close that he'd had to peel
her hair out of his mouth in the morning?

After that, what sense was there in maintaining an illusion of innocence?

Hermione had presented minimal opposition when he'd asked her to stay; she had partaken, and her
present reluctance was exasperating. Yes, Nott was in the room, but he was irrelevant. Tom had
ensured that Nott's reputation, fortunes—his life—was tied to his own. He wouldn't speak a word
to their fellow students of anything even tangentially related to his quest for the Chamber of
Secrets.

It was a puzzle as to why Hermione was so resistant. They'd known each other for half their lives.
They'd broken rules together from the very beginning, been accessories to one another's crimes:
he'd done his classmates' homework for money and favours; Hermione had hired a wizard to ward a
Muggle house; they'd both performed underage magic long before the age of seventeen. Of course
there were plenty of things he hadn't told her, and didn't plan on doing so, but out of all the people
in their respective circles of social acquaintance, they had no one else but each other who shared—
who could share—so great and extraordinary a connection.
Hermione's delusions of modesty were absurd.

Tom ultimately decided that they were a minor inconvenience, and that he would never deem any
obstacle permanent or irreversible. Indeed, over the years, he had trained owls and spiders and rats;
he knew that adaptability was a matter of conditioning.

He'd invite Hermione to his home this summer; he would think of reasons for her to visit him as
often as she could. Eventually, she'd come to enjoy his company—all aspects of it, without the
artificial limitations imposed by some internal sense of morality or propriety.

To him, these limitations were arbitrary. To Hermione, they were conditional.

They had a year left of Hogwarts.

Looking at the stiff expressions of his fellow bathroom occupants, Tom supposed he wasn't the only
one keeping an eye on the time.
Chapter End Notes

This chapter was a weird mix of dramatic mystery, sexual tension, and goofing around.
 Tit for Tat
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1944

Hermione couldn't avoid the awkwardness that emerged after the incident in the Prefects'
Bathroom.

If she was honest with herself, the awkwardness hadn't been entirely unpleasant. She made a clear
distinction of the two types of awkwardness: good and bad.

Bad awkwardness was the dinner last summer with Tom's grandparents, who lacked any and all
awareness about the state of the world outside their insular sphere of privilege and affluence. Good
awkwardness was Hermione's attempt at a dance lesson during the Veterans' Gala, where she found
that Tom didn't need an explanation of metre signatures to follow the steps of a basic waltz.

That designation of... awkwardness without unpleasantness, she admitted with reluctance, could
apply to Tom's presence in the bathtub that Friday night.

In the summers she'd shared her bathroom—and the bathroom in her parents' magical tent—with
Tom, she had never seen him in this degree of undress. Yes, she'd seen him in the morning with his
hair uncombed, barefoot, and wearing his pyjamas, and that was a more private, intimate view of
him that few outside his dorm mates ever saw of him. But apart from the instance where she and
Nott had Apparated Tom to St. Mungo's, she couldn't recall seeing any part of him that lay below
his collar or above his ankles.

Her father was a doctor, so Hermione knew on an intellectual level that despite Tom's boasting
about being Special and Different to everyone else, he was physically no different than any other
boy his age, Muggle or wizard. Like every English boy in Britain, he had pale skin that turned pink
when scrubbed in hot water; he had two arms, two legs, and one bellybutton; he had hair on his
forearms and lower legs that matched the colour of the hair on his head. There was nothing
remarkable about it; in an anatomical sense, Tom Riddle was completely ordinary.

But somehow, seeing Tom unknot his necktie and unbutton his shirt in preparation of joining them
in the oversized bathtub, Hermione was nonetheless entranced by the view.

She didn't want to be—she never liked the sort of talk she'd overheard in the corridors on the way
to class, teenage boys ranking which of their female classmates had made the best impression upon
their return from summer holidays, or teenage girls giggling in the library about an upper year boy
browsing on the other side of the shelf. Tom was often the subject of these off-hand discussions;
for him to be reduced to the sum of his social graces and outward appearance, regardless of its
complimentary nature, seemed tremendously insulting. (Hermione had been teased throughout her
early childhood for her hair and her teeth and the way her hand was the first to shoot up whenever
the teacher asked a question, so she understood how it felt to be judged by appearance first, and
capability second.)
She was mortified that night to have found herself in the category of people she'd once criticised,
guilty of appreciating Tom Riddle for naught but his corporeal appearance.

There was no justification for this unworthy behaviour, she knew. It was degrading to judge
women by their looks, as if the colour of their lipstick or the liveliness of their walking gait was a
measure of their character. It was of equal superficiality to judge a man by such a standard as the
polish on his shoes, or the strength of his handshake.

But—

It had been difficult to look away.

It wasn't because she'd seen anything horrifying or unexpected that night.

It wasn't the sight of any disfiguring scars or marks on his body that had drawn her gaze, but Tom's
utter lack of concern when he'd undressed in front of her. In fact, there were no scars, or anything
disfiguring at all, just a smooth expanse of skin, sprinkled with a few moles on his back and lower
hip. It had been intriguing to observe, because she'd gotten herself used to Tom's being well-
admired for his physical attributes; she'd acknowledged that much of his appeal (no matter what she
personally thought of it) came of his symmetrical features, but here—up close—she could see that
he wasn't so symmetrical, or so perfect.

Without his many layers of clothing, Tom was lean of frame, perhaps a dozen pounds away from
looking underfed, an effect of being so tall, and at his age, growing still taller. His waist was
narrow, shoulder blades prominent, and his collarbones jutted. On his body, it was easy to discern
the places where flesh gave way to tendon and bone, but Tom wasn't as gawky or unco-ordinated as
one might expect for someone with his build; he exuded an aura of confidence—or perhaps it was a
lack of uncertainty—that distinguished him from boys his own age. Nott, stripped to his
shirtsleeves and underwear, was of a similar appearance—thin by nature as opposed to lack of
nourishment—but he was nowhere near Tom's equal in sheer presence.

For the sake of her sanity, Hermione resolved that she wouldn't think of that strange, awkward
evening (or at least, try not to), nor would she bring it up in conversation with any of the
participants. Tom didn't mention it afterwards, but Nott found her in the library the very next day,
looking eager to discuss what she had termed, "The Bathroom Incident".

"If there's one thing I can say about Riddle, it's his efficiency," said Nott, having figured out that
her favourite table was the quiet little nook by the wizarding law section, far away from the shelves
of basic textbooks and out of view of the librarian's desk. "Posturing at you, while threatening me
—the man doesn't know how to rest, does he?"

"I... I'm not certain he was showing off, exactly," said Hermione nervously, unable to hide the flush
that had risen across her face.

Showing off was so entrenched in Tom's nature that it was hard to tell when he was deliberately
going farther than his usual, and when he was being his normal self. Even having no need to
impress anyone was not reason enough to stop him.

"Please." Nott rolled his eyes. "Riddle looked much too eager about dropping his trousers in front
of you."

"You took your trousers off too," Hermione pointed out.

"I was wearing proper underclothes," said Nott. "Riddle was wearing some sort of strange Muggle
unmentionables. You could even see his knees!"

Hermione gaped at him. "I'm wearing a skirt; you can see my knees right now!"

"That's different," said Nott, "you're a girl."

"I don't understand what difference it makes," said Hermione, scowling at him.

"It's tradition," said Nott blithely. "Like bowing before a duel. Or the rule that one must never
sleep in a wandwood grove or store Goblin silver in their Gringotts vault."

"That's not tradition, that's just common sense," said Hermione. "There's a good reason for that
first one: bowtruckles attack wizards sleeping under wandwood trees."

Nott gave a careless shrug. "It doesn't matter why. The fact is that some things aren't done, but
Riddle does them anyway. If he's going to be a proper wizard, he ought to do things properly. No
one would ever trust a Minister for Magic if he doesn't at least pay lip service to wizarding
tradition."

"'Minister for Magic'?" Hermione echoed, incredulous. "What?"

"Isn't that what he's aiming for?" Nott's eyes narrowed. "I had it from Avery that Riddle asked
about Ministry jobs after Hogwarts—Slughorn tries to push him into one department or another
every time they have dinner." He ticked each point off on his fingers. "He toadied up to that
Ministry lady when we had Apparition lessons. He was making that smug face of his, and she gave
him her card! You said he cosied up to the Ministry secretary when you sneaked off the grounds
the other weekend. Without me."

He shot her an annoyed look, then continued, "I can sum it up for you: Riddle is in the perfect
position to enter politics. He has the connections; he'll have the marks by next year. Having half
the witches at Hogwarts eating out of his hands isn't enough. He needs legitimacy. He needs real
men of consequence taking notice of him. And he'll have that when everyone sees he's not just
some no-name, half-blood upstart—that he's the Heir-of-fucking-Slytherin!"

Hermione couldn't help herself; she laughed. "That's the most presumptuous thing I've ever heard."

"It's not presumptuous," retorted Nott. "Can you imagine a man of Riddle's talents ending up as a
shop clerk or a sweeper at the owl emporium?"

Can you imagine Tom writing an article about breastfeeding? thought Hermione. Because he's
already done that.

It was easy to assume that Tom applied high standards to everything in his life. Easy for those who
didn't know him, that is. He earned top marks; his close associates were the children of prominent
and wealthy families; he looked and dressed and sounded like a promising young wizard that other
young wizards should aspire to be. But Hermione knew that this was merely the surface. Much of
Tom's outward appearance was affected, and the truth was far less polished.

(She remembered the early days of First Year, when she and Tom had skulked around the corridors
and broom closets, checking the caretaker's traps before and after class each day to see if anything
had been caught. For around six months of that year, they'd kept a rat collection. It was far from
dignified, but when Tom discovered new forms of magic, dignity was the last thing on his mind.)

"It is presumptuous," she insisted. "What makes you think Tom is interested in being the Minister
for Magic?"

Hermione had been thirteen years old when Tom had decided that she should be the Minister. Over
the years, he'd brought the subject up on occasion, though he hadn't changed his mind: he wouldn't
turn his nose up at the rôle of dictator if offered, but any offer of the Minister's job would be faced
with a firm rejection. Public speeches on one's dedication to serving the public good was one
thing; deriving one's power from a public vote was another. Tom, unlike Hermione, saw no benefit
—no benefit to himself—in a democratic system. Hermione had seen no point in arguing with him
about it. He didn't want to be the Minister, and his preference was out of the question—as if
anyone was going to make him a dictator.

"What else would he be interested in?" asked Nott. "He's a Slytherin, and a wizard. In the
wizarding world, there's no official position as powerful as that of the Minister. I may not be as far
up Riddle's... confidences... as you are, but I do know what kind of person he is. He seeks power,"
he spoke with absolute certainty. "You can't deny it."

"I-I'm not denying it!" Hermione protested. "I just think you're counting your chickens, that's all."

Nott regarded her with a measured gaze. "If you want to do things properly, you ought to avoid
those awful Muggle sayings. Unless you like people thinking you're more common than you are."

"I'm not sure why that matters," said Hermione flatly. "There aren't any men of consequence I need
to impress."

"Oh, very droll," Nott said. He gave an unamused sniff. "I'm just saying, Granger, that everyone
should try to, shall we say, refine themselves."

"Why would I have need of that?" said Hermione. "Nothing I do will 'refine' my blood status."

"It's for the look of the thing," Nott answered. "If Riddle can do it, then so can you. I'm sure he'd
appreciate it—that's if he has hasn't decided to throw you over the moment he's landed a position as
someone's senior secretary. He'll be an important man one day, and he knows that looking
important is part of the job."

"Tom wouldn't throw me over," Hermione snapped. "And he's not interested in taking on an
administrative position after Hogwarts. If anyone should be worried about being 'thrown over', it's
you."

"How do you know?" asked Nott abruptly. "He's not said anything, has he?"

Hermione hadn't had many friends before Hogwarts; afterwards, sharing a dorm with five other
Ravenclaw girls hadn't made her more than passing acquaintances with them. They'd formed their
own little sub-groups by the end of Second Year, with Hermione on the outside. Not that she'd
minded, of course. She had Tom, who might not have been able to match her eye colour to the
most complementary shade of nail enamel, but was nonetheless a wonderful partner for class
projects and exam preparation.
She supposed that her friendship with Tom had spoiled her. Tom didn't expect surprise birthday
parties. He didn't demand that every spare minute she had outside of lessons be spent with him.
He didn't even like it when she read over his essays and was too kind in giving her critique. It
wasn't something she thought much about these days: Tom was her friend, she was his, and what
had once begun as an alliance of mutual convenience had become something... more. Something
reciprocated, somehow intimate, with no expectation of transactional exchange.

It took a moment or two for Hermione to recognise that this—their type of relationship—didn't
apply to everyone else. Tom's favour was never an achievement she laboured to earn. Tom
favoured her, and she didn't have to buy him expensive gifts, carry his books between classes, or
put in the painstaking effort of pin-boning his pickled Shrakes in Potions. (She'd disapproved of
Tom gently nudging another student into taking up the worst task in a group brewing exercise. But
they'd managed to finish their potion earlier than everyone else, and Hermione left the classroom
without the smell of fish clinging to her robes, so that was one instance where she kept her
disapproval to herself.)

"If you want to know, you could just ask him," said Hermione. "I admit that Tom can be difficult
sometimes, but I do believe he has a good soul."

"'Difficult'," Nott grumbled. "That's one way to put it..."

He shoved his hands into his pockets and wandered off, leaving Hermione to herself in her corner
of the library.

She picked up her quill, but didn't resume the essay she'd been working on when Nott came and
interrupted her.

The end of this school year was fast approaching, and most students were considering their future
careers, with their N.E.W.T.s right around the corner. It was strange for Nott to be considering
Tom's future career, as if it was any of his concern. As she thought about it, she began to consider
the decisions Tom himself had made about his future. He had a job already. Not a steady one, but
it was flexible and he'd saved up quite a bit in the few years he'd been writing for Witch Weekly, not
to mention the bonuses he got for various product endorsements. He had an inheritance courtesy of
Mr. and Mrs. Riddle, and through their bequest, Tom would one day be a gentleman of leisure.

She couldn't imagine Tom sharing this information with anyone else... Not with Professor
Slughorn, career advisor to the Slytherin students. Not with his Slytherin "friends", or with the
grandparents who expected him to attend a prestigious university after completing his secondary
education. (His field of study didn't matter, as they didn't expect him to actually work.) Tom's
plans, which encompassed all his childhood dreams, his wild goals, were so personal to him that
he'd gotten upset when he thought Dumbledore had found out about their letters.

Tom would never speak candidly about that subject with his fellow Slytherins. No, Tom Riddle
had built himself a reputation as a brilliant student, and everyone who believed what they saw,
believed he would go on to do great things—although what exactly these 'great things' were was
heretofore unknown. Tom, who enjoyed being an object of mystery and speculation (and wasn't
bothered if the things said about him were nice or not) never attempted to correct anyone of their
assumptions.

She could understand Nott's concern now, though she wasn't sure she sympathised.
They treated Tom as if he was a firm in which they could invest, which would eventually pay out
dividends for their support. Slughorn had cleared out a section of his shelf next to the photograph
of the stern and unsmiling Arcturus Black, dropping a few unsubtle hints about his 'reserved spot'.
Nott, and the rest of Tom's Slytherin followers, for that matter, must be eager to cling onto Tom's
coat tails, to bask in Tom's reflected brilliance.

The worst part was Tom's taking great pleasure in encouraging their assumptions, neither granting
firm confirmation or clear denial, always turning aside the questions with one pretty answer after
another, insinuating this and intimating that, but never saying anything. Hermione had since
Christmas wondered if Tom's half-baked marriage proposal had been one of his many great teases,
as Tom hadn't brought it up since the holidays, and she was almost too afraid to ask. (To an equal
degree, she was also afraid of what answer he would give her.)

With a sigh, she uncorked her ink bottle and returned to her work, tapping the desk lamp with her
wand to brighten and focus the light. There was no use in contemplating Tom's future career
choices, not when there were more important things to concern herself with: her own prospects.

On the last week of term, Lucretia Black tapped Hermione on the shoulder as she was leaving the
Great Hall after breakfast, drawing her aside and off down the corridor, the one with the alcove that
she and Tom had used for private conversations over the past few years.

Even in the middle of her N.E.W.T.s, Lucretia's presentation was spotless: her robes were neat and
pressed, no ink spots staining the green lining of the sleeves. It was quite unlike the Ravenclaw
Seventh Years that Hermione had seen in the Common Room, a handful who'd stayed up studying
the entire night and hadn't changed their clothes when coming down to breakfast in the morning.
Her immaculate appearance extended to Lucretia's dark hair, fashionable curls held with jewelled
pins in the shape of feathers. They had to be roller curls; Hermione's natural curls never behaved
like that; trying to tame them with a brush only made them frizz out more.

Finally, Lucretia's Head Girl badge shone on her lapel, the bright silver free of fingerprint
smudges. Its sparkle was matched by the silver rings on her hands, of which the heaviest on her
left hand was the most prominent.

"Granger," said Lucretia, her wand slipping out of her sleeve and casting about in the downwards
arc and flick of the Silencing Charm. "Do you have a moment?"

"Er," Hermione said hesitantly, "what is it?"

"Official business," said Lucretia. She put her wand away, clearing her throat. "Sorry about that.
These corridors echo and the portraits have a nasty habit of listening in on conversations—they get
awfully bored hanging on the walls all day.
"On a subject of more importance, Granger, I've had word that you've been nominated for next
year's Head Girl. Congratulations."

She spoke in a cool manner that wouldn't have been out of place in class, reciting a passage from
the textbook. She didn't sound overjoyed on Hermione's behalf; Hermione decided, out of the
desire to be generous, that Lucretia's indifference was due to her short time left at Hogwarts. What
did next year's Head Girl matter to someone leaving at the end of the week?

"Thank you," said Hermione. "Although it's probably too early for a congratulations."

"There aren't any female Quidditch captains in your year, so who else could it be? Catesby and
Fyfe are, hmm, aggressively mediocre," Lucretia continued, without the least bit of apology in her
tone. "And Hipworth's so insufferably gauche that even Sluggy can see right through her. There
was no other choice but you."

"Um, I don't think—"

"I expect that you'll do a creditable job of it, as long as you know what's expected of you. And for
that reason, I needed to speak with you."

She reached into her robes and drew out a thick roll of parchment, offering it to Hermione.

"Blank patrol schedules, divided by House and month," she explained. "The Prefect system is
intended to aid the teachers in ensuring a high standard of order and discipline at Hogwarts.
Traditionally, the Head Boy undertakes the discipline, and the Head Girl manages the
organisation... but with the position going to Riddle next year, I've reason to believe that he's
uninterested in either."

Hermione frowned. "Are you saying that he doesn't deserve to be next year's Head Boy?"

"I'm sure he's a wonderful person," said Lucretia, waving an ambiguous hand and not answering the
question. "If he has the patience to coddle Slughorn for six years running, then who am I to say
that he's undeserving? The problem with Riddle is the same problem that arises every time
someone hands the badge to a Slytherin: that the person who gets it cares less about Hogwarts than
he does about himself."

"But you're a Slytherin," Hermione pointed out.

"A formality," Lucretia replied. "The Hat offered me a choice, but all Blacks go to Slytherin. In
the end, one's House colours don't define them—it's the person who wears them that matters. And
Riddle would be a shirker no matter what colour he wears."

"He's a hard worker, you know. He earned eleven O.W.L.s last year," said Hermione defensively.

"He wags off detention for anyone who can return a favour," said Lucretia. "He's in my House; of
course I notice these things."

"Yes, alright, but he—"

"But you can keep an eye on him, can't you?" She graced Hermione with a considering look, then
added, "I doubt there's anyone else who could."

"I..." Hermione began. "I'll try, I suppose."

"Good," said Lucretia, nodding. "The last sheet has a list of duties expected of the Heads, sorted by
date. You'll want to get a head start in preparing the welcome speech for the September train ride,
and the two farewell speeches—one for the Seventh Year graduation evening, and another for the
last meeting on the Prefects' compartment. I expect you to attend mine, next week."

Having finished her speech, Lucretia flicked her wand at the walls to remove the Silencing Charm.
She glanced both ways down the corridor, and without another word to Hermione, strode away.

Hermione stared at Lucretia's retreating back, wondering what that was about. Lucretia Black,
Hogwarts' Head Girl incumbent—for one more week, at least—had always been somewhat
brusque, favouring the Prefects whose efficiency and industry met her standards. Hermione
thought it unusual for a Slytherin, but she'd appreciated the small courtesies (certain nights off
patrol on request) that came of having the Head Girl's approval. When she reflected upon it, she
recognised that resourcefulness, one of the traits espoused by Slytherin House, could appear in
many forms.

Pride had prevented Lucretia from pandering to Tom, as most Slytherins had been doing since Tom
had made Prefect. Lucretia had maintained a professional distance from Tom, but they'd never
been convivial. Why should she be? She was secure in her own merits—or that of her family's—
that there was no benefit in joining his crowd of admirers, although it must have grated on her that
her own brother, Orion, was part of Tom's little club. Like all club members, Orion hadn't seen the
inside of the detention room in two years.

Her thoughts on Lucretia aside, the list of Prefect tasks did come in useful. She read through it in
one evening and made a copy of it for Tom, whom she met in their usual spot, the abandoned
classroom in the dungeons that they'd cleaned up since Tom had made their general club
headquarters. (The broken desks had been repaired or removed, the squeaky chairs un-squeaked,
but there were a few bloodstains and scorchmarks on the floor that wouldn't budge. She suspected
that Tom's half-hearted cleaning efforts had been because he liked the look of them.)

When she presented him with a duplicated copy, Hermione found herself disappointed with his
ambivalent reaction.

"The point of being a Prefect or Head is being able to do whatever you want," said Tom, giving a
desultory glance at the stack of parchment pages she'd handed him. "This is a rule book. And not
even the helpful kind of rules, like 'Mind the Gap' or 'Beware of Sharks', but self-imposed, self-
restrictive rules. All I can see is an inadmissible waste of your valuable time."

Tom flicked to the end of the stack, scanning its contents. "'Leaving Day Procedure. One: Prefects
will ensure the House Common Room is tidied before breakfast. Female Prefects will inspect girls'
dormitories, male Prefects the boys'. Two: Prefects will ensure all trunks are labelled before
collection. All misplaced or unattended belongings will be deposited in Lost and Found. Three:
Prefects will escort students to breakfast, and after breakfast will escort them to the carriages...'"

He gave a loud scoff and said, "Look at this—you're expected to watch them eat, clean up after
them, dress them to standard, and make them do their homework. The only thing that's missing is
the bit where you're expected to wipe their bums."

"But the Prefects' job is to oversee the younger students," Hermione protested. "Isn't that why they
choose the most responsible students of each House in Fifth Year?"
"The function of the Prefect is to lead," said Tom. "In Latin, 'Praeficere' means 'to put in front',
and was a title used by Roman military officials. What you've got is the mistaken assumption that
you're supposed to go around minding other people's children." Tom, looking quite intently at her,
added, "The last I heard, you don't even like children—or that's what you told my grandmother
when she asked you about it."

"T-that's not what I said!" said Hermione. "I told her I wasn't interested in, you know, settling
down, right away. I didn't say it was out of the question."

"It's not?" said Tom sharply.

"I want to finish school, of course," said Hermione in a nervous voice, feeling bewildered at the
unexpected shift in the conversation. "And I'd like to have a stable situation that gives me more
than a choice between living with Mum and Dad or living in a ladies' boarding house."

Her mother had lived in a ladies only public boarding house whilst undertaking her medical
training. They were touted as affordable, clean, respectable, and that last quality was very
important to many young, unaccompanied women who'd moved to the city for work, and planned
to return to their villages with their reputations intact. The boarding houses' respectability was
maintained by strict proprietresses with even stricter rules, upheld on pain of ejection: no loud
music, proper presentation at meals, prayers on Sunday, no male guests. Even after Mum and Dad
had been engaged to marry, she hadn't been allowed to invite him into the communal sitting room.

Mum had plenty of funny stories that she'd told Hermione over the years, but after going to
Hogwarts, Hermione saw the reality of Mum's experiences. It seemed incredibly unpleasant.
Every boarding house guest got her own private bedroom, which was better than the shared
Ravenclaw girls' dormitory, but no one at Hogwarts enforced prayer before supper (in fact, praying
at Hogwarts was unusual and quietly mocked by certain members of Slytherin House) or limited
association with only their House or sex.

It had shown Hermione the difficult journey of becoming a Modern Woman. She'd read about this
feminine ideal from a young age: the woman who was educated, voted, never wore a corset unless
it was by her own choice, and had more to contribute to society than motherhood. (Hermione had
never seen fatherhood used to gauge a man's respectability. Integrity, rectitude, faithfulness, and
sobriety, yes. But outside of an occasional ambiguous reference to the ideal of 'fruitfulness', she'd
never found the act of siring children to be a great virtue for the virtuous modern man.)

Wizarding Britain had a different set of expectations for the feminine ideal. Witches had magic, an
inherent utility beyond their ability to bear children, but from what she'd seen, the notion of
Modernity was as yet unheard of.

Well, that wasn't reason enough to stop her from aspiring to it.

"You're always welcome in my mansion," Tom offered magnanimously. "I have servants. You'd
never find that in a boarding house."

"You also have a grandmother," said Hermione. "If I started living at the Riddle House for good, I
can imagine that she'd bring the vicar around for tea every week to remind us that we're living in
sin."

"You'd be sinning no matter what you did," Tom replied, shrugging. "I shouldn't think the God-
bothering types approve of witches."
"That's—" Hermione scrambled to find the right word. "—Reassuring."

"You could follow my example, and disregard anything they say," Tom continued blithely. "Really,
it's the most sensible course of action. Why should you or I allow other people—Muggles, the
government, some insipid rulebook—to determine what we can or can't do?

"B-but..." Hermione stammered, "the government passes laws for good reasons. Without law and
order, we'd be much worse off."

"The natives of colonial Rhodesia or Palestine would be glad to hear that," said Tom. "I'm sure
they thank their British viceroys each and every day."

"That wasn't what I meant!"

"But it's what you said," said Tom. "It's alright, Hermione. When you're ready to accept the truth,
you need only admit it to yourself."

Hermione let out a loud huff of irritation. "There's no use arguing with you!"

"I'm a natural pacifist," said Tom, giving her a gentle pat on the hand. "It's one of my many
admirable qualities."

While Tom was not appreciative of Lucretia's comprehensive guide to good Prefectship—he'd
snorted at the tips on effective speechwriting—Clarence Fitzpatrick thought it was a splendid idea.
Clarence, who by nature was not particularly assertive or confident, had taken to it immediately.
He was under the impression that the recipient of next year's Head Boy badge was still undecided,
and had welcomed it as authoritative advice for someone unused to having authority thrust upon
him. Hermione hadn't had the heart to contradict him, and she did enjoy having someone agree
with her on the importance of proper procedure and responsible oversight, which Tom counted as
less important than his own particular habit of delegation. (Those were his words; what it really
meant was Tom encouraging the younger Fifth Year Prefects to overlap their patrols with his, under
the guise of "extra training".)

For the final week of term, Clarence accompanied Hermione on routine patrols, following the
instructions given by Lucretia. This included a map of patrol routes, and a checklist of places
where students were most often found past curfew: the stairwell leading up to the Astronomy
Tower, an empty classroom on the Third Floor corridor, the alcove behind the statue of a witch with
a severe spinal deformation, and the broom cupboards on the First and Second Floors.

"I didn't even know about half these places," Clarence remarked while they were finishing up the
last evening patrol of the year. He closed the broom cupboard door and tapped it with his wand,
murmuring a locking charm. "How do you think Lucretia found out about them?"

Hermione had recognised the cupboard from First Year, when she and Tom had explored the castle,
looking for a place to experiment with their "borrowed" rats.

"Perhaps she heard about them from an older student when she was a Prefect?" said Hermione. "I
can't imagine that she'd have any use for them herself."

"Oh," said Clarence. His steps slowed, drawing to a halt on the curving staircase that led up to the
Ravenclaw Tower. Hermione almost ploughed into his back. "I forgot about that. Isn't she
marrying Prewett?"
"I'm afraid I don't know who that is," Hermione replied. She didn't pay much attention to the
wizarding gossip that her female classmates indulged in during lessons, other than to deduct points
when they got too loud. The social column in the back of The Daily Prophet was similarly ignored;
she read the newspaper for news, not for announcements of newborn babies or diamond
anniversaries.

"Ignatius Prewett—he and his sister were Gryffindors, I think," said Clarence. "Left a few years
before we started First Year. His and Lucretia's wedding is set for next year."

Hermione frowned. "Wedding? She's barely eighteen!"

"Most girls of the old families marry at nineteen or twenty," Clarence said. "Their families expect
them to—though they never seem to push the boys quite so hard." He gave her a curious look.
"Hasn't anyone mentioned it to you? The, um, other boy I saw you studying with in the library the
other day? He was in Slytherin robes..."

"You mean Nott," said Hermione. "No! We don't talk about that sort of thing; we just study
together."

It wasn't just studying, but she wasn't going to tell that to Clarence.

"Oh," Clarence said awkwardly. "That's good, then. I was going to say... but I suppose I oughtn't
to mention it now..."

They'd reached the Ravenclaw doorknocker by now, though this late in the night, the eagle
sculpture was quiescent, its eyes closed and a soft snore emanating from its cast-bronze beak.

"What is it?" asked Hermione.

"You're Muggleborn, so you might not have heard, but pureblood boys don't usually marry as
young as the girls do. That doesn't meant they don't—they can't—you know, um," Clarence broke
off in a stutter, his throat bobbing.

"Oh!" said Hermione, clearing her throat. "Yes, I see what you mean. You don't have to worry
about that, not with Nott." She made a face. "He's that kind of pureblood. I think he'd cut his own
hand off rather than let it touch me."

"Oh, um," said Clarence. "I see. I just thought..."

Hermione looked down at the floor, then the wall, then the sleeping eagle doorknocker.

"I wouldn't, not with anyone who saw my blood as a mark against me. A stain on my character. It
doesn't matter," she said fiercely, reaching for and seizing the ring held in the eagle's mouth. "The
only thing that matters to me is one's talent and ability."

She knocked on the door, waking the eagle with a loud squawk.

"O-oh," said Clarence, and the little puff of noise he made sounded crestfallen.
The last day of the school year was chaotic for the Prefects.

Students of all ages were underfoot, packing their belongings, collecting everything they planned to
take home with them, and sometimes demanding them back from whoever had asked to borrow
them earlier in the year. In the Ravenclaw Common Room, the items most frequently exchanged
and misplaced were books, and Hermione had had quite a job of sorting out ownership disputes
with the contents of the Lost and Found box, containing all the lost odds and ends that the cleaners
had picked up from the beginning of September.

Watching Twyla sort through her nightstand and dump out dirty, lipstick-stained handkerchiefs and
broken hairpins, Hermione wondered why the other girl hadn't packed her trunk days earlier, like
she had.

"You could've done that last week, you know," said Hermione, folding her nightgown and placing it
in her trunk, atop a stack of folded blouses and uniforms.

"The train goes at eleven," Twyla replied with a sniff. "That's plenty of time! I even set my school
alarm this morning, and we don't even have lessons today!"

"You're meant to be at the station at half past ten," Hermione pointed out. Lucretia had written it in
the Prefect instruction list.

"That's only a suggestion, not a rule," Twyla insisted, inspecting a bottle of nail enamel whose
colour had separated from the oil base. "Like party invitations—everyone knows you're supposed
to come an hour after the listed time. If you show up when it says, there won't be any people there,
and that's no fun, is it?" She giggled, and added, "But I'm sure you wouldn't mind that."

"Just be there so I can tick your name off the list," Hermione huffed, slamming shut the lid of her
trunk.

For the rest of the morning, Hermione helped her fellow Ravenclaws gather their pets and stuff
them into their cages, before herding down to the Great Hall for their final breakfast. The banners
on the walls weren't the normal set of gilt-tasselled purple velvet embroidered with the Hogwarts
crest, but a set in rich emerald green. Slytherin colours, for Slytherin House had won the House
Cup again, beating out Ravenclaw through the additional points earned in Quidditch games.

(Ravenclaw students were awarded the most points by the teachers, but Slytherin Prefects never
deducted from their own House, and had the strongest Quidditch team of the whole school. Based
on what she'd heard from Fiona Catesby, a Gryffindor Prefect, the Slytherins were just the best at
cheating. Hermione could neither support nor refute it; she hadn't attended a Quidditch game since
First Year.)

After that, she and the other Ravenclaw Prefects ticked the names off the roll, a difficult task with
the number of students milling about and mixing with their friends of other Houses. They'd had the
House Cup ceremony at last night's farewell feast, and this morning's students were no longer
cowed by the threat of point deductions or detentions. From across the Great Hall, she could see
Tom, among the tallest of his year, his group of Slytherins hovering about him. He didn't appear
distressed in the chaos; rather, he appeared to have gotten his friends to forcibly shove the younger
students into some semblance of a queue.

"Right," said Hermione crisply, ticking the last name off her list, Twyla Ellerby, who'd just arrived
at the end of the queue, panting and puffing. Twyla had a canvas-lined wicker basket dangling
from her elbow, and a spitting cat clamped under her other arm. "You're the last on my list.
They've already started moving the carriages, so you'll probably have to share one with the
stragglers."

Twyla nodded, turning to follow the now-thinning crowd. With a sudden yowl, the cat tucked
under her arm latched its claws into Twyla's sleeve. Twyla cried out, her grip loosening, and the
cat, a black and orange calico with long tufted ears, dropped to the floor of the hall and ran for
freedom.

"Stupefy."

A jet of red light struck the cat in the back of the head; it toppled to the floor, paws akimbo.

Tom ambled up, tucking his wand back into his pocket.

"Someone should pick that up," he remarked. "It's bad form for people to leave things lying around
like that, someone could have a nasty fall. Hermione, are you done yet? I've sent the others ahead
to save us a good compartment—the ones at the back of the carriages have the most leg room."

"I'm done with my list," Hermione replied, rising up on her toes to peer over the crowd. Clarence
still had a few people waiting to be marked off, one lower year girl at the head of the line looking
rather unhappy with him. "Clarence isn't done with his."

"I don't see what that's got to do with you," said Tom, glancing over at Clarence, who had dropped
his quill on the floor, and after picking it up, dribbled ink on his hand and down into his sleeve.
"Let's go, before we end up in a carriage with the Gryffindors. I think Hagrid was at the back of
the queue."

"You can go ahead, if you'd like," Hermione said. "I'll just pop in and see what's taking him so
long."

She folded up her list, tucking it into her robe pocket, before striding over to Clarence and tapping
him on the shoulder.

"Is there anything wrong? The train leaves in twenty-five minutes! And it takes ten for the
carriages to take us down to the station!"

Clarence's expression turned sheepish. "I'm missing someone from my list, a Fourth Year. Her
dorm mates said she liked taking her time in the bathroom, and that she'd catch up to us at the
carriages."

Hermione held out her hand for Clarence's list, scanning the crossed out entries. She'd been
assigned the names at the beginning of the alphabet, A through F, while Clarence had been all the
students from U to Z. It was an organised way of sorting all the students in their House, compared
to the Gryffindor slapdash method of First Come, First Served, or the Hufflepuffs' cumbersome
chaperone system of older student mentor matched to a group of three or four younger students.
"'Warren, Myrtle'," read Hermione. "I checked all the girls' dorm bathrooms before we left, and
told the doorknocker not to let anyone back in.

"If she's still in the bathroom," continued Hermione, "then it can't be the ones in the dorms. It must
be one of the bathrooms on the First or Second Floor—they're the only ones in between Ravenclaw
Tower and the Great Hall." She sighed. "Should I go and fetch her? It's the girls' loo; you
wouldn't be allowed in, obviously."

Once the last carriage had departed, anyone left behind would have to travel to Hogsmeade by
foot. It was a journey of twenty minutes, twice the time it would've taken the enchanted carriages;
Hermione had done it before, when Hogsmeade weekends had fallen on fair weather days—and
when she hadn't bought anything from the village bookshop or stationer's. It was a scenic trip
around the Lake and past the edge of the forest, but it wouldn't be as pleasant with a pet carrier or
owl cage, as this scenic route involved a stretch of rocky path that led down from the castle. She
could manage it with a handful of convenient charms, but a Fourth Year wasn't allowed to use
magic past the front gates.

"You could wait for her to finish her business," Clarence suggested. "I thought all girls took ages in
the loo."

"We can't just leave a student behind!" said Hermione. "The teachers have already gone home, and
they left us in charge. If she needs to do her business, she can do it on the train."

With that, she turned on her heel and marched to the door of the Great Hall, robes flapping.

Hogwarts' First Floor contained the Great Hall, and a central corridor that connected it to the great
double doors by the Entrance Hall. In turn, it was connected to a flagstoned quadrangle that led
into the grounds proper, finally terminating in the covered bridge that spanned the narrowest part of
the Lake. Hermione had traversed this corridor thousands of times over the years, for classes
during the day, and patrols at night. With the students either en route to Hogsmeade Station or
settling themselves into their compartments, it was eerily silent, and her footfalls echoed off the
stone walls.

She checked the tiny visitors' bathroom that led off the Entrance Hall, no more than two stalls and a
washbasin for any guests and Ministry inspectors who might tour the castle, but it was empty. She
hadn't been expecting to find anyone there, so she continued onwards.

There was a larger bathroom on the First Floor, one that people queued up to use after Quidditch
games. Due to Quidditch's ridiculous rules, no one knew how long a game would last, so most
attendees held themselves in as long as they could, and if they couldn't, this was the nearest
bathroom to the school pitch. Hermione peeked in, noting the ink-daubed lions that a vandal had
painted over the stall doors, charmed into animation so that the lion bounded after a fluttering
doodled Snitch. Commendable charmwork; it was almost a shame that they'd be removed during
the holidays.

That bathroom was empty too. With a sigh, Hermione climbed up the nearest set of stairs, holding
the banister as it swung across the central chamber of the castle and connected her to a Second
Floor landing.

She was very familiar with the Second Floor, because this floor contained the Hogwarts library
wing, the largest public collection of magical literature in Britain. The Defence Department had a
wing at the opposite end of the corridor, which contained Professor Merrythought's office,
classroom, and a duelling room with a regulation-compliant platform and a number of enchanted
practice dummies. There was a bathroom in between the two wings, Hermione recalled. The
students who'd been ejected from the library for being too noisy had often congregated in that
particular bathroom to finish their conversations.

The library was closed now, the lamps shuttered for the summer, and the door closed. However,
something, a shadow, moved behind the glass window on the door, then the door swung open, and
Nott stood in the threshold, stuffing a large, rectangular object under his robes. He'd drawn his
wand, and as Hermione watched, he prodded the door handle with it, which let off a scraping
sound, followed by a firm click!

Hermione cleared her throat.

"What are you doing?"

Nott turned around, scowling. With the movement, a corner of a book poked out of his pocket,
which he shoved back in.

"Some last minute borrowing," he said coolly. "I'll, ah, just be on my way, then."

"Borrowing?" said Hermione. "It's against library policy to lend books over the summer."

"Well," Nott said, "perhaps I got a permission slip from Slughorn? You know he throws them at
Riddle whenever he asks."

"Yes, but that's Tom," spoke Hermione with as much patience as she could muster, "and you're...
you."

"And glad to be," Nott retorted. "Now if you don't mind..."

"Show me the book."

"No."

"I'm a Prefect!"

"Slytherin's already won the House Cup!" said Nott. "There's nothing you can do."

Hermione drew her wand. "I could hex you!"

"You could, but you won't," said Nott, eyeing her wand, then her face. "You're a Prefect."

"Then I—I'll tickle you!" Hermione cried. "Rictusempra is only a First Year charm, but I don't
know anyone who could suffer ten entire minutes of it!"

"Are you going to tell Riddle?" asked Nott, narrowing his eyes.

"No," Hermione conceded. "As long as you return the book in the same condition you got it."

"Fine," said Nott. He reached under his robes and flashed the cover of the book at her.

Hermione couldn't help herself; she gasped.

"A Compleat History of the Founders!" she groaned, covering her mouth. "That's a N.E.W.T.-level
reference book! No one's allowed to borrow it, and you need a teacher's note to even touch it—and
everyone knows that Professor Binns never gives them out!"

"I know," said Nott smugly. "I had to wait until the librarian was gone before I could nick it. I'd
have got my own, but Hogwarts has the only public copy, and any other families who might have
one squirrelled away in the back of the attic won't share."

"Are you quite sure you'll put it back?" Hermione asked, glancing down the corridor to make sure
the librarian wasn't hiding behind the nearest suit of armour.

"Yes," said Nott, grimacing in distaste. "I'll bring it back in September. Someone will notice if it's
gone, and by then I'll have made a copy of the most important bits." He stroked the spine with a
languid finger. "I'm sure you'd like that, wouldn't you, Granger?"

"Um." Hermione bit her lip. "Maybe."

"Maybe, maybe," Nott said, his expression wary. "Maybe you should tell me what you're doing
here. Did Riddle send you up here to sneak around for him?"

"Tom doesn't send me to do anything," said Hermione snippily. "I'm looking for a missing student,
a Ravenclaw Fourth Year. She was supposed to have gotten on the carriages with the rest of her
year, but we can't find her."

Nott rubbed his chin. "I suppose that's where the crying came from, then."

"Crying?"

"I heard someone sobbing in the loo down the hall," he explained, jerking his head in the direction
of the Second Floor bathroom. "Didn't know what that was about. Not that I care, as I have
obviously got more important things to worry about."

"So have I," said Hermione, marching down the corridor and into the bathroom, where she could
hear the faint sobs of a young girl from one of the stalls.

The Second Floor girls' bathroom had a high, vaulted ceiling, but unlike the corridor outside, there
were no chattering portraits or moving tapestries here. The walls were interspersed with lead-
framed windows set with thick panes of rippled glass; on this summer's morning, it was bright and
airy, the sunlight reflecting off the panel of mirrors over the pedestal sink feature, casting shimmers
of white and gold over the floor. The bathroom's position as a much-trafficked meeting room had
made Hermione avoid it early on; this was a place where girls gathered to chatter, to gossip, and to
her great agitation, express their feelings in a most intimate and alarming fashion.

(She understood the cathartic release of crying, but did people have to do it in such a public venue?
Pushing past the girls crowded in front of the mirror to touch up their lipstick, Hermione had come
to appreciate the privacy—the exclusivity—of the Prefects' Bathroom, which had toilet stalls off to
the side of the changing area. She'd mentioned it to Tom, and he'd nodded sagely and said, "No one
likes sharing with the peons if they can help it", which wasn't exactly the affirmation she'd been
looking for...)

Behind the locked door of a bathroom stall, Hermione heard a wet sniffle.
"Hello?" she said, rapping on the door. "Myrtle? Myrtle Warren?"

There was a brief silence, punctuated by the sound of tearing paper and the swish and gurgle of
water going down the drain.

"Who is it?" The question was hesitant, the voice unsure.

"Hermione Granger, Prefect. You're meant to have gone down to the carriages; I'm sure your
friends are already on the train and wondering where you are."

She heard a hiccupping gasp, the slide of the latch, and the creak of the opening door.

A girl stood in front of her, brown hair bound in pigtails, and a pair of thick spectacles perched on
her nose, fogged with steam. Her face looked pink, her cheeks wet, and there were dark splotches
on her uniform robe. Hermione was instantly tempted to cast a Tergeo, but restrained herself in the
name of politeness.

"I," croaked Myrtle Warren, "don't have any friends!"

"Everyone has at least one frie—"

"Everyone hates me!" she cried, bursting into a round of fresh tears and throwing herself into
Hermione's arms. "They all left and forgot about me! No one remembered I was here, not a one of
them!"

"Actually, I came because—"

"They asked about me? They told you I wasn't on the train?"

"Um, no, but—"

"So it was because you had to! You don't really care!"

"I—" Hermione began, attempting to pick her words carefully, "I care about the welfare of all
Ravenclaw students. And I really do want to make sure everyone gets home safely..."

"That's all that matters to you, I knew it!" Myrtle wailed into Hermione's shoulder, dribbling a line
of snot over her lapel. "They're all the same, girls like you and them; they say such nice things
—'Oh, Myrtle, don't cry, talk to us, we're here for you!'. But, I just know it, as soon as I'm out of
sight it's, 'Oh, Myrtle, she cries so much they might as well stick a sign on the dormitory toilet
saying Myrtle's Room'. And then, they'll, they'll turn around and laugh and say—who's that?"

"What?" said Hermione, trying to peel Myrtle's hands off her robe.

"There's a boy in the girls' bathroom!" Myrtle shrieked, glaring over Hermione's shoulder.

Hermione craned her neck to see.

Nott was inspecting the sinks in the centre of the bathroom, tapping his wand to them and
muttering to himself. When he felt them staring at him, he straightened up, his eyes darting down
to the wet streak of gobby mucus on Hermione's robe.
"You weren't doing anything important," Nott said. "And I haven't had a chance to look around the
girls' loos yet. The mirrors here are larger than the one in the boys'... But ours is better maintained.
The handle on this tap won't even turn—"

"That one's always been broken," Myrtle said.

Nott drew his wand along the porcelain bowl of the sink, but suddenly he stopped and glanced at
Hermione.

"Interesting," he remarked, and then without warning, he pointed his wand at Myrtle. "Petrificus
totalus."

"What was that for!" Hermione scrabbled into her robe pocket for her own wand—

"Imperio," said Nott.

"Nott—"

"You'll leave this bathroom and walk down to the carriages, and take one to Hogsmeade. You won't
mention seeing anyone here. You'll forget anything that happened here. If anyone asks, you'll say
you were alone."

"What are you—"

"Go," ordered Nott, and with a flick of his wand, he broke the Body-Bind on Myrtle Warren and
watched her totter out of the bathroom, her eyes glazed behind her spectacles, her expression blank
and oddly gormless. He turned to Hermione, twitching with eagerness. "I think I've found it!"

"You just used an Unforgivable Curse on a student! That's illegal!"

Nott waved away her complaints, gesturing at the sink, the one with the broken tap. "That's not
important. This is. Look—it's Slytherin's sign!"

Cast into the aged, tarnished metal of the spout, along the side where it joined the porcelain bowl,
was a small curled serpent in relief, its tail and throat twisted in the shape of an S, a design that
matched that of the crests worn on Slytherin robes and the House banners in the Great Hall. This
tap was identical to the others, but it was this single detail that differed. No other tap had that
unusual symbol; they all produced a steady stream of water when she turned the handles, and no
conclusive result when she cast Revelio upon them.

All except for this one.

"What does it mean?" she asked. "Slytherin hid the Chamber of Secrets inside this broken tap?"

"You've no imagination," Nott scoffed. "It's obviously a door handle, magically sealed so that only
the Heir can open it."

"So how are you going to open it?"

"I..." Nott began, but he caught himself just as they heard Tom Riddle calling Hermione's name
from the corridor outside.

"Hermione!"
"Tom!" Hermione replied, passing Nott and throwing open the bathroom door, where Tom stood,
his sides heaving, wand gripped tightly in his hand.

"Someone attacked the missing Ravenclaw with dark magic—" He stopped mid-sentence, then
asked sharply, "What are you doing here?"

Nott tensed, his shoulders stiffening. "How did you find us?" he asked, carefully adjusting his
body to block sight of the tap.

"I asked the portraits about the girl, since she couldn't tell me herself. She was compelled into
silence," answered Tom. "Now I see why. What are you hiding, Nott?"

"Nothing," spoke Nott in a hoarse voice.

"Don't lie to me," said Tom, pushing past Hermione and stepping into the bathroom. "There is
nothing I despise more than being lied to. Tell the truth."

A vein pulsed in Nott's forehead, and he shuddered, the cords of his throat bulging and twisting as
he tried to wrench his face away from Tom's burning gaze.

"The truth, Nott," said Tom, his words ringing off the stone walls. The brightness and warmth of
the summer morning seemed to darken, the atmosphere dissolving into one of fraught anxiety.

"I—I've found it," Nott finally choked out, clutching his throat and casting his eyes to the floor.
"The Chamber of Secrets."

"Show me."

Nott moved out of the way, gesturing at the tap with the design of the serpent. Tom inspected it,
running first his fingers, then his wand, over the sinuous curves of the metal snake, his eyes hot and
fevered.

"How does it open?" he asked, tearing his attention away from the tap.

"There's a... a password." Nott hesitated, his eyes drawn to Tom's wand, which Tom was absently
stroking. "I haven't a clue what it is."

"Hermione?" Tom prompted.

Hermione had been dwelling over Nott's casual use of the Imperius Curse, but upon hearing her
name, she jerked to attention. "Er... After he was expelled by the other founders, Slytherin was said
to have entrusted knowledge of the Chamber to his apprentices, who were allowed to remain in the
castle as long as they renounced their blood purity ideologies. The other founders never discovered
the Chamber, so the password must be something special or significant to Slytherin. Perhaps it was
a spell he invented, or in a language he spoke. According to historical record, Slytherin returned to
his estate in Ireland and spent the rest of his life there. His given name, 'Salazar', suggests his
ancestors were of Celtic Basque descent."

"The password is in Gaelic, then?" Tom asked, looking doubtful.

"You could try it," Hermione suggested.

Tom shrugged, then bent over the tap and whispered a few words.
Nothing happened.

"Are you sure you're saying the right thing?" said Nott. "Maybe the password is 'Reducto'?"

Tom considered it for a few moments, before he leaned over the sink and whispered something in
an unrecognisable language, the sharp consonants giving his voice a peculiar hissing quality.

He stepped back, his brows furrowed, glaring at the pedestal sink feature.

"Let me try," said Nott. "You mustn't have gotten the conjugation right. I think I can—"

There was a pop, a metallic creak, and a low rumbling under their feet that Hermione could feel as
much as hear. Something squealed, and Hermione realised that it was the handle of the broken tap;
it was turning, spinning now, faster and faster, and from the worn pewter spout a brilliantly glowing
light emerged.

With a groan, the sinks descended into the floor, the blackened iron drain grates vibrating under the
soles of her shoes. Tom stepped back, his eyes bright, his expression hungered, bumping against
her side; she felt his hand slip under the sleeve of her robe, his fingers tight against her wrist,
clenching, unclenching, shaking in agitation—in excitement—as a hole opened up in the centre of
the Second Floor girls' bathroom.

"The Chamber of Secrets," he murmured, stepping forward eagerly—

Hermione yanked him back. "No one's going in!"

"What!" both Tom and Nott exclaimed, staring at her in astonishment.

"The train leaves in less than ten minutes! We'll have to run to the gates, then Apparate to the
station to catch it before it leaves!"

"Damn the train!" said Tom heatedly. "We can Apparate to London—our luggage has already been
sent on."

"You can't Apparate six hundred miles!" said Hermione. "You'll splinch yourself!"

"I'll stop in Yorkshire," Tom replied. "I'll be fine."

"No," said Hermione firmly. "Lucretia Black is delivering her farewell speech in the Prefects'
compartment in fifteen minutes. We'll both be there. I... We'll pretend nothing happened, that
everything's normal. No one will have any reason to suspect that we've done anything wrong."
She glared at Nott, who appeared completely unaffected about his recent use of the Imperius, an
offence worthy of an Azkaban sentence. "And then we'll spend the summer coming up with a plan
for what to do with—with that."

She flapped her hand at the hole in the floor. "You weren't going to just jump in headfirst, were
you?"

"No," said Tom. He sent a sideways glance at Nott. "I was going to toss him in first."

"My vote goes with Granger!" said Nott.

"You don't get a—"

"Two against one, Tom," said Hermione. "If we're missing on the train, they'll send a teacher to
look for us. And if the teachers know we've found this, they'll send the Ministry to investigate."

Tom looked rebellious at that, but he gave a sigh and turned away from the sinks.

"Very well," he spat. "We'll work on a plan. Together. You'll spend this summer with me, won't
you, Hermione?"'

"O-of course," said Hermione.

"Good."

"What about me?" asked Nott.

"What about you?" Tom gave him an irritated look.

"Aren't you going to release me from the oath?"

"No," said Tom instantly. "Since we're apparently not going down there, there's no proof that it's
the real Chamber."

"What else could it be?" said Nott, his tone contemptuous.

"Slytherin's secret laundry chute," said Tom. "Really, it could be any number of possibilities."

"Oh, come off it, Riddle," snapped Nott. "What about this summer? Am I going to be let in on the
plans?"

"No," Tom said.

"Yes," said Hermione, remembering the book Nott had taken from the library and stowed under his
robes.

"Hermione—" said Tom.

"He found it," said Hermione. "It's only fair."

"I found it," insisted Tom.

"There's still the issue of Slytherin's monster," Hermione reminded him. "Three wands are better
than two, when we don't even know what it is. With Hogwarts closed for the summer, we won't
have access to the library anymore. But Nott has a family library..."

"The contents of which I'm gracious enough to volunteer," said Nott. "But only if it's tit for tat.
Anything you—we—find down there, I'll pay a fair price for it. Scrolls, artefacts, trinkets: better
that they go to someone who'll appreciate them properly than have them disappear into the
Department of Mysteries forever."

"We have two and a half months to settle on the finer details," Hermione said. "Let's put the
bathroom back to rights and get to the station."

Stepping off the drainage grate around the sinks was enough to make them return to their proper
position, to Hermione's relief. She'd been expecting another set of complicated passwords. When
the hole was covered, there was no sign of anything unusual about it—no hollow noise when she
rapped her knuckles against the mirrors, no suspicious cracks between the sinks, no glowing lights
when she tried to turn the handle of the broken tap.

Tom gave the sink one last, longing look before they left the bathroom. They hadn't much time
left; leaping down a flight of stairs to the Entrance Hall, the three of them pelted down the stone-
lined path from the castle to the front gates, guarded by a pair of winged stone boars, each bearing a
formidable set of polished tusks. The gate shut behind them, great crossbars sliding into place, but
Hermione didn't spare a moment to admire the impressive enchanting; she was too busy drawing up
a mental image of the Hogsmeade train station: a twee little country station with a single platform,
iron rails over weathered wooden sleepers, the signage placards painted in glossy black and red,
matching the livery of the locomotive itself. A few rustic cottages owned by village locals backed
onto the platform, a tiny island of civilisation in an ocean of lush green foliage, thick with summer
growth.

Crack!

Tom had already arrived when her feet hit the platform, and Nott came seconds later. They had to
run to the half-closed door, shouting and waving their hands, and inside Lestrange was arguing with
a student in Hufflepuff robes who wanted it shut for safety's sake. The student fell silent when Tom
appeared in the doorway, closely followed by Hermione and Nott, just as the train began to pull
away from the platform.

She and Tom were the last Prefects to enter the Heads' compartment, and for all Tom's efforts to
present an air of serene self-possession, he couldn't hide the red flush of exertion on his skin, the
sheen of sweat on his brow, or the slight catch to his breathing. Hermione was awfully aware that
she was just as out-of-breath as he, and that Lucretia Black had noticed it too, her eyebrows rising
in disbelief.

"Riddle, Granger," remarked Lucretia, sliding a stack of note cards out of her robe pocket. "What
excellent timing. If you wish to set a good example, I would recommend that, next time, you'll
ensure your indiscretions remain... discreet."

"We weren't—" said Hermione.

"Of course, Black, if you'll forgive us," said Tom. "Distractions come so easily in the presence of
such delightful company." He gave a quick look in Hermione's direction, and just as quickly
lowered his gaze in what appeared to be bashfulness, showing the high colour on his cheeks to full
effect.

A few of the female Prefects tittered; Lucretia quelled the noise with a sharp glance, cleared her
throat, and began the opening to her well-rehearsed speech.

As Tom and Hermione had been the last Prefects, there hadn't been much room in the compartment
for them to sit, so she spent the first hour on the Hogwarts Express pressed bodily against Tom. He
bore it with quiet dignity for the rest of the journey, but whenever she met his eyes, she saw in them
hints of the same dark hunger that she'd noticed when the floor had opened up at their feet. It was
that look he wore now, when he looked at her, smiling; Hermione could almost rate it as
somewhat... ominous.

In the end, she didn't.

She could believe in magic, but superstition was a step too far.
Chapter End Notes

So they finally found it, yay. Did it go like you predicted it would? I'm curious what guys
thought would happen with the CoS.

And you know the drill, post any typos you see.
 Walking Out
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1944

The Hogwarts Express arrived at King's Cross Station at seven o'clock, the whistle shrilling at its
highest volume, gouts of steam spewing over the brickwork platform and all the families waiting
on it. To Tom's amusement, their cries of welcome were stifled in the blast of air and noise, and he
could see more than one young child beginning to cry after taking in a faceful of smoke.

His own family weren't there, but the Grangers were. When he and Hermione disembarked the
train, Doctor and Mrs. Granger's enthusiastic greetings made him glad of the Riddles' absence.
Hermione, of course, didn't mind her parents' smothering embraces, but glancing around, Tom
observed many of his dorm mates exhibiting similar shows of acute discomfort: Rosier's mother
ruffling his hair, his younger sister tugging him by the sleeve and chanting, "Ice cream, ice
cream!"; a grave-looking wizard in robes of plum velvet speaking to Travers, whose shoulders
were hunched and expression shadowed; a slender witch with a crown of be-ribboned braids,
smoothing down the front of Nott's uniform, while a wrinkly little elf gathered his luggage.

Watching the other families, Tom couldn't imagine the Riddles—his father in particular—in their
place, partaking in this world that was his by birthright. The sight of grown men dressed in
anything other than trousers, wands in every other hand, the casual use of magic; it would shock his
grandparents' staid sensibilities, and his father's volatile temper... And yet, the Grangers didn't bat
an eye at the proceedings—not the heavy robes and fur-trimmed cloaks layered with cooling
charms to keep from sweltering in the summer heat, the pointy hats whose plumed cockades were
still attached to the rumps of live songbirds, or the floating toy broomsticks ridden by screaming
children not yet of Hogwarts age.

He himself had no need of whatever notional joy and comfort was derived from parental
relationships, but he couldn't begrudge Hermione hers. The Grangers were excited to see
Hermione after a year's absence, would wish her a fond farewell when she left for Scotland in
September, and after that, Tom doubted that she would be more than an occasional guest in her own
home. It was a solemn truth, but Tom was assured of its inevitability.

Hermione was a witch. The Grangers were Muggles. The wizarding world was Hermione's
birthright as much as it was Tom's; its draw was inexorable to them both. Hermione could live in a
Muggle house, operate a Muggle motorcar, be proud of her Muggle parentage, but it would never
alter the fact that she was magical and Special. This summer holiday, perhaps next year's as well,
Hermione might call the Grangers' house in Crawley her home, but it would not be so forever.

Tom was certain of it.

(Tom would guarantee it.)

Until then, he could shake Dr. Granger's hand, greet Mrs. Granger, and make polite chatter about
the past school year with a smile on his face. He made sure his answers were general, agreeable,
and circumspect; it wouldn't do for them to know the precise details of their time at Hogwarts,
especially not the pact he'd made with Nott, the secret passage they'd discovered in the girls' loo, or
the fact that he and Hermione had engaged in some mixed-sex bathing, an activity that had only
taken on a patina of respectability within the span of Tom's lifetime. (Admittedly, his few
experiences with public bathing had been limited to the seashore, and never proper swimming
pools with paid entry.)

The Grangers were gracious to him in turn, not having noticed how careful he was with his words,
putting in a few favourable impressions about last Christmas in Yorkshire, with no mention of the
incident with the dog or his father's health. He doubted that the Riddles would have shared this
information with outsiders. Not even the well-connected Tindalls had known what irregularities
had afflicted Tom Riddle the Elder—other than his position as a landed layabout. But for men of
his station, that wasn't considered shameful, if not the most admirable situation for a citizen of a
nation at war.

Hermione hadn't noticed anything either, too busy collecting her owl from the train carriage where
the pet cages had been stored, and when she'd finally shooed Gilles out of the cage with an order to
return home, the crowds had thinned enough to pass through the brick barrier.

"Your grandmother rang this morning," Mrs. Granger told Tom, observing him slide the tip of his
wand out one sleeve. He rapped it on his trunk, and it shrank from the size of a standard steamer
trunk to the size of a personal valise, the handle remaining its original size for convenience. It was
a variant of the Shrinking Charm, but he doubted that a Muggle could appreciate such a fine bit of
charmwork.

"She said that there's no need to rush, since she'll have you for the whole summer," continued Mrs.
Granger, with the slightest wrinkle of her forehead to suggest that she was quoting Mary Riddle,
word for supercilious word. "You can take the Flyer in the morning, and stay the night in London.
The concierge at the Royal Aspen is holding a room for you, but I'd like to offer our home, if you'd
prefer it. We've planned a special dinner for Hermione, and you're welcome to join us. The hotels
aren't counting out the ration tickets like everyone else, but the austerity has reached every corner
of Britain. I shouldn't expect them to serve any more than three or four ounces of meat per person,
to a dozen ounces of cabbage!"

"That sounds like better fare than what most people are eating at home," remarked Tom.

"One would expect it, if they're asking for one pound twelve per plate," said Mrs. Granger with a
sniff. She then turned to Hermione. "Your father and I are both so happy to see you again! It's
been much too quiet at home without you; we look forward to every letter, of course, but it's not the
same as hearing your voice. Now that you're back, there's plenty to be done—the Ladies' Aid
Society is running a donation drive, and then we have Sunday socials to pack comfort boxes for the
soldiers—"

"Mum," Hermione interrupted. "I... I'm afraid I can't come with you to the Society meetings.
There's been a slight, um, alteration with my summer plans."

Mrs. Granger, who'd been craning her neck and searching the road for the motorcar, which Dr.
Granger was bringing around, stopped. She glanced at Hermione, then at Tom, a worried frown
flickering across her face, before it was quickly smoothed away. "What do you mean, Hermione,
dear?"

"I'm spending the summer at Tom's house!" said Hermione, in a rather breathless voice. "Our
exams are less than a year from now, and there's no way we can log our star charts for Astronomy
with the blackout curfew in London—Tom has the space to practise Apparition outdoors, too,
without the neighbours complaining about the noise—and, and we were going to—to—"

"Shh," said Tom, stepping forward, slipping his hand into hers and giving it a gentle squeeze. "It's
alright, Hermione. There's no need to panic."

"Oh," said Hermione, the deluge of words drawing to a trickle as she paused for breath. "I'm not
panicking!"

Mrs. Granger searched her daughter's features, eyes darting down to where Hermione and Tom's
hands were linked together. "I won't say that I'm disappointed, but it's a very sudden decision to
make, Hermione. Have you thought it through entirely? You've been looking forward to
volunteering this summer."

"I do want to, Mum," said Hermione, "and I still plan to—on the weekend, maybe. But Tom and I,
we—we're..."

"We're walking out," finished Tom. He patted Hermione's hand. "Hermione was embarrassed
about announcing it, but I thought it better to just say it, instead of stepping around it for the next
few weeks. I hope it's not too much of a shock, Mrs. Granger."

The lines around Mrs. Granger's mouth tightened, but in a steady voice, she answered, "I wasn't
expecting something like this quite so soon, but I suppose it was... unavoidable, in a sense.
Hermione, you must come to me if you have any questions, anything at all. If you're ever made to
feel uncomfortable, or unsafe in any—"

"I would never allow Hermione to feel unsafe," said Tom, his grip on Hermione's hand tightening.
He felt her wince, and loosened his hold.

"I believe Hermione to be a better judge of that than you, Tom, well-intentioned or not," Mrs.
Granger replied firmly. "Hermione, if this isn't what you want, you can change your mind at any
moment. You're an adult by wizarding standards, and eighteen in a matter of months, but you're
still young enough that no one—certainly not me or your father—would ever try to rush you into
making a decision you're not ready for."

"Mum, please don't worry about me," said Hermione, speaking hesitantly, glancing between Tom
and her mother. "I'm not unhappy that Tom decided to tell you. I'm... just thrown because he hasn't
prepared me for the news." She gave Tom a sharp look. "We'll have to discuss this later, won't we,
Tom?"

"Whatever you want, Hermione," said Tom. "Oh, look. The motor's here. May I take your bags?"

Dr. Granger brought the family motorcar up to the kerb, and after tossing their trunks into the boot
—it had been enchanted not only with an Extension, but a Cushioning Charm—Hermione pushed
him into the rear passenger bench, drew her wand, and cast a quick Silencing Charm. Then, before
Tom could form the first words of his explanation, Hermione's carved vinewood wand turned on
him, the tip of it trembling in the air, wavering between the region of his throat and his upper chest.

"Tom!" Hermione hissed. "What in heaven's name was that about!? 'Walking out'! You told my
mother we were 'walking out'! Walking—" she drew in a shaky lungful of air, —"out!"
Tom placed his hand over hers, sliding the point of the wand down and away from his throat. "You
were speaking too quickly, rambling, and blinking far too often. I could tell that something was
off. Your mother could tell. If I'd let you go on, you'd have told her about the Chamber!" He
glowered, adding, "Next time, leave the talking to me."

"Yes, and look what happens when you talk, Tom!" said Hermione, clutching her wand with white-
knuckled fingers. "I'm not used to lying to my mother. I've never had anything to hide from her."

"Really?" said Tom. "You told her about the time you and I, hmm, explored the Prefects' Bathroom
a few weeks ago?"

"N-no!" Hermione said quickly, shaking her head. "Of course not! But that's totally different—not
mentioning some minor event isn't the same thing as lying. But you! You just lied to my mother,
and she believed you! This isn't something you can take back, and now that she knows, she'll tell
my father and your grandmother, and after that, everyone in the village will know! What are you
going to do now?"

"Nothing," Tom said, leaning back in his seat. "This will work, trust me, Hermione. If they think
we're walking out, they won't question our suspicious behaviour. We are going to make plans
about exploring the Chamber of Secrets, aren't we? This way, if we're locked away together for
hours at a time—or when we go back to Hogwarts and no one knows where the Head Boy and Girl
have gone—they won't ask where we were and what we've been doing. They won't send the
teachers for us, or—" his lip curled, "—the Aurors."

He paused for a moment's thought, then said, "They might do, but I'll deal with it when it comes.
It'll be easy, once I've laid the groundwork. You didn't expect everyone to believe that we were
simply studying for the exams, did you?"

"It's worked up until now," Hermione retorted. "That summer between Second and Third Year, we
nearly spent the entire time in the cellar."

"We were children then," said Tom, keeping the distaste for the term from entering his voice.

He'd hated being called a child when he'd lived at Wool's, legal definition or no. The word was
saddled with so many associations he despised: that he was dependent on his elders, that he was
naïve and immature and impressionable, and in that state, was in need of the firm hand of Moral
Authority to protect him from the corruptions of Sin. He'd looked forward to adulthood where all
these juvenile trappings, the heavy-handed paternalism, would be abandoned for good. (While he'd
had them, however, he couldn't recall any hesitance in using his boyish charms around figures of
authority. Dumbledore couldn't resist an opportunity for philosophic debate; Slughorn loved
dropping little pearls of knowledge amongst those who could feign both ignorance and admiration.)

"We're still the same people," said Hermione. "Why should we have to change things to suit other
people's expectations?"

"Because, pointless or not, other people care about it," said Tom darkly. "And out of all our
options, the least offensive one is to make a statement about the situation, regardless of its honesty,
because the alternative is to allow room for assumption and speculation. My plan would do you—
and I, too, for that matter—the benefit of protecting our reputations. The fact that we aren't
children anymore is going to make us a subject of gossip if we're going to continue carrying on like
this once term starts."
"I'm of half a mind to let them gossip," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose; Tom's attention was
caught by the shifting constellation of freckles on the bridge of her nose, which, just like Virgo and
Hydra, appeared every spring and faded away by autumn. "I'll be Head Girl next year, if Lucretia
guessed right, and that means I haven't time for silly things like schoolyard rumours."

"Our last year," said Tom, lifting his gaze from her nose and back to her eyes—people thought him
more sincere if he looked them in the eyes. "Is exactly when we ought to be most concerned with
rumours and reputations, our own in particular. You can be as idealistic as you like, but in reality,
most people aren't interested in inventing cures for Dragon Pox—they're interested in the sordid
details of other people's lives. Especially if those people are as important as we are. Or will be."

He gave her an imploring look. "If you're upset that I lied, then you should consider that it's only as
much of a lie as you want it to be. Last term, we had milkshakes at Hogsmeade every other week.
That fits any definition of what it means to go 'walking out', even if you don't count all the, you
know, other things."

Hermione chewed her lip, taking her time to consider Tom's argument, while he waited, holding his
breath and trying to keep himself from fidgeting, from taking her hand again. It was a common
thing in Tom's experience for other people to be so slow, so tediously obtuse. When he came across
a problem, whether it was an exam question or a practical dilemma, he could find an answer to it,
an elegant and intuitive solution, almost immediately.

(There was a good reason for it: he was a wizard. He was magical. And even without magic, Tom
Riddle would still be the most exceptional person he'd ever had the privilege of knowing.)

In Hermione's case, she wasn't obtuse, not in the same way as Matthias Mulciber, a boy who
chewed the ends of his quills when thinking his way through a simple question on potion ingredient
ratios for half- or double-doses, and struggled to write in a straight line. No, Hermione's thought
process involved pondering the moral implications of each of Tom's points. On more than one
occasion, he'd found it as maddening as watching Mulciber count on his fingers. But this time,
Tom made sure to give a straightforward explanation, which hinged on safeguarding Hermione's
personal interests; not only was it sensible and uncomplicated, but above all, it was precise and
factual. Nothing appealed to Hermione like facts. Objective facts were free of the burden of moral
weight.

His facts were the following:

One. Hermione, when put on the spot, wasn't very good at talking her way out of it. She thought
she was persuasive, but her ability to make people do as they were told depended less on the
meticulousness of her arguments, and more on her ability to whittle down her opposition through
sheer tenacity. This was a useful ability—he himself was not immune to it—but it wasn't one that
could have convinced Mrs. Granger right then and there. So naturally, Tom had had no other
choice but to intervene.

Two. 'Walking out', the awful Muggle-ish label for what the purebloods called 'courtship', wasn't an
inaccurate descriptor of his and Hermione's situation. From the outside, and completely divorced
of context, there were only so many interpretations to be made of their unusual relationship.
Whichever one of them arrived to class first saved the other a seat; in Potions, they borrowed each
other's tools, each trusting that the other maintained their knives and wasn't missing anything from
their kit. They always chose each other for partner projects; beyond class assignments and Prefect
duties, they sought each other's company. For recreation, for discourse, for the simple joy of being
in one another's presence.

Although it wasn't to Tom's taste, such an ignominious label had its uses. It confirmed the nature of
his and Hermione's relationship to public consciousness; it was the first step of a process, given
enough time, that would result in his ultimate plan coming to fruition. He was still enthusiastic
about that plan, despite becoming more and more aware of the number of obnoxious labels he'd
have to endure beyond 'walking out'. Nevertheless, he'd endure it. Even if his ears might bleed at
hearing someone refer to him as Hermione's 'fancy man', which was just as awful as her being his
'steady girl'.

A success was worth the sacrifice.

Three. Hermione also knew that success was worth a minor sacrifice—of time and dignity, of self-
regard. Hermione had prided herself on her capacity to cast aside selfish impulses in the aim of
serving the public good; she often spoke of correcting the inadequacies of wizarding bureaucracy,
but after Tom's prodding, she had rarely elaborated on the future state of her personal life, deeming
it unimportant, of less significance than professional success. Her personal life was something
she'd wanted to address years from now, but here the choice was being thrust upon her. In essence
it was a pretense, but pretense or not, it was still an unexpected step down an uncertain path.

Hermione wasn't a true Slytherin, but after many years and dozens of exchanged letters, she
understood pragmatism. It didn't mean that she liked it, but she did acknowledge that political
philosophy and its practical implementation required two different approaches.

Was it even a sacrifice to put on a minor pretense, so slight that it was hardly even pretense at all?

There existed a much greater goal.

(Tom's goal was different, but just as significant.)

Hermione greatly desired success.

(Tom's desire was just as great.)

There was only one answer he could accept.

"It sounds like it has a high chance of going sideways," said Hermione, after some deliberation.
"You want to protect us from rumours by spreading your own rumours first."

"A half-decent summary, but not entirely correct..."

"How am I wrong?"

"A rumour is unconfirmed, unsubstantiated information," Tom explained. "It stops being a rumour
when we make sure that the confirmation is given first-hand."

"And I'm supposed to be the pedantic one," Hermione huffed. "Alright, if I agree with this plan of
yours, we won't have to do anything but smile and nod when anyone asks, will we? Just pretending
to be 'normal', so no one will guess what we're doing or why we're sneaking about." She pressed
her lips together, brows furrowed. "I don't like it that we even need an alibi. It makes me feel like
a... a delinquent."
"Well, it's either that you feel like one, or let other people think you are one," said Tom, without
much sympathy. "Besides, it can't be that bad, can it? It's not as if this—giving it a name—
changes anything between us."

"Doesn't it?" Hermione asked.

"Would it bother you if it did?" Tom said. "It's a temporary inconvenience. I needed a convincing
excuse for your mother, and this one has the benefit of versatility. When we go back to Hogwarts,
you'll be Head Girl and the teachers will want to shove whatever task they're too lazy to manage
themselves on your shoulders. With this, you needn't do more than say you're busy—which is
nothing but plain truth—and they'll leave you alone and find another Prefect to mark their First
Year essays."

Watching the light of temptation enter Hermione's expression, Tom put in his finishing touch.
"And you've a polite way to refuse all the invitations. You know that during a N.E.W.T. year,
people are going to crowd you while you're eating dinner, just to pester you into sharing a copy of
your class notes. When you're Head Girl, you'll be allowed to sit at the Slytherin table. No one
there will bother you—not when you're sitting next to me."

Hermione shot him a sceptical look. "Was this your goal all along?"

"Oh, Hermione," said Tom, smiling. "We both know that I set my goals higher than that."

"I suppose you're right," she sighed. "Fine. We'll go along with this plan of yours, but if it doesn't
work, we'll think of something else. 'Walking out' isn't a permanent commitment, after all."

No, thought Tom. Not for now.

"I promise it'll work," he said, "as long as you don't go around giving the game away."

When the motorcar pulled into the Grangers' drive, Tom very gallantly made a show of holding the
door and helping Hermione with her luggage. Mrs. Granger observed the scene with narrowed
eyes, but in the end, there was nothing she could say. Gilles, who'd arrived before the Grangers,
flapped down from the roof guttering to her shoulder, and with one last cool glance at Tom—and a
concerned one at Hermione—Mrs. Granger swept into the house, which had not changed in the
year since Tom had seen it: it was clean, well-kept, and modern.

There was no pretension, but no elegance either. The Grangers' house, like all the houses on Argyll
Street, had been built to fit the dimensions of their square suburban lot. When he stopped to hang
his coat on the coat rack by the door, Tom noticed that he could see to the other end of the house
from the entryway. Somehow, the rooms felt smaller than he remembered, the lintels too low, the
staircase too narrow; it was a sight so familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. The soles of his
shoes squeaked on the linoleum tiling, and, wistfully, he recalled the gleaming parquet of the
Riddle House's foyer, and the thick, knotted pile of the Oriental carpet on his bedroom floor.

When he'd been invited to live with the Grangers in the summer before Third Year, their house had
seemed like an impossible luxury to him. Back then, he had had no other frame of reference than
Wool's Orphanage and Hogwarts. A radiator in every bedroom, a bathroom with an indoor toilet
and taps with hot water that flowed clear—and never left a sharp, metallic taste on his tongue after
he brushed his teeth. Seeing it had confirmed his assumptions of the Grangers' affluence, if their
family motorcar, Hermione Granger's casual donation of several dozen books, or Mrs. Granger's
Christmas contribution of twenty-five pounds sterling (two months' wages for an orphanage
minder, he'd later heard from an eavesdropped conversation) hadn't already established it.

And now, studying the interior of their house, he had the impression that something about it was
lacking, but there was nothing he could place as missing from the walls or the rooms themselves.
The wireless in the sitting room was still there; the framed prints hadn't changed, with the exception
of a more recent photograph of Hermione, wearing her Veterans' Gala formal dress, at the far end of
the hall.

He wasn't given a chance to think more upon it; after they'd dropped their luggage off in their
bedrooms, he and Hermione were told to wash up for the 'special dinner' that Mrs. Granger had
mentioned at the station. By the time he'd made it down the stairs, it was a quarter to eight, and he
was looking forward to dinner. He had only eaten a pumpkin pasty from the train's snack trolley
for lunch, along with an apple taken from the basket at breakfast, and Mrs. Granger's offer of a
special dinner had made a creditable effort in swaying him to stay the night. If he had gone direct
to Yorkshire, he placed his arrival at an hour before midnight; it would have offered him a choice
between having his supper in the dining carriage, where the rationing rules applied, or a supper at
the Riddle House, leftovers saved from his grandparents' table and sent up on a tray.

And that was irritating on a personal level, because food was one of the few things exempt from
most magical manipulations. Tom could double the amount of food if he had some to start with,
but enlarging the tiny meat portion as served by a train attendant wouldn't make the ration
regulation meatloaf taste any better. He could warm up any leftovers prepared by Mrs. Willrow,
the Riddles' cook, but it wouldn't change the stale texture of the bread, baked fresh and delivered
before dawn by a village boy on a bicycle.

Skin tingling from a thorough scrubbing in the upstairs bathroom, Tom pushed open the dining
room door, expecting a spread of Mrs. Granger's favourite home recipes, which he'd eaten every
day for two summers in a row—some combination of Beef Wellington, braised leg of mutton, liver
and onions, or stuffed chicken roulade, paired with an assortment of vegetables and bread. Good
British cooking, with more vegetables than he preferred, but still more appetising than the stranger
dishes he saw on occasion at the far end of the Slytherin House table. (He'd asked about it, and as
it turned out, one could request specialties like potted neat's tongue or pigeon fricassée on
weekends, by sending a note to the kitchen staff. Stiff drinks and the rarer magical delicacies,
though cooked by the same kitchen staff who serviced the rest of the students, were strictly limited
to Slughorn's table.)

He didn't recognise the food on the Grangers' table as Mrs. Granger's cooking: skewered fish, their
silver hides marked with rows of charred black lines, meat dumplings wrapped in boiled leaves, a
suckling pig curled around a pile of roasted onions, heaping bowls of seasoned rice, and colourful
salads of raw vegetables topped with crumbled white cheese, olives, and the bright ruby seeds of a
pomegranate. Tom had never eaten a pomegranate before; he'd only seen them dried on strings or
brined in jars at the apothecary—the textbooks said they were useful in reducing inflammation, but
his own experience was limited to using the shredded bark of a pomegranate tree as an ingredient in
the Deflating Draught, an O.W.L. curriculum potion.

The explanation for this strange meal lay at the end of the table.

Mr. Pacek sat at the end of the table smoking a cigar, an odd, glistening bubble enveloping his
mouth and chin. When the door opened, Mr. Pacek drew his wand from his pocket and swished it
through the air. The bubble popped; a thread of smoke spiralled out from his lips and into
nothingness; the contents of the ashtray on the table before him were similarly Vanished, then the
ashtray itself was sent flying over to the sideboard.

He pushed himself up from the table, and Tom noticed the man had done it with a certain stiffness
that suggested a mix of awkwardness, injury, or fatigue. It was a moment's undertaking to
catalogue a list of further oddities—the dark circles beneath Mr. Pacek's eyes, hair longer than Tom
had seen it a year ago, and a change from his eclectic style of dress; on previous occasions, Mr.
Pacek had passed as some sort of Muggle professional, unremarkable on a typical London street.
Today, his ensemble included a red waistcoat thick with gilt embroidery, and loose trousers tucked
into tall boots of tooled and polished leather. Nothing about it revealed his magical origins—there
was no robe, and in the style of most wizards who ventured among the Muggles, the wand pocket
was tucked inside the breast of the jacket—but Tom found it overall a strange look.

"I am pleased to join you for dinner tonight," said Mr. Pacek, flicking his wand at the food. "One
should take the chance to dine in good company when it is offered..."

A gust of air whistled through the room, fluttering the curtains at the window, and an instant later,
Tom could smell the food: roasted meat, fat trickling down the crisp skin of the piglet, a pan of
iced buns oozing with honey and stewed currants, the pungent aroma of the grilled fish.

It must have been a Stasis Charm, and a complex one at that—each dish would have been kept at a
different temperature. Some hot, some warm, and some chilled, all at the same time. It wasn't a
spell that required a powerful wizard, like one of Dumbledore's magnitude, but rather, one with
great power of concentration, as this kind of magic relied on consistent and attentive visualisation.

Hermione would be able to do that, Tom thought to himself. She's a great witch; she can already
hold a Shield Charm longer than I can. Although mine can deflect more jinxes than hers, so it
balances out. Plain evidence that greatness calls to greatness.

"...My thanks to Doctor Granger for the very kind invitation, and the lovely Mrs. Granger for
extending her hospitality this evening," continued Mr. Pacek, as the Grangers chose their seats and
looked over the food, which consisted of familiar ingredients—pork and meatballs, courgettes and
cucumbers—prepared in foreign ways. "I do hope to return their hospitality—good food for good
company, and what goes better with it than good drink?"

During dinner, Tom's impromptu announcement was shared by Mrs. Granger over the carved
piglet, while Hermione bit her tongue and pressed her lips together to keep herself from voicing a
denial, which Tom could see she was clearly tempted to do. He slipped his hand under the
tablecloth and felt for hers, which made her jerk in her seat and drop her fork with a clatter, but
after that, Hermione relaxed somewhat and began to enjoy the food. This was helped by Mr. Pacek
producing a small wooden cask, tapping it, and Summoning the beer into their glasses in a graceful
stream, twirling through the air above the table in bright golden ribbons before pouring right up to
the rim without a splash.

"Did you cook this yourself?" asked Hermione, picking at the last bite of her cherry strudel, dusted
with powdered sugar. "This is quite a lot of food. You and Mum must have been in the kitchen all
day to make this dinner; the five of us here haven't even finished half of it."

"No, this was prepared by a classmate of mine," said Mr. Pacek. "A friend from my old school
days, Madam Anna Sergeyeva Kr—"
He paused, a sudden uncertainty deepening the lines on his forehead. "I am at present unaware of
her preferred surname, as I have been told she is leaving her husband's house to return to her
father's."

"Oh," said Hermione. "Um, is she divorcing? I've never heard of a witch being divorced, unless it
was in a marriage to a Muggle, and officiated by a civil magistrate. I am not sure if the Ministry of
Magic administrative department even grants divorces—though I imagine things must be very
different outside of Britain."

"It was not a divorce, Miss Granger," Mr. Pacek replied, and his face looked as if he was being
beset by a bout of indigestion. "She was widowed last week, and this feast was prepared for the
funeral. The circumstances of her late husband's death resulted in low attendance at the burial
ceremony, and the food was offered to the remaining guests." He nodded at Mrs. Granger. "I can
sense your concern—I assure you, it is entirely unwarranted. Wizards may be unfamiliar with your
icebox contraptions, but we understand the concept of animalcules, and I am well-versed with
charms of preservation. The funeral, in any event, was only held this morning, so everything has
remained quite fresh."

"Why didn't anyone come to the funeral?" Tom asked.

Though the empty platters had been cleared throughout the meal, Mr. Pacek had produced even
more new dishes from a basket on the sideboard. Course after course, plate after plate, strings of
cured sausages, a steaming tureen of vinegary tripe soup, mushrooms in pungent scallion butter, so
much food that Tom had not seen the colour of the tablecloth since the beginning of the meal. This
was much more than one could expect five people, even five hungry people, to eat.

"Tom!" said Hermione.

"You asked about divorce, and that's just as sensitive a subject!" Tom countered, and in a softer
voice, he whispered to her, "It's not like I went and asked about everyone's religious affiliation, or
whether they regretted voting for Chamberlain the last time around."

Hermione response was to bump him under the table with her foot.

"They were frightened of potential repercussions," said Mr. Pacek, observing Tom intently. Tom
attempted to keep his curiosity from showing on his face, twisting his expression into one of mild
concern, though without a mirror, he supposed it could just as well be mild constipation. "Anna
Sergeyeva's husband supported a government in exile and was killed by Gellert Grindelwald in
reprisal. Anyone who accepted her invitation to the funeral would risk being labelled an enemy of
the state by the present administration."

"And you went?" Tom said, cocking his head. "I thought you preferred to remain a neutral party to
the affairs on the Continent."

"Some things are worth the sacrifice of neutrality," said Mr. Pacek, and for a brief moment, he
lowered his eyes; Tom could not tell if it was in mourning or remorse. "A man can resist the
stirring of his conscience only so many times before he forfeits the ability to call himself
conscientious. Anna Sergeyeva asked me to lay the wards on her husband's tomb, and I found
myself unable to answer her letter with a refusal."

"May I offer my condolences, sir?" said Tom. "Do you mind if I ask what manner of wards can be
cast on tombs? I've read of witches in the West Indies performing traditional burial rituals, but as
far as I'm aware, magical funerals are rare in Europe."

"You have read of burial ceremonies, Mister Riddle?" asked Mr. Pacek. "I recommend that one
practice caution when browsing reading material on that particular subject. Their authors have a
reputation for exaggerating the more gruesome details, but one cannot deny how the macabre can
draw the eye and fascinate the mind. I recall, in the days of my youth, those books were some of
the Durmstrang library's most popular. I daresay they have inspired many a student's independent
research over the years."

"Including yours?" said Tom.

"Unfortunately, no." Mr. Pacek drew his wand and tapped his glass of beer, the foaming head
rising and rising; it stopped an instant before it slopped over the rim. "In my younger days, the
subject of my obsession was Divination. You are aware, Mr. Riddle, of the Exemptions to Gamp's
Law? Food, gold, true life, love, knowledge—they cannot be produced from nothing, and yet, is
that not the essence of Divination? The magical art of divining truth from the depths of darkness, a
single thread from a tapestry of unrealised potential. An exception to the exemption..." He cleared
his throat and added, "Magical academics are a wonderfully fascinating topic, but I recommend
studying some aspects of practical magic if one should like to produce some food or gold now and
again."

It didn't take long for Mrs. Granger to gracefully divert the conversation to more pleasant things
than war and burials. Tom was put out; at Hogwarts, his information on the state of the war was
limited to what the The Daily Prophet printed, whatever was permitted to be published in the few
Muggle newspapers that arrived through owl mail, and second- or third-hand information passed to
Travers from his father, or Slughorn from one of his former students. At the Grangers' table, the
war was fixture of their daily lives, and a rather grim one at that; Doctor and Mrs. Granger had
anticipated Hermione's return to be a joyful reprieve from their working routine, and for the rest of
the meal, they questioned Tom and Hermione on their summer plans, Mrs. Granger eyeing him
coolly whenever Tom made mention of the size of his estate or the convenience of his servants.

After dinner, the Grangers removed themselves to the sitting room for tea, biscuits, and the evening
wireless broadcast.

Looking both ways to ensure he wasn't being overheard, Tom cornered Hermione in the hallway,
murmuring to her, "If that funeral was enough to convince a fence-sitter to pick a side, I wonder
what it'd take to get Dumbledore to make up his mind."

"Are you—" Hermione began, then stopped herself before continuing. Tom had told her about
what he'd gleaned from Slughorn, the rumour of Dumbledore's European friend back in his school
days. "Tom, Professor Dumbledore's a teacher! I'm sure he's too busy to engage in international
political affairs; besides, it's the Aurors' job to handle the issue."

"Dumbledore gets ten weeks off every summer, and two-and-a-half weeks for Christmas," said
Tom. "You can't argue that he isn't qualified; if he wanted to contribute, there's no question that he
could. And very effectively."

"I thought you preferred that he not be involved," Hermione remarked.

"I prefer that people not resign themselves to impotence unless there's a good reason for it," said
Tom. "And in Dumbledore's case, his reasoning isn't good enough. He's powerful. He's talented,
and yes, I'm admitting to it. Best of all, his family all hate him, or they're dead—they can't be held
against him to keep him in line. If there's anyone with the influence to lure Grindelwald himself
into the field, it's Dumbledore."

Tom knew that he was powerful and talented, too. He was at the top of his class; he had eleven
Outstanding O.W.L.s to his name; he was a favourite of the Hogwarts staff; he was a published and
well-respected writer, esteemed by the segment of the wizarding population who believed that silk
chiffon worn after October was inappropriate, and before six o'clock, immodest.

He was thought of as a rising star, and therein lay the catch: his star was still rising.

Tom knew all the coursework for his Seventh Year classes, despite having only just completed his
Sixth. He could sit for his N.E.W.T.s right now and score a full set of Outstandings. But in the
same manner as his Prefect badge, or even his future Head Boy badge, these were merely student
achievements, and Tom, though considered a legal adult, was merely a student. It rankled, just as
much as calling Wool's Orphanage home had. They were, would be, temporary labels; Tom would
make certain of that.

For now, it was fact. And it was one of those facts that he could try to shift through clever or
evasive phrasing, but it wouldn't budge the kernel of reality fixed at the very centre.

Tom Riddle was a scholar of magic. A legal adult, a wizard—not a boy, nor an underage child.

Albus Dumbledore was a wizard of sixty-something years, had graduated Hogwarts with top marks
at the turn of the century, travelled the world, and, according to Hermione, had won a Finkley Prize
for scholarship, and completed an apprenticeship in France with a famous Master Alchemist.

Tom was seventeen years and seven months. He was a student. His magical expertise was limited
to the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library, and his travel itinerary stretched no farther than
the grounds of Hogwarts in Scotland, his family estate in Yorkshire, and the mews and alleys of
central London. He knew the best scrumping spots; he knew where things lost, abandoned, or
liberated from their original owners were brokered into new homes; he knew which publicans ran
the fairest odds, and which ones had the time and dates of the unofficial races, as the official tracks
with the exception of Newmarket had been shut down for the duration of the war.

For all his hard-won knowledge, for all his efficiency in correcting those who questioned his
magical might, Tom doubted he could do the same to Albus Dumbledore, let alone Gellert
Grindelwald, the looming shadow of the Continent. Tom didn't like admitting it—he didn't even
like thinking it—but he knew that joining in the war and earning his Order of Merlin wasn't going
to be an easy task. The last time he'd assumed something would be easy, he'd ended up shattering
his pelvis, laid out on a Healer's workbench, with the Healer covered up to the elbows in his blood.
He didn't have a sensitive stomach, but there was nevertheless something unsettling about seeing
flaps of his own skin peeled open and pinned back, while a pair of icy-cold hands fumbled inside
his body to retrieve white shards of broken bone and, finally, the twisted little lump of metal that
had caused all his suffering.

If he had learned a lesson from the whole experience, it was that Hermione was usually right. Not
always, but she could be counted on to come up with some good ideas. She was powerful and
talented, and the most useful element of her power and talent was that they complemented his own.

Tom was a student with six years' worth of magical education. With Hermione's six years, they
made twelve years together. He saw that, together, they made a credible threat to Grindelwald's
battle-hardened lackeys; together, they stood a better chance of tilting the conflict in Europe
towards a British victory.

(For now, he would acknowledge that Dumbledore surpassed him. Dumbledore wasn't his superior
in talent, but he was superior in experience, and that was due to nothing more than his luck in being
spawned years before Tom's parents had even come into existence. Give him a decade, and Tom
could see his way to surpassing Albus Dumbledore; give him two decades, and Albus Dumbledore
would be soliciting his professional advice.)

"That's your plan?" Hermione hissed. "You want Dumbledore to be your bait?"

"Grindelwald is dangerous," said Tom in a quiet voice. "You've warned me, over and over, that
going after him head-on is like poking a tiger in the face. And I agree—I can't say I'm as eager to
put my own skin on the line as I was a year ago. The obvious solution is to have someone else do it
instead."

"Yes, I told you to leave it to people with more experience—"

"When officials of the British Raj went sport hunting, they hired native guides to set the lures.
They'd done it dozens of times before; of course they'd be better at it."

"I believe that the natives were hired for their expendability..."

"Exactly," said Tom, nodding in agreement. "I'm glad we're on the same page here."

Hermione sighed. "Tom, I don't think we're even on the same book."

"You're a fast reader, Hermione," Tom said, holding the sitting room door for her. "I trust you to
catch on quickly."

In the sitting room, the wireless on the mantel relayed the evening announcements. Propaganda,
public notices, and reminder that all citizens had to carry their gas masks outside the house and
ensure their windows were properly blacked out to stymie the German bombers. Every household
would be inspected on a monthly basis by a corps of volunteer auxiliaries, and anyone who failed
to cover their windows would be fined. The list of announcements droned on and on; after the first
twenty minutes, Tom found himself concentrating more on Hermione, who'd curled up on the sofa
cushion next to him, the first book from her summer reading collection open on her lap.

When her attention was ensnared within a world of ink and parchment, awareness of her
surroundings was minimal. Tom wondered if Hermione would notice if he laid his arm over the
back of the sofa seat. Wasn't that what young men did when they invited a girl to the cinema for a
picture show?

There was a brief bout of uncertainty, followed almost instantly by a bout of disgust. What other
young men did or said or wanted had no relevance to Tom. Other people chased after saccharine
delusions of romance—if the word romantic could be applied to the pursuit of a single evening's
entertainment. Those that wanted something longer-lived sought to fulfill an uninspired biological
objective: a secondary entity to either win the bread or serve it to their handful of wailing
offspring. It was profoundly insulting to apply those standards to himself—or to Hermione. He
was better than this, and she deserved better.
While Tom contemplated the implications of 'walking out' with Hermione, Doctor and Mrs.
Granger held a low conversation between themselves, glancing over at him every once in a while.
Mr. Pacek scribbled notes into a leather-bound diary, referring on occasion to a mechanical
calculating machine, a small metal drum the size of a salt cellar, marked with numbered notches
down its length, a rotating handle fixed at one end.

When the broadcast ended, Mr. Pacek tucked his equipment into his trouser pocket—Tom noted
that the calculator went in without a lump in the fabric—and bid goodnight to the Grangers.

Tom took it as an excuse to follow him out the door, catching him as he retrieved his wicker picnic
basket from the kitchen and had gone to unlock the tradesman's door that led out into the Grangers'
small back garden.

"Mr. Pacek," said Tom, flicking his wand to the shut the kitchen door behind the two of them, and
cast a Silencing Charm, "can I speak with you?"

"Mr. Riddle," said Mr. Pacek, the lilting inflection of his speech as much a question as it was an
indication of surprise. "What is it?"

"Are you going back to the Continent?" asked Tom.

"Have you an interest in joining me?"

"No," said Tom. "I just wanted to tell you that you're being watched."

Mr. Pacek's expression didn't change. "Everyone these days is under observation, even the
Muggles."

"The Ministry's watching you in particular." Tom reached into his pocket and pulled out a scroll of
parchment. Marked File #DI-682 at the top, it was crinkled and folded where Tom had read and
re-read the names since he'd retrieved the list during his visit to the archives.

He offered the scroll to Mr. Pacek, who took it and slowly unfurled it, drawing his wand and
murmuring a few spells over the paper.

"So," Mr. Pacek said, finally, his voice flat. "It is as I suspected—your Ministry has been tracking
the Portkeys. No matter; I have always requested ones for the most popular terminals."

"Do you think the Ministry is unfairly targetting Europeans?" said Tom. "If Hermione knew about
this, she'd start a letter-writing campaign to the Ministry on your behalf."

"No," replied Mr. Pacek, looking over the list. "No, I understand why your government might
employ such a strategy, and why certain personages would find themselves worthy of interest. But
my name, it appears, was recorded over four years ago, and yet, in all that time, I have never been
apprehended or shadowed by Ministry officials; if they had followed me, they would have
discovered and Obliviated the Grangers. If this is their strategy, then I expect that they have not
had an easy time of separating the wheat from the chaff."

"I'd assumed that any competent wizard would be successful at evading the Ministry, because they
hire for names and connections rather than ability," said Tom. "But, sir, do you mean to say that you
could tell the difference between 'wheat' and 'chaff' on their list?"
Mr. Pacek's mouth tightened in a faint grimace. "The great families of Vienna and Brandenburg
concern themselves with preserving their hereditary rights of patent—rights to manufacture, to
import, to hunt and harvest from the few remaining magical forests, and so on. Those who are
well-connected have no difficulty in establishing themselves a position after graduation, and those
are not... might do well enough if they have a knack for innovation. If the Ministry had any shred
of competence, they would see that not one of these names—Bührmann, Eglitis, Gerdt, Grozbiecki,
Khudekov, Lehtinen, Vanhanen—is of the Adel. These are the people who might see merit in
revolutionary discourse, the notion of equality for all wizardkind." He let out a snort, continuing, "I
recognise many of them from my time at Durmstrang. If only they knew that their Grand Minister
himself carries a well-born name."

"Grindelwald is well-born?" Tom asked. "Is that anything like the pureblood families here and
their 'Sacred Name' nonsense?"

"The Durmstrang Institute does not tender invitations to wizards born of Muggles, like your Miss
Granger. But not all those invited are students of means," said Mr. Pacek. "Many families must
save their gold and choose just one child, while the rest are sent to study at a local lyceum.
Grindelwald's family was not one of them; they are not the most prominent, and in the last few
generations they have had a habit of marrying outsiders, but they still maintain ownership of an
estate in the mountains—though I cannot say the same for the money. Revolutions are a costly
undertaking."

"If it's known where Grindelwald lives, why hasn't anyone come knocking at his door?"

"One should wonder why no one has captured Nurmengard and released all the prisoners," said Mr.
Pacek, chuckling. "Here, Mr. Riddle. I do not know how you came into possession of an original
document, but it would do you well to prevent it leaving. Hide it, burn it; do what you must to
keep it out of sight." He gave a short bow to Tom and drew his wand. "Please give my best
regards to the Grangers."

Snap!

He disappeared with the sound of a door being shut, not the loud gunshot crack of Tom's own
Apparition, and soon the noises of the evening resumed their course—crickets chirruping in the
summer grass, the hoot of Hermione's owl going off to hunt for its supper, the slide of shutters and
doors as the families of Crawley locked their windows for the night.

Tom returned to the guest room Mrs. Granger had given him, where his trunk lay, still shrunken, at
the foot of the bed. He enlarged it, unlocked it, and dug through to the bottom, where he found the
medicine chest the Healer at St. Mungo's had given Hermione. In the slots that had once held vials
of pain potions, there were now rows of Acromantula venom that Tom had collected over the
months at Hogwarts. He'd sold some to strangers at The Hog's Head, but the oldest ones, the
weakest venom, were of such a low quality that no one had bought them. He took the scroll of
names out of his pocket and slid it into an empty vial, corking it and setting it in amongst the rest.

He would think of what to do with it later; he had ten weeks before he would be forced to embrace
the strictures of authority and expectation. Until that time came, he was free to enjoy his summer.
There was no reason why he shouldn't. No reason why Hermione shouldn't, either.

After all, they were supposedly involved, whatever that meant to anyone who cared about these
things.
Tom and Hermione left for Yorkshire the very next morning.

Although he and Hermione could Apparate to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, then cross to the
Muggle side of King's Cross, Mrs. Granger still insisted on seeing them off at the platform. She
drove them to the station, kissed Hermione on the cheek, patted Tom on the shoulder, and finally
waved them off, pressing a cloth-wrapped parcel of sandwiches into each of their hands. It was a
kind gesture, but it was offset by Mrs. Granger never halting her close scrutiny of Tom. He was
reminded of his days at Wool's; when someone had had something stolen, Mrs. Cole demanded that
everyone line up and turn out their pockets, and that Tom Riddle should be the first to do so.

(On other occasions, Tom might have enjoyed being given special treatment, but he hadn't liked
that. He found it so unfair that they singled him out—even if they happened to be right eight times
out of ten—that by his last few years at Wool's, he'd begun hiding the things he took in other
people's rooms instead of his own, his own limited storage space having been dedicated to holding
the collection of gifts sent by Hermione. He still wondered if they had managed to find Edith
Hurley's mouth organ.)

As soon as the York Flyer began moving, Tom turned away from the window and shut the curtains.
He drew his wand and ensured the compartment door was locked and silenced.

"We need to plan how to get into the Chamber of Secrets," said Tom, "without other students
bumping into us when we're coming or going."

"Oh, it's the Chamber of Secrets now?" asked Hermione, looking up from her from her book.
"What happened to Slytherin's laundry chute?"

"I needed to keep Nott on a leash," Tom said. "He wanted to find the Chamber all along. That
means, of course, that there's something about it, something down there, that serves to his personal
advantage. And I can't allow it."

Hermione sighed, marking her page with a finger. "I can't recall you having any apprehensions
about voting me in as Minister for Magic."

"That's completely different," said Tom.

"I see," said Hermione, huffing.

"Look," said Tom, sliding into the seat beside her and leaning in. "You and I, Hermione, want the
same things: progress and order. A leadership with vision, guidance through competence. Any
one of these things is rather thin on the ground these days.

"And what does Nott want?" Tom asked, propping his chin on Hermione's shoulder and having a
subtle peek at her book—some dull treatise about the enchantments of ancient magical plumbing;
he could see a complicated diagram labelled Archimedes' Pump on the opposite page, charmed into
an animation that repeated itself in five-second intervals.

"I've no idea, but I bet it's something as uninspired and self-serving as collecting Slytherin's beard
comb as proof of his exalted ancestry. And the most bizarre thing is that everyone in Slytherin
House would swallow it." Tom took shook his head in solemn disapproval. "Wealthy people,
they're worse than magpies."

"Perhaps," Hermione ventured, "he wants the monster that Slytherin was said to have hidden in the
Chamber? The legend says that Slytherin intended to purify the school with it, but if that was just
made up to scare the other founders, there could still be a creature, either bound or dead, under the
school. I suppose it could be worth a lot. That is, if you could get it, and find somewhere to sell
it."

"Nott's already rich," Tom mused. "He'd see no sense in using the Chamber for money. No, it's got
to be something else... Purifying the school would be up his agenda, I imagine. But if he tried to
turn the creature, whatever it is, against us, he'd run a high risk of killing the both of us
accidentally, and he can't do that. Not when he needed us to open the Chamber in the first place.
Not when I make sure he'll never know the password."

"Well," said Hermione, "you could ask him directly. He's eager to meet with us during the
holidays."

"If only I had any eagerness to meet with him," Tom said. "Truth be told, I prefer to see as little of
him during the summer as I can. I've other people more deserving of my time."

"On that matter," Hermione began, fidgeting nervously; Tom was so close that if she turned her
head, their cheeks would brush. "Are you going to keep up the pretense when there's no one else
around?"

"What do you mean?"

"That we—we're, you know, walking out!"

"Well, we are, aren't we?"

"I thought that was just a story you told my Mum," said Hermione. "It's not real."

"Why can't stories be real?" asked Tom. "We opened the Chamber of Secrets yesterday morning,
and everyone thinks that's a silly bedtime story."

"What are you saying, Tom? That we are?"

"Why not?"

"Because I've never seen any indication that you've ever cared about or wanted something like
that," said Hermione. "What happened to this sort of thing being the province of dullards and
fools?"

"You've never seen it, Hermione," said Tom, sliding the book out of her hand and onto the seat, and
lacing her now unoccupied fingers through his, "because I am a master of subtlety."

"Really, Tom?" said Hermione.

 "Really," said Tom, brushing his cheek against hers.

Chapter End Notes

Durmstrang, unlike Hogwarts, is an international wizarding school. For the purposes of this
story, I've decided that Durmstrang isn't run as a public school, like Hogwarts is with their
Ministry funding and subsequent Ministry meddling in staff hiring and firing. Instead, they are
an elite school with student fees and German as their language of instruction, because they
wouldn't be named after "Sturm und Drang" without some kind of Germanic connection.
Anyone who can't afford the fees or can't speak German is better off going to a school in their
own country.

This fits with Draco Malfoy, a British student who wanted to go to Durmstrang for the "dArK
ArTS!1!1!" but ended up at Hogwarts because "Mummy says it's too far away!". It also fits
with Karkaroff being the Headmaster in the 1990's, even though he was convicted as a terrorist
(but got out of it by snitching on the other Death Eaters).

Don't mind me, just trying to make something believable and canon-consistent out of JKR's
worldbuilding here.
 Fellow Feeling

1944

From the window of the train, the view of the countryside moved too quickly for Hermione to see
more than an indistinct blur.

But after stopping at Sheffield and York, and from there the minor stations of Easingwold, Thirsk,
and Great Hangleton, a picture of Yorkshire in full summer was revealed to her in full: tidy
villages surrounded by an idyllic landscape of rolling hills, lush pasture, and rambling hedgerows
in a hundred different shades of green. The effect, however, was ruined by the sky being a single
flat shade of grey, which produced a constant shower of rain somewhere in between a mist and a
fine drizzle.

The weather, though unpleasant, wasn't anything new to her. Scotland was rainy for half the year,
cloudy the other half, and thus most students were incentivised to study the Impervius Charm
without the looming urgency of their impending exams. But there were some differences to
Scotland that Hermione could perceive. The grounds around Hogwarts consisted of rocky cliffs
and wild forest—wonderfully scenic, but a harsh environment even to those who possessed the
conveniences provided by magic or technology.

Yorkshire, on the other hand, showed clear signs of habitation with every glance: the railroad, an
iron course slicing through hill and spanning valley, with well-maintained fields on either side,
stiles and neat copses of trees separating each property from the next. And all along the way, the
railway platforms abutted local coaching inns, whose windows and swinging signs were hung with
flags. The Union Jack, Saint George's Cross, and the white rose banner unique to Yorkshire—they
were symbols of alignment, of identity, that she hardly saw in the wizarding world outside of
Quidditch matches and the family crests worn by the children of wealthy families.

This was the scale of Muggle Britain when compared to that of Magical Britain. Even with the loss
of Ireland, the number of Muggles in Britain vastly outnumbered the wizards, several thousands to
one. Little Hangleton was a village so tiny and insignificant that it and Great Hangleton were
merged and marked on maps under a single name. And yet, it was still larger than Hogsmeade, the
largest purely wizarding settlement in Britain. (There were others: Tutshill, Ilkley, Godric's
Hollow, and Chudleigh—the hometown of the infamous Chudley Cannons Quidditch team—but
they were subsections, satellites of larger Muggle towns. Once connected, after the passing of the
Statute, they had been hidden in a manner similar to Diagon Alley's wand-activated doorway, and
all proof of their existence removed from Muggle record and memory.)

It was a fact that the Riddles' tenants numbered greater than the entire population of Hogsmeade.

Tom seemed to be aware of it, too, judging by the way he swiped his hand against the foggy side
window of the Sunbeam after Mr. Bryce had come to collect them from the station at Great
Hangleton. As the green acres flashed past the misted glass, Tom surveyed the village, his dark
eyes fixed on the rows of slate roofs and handsome crofts with the stone steeple at their centre, then
the village green and adjoining cemetery.
As the motorcar crunched up the drive and into the shadow of the great house, he turned to
Hermione and said, "We'll be watched from the moment we step foot through the door."

"Attentiveness, according to your grandmother, is a mark of good service," Hermione answered.

"You've been going on for weeks about your servants."

She knew this from dining with the Riddle family during the Christmas holidays. Mrs. Riddle's
favourite mealtime conversation topics had included personal anecdotes illustrating how everything
in the past was better than the state of things in the present. Not only had good servants been easier
to find and cheaper to hire, but in her day, there was none of that nonsense with young ladies
donning trousers and going out to till fields or drive ambulances. And one could actually find
proper eau de vie for the cherries jubilee after supper, because the lack of grocery options was
surely the worst thing about the war. No, no, it was caught in a tie with the suspension of formal
court presentations, due to a lack of eligible young men.

(After saying these things, Mrs. Riddle would send surreptitious looks at Tom, who'd been paying
more attention to the crystal bowl of cherries jubilee that was going around the table than the
conversation. Hermione had reason to doubt that Tom cared much about the cherries not being
properly flambéed with German brandy, that the social Season was a pale shade of what it had been
thirty years ago, or that he himself qualified for the labels of young, male, and eligible.)

"I have," Tom replied. "But as I said it then, I say it now: it's a good thing."

"Oh, I suppose I have to hear this one, then."

"We can use them for practice," said Tom.

Hermione gaped at him. "Sorry?"

"If we're to present ourselves as..." Tom made a face, then spoke the next word with distaste,
"'together', then we ought to act like it, shouldn't we? At Hogwarts—that's where it really matters
—we not only need the teachers to swallow it, but the rest of the Prefects, too. If we're to pull it
off, then we have to practice for it. And who'd make a better audience than the servants? My
grandmother's always going on about how they do nothing but stand around and gossip, so they've
got that in common with the students at Hogwarts."

"I can't see it being that difficult, here or at Hogwarts," said Hermione. "Can't we just tell them?
You didn't have a problem telling my Mum."

"It's not that simple," said Tom.

"Why not?"

"Just because someone is told something, doesn't mean it'll be believed," said Tom. "I know that it
wouldn't work on me."

"So you're saying that we have to act the part," said Hermione slowly. "I see."

"I knew you'd understand, Hermione," said Tom approvingly. "The unfortunate truth is that for all
your talents, talking isn't one of them, and you've not been happy the last few instances where I've
spoken for you. This is the most logical solution. A compromise." He leaned forward in his seat.
"Years ago, didn't you say that the ability to make compromises was a sign of emotional growth?
Well, count me grown."

"It's not the same thing," said Hermione, sending a glare in his direction. "That was a different set
of circumstances. I seem to remember that we'd been talking about the management of civic
infrastructure under different political regimes—"

"Shh," said Tom. He held a finger to her mouth, then lifted it slightly and twitched it to the left.

She threw a quick glance over her shoulder, realising in that the motor had come to a stop, and was
now parked at the foot of the steps leading up to the house. And there, standing on her side of the
passenger window, was the Riddles' driver, Mr. Bryce, the rain spattering on his oilcloth
mackintosh as he fiddled with the catch on a gold-handled umbrella.

"We'll save this conversation for later, won't we?" Tom whispered, leaning even closer, so close that
she felt his lips tickle her ear.

The door opened, and Mr. Bryce proffered the umbrella.

"Sir? Miss? If you'll take this up to the door, I'll be followin' along with your luggage."

Mr. Bryce spoke with hesitance, his eyes drawn to where Tom was tucking a curl of Hermione's
hair behind her ear; it had escaped the ribbon she'd tied it with that morning, the damp of the
summer rain having puffed her hair up to twice its usual size.

"Thank you, Bryce," said Tom, reaching past Hermione and taking the umbrella. "It looks like
there's only one, Hermione, so we should be alright if you stay close to me."

Tom escorted her up the stairs, one arm around her shoulders, and the other holding the umbrella
aloft over the two of them. It was an unexpected reversal of their position in January: Hermione
had helped Tom down the steps of the Riddle House, the darkness of early morning and the slick,
ice-covered stone inciting concern over his recently-healed injury. Now Tom was helping her up,
and with a subtle flick of his wand, he cast a Shield Charm to keep the blowing rain from hitting
them in the face.

A maid held the door open, taking the dripping umbrella, their coats, and ushering them into the
house. Mrs. Riddle greeted them in the foyer, giving a polite acknowledgement to Hermione, and a
more enthusiastic welcome to Tom. She clasped his hands in hers, smoothing down his wind-
blown hair, fluttering around them both and demanding hot tea and warmed blankets delivered to
the drawing room so that the 'exhausted children' could finally have a chance to sit down.

It seems that Mrs. Riddle hasn't a head for logic, Hermione thought, girding herself for the
socialising to come. We've been sitting down all day.

She didn't vocalise that thought. Instead, she allowed herself to be fussed over, biting her tongue
when Mrs. Riddle sneaked her well-meaning opinions into the conversation. (On Tom's weight—
whatever Professor Dumberton was feeding them at his school, it wasn't enough for a growing boy.
Or Hermione's clothes—if she wanted to become the lady she was meant to be, instead of dressing
like a little girl, she needed the proper garments, and luckily, Mrs. Riddle knew a seamstress who
still had access to steel boning.) It was condescending in the most benevolent way, and listening to
Mrs. Riddle remark to an impassive Tom that someday he was going to be as tall as his papa,
Hermione was reminded of Nott and his suggestions on the subject of 'personal refinement'.
Hermione wondered what Nott was doing right now. She'd last seen him at King's Cross yesterday
evening, and all through the train journey, they hadn't spoken of the book he'd stolen from the
library, the Chamber of Secrets, or what they were going to do with it once the school term resumed
in September. He'd wanted to say something; Hermione could not have ignored his wriggling
eyebrows and his meaningful glances at the compartment door, but Tom hadn't let her out of his
sight for the whole trip. Even when she'd excused herself to visit the loo and change out of her
uniform, Tom had volunteered to accompany her, leaving Nott fuming in the compartment with the
other boys.

("I didn't know that you cared about gentlemanly conduct," Hermione had remarked to Tom when
he'd followed her out into the aisle between compartments. She was the only girl to a group of
seven boys, so it was the most sensible choice for her to change in the bathroom instead of making
all of them stand outside the compartment so she could change alone.

"I care more than Nott," had been Tom's reply. "You saw what he did to that Ravenclaw girl.
Miranda—"

"—Myrtle."

"Yes, whatever her name was," said Tom. "It's a clear sign that he's not to be trusted. You
shouldn't speak to him unless you have someone else there with you, Hermione."

"But it's perfectly fine if I'm alone with you?"

"Of course," Tom said, manoeuvring students out of their path with a few prods and polite nudges
here and there. "I am a gentleman.")

And the designation wasn't inaccurate: Tom was a gentleman. He had the title by virtue of birth—
the Riddles had no peerage, but they were landed, to such an extent that their estate incomes could
support the family without requiring any member to work. And these days, their income made the
Riddles wealthier than many genuine peers who had had no option but to support themselves in
trade. Though most of them, according to Mrs. Riddle, had the grace to take only respectable
positions in law, governance, civil administration, or academia.

At dinner, Tom made every attempt to look considerate, drawing out Hermione's chair, rising from
the table whenever she stood and pardoned herself for the bathroom, and offering her the choicest
morsels of the veal medallion that was their main course. He was so attentive that she felt he had
gone far, far past the mark. His conduct wasn't a gentleman's brand of chivalry, but the doting of an
enamoured young swain.

The queer thing was that Mrs. Riddle, for all her solicitousness over Tom, her darling grandson,
gave no indication of disapproval to this behaviour, and Mr. Riddle gave no indication that he'd
even noticed. Tom hadn't crossed the line into looking unseemly—he hadn't suggested she try a
bite of food from his fork, let alone his plate, and there was no mention of their more colourful
Hogwarts adventures—but the way he comported himself around her was inconsistent to not only
what it had been last Christmas, but what it had been the previous summer, when Tom had been ill-
tempered about his no longer being a Ward of the Crown. Back then, Mrs. Riddle had sent them
invitation after invitation to dine at her hotel, and Tom had instead spent most of the meal glaring at
his grandmother, his new guardian, rather than pay attention to Hermione.

During the dessert course of lemon sorbet garnished with candied rose petals, Hermione decided
that she would confront Tom after dinner. He was the one who'd decided that announcing their
"news" wasn't good enough, and that it would be more effective to act it out. Well, his acting was
bordering on farcical, and if this continued, Mrs. Riddle would form certain expectations that could
not be made good.

This pretense of Tom's was only meant to last a year, their last year of Hogwarts, their sole window
of opportunity to explore whatever it was that lay in the Second Floor girls' loo. After that, there
would be no more teachers to mislead, no more fellow students to distract. But Mrs. Riddle, a
member of Tom's family, was not a teacher or a student. She wasn't one who could so easily be
forgotten once they had no more shared classes or scheduled patrols together. In fact, being
forgotten after Tom and Hermione reached their majority in the Muggle world (and this was only a
few months away, as Mum had pointed out) was the opposite of what Mrs. Riddle hoped to
achieve, as indicated by the suggestions she'd made to Hermione throughout dinner and dessert.

"Hermione, as you're to be summering here with us," said Mrs. Riddle, while Hermione looked
down at her plate to keep herself from snorting. It was a rare type of person to use 'summer' as a
verb in casual conversation. "You should take this opportunity to make enquiries of the local
institutions. Mrs. Swindon, I believe, sent her daughter on to the Armoured Division's office in
Helmsley. She joined through the Girls' Training Corps, but I'm sure if I made arrangements for
your character references, you needn't waste your time with military drills if all you wanted was an
office position."

"That's very kind of you, Mrs. Riddle," said Hermione, watching as the maid went around with a
platter of round, sugar-dusted almond biscuits to go with the tea and brandy.

"I had my reservations, if you must know," said Mrs. Riddle graciously; she allowed the maid to
drop two biscuits on the side of her plate with a pair of small silver tongs. "But soon I recognised
that whilst it is quite a bold undertaking for a young girl, the situation, in essence, is temporary.
And I've heard from Mrs. Swindon that it's respectable enough—there will be plenty of young
officers of good family coming and going, and I don't doubt that Miss Caroline Swindon knows
that her best prospects lie in the uniformed services; her father, of course, is Chief Constable of the
North Riding Constabulary."

She sipped her tea, regarding with Hermione with a cool expression. "Not that you would find
yourself inclined to follow her example in that respect, Hermione. But perhaps you might enjoy
the company of girls your own age. I certainly did, and saw its merits when I was settled and had
good friends whose children were the same age as my own. It is truly disheartening when your
time comes, and you have no one else to keep you company in your fragile state but the
nursemaid."

"If I was in such a fragile state, wouldn't there be a second party responsible for it?" Hermione
asked, glancing at Tom from the corner of her eye. "Is it too much to expect that their
responsibilities would include keeping me company?"

"One would surely wish it to be," said Mrs. Riddle easily, "but there is good reason why the whole
ordeal is known as 'going into seclusion'."

"Tom?" said Hermione, nudging him under the table with her foot.

"Hermione?" said Tom, tearing his eyes away from the clock on the sideboard. "What is it?"

"My dear," said Mrs. Riddle in a kind voice. "Articles of this nature are, and shall always be, a
woman's burden."
Although she knew it was unworthy of her, Hermione couldn't stop herself from feeling cross all
through dessert. Mrs. Riddle was older than her Mum, and would have considered women
marching for their right to vote as alien a notion as women voting in the first place. She could not
have helped her sheltered upbringing, just like Nott could not have helped his; they had both been
informed from childhood that certain things fell into a natural order, by blood or sex or station, and
had encountered few people over the course of their lives who could convince them to reassess
their opinions.

Nott, she thought, was less vocal about his beliefs than he'd been a year ago—perhaps his closer
association with her and Tom had softened his stance on blood supremacy—but Mrs. Riddle had
had decades to corroborate her beliefs on the fragility of the 'fairer sex'. Within her circles, women
were delicate doves who started out as maidens, and must be shepherded, as gently as possible, into
the rôle of matron, with nothing in between. There was no nuance, no room for exception; one had
to be one or the other, or one was not a woman at all.

It was here, more than ever, that Hermione was tempted to say, "Oh, dash it all!" and follow Tom's
example: escape to the wizarding world as he'd planned to at the age of eleven, and never look
back. Be a witch first, and relegate everything else to the periphery. The fact, as repeated many
times over by Tom, was that Hermione was no Muggle, nor would she ever be; she would have
twice the lifespan of a Muggle, and as such, there was little chance she would end up, as they called
it, 'on the shelf', by age thirty. Witches had borne healthy children at fifty or sixty years old—there
were potions and Mediwitches to make it possible—so the conventions of high society (or even
Muggle society, for that matter) need not apply to her.

It was here that Hermione wondered if Nott had a point in scoffing at Muggle sensibilities. He did
it less than he once had, but he'd also been oddly fascinated by the idea of millions of Muggles
dying of famine overseas, and even more fascinated when he'd learned that it had been caused by
the British Muggle government.

("Where would they put all the bodies?" Nott had asked. "They can't Vanish them. Did they eat
them? Of course it sounds barbaric, but you can never tell what those Muggles will do next—and it
would solve their problem."

To prevent the Japanese from gaining access to supply lines in British India, the wartime
government had blocked the transport lanes, to the result of millions of Bengal natives going
hungry. It was a crisis covered in the London press, but yet again, it was something that no other
student at Hogwarts cared about. She'd mentioned it to Tom, but his response had been to inform
her that the most interesting war-related news would be hearing that the Germans had blown up
Wool's Orphanage.)

Ultimately, she tried her best to be polite. Hermione was a guest, and Mrs. Riddle was the hostess.
She was fortunate enough to have a choice in taking those rôles that other women had thrust upon
them; even other witches, Lucretia Black for instance, were not immune to it all. Hadn't Clarence
Fitzpatrick said that Lucretia would be married next year, to a man ten years her senior? And on
top of that, Mrs. Riddle wasn't even her mother, so Hermione had no obligation to accede to her
suggestions. Not that a blood relation had swayed Tom either; he gleefully denied Mrs. Riddle at
every turn, and she was his legal guardian.

She had wanted to speak to Tom about his acting skills, but the dinner was so exhausting that she
went straight to bed after washing up and changing into her nightclothes. She would correct Tom
in the morning, when she was well-rested enough to counter any of Tom's arguments as to why he
thought it necessary to act out gestures of affection in such an exaggerated fashion. It was far from
subtle, especially for a self-described 'Master of Subtlety'—how on Earth could he expect anyone
to think him sincere, and their... 'involvement' genuine?

With the rain pattering at the windows, Hermione cast a quick Warming Charm on her bed, setting
her wand on the nightstand before climbing under the blankets. Thirty minutes later, she had fallen
into a light drowse when the latch on her door gave a click, then a shaft of light from the hall lamps
cut across the carpet, and a dark figure crept into her room on slippered feet.

"What—" she groaned, rolling over and pushing herself up on her elbows.

A heavy weight fell over her body, a warm hand pressing over her mouth, then a voice whispered in
her ear.

"Shh, Hermione, it's me."

"Tom! Why are y—"

"Hush!"

The weight fell off her, and the shaft of light from the hall disappeared as the door swung silently
shut.

"Right," said the voice, "I've cast a few charms, so we can talk now. There's a Tripping Jinx on the
hall carpet so if any of the servants comes sneaking along this wing of the house, I'll know about
it."

"Tom," Hermione said with a note of reproach, "you could have cast an Intruder Charm to sound an
alarm if someone entered the hall."

"Well, yes, I could have," Tom admitted, rolling over to one side of the bed with a squeak of steel
springs. "But alarm charms only set off a noise when they're triggered; they don't do anything to
delay an intruder. Hmm. I didn't think Yorkshire would be that much colder than London—could
you move over, please, Hermione?"

Hermione obliged, wriggling closer to the window.

The blankets rustled, and Hermione felt Tom slide in next to her. It was too dark to see what Tom
was doing until he murmured "Lumos", and the tip of his wand glowed with a faint yellow light,
illuminating the space between their pillows, and Tom's pale face.

"You may be wondering," Tom began, "why I wanted to speak to you so urgently."

"Actually," said Hermione, "I'm wondering why you're here at all. Here. In my bed."

"This is my house," said Tom. "So it stands to reason that this is my room, and my bed. But I'm
generous enough to share it with you, so here you are. You're welcome, Hermione. No, I wanted
to tell you that my plan worked, and my grandmother bought it. I overheard her tell the maids to
keep an eye on us—she doesn't want either of us to tarnish our reputations until there's an official
confirmation of intent. From now on, expect to be interrupted whenever we hold revisions in the
library. She can't outright order us to stay under a chaperone's supervision without looking overly
presumptuous, but she's jolly well going to try."
"She can't mean any harm by it," Hermione said slowly. "I mean, if assigning a chaperone could
prevent things like this from happening, I'd understand why she cares."

"There's nothing for her to care about," said Tom. "Did she think that I was going to, hah,
compromise your virtue?"

"My virtue is none of her business," said Hermione. "If, by any chance, it needs protecting, I'm
sure I can do it myself."

"Do you think it needs protecting?" asked Tom.

"I think that's a question I should be asking you," Hermione answered, tugging back some of the
blanket that Tom had, inch by inch, stolen away to the side of the bed he was presently occupying.

"Mmm," said Tom. "You don't need to be protective, no. If I ever made an attempt to compromise
your virtue, I'm quite certain that you'd know it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that it would be insulting to your intelligence, not to mention mine, to pretend that 'virtue'
means anything," said Tom, very smoothly. "It's obvious that clergymen invented it to trick people
into tithing."

"Oh, yes, obviously," said Hermione, sniffing. "What isn't obvious to me is what you're doing
here. Couldn't you wait until morning to tell me this?"

He gave a soft laugh, then rolled closer to her, dimming his wandlight. "As much as I enjoy a good
debate, there's something more important to discuss when we have an opportunity for privacy. The
Chamber, of course. Have you come up with any theories for what's down there?"

"Slytherin lived before there was a Ministry of Magic, or a Department for the Regulation of
Magical Creatures. A thousand years ago, there weren't international laws back then to control
what animals could be exported, sold across national borders, protected from hunters, or raised in
captivity," said Hermione. "The legends imply that it's a creature capable of killing wizards, so
there are some things it can't be. Not a puffskein, a jobberknoll, or a snidget. Perhaps a
runespoor... no, they live decades, not centuries... a hydra, then? That would certainly fit
Slytherin's image."

"Not a dragon?" said Tom. "I've always wanted to see one with my own eyes. It's a shame that
Care of Magical Creatures has such a dull curriculum—last year, we spent a month learning how to
sex owl chicks."

"Er," said Hermione after taking a few seconds to digest this information. "I suppose that might be
useful one day..."

"When that day comes, it will be too soon," Tom muttered. "What do you think is the best way to
fight a dragon? They have that spell-resistant hide; it can't be so simple to defeat one with standard
duelling strategy."

"I can't imagine that fighting a dragon would ever be simple," said Hermione. "You can out-
strategise an opponent in a duel, but is it even possible to apply that to a dragon? Dragons don't
have strategies—they have instinct."
"Instinct or strategy, could either best a Killing Curse?" Tom mused, not quite meeting her eye.
"Can anything beat a Killing Curse? In all the books that I've read, I've never seen mention of
anything but a physical barrier blocking a Killing Curse, and most dragons on the ground are too
large and clumsy to hide themselves well. Not that they'd want to—by instinct, they'd fight an
enemy the size of a human wizard. They'd only turn tail on another dragon, and only if it was
bigger. And that's the same for most magical creatures. Rather simple minds, if I'm to be the judge
of it."

"I don't know..." said Hermione hesitantly.

As much as she disparaged this discussion of Unforgivable Curses, she knew that they weren't
illegal to discuss, or even illegal to use on animals. And there was plenty of precedent of using the
Killing Curse on animals in the past: those who harvested creature parts wanted to preserve the
body as perfectly as they could—organs, flesh, bones, and hide. The utility of a Killing Curse lay
in how quick and painless it was, without causing an animal undue stress, or damaging the skin as a
Muggle hunting rifle would have done in a game shoot; this was of vital importance in the harvest
of Demiguises, an animal raised solely for the magical qualities of their skin and fur. She could
admit that it was more humane than how pigs and oxen were butchered for the average Muggle
family's table, but it was nonetheless frightening how the speed and convenience of the Killing
Curse had resulted in its use by wizard murderers.

The wartime government, Hermione reminded herself, had caused the deaths of millions of rural
Indian farmers. This spell is a tool, and not the cruellest tool in existence, not by far.

A land mine, unlike a spell, was not directed by its operator. It was indiscriminate; each instance of
its use was not limited by an individual's conscious intent. It could maim a person, kill them, or do
everything in between, but its main purpose was to deny access to terrain through the threat of
unexpected violence. That particular spell, unlike a land mine, was clean and exact in comparison.

"Professor Merrythought said that the adult dragons in creature reserves took several wizards to
Stun," Hermione said. "It must be because of their inherent magical nature, or their magic-resistant
skin. Whatever it is, you'd likely only disable part of it if you hit it in the wing or the leg."

If there was a creature capable of killing wizards hidden under Hogwarts, wasn't it best to keep it
from escaping into the school? If that were the case, then Tom using a Killing Curse on a
dangerous animal was better than risking the lives of unwary students. She might not like it, but
with reluctance, she ceded that it was tolerable, morally and legally—unlike Nott's use of the
Imperius Curse. She still hadn't forgiven Nott for it, and was unsure of how to go about rebuking
him for it, because she couldn't let it stand between them unaddressed.

She had wondered, changing out of her uniform in the tiny train bathroom with Tom standing guard
outside the door, if Nott had ever thought about turning his wand against her when she was being
short with him. He'd cursed Myrtle Warren because she was an inconvenience; Hermione, in
retrospect, had been as much of an obstacle, and for a stretch of months, not minutes.

But...

No.

Tom would have noticed if Hermione had demonstrated any strange behaviours. He would have
taken her to the Hospital Wing the moment he saw her eyes glazed and vacant; he, after exchanging
letters for years, would have noticed if she spoke words that sounded as if they'd come out of
anyone's mouth but her own.

Nott wouldn't have dared, not with the possibility of having Tom's anger descend upon him.

(On the other hand, if she and Tom had never known one another, Nott would never have had
anything to do with her in the first place.)

"I'd need to aim at the head, then," said Tom thoughtfully. "If a dragon's skin is that resistant to
spells, then the best way to get it would be through its mouth or its eyes. A Reducto couldn't blast
through dragonhide, but what would it do if aimed at a dragon's open mouth?"

"That's only if there is a dragon," Hermione pointed out. "It's traditional to use a dragon to guard
treasure, but if you haven't noticed, most people these days just go to the bank. Dragons are good
at protecting gold, but it's hard to get the gold back if you decide you want to spend it. With the
Chamber, the legend doesn't say that it was meant to be hidden forever, but that Slytherin intended
it to be used."

"Perhaps it's a Sphinx," Tom suggested. "They're not as aggressive as dragons, and can be
communicated with. Slytherin's agenda was to 'cleanse the unworthy', and with something so
vague, the monster—whatever it is—needs to be able to take orders and differentiate its victims."

"How charming," remarked Hermione. "But a Sphinx? It would offer any potential victim a puzzle
first, and if answered successfully, that victim would be allowed to walk free. They're too clever
and difficult to simply order around like a... an executioner." Hermione made a face. "Would
Slytherin even use a lion to complete his so-called 'great work'? The whole idea of hiding a secret
chamber is very dramatic, but I've seen no sign that he valued dramatic irony."

"Then..." Tom trailed off, rolling onto his back, before whispering, "it's got to be a Cerberus!
Dangerous, but obedient if trained right after weaning. Tradition also makes them out to be guard
creatures, though they're not as common in Britain as in other parts of Europe. And—here's the
greatest clue—they're comfortable in dark spaces and underground. Dragons are creatures of the
air; they'd be better used to guard a tower than a hole in the ground."

"Slytherin's legendary monster," Hermione whispered back, "is a dog?"

"A giant dog," said Tom. "With three giant heads."

"Oh," said Hermione. "Well, I suppose it could be..."

"Do you fancy a flutter?" asked Tom in a casual tone of voice.

"What I fancy is a good night's sleep."

"So do I," said Tom, and saying that, he extinguished his light.

Hermione heard the bedsprings creak as he leaned over to the side, then there was a soft click as he
placed his wand on the nightstand next to hers. She waited for him to roll out of the bed and make
a departure back to his own room, but to her surprise, he didn't. Instead, he wormed his way deeper
under the blankets—her blankets—with a rustle of sheets and the thump of a pillow being
plumped. She could feel him very close to her, the dip in the mattress where his weight, several
stone greater than hers, pressed down on the springs. She could feel the heat of his body, warmer
than the hot water bottles the maids had prepared her bed with during her visit last Christmas.

"Tom?"

"Mm?"

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to sleep. Do you mind?"

"Yes, I do!"

"Don't worry, once you fall asleep, you'll forget I'm here."

Hermione let out a tired sigh. "Good night, Tom."

"Good night, Hermione."

It was an even greater surprise that Tom's presence didn't bother her all that much. He'd spent
much of the day by her side, and the day before as well. To have him at her side now, despite being
rather unexpected at first, didn't feel wrong. Yes, it could be argued that it was 'wrong' in the sense
that it was completely inappropriate by conventional standards of decency and propriety, but
Hermione didn't feel that it was a moral transgression.

Tom disdained common distinctions of right and wrong, especially in attempts to apply them to his
person. And although she was the one who, most of the time, had been the one making those
attempts, Hermione was reluctant to apply them to Tom right now—out of favouritism, out of
fondness, and out of mutual friendship.

It was also due, in part, to Tom's being a quiet sleeper. He didn't snore, kick, or talk in his sleep,
and Hermione found herself falling asleep before she could properly articulate a list of reasons why
Tom should return to his own room, which was larger and better-appointed than hers.

She didn't wake up until the next morning, when a maid set off the Tripping Jinx with a shrill cry
and a crash of shattering porcelain.

Tom, who had somehow draped himself over her during the night, didn't budge an inch at the noise.

Over the next few days, Hermione scarcely got a minute to herself.

During daylight hours, Mrs. Riddle monopolised her time, inviting her to tea in her private sitting
room every afternoon, sometimes with a guest or two from the village. This had included the local
parson, a balding man of mild disposition who deferred to Mrs. Riddle whenever he was asked to
give his opinion on anything, which was rare, as Mrs. Riddle had taken a firm hand with the
conversation from the very start. The mornings were occupied by Mrs. Riddle squiring Hermione
around the Riddle House, the gardens, outbuildings, and orchards, making broad insinuations about
what changes could be made in future, if Hermione were to find herself in charge of the estate.

"English primroses were the done thing when I was a girl," Mrs. Riddle had said, leading her out
into the conservatory behind the house, where the hothouse flowers were grown. "Of course,
they'll still suit most occasions, but I expect that you'll want something with a bit more spirit.
Zinnias, perhaps. Or anemones. My dear, you're young enough to get away with a daring choice or
two—but not too daring." She gave a silvery little laugh. "We've an image to maintain."

The evenings, after Mr. and Mrs. Riddle had retired to their rooms when the last remove had been
cleared from the dining table, were spent with Tom. He was still fixated on the subject of
Slytherin's monster, and was determined that he would not only discover it, but defeat it in single
combat.

They met in Hermione's guest bedroom, because over the last week, Tom had developed an
unfortunate habit of coming and going whenever he liked, half the time waiting a mere second
between knocking on her door and opening it up. The room was larger than her bedroom at home,
and the bed could easily fit two without trouble, so it wasn't as if his presence made the space too
close and stifling. But it was a nuisance that Hermione couldn't even change her clothes in her own
room. She'd started to change into her nightgown in the bathroom down the hall, after too many
close runs where Tom had barged in with an armful of Care of Magical Creatures textbooks.

Hermione had just returned to her room with a bundle of laundry to see Tom lounging on her bed,
twirling his wand between his fingers, a selection of books scattered over the bedcovers.

"This might be your house, but it would be nice if you had the courtesy to ask before you came in,"
said Hermione reprovingly. "You lived at my house for two summers and my Mum always
knocked when she came in to change the sheets."

"Are you afraid that I'll see something I'm not supposed to?" asked Tom. "Because there's no
reason to be afraid—you know I'd never laugh at you, Hermione." His eyes darted to Hermione's
laundry. Underneath the smart blouse and woollen skirt she'd worn to dinner was a small sliver of
cream satin trimmed with lace.

Hermione quickly dumped her slip into the laundry basket and closed the lid. "I know you
wouldn't laugh at me; that was never the problem."

"So what is the problem, then?"

"The fact that you're so certain that the Killing Curse will solve everything," said Hermione. "Yes,
it's neat and tidy, but people will know what spell you used, based on just how neat it is. That
could put paid to your idea of making yourself out to be a fearsome dragonslayer. No noble
dragonslayer would cultivate a reputation of being handy with illegal curses—yes, I know it's legal
in that context, but you don't want the wrong people asking the wrong questions."

"What else do you suggest?" said Tom. "Assuming it's a carnivore, we could brew a Sleeping
Draught, baste it on a side of beef, then feed it to the creature... but that would take too long."

"Assuming it's a Cerberus, you wouldn't even need a Sleeping Draught," said Hermione. "Orpheus
made one fall asleep by playing music. You could sing it to sleep, you know."
Hermione had learned more than a few interesting facts this summer. The latest one was that Tom
had a fine singing voice, which she'd found out on Sunday, when the Little Hangleton congregation
had gotten up to sing a hymn before the end of the service. The Riddles sat at the front, in their
family's reserved seat, and Tom, within direct sight of his grandparents and the parson, had had to
sing rather than mouth the words. His voice was untrained: Hermione didn't think that Wool's
could have provided tutoring, and when she'd taught him to dance, she'd been stymied by the fact
that he was unfamiliar with formal musical terminology. But he didn't crack on the higher notes,
and he could carry a tune better than she could.

(Hermione's Muggle primary school had had a class for music, where she'd learned to sight-read
sheet music and play a whistle, very poorly. It had also been her first introduction to the existence
of natural aptitudes. She memorised the composition better than her classmates, but the teacher had
admitted that while her recitations were accurate, she lacked 'joy'. Hermione had scoured musical
encyclopaedias for weeks to understand the meaning of that comment, and to this day, she still
didn't know.)

"I can't very well speak spell incantations and sing at the same time," said Tom. "And not to be
rude about it, but you can't sing either. Can you play an instrument?"

"The only instrument I play decently is the piano," she replied, "since playing one is just a matter of
hitting the keys in the right order. But we can't just Transfigure one unless we study how they're
made—there are eighty-eight strings in different lengths that we'd have to get right to make a
working piano. The alternative is borrowing one, but the only person I know who has a piano is
your grandmother... And she'd notice if the one in her sitting room disappeared for a few weeks."

Hermione paused for a moment, frowning. "I'm not certain we could fit a piano down that hole in
the girls' bathroom."

Tom rolled onto his stomach, tapping his wand against his chin. In a low voice, he said, "Nott can
play the harp."

Hermione couldn't imagine Tom and Nott casually discussing their hobbies and recreational
diversions. Nott certainly hadn't discussed anything of that vein with her.

"Did he tell you that?"

"We live in the same dormitory," said Tom. "One tends to know things about the person who has
slept ten feet away for the last six years."

"He has to be wondering what we're doing," Hermione said. "Should we write to him?"

Tom was silent, the wand falling still in his hand. "He'll want to meet us."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

Another silence. Tom gave Hermione a curious look, the slightest lift to his brows.

"He's a parasite," said Tom bluntly.

Hermione sighed. "So are your grandparents. Or did you forget that all their money comes from
compound interest and collecting other people's rent?"
"It would be a blow to their pride for my grandparents to take even a single shilling from you," said
Tom. "Nott, on the other hand, would bleed you dry if he could get away with it."

"He wouldn't do that..."

"No," Tom agreed. "Because he knows he can't."

"What about you?" asked Hermione. "You don't appear to have any qualms about bleeding him."

"Someone who boasts about the purity of his blood should never hesitate to prove it," said Tom.
He gave a sniff of disdain. "Write him, then. Arrange a meeting. And tell him to mind his
manners."

That evening after dinner, Hermione rang her Mum from the telephone in Mr. Riddle's office.
Gilles was despatched from the Grangers' house in London an hour later, bearing a book and a few
extra changes of socks and undergarments that Hermione had asked for. When Gilles arrived at
midnight, Hermione stroked the feathery tufts on the top of his head, before tying a fresh letter to
his leg.

"Broxtowe Abbey, Nottinghamshire. Go to the mews, not the main house," Hermione whispered.
"Wait for the elf to clean the roosts in the morning, then give her the letter."

Gilles took one last owl treat from her hand, nudging her palm with the side of his hooked beak.
Then he shook out his feathers, gliding out of the window on silent wings and disappearing into the
night.

Hermione slid the sash down and closed the curtains, turning back to her bedroom. "I've sent the
letter. He should get it before noon tomorrow—unless he sleeps in during the summer holidays."

"You should have ordered the owl to peck him awake," said Tom. "Owls will do that if you tell
them to."

"They're the only the ones, it seems, who will do what they're told," said Hermione, folding her
arms. "Heavens, Tom, don't you like your own room? Mrs. Riddle went through a lot of trouble of
furnishing it for you!"

Tom's bedroom not only had an adjoined bathroom, a larger bed, but all the books that Tom had
collected over the last ten years, shipped in from Wool's. His room also had a vast armoire for the
clothes Mrs. Riddle had bought him. On the shelves were vases of fresh blooms cut from Mrs.
Riddle's garden, and the walls were papered in a pattern of Tom's own choosing. His room felt like
a proper bedroom. Hermione's, in comparison, was clearly a guest room, complete with dried
flowers on the mantel and framed watercolours of the Yorkshire valleys on the walls. A rather
sterile choice, but safe and inoffensive.

"I do," Tom replied, "but my bed isn't as comfortable as yours." He patted the pillow. "Here, I can
fall asleep in a matter of minutes."

"As comfortable as it is for you," said Hermione, "it certainly isn't for the maids who trip over the
carpet every morning."

"I'll stop casting Tripping Jinxes if you ward our doors with a Muggle Repelling Charm," said
Tom. "If anyone could formulate a conditional enchantment that operates between the hours of
sunset and dawn, it'd be you."

"There's no reason why you couldn't do it."

"No," said Tom, drawing back the bedcovers and slipping into the bed, "but I'm not the one who
gets upset when the maids have to pick the china out of the carpet on their hands and knees."

"It would do you well to demonstrate some fellow feeling now and then," said Hermione, with a
deep sigh. She got into the bed, taking care to not make contact with Tom, who hadn't given any
indication that he was going to vacate her room.

Servants, though paid for their service, were still human beings, and deserved to be treated
humanely. If there was one thing for which she couldn't fault Mrs. Riddle, it was the woman's
belief in noblesse oblige. Of course, Mrs. Riddle approached it from a position of privilege, and
even if her intentions were questionable, her actions—giving alms to the poor and patronage to the
arts—still had merit.

"Well, if you insist," said Tom, slithering over to her side of the bed and giving her a strange,
backwards hug. His arms held her so tight that her ribs creaked, and a few seconds later, his grip
softened, and one hand lifted up to stroke her hair.

"How's this for fellow feeling?" he murmured.

"It's a decent attempt," said Hermione, closing her eyes.

It rained on the day they'd arranged to meet Nott.

From the breakfast table, Tom watched the gloomy sky with an equally gloomy expression, while
his grandparents tucked obliviously into their breakfast. Mr. Riddle had his usual bacon and brown
sauce butty, browsing through the financial pages of the Yorkshire Post, making the occasional
comment to Mrs. Riddle about Parliament's new taxes or the rebuilding of Hull, a port city in the
East Riding that had been bombed by the Germans several times over the last few years, resulting
in hundreds killed and tens of thousands displaced to temporary shelters across the county.

"Mary, Parliament's raising the Purchase Tax," Mr. Riddle grumbled. "'For the necessity of the war,
and the transforming of our home economy, Britons have reduced demand for essential goods; we
are heretofore obliged to reduce our consumption of inessential luxuries.' Utter rubbish." Mr.
Riddle slapped the newspaper onto the table. "This luxury tax is to include plate fees for civilian
motorcars—hah, as if a man can find enough petrol to drive anywhere these days."

"I'm sure you can find some if you ask the right people," Mrs. Riddle assured him. "I do hope that
tax won't be on the auction houses. I've asked Mr. Steadman to keep watch for any good jewels
going at decent prices. They'll make a fine gift—and you know how I can't abide an empty
trousseau."

Tom made his excuses as soon as he could, and Hermione followed, buttoning up her coat and
ensuring her wand was within reach in the front pocket. Together, they crunched down the drive,
side-stepping puddles of cloudy brown water, until they'd reached the gates at the foot of the hill.
They ducked behind the stone pilings, green with moss, out of sight of the house, then reached for
their wands.

The Disillusionment Charm was difficult to master until one had a proper grasp of the visualisation.
It wouldn't work when one directed their intent to achieving complete invisibility; rather, one had to
will themselves into being unnoticed—to fading into the shadows wherever they existed, and
twisting the light to create shadows where there were none. Half of it was a re-direction of
bystander attention, encouraging them to continue with their business, not stopping to remark on a
peculiar shimmer in the air, or darkening of a well-lit room. The other half was the re-distribution
of light: muting colours, blurring edges, refracting light so one's shape and silhouette became
jumbled with one's surroundings.

Hermione had practised it often over the past year, but she still hadn't gotten used to the sensation
of a successful casting, which felt like a cold tube of nit cream being squeezed over her head, a
memory from her childhood that she didn't regard with much fondness. (There'd been a head lice
epidemic going around her school when she was in Grade Three, and Hermione, having very thick
hair, had had a worse time of it than her classmates. The treatment involved the application of a
smelly scalp lotion and fine-combing each strand of hair for louse eggs, which had tested Mum's
patience as much as it had Hermione's.)

She was still thinking about it when they reached the Little Hangleton graveyard at the bottom of
the hill, off one side of the road that led down to the village.

It wouldn't have been a dreary, morbid place on any other day; as graveyards went, the Little
Hangleton cemetery was neat and well-maintained, and by the fresh flower clippings on a few
graves, it had seen recent visitors. The gravestones were laid in square clusters broken by shade
trees dripping rain over stone benches, and in the centre of the cemetery was a stone-lined path that
divided the simple granite markers on one side from the elaborate carved statues and mausoleum
vaults on the other.

She drew her wand and reversed the Disillusionment Charm, casting a quick Warming Charm over
her coat—it was difficult to maintain two spells at once. Scanning a row of stone markers,
Hermione deduced that the markers bore villagers' names, so the other half of the graveyard had to
be the Riddles'.

She was proven right when Tom suddenly veered off the path, passed under the wing of an angel in
serene repose, and stopped at the front of a mausoleum, its gold-leafed double doors gleaming even
in the dim light of a cloudy day. Built in a classical style, it had a pair of white marble nymphs on
either side of the door, the left carrying a jug of water, and the right hefting a bundle of ripened
grain. What had caught Tom's attention were the letters carved atop the lintel and foiled in gold: R
I D D L E.

"'Thomas John Edward Riddle'," read Tom, his voice tight. "The angel over there is for another
Thomas Riddle."

"What a bunch of unimaginative stiffs, eh?"

Before Hermione could speak a word, Tom had already drawn his wand.

A jet of scarlet streaked through the air, red light reflecting off the gilded doors, skimming off a
nymph's bare white shoulder, before it was abruptly halted in mid-air by a dome of pale blue.
Crackling with red sparks, the shield glowed for one, two, three seconds before it began to lose its
radiance, then slowly, it faded away, just as a large chunk of stone dropped from the statue's side.

Crack!

White marble hit the floor of the mausoleum's stone portico, shattering into several pieces and a
cloud of white dust.

A cloaked figure stepped out from behind the disfigured nymph, one gloved hand moving to push
back a rain-dampened hood. Nott's face was revealed thus, a scowl on his face, and a mean-spirited
comment already on his tongue.

"Now that was excessive." Nott paused, then added, "But I suppose it would be foolish to expect
anything else from you, Riddle."

"Nott," said Tom in way of a greeting. His eyes darted to Nott's hands. "What's that you've got?"

In Nott's hand was his wand, the handle carved with budding branches; tucked under the other arm,
partly concealed by the drape of his cloak, was a sealed glass apothecary jar, the type that Slughorn
had lining the shelves of his classroom. Where Professor Slughorn's jars contained bits of dried
tree bark or Billywig stingers, Nott's jar contained what looked like a severed human hand, an end
of white bone peeking through the desiccated flesh and mottled grey skin at its truncated wrist.
The yellowing nails of its fingers were curled around a stump of candle wax.

"A Hand of Glory!" said Tom, eagerly reaching for it. "Where did you find something like that?"

Nott jerked it out of Tom's reach. "Get your own!"

Hermione cleared her throat. "Can we get on with it, please? Tom and I have a good idea of what
the creature in the Chamber is."

"Well?" said Nott, clutching the jar tightly to his chest and keeping a wary eye on Tom.

"It's a Cerberus, of course," said Tom.

Nott looked at him blankly. "Are... are you joshing me?"

Hermione rattled off a list of the evidence: "It has to be a creature capable of taking orders from a
human master. As the story goes, Slytherin left the school and passed the information on opening
the Chamber to his apprentices..."

When she finished, Nott had turned his blank stare not just to Tom, but to Hermione as well.

"It's hard to believe that there are people who have so many O.W.L.s between them, but not a lick
of sense," said Nott.

"Excuse me!" Hermione protested. "What do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what I said," said Nott. "It's a snake. Slytherin's monster is a snake. Of course it's a
bloody snake!"

"But that's so obvious," Tom interjected. "Isn't Slytherin supposed to be the most cunning of the
four founders? What better way than this to make people think it's a snake, so they'd search for
centuries, looking for a snake when there was never one in the first place."

Nott flicked a quick glance at Hermione. "Slytherin was also enormously grandiose."

"Here," said Nott, waving his wand over their feet and mumbling a few words; the wet stone hissed
and a curtain of steam rose from the floor, leaving it warm and dry, if a little dusty from the broken
shards of marble. Nott dropped to his knees, setting the hand-in-a-jar to the side, before spreading
his cloak over the paving stones. He unbuckled the flap of the satchel he'd been wearing beneath
his cloak, drawing out a leather folio; within it was a thick ream of parchment, which he laid out
over the cloth, sheet by sheet.

A pall of uncertainty came upon her quickly, but just as quickly, it passed away, and Hermione was
kneeling on the floor of the portico, casting Lumos so she could read the pages of hand-transcribed
notes copied from the reference book Nott had stolen from the Hogwarts library.

She recognised his handwriting—she'd remarked on it the day he'd drafted a legal letter almost a
year ago—on a summarised biography of Salazar Slytherin.

Slytherin was a noted master of wandlore. The first trees planted on the Hogwarts grounds,
which later became the Forbidden Forest, were a selection of native British wand woods:
stout oak, hardy highland pine, supple willow, enduring yew, delicate beech, and resonant
spruce. But Slytherin, who had carved wands for his newest students, those in possession of
the qualities he espoused, would not make his own wand out of common wood. Being well-
travelled, Slytherin carved his wand from a stave of Indian snakewood, a timber famed for its
intricate and colourful endgrain, resembling the scale patterns of snake and lizard. His core,
too, was also said to be unique. Not unicorn, of which one can purchase a spray of matched
hairs from any huntmaster, but the forehorn of an enormous serpent that Slytherin encountered
on his travels in the East...

"See?" said Nott, pointing out the relevant paragraph. "The fellow was obsessed with snakes.
They were his heraldic symbol, and he was proud of it. His pride was what got him banished from
Hogwarts by the other founders—he wouldn't renounce his beliefs, not even when Gryffindor, his
beloved friend, asked him to, a condition for staying on as a teacher."

"What's that?" Tom suddenly asked, picking one sheet from the bottom of the stack. The edges
were curled, but Tom flattened them out to reveal a sketched image of a bald, bearded man clad in
thickly embroidered robes, his flowing sleeves so long that their ends were cut off by the bottom of
the paper.

Tom lit the tip of his wand, casting a soft yellow light over the finer details. The sketch was done
in lead pencil, shaded in the manner of an engraving, with neat crosshatches to convey shadow and
depth. As Hermione watched, the drawing shifted—it had been charmed into animation—and the
bearded man blinked, his eyes dark and piercing under a pair of heavy grey brows. On his chest
was a pendant hung from a chain, the pencil shadows wriggling and shifting to produce bright
highlights on the inset jewels, a row of them curved in the shape of an S.

"That's Slytherin," said Nott. "If Slytherin built that hole in the girls' bathroom, then there might be
a tapestry of him down there. It'll be sure proof that it's the Chamber of legend."

"The necklace he's wearing," Tom said. "What happened to it?"

"Necklace? That's Slytherin's locket," corrected Nott, lifting his nose. "Slytherin passed it down to
his descendants, probably. I've made a few enquiries over the past week, while waiting for
someone to write to me—" he sent a glare in Hermione's direction, "—and it went to auction years
ago. It's now in the hands of a private collector."

"I want to see it in person," said Tom, raising his wand, the light glowing brighter as he held it to
the page in his hands. In the picture, Slytherin winced and turned away, shading his eyes from the
glare.

"Well, you're out of luck there," Nott replied, shrugging. "The collector doesn't offer public
showings. Father's been asked to authenticate a few of her things over the years—he's an expert in
wizarding heraldry, you see—but even he's never been shown the most valuable pieces in the
collection, not with his own eyes. Just pictures. He's asked about buying them, and the old hag is
only willing to trade them for artefacts of equal historical value."

"Equal value?" said Hermione. "What does that mean? Something from another founder, or
something else that belonged to Slytherin?"

"The former, I'd imagine," said Nott. "Slytherin didn't own many famous artefacts. The Chamber,
obviously, but it's not an artefact. The locket in the sketch. And his snakewood wand, which was
lost in Ireland centuries ago. If the collector limited herself to things of Slytherin's, she'd never find
out what treasures her rival collectors had hidden in their own collections."

"There are founders' artefacts at Hogwarts," Tom said, immersed in his own thoughts; he looked
like he'd only vaguely followed the conversation between Nott and Hermione. "Dumbledore said
that the Sorting Hat was Gryffindor's before he enchanted it. And the address quill—"

"The Quill of Acceptance," said Hermione.

"—Was enchanted by Rowena Ravenclaw," Tom finished.

"Merlin's staff, Riddle, are you really going there?" said Nott, his mouth gaping open in disbelief.
"Every wizard and witch in Britain went to Hogwarts. I'll give you points for the audacity, but
everyone and their mother will know where the Hat and the Quill came from if you nicked them.
And don't forget that the Hat can talk."

"It was worth considering," Tom said stubbornly.

"And now that we've considered it and moved on," Hermione put in, "there's still the monster in the
Chamber, and how we're going to get down there, fight it—or Stun it, preferably—then bring
everything back up."

"I've a solution for that," Nott began, but the words died in his throat as a cone of harsh white light
cut through the mist and hit him right in the face.
There was a crunch, crunch, scrape from the gravel path beyond the mausoleum, then a figure
dragged itself out of the drizzle and roared at them.

"Damn children! This here's out of bounds for you damned little rascals! The constable will be
told of this trespassin', you hear me, and so will the Riddles—let's see how much you like that!"

Frank Bryce, flatcap pulled low over his ears, brandished his walking stick at them. He had an
electric torch in his free hand, and the blazing white beam swept past Nott's face, to Hermione's,
then Tom's.

"Miss Hermione! Master Tom!" Mr. Bryce sputtered, recognising their faces. "What're you lot
doin' here, of all places?"

Nott nudged his Hand of Glory out of sight while Mr. Bryce was distracted.

"W-we were just going to," said Hermione, forcing herself not to look at the shrivelled hand in a
jar, "um..."

"We're here to pay our respects to the dead," said Tom. "Did you know, Bryce, that my mother
passed away giving birth to me? I'd wondered if it would be too bold of me to ask my grandmama
about dedicating a plaque, a monument—something of that sort—to my mother. I'm told she was
given a pauper's grave in London, and that no one around here liked her much... but wasn't she born
here, in this village?"

Mr. Bryce lowered the torch, shifting uncomfortably on his walking stick. "She were a local girl
indeed, sir."

"She was a northern girl," said Tom, nodding. "Grandpapa told me that northern blood ran thicker.
And for all her faults, she was my mother and a Riddle."

"Right you are, sir," said Mr. Bryce. He scratched his jaw. "Er. When you're done here, Cook's got
tea waitin' for you two up in the big house." He gave Nott a curious glance, eyes lingering on the
fine wool of Nott's jumper, the starched collar of his shirt fastened with mother-of-pearl buttons,
and the polish on the toes of his leather boots, which were, unlike Hermione's shoes, unfilmed by
the white marble dust that had settled all over the floor. "I'll go up now and tell Mrs. Riddle to set
an extra place at table for your little friend 'ere."

Nott blanched at that, while Tom held back a well-pleased smile, thanking Mr. Bryce for his hard
work, taking such good care of the estate and so on, until Mr. Bryce ducked his head, his weathered
cheeks flushed from the praise.

Together, they made short work of collecting the papers and returning them to the folio. Then Tom
made to steer a clearly reluctant Nott past the gravestones and up the path to the top of the hill.

"What are you playing at, Riddle?" Nott snapped, jumping as Tom prodded him in the back with
the point of his wand.

"I'm inviting you to luncheon," said Tom. "Muggles may be a barbaric lot, but some of them know
a thing or two about cookery."

"Well, I respectfully decline your invitation," Nott replied, slipping his hand into his satchel.
"If you're looking for your wand, I've taken it," said Tom, lifting up the hem of his jumper.
Sticking out of his trouser pocket was a carved handle of a medium brown wood, distinct from
Tom's wand of white yew. Tom lowered his jumper back over it, smoothing out the wrinkles with
the flat of his hand. "Now you'll be on equal terms with the Muggles."

"Granger, do something!" Nott hissed at Hermione, giving her a look of extreme alarm.

"The Riddles are... gracious hosts," said Hermione. "Don't worry, it won't be that bad."

Nott groaned and kicked the ground, causing pellets of gravel to fly out over the path. He groaned
again as a chunk of gravel fell into a puddle and splashed his legs with muddy water.

Tom laughed. "An invitation to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Riddle is a great honour. If we're to be
associates, Nott, then I suggest you adjust yourself to the idea."
 Democracy

1944

Luncheon at the Riddle House was Tom's favourite meal of the day.

At breakfast, there was a buffet spread, allowing each person present to take as many slices of toast
or bacon as they wanted. Luncheon, on the other hand, was served in proper courses, a level of
refinement that elevated it above breakfast's humdrum assortment of bread and eggs and meat in a
chafing dish. At the same time, lunch dispensed with the clutter of silver, porcelain, and crystal
laid out on the table for each remove, a formality which stretched Sunday dinners past the ninety-
minute mark. And yet, luncheon still distinguished itself above commoners' meals eaten by
labourers in their canteens, the soldiers in their mess halls, or the students with their daily rations of
National Milk.

It was the Riddle House that Nott found himself impelled to call on, convinced by Tom's argument,
which was the most effective of all arguments: a show of overwhelming force.

It had been so easy. Nott and Hermione had been busy organising the papers, and Tom had seen the
other boy's wand lying unattended; a quick shuffle, a silent Summons, and the wand had fallen into
his possession. It had still been warm, the carved wooden ridges on the handle pleasing to his
touch, and Tom wondered how it would feel to cast magic with it. His first trip to Diagon Alley,
Tom had been told that wands chose their owners, but the ease to which this particular wand had
come to him inclined him toward taking it as a meaningful portent.

Tom judged it a more diverting subject of consideration than listening to Nott air his complaints,
first to him, then to Hermione.

"I..." said Nott, glancing uneasily at Tom, "I'm sure they're first-rate people, your Muggles. You
needn't make an introduction; I trust your word that they're wonderful. In fact, I rescind every
uncharitable comment I've made about them—"

"No need to go that far," said Tom.

"But it would be decent of you not to say that at the table," added Hermione. "And you should put
your cloak in your bag. Muggles don't wear cloaks these days, unless they're spending the evening
at the opera—and even that's limited to the people who can afford to buy a box seat."

"As an expert of Muggle things, Granger," said Nott, "shouldn't you be aware that inviting wizards
into Muggle domiciles is a potential breach of the Statute?"

"It's a grey area, in technical terms," Hermione replied. "Seeing as it's a property under Muggle
ownership, but listed as the legal residence of a wizard. Don't perform any spells, and that's the
main issue sorted. And don't mention magic, or call them Muggles, and there'll be no harm done."

"Except to my dignity," muttered Nott.

"You're better off without it," said Tom in a reassuring voice, but the smile he gave Nott was
anything but. "Lestrange and Avery do perfectly well without."

"Lestrange and Avery are a pair of clods with not an original thought between them," Nott said,
scowling. "They think the days in winter are shorter because the sun moves faster."

"Their Astronomy essays really are quite riveting, aren't they?" asked Tom. "But I do admit to
appreciating their... simplicity. They do what they're told, and they don't ask questions. It's a
valuable attribute wherever it can be found." He looked pointedly at Nott. "If only it could be
found more often."

"Tom," said Hermione. "You can't mean that, surely?"

"Well, we wouldn't be in this situation if Nott here had kept to his own affairs," said Tom, "instead
of minding other people's."

"You'd have never found the Chamber if not for me," Nott protested.

"If not for me, you'd have never got it open," said Tom. "You ought to be more grateful."

"And you," Nott said, "ought to be more—"

"Civil," Hermione finished. "For someone who has so much criticism for the vulgar and barbaric,
you're hardly a model of virtue yourself."

"So long as you remember your pleases and thank yous, I don't care whom you choose to criticise.
You may find that I'm not unreasonable," said Tom, giving Nott a hard look. "Within reason, of
course."

With that, Tom herded Nott up the stairs to the front door of the Riddle House, before ringing the
doorbell and waiting for the maid to let them in. Nott, his hands shoved into his pockets, shivered
as a chill breeze rolled in, heavy with a damp mist that had risen in the morning and had not yet
been burned away by the noon sun. With a solicitous glance at Hermione, Tom cast a Warming
Charm over her coat, then another at his own.

Nott cleared his throat.

"If you're thirsty, I can have the maid bring you a glass of water," said Tom.

The door opened, and the maid took his and Hermione's coats, but not Nott's. Nott had stowed his
cloak in his satchel, and only had on a thin shirt of cream linen under a woollen jumper with an odd
metallic sheen to the fibres. Tom gave him a quick inspection; Nott wore a gaudy gold signet ring
on his right hand and his trousers had cords lacing up each side of the leg, but nothing about the
boy gave him away as obviously magical. Eccentric, yes, not magical. Deprived of his wand,
Nott couldn't perform magic, so in that regard he was no different to a Muggle. Tom was pleased
to think of Nott, thus disarmed, as half a wizard.

(Tom, on the other hand, had magical abilities that did not depend on a wand. He could sense
untruths and compel weaker minds to bow under his will, and had been doing so before he'd even
visited Mr. Ollivander's wand shop. With or without his wand, Tom knew he was a wizard.)
Mr. and Mrs. Riddle had already been seated when the maid ushered them into the dining room,
announcing their presence at the door, in order of precedence.

"Master Tom, Miss Hermione, and... a friend of theirs. No name given, sir, marm," said Frances,
the first housemaid, with a little bob of her head. "I'll bring the soup out in a jiff—broth of chicken,
celery, and fennel, with prawns in cream sauce on toast."

The Riddles were seated at opposite ends of the rectangular table. When the door closed behind the
maid, Mrs. Riddle rose from her seat, her thin-lipped expression somehow disapproving without
her having to utter a single word. She gestured grandly to the place settings in the centre of the
table, Tom and Hermione's usual seats. Today, there was a point of difference: an extra seat
opposite theirs, for a total of five settings at the table.

"Tom, Hermione," said Mrs. Riddle, with the slightest incline of her head. Her eyes lingered on the
third member of their party, Nott, before she asked, "And who might this be?"

There was a minor inflection of curiosity to her speech, but Tom doubted that it was an indication
of pleasant surprise, as one would make when presented with flowers by an anonymous admirer.
Rather, it was the lift in intonation one would hear from a physician, speaking the dreaded words,
"Good gracious, now what's this?"

Nott wasn't cowed. He lifted his chin and approached the table with purposeful strides, his
shoulders squared and his hands held behind his back in proper genteel form. Although he knew its
intention was to be proper and courtly, such a display on Nott's scrawny figure put Tom in mind of
lakeshore birds with their stilt-like legs and stiff necks, preying on the undergrown tadpoles, the
mud-grubbing amphibians. They flapped their wings and joggled their feathered crests, comparing
who out of the flock was the largest or the most flamboyant. They weren't starlings, but they were
scarcely any better, for the entirety of their existence was dictated to them by a greater external
force: the turning of the season, the ebb and flow of the tides, the trophic cycles of lesser creatures
on which their livelihoods depended.

"Sir, Madam," said Nott giving them a shallow bow followed by an elegant flourish. The only
discernible sign of agitation was the slow clenching of Nott's right hand, and the slide of his thumb
over the bezelled face of his family ring, visible to Tom standing behind the other boy, but not Mrs.
Riddle at the table. "If I may introduce myself? I am Theodore Erasmus Nott, of Broxtowe Abbey,
in Nottinghamshire."

"And how, exactly," said Mrs. Riddle, a faint line forming between her brows as she struggled to
place the name in her mental register of notable families, "did you come into the acquaintance of
my grandson?"

"We attend the same school," said Nott.

"This must be Professor Dumberton's charity school, yes?"

Nott's head jerked to the side, but he caught himself before he could give Tom a Look. "Some
people might have the misfortune of being charity students, but the school itself is not a charity
school. My father attended, and his father before him; his brother served on the Board of
Governors. Every single one of them attended on merit and legacy, not on the sufferance of the
public purse."
"I see," said Mrs. Riddle. "And what does this school happen to teach so many generations of your
family?"

"The same thing it teaches your grandson and Miss Granger," Nott retorted. "The classics, of
course. History, languages, arithmetic, and natural philosophy."

"No sports?"

"Strictly voluntary, Madam," said Nott. "The school is in northern Scotland, and attended by both
sexes."

"Hmph." Mrs. Riddle smoothed out her skirt before lowering herself back to her seat. "Very well.
I see, then, that Tommy owes me an explanation as to why he comes to us for the holidays looking
so peaky and unhealthily pale. I had assumed that Dumberton chose not to involve himself with
the health of his students—but perhaps I have been, however regrettably, misinformed."

When Tom pulled out Hermione's chair and helped her to her seat, out of the corner of his eye, he
noticed Nott mouth the word "Tommy", a faint smirk dimpling the flesh of his cheek.

Tom aimed a mild Stinging Jinx to his thigh, under the table, and all signs of amusement quickly
disappeared.

The dishes arrived not long after, a steaming tureen of soup and a loaf of bread in a covered basket,
rolled in on a serving trolley and sliced at the sideboard by the maid. Mrs. Riddle requested her
portion of bread be cut into paper thin slices, while she made sure Tom got the thickest pieces,
maintaining a vigilant watch on him and refusing to signal for the next course until she was sure
he'd finished every bite. The first course was followed by a poached bream, its skin scored with
lines and packed with thin rounds of lemon, then by a breast of duck with chestnut-stuffed
artichokes, and finally, a sweet flan poured over with a thick toffee syrup.

Over the course of their meal, Nott presented no complaint about the fact that his food had been
cooked and served by Muggles, who, by his standards, barely qualified as human. Not that he was
afforded an opportunity, as Mrs. Riddle interrogated him so thoroughly that his contributions to the
conversation were limited to answers to a never-ending stream of questions.

What was his best subject at school?

"British history. I have a more than passing familiarity with the histories of England and Wales,
though less with Scotland and Ireland."

What was his sport of choice?

"My father keeps a cote of falcons on our estate. We fly them on clear days; Mother much prefers
how sedate it is, compared to the noise and fuss of coursing with hounds."

Was he a patron of the theatre?

"I rarely have a chance, except when one of the professors at our school puts on a student
production—but it's all amateur, so they're never any good. But I did see Le Chevalier Vert with
my mother last week, and having seen it before, was not disappointed by the performance of the
second-chair understudies."
All of Nott's answers seemed to pass muster, but Mrs. Riddle didn't let up on him until she drew out
the most important question during the consumption of their very sticky dessert pudding.

"And what do your parents do? Your father, your mother?"

Hermione coughed on a spoonful of flan. Hastily, she patted a napkin over her lips before turning
to Tom's grandmother. "Mrs. Riddle, surely this line of discussion is more suitable for a vocational
interview than a—a luncheon!"

"Hermione, my darling, when it comes to first impressions, one has a duty to present themselves to
their greatest advantage," said Mrs. Riddle coolly. "And it is the duty of a good host to ensure that
their guests are given the latitude to present themselves advantageously. Did you not think that you
and dearest Helen were not given such an opportunity when we were first introduced in London?"
Mrs. Riddle took a long sip from her glass then set it down firmly; without a word, the maid at the
sideboard scurried over to refill it. "Of course you were. And of course I found you satisfactory,
else you would not be sitting here today, enjoying such an extension of my family's hospitality."

At this, Tom gave a start; his fork clattered against the last scrapes of custard on his plate.

"Grandmama, I beg your pardon, but Hermione is here, first and foremost, because I invited her.
Your leave and your hospitality, though appreciated, weren't necessary," he spoke in a forceful
voice, his words taking on a hollow, echoing resonance that made Nott sit up and watch him
eagerly. "And with all respect, I take offense to the notion that she's to be treated as an outsider,
generously treated or not, when you've not known her for much longer than you've known me. I
consider her to be my family as much as you and Grandpapa are. Perhaps not in official terms—but
just as easily as you found it, I, too, can find a form to sign and a witness to watch me."

"Tom!" breathed Mrs. Riddle, struck suddenly speechless. She clapped a hand across her mouth
and glanced over to Mr. Riddle, then back to Tom, her eyes glistening with emotion. "If you really
mean it, that is wonderful to hear!"

"Hear, hear," said Nott, setting aside his cutlery to clap his hands together in glee. "Well done,
Riddle." His gaze darted over the table, to Hermione on the other side. "I can foresee a gay old
time in trying to take that back, now that we've all heard it."

"Now listen here, lad," said Mr. Riddle to Nott, speaking up for the first time, "a gentleman who
fails to honour his word becomes known to others as a scoundrel, and rightly so. If he takes action,
then renounces it, he not only earns the reputation of a scoundrel, but renders himself a lesser
man." To Tom, he said, "If you are to act, my boy, then think carefully before you do so. I won't
have another scandal brought under my roof; it was only by His providence that your mother
passed before your father could bring her here, and install her in my house." He jabbed an insistent
finger to the crisp white tablecloth. "At least he had the common sense and the decency to make it
lawful."

"I'm very fortunate to have more sense than he does," Tom declared. "If there was any whiff of a
scandal, Grandpapa, let me assure you that its source would never lie with me." He leaned over to
Hermione and brushed his leg against hers under the table, making her jump and splash water over
the tablecloth. "My intentions have been made perfectly transparent from the start."

Mrs. Riddle gave a high, tinkling laugh, before saying, "Oh, this is tremendously exciting. I
suppose I'll have to smarten up one of the extra bedrooms—we can't have Hermione living in a
guest room if she's to be family. And you, Theodore,"—Nott made a face at this display of
familiarity—"When you go back up to Scotland, if Tommy is so hasty as to ask you to stand as his
witness, I expect that you'll cable us a copy of the certificate. I won't have the announcement
broken to us in The Post!"

"'Cable'?" said Nott in a weak voice.

"There must be a telegram office in the nearest town," said Mrs. Riddle. "Professor Dumberton
sent me a slip to sign so Tommy could take day trips to the village by the school. Even the smallest
outpost ought to have a wire service of some sort."

"That won't be necessary, Mrs. Riddle!" said Hermione quickly. "There's no need to rush things.
After all, no one's made any decisions yet—if there's even a decision to be made."

"Of course there isn't," said Mrs. Riddle, brushing aside any shred of doubt. "Tommy likes you,
that's clear to see. He's high-strung—he got that, I'm certain, from his father's side of the family—
but you're level-headed and know just how to settle his nerves. You'll do well together. I know
these things, my dear; I've been married for forty years."

"You see, Hermione?" Tom said. "How can something be a bad idea if everyone agrees with it?"

Nott gave an emphatic cough, but Tom ignored him, and continued, "I've always said that it's never
too early to start planning for the future. Well, when is a better time to start than right now?"

Hermione sent a bewildered glance at Mrs. Riddle, Tom, then Nott, who had covered his mouth
with his glass to hide his cackling. "There's a difference between planning things out and rushing
them, Tom."

"Oh, I agree," said Tom amiably. "There's no rush; we still have a whole year of school left to go."

Hermione was struck speechless by this astute observation, and for the rest of their meal, could
venture no other compelling opposition to his argument. Tom was pleased by this; at last Hermione
was beginning to see sense. His grandmother had seen it first, and although he had initially thought
it a silly scheme of hers, he had eventually come around to the light, once he'd had the time to
consider its less obvious advantages. Soon it would be Hermione's turn to admit that there was no
other future but one where they would enjoy each other's company, commit to each other's goals,
and relish each other's success. They already did these things now, so what was so difficult about
extending that into the far distant future?

They were only months from reaching eighteen years of age, a year from finishing their educations,
and this would be the true start to their adult independence, which would last well over a hundred
years and more, if Tom's estimation of wizarding lifespans was correct. From a young age, Tom
had wanted his adulthood to be the fulfillment of certain expectations: greatness, renown,
knowledge, and power. But now, he also wanted Hermione to have these things. He wanted her to
affirm his greatness, share his knowledge, and bolster his power; he could not imagine a future
where he had reached the pinnacle of his triumph—earned his laurels, as it were—and forgotten
how he had gotten there in the first place: with a book about the Emperor of Europe and a
discussion on the principles of political philosophy.

There was a sense of nauseating sentimentality about it all, but upon further consideration, Tom did
not think such an indulgence was overly detrimental. He knew he was powerful and had the
capability of attaining his goals without aid or assistance, but it wasn't an inherently bad thing to
want something that enhanced the power he knew he possessed, helped him reach attainment faster
than he could have gotten it alone.

And thinking deeply about it, Tom was reminded of how he'd been matched with his wand, an
object that he considered an extension of himself from the very day it had come into his possession.

It had been the day after Dumbledore's visit to Wool's, and the delivery of Tom's Hogwarts letter.
Supplies list in hand, Tom had visited the shops of Diagon Alley, and leaving each one, he'd
counted and re-counted the dwindling supply of coins in the small drawstring pouch Dumbledore
had left him along with the train ticket. The proprietor of the second-hand shonky shop had, at
Tom's request, picked out a pair of dragon gloves for Herbology so old that the scale ridges on the
palm had been worn smooth, and a battered folding telescope with a creaky brass stand for
Astronomy, choosing the best out of the lot after a circumspect glance at Tom's money pouch,
stamped with the Hogwarts crest, foiled gold on purple velvet.

"Sir," Tom had asked, after another peek at his supply list, "do you sell wands here? It's the dearest
item on the list, and for that price, I could buy another seven or eight used spellbooks!"

Indeed, the ingredients from the apothecary, little paper twists of dried herbs and scarab wings, had
cost him knuts, and the second-hand uniforms he'd paid for in sickles. But unlike the bookshop or
the clothier, there weren't other shops that sold cheaper versions for less. There was only one shop
in the whole of Diagon Alley that had wands in the window, and the labels pinned to the sides of
the boxes had shown him their prices: four galleons and two sickles, five galleons and ten, all the
way up to fifteen galleons for a worn wooden box on the topmost shelf in a dingy back corner.

"You're a new one to this, aren't you, boy?" said the shopkeeper, from where he'd been wrestling
with a stack of wire potion racks; they had somehow merged into a single rusty knot of flaking
metal. "A wand's matched to a wizard, the same as a pair of spectacles to the wearer." He tapped
one grubby finger to the side of his nose, where a pair of round lenses in a tortoiseshell frame was
clipped to the bridge. "A wizard can win and wield another man's wand, but he'll never be as
strong with it, as precise with it, as he'll be with the wand that chose him. A good wand, y'see,
recognises the hand of the wizard that owns it, no matter who's holding it at the moment. And a
great one, boy, is loyal to that wizard—to the day he dies and past that, even. Where a wizard goes,
his wand goes too, and if he's lucky, a tree will sprout over his bones and stand guard over him for
the next thousand years."

The shopkeeper shrugged, dusting his hands off on his leather apron, then added, "'Course, you
have some folks keeping an old granddad's wand for the memories, but between you an' me, it's
because they couldn't cough up the gold for a portrait to remember him by. But hear me, boy, if
you're startin' school in September, you can do without a sparkling new cauldron or a hand-fitted
robe—a leggy lad like you will grow out of it by Christmas, I'll wager—but the wand you buy
today will last you the rest of your life."

At the end of the day, Tom wandered into the wand shop, somewhat reluctantly. His pockets were
loaded down with shrunken parcels, his velvet money pouch empty but for a handful of gold coins.
He'd been loath to part with them, after turfing out the silver and bronze pieces earlier; this gold
was the first he'd ever held in all of his eleven-and-a-half years of life—he'd seen gold sovereigns a
few times, and that was only at a distance, in the hands of well-heeled shoppers on Oxford or
Piccadilly Street. Until now, he had never expected to have his own gold, heavy yellow circles that
shone like little suns, minted with the face of a grinning goblin clasping a set of scales.

The shopkeeper's words lingered in the forefront of Tom's thoughts. He knew he could perform
magic without a wand; he'd been doing it for years, and Dumbledore had confirmed that Tom's
ability to sense thoughts and intentions was magical in nature, if so rare that it wasn't taught at
Hogwarts. (Tom had taken this to mean that because it wasn't in the magical Defence class, few
wizards had learned to protect themselves against it.)

Did he even need a wand?

"A wand and a wizard are one, Mr. Riddle," said the wrinkly shopkeeper in the wand shop, his pale
eyes bright in the gloom of late afternoon, charmed measuring tapes whisking around the edges of
Tom's vision. He hadn't explained how or why he knew Tom's name. "This wand, I think—" he
opened the lid of a box, longer than the others Tom had tried, containing a wand of white wood that
tapered to a sharp point, "—was always meant for you. Here, Mr. Riddle, take it!"

Tom had reached for it, expecting it to burst in his hand like a Catherine wheel, or spew putrid
smoke like the past half-dozen wands, but this wand felt hot to the touch, and when he held it aloft,
a blaze of glowing orange droplets erupted from the end, forming the shape of a stooping bird with
angled wings and a brilliant plumed tail. For a second or two, Tom watched with rapt eyes, the
wand warming his hand like a tin cup of hot milk pressed to his chilled flesh after a long walk back
from an early morning Sunday service. Then the shape broke into flickering sparks that dissolved
altogether, searing an afterimage of blue and violet beneath his eyelids.

"See? A wizard needs no wand to be magical, but even the best wizard cannot perform all feats of
magic without one," said Mr. Ollivander, cutting brown paper and string to wrap what he'd deemed
a sure sale. "And this wand in particular is a powerful one—powerfully temperamental. How
could it not be, bearing a core of phoenix feather? Phoenixes are exceptionally rare and, out of all
magical species, possess the most remarkable abilities."

"So it's true, then?" said Tom, who'd spent the first half of his day browsing the shelves of the
bookshop, skimming through as many as books he could, for as long as the shopkeeper could count
him a legitimate customer. "Phoenixes can live forever?"

"It would be more accurate to say that they live and die forever, Mr. Riddle," Ollivander said,
correcting him. "But in the end, it is still nothing more than another name for eternity."

"I'll take it," Tom said, holding his new wand to the light and admiring the shape of its carved
handle. He nodded at the roll of brown paper on the front counter. "Don't bother wrapping it up for
me."

That wand had never left Tom's side from the day he'd gotten it. He kept it tucked into his
waistband when eating meals in the orphanage dining hall, not trusting the other children to keep
out of his room when he wasn't in it. He'd taught them long ago not to touch his things, but some
of them might be tempted to open his door and look at his shelf of books, or the glossy theatre
programme he'd propped up on the windowsill, because they were under the false assumption that
it was alright to look as long as one refrained from touch. (They were, of course, mistaken.)

That wand, his wand, had chosen him.

The shopkeeper said that it was meant for him.

Those words never left Tom, and they reaffirmed his belief that Great Things were destined for
him. And Great Things, he'd found, were more valuable than gold, or the dignity that an eleven-
year-old boy in threadbare broadcloth thought he had. No, taking the wand didn't cheapen his
magical abilities; he wasn't lessened—not in anything but the financial sense. He came to a swift
conclusion: there was more to one's wherewithal than the weight of one's purse.

There was value, he saw, in Hermione Granger, who at some point—somehow—had become more
than an overzealous little girl with too much hair and too many opinions. He'd recognised value,
too, in the idea of companionship, the day he had watched a shoebox burn on a frozen lake. The
night he'd watched a dog bleed out on his father's bedroom carpet, he had tasted the fruit of
cultivated loyalty, and its flavour was metallic and bitter, rich with iron and a tincture of valerian.

And there was value, he admitted to himself, in Nott—a nuisance, a pest, an unwilling ally who had
to be sworn into conditional loyalty, instead of offering his loyalty by principle. Tom would not go
so far as to admit that Nott had... well, saved his life, but for all that he could alter the facts of
reality to suit his needs, he couldn't deny that Nott had facilitated Tom's transfer to St. Mungo's
during The Incident on New Year's Day. Nott had been the one—somehow—to discover the
location of the Chamber of Secrets, and although this act had proven his usefulness, Tom's initial
judgement had not altered: Nott was a scheming opportunist to the core, and required constant
reinforcement of his relative standing to Tom Riddle and Hermione Granger if a productive
relationship was meant to be maintained between the three of them.

After lunch, Tom and his "little friends", a charming moniker bestowed by his grandparents,
retreated to the Riddle House's library.

The library was a room overlooking the back gardens, furnished in shades of brown. The furniture
was of brown leather, the wallpaper striped brown, the shelves brown wood, and were ostensibly
dedicated to holding the books collected by generations of Riddles, but had over the years become
a repository of souvenirs and various trinkets. The Riddles had thought these things too nice—or
too costly—to store in the attic without being seen, and yet, they must have lacked a certain
personal appeal, for they had ended up in the library and not on display in the Riddles' living
quarters.

From the spaces in between the towering bookshelves hung a series of travellers' trophies: a pair of
curly antelope horns mounted on a wooden plaque; a Xhosa tribesman's cowhide war shield, six
feet long from top to bottom; a black regimental banner with a tasselled trim; a cavalry sabre with a
gold-plated handle, its matching scabbard etched with the name of its owner, T. RIDDLE. And
other objects of uncertain provenance: a vase of blown glass flowers, each petal a twisted striation
of colour; whimsical pillboxes in the shapes of eggs and sleeping cats and cuckoo clocks; little
caskets of worked gold that contained corked vials and cloth sachets of a mysterious powdery
substance—

"Don't touch that!" said Hermione, tugging on his elbow.

Tom pulled his hand back from the little bag. "Why not? This isn't a museum—it's my family's
private collection. I can touch them if I want to."

"Those are reliquaries!" Hermione said, pointing at a cross design on one casket, and a hand with a
hole punched through the centre of the palm on another. "They're used to hold body parts of saints
and martyrs. They might not be from a real saint, since one person's finger bone looks the same as
everyone else's, but most of the time, they were real parts!"

"Alright, Hermione," said Tom. "If you're so worried about it, I'll make sure to wash my hands
before touching you."

"That is a complete mis-interpretation of my words, Tom."

"Oh, Hermione," Tom said indulgently, patting her on the shoulder. "I know you well enough to
know what you mean."

"Muggles are allowed to keep these things in their houses?" asked Nott, setting his satchel down on
a leather sofa and coming over to look at the display cabinet, a hinged glass case over a row of
baize-lined shelves. "How fascinating. Last decade, a group in the Wizengamot tried to outlaw the
possession of human parts in private collections, because they thought that kind of thing reeked of
dark magic." Nott gave a loud scoff. "Obviously, they were voted down. Most families have a few
questionable items in their cellars, even if they were never going to see use. A new law would have
forced them to surrender their collections for Ministry inspection, and it would have been a bad
look for everyone."

"'Questionable items'," said Hermione in a sceptical tone. "You mean, something like your Hand of
Glory?"

"It's not illegal, so you'll get no credit for reporting me, Granger. And before you can object to it
on, ah, moral grounds," said Nott, giving Hermione a pointed look, "the donor wasn't slaughtered
for his parts. He was a Muggle murderer hanged by other Muggles for his crimes, so there's no
defending him from that angle."

"You know how to make a Hand of Glory?" Tom asked Nott, trying not to seem too interested.

"Only theoretically, but I know more than most, I'd say," said Nott, his narrow chest swelling with
the delight of being the sole person in the room to know something. "It's somewhat of a lost art
these days. First, you've got to find the right donor. It can be either wizard or Muggle, but it can't
be just anyone, you see. The donor has to be a criminal, sentenced to death, and the hand has to be
cut at night. I've read that it works best if you harvest the 'guilty hand', that is, the hand that
committed the deed—"

Hermione cleared her throat loudly.

"Go on," said Tom, leaning forward in one of the library's brown leather Chesterfield sofas. "How
do you know which hand did the deed? It's not like the, hm, subject will tell you what he did and
how he did it, since he's already dead."

"Well, I'd say the sensible thing to do is to take both," Nott answered, after a few seconds of careful
deliberation. "Can't do any harm, can it? There are only so many people sentenced to death by
hanging, and both hands should work if you prepare them correctly, with the right ratios of pickling
solution, and so on. The only difference is that one hand will be brighter than the other—but Hands
of Glory are so rare that it'd be worth it to make two, then sell the one you don't want for a tidy
sum."

"Is that how you got yours?" Tom said. "Where did you get it?"

"Father knows a man who's an acquirer by trade," said Nott casually. "Mr. Caractacus Burke—he
owns a shop off Diagon Alley. His son, Herbert, went to school with Father and they're old friends
—cousins, too, though the Burkes are closer to the Blacks than us, after Mr. Herbert got married to
an aunt of Lucretia and Orion. He's how Father gets his hands on interesting items that the
Ministry inspectors and the DMLE are strict on. They'll look the other way if you're bringing in
skins and talons from wild dragons and your papers are dodgy, but they come down hard on
anything that makes them look bad. And for the most part, after the Confederation began enforcing
a clearer separation between our two worlds, it's been enchanted Muggle things."

"Yes, I wonder why," said Hermione, closing the lids of the reliquary caskets and wiping her hands
off on her skirt. "If I can't make an argument on moral grounds, can I at least comment on the lack
of hygiene?"

"Don't be silly, Hermione," Tom replied. "Wizards can't catch illnesses easily, and even if they do,
all they have to do is drink a potion to be cured."

"He's right," Nott said. "If you're dealing in magical meats, what you really ought to watch out for
is the grave wards. There's a reason why wizards go after Muggle parts instead of other wizards'."
Nott reached for his satchel, but he stopped before lifting up the flap. "On the subject of the
Statute, if you two are willing to break a rule or two for the sake of a good lunch, then I suppose
there's no reason why I can't show you this..."

"What is it?" asked Tom.

"Have you made sure the Muggles can't get in?" said Nott, glancing at the door. "The old biddy,
your grandmother—she seemed awfully interested in what you and Granger got up to behind
closed doors. For a moment there, I think I almost felt sorry for you."

"I'm sure she knows that Tom and I aren't interested in whatever she thinks we're interested in,"
Hermione interjected, folding her arms. "We've been discussing the Chamber in private, that's all."

"She sounded too eager to rush you and Riddle into your marriage vows," said Nott, shrugging.
"Though I don't quite understand it, personally. If she's worried about you two besmirching each
other's reputations—and hers—why hasn't she gotten Granger's parents to arrange a betrothal? If
you've an established arrangement, you can have all the fondling you want, and if anyone tries to
condemn your behaviour, it will only be for your impatience, not your dissolution. After all, no one
can complain about the goods being spoilt when they've already been bought."

Hermione's mouth fell open. "I've never heard such an archaic opinion about marriage!"

"But everyone thinks that," said Nott, blinking at her in disbelief. "What, Granger, you thought
marriage was a tender union of love and romance?"

"Well, I'd very much like it to be," Hermione replied. "But do you mean to say that your parents
don't love each other?"
"I certainly don't expect them to," said Nott, sounding unruffled despite the direction taken by their
conversation. "My mother married my father because her father told her to. And Father married
Mother because it was a duty expected of him. But he put it off as long as he could, so when he
took his vows, he was well past fifty years old."

"And you..." Hermione ventured in a tremulous voice, "don't expect to marry someone you love?
That if you do marry, it'll be out of duty and nothing else?"

"I will marry one day," said Nott impatiently, "and it will be out of duty. I don't see why you sound
so upset—it's not as if I'm marrying you."

"I don't see why you aren't more upset," Tom remarked. "Since you'll be marrying someone you
won't particularly care for, who is more than likely also your cousin."

"As I plan on waiting as long as I can—instead of jumping into it right after Hogwarts—I'll have
decades to get used to the idea," said Nott. "And the benefit in generations of good matches is the
eventual prospect of a flush inheritance: vaults of gold and an estate from both sides of the family.
A wealthy husband and wife will never have to see or speak to each other if they so choose."

"A worthwhile use of a wizard's lifespan," said Tom. "But, obviously, I'm not one to judge a man's
tastes."

"It'd be poor form to judge my inclinations," agreed Nott, "when you're the one who wants to spend
the rest of your life with Granger."

Tom had spent most of his life in Hermione's company—it would be nine years this December—
and he could not imagine a life where he hadn't known her. Where would he be; who would he be,
without her? Likely sitting on his creaky bed in London, counting the hours until the matron
served the next meal. Counting the days until he could return to Hogwarts, while looking forward
to tea with Dumbledore and dinner with Slughorn—it was only natural that a man's standards
would plummet when he ate porridge two meals out of three, and his conversational partners were
limited to a drunken matron and a handful of spotty-faced, barely literate orphans.

(For a brief half-second, Tom wondered where Hermione would be without him. In her parents'
home in London, perhaps. Or evacuated to the countryside; Mrs. Granger had mentioned taking
Hermione away to Northamptonshire when the German air raids had been at their fiercest. Or
even, and Tom felt disgusted even contemplating this, in the company of a bland Muggle suitor, a
milksop of a modern gentleman, who called her 'Mione' and believed all her little lies about
'magical' housework skills that enabled her to stretch a single loaf of bread over a week's worth of
meals. This thought turned Tom's stomach. He could scarcely believe that once, a mere half year
ago, he'd thought nothing of allowing Hermione a Muggle husband to keep house for her, as long
as she was available to act as his Foil. Now, after deciding that she was to be his Helpmeet, such a
thought was... unthinkable.)

"I happen to enjoy Hermione's company," said Tom. "And since you're here, in her presence, it
appears to me that you're easily capable of overlooking your objections. I can't recall you ever
being this lenient toward, say, Walburga Black. Isn't she exactly the type of witch who would best
fulfill your marital duties?"

Walburga Black was a girl in the year above them, and it was she who made Tom grateful that both
he and Hermione were single children. Walburga, the second child of three, exemplified every
unfortunate truism about middle-born children, in her attempts to distinguish herself from the pack
of cousins and siblings competing for Professor Slughorn's favour and special privileges. The
problem lay in Walburga's lacking Alphard's confidence and affability. (Alphard was the oldest out
of all the Black cousins at Hogwarts; he'd graduated a year or two ago, and had taken up the
traditional "bludge spot" in the Ministry's Department of Games and Sports.) Walburga also had
none of Cygnus' guileless modesty. Cygnus Black was the baby of the family, a Third Year who'd
made himself likeable in the Duelling Club because he never pretended to be more knowledgeable
or talented than he was, solely on the basis of his family name.

It was thus that most members of Slytherin House, and not just the friendless hermits like Nott,
politely abstained themselves of Walburga Black's presence, unless they were given no other
choice. At least Nott, whom no one in Slytherin particularly liked, knew he was unlikeable. When
he was ill-behaved, he did it on purpose; he acted in full comprehension of his behaviour and how
he would be received by others. It was not so easy to deal with someone whose behaviour came
from an absence of self-awareness; Tom could tolerate spite, but ignorance was another matter
entirely.

"Walburga Black's not my duty," said Nott. "She's already been spoken for."

"What!" Hermione cried. "Someone wants to marry Walburga? I'm surprised I never heard her
bragging in the girls' bathrooms about it. I always thought she spent half her time between classes
in there talking about herself—or other people."

"There's nothing to brag about," Nott said. "The match is to Orion Black."

"Aren't they cousins?" said Hermione, sounding appalled. "I know all purebloods are related to one
another, but this is a bit too far, isn't it?"

"Don't worry," Nott said, not concerned over the deepening colour of Hermione's cheeks; she was
restraining herself from using the one specific term that she clearly wanted to say: inbreeding.
"They're only second cousins."

"Second cousins makes it alright, then," said Tom, who was tiring of the conversation. He
considered his future plans significant and important, but other people talking about theirs was
just... gossip. Therefore, not worth his time. "If there's nothing further to discuss on the subject of
consanguinity, can we proceed to what we came here to do?" He turned to Nott. "You said you
were going to show us something."

"You've made sure that the door's locked?" Nott asked. At Tom's impatient gesture, Nott sighed,
then slowly reached for the buckle closure on his satchel, taking so much time to undo the strap that
Tom sighed and drew his wand, sketching out the beginning of the twist and jab movement of a
Stinging Jinx.

His plan was impeded by Hermione jumping in front of him before he could cast the spell,
gasping, "Oh, I've never seen one before! Is that real—?"

Out of his bag, Nott had taken out what appeared to be a folded lap blanket, which looked not
dissimilar to one that the maids had laid on the foot of Tom's bed during his Christmas stay,
intended to keep his toes warm during cold winter nights. He hadn't needed it since he could cast a
charm or two, and in early January, Hermione had conveniently provided a secondary source of
warmth when she'd stayed to listen to the wireless in the evening.
Nott's blanket, however, was of an unusual design: rich gold threads shot through a field of brown
and rusty red, intricately woven into a Moorish pattern of tessellated stars around an arrow-shaped
central motif. After Hermione unfolded it and began running her hands over the fabric, admiring it
to Nott's visible satisfaction, Tom saw that its dimensions were not much greater than two feet wide
and four feet long. Smaller than his bedroom lap blanket, which was thicker, and made of quilted
wool padding inside an embroidered coverlet.

"You were worried about Muggles seeing your blanket?" said Tom in a snide voice.

"It's not just a blanket," Hermione said breathily, stroking the blanket. To his horror, she picked it
up and rubbed it against her cheek. "Oh! I think I can feel it! Remarkable!"

"Hermione, you don't know where that's been," said Tom, taking up one edge of the blanket and
tugging it away from her. "For all we know, Nott's spent years rubbing his feet on it..."

There was a strange resistance preventing him from removing the blanket from Hermione's hands,
and it was even stranger when the blanket began to tug back, first softly, then harder, until Tom was
holding on with only the tips of his fingers, wound around the knotted yarn cords at the edge. The
blanket had silently risen a foot above his head, and it was still rising—

He slid his hand down to his pocket; Nott's wand was still there, as was his own. Tom whipped his
head around, but Nott was still sitting on the sofa, his hands in his lap, looking rather pleased. He
hadn't moved, spoken, and there was no indication that he'd done anything suspicious in the last
minute or so.

"The enchantment is so smooth. Not even a hitch," Hermione sighed, looking up at the floating
blanket. She glanced over at Nott. "Are you certain you can fit three people on it? I read that the
top brooms have trouble with more than two."

"Racing brooms are optimised for steering and manoeuvrability, not lift," said Nott. "You could
enchant one to carry five, but it comes at a cost of being blown off course in a mild breeze. Flying
carpets, on the other hand, are built for a smooth ride. Father bought this one for Mother when
she'd gotten too heavy to go up and down the stairs, and the midwife told her that it was dangerous
to Apparate."

"Why are they against the rules?" Hermione asked. "They seem useful for wizards and witches in
fragile health."

"The Ministry's started to come down on enchanted objects of Muggle origin," said Nott.
"Although it's not a matter of ethics as much as it is about gold. If they put an embargo on artefacts
of foreign make, they can keep British wizards buying British-made broomsticks and official
Ministry Portkeys. Mind you, for now it's still alright to buy and sell flying carpets and enchanted
samovars from other wizards, but they're making it harder and harder to import them from abroad,
especially with the current paranoia of anything from Europe. Though there are some advantages
to it—this carpet is now worth over twice what Father paid for it."

"Interesting," said Tom, who cared little for rules and laws. Unlike Hermione, he couldn't see them
in terms of their social value, only as obstructions to his goals. "Even if the carpet can carry three
people, how will three people fit? It's tiny."

"By squeezing in, how else?" answered Nott.

"Yes, but there's no way to keep from touching each other," said Tom, making a face.

"You were going to touch that sack of dried Muggle parts not too long ago. And you wanted a
closer look at my Hand of Glory," Nott pointed out. "What's the problem?"

Tom looked at him meaningfully.

Hermione huffed and said, "You'll just have to budge up, Tom. There's nothing more to it."

The events that followed, to Tom's disapproval, bore an unwelcome resemblance to a comic
pantomime.

In trying to determine how to fit three people on a small rectangle of cloth, there were more than a
few instances of awkward bodily contact: tripping over legs, stepping on someone's hand, having
his hand stepped on, and knocking heads. In the end, they settled on a solution of mutual
compromise. No one was pleased by it, but the majority (who had out-voted him when he declared
that this situation, whatever it was, was not a democracy) had agreed that it was leagues better than
Tom's first proposal, in which he'd suggested that he should have the magic carpet all to himself.
Hermione had called it unfair, and Nott had called him selfish, and it had resulted in a good five
minutes of bickering, wherein Tom, with as much patience as he could, tried to explain why he was
the best suited, and the best qualified, for taking charge of the group as their leader.

Their solution was for Tom to sit at the front of the carpet, and Nott behind him, kneecaps poking
into Tom's back, but that couldn't be helped. Hermione would sit in between Tom's legs (since she
was the smallest of the three, and Tom was the tallest, with the longest legs), with her head tucked
beneath Tom's chin. Tom had decided that if physical contact was inevitable, then it was better that
it be with someone he actually liked. And it was better that Hermione sit with him than with Nott.

After the arduous process of determining the seating arrangements, there came the task of getting
the carpet off the ground without anyone falling off. This was harder than it looked; Tom had to
hold onto the sides and Hermione in front of him, while ensuring that Nott's hands stayed where
they should have been, instead of wandering where they oughtn't—Tom still hadn't returned the
other boy's wand, and could tell that Nott wanted it back. For now, his pride had prevented Nott
from begging Tom for its return, which was just as well. Tom found amusement in drawing it out;
he was hoping to see that pride fall at least a few more notches by the end of the day.

Their first attempt resulted in the carpet ascending so quickly that they cracked their heads on the
ceiling, causing Hermione to squeak and go green in the face; she had never liked broomsticks or
heights, and she'd hated the fact that flying lessons back in First Year had been a class where
textbooks and studying could make no difference to whether she passed or failed. Their hair
powdered white with crumbs of plaster, they tried again, this time at a slower pace, and Tom began
to get a sense of how the carpet was enchanted to fly: the levitation enchantments were imbued
into each thread of woven yarn, which lent it more stability than a broomstick, where the levitation
was constrained to the twigs, and the steering and braking charms applied to the wooden shaft and
handle.

This carpet, Tom discovered, was not as easy to turn and steer as a broomstick. Changing
directions on carpet and broom was done in the same way, through leaning one's weight either left
or right, but multiple riders leaning in opposite directions caused the carpet to draw to a stop and
drift in circles. With a competent helmsman, Tom thought that a carpet could function as a duelling
platform—perhaps not for exhibition duels, where martial magic was intended to be half
performance, half sport, for an audience's pleasure, but for real battles where it was a lethal mistake
for a wizard to announce his presence to his opponents.

By the arrival of the dinner hour, they were all three rather bruised and out-of-breath, Nott more so
than him or Hermione. Tom had the presence of mind to cast a Cushioning Charm when it looked
like they were in danger of bumping into the light fixtures, but it just so happened, now and again,
that he forgot to extend the cushioning effect to cover Nott behind him.

His collection of bruises didn't hinder Tom's growing feeling of triumph. He had found the long-
lost Chamber of Secrets. He had opened it, and now he had a means of entering it.

Over the next few weeks, Hermione compiled a list of preparations for their Chamber expedition.
Through a combination of obstinance and insistence, she made each member take specific duties,
explaining that it was for the sake of efficiency—that it was better to distribute tasks between three
people in advance, instead of wasting time arguing about who did what whilst on location. Tom
could be the main duellist, as he'd wanted, but Nott would take the lead as their main historian.

"Because," Hermione told him, "if anyone could prove that it's the Chamber of Secrets or an
elaborate hoax, it's Nott. If anyone could tell what's valuable or what isn't, it's him—and he can't
do it if you're blasting everything in sight. And you still have that oath hanging over him!"

Hermione herself would take the position of Mediwitch, and auxiliary duellist or historian,
whichever the situation demanded. But she decided that everyone should carry a bottle of Dittany,
a roll of bandages, a vial each of Blood Replenishing Potion and Pain Reliever Potion. She'd also
decided, without consulting him, if any person was hurt to a degree that it couldn't be healed with
emergency field treatment, they would abandon the mission to visit the Hogwarts hospital wing.

"But what if it's Nott?" said Tom.

"What if it's me?" Hermione demanded.

"You're more important!"

Hermione's lips pursed in disapproval. "Tom!"

"You helped me when I needed it," said Tom, "and I won't forget it. But we both know that Nott
would never do the same for us, unless there was something in it for him."

"It's the right thing to do," Hermione said firmly, and hearing that, Tom swiftly dropped his line of
argument. When Hermione used the words Right and Wrong, it was an indication that no amount
of logic could change her mind. Only an appeal to emotion could sway her at that point, which was
exhausting to Tom; he had to force himself to feel empathy in order to construct an argument from
that angle.

Preparations, assigned duties, flying practice: these activities occupied the final weeks of their
summer holiday. They were solid, substantial projects to which they could dedicate their time and
attention, instead of speculating about what lay in the Chamber—beyond the mystery of Salazar
Slytherin's monster, what treasures had Slytherin left to aid his apprentices in carrying forth his
great work?

The one thing, Tom noticed, for which Hermione hadn't made advance preparations was the
division of spoils. Perhaps it was too much to hope that there would be anything of value in the
Chamber, or perhaps it would create too much dissent in the ranks, because she knew that Tom
would immediately object to granting equal shares for everyone (including a portion for
Hogwarts!), or anything, really, that did not accord the greatest share of the prize to Tom Riddle,
whom he saw as the most indispensable member of their group.

The days rushed past, and soon the end of August was close upon them. With all their successes in
learning to fly the carpet, casting spells while someone else was flying the carpet, and their
rehearsed excuses for any Prefect or teacher who might come across them in the girls' bathroom
during evening patrols, it was something of an unmemorable occasion to receive their Head Boy
and Head Girl badges from a school owl, a fortnight before the start of term.

Hermione's had blue enamel, and Tom's had green, but they were not much different than their
Prefect badges, and neither of them mentioned it to the Riddles, who had accustomed themselves to
Hermione's presence, and had begun seeing her as a part of their family, for better or worse. They
had even started to warm to Nott, who had taken to calling on the Riddle House twice or more a
week during the holidays, bringing token gifts with every visit—bottles of berry wine and sweet
cordials from the family cellar, half a haunch of smoked venison shot by his father last autumn, a
bundle of silk floss from his mother's sewing room for Mrs. Riddle to use in her own embroidery
projects.

To the Riddles, it affirmed their assumption that Nott was of "good family", if his crisp enunciation
and his well-tailored clothes hadn't been enough to convince them. They were pleased—and
somewhat relieved, Tom perceived from the shape and pattern of their thoughts—that although
their grandson had been born to the village tart and raised by beggars in London, he hadn't been
ruined by them, proving himself capable of distinguishing suitable companionship from
undesirable influences.

(Overhearing one of his grandparents' private conversations, Tom hadn't liked knowing that they
considered Hermione's background to be 'nominally respectable, but at least her father is a doctor—
imagine if he was a merchant!'. But Tom did agree with their opinion that standards had fallen
these days, and one had to make use of what they were given.)

"It's such a vulgar way to buy someone's regard," Tom muttered to Hermione, after watching Nott
present Mrs. Riddle with a large jug of honey from the estate hives. He was reminded of how his
grandmother had lavished gifts upon him in the summer before Sixth Year.

"I think it's nice that they get along," said Hermione, smiling and holding her glass up for another
pour of gooseberry cordial, which Nott had informed them was made by the servants to a centuries
old family recipe.

"To my expense!" Tom hissed, put out that every time Mrs. Riddle called him "Tommy", Nott
would glance over and smirk at him.

"Not everything is about you, Tom."

"She showed him the family portrait gallery last week. Next week, it'll be the picture album!" said
Tom, rather incensed. Hermione's mother and Mrs. Riddle cooing over his childhood photographs
was not a memory easily forgotten.

Tom dragged Nott away whenever he saw the boy insinuating himself too intimately with the
Riddles, and forced Nott to leave before they could invite him to stay for dinner.
When September arrived, Tom wasn't surprised to see that Nott had reserved a compartment on the
Hogwarts Express hours before it was due to depart London. It was so early that the steam boiler
was cold, the Floo fireplaces hadn't been lit, and the platform was empty of other students. Yet that
didn't stop Nott from making a big show of locking the compartment door, casting silencing
charms, and closing the window curtains—as if one covered window on a carriage of open ones
didn't stink of suspicious behaviour.

"Tonight," said Nott ominously, meeting their eyes in turn.

"We can't!" said Hermione. "We have the First Year welcome speech in the Common Room after
the feast, then Slughorn's going to invite us to his office for congratulatory drinks."

"We'll find a way to beg off," Tom said reassuringly. "You wrote speech cards. Hand them off to
Fitzpatrick; he's useless at everything but following directions. I'll make my speech and have Orion
Black take the dormitory tour for the Firsties. They're eleven year olds, not babies; they ought to
know how to flush a toilet and bathe themselves, and if they can't, Orion's bright enough to explain
it to them. It'll be good practise for him, since there's no chance that he won't be nominated next
year—Sluggy's had such a streak of picking Heads that he's got to have the Board stacked in his
favour."

"And drinks with Slughorn afterwards?"

"I'll explain to him that each of us made plans with the other," said Tom. "He'll know how to
complete the picture."

"I'm not sure that I want him to have that picture."

"Trust me, Hermione—it'll work."

"That isn't the issue here..."

"Then what's this doubt?" Tom asked. "Don't tell me that you've suddenly changed your mind."

"I—I haven't," said Hermione quickly. "It's just a touch of nerves. People are going to be talking
about us, Tom."

"People are always going to talk," Tom said. "But it's not as if they're spreading lies about us, are
they?"

Nott, who had been eating a breakfast of boiled eggs on buttered toast during their conversation,
gave a soft snort. "If anything's been spread, it's certainly not lies."
 Solidarity
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1944

If there was any benefit to the Chamber of Secrets, it was in making the prospect of being this
year's Head Girl much less terrifying.

Arriving at King's Cross Station five hours before departure, Hermione had plenty of time to
rehearse her introductory speech, a tradition of the Heads to help usher the Fifth Year Prefects into
new and unfamiliar duties, while also acting as a reminder of what the Sixth Year Prefects had
forgotten over the summer. The task was made easier by virtue of Tom sitting by her side, chin
propped on her shoulder as he read her speech cards, brows lifting up whenever he parsed out a
particularly complicated sentence.

"You're much too authoritative, here," said Tom, pointing out a line on the slip of paper. "And
here. Here, too. You say 'You must do this', or 'Students shall do that', when people would be more
disposed to co-operating if you made them feel part of a collective. 'We should' works better in this
instance, or 'We want'. Yes, you're the one assigning the work to them, and they've no option to
refuse it, but for this kind of speech, the intent is to maintain an illusion of solidarity. You want to
motivate them, present them with the idea of being a member of an élite group—not frighten them
with a year-long to-do list of drudgework."

"How will the new Prefects know what to do, if we don't tell them?" asked Hermione, jotting notes
on the back of the paper.

In most circumstances, Hermione would hesitate to take Tom's advice. However, on the subject of
rhetoric, it would be negligent of her to forget that Tom, by trade, was a journalist. What had once
been a summer job for him was now an official vocation, acknowledged not just by the publishers
who bought his articles by the page, but by the dozens of devoted readers who thought him a
curator of a sophisticated wizarding lifestyle. During the holidays, Hermione had seen first-hand
the amount of mail Tom was forwarded from his post box in London, including a letter or two from
Madam Leonora Gardiner, the receptionist from the Ministry atrium. In that correspondence,
Hermione was astounded to see that there existed people who couldn't form their own opinions
without the approval and guidance of another. And Tom, as wise as he was benevolent, had happily
volunteered his own services in dictating their life decisions.

Hermione wouldn't let Tom dictate her life, but in this arena, his expertise should deserve her
attention.

"The Seventh Year Prefects will show them," Tom assured her. "They'll be put out that they were
passed up for the Heads' badges, but it'll heal the wound if we offer them some other form of
authority."

"May I see your speech, then?" said Hermione, crossing out a line that Tom had pointed out as
extraneous.
"I didn't write it down," said Tom. "I don't need prompt cards."

"How are you going to speak, then?"

"Oh, I'll be alright." Tom tapped his temple. "My speech is in here."

And indeed, after the Hogwarts Express' journey to Scotland had gotten underway, his lack of notes
didn't present any sort of handicap to Tom's Head Boy speech. Tom waited until Hermione had
finished her revised speech before he'd gotten up from his seat and began his own, taking an
approach different to hers. He dispensed with formality and addressed the Prefects as individuals;
he threw scraps of praise left and right, congratulating the new Sixth Years on their O.W.L.s, the
Slytherins for the previous year's House Cup win, and the Gryffindors for their excellent—if futile
—efforts on the Quidditch pitch.

Nothing he said was untrue ("doing well" on an exam could have any number of meanings), but the
way he looked people intently in the eye, giving them a brief nod of the head or a light clap on the
shoulder, depending on who they were and what achievements they'd earned over the past year, to
Hermione seemed somewhat calculated, if not entirely insincere. She didn't think Tom cared about
people whose names and accomplishments never passed his lips when he was no longer in their
presence. But she did think that Tom cared about cultivating relationships that might benefit him
one day; even if he saw value in Hermione beyond her usefulness or utility, their classmates hadn't
earned enough of his regard to recommend them to anything but mercenary interest.

Over the next few hours, every time Tom left the compartment, he was stopped by people
congratulating him on his badge. It made a gauntlet of venturing out to the bathrooms, the snack
trolley, or the compartment commandeered by the Slytherin Seventh Year boys, but Tom didn't
seem to mind the inconvenience. In fact, he preened over other people's admiration, was exultant
over their envy, and revelled in their bitterness. That last one was the rarest of reactions that
Hermione saw in their classmates, but was evident in the more ambitious of the Seventh Year
Prefects who'd thought themselves better suited for Headship over Tom Riddle and Hermione
Granger.

But Tom's solution worked to soothe their pride, despite Hermione's reservations about the matter.
Wasn't it cheapening their office to hand away their responsibilities to others?

"Nonsense," spoke Tom, addressing her doubts. "It's called 'delegating', and all great leaders do it
if they don't want to waste every hour of every day accounting for the ha'pence and farthings. We
leaders have more important things to do with our time."

"'Our' time," said Hermione, her voice rising in disbelief. "You're using oratory technique on me?"

Tom gave her a fond smile. "It's what leaders do. And it's what elevates you, Hermione, to
leadership. You recognise when it's being used; ordinary people don't. In fact, they're rather
obtuse, but that only makes them easier to steer." He laughed and added, "In fact, they think they're
being honoured by the privilege of doing my work for me."

"But it is an honour," Hermione retorted. She pointed to the badge pinned to her robes. "And a
Hogwarts tradition!"

"I suppose I spoke too soon," said Tom, shaking his head. "But not to worry—we'll have to work
on that, you and I."
When the train pulled into Hogsmeade Station, she and Tom were tasked with gathering the
students and escorting them to the carriages. Then, once they'd arrived at Hogwarts, there came the
Sorting, the feast, and Headmaster Dippet's after-dinner announcements. This included an updated
list of banned joke items and cheating-related paraphernalia to be confiscated on sight, tryout dates
for Quidditch, and changes to the staff roster. And, to Hermione's surprise, the introduction of new
safety regulations: Aurors would be present during weekend Hogsmeade outings, and students
were expected to follow any directions, the same as from any professor or Prefect.

At the Slytherin House table, on the far end of the Great Hall, she saw Tom and Travers conduct a
low and heated conversation. Travers leaned in to whisper in Tom's ear, then Tom glanced up at the
High Table, before he waved Orion Black over from where the other boy sat with the Sixth Years.
At the Ravenclaw Table, no one seemed to care about anything but the specifics of acceptable
quills; Dictation and Self-Inking Quills were apparently still allowed, but Repeating Quills were
banned, and any quill or ink with magical properties was not permitted during formal exams.
(Someone had tried writing on their arms with invisible ink in last year's O.W.L.s, and the proctors
of the Wizarding Examinations Authority would be inspecting everyone's arms for that this year.)

The rest of the evening was routine. Hermione organised the Ravenclaws by year group, sending
the Fifth Year Prefects to take the First Years up, because the whole House going up to their
Common Room at once would inevitably lead to a long queue of people, all of them waiting at the
entrance to take their turn with the word puzzle. At the other House tables, the Prefects of
Gryffindor and Slytherin passed along the week's passwords, while the Hufflepuffs organised
themselves into mentor groups, one older student to three Firsties. Tom, sitting at the head of his
table with the other Slytherin Seventh Years, looked as if he was already tired of his
responsibilities; he listlessly picked at a plate of quince cheese on water crackers. On either side of
him, Hermione noticed two of his dorm mates topping up their pumpkin juice goblets from a silver
flask they were keeping out of view of the teachers.

When their eyes met, Tom lifted an eyebrow and jerked his head at the doors.

Hermione shook her head, sliding back the sleeve of her robe to tap her wrist. She didn't think
wizards would recognise what it meant, as most—those past their seventeenth birthdays—carried
pocket watches instead of wearing timepieces on their wrists. During the holidays, Tom had worn
the wristwatch given him by Mrs. Riddle, for convenience, and to ensure that Nott was ejected
from the premises on the dot of seven o'clock. Any longer, and Nott would have garnered an
invitation to dinner at half-past seven, which Tom took pains to avoid. Tom didn't wear his watch
at Hogwarts, but he understood her meaning, for he inclined his head and tapped his fingers on the
table.

One, two, three, four, Hermione counted. Twelve taps in total.

Nott, who was sitting opposite Tom, twisted his head around to observe Hermione's reaction. Tom
must have scolded him for it, because he quickly turned back around, shoulders hunched.

The evening passed thus, in secret messages sent across crowded rooms, in guarded looks
alternating between the door and the High Table, until it was time for all the Houses of Hogwarts to
part ways. When Hermione finally reached her dormitory, it was near ten, and she was grateful to
see that her trunk had been brought on from the train and laid at the foot of her bed. With shaking
hands, she dug through its contents to find the collection of potions she'd prepared for the
expedition. The glass bottles were intact, cushioned in several paper-wrapped bundles of clean
bandage.
At a quarter to midnight, Hermione cast a Disillusionment Charm over herself, then slipped out of
her bed, fully dressed in the Muggle coat she'd worn that morning, and a pair of winter boots. Nott
had theorised that the Chamber went under the Lake, so it was bound to be cold at the bottom. A
much more sensible choice than her soft-soled uniform shoes, of patent leather with an open top
and a strap over the instep.

Her dorm mates had their bed canopies closed, and after waiting at the door for a good twenty
seconds, she saw no ripples in the curtains and heard no creaks of the mattress springs. The
Ravenclaw Common Room was just as silent. There was a cat curled on the armchair nearest the
fireplace, a few empty bottles of butterbeer on a reading table, and a handful of wrinkled sheets of
newspaper scrawled over with games of noughts-and-crosses, but all the students had gone up to
their rooms. (This was somewhat unusual for Ravenclaw; Hermione recalled that in May and June
of last year, students had used the Common Room to study at all hours of the evening and early
morning. However, tonight's triple combination of a late meal, heavy food, and being too early in
the year for exam panic, must have presented an unassailable argument on the importance of proper
rest.)

Without groups of students, robes and neckties flying all over the place, rushing to get to class
without lost points or detention, the corridors were eerily quiet. The torches in their sconces were
dimmed of their usual cheery yellow flames, the portraits dozing within their frames, mumbling an
occasional word or two in their sleep. Hermione held her breath in passing several suits of armour,
drifting from shadow to shadow in between the guttering circles of torchlight. Down one set of
stairs, a pause on a landing to wait for two staircases to connect, carrying her from Ravenclaw
Tower Entrance down several floors to the Library wing.

When she opened the door to the girls' bathroom, she saw that the room was dark, a shaft of silver
moonlight falling onto the tiles, broken into a pattern of diamonds by a leaded window frame.
Silhouetted in front of the window were Tom and Nott, who must have arrived before her; they
were standing in front of the sinks, whispering furiously to one another.

"I'm steering, so I should be in charge of the carpet," Tom said, reaching for something held in
Nott's arms. "And you have your hands full already."

Nott jerked back, hissing, "This belongs to my family. There's no chance I'm giving it away!"

"I'll give it back, trust me," said Tom.

"That's the thing, isn't it?" Nott said, sniffing. "I don't."

"Wouldn't you trust me to take care of it?" Tom asked. "It's a valuable magical artefact; of course
I'd keep it in good condition. You've seen my enchanted lunchbox—I've had it from Second Year,
and it still works as good as new."

"You'd only take care of things if they belonged to you," said Nott. "I can't imagine that you'd give
a single bronze knut about Lestrange's new Cleansweep, top of the line or not."

"That's an unfair ju—" Tom stopped, then glanced up at the door. "Hermione? Is that you?"

The Disillusionment Charm fell away from Hermione's body with a swish of her wand. She made
her way across the bathroom, cautiously finding her path in the dark, not daring to light her wand in
case it could be seen from the corridor outside. From years of living at Hogwarts, she was aware
that the public areas of the castle, lacking the carpets and fireplaces of the living quarters, were
always draughty. The doors to each classroom were great weathered things bound with heavy iron
bars, the ancient wood shrunken in their frames over the years, instead of sitting flush to the wall.

(In Potions, she and Tom had learned to avoid the work station closest to the door. The constant
breezes from the hallway outside kept their cauldron from heating evenly, which meant having to
deviate from the textbook instructions to compensate, adding more stirs or simmering for an extra
minute. She hated that, as much as it amused Tom, who considered the textbook instructions
'optional'.)

"You're here early," Hermione remarked. "Did you have any trouble with your dorm mates?"

"I told them I was going out. They didn't ask why," said Tom. He glanced over at the sinks. "Are
you ready?"

"No," said Hermione. "But today is a Friday, and we won't have classes until Monday, so there's no
better opportunity than now to see what's down there." There was a moment of hesitation before
she added, "And it's about time you nullified that oath. This is a collaborative effort, and I don't
like the idea of anyone being here under duress, not when we might be risking our lives."

"If all goes well, then I'll forgo the oath," said Tom reluctantly. "I suppose you're right, Hermione.
If you're on my side, then you've chosen to be. And if you aren't—" he locked eyes with Nott, "—
then so be it. But I won't tolerate cowardice. And I certainly won't reward it."

"As if a real coward would have the gall to admit it," Nott muttered. "Well, go on then, Riddle.
We're all dying of anticipation."

When the bells in the clocktower began to ring for midnight, Tom leaned over the broken tap and
spoke the password. The low grind of stone moving against stone faded away with the final peal,
and then, just like that morning in late June, the hole in the middle of the drainage grates was
revealed to them. In the dark, it was an empty black void in the middle of the floor, a bottomless
well in which one could fall and keep falling forever. Hermione swallowed, fingers tightening over
her wand. She hadn't thought it could look worse than how it did in the daylight, slimed down the
sides with thick green strings of algae.

They got the carpet aloft, making last minute adjustments to their belongings—Hermione ensured
her potions hadn't shifted in her bag, while Nott cast a Cushioning Charm to the jar containing his
Hand of Glory. Squeezed as close as they could together, it was still a tight fit down the vertical
tunnel. Hermione, lighting up her wand and holding it up, saw that its diameter was scarcely wider
than the outer edge of the carpet, and Tom had to take pains with steering to keep the tassels from
scraping along the damp green walls.

No more than four-and-a-half feet across, she estimated. If the monster was a dragon or a
Cerberus, and if Salazar Slytherin meant for it to be able to come and go from the Chamber, then it
had to be a very small one.

The carpet drifted down, down, down into the gloom.

The further their descent, the lower the temperature fell, until they could see little wisps of breath
around their mouths and noses. The air grew damp, taking on a strange loamy smell, the smell of
something organic and decayed, and beneath that was a whiff of something else, sour and pungent,
reminding Hermione of a jar of eel eyes that had gone off when some careless student had used it
and put it back in the ingredients cupboard without properly securing the lid. Rotten fish
disintegrating in a foul brine, that was the smell, and Hermione contemplated casting a Bubble-
Head Charm. But she still needed her wand for light, or for self-defence...

Without warning, the bottom of the carpet smacked against a hard surface, and Hermione felt,
rather than heard, a crunch from beneath her folded legs. With only one hand holding onto the
carpet—the other one held aloft her wand—she lost her balance, toppling forward.

A pair of arms tightened around her from behind, and the solid warmth of Tom's chest pressed
against her back.

"It looks like we've reached the bottom," breathed Tom, drawing his wand and pushing himself
upright. With a murmured Lumos, the tip of the wand flared a brilliant white, blinding them at first,
then giving Hermione a brief glimpse of the black shaft rising up, up, up above their heads, and
another black tunnel before them, with no end in sight. Tom dimmed his wand from white to a
ghoulish red, before settling on a colour somewhere in between, a dull pink that shed illumination,
but would still allow them vision in the gloom.

Nott scrambled to his feet, shooing Hermione off the carpet, before dusting it off, rolling it up, and
shoving it into his satchel. "There's something on the floor..."

He leaned over, adjusting the angle of his Hand of Glory.

"What is it?" asked Hermione, who couldn't see anything—the Hand only gave light to its owner,
making it a useful tool for criminals, but inconvenient for everyone else.

"Bones," Nott proclaimed, kicking at them with the toe of one shoe. Something clattered in the
darkness. "Rodent. A rat or a vole." There was a moment of silence, some more kicking, a dry
rattle of objects sliding over each other on the grimy floor, then Nott said, "Otter, by the looks of
the teeth. And... hah, interesting. Veeery interesting."

"We're not here to play games," Tom snapped, lowering his wand to cast light on the floor. Nott
was correct: it was littered with bones, along with other bits of unrecognisable detritus, but to
Hermione's eyes, they looked like shards of broken china dishware, and there was nothing she
could label as the parts of a human skeleton. "What is it?"

"I thought it was a fish at first. The shape of the spinal column and flattened rib extensions is
unmistakeable. But there's no fish that has this sort of pelvic structure," Nott trailed off, leaving
them in suspense.

"Well?" prompted Hermione.

"Whatever it is that's down here," said Nott, "killed a mermaid."

The silence was punctuated by a slow and measured drip, drip, drip of water falling in the far
distance.

Tom cleared his throat and said, "A Grindylow could kill a mermaid."

"By a stroke of fortune, not by intent," said Nott. "And any Grindylow that managed it would be
hunted down immediately by the rest of the merfolk village, as any village of wizards would put
down a wolf who bit a child."
"If we can infer anything from this," said Hermione, "then it's your assumption that the Chamber
goes under the Lake. We found a mermaid here, so perhaps there's a secondary entrance that
connects to the Lake. It must be very cleverly built, since we're about half a mile underground, and
there's not a sign of leaking or flooding." She pointed at one wall, which curved over her head in a
high arc, forming a tunnel of perfect cylindrical proportions. "If water passed through here on a
regular basis, there would be tide marks on the walls. Lines of sediment or caked mud, because it's
obvious that this place has never been cleaned. But there aren't any."

"That's good news," Nott remarked. "Of all the ways we could die down here, drowning isn't one
of them."

"Only an incompetent wizard would allow himself to drown," said Tom scornfully.

"And an overconfident wizard only exposes himself to disappointment," Nott retorted. "If a flood
suddenly comes rushing through here and you drop your wand, you'd stand as much of a chance of
surviving as a Muggle."

"Even if you kept hold of your wand, you'd still need to be able to cast spells non-verbally, you
know," added Hermione. "It's not that easy to visualise a destination when you've water past your
head. That's if the Hogwarts anti-Apparition enchantments don't extend this far down."

"Level of difficulty has never stopped me before," said Tom stubbornly.

"And neither has common sense, I see," Nott snorted. "Let's keep going—this tunnel has to lead
somewhere."

"I'll have you know that I'm very sensible, Nott," said Tom. "In fact, you'll be walking in the
front."

With a few prods of Tom's wand, Nott was persuaded into leading the way down the echoing
tunnel, swearing and muttering to himself every time he tripped over an unstable mound of bones
or a slick patch of algae. It wasn't a charitable act on Tom's part, choosing the leader in lieu of
letting someone volunteer for the job, but Hermione had to admit, very reluctantly, that she enjoyed
walking in the back. Instead of being propelled forward and rushed along by a clearly impatient
Tom Riddle, she could take her time inspecting the architecture of the tunnel. Built of a smooth
and seamless carved stone, it was different, but just as effective, as the standard galvanised pipe,
brickwork, and interlocking cement of modern Muggle sewerage channels. And all this had been
built centuries ago!

Nott stumbled along the downward sloping tunnel, the path twisting and bending. At several
intervals, they had to cross a dip in the floor in which had collected a silted puddle. Tom had cast
Incendio at it, but it filled the tunnel with a stinking mist that obscured vision and hearing, so from
there on, Hermione cast Glacius. It didn't much improve the footing, but at least they could skate
over the top of the frozen mud, rather than sinking in ankle-deep.

After a few more minutes of walking, the tunnel began to level out, and the floor became drier and
more crowded. Where they'd had layers of sticky mud and calcified silt beneath their feet, there
were chunks of bone, gravel in several different grades, and pale flakes of what looked like
crumbled asbestos. Nott, hefting his Hand of Glory into the crook of one arm, bent down to inspect
the flakes. He picked one up and ran his thumb over it, turning it over and over in his fingers.
Then he shoved it into his trouser pocket and straightened up.
"We're almost there," said Nott. "I can feel it."

And around the next corner was the big prize: a greenish pile of something resembling an unrolled
bolt of cloth or a runner carpet, shapeless and crinkled like the magical tent in her parents' cellar
before Mr. Pacek had helped them set it up. Its surface was broken into a regular pattern of layered
ovals, smoother and flatter than the angular diamond-patterned ridges of dragonscale.

Nott scrambled over to it, sweeping up a great swathe into his arms and crowing, "I told you it was
a snake! Look at it! It's got to be at least twenty—no, over thirty feet long! A beast this size—do
you know how rare that is?"

Tom was less enthusiastic; he took up a handful of the shed snakeskin and peered at it, hefting its
weight. "I expect someone would want to buy this..."

"I would," said Nott. He coughed and went on with, "Ah, for a fair price, of course. Just as a
curiosity, as it were. There aren't any inherent qualities to this skin that couldn't be replicated with
dragonhide."

"Hmm," Tom replied, setting down the section of skin. He tapped his wand against his thigh. "If
the skin is here, then where's the beast? We should keep going; the tunnel extends further down."

"B-but," Nott sputtered, "what about the skin? We can't just leave it here!"

"It won't go anywhere."

"Yes, but can't I take some with me?"

"We'll come back this way."

"A tiny piece—just so we don't go back empty-handed!"

"Not now," snapped Tom. He turned to Hermione. "Let's go. Nott can stay here if he likes, but
we're going to see what else is down there."

He marched forward, wandtip glowing, and Hermione scurried after him, with a glance over her
shoulder at Nott.

"If it's a creature of a magical nature, like a dragon, then a Diffindo won't do it," she said. "Spell-
resistance. You'll need a proper knife, or goblin silver, if you want to take a clean sample without
damaging the rest."

"Yes, thank you, Professor Granger," Nott grumbled, putting down the skin after one last forlorn
look at it.

Tom was already a fair distance away, his light bobbing metres ahead. When they caught up with
him, he was standing before a wall—no, a door—with carved snakes knotted around each other. A
twin-leaved sliding door, the two sections drawing apart as they watched. The gap in the middle
grew wider and wider, until there was neither wall nor door, only an entrance to a long chamber of
grey stone thickly coated with lichen. Two long channels framed the chamber on either side—
Hermione saw that they were ponds of still water, black and murky and tinged with the nose-
wrinkling fragrance of rotting kelp. Out of the water rose a line of stone columns, wrapped around
with snakes whose emerald eyes and polished fangs glinted in the light of their wands.
But it was the centrepiece of the chamber that drew their attention. A man at the far end, an
imposing forty feet high, pose and bearing like that of a patron god in his temple of worship.

Salazar Slytherin.

Or an image of him, at least.

The statue looked like the picture Nott had showed them that summer: a stern, bearded wizard with
a forbidding expression and elaborate robes, but even without the animation charms of the picture,
the moss-darkened stone face was still incredibly unnerving.

Although anything that size would be, she thought.

"It's empty," said Tom, staring open-mouthed, his voice rising in mounting incredulity. "There's
nothing here!"

"There's Salazar Slytherin, right there," said Nott. "So, about that oath..."

"No!" Tom shouted, and his voice boomed hollowly along the length of the empty chamber. "We
can't have come all this way for nothing!"

"The skin," said Hermione, stepping forward and laying a gentle hand on Tom's shoulder. "We still
have that—"

"Beast of Slytherin," Tom yelled, ignoring her, "present yourself!"

Nothing happened.

Nott scratched his nose, shifting awkwardly. He inspected his cuffs and flicked off a few crumbs of
dried mud. "Riddle, if you don't mind—"

"Play some music," demanded Tom. "We haven't tried everything. You brought your harp; I saw
you put it in your bag before we left the dormitory."

Nott scowled. "What good will that do?"

"If there's a beast," said Tom, "then there must be a means of waking it up."

"Yes, but why do we want to wake it up?" Hermione put in tentatively.

"It serves no benefit to us like this," said Tom. "And we can't just leave it to hibernate forever."

"Can't we?" asked Nott. "I'm sure it wouldn't mind; it's been there for a thousand years already."

"We can't," said Tom firmly. "You'll do what I say, Nott, or the oath will stay as it is. We came
here for the Chamber of Secrets. The Chamber of Secrets contains a beast of legend. I won't
confirm that it's real unless I see a sign of the beast's existence."

"The skin—"

"Mere coincidence," said Tom. "Anything could have crawled its way out of the Lake in the last
millennium. I want irrefutable evidence."
And at Tom's insistence, another entry was added to Nott's growing list of indignities.

Nott, grumbling in a low voice and shooting meaningful looks at Hermione every time Tom turned
his back, set his Hand of Glory on the floor of the chamber and rummaged in his satchel for his
harp, buckled inside a polished leather case with embossed Celtic knotwork. It wasn't a tall
concert-sized harp that Hermione had seen in the orchestra pits of the London theatres, but of a size
to be held in one's arms, and if the player was so inclined, played and carried at the same time—
though it would be very awkward unless one had a good sense of balance.

Hermione had only heard from Tom that Nott could play a musical instrument, and had never heard
Nott admit to it himself, as she and Nott had always maintained a practical relationship, with
neither of them discussing subjects unrelated to the pursuance of their goals. It was strange and
rather unexpected to witness it confirmed now, in the Chamber of Secrets—deny it fervently as
Tom had, Hermione believed it to be the real thing—and even more unexpected to see that Nott
was good at it.

She was no expert in the arts (primary school music class was still a sore memory to her standards
of perfectionism), but Hermione was an expert in studying and training, and she could tell that
Nott's skill was the result of time and effort. Still muttering about Tom, Nott plucked at the strings,
listening to one note ring out, then another, tightening a lever, cocking his head and closing his eyes
every now and again. Tom waited, impatiently tapping his feet or pacing around in circles, as Nott
drew a small whistle out of his harp case to test the pitch.

"How long is that going to take?" asked Tom.

"You can't rush art," Nott replied. "And the acoustics of this place are terrible. The ceiling's too
open and the water will cause reflections..."

When he finally began to play, Tom stopped his pacing and looked to the statue of Slytherin, eyes
narrowed.

"Sonorus," he incanted, and the music began to double, then triple in volume. Hermione, standing
in front of Nott, could feel the tangible ripple made by the sound as it passed through her body.

Listening to him play, and play very well, Hermione found herself wondering why Nott had never
shown interest in joining Hogwarts' music club. Hogwarts didn't have many extracurricular
activities for students, and of those, Gobstones, Quidditch, Wizards' Chess, Music, and Duelling
had presented no personal appeal, but Hermione did agree that they were a way to form friendships
for those who wanted them, or a way to learn something not taught in class lessons. Nott might not
desire friendship with "riffraff", but at the very least he would have a venue in which to flaunt his
ability. (Hermione disapproved, naturally, in the name of good taste, but there was less shame in
showing off an earned skill versus showing off an inherited attribute.)

When Nott finished playing, Tom turned to the statue of Slytherin, his eyes dark with expectance.

"Did it work?" Nott asked.

"Shhh!"

For a minute or two, Tom stood listening intently, his eyes half-lidded. For what exactly, Hermione
didn't know: she heard only the steady plink of water falling on stone, Nott shuffling his feet on the
grimy floor, the rustle of robes, and the sigh of her own breathing.
"Did you hear that?" said Tom suddenly, staring at the statue's face.

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

"I thought I heard something moving..."

"Are you going to stand there and keep listening, then? Or can we start turning back?" Nott
suggested, slipping his hand into his satchel and pulling out a pocket watch. He pressed a catch on
the side and the lid flipped open. "It's just past four in the morning."

Hermione ignored him. "What do you mean, 'something moving'? Did the statue move?"

"Are you going to tell me that statues can't move?" said Tom. "I know what I heard!"

"I wasn't going to say that it was impossible," said Hermione. "I know that magic can animate
statues, and there are animation enchantments set by the founders that have lasted until today—the
winged boars on the front gates are an example. But that statue didn't move—we'd have noticed if
it had!"

"But I heard something," said Tom stubbornly.

For the next twenty minutes, Hermione and Nott watched Tom approach the statue, pace several
times in front of it, and begin working his way through his mental catalogue of revealing charms.
They ranged from the simplest ones in the Prefects' Handbook, spells to reveal the writing on notes
passed from hand to hand beneath classroom desks, to spells that negated the properties of pre-
mixed invisible inks, to more complex spells that Hermione had only read about in books, used by
wizarding enchanters to apply maker's marks to their merchandise, without marring the finish of
fine jewellery pieces or the inlay of delicate cabinets and caskets. These marks were hidden during
daily use, but were able to be inspected for purposes of authentication and accreditation.

After some time, Nott reached into his bag and drew out a tin cup and a small pouch. From the
pouch, he pinched out some brown powder, dropping it into the cup. He then raised his wand and
pointed it to the rim.

"Aguamenti," said Nott, yawning. "How long do you think he'll take, Granger?"

"What on Earth are you—are you making tea?"

"I knew there was a slight possibility that I'd end up trapped underground with Riddle, and I wasn't
going to risk it on an empty stomach," Nott answered, twirling his wand above his cup and casting
a spell to heat the water. "Did you not bring any food with you? I'd expected that you'd be more
prepared than that."

"I did!" said Hermione. She fumbled a parcel of waxed paper out of the pocket of her Muggle
coat. Mrs. Willrow's ginger biscuits, from the packed picnic lunch Mrs. Riddle had made them take
with them on the train that morning. Or rather, last morning.

"Oh good," said Nott, plucking the parcel out of her hands and unwrapping it. "Are these the ones
with the molasses sugar? I like those the best—it gives them a good texture. Firm, but not too
crumbly."
Tom had done all he could during the summer to guarantee Nott's ejection from the house before
dinner, but Mrs. Riddle had a few times successfully rounded them up for a spot of afternoon tea.
For some bizarre reason, Nott had relished accepting Mrs. Riddle's invitations, even though he
displayed more fondness and warmth toward the food than to the people joining him at the table.
Then again, it wasn't as if he'd ever extended fondness or warmth to anyone. In the end, Hermione
wasn't sure what to make of it. She knew that people like Nott thought Muggles, even the well-
spoken and civilised ones, were natural curiosities, in the same fashion of British explorers who'd
met pygmy tribesmen in the wilds of Guinea or Malaya. So she'd kept an eye on him, with the
intent to correct Nott on his manners if they slipped in front of the Riddles, but to her surprise, he
hadn't.

Hermione had caught him asking Mrs. Riddle leading questions about her family, the
circumstances of Tom's relocation (was he mis-remembering, or was Tom from London, and not
Yorkshire?), and the mystery that was Tom's parentage. Neither she, Tom, nor Mrs. Riddle were
willing to indulge that subject of conversation, much to Nott's disappointment.

And as disappointing as afternoon tea with Mrs. Riddle had been during the summer, this very early
morning tea had to be just as anticlimactic. Nott had anticipated uncovering magical artefacts in
the Chamber of Secrets, and all they'd found so far was a long roll of dirty snakeskin. Valuable to
the right buyer, but what was more money to someone who already had plenty of it? It was a far
cry to what he must have been hoping to find: long-forgotten knowledge from the days of the
founders, powerful spells lost for generations, or ancient secrets about the workings of the castle.

Crunch.

Nott had broken a biscuit in half. Now, his hand outstretched, he offered her a piece. "You're
thinking about something, Granger. What is it?"

Hermione took the biscuit. "The audacity of offering me a biscuit that was mine in the first place!
Why did you even take them, then?"

"Because sugar isn't good for you," said Nott in between bites of his half of the biscuit. "Father
says that sugar is only for children and invalids, and if Riddle gets what he wants..." He nodded in
the direction of the Slytherin statue, which Tom was attempting to climb, his wand held between
his teeth. "Well, I think we should appreciate the time we have as people who can eat and enjoy
solid food instead of subsisting on potions."

Hermione's brows knitted together, and she spoke in a hushed voice, "Tom can speak to snakes. If
the Chamber opened for him, doesn't that make him the master of Slytherin's monster?"

"Who knows what kind of controlling enchantments Slytherin left on it," Nott said, shrugging. "Or
even if they've lasted until now. If Riddle, for all his troubles, finds the monster, we can't discount
the chance that it'll listen to him instead of eating him outright. But neither of us are Parselmouths,
and the only thing keeping us from being eaten alive... is him."

"I'm sure he wouldn't let it eat us..." said Hermione.

"If he had to choose between himself and us, who do you think he'd pick?" asked Nott.

"He won't have to pick anyone. We'll make certain that he's never put in a position where a
decision like that is necessary," she decided.
"Is Riddle aware of how much you interfere in his life?"

"I don't see how that's relevant!"

"Because he seems just as determined to interfere in yours," Nott remarked. "I can't help but
predict a lifetime of mutual insufferability for the two of you, based on his, shall we say, 'excessive
familiarity'. Have you not realised what Riddle wants of you?"

"I am well aware of what he wants, thank you," said Hermione briskly. "Or, what he says he
wants. Let me assure you that there's nothing to speculate about. Yes, it's true that we've made a
private arrangement of sorts, but it's not nearly as exciting—or as dire—as you think it is."

"You're not going to take him up on his offer, then?" said Nott, giving a close inspection of the tea
leaves floating in his cup, and definitely not trying to sound too interested in her answer.

"Is there any reason why I should?"

"You could hardly do better, if you ask me," said Nott.

"Good, because no one asked you!" said Hermione, quite affronted.

"It's true, isn't it?" continued Nott in a casual voice. "He's willing, eager even, to take you on
despite your lack of name or property. And if it's a future as a respectable working witch that you
desire, then there's nothing that squeaks of respectability like having a respectable husband." He
darted a glance over to where Tom was scaling Salazar Slytherin's stony beard. "Even if he doesn't
find anything of value, this Chamber still makes him the Heir of Slytherin."

Hermione scoffed in indignation. "I fail to see why a husband makes a witch more or less qualified
for a position in the workplace. It seems so unfair—does anyone ask wizards if they're married
when they apply for employment?"

"For any position where steadiness and reliability are essential, yes, of course. A legal executor of
wizarding wills and testaments. Or a Healer that dispenses advice on, ah, starting families.
Depending on what they're applying for, whom they're married to is just as important as if they're
married at all," said Nott. "A proper understanding of responsibility is the sign of a proper wizard,
Granger. It encompasses a man's integrity and honour, and also includes his duty to perpetuate his
legacy. If you can't judge a man's integrity by what he writes and submits on a form, then you can
judge it by the state of his house and how well he keeps his family."

Listening to Nott talk, Hermione couldn't stop herself from wrinkling her nose, or wondering how
much of it Nott actually believed. He had admitted that he didn't care much for the prospect of
having a wife and future children, and what he'd just spouted off sounded like a plain contradiction.

But, she thought, how well a man keeps his family is not the same thing as how much cares for
them.

"I'm afraid to ask," she said, "whether or not you consider Tom a proper wizard."

"Oh, I could fault Riddle for one thing or another for the next thousand years," said Nott carelessly.
"But upon evaluating his character, one can't deny that he values what's really important. You see,
Granger, we're all wizards here—yes, yes, you're a witch, no need to remind me—but what we have
in common is magic. Most wizards will hold up their magic as proof that it elevates them above
the intelligent beasts: Muggles and goblins and centaurs and so on. And there's nothing wrong
with that, except when it's all that they do with their magic.

"Riddle, on the other hand," Nott continued, his words rushing out faster and faster, "knows that
there's more to being a wizard than squandering his talents on talk and bluster. The others will
content themselves to sitting in their dormitory and arguing about who's got the faster broomstick
or the longer wand, but Riddle believes himself to be capable of more than that." He nodded over
his shoulder to Tom, clinging to Slytherin's nose and peering into the statue's blank and stony eyes.
"Not that all his endeavours will turn out successful, but he's got ambition, and that's not
insignificant when the rest have got none at all."

"What about your ambition?" Hermione pointed out. "You mightn't have the title of 'Heir' that Tom
has, but the Hat sorted you into the Slytherin, when I'm sure it knew that you could've done just as
well in Ravenclaw."

Nott's eyes narrowed. "How do you know that—you must have—no, " he muttered to himself.
"So, the Hat offered you a choice, too?"

"Yes, it did, actually," said Hermione proudly. "It said my sense of justice was worthy of
Gryffindor."

"No doubt you took it as high praise," snickered Nott, to Hermione's affront. "I'm in Slytherin
because I accept that knowledge in itself has no purpose beyond personal satisfaction. Applying
knowledge requires action and leadership. And the nature of leadership means that not everyone
can be the leader—but neither should one allow himself to be relegated to a mere factotum when
he's capable of more than that." He gave her a measured look. "I suppose you know that already,
since you've attached yourself to him closer than everyone else."

Hermione returned his look with disapproving glare. "Are you implying that my interest in Tom is
based on his utility?"

"I'm not implying it—I'm saying it," said Nott. "You're doing yourself a disservice by ignoring it,
Granger. And before you try to moralise on me, I don't see any difference between marriage and a
mutual exchange of utility. A thing given, a thing taken; a co-operative effort to usher in the future;
all parties satisfied. I'll admit to lacking Riddle's, hah, special touch, but you can't tell me that he
makes it any more flattering."

Observing the shift in her expression, he added, "You can hold firm to your ethics for now, but
when you leave this castle at the end of next year, you'll find that it's only scholars and academics
who care how many books you've read or how many theoretical principles you can quote. The real
world, the offices that determine what potion ingredients you can buy in the apothecary, the
department that sets the questions you're asked in the final exams—that world is run on patronage
and connection. Out there, righteousness and ideals make for a meagre form of currency."

"What grounds have you to tell me this?" said Hermione in a sharp tone. "Your father's an
academic."

"He maintains friendships with the right people," said Nott. "And because of that, no Ministry
inspector has ever—or will ever—come knocking on our door."
"T-then," Hermione stammered, "how do you benefit from this? The whole time we've been
acquainted, you've never given me any information without expecting that it'll turn to your
advantage at some point."

"I'm not blind, even if you so obviously are," said Nott. "For some reason, it pleases Riddle to
indulge your fancies, no matter how fanciful they happen to be." With his wand, he Vanished the
contents of his tea cup and shoved it back in his bag. "You know, I heard Orion Black mention that
you weren't as dismal at the Prefects' meeting like everyone had been expecting you'd be—I even
heard that Hipworth had prepared a Dictation Quill in the event you'd bungle your speech."

"They thought I'd bungle it?" said Hermione, aghast. Tom had never mentioned that. "No one said
anything..."

"It's all in good humour," said Nott, ignoring her audible concern. "But if you're to learn anything
from it, it's that politics is no natural talent of yours—but with the right guidance, you're not
completely hopeless. With the right counsel, you'd be capable of making great improvements."

In that instant, Hermione saw where Nott was angling. He'd couched his advice in terms of her
own interest, but in doing so, he'd presented himself as the expert, and Hermione as the novice.
Which wasn't strictly incorrect, but it was galling to acknowledge her own lack of experience with
Magical Britain. Throughout the entirety of their conversation, she'd perceived no trace of
dishonesty in Nott, and even now, she couldn't see any reason why he would lie to her, not on this
subject. While Nott had delivered his argument in a tone of sage condescension, the most troubling
acknowledgement was that his points were not wholly groundless.

In her career advisory sessions with Professor Beery back in Fifth Year, she'd been told that
perseverance and pluck were requirements of a successful professional career, but thinking about
what Beery had actually said, she couldn't recall him giving any solid advice on Ministry careers.
He had been very considerate, assuring her that she didn't have to limit herself to conventional
careers. Plenty of wizards chose to dedicate themselves to crafts or scholarship, and there was no
shame or disrepute in that compared to the more traditional paths of working under a formal
employer.

"In fact," Professor Beery had told her when she'd come to his office during her appointed time
slot, "I myself have thought about leaving Hogwarts to pursue my own interests. I enjoy teaching—
even thought it was my calling when I was younger. But Herbology, forever? Oh, I think my spirit
yearns for more than that, noble profession that it is. And you, Miss Granger, so fresh and full of
potential—you'd do yourself no favours to waste that youthful spirit on something that brings it no
joy."

It had been wonderfully inspiring in the moment, but Professor Beery hadn't given her any advice
on which departments to address her letters of introduction, her references of character. Now she
began to wonder that if she sent those letters as she was planning to do next year, would they end
up lost in the mail sorting office, and only discovered years later, crumpled and covered in dried
owl droppings? Nott had warned her, the year previous, of the standards she could expect from
wizarding bureaucracy, and that meeting with Miss Leonora Gardiner at the Ministry had been a
disturbing confirmation of Nott's veracity.

And there was the rub: Nott's truthfulness was one thing—and his knowing of Tom's special ability
to discern lies must have given no choice in the matter—but his trustworthiness was another. She
couldn't trust that anything he said was solely in her best interests; at best, whatever advice he
offered her served his own in some fashion.

He'd go against her interests, if it served him better.

But, thought Hermione, would he go against Tom's?

It was half-past five o'clock when Tom gave up trying to extract Slytherin's thousand-year-old
secrets from his statue. At some point, Nott had cast a Cushioning Charm on the floor and rolled
up in his cloak to nap, so only Hermione was awake when Tom climbed down from the statue, grey
powder in his hair, his trousers stained green from the knees down.

"Did you find anything?" asked Hermione politely.

Tom, a deep scowl on his face, shook his head. "There was what looked like a seam carved under
Slytherin's beard, but I couldn't find a way to open it."

"It could just be a seam, you know."

"I won't give up," said Tom. "Not until I know for certain. I'll have to chart the progress of Hydra,
or match it to the tidal cycles; maybe the ponds drain away during certain times of the month..."

"The library will help you there," suggested Hermione. "Are we leaving now? It's not a good
showing for the Head Girl to be caught sneaking into her dormitory at dawn. On the first day of
school, no less!"

"If you're seen by your dorm mates, just tell them you were with me all night," said Tom. "That'll
answer all their questions."

"And bring up plenty of new ones!"

"Oh?" said Tom. "I was under the impression that, as explanations went, saying you were out with
a young man was rather self-explanatory."

"Not for my dorm mates," Hermione said. "They'll pester me for days, asking me silly questions.
For instance, if I got to stick my hand up your jumper."

Tom looked blank. "Is that a euphemism for something?"

"No, I'm afraid not," sighed Hermione. "Some girls are really just curious about what the boys in
our year look like with their robes off. It's the Quidditch players most of the time, if that makes
you feel any better."

"How disturbing," Tom remarked. "Well, do you...?"

"Do I—what?"

"Want to stick your hand up my jumper?"

"N-no!" spluttered Hermione.

"Is there something wrong with my jumper, then?" said Tom, sounding quite distressed. "Or
something wrong with... me?"
"No! Of course not—I mean, I didn't meant to—"

Tom patted her on the shoulder. "You know, I've said before that 'gullible' was the deplorable
natural state of the proleteriat. But on you, Hermione, it somehow becomes amusingly pleasant."

"I don't find it very amusing," said Hermione, sniffing.

"Then you're welcome to take me at my word," replied Tom, plucking at the hem of his woollen
uniform jumper and lifting it up to reveal an inch of the shirt he wore beneath, along with a brief
silver flash of his belt buckle. "You should trust that I wouldn't make you an offer that I don't mean
to honour."

At that point, Nott woke up and his nasally, sleep-hoarse voice broke into their conversation. "If
you two are going to be engaging in that sort of thing now, must it be in here?"

In the ante-chamber, the stretch of tunnel that opened into the Chamber of Secrets, they collected
samples of snake skin. They limited themselves to picking up pieces of torn skin, rather than trying
to cut sections from the main pile, several dozen feet long: none of them had brought a suitable
knife, and they weren't going to risk tossing Cutting Charms about, not when they all knew
dragonhide was famous for its ability to deflect spells.

"I can't see people using this for shoes," said Nott, holding a metre-long strip of skin up to the
light. "A beast this size has such a broad scale pattern that anyone wearing boots made of it would
look like their feet had caught Spattergroit. But luggage or saddlery, definitely. And I couldn't
refuse a custom snakehide book binding with a coat of Peckling's high-sheen."

That seemed to raise Tom's spirits; he'd been restless about having to leave the Chamber of Secrets
and its secrets for another day. Already, he was planning another trip back, not even caring that she
and Nott were exhausted from the last six hours of underground exploration.

"I haven't slept for over a day," said Hermione, as they stumbled through the dark tunnels, back to
the vertical shaft that led to the Second Floor girls' bathroom. "How can you have the energy to
want to keep exploring?"

"Because I know there's something down here," said Tom. "It can't be empty; Slytherin wouldn't
have built a secret chamber and filled it with... nothing!"

"He left a bloody great statue of himself, Riddle," said Nott, unrolling his carpet and ushering them
onto it. "I'm quite certain that he wouldn't like you calling it 'nothing'."

The sun was peeking through the dormitory curtains by the time Hermione fell into bed, extremely
grimy from head to toe, her socks soaked through and smelling of mildew. But she was too
fatigued to care about that, or even her recent journey to the Chamber of Secrets, and what it meant
that Hogwarts had a creature living under one of its bathrooms, a snake over thirty feet long, or
even longer than that—didn't snakes shed their skins when they'd outgrown them?

When classes resumed on Monday, Hermione was better rested, but no more curious about the
Chamber than she was the day they'd left it. She could appreciate the workmanship that had gone
into building the tunnels, hiding the entrance, and the Chamber itself, but she couldn't understand
Tom's obsession with unravelling its "mystery". It was a historical site, and after seeing it, she'd
got no indication from what the Divination textbooks called her "Third Eye" that there was a
mystery. No one visited the ruins of a Roman frontier fort or a Celtic chieftain's burial mound and
expected that the long-dead inhabitants had hidden a cache of gems for the benefit of some lucky
future explorer.

Tom was convinced otherwise. If the legendary Chamber was real, why wouldn't the legendary
monster be, too? If the legend had survived for all these years, then surely it had to be true.

Hermione's response was blunt: "The legend says that Slytherin meant for the monster to kill
people! People at Hogwarts! Students!"

"Slytherin's dead, so what he meant doesn't matter anymore," said Tom. "But you don't have to
sound so worried, Hermione. When I find the monster, I won't let it hurt you."

"How are you going to do that?" asked Hermione. "It's not a monster, it's an animal. It can't listen
to reason. If it'll listen at all—if the legends are true, then it hasn't been near a human in the last
thousand years."

"I'll make it listen," said Tom, and refused to explain how he'd manage that.

Over the next month, Hermione delved into her studies, because the N.E.W.T.s were just around the
corner; the Chamber was interesting, but there was nothing it could offer her in terms of exam
marks or career prospects. It bothered her that Tom barely paid attention in class, scribbling down
notes on his parchment that she saw had nothing to do with the lesson of the day. He was the Head
Boy—he ought to set a good example for the other students! But the teachers never appeared to
catch on that there was something different about Tom's recent shift in attitude toward classroom
participation. Whenever they called upon him, he answered their questions without hesitation, and
so his reputation as an excellent student remained untarnished, as pristine as it had been for the past
six years.

His obsession with discovering the mystery had not only led to Tom delegating most of his Head
Boy duties to the Prefects, but hosting official meetings of his homework club less often. It had
gotten to the point where the members approached Hermione at breakfast or in the corridor to ask
when they were going to revise N.E.W.T.-level Defence theory, or if she could proofread their
Charms essays—they'd have asked Tom, but they scarcely saw him in their shared dormitory these
days, outside of sleeping, bathing, and changing his clothes.

They weren't the only ones to have seen less and less of Tom in the passing weeks. Tom always
disappeared after the end of class, taking a looping, circuitous route to the next class, or to
mealtimes in the Great Hall. She'd followed him once, at the risk of being late, and had seen him
wandering the halls, fingers brushing against the stone, stopping every so often to inspect a suit of
armour or poke his wand at a flue set into the wall, built to ventilate the lower sections of the castle.

He'd looked distracted, and Hermione had been tempted to call his name and ask him what he was
doing, if she hadn't thought it would be too... too interfering.

When she thought about it, it was obvious what he was doing: exploring the castle, as they'd done
back in First Year, and Tom had had that trained rat of his, the one he'd taught to collect coins and
sit on his shoulder. Peanut had died a few years ago, and Hermione still felt bad about it. Her
parents had bought her an owl when she'd asked for one, and having Gilles had made the Grangers'
home feel that much more wizardly. Tom, who was just as talented and magical, could only afford
a rat. Even now, he hadn't replaced Peanut, and perhaps—Hermione hesitated to assume too much
—he wanted a replacement that he believed to be as special as he was.
The Heir of Slytherin is only a courtesy title, she reminded herself. There's no possibility of that.
Tom is greedy, but he's learned to be careful, and he's not stupid. The last time he was careless, we
had to take him to St. Mungo's.

The mystery of the Chamber aside, one minor detail of their underground adventure had become
lodged within her thoughts over the following weeks: that conversation with Nott, and the
importance of the right connections in securing a successful career, or in merely getting one's foot
through the door. She'd attended Professor Slughorn's dinners for the last two years, though not as
religiously as some of the other Slytherins; nevertheless, she was counting on Slughorn to put in a
good word for her, whatever she chose to do. But was he the only one who would, other than
Professor Beery, her Head of House?

As the last warm days of summer slipped away, leaving behind a chilly Scottish autumn, the
question continued to linger, and the more she tried to think up reasonable justifications for why
Nott was an unreliable source—if not wrong—the more it festered. What did he know? His
commentary on the state of wizarding politics was always heavily biased and never anything but
disparaging, too cynical and narrow-minded to be taken at face value. What reason had he to
present such a cynical view? He was only a boy, younger than her, at that! (They were all adults,
but Hermione's September birthday made her older than everyone in their year, so she thought that
counted for something. Tom would disagree; of the three of them, he was the youngest.)

Hermione, deciding to settle things, put aside her stack of practice exam questions and drew out a
clean sheet of parchment, weighting down the curling ends with an inkwell.

Dear Madam Gardiner,

You may remember that we met in April of last year, when Thomas Bertram introduced me as
his editorial assistant, Hermione Riddle. As a dedicated reader of Mr. Bertram's articles,
you'll know that his articles are directed toward improving the efficiency of household
management, and conveniencing the lives of housewitches across Britain. But as a witch, I
have long thought Witch Weekly should cater to all witches, and not just those witches who
dedicate their toil to the family hearth.

As a working witch, I'd like to ask you about employment conditions in the Ministry of
Magic...

Solidarity, thought Hermione. She wrote the letter with Tom's explanation of convincing rhetoric
lurking in one corner of her mind. It felt inauthentic to do this—not quite deceitful, since her
arrangement of words was made to be ambiguous, but not false—but some part of her struggled
with the guilty weight of this deliberate misrepresentation. Her logical side won out: it had been
Tom who had spoken for her, Tom who had called himself 'Thomas Bertram' in the Ministry
atrium, and he who had called her 'Hermione Riddle'.

And she signed 'Hermione' at the bottom of the page, her own name, so that wasn't a lie either.

When she tucked the folded letter into her planner to send off with her next batch of letters to Mum
and Dad in London, she found a new message written in Nott's handwriting at the back of the book.
 Riddle's left the dorm again. 11.52

She wrote back, Do you think he's gone to the C?

Hermione underlined the letter, just in case Nott couldn't guess what she meant.

He hasn't asked for the carpet, Nott wrote a quarter-hour later. Hasn't come back smelling like a
toilet, either.

That's not a sign that he's given up on it...

Have you ever known him to give up on anything?

Chapter End Notes

Wasn't happy with the chapter, so I re-wrote the ending to give more setups for Tom's PoV.
 Parsley Juice

1944

The Chamber was empty and it was all a lie.

That statement lingered in Tom's mind. It echoed, grew, and transformed with each iteration, until
its original meaning dwindled in his conscious thoughts, and the surface began to slough off,
revealing to him the true shape lurking beneath the façade of unpleasant truth.

An accusation.

Every morning before lessons, Tom ate his breakfast at the far end of the Slytherin table, under the
House banners, velvet serpents in green and silver rearing on sinuous coils to hiss at the other
animated banners—frolicking lions, slumbering badgers, and haughty eagles. On his way back to
the dormitory, he passed the Entrance Hall, and the torchlight flickered off the row of hourglasses,
the piled emeralds in one bottom bulb marking Slytherin's continued progress toward another
House Cup. Together, these images were an unspoken reminder of what he'd glimpsed in the
Chamber of Secrets; they became a wordless taunt of what he lacked.

Every evening, he took his reserved armchair by the fireplace, the best seat in the Slytherin
Common Room, and surveyed his Housemates. They had no idea of the existence of Salazar's
legacy, the Chamber of Secrets, a legend among Slytherin students. To them, it was nothing but a
First Year Hallow's Eve tradition, an idea whose continued circulation depended on those wistful
few who dreamt and believed that it just might be real.

That number did not include Tom Riddle, who knew the Chamber of Secrets was real, and who had
seen the face of Salazar Slytherin with his own eyes. Tom's hands had touched the founder's stone
likeness, had discerned the lack of chisel marks marring the stone eyelids and the creases of the
earlobes, an indication that the statue had been created through Transfiguration, smooth and
seamless as the Transfigured tunnels outside the Chamber. Such power, and at such a scale! On
any other day, Tom would have marvelled at it; he would have spoken of it to Hermione, and
caught her up in an enthusiastic debate on how it had been done then, and if it was possible to
replicate now.

But today, the last few days, the past week, theoretical Transfiguration was a passing afterthought
to the real matter that occupied his thoughts, which whispered to him through all hours of the day.
In the waking dreams of the hour before breakfast, the watery windows glowing green with the
risen sun, to the silent hours past curfew, when Tom showered away the grime accumulated from a
day's exposure to other people, he heard the Chamber calling to him.

The Chamber has been opened...

It whispered to him when Tom stood under the dripping shower head, one hand upraised to
Summon his towel from the rack. He hardly dared to breathe, ears straining to catch another
hushed word in the haze of writhing white steam.

Released from slumber, awakened to air and sky... Awakened and awaiting...
The whispers continued. In class, on the way to dinner, after a meeting with the Prefects. No one
else heard the softly spoken words, let alone made any sense of them. Hermione's face had
remained blank and confused when he had asked if she'd recognised the speaker.

Awaiting...

Tom sought the source of the whispers, not quite allowing himself to believe that they had
originated from the depths of his own mind. He couldn't have imagined it; he knew he wasn't mad.

...And searching.

It wasn't madness. It couldn't be.

There had to be another explanation: magic.

His careful questions to Hermione hadn't produced any tangible result, and he wasn't going to ask
her about symptoms of wizarding diseases without arousing her natural instinct for interference.
The last time Tom had been physically indisposed, Hermione had forced him to take potions and go
to bed at set times every day, smothering him in well-meaning concern. And Tom, though
admittedly liking special attention given him on other occasions, did not appreciate being treated
like a child whilst in that state, but he'd been too weak then to resist.

Tom's dorm mates hadn't noticed any strange sounds, either—not that he'd bothered to thoroughly
question them. Nott, the most observant of the Slytherin boys, hadn't appeared to have heard
anything, though it was difficult for Tom to keep track of him, when Nott put quite a bit of effort
into strategic avoidance. Nott had developed an odd habit of vacating the Common Room
whenever he saw Tom step through the doorway; in the evenings, Nott ducked behind the curtains
of his four-poster instead of joining the other boys in playing cards or coming up with the answers
to the day's load of homework. However, that wasn't too unusual when Tom recalled that Nott
preferred studying in the library, where he could work by himself without having a dorm mate lean
over his shoulder to read his answers.

In a quest for alternative sources of advice, Tom dug through the bottom layers of his trunk until he
found the loose parchment pages copied from the Healing textbook he'd borrowed from Rosier
back in Fourth Year. Medicamenti Magica, the sixth of a seventeen volume set: he'd had Rosier
bring him this one in particular for its focus on mind-related magical Healing. Before Dumbledore
had begun offering him Occlumency lessons in Sixth Year, he had searched through more and more
obscure textbooks for information on mind magic. It had been a futile endeavour in the end, but
he'd learned about various forms of magical mental damage, an affliction that most commonly
came as a result of amateur Obliviations and brewing potions without reading the directions.

Skimming through his notes, he ticked off his list of symptoms.

Severe mood fluctuations?

No more than usual, he decided. That ruled out having an adverse reaction to potion ingredients.
He wasn't taking any potions, nor had he been dosed without his knowledge.

Minor to mild emotional fluctuation, accompanied by tender muscles and food cravings on certain
times of the month?
The last he checked, he wasn't a woman, or a werewolf. This was useless; he skipped down to the
bottom of the list.

Visions, illusory figures, or voices?

Tom turned over to the next page, his hands shaking.

Missing time within recent memory; hours unaccounted for in the past week?

The good news, Tom found, was that he wasn't a victim of possession, through unwitting contact
with a cursed artefact or a malevolent spirit.

The bad news was that Tom, being very certain that his dilemma had nothing to do with a mundane
illness of the mind or body, was probably being haunted by a ghost.

It was... absurd.

He didn't know what to make of it, but the longer he considered it, the more it made sense.
Hogwarts was one of the most magical sites in the British Isles, steeped in a thousand years of
history. For a thousand years, students had cast magic in its halls, dozens of Headmasters had laid
on fresh enchantments over old, hundreds of professors had wandered in and out, leaving behind
portraits and books and odd teaching props that found their way into broom cupboards and dusty
classrooms.

Couldn't his explorations in the Chamber of Secrets, one of the oldest structures in or under the
castle, have created some odd phenomenon of magical disturbance? The Chamber of Secrets, a
founder's artefact in its own right, was bound to have mysterious and powerful properties. Perhaps
Salazar Slytherin had built a mechanism to transfer a sliver of his power to whomever was worthy
of continuing his legacy—but somewhere along the way, the instructions were forgotten, or the
instructor itself lost in a maze of renovations and wardwork.

If Hermione and Nott hadn't noticed any voices, then it was only because it had been Tom who had
opened the Chamber of Secrets, spoken the password to both the magical entrance built into the
bathroom sinks, and the entwined serpents before the Chamber itself. The other two had provided
some, yes, minor contributions, but it was Tom who found the Chamber and granted them access.

There was no chance he was going to ask Dumbledore for advice, or turn himself in to the Hospital
Wing. With these limitations, and knowing that whatever this was—a ghost, Slytherin's monster, a
magical imprint of the man himself—it was something he wanted to see with his own eyes. And
thus, he sought the company of his own monster.

For what better way was there to catch a monster, than with a monster?

The room he'd dedicated to Acromantula storage had remained undisturbed over the summer
holidays. Since the start of term, he'd cast Hermione's intruder repelling ward over the door, the
one she'd perfected to keep the maids out of her room—or as he thought of it, their room. The
ward was anchored to runes (Nauthiz and Isa, to restrict and reinforce) carved on the inside of the
door, by the hinge and latch, and carved in reverse on the outside (to impair and impede). The
runes wouldn't do anything to keep the Acromantula secured inside the room, but they would keep
other people from stumbling in and letting it out by accident.
Entering the room and closing the door behind him, Tom lit the sconces, cleared the dust that had
accumulated in the corners of the room, and kicked the top of the trunk.

Thunk!

He heard a dry rasping sound from the inside of the trunk, but the lid failed to rise.

"Are you awake?" asked Tom, drawing his wand. His fingers traced the line of the yew handle, and
the grooves scored down the shaft, left by the teeth of his father's dog.

"I am resting," came the muffled words from the inside of the trunk, followed by a few sharp clicks.

"You've had enough rest," said Tom impatiently. "I have a task for you."

"I am happy to stay here."

"That's not an option!"

Rustling came from the trunk, then a sudden and pointed silence.

Tom blasted back the lid of the trunk, to a loud tirade of angry chittering.

"I won't repeat myself, Spider," said Tom. "I'm being haunted, by a ghost or spirit."

The Acromantula's body was folded within its legs. Its large jointed limbs were furred with thick
black hair that had grown thicker in the years since Tom had captured it from Hagrid's cupboard.
One by one, the legs stretched open like the blade of a pocket knife, until the Acromantula's eyes
were revealed to him, shiny and lidless, a liquid black that glowed orange in the wavering
torchlight.

Its pincers clicked. "It is not a ghost of which you speak. Nor a spirit."

"How do you know?"

Hairy limbs shivered in agitation; Tom had spent enough time in the Acromantula's mind to have
learned some of the simpler hallmarks of arthropod body language.

"It travels under stone, passes through it, and the stone tremors in its wake. The water changes its
route where it goes, when it rises from below. It does not hunt, not as yet—but it searches. And it
hungers."

"Well, that's helpful," Tom remarked. "What is it?"

The spider drew its legs up, twitching furiously. "We do not speak of it! We do not name it!"

"I bet you don't even know," Tom scoffed. "How would you, in any case? You haven't seen the
outside of this room in years."

"Our kind know to fear it by instinct, foolish man," said the Acromantula. "You seek your death if
you dare to look for it."

"'Instinct'?" Tom repeated. "Does this mean your kind know of its existence? Is it some species of
magical creature? A predator?"
"Not just any creature—a great and mortal enemy!"

"A creature, then," said Tom, relieved that it wasn't a ghost. He wasn't sure what spells would be
effective against ghosts. He had read of exorcism rituals, but most of them evicted ghosts from the
physical sites of their death, instead of banishing them to their Next Great Adventure. There was
no way to force that to happen until the ghost itself chose to leave for good. The ghost of Sir
Nicholas, for instance, had been executed in London but had somehow ended up haunting
Gryffindor Tower in Scotland. "One that eats spiders. Is that what it's searching for? A snack?"

The Acromantula shuddered and a ripple moved across its body, its eight outermost limb joints
flexing and bowing, followed by the next, until they reached the lumpen shape of the thorax in the
centre. To Tom's distaste, it looked like the clenching of a hairy black sphincter.

"It does not pursue prey," said the Acromantula. "One such as it bides and strikes; it moves now in
too regular a pattern, searching for something. A mate. Nesting territory. Hatching grounds. The
last warmth before the turning dark."

"So you won't tell me what it is," Tom mused, "and yet you happen to have a good idea of how it
hunts. Hmm, interesting... Is it a snake?"

The Acromantula chittered in fear.

"That's not an answer," Tom said. He raised his wand. "Imperio."

Acromantula spoke, its voice taking on a peculiar squeaky edge, like the sound of air being let out
of a punctured bicycle tyre. "It is the greatest of its kind. So long as it breathes and feeds, it
grows. It is the One Who Passes in Silence."

"What sort of name is that?" said Tom. "How can it pass in silence when you can sense its
movements?"

"When it passes," said the spider, "all is silent."

"Is that a riddle?" Tom demanded, increasing the pressure on the spider's mind.

"That is how it is known to us," said the spider, forelegs clicking erratically against the stone
flagstones. "The Bringer of Silence."

Tom flicked his wand; the curse dissipated. There was no use in continuing. The spider knew
something of the mysterious creature's nature, but couldn't name it by the standards of human
taxonomy. This was one of the weaknesses of the Imperius Curse—its use in gathering
information was limited by the intelligence and education of the target. And despite the
Acromantula possessing some form of primitive biological memory, the entirety of its life
experience revolved around sleeping in a box and being fed table scraps.

"You once asked to see the sky," said Tom. "I refused you then, but perhaps I've changed my mind
about it."

"I cannot leave this room!"

"You'll go if I tell you to go," said Tom in a cold voice. "Where and when I tell you."
The spider's pincers snicked together, tips glistening with venom. Its head lowered between its
forelegs, the rest of its hairy legs curling defensively around its body. "You make a perilous choice
to seek it out. Better to wait until it feeds and returns to dormancy."

"I'm not afraid of it," said Tom, and that was the end of the argument.

He slammed the lid of the trunk shut and left the room, considering how best to use the
Acromantula's ability. The ability to sense vibrations—that could be useful in tracking the passage
of 'The Bringer of Silence' around the castle. But it would only be useful in following it. He
wanted to see it, with his own two eyes, not just feel the echo of its movements whilst borrowing
the senses and faculties of another. He wanted to... to catch it.

It.

A creature so powerful that it made others shiver in terror at the very mention of its name. What
could be more fitting for Salazar Slytherin's legacy than 'The Bringer of Silence'?

(Tom personally thought it was a cumbersome name—too long, too vague—but if it inspired fear in
lesser beings, then its effectiveness was undeniable.)

How on Earth could it be made possible?

...On Earth.

"The water changes its route where it goes..."

Tom remembered the journey down, down, down into the tunnels beneath the castle. The hours of
trudging through cold silt and shattered bones, and the brief stop where Nott kicked at the floor
with a booted foot. The bones of a mermaid, broken into pieces—the curved set of human-like
ribs, the pin-bones of a fish-like tail and desiccated fins, as fine as the vanes of a plucked feather.

No one hunts tigers by poking them in the face, Tom recalled.

He had a guide, didn't he?

Now all he needed was the lure.

On the last clear day in October, the students of Hogwarts rushed off en masse to Hogsmeade,
emptying the shops of bottled butterbeer, sweets, and firecrackers for Hallowe'en festivities in their
Common Rooms after the official school supper. The enchanted carriages rattled past all morning,
carrying students from the castle and down to the front gates, bursts of red and blue light flashing
from the windows.
Tom, having checked both ways down the corridor, floated the Acromantula's trunk out of its room,
casting a Disillusionment Charm on both it and himself. The portraits, habitual eavesdroppers on
the best of days, noticed nothing out of the usual as he passed. A few stragglers lingered in the
Entrance Hall, but Tom slipped past them, and they remained none the wiser. As he'd expected, the
viaduct was deserted, and he met no other students descending the slippery rock stairs carved down
the side of the castle's foundations.

The boathouse sat at the foot of a sheer escarpment, a squat longhouse roofed in wooden shingles,
grey and weathered with age. The interior smelled of watery things, kelp and fish and something
unpleasantly briny, which Tom thought strange since Hogwarts had a freshwater lake. Then again,
Hogwarts also had a giant squid living in the lake, and Tom had read that cephalopods, squids and
octopi, were saltwater organisms.

Inside the boathouse, dozens of boats were stacked five deep on wooden racks, keels pointed
toward the roof. Inspecting them closely, Tom observed that both the racks and the bottoms of the
boats had been carved with runes, worn but still readable: endurance, preservation, movement,
direction.

The rune for 'direction', Raidho, turned out to be rather convenient, as a simple tap from his wand
to the carving resulted in a boat sliding down the rack and onto a set of tracks that sloped to the
water's edge. Tom set the trunk into the boat before getting in himself, lifting up the hems of his
robes to keep them from dragging in the water.

Once he'd gotten into the boat, it rocked in the water from the added weight, but to his relief, no
water slopped in. It was cramped inside, smaller than he remembered from his First Year
memories. Ten feet long from front to back, it could easily fit three or four eleven-year-olds, but
two adult men would have trouble keeping their knees from brushing against each other. The front
narrowed to a pointed vertex, and the back was flat, set with a wooden handle that turned from side
to side when he poked at it, and when Tom looked closer, saw that it was carved with runes for
movement and direction.

A rudder.

He hadn't remembered that from First Year, but then again, he recalled Mr. Ogg, the groundskeeper,
thumping the back of the boat after ensuring the children had gotten in and weren't dangling
anything over the sides. Tom had been too entranced by the view back then to pay attention to
other things, for what a view it had been! The high turrets and crenellated towers spearing up out
of the rocky cliff base, a rippling constellation of reflected lights bobbing over the Lake's dark
surface, the windows of the Great Hall aglow with welcome and warmth, and every inch of stone
imbued with power and grandeur and magic.

In the daylight, the castle was no less magnificent, but the wonder and beauty of Tom's first
impression had faded over the years. Some part of him would always be fond of Hogwarts, the
place where he had learned what it truly meant to be a wizard. But more and more often these
days, he looked forward to beginning his life outside those stone walls, without the added
inconvenience of teachers, schedules, and unruly children. And to think that he had once dreaded
leaving Hogwarts, dreaded re-entering the Muggle world after his final year of schooling, and
returning to London with nothing but his wits, a handful of old textbooks in a battered trunk, and
the clothes on his back.
For now, his battered trunk contained a live Acromantula, very unhappy about being wobbled about
through the corridors and now tossed into a boat. And the unhappiness would naturally be
compounded by the fact that spiders didn't do well in the water, since they had no way of holding
their breath.

"If you try anything," said Tom, opening the trunk, "I'll push you off the side."

"What are you doing?" the Acromantula asked, in no hurry whatsoever to leave its container.

"Fishing."

Tom reached into his pocket and brought out a case of chocolate frogs, traded from a Fourth Year in
exchange for a re-scheduled detention. (Professor Merrythought was a strict supervisor who
demanded physical labour of student delinquents, but Professor Binns allowed students to do
whatever they wanted, as long as they didn't make any noise.) Ten frogs, each box fresh and the
seals intact—he'd checked, and the boy who'd given him the set had assumed it was to ensure that
the cards, the most valuable part of every frog pack, hadn't been nicked.

The cards didn't matter. The frogs' animation enchantment, mass-produced but still durable and
well-made, was the reason for his interest. Of course he could Transfigure and animate frogs of his
own, but why bother, when someone else had done the work for him? Hermione would have cited
something called 'personal integrity', but Hermione's personal integrity meant that she would
interrupt a professor who'd mentioned some minor detail that was contradicted by three other
authors on the subject. Because her conscience wouldn't allow an error to stand, uncorrected, even
at the detriment of the other students in the class, or the teacher's lesson plan.

Tom, on the other hand, wasn't burdened by so troublesome a notion as a 'conscience'.

He cracked open a chocolate frog box, and the frog popped out, leaping for freedom. Tom didn't
attempt to catch it. Eyeing its trajectory, Tom lifted his wand and hit it with a Featherlight Charm
just as it hit the surface of the water, limbs extended.

Plop!

The chocolate frog broke the surface with a tiny splash, and an equally tiny wave lapped against the
outside of the wooden boat. The animation charm had a few minutes before it faded, but until
then, the frog splashed about in the water, its chocolate skin glistening.

"The Great One does not feed on such objects of wizarding artifice," said the Acromantula, peering
over the side of its trunk.

"I'm not trying to feed 'the Great One'," said Tom. "Keep watch on the other side and tell me if you
can sense anything underneath the boat."

When the animation faded, Tom let the soggy chocolate frog sink into the water, before he cracked
open a new box and repeated the technique. The useful thing about these novelty sweets was that
their movements were modelled on those of real frogs, and from a distance, looked quite lifelike.
Animation charms cast by the average amateur tended to be stiff and jerky; someone unfamiliar
with the shape and structure of an animal's body could not hope to replicate their behaviour with
any real accuracy.
(Tom had, over years of observation, noticed that most wizards used the simplest of animation
charms. Pictures moved in a short, repetitive loop, a dustpan had but a single sweeping action, a
ladle only stirred a cauldron in one direction. Anything more complex required actual thought, and
it was for this reason that wizards bought their household potions at the local apothecary, and
visited the grocer to buy their daily bread. But, Tom didn't hesitate to clarify, he himself visited the
grocer not because he was incapable of the proper charmwork, but because he had more important
things to do with his time. It was solely a matter of time, not capability!)

The sixth frog disappeared into the black depths of the Lake when the Acromantula, which had
dipped its forelegs into the water, began to stir.

"Something approaches," it spoke, drawing back to the centre of the boat.

"How large?"

"Longer than you."

The seventh frog gave one earnest leap for freedom before it was abruptly caught. A grey-skinned
hand surged out of the water, long-fingered and clawed, crushing the frog within its grip. The hand
had membranous webbings between each finger and opposable thumb, and in its clutch, the frog
gave one hopeful twitch before the charm failed for good.

Beneath the surface of the water, something pale and silvery twisted to and fro, as sinuous as an eel,
with an intelligent air of menace possessed by no fish species he knew.

The Acromantula shivered and let out a shrill whistling noise.

Tom broke open an eighth chocolate frog, peeling back the pasteboard lid with his left hand. His
right gripped his wand, lifting it out of his lap and up to the side of the boat, taking care to make no
sudden movements.

This time, when the frog jumped out of the boat and a flash of silver rushed to meet it at the water's
surface, Tom was ready.

"Stupefy!"

Tom slipped his wand up his sleeve and pushed past the Acromantula, seizing the rudder and
nudging the boat several yards to the left—he almost heard Hermione's voice reminding him, in her
charmingly pedantic way, that it was properly named port, larboard, widdershins, or some other
nautical term he couldn't care less about—and the wood creaked under him, swaying as the bow
turned against a rising wind. The tail of his robe caught the wind like a sail, and for an instant Tom
was blinded as his necktie flapped across his face. But soon he'd brought the boat up by a length of
sparkling silver bobbing on the water's surface, and when he turned it over, grabbing it by the
nearest limb, he saw a mermaid up close for the first time.

She looked nothing like the mermaid in the stained glass window that graced the Prefect's
Bathroom, which looked more appropriate for the sultan's bathhouse in Le Jardin Parfumé than a
student bathing facility. That mermaid was a dewy-eyed maiden with a mane of red-gold hair that
she combed with a bit of shell; when she wasn't dressing her hair, she lounged on her rock and
watched the passing bathers with an innocent expression of curiosity.
This mermaid, as Tom dragged it by the hair over the side of the boat, looked like it was half fish.
Its hair was green and matted, its skin smooth and slimy to the touch, covered in a viscous, slug-
like layer of clear mucus. Its mouth was wider than a human's, a gash that opened from cheek to
cheek, and inside its mouth, its teeth were set in rows like those in a shark's jaw. The more Tom
looked, the more differences he saw between it and him: the gills on its grey throat, gasping and
fluttering once he'd pulled the creature out of the water; the silver-scaled tail, adorned with a row of
sharp spikes that followed the line of its spine; the cold, hairless skin mottled with markings over
the back and shoulders, resembling corpse-flesh after the blood had pooled and settled...

The Ministry names these things beasts, thought Tom. Well, now I think I can understand their
reasoning.

"Tell me if you sense any others," Tom said to the Acromantula, who squatted on its side of the
boat, watching Tom drag the front half of the mermaid over the side. Back in the tunnels under the
school, Nott had mentioned that mermaids grouped together to hunt down and neutralise mortal
threats. When he'd arrived at this plan, Tom accepted that he couldn't just kill the mermaid, even if
it would be the easiest thing to do—and the most profitable. So he'd planned accordingly.

From under the wooden plank seat, Tom drew out a small pouch containing the emergency supplies
Hermione had gathered for their journey into the Chamber of Secrets. Vials of potions, bandages,
scissors, and a brown glass bottle containing a tincture of iodine, whose paper label indicated that
Hermione had filched it from her parents' clinic. Tom had supplemented the pouch with his own
potion supplies, empty vials that he'd used for collecting Acromantula venom to sell at the tavern in
Hogsmeade.

He began his "harvest" with methodical efficiency, clipping first the fingernails, and then the green
hair, squeezing water out of the hanks with his fist, before he shoved it into a vial. He took samples
of the scales, the spines, and when he was finished, he took out his silver-bladed potions knife and,
turning the webbed hand this way and that, spent a moment contemplating where best to draw the
blood.

The Acromantula wandered over, claws clicking on the wood. "The pulse runs warmest at the
joint."

"The elbow?" asked Tom.

"The top joint," said the Acromantula, running its foreclaw down the mermaid's shoulder, to its
underarm. "Here. Warm. Can you not feel it?"

"No," said Tom, turning the mermaid's limp body to inspect the place that the Acromantula had
indicated. "Show me."

A quick slash of a claw, and blood began to flow sluggishly from the incision. Thick blood, darker
than human blood, a shade of red that was not quite violet, but couldn't be described with any of the
terms—scarlet, crimson, or vermilion—that people often used for fresh human blood. Tom settled
on calling it a dark wine colour, and wondered what magical properties it had. Acromantulas had
blue blood, useful in testing potions—the colour of the blood would change depending on the
potion with which it was mixed, and it had become a way to gauge the strength of commercial
potion batches.

First one vial, corked and stored away, then a second, then a third. Tom siphoned the blood with
the help of his wand, while the Acromantula watched him with its eight unblinking eyes.
"Will you keep it?" the Acromantula asked.

"No," said Tom. "I'll throw it back when I'm done."

"Such a waste," it said. "It is so very fresh..."

"If you want fish, then I'll get you a fish," said Tom, too pre-occupied with the harvesting to make
much of a counterargument.

"But I am hungry," whined the Acromantula. "And I can feel how tender and warm it is. So warm;
I feel it leaking. It moves like nothing I have tasted before. It moves, ah, it moves..."

And as it spoke, Tom felt under his hand the slightest twitch of muscle from the mermaid's shoulder
—and then the mermaid's eyes opened, amber sclera with a flat, oval-shaped pupil, and it stared at
Tom, at his hands full of blood-smeared crystal vials.

The next second, the boat gave a huge heave, and the crystal vials went flying out of Tom's hands,
clattering to the bottom of the boat. Tom himself was thrown to one side, his head cracking against
the edge. His head rang; his mouth tasted like salt and iron; when he pushed himself to a sitting
position, the boat was still swaying, the Acromantula was shrieking at an ear-splitting pitch, and the
mermaid was struggling on the bench seat, gills flapping open and closed, open and closed, like
storm shutters blown loose in a howling wind.

Its tail thump-thump-thumped, drumming on the outside of the boat. In the blood-soaked chaos—
for the boat's interior was splattered with wine-red blood—the drumming was the only steady thing
Tom could grasp in his disoriented state, while blood, his own crimson-red human blood, trickled
from his split lip down to his chin and collar.

"No," moaned the Acromantula, scuttling around its trunk, which Tom had left open on the floor of
the boat, but had been thrown shut after the mermaid had woken up and tried to make good its
escape. "No, no, no!"

Shut up, thought Tom. I can't think with all this damned noise.

"A-Accio," he murmured through crusty lips. Tom coughed, cleared his throat, and spat a mouthful
of bloody phlegm into the water. "Accio wand."

His wand flew to his hand. "Stupefy."

The drumming stopped.

Tom dropped to his knees, peeling back the mermaid's eyelid with one hand, the other hand jabbing
his wand to its temple.

A garden of kelp fronds wafted in the invisible currents of the Great Lake. Cold water, crisp fresh
melt carried down from the distant snow line, mixed with warm water, sun-bright and white-frothed
in the singing wind, bearing a peaty taint of the land-dwellers' waste. But—here, now, high above
—there came an inexplicable tremor near the surface, a burbling voice of dissonance in the
familiar harmony, almost recognisable, but something about it felt... alien.

The disturbance came in the form of a small brown frog, and was easily subdued. But there was
another source of disharmony, a vessel on the water, and something within it—something dark and
unfriendly—stirred.

Was this creature responsible for the changing currents, beyond the usual swell and surge that
followed the rising moon and falling stars? A tide cycle ago, the flow of the waters had shifted, and
it had taken on an odd brackish flavour, bone ash and acrid marshwort. Soon after, there had been
a disappearance of the pincer crabs and the ambling shells that populated the lakebed...

Tom tore his consciousness out of the mermaid's mind, feeling the dull throb of an oncoming
headache. There was a distant ringing in his ears from having struck his head on the side of the
boat, and it wasn't helped by the squeaking of the Acromantula, scurrying from one side of the boat
to the other.

"Obliviate," he muttered, swiping the blood still dripping from his torn lip. He turned to the
shivering Acromantula. "Will you stop that?"

"We must leave," it said.

"Not yet," said Tom. He gestured to the mermaid, its top half draped limply over the bench. "I
have to throw this back."

"Make haste," said the Acromantula urgently. "The water is changing."

With the help of a charm or two, Tom lifted up the mermaid and heaved it over the side. It sank
slowly into the blue depths, and a trailing ribbon of blood stained the water a rich violet hue. Tom
dipped his hand into the water, rinsing its dark blood off his skin and from under his fingernails; he
scooped up another handful of water and washed the drying crust of blood from his chin. He
couldn't help but wonder what feature of biology had allowed the mermaid to know when the
currents had changed. If their species was a fusion of demi-human and fish, could a real human
bestow their abilities unto his own body with a precise sequence of internal Transfigurations?
What exactly was the source of their abilities? Was it morphology—or magic?

A trained wizard could Transfigure himself into any animal, if he could visualise it well enough. If
he had detailed knowledge of the internal workings of a mermaid, then shouldn't it be possible, in
theory, to re-create their innate abilities? From Grindelwald's decades old pamphlets, Tom had read
the man's assertion that wizards were as inherently magical as any magical creature, with the gift
that ran in their blood and gave them longer lives than any common Muggle. But, Tom supposed,
if a wizard tired of Transfigurations and wanted to return himself to his original form—for a
wizard's form was the natural superior—then he ought to be quite sure of the structure of his own
anatomy...

Something shivered, far, far, beneath the surface of the Lake.

At first glance, it looked like nothing more than the glimmer of sunlight on the lapping wavelets.
When the sun retreated behind a screen of wisping clouds, there were signs of subtle movement: it
was an oddity in the texture and interchange of the light, as if a black blanket were being unfolded
in a darkened room. Tom's senses, in their narrow human capacity could, to his frustration, only
perceive the motion and not the form.

"The water is changing," he breathed.

"Then it is time to depart," urged the Acromantula. "It is coming!"

"What is?" asked Tom, his voice sharp.

Blood of my blood, he heard, a low and distant murmur that could have been mistaken for the sough
of the wind, or the creaking of a weather-beaten wooden boat.

"The Great One!"

"Good," said Tom. "We can't leave until I see it."

The entirety of his present misadventures—the boat, the frogs, the mermaid—had been for one
purpose: a means to compel the beast of Slytherin to reveal itself to him. After his initial
disappointment with the Chamber of Secrets, Tom had planned to return another day, by himself. If
he couldn't find the legendary monster inside the Chamber, then he decided he would have to lure it
into the open.

From his extracurricular reading—and he had been pleasantly surprised by the offerings of his
grandfather's library—catching large game was a matter of following proper procedure. Boars
were flushed with hounds, bears baited and snared with hidden traps, crocodiles speared from the
deck of an outrigger boat, and tigers lured with live goats tied to stakes.

Tom considered himself an expert in a number of subjects, but there was no subject in which he had
as much experience as the care and management of animals. He knew animals. He had spent years
living with them, training them; he had spent countless hours projecting his own consciousness
inside their minds, until there was no longer a line of demarcation between native instinct and
magical coercion. He had learned that an animal, a wild beast, was driven by the basest of urges—
a trait that designated them as inferior to wizards, and made weak wizards the lessers of exceptional
individuals like Tom Riddle.

Regardless of how great or terrible Slytherin's beast was reputed to be, in the end, it was nothing
but a beast, which made Tom confident in his ability to master it.

(That slow transition of his desire to see the beast, to wanting to subdue it, went unremarked upon.)

Blood of my blood...

Tom glanced over his shoulder, to the Acromantula. "Did you hear that?"

I can smell you... I can taste you...

"It rises! We must leave now!"

"Can you hear me?" Tom hissed, leaning over the side of the boat.

I can hear you, spoke a voice, a faint and hollow voice that sounded like it was speaking to Tom
from the bottom of a well. I hear you, speaker of my speech.

"What," said Tom, "are you?"

There was a long pause, as if the creature was contemplating what answer to give to Tom. I was
hungry. Now I am fed.

"Can I..." Tom asked. "Can I have a look at you?"

Is this your will?

"Yes," said Tom eagerly. "It is!"

As you will it, you shall have it.

Tom was taken aback. The beast listened to him; it had obeyed him. Had he mastered it? Was it
that easy?

He began to reconsider this thought after the passing of a very tense minute. The seconds, as
marked by the ticking hand of his wristwatch, made one full circle, then began another, with no
appearance of anything out of the ordinary. But then he heard a low rumble—he felt it, too, as he
had felt the rumble of grinding stone when the doors before the Chamber of Secrets had opened for
him—and the boat began to quiver, the charmed wooden planks creaking against each other, while
the Acromantula ducked beneath the seat, forelegs lowered over its eyes, screeching incoherently.

A dark shape rose out of the water, water pouring off in waves down its scaled sides. A long
column as thick around as a tree trunk, it ended in a great triangular head set with a row of bony
horns at its base, an arrangement that resembled the points of a crown. The head split open to
reveal a mouthful of dangerously sharp teeth, yellowed spikes smeared with a thick red paste that
dripped down the side of its jaw...

It took an instant for Tom to recognise that it was the colour of mermaid blood.

"Do not look at it!" the Acromantula shrilled from behind him.

"Why not?" asked Tom.

"Its eyes!"

Tom inspected the creature as it coiled itself around and swam in languid circles, ripples of water in
its wake causing the boat to rock back and forth. In direct sunlight, the serpent had a hide of dark
green scales, with a lighter colour around the belly. It looked like it had a natural affinity to water,
and indeed, the shape and position of its nostrils was similar to that of a crocodile's, placed at the
end of its face—Tom could easily imagine it spending hours lurking unseen, with the bulk of its
body hidden underwater, ready to propel itself in a deadly strike...

The creature's eyes, set in ridged sockets on either side of its face, were closed.

"They're closed," said Tom.

Why are they closed? he thought. Is it blind? The spider wouldn't fear it if it was blind and
useless. No, it's something else; the eyes, they're—

The realisation struck Tom right then. Salazar Slytherin's monster of legend is a Basilisk.

He had spent the summer reading his Magical Creatures textbooks from cover to cover, and had
produced a number of theories of what Slytherin might have chosen to guard his Chamber of
Secrets. A Hydra, a Runespoor, perhaps a species of eastern sea serpent that wizards in the Orient
believed brought good fortune and seasonal rainfall. Basilisk had been low on his list of
possibilities; its name derived from 'Basileus', Greek for 'Emperor', and Tom had thought it a
species too suited for warm climates to thrive in the perpetual gloom of northern Scotland.
But as he looked at the Basilisk, really looked, he began to perceive the extent of its imperfections.
There were small pale marks scattered over its body, bubbled patches not dissimilar to the look of
popped blisters, where loose scales were on the verge of falling away. The raised patterns across its
back and belly were uneven, scales flattened and ill-formed, as if they had been crushed together or
ground flat. Tom ventured a guess that this had occurred due to the Basilisk's massive size and lack
of physical activity—it must have been sleeping for years at a time, within a confined space, heavy
coils piled on top of each other and exerting great pressures to the lower parts of its body.

"Will you keep your eyes closed?" Tom asked.

I will, hissed the Basilisk, and this close to it, the sound wasn't anything like the little snakes he'd
seen in the window of the pet shop in Diagon Alley, nor the common grass adder that had been left
in the train compartment before the Christmas holiday of last year. Their voices had been weak and
soft and whispery, and Tom's ability to understand them came not just from hearing their words, but
observing the lift and movement of their heads, the twisting of their bodies, and the flicker of their
tongues. The Basilisk, when it hissed, sounded like the dry rumble of a sand dune collapsing in the
aftermath of a wild storm; its voice had a low, throbbing resonance to it that Tom perceived through
his ears as much as he did through the whole of his body.

I can taste you, it said. Its head lowered, and a shadow fell over the boat, over the figure of Tom
sitting inside.

Tom glanced around; the Acromantula had tucked itself under the seat, chittering to itself, of no use
to anyone at present. He looked up, up to the Basilisk, which was drawing nearer and nearer to
him. Craning his head backwards, Tom could see pearly, red-tinged flecks of its latest meal
clinging to its jaw; he saw the inside of its nostrils, pits sunken into the front of its face, wet with
lake water and glittering in the sunlight. Water dripped from its sides. Tom could easily imagine it
as the carven figurehead on the prow of an admiral's flagship, and for an instant he wondered how
he'd ever thought Salazar Slytherin would ever have chosen a dragon, a creature of fire, to—

A forked tongue flicked out of the Basilisk's mouth, and before Tom could raise a hand to defend
himself, the tip scraped against his chin and jaw.

It felt like being whipped in the face by the tendril of a rogue Tentacula.

"What are you doing!" said Tom angrily, clapping a hand to his jaw. "You—you licked my face!"

Your blood, rumbled the Basilisk. It is for this that I have waited so long.

"You like the taste?" said Tom. He didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad one, but he could
use it. "You will do as I order, then?"

What is your order?

"Will you present yourself to me if I summon you?"

If you will it.

"Good," said Tom. "Then you should go away until I summon you. Stay hidden, don't make noises,
don't eat anything else—I'll find something else for you—and..."
The Basilisk waited patiently, tongue poking out every now and again to taste the air and the side of
the boat stained with mermaid's blood.

"—And may I have some of your venom?"

Tom was pleased to see that the Basilisk didn't even question the order. It bent down low over the
side of the boat—close enough to risk its capsizing—and opened its mouth, its breath hot and
fouled with the awful ammoniac odour of a fishmonger's offal bucket. The inside of its mouth was
pink and fleshy, set with a pair of prominent fangs on the upper jaw, and a row of smaller teeth
angled inward on the lower jaw.

It took a loin-girding combination of pluck and persistence to milk the venom: Tom held a pair of
crystal potion vials under the tips of the Basilisk's fangs, tensed and prepared for a quick
withdrawal, in the event it tried to close its mouth while his hands were still within range of its
teeth. The muscles within the Basilisk's pink fleshy mouth pulsed, and out squirted a stream of
fluorescent green venom. A single wayward drop sizzled where it had fallen on the boat.

Browsing through Professor Slughorn's private textbook collection, Tom had learned of the rarest
and most valuable potion ingredients. Mermaid blood and Acromantula venom were both rare and
relatively hard to acquire, but there were licensed purveyors, and a small black market that operated
in the shadows of Knockturn Alley and the outdoor privy behind Old Ab's goat shed.

Then there was the flesh of human and unicorn, neither of them rare in their raw form, but
impossible to find rendered down into usable ingredients. (Many wealthy wizarding families who
had a grove of magical woodland on their estates set out salt licks to attract unicorns, the same way
Muggle gentry kept swan ponds—they were considered to be the height of tasteful garden
ornamentation.) The rarity of human flesh and unicorn meat was due to nothing more than simple
moral censure, because there were some vague superstitions, on equal standing to old wives' tales,
surrounding their harvest. A curse, a pox on one's house, excommunication from wizard Heaven,
something in that vein. Tom was uncertain of the exact details, as he'd skimmed through the
handwritten pages of ominous warnings in the back of Slughorn's potions book, in order to get to
the good parts. The part of the book that listed the rarest ingredients of all.

Phoenix tears and Basilisk venom.

Phoenix tears were sold by the drop, and collected from wild phoenixes that shed their tears if a
wizard recited a profound poem or sang a heartfelt song. The creatures were, if not sentient, then
extremely sentimental; they sensed the intent of the heart, and rewarded those whose creative
endeavours were delivered with sincerity. (Tom thought it silly and beneath the dignity of a proper
wizard to indulge the whims of a mere animal. When had anyone ever curtseyed to a cow before
taking its milk, or thanked a tree for sprouting an apple? Never.)

Basilisk venom, according to the book, was not sold in any market in the British Isles. There had
been no reports of a British Basilisk sighting in centuries, and no confirmed sightings whatsoever.
The bestiaries had classified Basilisks as wizard-killers, impossible to domesticate, and dangerous
to approach—the same classification as Acromantulas, but the entry came with a long list of
additional warnings shared by no other creature in the book. Breeding them had been unanimously
banned by the magical governments of Europe, even before the Statute, and the few samples of
venom allowed into the country, after a generous application of Ministry levies, were imported
from Asia.

And to think that Tom Riddle had now come into the possession of such a rarity.
After the Basilisk had been sent away, its sinuous body descending into the black waters of the
Lake, Tom sat down in the boat. It disturbed him to find that, in the sudden release of tension, his
hand trembled in returning his wand to his robe pocket.

"You can come out now," he said, kicking the bench. "It's gone. The... Basilisk." He savoured the
word. Basilisk. He liked the sound of its name. It was only natural; he had always been fond of
the titles of Basileus, Imperator, and Princeps.

The Acromantula crawled out. "You spoke to it. You can speak to it."

"I told it what to do," said Tom. "And it listened. You ought to take it as an example."

"Will you feed me flesh, too?"

"Fresh meat is a privilege to be earned," Tom said. He pointed at the trunk. "You can start earning
it by getting in."

He locked the Acromantula in its room and returned to the Slytherin quarters, pressing his hands to
his pockets to keep his potion vials from rattling around. The vials were of premium crystal and
he'd made sure that the corks were secure, but he hadn't liked the idea of the Basilisk venom
spilling open in his pocket. Nor had he liked the idea of carrying a vial in his hand; he doubted that
anyone would be able to identify its provenance in the few seconds it took to pass someone in the
hall, but there were few potions that came in such a bright, noxious colour—and those that were,
were known to be rather deadly. And not something he could explain away as a special Head Boy
errand.

The Common Room was occupied by First and Second Year students too young to visit
Hogsmeade, playing draughts or copying each other's homework. As he passed, they scrambled off
the armchair by the fire—his armchair—but he made no expression of reproval, proceeding directly
to the Seventh Year boys' dormitory.

The dormitory was empty, but the room had been cleaned and the beds made during his absence,
the pyjamas that Tom's dorm mates had thrown over their bedposts washed, cleaned, and folded at
the foot of each bed. Tom's pyjamas were there as well, folded so that his initials embroidered on
the breast pocket were facing upward. His grandmother's work—she seemed to fear that while
Tom was away at school, he would forget that he was part of the family, and so it was her duty to
remind him.

The embroidery matched the initials embossed on his school trunk, another one of Mary Riddle's
indulgences. Tom flipped the lid back and dug right down to the bottom of the trunk, where he'd
stored his potions chest.

Within it, arranged in gleaming rows, was his collection of potions. Acromantula venom, labelled
from the date of harvest, the earlier samples thin and watery and too weak to fetch a good price at
market. Draught of the Living Death, fed to the Acromantula when the holidays arrived and Tom
couldn't bring it meals or Vanish its wastes. And a few experimental brews of his Confusion
Concoction. He'd won Slytherin a Quidditch Cup with it in Fourth Year, and although he was an
adult who could cast Confundus Charms whenever he pleased, he was reluctant to discard
something that had worked so well, and had given him so many good memories. (He hadn't
forgotten Mrs. Cole from the orphanage, not by any measure.)
Tom set the bottled mermaid's blood into a few empty slots in the corner, rearranging the older vials
to make more room.

It was then that he came across a scroll of parchment that he hadn't looked at in many months, since
the beginning of the summer holidays.

File #DI-682. Persons of Interest.

There were names on the list that he'd marked after speaking to Mr. Pacek at the Grangers' home in
June. Bührmann, Eglitis, Gerdt, Grozbiecki... The names of those who sympathised with the likes
of Gellert Grindelwald. Reading over the list, Tom recalled the dream he'd nurtured from Second
Year, that of the fat golden medallion strung on a silk ribbon, the premier accolade of Wizarding
Britain.

"How easy do you think it is to get an Order of Merlin in peacetime?"

It wasn't peacetime now, but Tom didn't know how long that might last. From interrogating
Travers, the Ministry and the Board of Governors had stationed Aurors in Hogsmeade for the
protection of the students. There was an Auror liaison who had, several times, been invited to
meals at the High Table by Headmaster Dippet. Watching the table, Tom had observed the Auror's
valiant efforts in catching Dumbledore's ear, and their passionate debate which involved plenty of
finger-jabbing, beard-stroking, and tablecloth strategising with salt cellars and drinking goblets.

Tom set the scroll back in the potion chest, organising the vials of Basilisk venom in the remaining
slots, just as the dormitory door swung open with a creak.

"What's that smell?" came Nott's voice from the threshold. "Who's in here?"

Tom stood up, tucking his last vial of venom under his sleeve and out of sight. "What are you
doing here? I thought you were spending the afternoon in the village."

"The others wanted to try the dragon's blood whisky," said Nott, scowling. "Never liked the stuff—
it gives me indigestion. What are you doing here, Riddle? Why do you smell like... is that fish?"

"Nevermind that," said Tom quickly. "Am I mis-remembering, or did the Prophet say you scored
an Outstanding O.W.L of ninety-six percent in Arithmancy?"

"Ninety-six, brought up to ninety-nine with the advanced extension questions," Nott replied. "If
you want help with your homework, why aren't you asking Granger? She doesn't shy away from
telling everyone that she got full marks."

"I don't need help with homework," said Tom coolly. "I've more important things to attend to."

"Things like..." Nott glanced over his shoulder, then shut and locked the door. "Like the Chamber,
you mean?"

Tom gave an unconcerned wave of his hand. "More important things than the Chamber."

"What!" Nott gaped at him. "But we spent—I spent—the whole of last year looking for it. And we
found it! What could be more important than that?"

"The future of Magical Britain, maybe?" said Tom.

Nott didn't look impressed. "You're going to take up Sluggy's offer to join the Aurors, then."

"And sign up to spend years sitting behind a desk, memorising rules out of a book?" scoffed Tom.
"I don't need to tell you that my future takes precedence above anything else."

"No, you don't," Nott agreed. "So. You want my help with an off-the-books project, without
Granger. No Granger, no Aurors. I don't think I'd be wrong in guessing that this scheme you've
come up with is either very dangerous, very risky, or very stupid."

"It's very worthwhile," said Tom.

"Oh, is it?" said Nott. "I'm not convinced."

"I have a plan," said Tom. The vial of Basilisk venom dropped out of his sleeve, and coming to a
swift decision, he tossed it to Nott. "Catch."

"Wha—" Nott yelped, as the small glass bottle, three inches long and no broader than a man's
thumb, flew through the air. Nott caught it by the tips of his fingers, a graceless fumble unworthy
of the greenest reserve Seeker. "What's this, Riddle? What kind of game are you playing?"

Tom watched him, a humourless smile forming on his face. "What do you think it is?"

"What have you done now?" asked Nott, sighing deeply. He rolled the vial between his fingers,
tipping it upside down, then swirling it to inspect the viscosity, clarity, and hue of the liquid within.
"It's... no, it can't be..." He looked up at Tom, his eyes narrowed. "There's no possibility of
flogging this off without the Department of Magical Creatures putting you at the top of their list."

"I'm not going to sell it," said Tom. "I want to use it."

"'It'," Nott said, sounding contemplative, "is under your control?"

"Unquestionably."

"Since you managed this—" Nott tapped the vial, "—and didn't get yourself killed, then I suppose
I'll have to believe you."

"There's no doubting the word of an honest man," said Tom amiably. "Now, if you'll excuse me,
I'm going to have a wash."

"Wait, Riddle," said Nott, holding up the vial. "Don't you want your... ah, 'parsley juice' back?"

"I told you our arrangement could be worth your while," Tom replied. "Keep it. There's more of
that where it came from."

Tom picked up his pyjamas and strode to the dormitory bathroom, closing the door. When he
turned on the shower tap and let the warm water rinse away the evidence of the day's labour, he
heard a low, whispering voice rise up from the drainage grate beneath his feet.

Blood of my blood...
 Dignity
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1944

The letter came addressed to a 'Madam Riddle'.

Hermione felt a pang of discomfiture slipping the envelope into her pocket, as if she'd just been
caught doing something she wasn't supposed to do—rummaging through a neighbour's dustbins or
claiming reserved seats in a crowded restaurant under someone else's name. There was no crime, no
trace of true delinquency, but it was a breach of civilised society's social contract. It was like
leaving a public toilet unflushed, or taking that last slice of cake without first offering it to the other
people at the table. An action that would persistently torment the conscience of the perpetrator
more than any victim, if there was a victim at all...

The feeling of discomfort intensified when Hermione slit the wax seal with her thumb and read the
letter's contents.

Dear Madam Riddle,

Advancement at the Ministry of Magic is not determined by a witch or wizard's visible

dedication to official duty, but how inclined others are to judging them affable and agreeable.
Putting in an adequate effort in office workday duties is enough for junior positions; for
elevation to senior positions, an enterprising witch is expected to attend various social
functions outside the office, first as a participant, and eventually as a hostess. Naturally,
hostessing is an easier task for witches of means, whose family can lend her a parlour and
waitstaff, while she devotes her time to securing the good regard of her superiors and
colleagues.

This is the true usefulness of labour-saving spells: one woman, in a short time, can bake a
tower of vol-au-vents, press a galantine, set a terrine, and have them prepared and preserved
days before the soirée. If she follows a set of written instructions, any witch can feel confident
in entertaining on her own merits—hers, and of course, Mr. Bertram's...

"This is ridiculous," Hermione muttered, dropping the letter to the library table and letting out a
huff of frustration.

"What sensibilities of yours have been offended today?" asked Nott, yawning. He dropped into the
seat opposite hers, and a heavy textbook smacked onto the table a second later, followed by a
billowing cloud of grey dust.
"Government positions," Hermione said irritably, fanning away the dust and wrinkling her nose,
"are decided on a basis of dinner party invitations. It's... appalling!"

Once she'd spoken her thoughts aloud, she realised that nothing about this notion was new or
original. Office social functions in Wizarding Britain might come with the expectation that a
working witch should pull double duty on preparing food and entertaining guests, but at least
witches were offered office employment and considered for promotions. For generations, the
politics of Muggle Britain had concentrated power within a select group of 'Old Boys', and if their
parties had had female guests, Hermione was of a mind to guess that they'd be an entirely different
category of 'working women'.

"Is there a problem?" asked Nott, chin propped on the heel of his hand. He flicked open the front
cover of his book and listlessly began scanning the table of the contents. "I see nothing at all worth
remarking about here."

"These people, people who work at the Ministry of Magic, make decisions that will affect your
life," said Hermione. "And they're being judged on qualifications that are irrelevant to their official
duties. Anyone should be concerned!"

"No one who's completely incompetent stays for long, don't worry," said Nott, with an ambivalent
shrug of his shoulders. "I believe your concern, as usual, is based on a combination of ignorance
and mistaken assumption."

"Well, I beg your pardon!" Hermione said stiffly. "Ignorance, really?"

"As usual," said Nott, turning over to the next page in his book, "I try not to hold what you can't
help against you, Granger. What you don't understand is that a Ministry career is a career for life,
and most wizards expect to spend decades in the same office. Twenty to thirty years at the job isn't
unusual for people who live as long as we do—I know for a fact that there's a witch in the
Department of Magical Education who's been marking N.E.W.T.s for nearly sixty years, with not a
single whisper of retirement. Even those who do resign their post for reasons of health or capability
often find a means to stay on with their Department—Travers' father retired from active duty with
the Aurors, but still serves as an advisor in their Training Standards Commission."

"And how exactly does that relate to dinner parties?"

"If you're going to have someone sitting at the next desk over for years and years, it's not enough
that they're able to fulfill whatever tasks are required of them. No, you ought to make quite sure
that you can tolerate all aspects of their presence," said Nott, reaching under the table for his bag,
from which he drew out a blank scroll of parchment and a rumpled-looking quill. He began
furiously transcribing from the textbook, continuing to speak in a rather distracted voice.

"The way that the politics at the Ministry works, candidates for Minister for Magic are drawn from
a pool of Department heads and deputies. In theory, any magical citizen of Wizarding Britain—
Squibs are disqualified, naturally—is allowed to toss their name into the hat, but an effective
Minister requires the unanimous co-operation of his Departments. An outsider, you see, would
never have the sort of understanding that comes from years of close acquaintance," said Nott. "It's
the personal touch. You can't know someone—you can't begin to trust them—if you've only ever
seen them at their desks. Just look at our classmates, our fellow students."

"What about them?" Hermione said, her expression doubtful. "I think I know our classmates better
than you do. I'm Head Girl, so I have to talk to everyone, in every House, too. And you're... well,
you—and you don't talk to anyone unless you can work in some way to insult them, which means
no one wants to talk to you."

"How well do you think our classmates can cast a Shield Charm?" Nott asked. He rummaged
through his bag once again, this time pulling out what appeared to be a small wooden ladder, the
rungs rattling with row after row of small clay beads, painted with runes.

"Passably enough," said Hermione. "It was part of the Defence practical component of the
O.W.L.s."

Nott had unfolded his abacus—there was nothing else it could have been—on the desk, and was
sliding the beads from one side to the other, muttering to himself. "No, carry the two here; it has to
be symmetrical or the instability will degrade the base enchantment... Three's good, seven's better
—but it's an odd number..." Without looking up, he said, "Are their Shields consistent each time
they cast? No flicker or fade—not too forceful with the power behind their spells, not too
conservative either?"

"I... I'm not certain," said Hermione in a hesitant voice.

"In a paired duel against a competent opponent, which of your classmates would you choose as
your partner?"

"Tom, of course."

"You can't pick him," said Nott quickly. "He's your opponent."

"And I can't choose you, can I?"

"I'm the spectator."

Hermione sighed. "Perhaps someone from our homework club... Rosier, maybe? He knows strategy
is more than 'whoever gets the first spell out, wins'. I suppose I don't know, actually."

"You don't know because there's not one of them you feel you can trust," said Nott, triumph
colouring his voice. "Admit it, Granger. You don't know these people beyond their basic textbook
qualifications. After all these years, you're still an outsider." He glanced up from his textbook. "And
the only people you've actually considered are ones you know from our, ah, extra-curriculars."

"You've made your point, alright," Hermione conceded, gritting her teeth. "But I don't see why the
extra-curriculars at the Ministry of Magic have to be dinner parties."

"It's an adult thing, I expect," said Nott.

"We're adults," Hermione pointed out.

"We're of-age, in the technical sense," said Nott. "But we hardly go on about how the neighbour
over the hedge has done this or that with her singing fountain, nor do we have debates on what
wallpaper pattern goes best in the drawing room. When you're an adult—a real, settled adult—
you'll find that for some reason, those particular lines of conversation have somehow become
meaningful."

"I think it's possible for an adult to be 'settled', without wasting their time on trivial details like
that," said Hermione. "I, for one, certainly hope to be one."
"The issue," Nott said, emphasising each word with a sharp jab of quill to parchment, "isn't that you
couldn't do that if you tried—and between you and Riddle, whatever you truly wanted, I'm sure
you'd find some way to achieve it. The problem is that every other adult is pre-occupied with these
trifles, and if you don't partake, you will always remain an outsider."

"You think I should be someone that I'm not," said Hermione, frowning. "Put on a false pretense,
just to make other people like me?"

"I don't see why you're bothered by the idea," replied Nott blithely. "Riddle does it all the time."

"Tom doesn't do that!"

"'Oh, Professor, please, sir, I found something in a book the other day that I just don't understand',"
said Nott in a sing-song voice, cocking his head and fluttering his eyelashes in a rapid beat. He
looked as if he was suffering from a bout of apoplexy. "'Oh, Miss Granger, my darling dearest, have
I told you how absolutely fetching you look today?'"

Hermione scowled. "Tom doesn't do that!"

"Only because he has a shred left of his dignity," said Nott. "But if he knew it would endear you to
him—like it does to the teachers—I'd imagine he'd throw that last shred to the wind."

"He doesn't need a pretense for me to like him," said Hermione, "so I don't see why pretenses are at
all necessary."

She thought the same thing about Tom telling her Mum that they were walking out. It wasn't
impossible for them to have come up with another defence, a truthful—if convoluted—explanation
for any instances of strange behaviour that summer, without the mention of anything to do with the
Chamber of Secrets. 'Walking out', Tom's excuse, was believable without supplying further details
of How and Why. But for all its advantages and conveniences, Hermione couldn't see it as
necessary.

Within the realm of social communication, there were things Hermione deemed more important
than others. Frankness and factuality, directness without ambiguity: together, these were the
foundation of effective communication. In becoming Head Girl, Hermione had evaluated what
traits should be espoused in good leaders, and on this list, 'clever pretenses' was nowhere to be
found. For all that she and Tom were equal in rank to the eyes of their fellow students, it was in this
that their approaches to leadership diverged. Tom would have said that effective communication
hinged on personability and persuasion; it was more than just relaying information in as efficient a
manner as possible, but creating a lasting impression so that the other party would not only have
the appropriate information, but leave the conversation with an appropriate opinion.

And it was this that made Tom popular among teachers and students alike, more popular than
Hermione who thought facts and numbers to be more persuasive than Tom's emphasis on feelings
and aspirations. The fact that, after all these years of hard work and high marks, Hermione had
attained the Head Girl position, equal to Tom's Head Boy rank—that had to mean something, didn't
it?

It meant that Tom's way of doing things—treating people like part of a social game that could be
won or lost, instead of like people—was no more superior a method of attaining success than
Hermione's own methods.
"So," said Nott, his quill pausing mid-sentence, "you do like him, then?"

"I... I'm not going to say," said Hermione primly.

"And you say you don't have any use for pretenses," sniffed Nott. "At least Riddle, with his
minuscule shred of dignity, recognises a sham act when he's putting one on."

"I don't believe that a library is the place to discuss personal subjects like this," Hermione said,
defaulting to more familiar territory—the comfortingly impersonal mantle of authority, where
personal sentiments could be shielded from scrutiny by the rigid barrier of convention and
propriety. "We're supposed be doing homework, not gossiping over whom someone might or might
not be sweet on!" Hermione pursed her lips, eyeing Nott's abacus, his pile of scribbled notes, and
the textbook that took up most of his side of the table. "Tabular Array of Material Resonance.
That's not part of this week's assignment—what project are you working on? Let me see your
work!"

Hermione leaned over the table, prompting Nott to block her view by holding his hands very
protectively over his desk space.

"I've taken first in Arithmancy for the last four years," said Hermione. "And I got a perfect
Outstanding on our O.W.L.s. If you're working on a private project, I can look over your numbers!"

"How on Earth," Nott grumbled, sliding his parchment away before Hermione could grab it, "does
Riddle stand this?"

"Oh, I used to offer him my help," said Hermione, "but Tom never shows his work properly. That's
why he's always the first one to bring his exam paper up to the professor's desk, but he never scores
higher than I do. Tom says it's faster for him to tally and sum in his head, but being fast isn't the
point of the exercise, is it? It's not just about being right, it's about producing a proof that shows
everyone how you got there, so they can check it themselves."

"That's typical for projects intended for eventual publication," said Nott. "Projects undertaken for
one's personal pleasure don't have to subject themselves to such public scrutiny."

"Personal pleasure?" Hermione repeated. "This is for your entertainment? But—why? What
happened to the Chamber of—of You-Know-What? I thought that was your private project."

"I've had a change of heart," said Nott mysteriously. "But the library is, as you pointed out earlier,
an unsuitable place to discuss, hah, personal subjects."

He's one to talk about pretenses, thought Hermione, watching Nott roll up his parchment. When he
had it into a tight scroll, he ducked under the table to pick up his bag from the floor at his feet.

Hermione lunged forward, snatching the scroll out of his hand.

"H-hey!" cried Nott. "What are you—Granger, that's mine! Give it back!"

"I'll give it back when I'm done," said Hermione, quickly vacating her seat and removing herself
out from the range of Nott's flailing hands.

Prepared goatskin imbued with permanent binding enchantment, stability requirements to last
until retrograde Sagittarius reaches—
There was a scrawled list of symbols representing planets and star signs, the traditional wizarding
system to denote time and date. This system had fallen out of use for most day-to-day applications
(The Daily Prophet used the same numerical day-month-year arrangement as any other newspaper
published in Muggle Britain) but it was nevertheless taught in Hogwarts' Astronomy class because
certain N.E.W.T.-level subjects could not be studied without it. Alchemy was one such subject.
Advanced Divination and Arithmancy were the others.

Linked conditional spells in following order:

(imp) concealment, obfuscation, compulsion.

(alt) animation sequence, ejection of internal cache.
(ter) delayed activation destruction.

Anti-jinx, anti-tampering effect necessary to prevent—

"Accio parchment!"

The scroll shot out of Hermione's hands, just as she was in the middle of digesting the list of
technical effects that made up Nott's enchantment project. Enchantment was a magical discipline
separate to Charms, although they often produced indistinguishable magical effects. The former
required thorough preparation to achieve a successful result, whilst the latter was as simple as
casting a spell and adjusting it with a thought. But the effort was compensated: an enchanted teapot
could heat water to the right temperature each time, producing a perfect pot of tea at three o'clock
on the dot, kept warm until it was ready to drink. It was simple and automated, it didn't require one
to remember to set the kettle on early for the tea to be ready at three, and a child without a wand
could make use of it. A Muggle could too, if they took care to hide it from other Muggles and
wizarding authorities.

But this wasn't a Warming Charm for a teapot. It was a charm bound to parchment; Hermione had
studied them years ago, when she'd struggled to enchant her study planners.

And the spell effects, concealment and obfuscation—of course she would recognise them, in this
particular rune sequence variant containing algiz and reversed thurisaz. She had seen it written into
the snow more than a few times.

"You've adapted the concealment effect of my modified Poacher's Pall ward," spoke Hermione
slowly, "for some sort of Howler? Why?"

"Academic curiosity," said Nott, stuffing the parchment into his bag and buckling the flap.

"Seems like a lot of effort for something that's supposed to be a personal pleasure," said Hermione
in a sceptical voice. "You could have saved some time by buying pre-made Howlers from the
stationery supply in Hogsmeade. They have new birthday ones that let you send a greeting with
music."

Hermione had sent one to her parents as a novelty on her birthday. Wizards had no gramophones
and thus no vinyl gramophone records, and she'd wondered how they saved sounds and music for
later listening. She knew that portraits could be imbued with a wizard or witch's likeness, with a
shallow reflection of sentience, and could engage in conversation when asked the right questions.
That capacity for interaction, limited as it was, made wizarding portraits superior to vinyl
recordings, which saved no more than five minutes of material per side. But unlike the vinyl
records pressed in factories by the hundred, portraits were expensive and created on an individual
basis by master craftsmen, unattainable for the average family who couldn't afford the services of
someone like the 'sweet-spoken' Laurent Piémont, the artist behind the boudoir portrait that
Hermione had interrogated in Second Year.

"My tastes are myriad, my pleasures unfathomable. Is that such a difficult thing to believe?"

"No," said Hermione, "the difficult thing is believing that you can discuss the matter of tastes
without trying to prove that mine are terrible and yours are better."

"I've nothing to prove; we both know that," said Nott, his expression blank. "Now, if you'll pardon
me..."

"You didn't buy a Howler because everyone recognises the red envelopes," said Hermione,
remembering the first time she'd seen one in the Great Hall at breakfast. Jasper Hastings' mother in
First Year, after a professor's letter had detailed the disciplinary actions taken in the wake of the
Sorting Hat incident. Howlers were loud and obtrusive and distinctive, but that was their purpose—
they were not only meant to send a message to someone (if that was the goal, then a regular letter
could do the job, without the Howler's approximate limit of a hundred spoken words), but to ensure
that everyone knew that the message had been delivered.

"And for some reason," she continued, "you're trying to adapt a concealment charm to it. Having a
spell conceal a message's sender or purpose would have its purpose defeated if it came in a
distinctive envelope that spoke in the sender's voice. Now, what reason would someone have to
send an anonymous Howler?"

"I've no idea," said Nott.

"I have one."

Nott shrugged. "Good for you."

"I think you're trying to prank someone!" said Hermione, giving him an accusative glare.

"And do you really expect me to confirm it if I am?" Nott asked.

"Just tell me that it isn't Tom," said Hermione. Tom's moods were often unpredictable, but not even
on a day buoyed up by a sack of reader fan mail could she ever imagine Tom taking a common
schoolboy prank in good humour. Against certain expectations, Tom did have a sense of humour,
but it was somewhat... idiosyncratic.

"It's not Riddle."

"Is it a teacher?"

"No."

"Is it a student?"

"As long as it's not you, why does it matter?"

"So," said Hermione, her eyes narrowing, "it is a student."

"It could be."

"Pranks are against the rules!"

"Only if you get caught." Nott regarded her coolly. "But at the moment, there isn't any pranking to
catch. The only evidence you've got is a theoretical exercise, and for all you know, it may well just
remain... theoretical."

"Well, theoretically," said Hermione, "how were you going to animate this personal project of
yours? I could see that you're using a Howler's enchantment structure as your point of departure—a
spell sequence bound to parchment that relays a message when the seal is broken, and destroys
itself when it's finished. But I didn't see any variation of Ansuz, which I'd expect for something
whose purpose is to lodge an aural recording."

"I stripped that part out," said Nott. "I didn't need it."

"For that 'ejection sequence', whatever that was meant to be," said Hermione, frowning in thought.
"It looked very clumsy and haphazard—as if it were taken from something else and pasted in
without considering how it balances with a new set of parameters: surface, medium, and dimension.
I noticed it immediately, and I assumed that it had to be a prank, because I've seen something
similar in the past. It reminded me of that children's game, you know, the one with the little tokens
you have to throw on the floor."

"It's called Gobstones, Granger."

"It's jacks for wizards. It's the same thing!"

"You're a wizard," Nott said. "You ought to know the difference."

"I do!" said Hermione. "I've never played the game, but I do know that Gobstones shoot ink at the
loser, which is why I've never wanted to join in. And in the same way that you took my
concealment runes for this project, you've done the same for the Gobstone enchantment—reserve,
conceal, expel. Your Howler isn't meant to send a message to someone. It's for dumping ink—no, it
doesn't have to be ink, does it?—on someone, just for the sake of a joke."

Hermione glared at him and added, "What's it to be, then? Blood? Dirty bath water? Or some sort
of potion? That could be very dangerous, I'll have you know!"

"It's not a potion," said Nott. "It's just... juice. Pumpkin juice."

"Oh," said Hermione, deflating a bit. Juice was annoying, but it wasn't dangerous. She didn't
approve of pranking (Tom might have had an erratic sense of humour; on this subject, however,
Hermione had none) but the morning owl delivery did worse, especially when a heavy parcel
dropped onto the edge of a platter and sent breakfast sausages coated in hot oil flying over the
dining table. "Um. So, have you tried it?"

"You mean to say, if I've tested it out?"

"Yes," said Hermione, "because how else would you know if you were right or not unless it
worked? It's a personal project, and without others reviewing your work, of course there isn't any
other way to make sure of it."

Nott regarded her with a speculative look. "I... may have a sample that I've tested a few times."
"How did it go?" asked Hermione curiously. "With so many disparate elements patched together, I
can't imagine that your result turned out at all stable. Did it leak pumpkin juice on you before you'd
set the seal?"

"It set itself on fire as soon as I inscribed the final sequence, actually," said Nott. "A loss of two
days' effort, and I can't start it again until I'm certain which section of the pattern is unstable."

"The whole thing is unstable," said Hermione. "It's like trying to hybridise a rabbit and a mushroom
and expecting to get a furry creature that sprouts from the ground and breeds through spores. Even
if you managed to create it, you couldn't expect it to last more than a few days before it... it expired.
And nevermind how cruel it is to do that to an innocent animal." She shook her head. "I think
you're wasting your time when you have more important things to prioritise. You mustn't forget that
our N.E.W.T.s are only months away! At least most of our Chamber preparations were done during
the summer."

"Unstable or not, that's no reason to give up," said Nott. "If a wizard could create the first breeding
pair of hippogriffs, then I'm sure I can enchant a simple Howler without having it explode in my
face."

"Wizards," spoke Hermione with some uncertainty, "created hippogriffs?"

She hadn't chosen to take the Care of Magical Creatures elective in Third Year, unlike Tom,
preferring Muggle Studies instead. She'd read of magical creatures—and studied some of them for
the Potions O.W.L.s—but the extent of her education was limited to what had been published in
textbook bestiaries. Hippogriffs were magical creatures whose feathers were used for quills and
wand cores, and whose livers were an ingredient in the Invigoration Draught, a common remedy
for the breathlessness and fatigue caused by high-altitude broomstick travel. She'd memorised the
information; she had accepted it as fact, had trusted that the authors wouldn't have been able to
publish their books if they were inaccurate, and she hadn't thought to question why or how such
creatures even existed, because they were magical creatures.

"Did you think that an eagle and a horse would have sought one another as a mate without magical
intervention?" Nott scoffed. "The most powerful force in the world is a wizard in possession of
imagination and intent."

"That sounds like something Tom would say," Hermione remarked.

"Riddle has... odd ideas, sometimes," admitted Nott. "But it doesn't mean that he's wrong."

"I don't think Tom would recognise it if he were ever wrong about something," said Hermione. "If
he tries to sell you on one of his grand ideas, don't encourage him."

Nott made an awkward coughing sound. "At least he has ideas. All you've got is a list of reasons
why my project is a failure and why I should go back to safe and conventional exercises like the
ones in the textbook. The Self-Stirring Potion Ladle, or the Keep-Warm Toast Rack." Nott made a
face. "How exciting. How imaginative. How... Hermione Granger."

"I don't know what that's supposed to mean," said Hermione, folding her arms. "Being Hermione
Granger isn't anything to be ashamed of."

"Is there anything to be proud of, either?" said Nott in an impassive voice. "You can complete the
classroom exercises—you can show them off to the N.E.W.T. examiners—but when you get your
perfect Outstanding, you might realise that you've earned no accomplishments of your own,
nothing more than the basic textbook qualifications. That's what it means to be a Hermione
Granger. It means finishing assignments weeks before the submission date, answering every
question word-perfect to the book, and charming a ladle to turn the requisite ten stirs per minute, no
more, no less—because there is nothing more important to the small-minded than the achievement
of small-minded objectives."

Listening to Nott go on so dispassionately that he could have been reading off last week's
Quidditch scores, Hermione scowled, trying to think up a good refutation on the spot.

"—What could anyone expect from someone who thinks that an institution of hundreds of wizards
working in twenty-one different departments, commanded by an elected head of state, could be
managed by those lacking in social aptitudes, as long as they possessed the right textbook
qualifications..."

But what could she say?

It wasn't just Nott's presumption that needled at her, nor the graceless condemnation that ruffled at
Hermione's long-held faith in the powers of kindness and common decency, but his wrongness. He
was wrong; Hermione wasn't small-minded, she was sensible. Of course it was absurd to want a
title like 'Dictator for Life', as Tom did. Of course it was impetuous to want the title of 'Minister for
Magic', an idea that Tom had presented to her years ago, Wizarding Britain's equal and counterpart
to Muggle Britain's Prime Minister Churchill. She was eighteen years old. She was logical in
thought and disposition. She understood what things were practical; she sought practical goals—
and, yes, what did it matter that they weren't extravagant?

Small goals, small steps, were more practical than reckless leaps. Small goals were attainable.
Sound. And from a certain perspective, a risk so safe that they weren't much of a risk at all. But
attaining them was still a worthy undertaking. Worthy of being called a success. An achievement.

Wasn't it?

"Granger?" asked Nott, cocking his head. "Oh, so you've nothing to say, then. I'm not surprised,
frankly the truth isn't something one can just—"

Hermione found her vision swimming and her palms grow warm, prickling with a film of sweat.

An instant later, something within her snapped and broke—something in her eardrums popped—
and her hand was burning, as if she had held it over her cauldron burner for a second too long,
while Nott had his own hand pressed to his cheek, his shoulders hunched, and a wisp of hair,
separated from his previously neat and oil-slicked coiffure, shadowed his eyes.

Nott straightened up slowly, wincing in pain. "I have to wonder how Riddle takes this sort of
treatment from you," he said, then his nose wrinkled in distaste. "No, don't answer that, Granger. I
think I'd rather not know."

"You deserved it," said Hermione stubbornly. Her trembling hand, now hidden in the folds of her
skirt, felt oddly tender and hot.

"Well, this proves that you're not the most perfect student, after all," said Nott, rubbing his cheek.
"You didn't have to prove it quite so, ah, thoroughly."
"You were wrong," insisted Hermione. "I couldn't let it stand. And your spell sequences are wrong,
too. When you introduce a new element, like a substance in liquid form like pumpkin juice, it
warps an enchantment boundary that was originally configured for a planar solid—like a sheet of
parchment."

"If I showed it to you," Nott ventured, glancing cautiously over his shoulder, "do you think you
could fix the enchantment?"

"I think I could do a better job than you."

"And would I end up in detention for my troubles?"

"Are you worried about your permanent record?"

"No," said Nott, "but it'd be a nuisance to have to buy Riddle off with a favour or two to get out of
it."

"Tom is going to have to explain—" Hermione began, but catching the look on Nott's face, she let
out a weary breath and said, "later, then. Show me your enchantment. If you can suture three spells
together into a working product, prank or not, then I suppose the Self-Stirring Ladle exercise for
the end-of-term project wouldn't pose a challenge for you."

"Well..." said Nott slowly, "if you're earnest about it, then you must know that I take great care in
not being seen by a professor."

"A library wouldn't be the best place to open a Howler," Hermione conceded. "Modified or not."

"Good," said Nott. "Then you won't mind packing your things and joining me for a little walk?"

"A walk? Where are you going?"

"To the only place in the castle where official authority holds no sway. Where else?"

"What!" said Hermione. "How can any place exist like that?"

"Oh, don't worry," said Nott, giving her a pensive look. "There are rules. There is authority. But
you have the great fortune in being exempt."

The path Nott took down to the lowest levels of the dungeons was long and winding, passing the
kitchens on the upper levels, which filled the closest hallways with the smell of baking bread and
roasted meat, then past the Potions classrooms on the middle level, which gave off a faint and acrid
stench of pickling solution and burnt metal. Hermione saw fewer and fewer familiar paintings until
there were none at all, and this deep in the bowels of the castle, there were no window views to
confirm her location. No sunlight ever shone here; the only light came from the wall torches, and in
the gaps between them, the stone glistened with damp, dripping with water and a coat of luxuriant
green moss.

Hermione followed Nott, who stopped, turned back several times, and led her thrice past the same
tapestry of a witch shaking down fruits into a basket from a scraggly old apple tree. Hermione
began to think that he was deliberately trying to confuse her sense of direction.

"It's the Slytherin Common Room, isn't it?" Hermione asked, drawing her robes tighter around
herself. The Hogwarts dungeons were cold year-round, but in November, Hermione could see her
breath rise in a white fog every time she opened her mouth.

"Don't tell me that Riddle has brought you here before," Nott grumbled, taking another tight turn so
quickly that Hermione had to scurry after him to keep up.

"No," said Hermione, "but I remember Tom saying that students from other Houses weren't
allowed, and that if an outside student was caught, the House would have a vote on the punishment.
Is this a good idea? It doesn't sound like one..."

"I keep my work locked in my trunk. The dorm should be empty at this time of day. It's a Saturday;
the others will be at the Quidditch pitch, or stocking up at the tavern in Hogsmeade—I swear, ever
since we all came of-age, it's as if they decided they had to make up for seventeen years of
deprivation." Nott gave a reproachful sniff. "And Riddle... will be up to whatever mysterious thing
has caught his interest this week."

"What about the other students?"

"Disillusionment Charm," said Nott. "Whoever designed the Slytherin quarters had very specific
tastes—high ceilings, dim lights, and shadows in every corner. No one will notice a thing."

Nott suddenly stopped at an unremarkable stretch of stone wall, in between two guttering torches.

"Why are we stopping?" began Hermione.

"Asclep—" Nott, without warning, burst out in an odd sound, as if he were choking on a throat
lozenge in the midst of a sneeze. "—Achoo!"

The wall slid open.

"Cast your charm, hurry up," said Nott, stepping through. "And try not to bump into anyone."

Where the Ravenclaw Common Room was bright and airy, an upper-floor tower room with
windows circling all the way around, the Slytherin Common Room was dark and forbidding. The
floor and walls were of smooth mortared stone, with small islands of carpet spread beneath the feet
of tables and chairs, but bare elsewhere. One central fireplace dominated the room, logs burning
merrily under a ten-foot-high shield mounted over the mantle—a serpent with gemstone eyes on a
silver field hammered with ripples that resembled water, the Slytherin House crest. Before the fire
was a large winged armchair surrounded by several less impressive chairs; these were all currently
unoccupied, but others, farther from the fire, had been taken by lower-year students with textbooks
open on their laps.

Hermione passed them quickly, and to her relief, none of them glanced her way.
Nott led her to one corner of the room, down a set of stairs so worn by the centuries that a dip had
formed in the centre of each stone riser, which descended into what turned out to be the boys' hall.

Ravenclaw had been like that too, Hermione observed. Boys and girls in two separate wings
leading off the Common Room. Girls of each year could visit the other girls' rooms, and in
Hermione's experience as a Prefect, she'd had more than a few younger girls, Muggleborns mostly,
knock on her door and ask for help with certain feminine problems. As a Prefect, she knew that she
could visit the boys' dormitory wing, but that was encroaching on the male Prefects' responsibilities
and, according to Lucretia Black's Prefect Handbook, was Not Done because it undermined the
Hogwarts student leadership system.

The Seventh Year boys' dormitory was the last door on the left side, and unlike the Ravenclaw girls'
dormitory, had no number painted on the door. Nor was there a corkboard hung on the wall that
listed the name of each girl in residence, with space to pin notes while the inhabitants were out.
(Most notes left for Hermione were enquiries about borrowing her exam revision notes, or when
she'd be finished with a book taken from the Common Room library.) Unlike any girls' dormitory
that Hermione had ever visited, this particular dormitory had a distinctive smell that Hermione
could not describe in terms other than 'conspicuously male'.

It was the herbal fragrance of men's shaving water—aniseed and cedar wood—mixed with the
crisp, resinous pine of broomstick handle wax, and the astringent lemon scent of wood polish used
by the Hogwarts custodial staff to bring out the gleam of varnished timber furniture. All of this
overlaid a certain organic odour that spontaneously sprung into existence wherever young men
shared a living space. Magical or not, the Seventh Year Slytherins were still teenage boys. They
played sports, ate a pound of meat at every meal, and skipped bathing on weekends, instead
refreshing themselves with a spell and a spritz of cologne.

Even Tom Riddle, the most-admired student in his House, with the best manners of any of his dorm
mates, was just another teenage boy when it came to basic biology. Hermione had noticed that
Tom, on the days he participated in exhibition duelling, came away looking and very clearly
smelling of his exertions. Of course, she'd never mentioned it to him—some part of her enjoyed
seeing Tom brought down to this rumpled state, without the mask of effortless perfection that he'd
constructed for the rest of the school's benefit—and she admitted, if only to herself, that it wasn't
that bad of a smell.

(Some minor base note of this specific scent may or may not have wafted out of Slughorn's cauldron
of Amortentia...)

But this wasn't just Tom Riddle. It was half a dozen boys, most of whom didn't bother putting their
clothes away after wearing them, because they were whole-heartedly assured that someone else was
going to clean up after them. There were, and always would be, servants to launder and fold their
clothes, replace their bedsheets, do up their bedcovers, and pick up that crusty old sock that had
somehow wandered under the bed and been forgotten.

Hermione let out a cough and flicked her wand over her face, dissolving her Disillusionment
Charm and summoning a small gust of air to breeze through the dormitory.

"How do you live like this?" asked Hermione, looking around the room.

The beds were canopied in sets of green velvet drapes, arranged in a row down the length of the
dormitory, the living spaces accompanied with a matched bureau, armoire, nightstand, and trunk.
Small signs of personalisation abounded: a green-and-silver garland tied around a bedpost,
fluttering paper Snitches taped to a headboard, animated family photographs in a triptych frame
sitting on a nightstand, and on one bed, a folded coverlet of thick brown sable fur. Hermione
recalled that Mrs. Riddle had had a coat with a sable collar, and the other women at the Little
Hangleton church had given it envious glances all through the service.

"By reminding myself that everyone else suffers as much as I do," said Nott, striding down the row
of beds, until he reached the pair closest to the far window, which showed a view more fitting for a
porthole in a submarine vessel than a student's bedroom. The view beyond the glass was dark and
murky, obstructed by the swaying water weeds grown out of the stone bedrock beneath the castle
proper. This late in the year, Hermione doubted that anyone living at this depth would see a hint of
sunlight, even at noon.

While Nott unlocked his trunk, at the foot of the bed with the fur coverlet, Hermione inspected the
arched window, the two supporting columns on either side of the glass panes flowing into the
Norman-style stonework of the vaulted ceiling. The bed closest to it, she saw, lacked the green-and-
silver decorative touches of the others. It was the plainest and neatest: the covers were drawn up
and smoothed down, the bureau had no socks or neckties peeping out of the drawers, and the
nightstand had on it a single book, but was otherwise spotless.

"This one's Tom's, isn't it?" asked Hermione, wandering over. A set of pyjamas had been placed on
the bed, thick cotton flannel with a faint woven pattern of pin-dot stripes. Hadn't Mrs. Riddle given
Tom a set of pyjamas like this for Christmas last year? She remembered seeing those pyjamas every
other morning that summer, when she'd woken up with her nose mashed into Tom's chest, and a
line of small circles imprinted on her cheek from his buttons.

Nott looked up from digging through his trunk. "Yes—ever since they took out the chamber pots,
the beds closest to the bathroom are in highest demand." He grimaced, then continued, "And on top
of that, we all thought, back in First Year, that it was best to have as little to do with Riddle as
possible."

Hermione sat down on Tom's bed and gave an amused snort. "How times have—"

"Get off!" said Nott sharply, rearing back and reaching for his wand. He brandished it in front of
him, murmured "Protego!" under his voice, then cautiously asked, "Do you feel anything odd? Any
pain or discomfort?"

"What?" said Hermione. "Why, should I?"

"No one touches Riddle's things," said Nott. "The last time Riddle noticed his books had been
borrowed without asking, he put powdered baneberry leaf on a different person's toothbrush every
night until someone stepped forward to confess. That was... October of Third Year, I think."

"Baneberry?" Hermione said, aghast. "That's poisonous!"

"The berries are. The leaves just make you vomit." Nott lowered his wand, then added, in a
thoughtful voice, "You know, we never figured out how he did it. By the sixth night, we'd started
hiding our toothbrushes in our bureau drawers and brushing our teeth when he was out, but Riddle
managed to dose them anyway."

"You sound as if you admire him," said Hermione disapprovingly.

"He has a way of producing the most convincing arguments," said Nott. "It's quite hard to resist, as
I'm sure you know."

"His being convincing," Hermione said, "should have no bearing on your being convinced."

"One finds that shoulds and should nots don't last very long in Riddle's presence," Nott said,
shrugging indifferently. "I'm surprised you haven't noticed, for all the time you spend with him."

Hermione chose not to dwell on Nott's pronouncement. Instead, she opened her bag and pulled out
a fresh scroll of parchment and a sharp quill. "I thought we were going to look at your private
project."

"Prepare to be impressed, then," said Nott.

Hermione wasn't.

(She realised later that this was meant to be ironic.)

If a piece of parchment could limp, then that was what Nott's attempt at enchantment did. It flailed,
it flopped, it squirted out a weak stream of clear liquid. Nott told her it was water, and since he
hadn't minded it getting on his bed, Hermione took him at his word. All in all, it behaved more like
an ailing Flobberworm than a proper Howler that followed a smooth enchantment sequence: unfold
itself, deliver the recorded message, refold itself, then burst into a self-consuming fireball that left
no trace of ash or other residue.

Clean, efficient, and consistent.

That was the pinnacle of successful commercial enchanting. No one bought an enchanted travel
trunk if the dimensions inside changed by the day, or if there was a chance that something placed
inside it might be damaged or Vanished. No one bought an Invisibility Cloak or potion brewing
safety apron if there was a one-in-ten possibility that the enchantment would fail when used. Yes,
they were garments and, unlike solid items of wood, stone, or metal, could not be carved with
permanent runework. They lost their imbued magic over time, but their lifespan was measured and
consistent; one bought it knowing that they would need replacement or repair after a predictable
five to ten years.

"Goodness," she said, prodding at the limp and soggy piece of parchment dribbling on the
bedcover, "the instability is compounded by having a liquid element involved. What reference
tables have you been using? Our textbook says that for a medium of—"

"I've been using my own books," said Nott, showing her an antique tome he'd taken out of his
trunk.

Cutis Arcanus, read the cover; it was made of a supple, grained leather scattered over with small
dimples where the original animal's hair had once grown.

"Why are all the old books in Latin?" said Hermione irritably. She had browsed the Restricted
Section of the library with Tom a handful of times, and been disappointed to see that many of the
rarest reference books were written in Latin, Greek, or runes. Even the ones in English weren't
easily accessible; they were in an archaic form of English full of words that had fallen out of use
centuries ago—'agu terciane' or 'hele and prow'. Hermione had had to consult a dictionary to
decipher these meanings ('recurring three-day fever' and 'health and benefit'). She had noticed that
Nott, when he delved into old books during their communal study sessions, had felt no need to do
so.

"It's traditional. You might as well ask why they paint the page edges gold," said Nott. "And it
keeps children out of their parents' libraries. Can't make trouble playing with a borrowed spellbook
if you can't read it."

"Well, I can't read it!"

"My sympathies."

"So how am I supposed to help?"

Nott sighed. "The tables are in numbers, Arabic and Roman. You can read them, can't you?"

"Yes, but—"

"If you need the legends or headings, I'll read them out for you."

"Alright," said Hermione, reaching over the bed. "Give me the book, then."

"It's very valuable—look here, you can't just grab it—"

"Budge over, then—I can't see when your elbow's in the way—"

Hermione spent the next few hours inspecting Nott's notes, combing each phrase and clause for
possible ambiguities. One such instance was an inconsistency in the units of measurement, between
mass, volume, and the different systems of each. Parchment was graded based on its weight, per
hand or arm's length as determined by the supplier. A liquid—and Hermione had, for the entirety of
her potion brewing experience, converted all units used by the textbooks into litres, for accuracy's
sake—was measured in units of volume.

And here was the issue with Nott's duplicating various segments of runes, without consideration of
their origin: the units varied, without any clear specification whether the units referred to were
based on the English standard of ounces and pounds, a convention for potion recipe books
published in Britain—when they didn't just dispense with measurements altogether and ask for 'ain
porcioun of dragonne's tonge bathed in its herte-blod'—or if it was an older Germanic measuring
system, used by enchanters who bespelled their craftwork through Norse or Futhark runes.

"You use ells here," said Hermione, pointing to a line of jagged letters, then flipping to a sheet of
parchment several pages down the stack. "And drams here. Two pages over, the same object is
referred to in terms of 'droplets'—that's the hagalaz, here, connotative of storms and rain."

"That's not the subject, that's the effect," said Nott, leaning over to look.

"How am I supposed to know that?" Hermione snapped. "You haven't structured it so your subjects
go here, and the effects go there, with an assigned temporal value to each. I've never seen anything
so wishy-washy!"

"It's magic; intent matters more than anything else."

"Well, clearly your intent is subpar if what you get never matches up with what you wanted," said
Hermione. "Here, give me the book—"
Something on the nearest nightstand gave a soft chime, prompting Nott to tear his eyes away from
the parchment and stare at Hermione in alarm.

"Someone's at the door," Nott hissed. "Quick, get down."

"Where?" said Hermione.

"Under the bed, hurry!"

Nott shovelled her quills and notes into her bag, then tossed the bag into her arms.

"I didn't think anyone would be coming so soon," said Nott, lifting up one edge of the bedcover that
draped over the gap between bedframe and floor. He motioned her to slide underneath. "Normally, I
don't see them until dinner. Sometimes not even that, if they stay for the Broomsticks' Saturday
steak, kidney, and stout special."

"We've more than an hour until dinner," said Hermione, lowering herself to the floor. "Will I have
to hide until then?"

"If I see an opening, I'll Stun and Obliviate whoever comes in, while you Disillusion yourself and
sneak out. Don't go out the Common Room door immediately—wait until someone else opens it
and follow them out."

"Whatever happened to my exemption from the rules?"

"If you get caught, no one will teach you a lesson with a hex or two," said Nott, "but that's no
reason to let yourself get caught in the first place. Now be quiet, or I'll have to Silence you."

The door opened.

Hermione lay on her back under Nott's bedframe, sliding her wand out of her robe to Vanish a few
dustballs before they fell on her face and made her sneeze.

"I thought you'd be out all day," said Nott.

"Circumstances intervened," spoke the voice of Tom Ridde.

"There was someone else there?" asked Nott. "I thought the door locked from the inside."

"I didn't go to the Prefect's Bathroom."

"But," said Nott, "you did say you were 'going swimming'..."

"In the Lake," came Tom's voice again, this time followed by the swish of robes, and the shuffle of
shoe soles against the stone flags of the floor. From the view she had from the slim gap between
bedcover and floor, Hermione saw a pair of feet, shod in laced school shoes of polished black
leather, crossing to the bed next to Nott's. The laces unwound themselves, then the shoes clattered
to the floor, revealing feet in a pair of plain grey uniform socks.

"Outdoor swimming this time of year? I don't envy you that," Nott remarked. Then there was a
hitch in his voice, before he said, "Or that. Whatever happened to you? Did it—?"
"No," said Tom. Cloth rustled, and a green-lined robe dropped to the floor by Tom's bed. "The
rocks under the waterline were unexpectedly sharp. Had I tried to fix myself up then and there, I'd
have ended up with scarring."

Wood creaked; a latch opened with a metallic click and a murmured spell, as Tom dug through the
contents of his trunk. Soon after, there was a crisp pop! of a cork being drawn out of a vial, and
Hermione heard Tom draw in a sharp breath, as if he was in pain.

"Do you need a potion?" asked Nott from his bed, a foot above Hermione's head. "The others keep
a bottle of all-purpose pain reliever in the bathroom for hangovers. They go through it too quickly
to notice if you took a sip or two."

"I've had worse," Tom replied, each word punctuated by a low hiss.

"I'd never have taken you for a vain one," said Nott conversationally, after a pause of half a minute.

"Let me assure you," Tom gritted out, "that this isn't for my benefit."

"Who—" Nott began, then abruptly fell silent. "Oh. I see. Or, rather I don't—'vain' isn't one of the
many words that I might associate with..."

"It's the principle of the thing," Tom answered, which wasn't much of an answer at all. He went on
with, "And you? What are you doing here? I thought you said you'd be in the library. Working on
the... The Project."

For some reason, Tom took special care in enunciating those two words, and Hermione imagined
that they had been spoken in Capital Letters, something of a habit of Tom's, which he used to
distinguish certain words in his vocabulary from their mundane dictionary equivalents. His
understanding of Foil was of a separate species to the everyday foil used by Muggles to wrap their
chocolate rations and soup cubes. Tom's Future was to be Great, while everyone else, in his eyes—
in his verbal appraisal—was set for a rather unremarkable future, inconsequential for most,
passable at best.

"I was," said Nott. "But I had to fetch a book from my trunk."

"Are you almost done?" Tom asked impatiently. "I want it finished by the holidays."

"The ejection mechanism is unstable," said Nott. "But once I have it working, I wouldn't know how
well it actually works unless I've got something to test it on."

"I'll find something, don't worry."

"You could help," Nott pointed out. "With the enchantments, I mean. You do well in Ancient
Runes, and you read Latin, too. Better than those who had tutors at home before coming to
Hogwarts."

"My translation abilities are, at present, concerned with more important things. Unless..." Tom
trailed off, and Hermione heard the mattress squeak as Nott fidgeted awkwardly on the bed. "You
are incapable of fulfilling the task you agreed to take on? I would be disappointed, but we know
what I'd have to do if your involvement became unnecessary to The Project. All in your best
interests, of course."
"Don't I have any say in what serves my interests best?"

"You can say whatever you like," said Tom, with a little snort of breath to suggest that he found
Nott's words very amusing. "With no oath between us, there's no more requirement for me to act
only with benign intent. That last time, if you remember, I did go to some effort to get it over with
quickly."

"Really?" Nott scoffed. "I couldn't tell."

"You ought to trust what I say, instead of doubting me," said Tom. "Everyone else does."

"Everyone else has no idea what you are," said Nott.

"Oh," Tom said. "What am I?"

"You're an overly—"

"Sorry," Tom interrupted, "that wasn't a question."

"Riddle—"

"I," said Tom, speaking over Nott's attempts to present his own half of the conversation, "am
simply a private citizen, concerned by the inadequate response to a situation which endangers all
citizens."

"A self-appointed busybody, in so many words," said Nott in an incredulous tone.

"As long as my purpose is noble, the exact wording is immaterial," Tom replied. "And it has to be
acknowledged that your participation makes you just as noble as I am."

"I struggle to comprehend how you can utter the word noble without a horde of maggots erupting
out of your wand."

"What a bizarre idiom," said Tom. "Question my motivations as you like, but if you possess any
doubts on my capabilities, then I suppose I've no choice but to convince you."

"I trust you," Nott said hastily.

"Nevertheless," said Tom, "the fact remains: we can't work together if you doubt me."

"My doubts have been eased, thank you very—"

"There's an hour until dinner," said Tom. "Let's go."

"My things—"

"Toss them in your trunk and sort them out later."

"But—"

"Depulso," Tom incanted, and a papery flutter filled the room, followed by the solid thunk! of a
trunk lid opening and closing. "You've pledged yourself to a noble cause, Nott. It's only proper to
show you what you've volunteered for."
Hermione held her breath as she heard two sets of footsteps tread around the two beds, pressing one
hand over her mouth and nostrils so no whisper of expelled air stirred the thin layer of cloth that
separated her from the two boys murmuring to each other an arm's length away. In the darkness, her
thoughts leapt from one conclusion to the next, examining each item of information that she'd been
given by Nott, in contrast to the information that had been strategically withheld.

Nott had told her it was a prank. It might be a prank, and Nott had been truthful about that—he had
to be, ever since Hermione had mentioned Tom's ability to perceive lies—but a prank wasn't all it
was.

Tom Riddle was involved, with a project of his own. One that contributed to a shared goal.

That goal was unknown to Hermione, and an uneasy sense of apprehension began creeping down
her spine as she considered what she knew—and what she knew about Tom.

Tom, who counted Hermione his one and only Foil, hadn't told her about this project. There was a
chance that Hermione had misconstrued the situation, and it was harmless and innocent and she
was assuming things that had no basis in reality. But Tom wasn't the sort of person who'd go to all
this trouble for a surprise birthday party; when he took action to advance the well-being of others, it
was more or less because he found something in it to his own benefit. And for as long as she'd
known him, Tom had avoided collaborative projects—unless there was no better option offered to
him, and outside contributions were necessary for his goals.

Knowing him, they wouldn't be safe, risk-free goals.

When the boys left and the latch clicked behind them, Hermione rolled out from under Nott's bed.
She inspected the dormitory, one hand idly brushing the dust fom her room, looking for anything
that had been moved or re-arranged in the short time she'd remained hidden.

The books and papers from Nott's bed were gone, and the bedcovers were disturbed from someone
sitting on them. Tom's bed was untouched, but his uniform robe lay in an untidy heap on the floor,
its hem damp with mud. Out of curiosity, Hermione tugged at the drawer handles of Tom's
nightstand. The first drawer was locked, and so were the second and third. His trunk, much newer-
looking than the one Mum and Dad had bought for Hermione in First Year, was also locked, and
when she touched the tip of her finger to the brass latches, it sparked against her skin like a wool
jumper.

Not painful, but still unpleasant. She doubted that a standard Unlocking Charm would undo them.

Nott's nightstand, unlike Tom's, was unlocked. To Hermione's dissatisfaction, there was nothing in
it of relevance to 'The Project'. A small pot of Boil Cure paste, a common apothecary preparation
used to clear pimples and spots overnight. Loose quills, a class timetable, a velvet coinpurse, a few
clean handkerchiefs, and a book entitled An Examination of the Consecutive Fifth that looked
promising, but turned out to be a dense textbook on musical theory.

By dinnertime, Hermione had found nothing of interest in the Seventh Year boys' dormitory, not
even in the other nightstands and armoires. Plenty of dirty laundry, an abundance of loose socks,
and something that appeared to be a bundle of used bandages attached to a strange, smelly leather
cup. Once Hermione realised what it was, she set it gently back where she found it.

That was horrifying, but it hardly counted as evidence.

Sighing, she returned everything to their proper places, disappointed in the lack of any useful
information, and disappointed with the facts that she had managed to discover: that teenage boys
had frightfully low living standards. If they left toenail clippings, little yellowish crescents,
scattered on the floor in front of the fireplace hearth because they were too lazy to clean up when
they'd missed flicking them into the fire, their bathroom habits had to be even worse. Hermione
was forced to admit that she was likely spoiled by sharing a dormitory with all girls, and having
Tom as her closest friend. When they'd shared a bathroom, she'd seen how meticulous Tom was
about personal hygiene.

(When asked, he'd given an off-hand explanation on the many magical applications of human parts
—blood, bone, skin, and hair. Did she know that it was possible to use wizard hair in wandcrafting?
Had she heard of the East Indian custom of directing curses to enemies through the use of magical
effigies?)

At that point, Hermione hadn't any choice but to go down to dinner, so she joined the stream of
students leaving their rooms. Hermione noticed older Slytherin students reprimanding younger
ones for inkstains on their skirts or neckties worn askew, as she slipped through the passageway on
the heels of a Fifth Year Prefect. Disillusionment Charm in place, she went unnoticed by the
passing students, staying close to the walls until they led her out of the unfamiliar corridors of the
Slytherin dungeons. She ducked behind a suit of armour to undo the charm, then mingled with the
growing crowd drawn to the Great Hall by the prospect of all the food they could eat, and for
everything they couldn't, all the food they could fit in their pockets.

Tom and Nott were already at the Slytherin table when Hermione had taken one of the few empty
space at her own House table. Observing them from her side of the Great Hall, she could tell that
Tom was pleased about something—even triumphant—while Nott was pale-faced and subdued,
picking at his roulade of beef, giving terse answers when spoken to, but otherwise allowing Tom to
monopolise the conversation on their end of the table.

Hermione cornered Nott when dinner was over, dragging him behind a statue of a witch holding a
Fanged Geranium in a bucket.

"You didn't tell me that Tom had something to do with your 'prank'!" said Hermione.

"Oh," said Nott, giving her a sidelong look and coughing into his robe sleeve, "did I forget to
mention that? Did I even say it was meant to be a prank? I think you were the one that came to that
assumption."

"You've half a year left," Hermione said. "Do you two want to be expelled?"

"Is that what you're worried about?"

"Why aren't you worried about it?"

Nott gave her a disbelieving stare. "Because I can hire a tutor and have the Examinations Authority
send a proctor to my house to let me take the N.E.W.T.s in my nightshirt."

"Well... I suppose," said Hermione. "But what about Tom? What if he gets into trouble? It won't
just ruin his future—it'll ruin mine, too."

"We won't be caught," Nott said. "And before you berate me about student safety, I mean to run the
tests at home, during the holidays. There's no chance another student might be harmed. And you
 wouldn't tell a teacher about something I've done in my own time, in my own home, would you?"
His expression took on a knowing air. "I think your reaction is more from feeling hoodwinked than
anything to do with safety considerations."

"I... No, you're wrong," Hermione sputtered. "That's absolutely ridiculous!"

"I'll be honest with you, Granger," said Nott, "if you're honest with me. And the first stage in our
mutual honesty is your honest confession: you looked in my underwear drawer."

"What!" Hermione choked. "H-how did you know?"

"I didn't," said Nott. "But I do now."

It wasn't until Hermione had gone up to the Ravenclaw Common Room that she realised what Nott
had done. The strange—and yes, mortifying—tangent taken by their conversation had distracted
her from the questions she had wanted to ask. Nott had sacrificed his dignity by discussing his
underdrawers in mixed company, but if Tom was correct in his belief that social interaction was a
game to be won or lost, then it was clear to Hermione that she had lost and Nott had won.

And this, Hermione also realised, wasn't the first time that Nott had made a sacrifice of his dignity
for a greater advantage.

Chapter End Notes

Nott's reference to maggots comes from the fact that, in the Wizarding World, it's a cultural
belief that evil wizards falsely pretending to be pure-hearted are eaten by maggot swarms.

"While there is a widespread and justified belief that a wizard who is not pure of heart cannot
produce a successful Patronus (the most famous example of the spell backfiring is that of the
Dark wizard Raczidian, who was devoured by maggots), a rare few witches and wizards of
questionable morals have succeeded in producing the Charm. It may be that a true and
confident belief in the rightness of one’s actions can supply the necessary happiness."

Source: Pottermore. Yes, it's canon.

 The Prince
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1944

"'War is the sole art of rulers; there is no failure as despised as the failure of going unarmed'," Tom
read, turning the page of the book he held in his lap.

For a number of years, Tom had amassed a collection of Muggle books. Military history, atlases,
political and natural philosophy, guidebooks for various esoteric disciplines, and language primers.
Many of them hadn't been opened since Tom got his Hogwarts letter; from the autumn of 1938,
Tom had saved every shilling and knut for second-hand textbooks from Diagon Alley. That didn't
mean that he threw away his Muggle books, or refused them when Dr. Granger or Mrs. Riddle gave
him gifts for birthdays and Christmas.

No, he'd kept them all, despite his lack of time and inclination to read them. He'd added them to the
growing library in the back of his orphanage wardrobe, and later, to the bedroom in the North Wing
of the Riddle House, along with the rest of his worldly possessions.

He knew that he couldn't have borne parting with them.

Before the age of eleven years old, Tom's book collection was the most valuable thing he owned.
The value wasn't just in monetary terms, but in what it represented: knowledge. It was a rope
thrown to him from above, allowing him to crawl his way up the pecking order, until the taint of
poverty and illegitimacy was left in the far distance, where it belonged. Where the other boys
played games of make-believe in the orphanage yard—Cops and Robbers, Huns and Tommies (this
was one of the many occasions in which Tom utterly despised his dead mother's last gift)—Tom
stayed in his room and read his books, because he knew he was never going to enlist in any inbred
king's army.

Tom wasn't fond of war. From what he'd overheard about the last Great War, war led to short-
portions and austerity for anyone who wasn't forced to take up arms themselves. But Tom was no
pacifist or shilly-shallying objector. He understood that it wasn't always possible to make a
convincing argument on the basis of good-will and diplomacy; sometimes one had to use force, or
at least a show of force, to get things done in a timely and efficient manner. It was thus, Tom had
decided, that if force had to be used, then he would use that force.

But he wouldn't be the force. Not as a soldier, as an infantryman, as disposable matériel to be spent
in an empire's feeble attempt at maintaining a colonial presence.

If he was obliged, by either fortune or necessity, to learn about the arts of war, then he would not do
it as a peon in the trenches, but as a superior, a commander. As a prince.
 "Debbe adunque un principe non avere altro oggeto nè altro pensiero, nè prendere cosa
alcuna per sua arte fuori della guerra ed ordinin e disciplina di essa..."

"'Therefore, a Prince should have no other thoughts but thoughts of war'," was the translation that
Tom read aloud from the worn pages of his Muggle book. It seemed somewhat inflexible to Tom,
who had seen the value of such alternatives as subterfuge, sabotage, and, yes, pranking when it
came to subduing his adversaries. Then again, the life of a prince was hardly his life. He had no
royal court and household guard; he had no vast treasury of gold, no city to rule over, nor sworn
servants to serve his every whim.

That last property, however, might have changed from the first time he'd read the book.

"What are your thoughts on war, Spider?" Tom asked, turning to the Acromantula, perched on a
rock, its pincers buried in an enlarged chicken's egg.

The howl of the wind was the only response to Tom's question, so bitingly cold that it numbed the
tip of his nose and drew a blotchy flush to his winter-pale skin.

Tom drew his wand, pointed it at the rock, and cast a warming charm to it, adjusting the
temperature until it let off a wave of comfortable heat, like a pan of embers that London street
vendors used to roast chestnuts in the winter. Tom's skin tingled as his blood warmed; after a
minute, he began to feel like he had a nose again.

"Foolish man," spoke the Acromantula, clicking its mandibles, dripping with viscous yellow strings
of scrambled egg yolk, "war is an act of humans. Humans killing other humans—why should I
have any thoughts on it but delight?"

"The books I read about your species," said Tom, "had it that an Acromantula patriarch or matriarch
will order the annihilation of nearby colonies of Firetrail Snails or Lapian Dragonflies, down to the
last egg and larval cell. That sounds very much like war to me."

"Human words mean nothing to our kind," said the Acromantula, letting out a combination of shrill
whistles and short clicks to indicate its disparaging tone. "We defend our territory. We protect our
webs against anything that might damage them. We ensure that our young are fed and survive to
full growth."

"The word's just a word, of course," said Tom, "but where the circumstance and objectives may
vary, isn't the intent one and the same? It's a physical demonstration of might."

"It is completely different," the Acromantula insisted, waving its egg-coated forelegs around
irritably. Shards of broken eggshell were stuck to the wiry black hairs around its face.

"No, it's not," said Tom, leaning back to avoid the flying gobbets of egg albumen.

"Yes, it is."

"Look here," said Tom, waggling his book in the spider's eight-eyed face. "A conflict over disputed
territory or a limited resource is what constitutes a—"

"Hssss!"
The Acromantula scuttled backwards, clutching its egg between its forelegs like a valuable
treasure.

"The water has changed its course!" it shrilled in a frantic voice. "Get back—back—back!"

The Great Lake of Hogwarts had formed at the lowest point between two highland ridges, in a
valley carved out by glaciers and filled with meltwater. The original tower of the Hogwarts castle,
containing the Great Hall and smaller entrance hall, had been built on the highest ridge overlooking
the valley, surrounded on three sides by black water, deeper than any protective moat in all the
founders' memory and experience.

Three sides of the castle faced the water. The other side, the side that the founders had cared to
protect with their enchanted gate and winged guardian boars, faced the road that led down to the
village of Hogsmeade. If the castle and students were ever to be attacked, the founders had
assumed that the threat would come from the landward side. The greatest threat in the days before
the Statute of Secrecy, the founders knew, were Norman kings with their appointed court wizards,
and Briton chieftains advised by their wise men and druids. Assisted by magic, but otherwise
Muggle. With Muggle armies.

What threat would there ever be in the water?

The enchantments laid by the founders covered the castle and grounds, but only the grounds. No
one paid attention to the Lake, considered the domain of the creatures that lived under it, the
Merfolk, the Giant Squid, and various Kelpies and Selkies that came and went as they pleased. No
one ventured out to the rocky shores of the valley, a meandering line of rough gravel beaches that
narrowed to the width of a few feet in some places, and were inundated completely each year
during the spring floods.

It was one of these gravel beaches, half a mile from the castle, that Tom had grounded his borrowed
boat. It had seemed the perfect place for a quiet rendezvous, this sheltered bight protected from the
wind—and visibility from the castle towers—by an outcropping of exposed rock. It had a good,
deep bank of gravel that he could drive the boat into, without having to worry about tying it up, in
case it washed away during changes in the water level. And it had enough space that he and the
Acromantula could walk about without having to touch each other, but small enough that he could
easily catch it if it tried to run away from him.

(Not that it would. Tom thought he had its training well in hand, after introducing the idea of food
rewards that met its grudging standards of freshness.)

And there was enough room on the little beach to invite a third to their party.

With a hollow boom, one section of the frozen lake splintered into pieces, and a dark shape poked
its way through. First a head, tossed from side to side to throw off a glittering spray of water, then a
long and sinuous body that carved a channel through the lake's ice-coated surface, until it reached
the thickest ice at the shore and propelled itself up, heaving its great bulk out of the water.

The Basilisk slithered up the beach, twisting in circles to scrape off the stray chunks of ice and
clinging kelp leaves, before coiling up around the heated rock recently vacated by the frightened
Acromantula.

I sensed your presence, it rumbled, resting its head on the top of the spell-warmed rock and
flickering its forked tongue in Tom's direction. Its eyes were closed, as Tom had ordered, but it
could still smell things—or taste, rather—with its tongue, and on a cold day in early December,
Tom was the warmest living being in the vicinity.

The Basilisk's tongue, as thick around as Tom's wrist, poked in and out of its mouth. Tom smacked
it away when it got too close to him, but it curled around his fingers and dragged him closer to the
Basilisk's face like a frog with a snared fly.

"You recognise my presence?" asked Tom. "How?"

What has been known, it replied, shall be remembered.

The way in which the creature spoke the word 'known' was not in English, but conveyed a number
of meanings that Tom understood implicitly. Nevertheless, he struggled to recount its meaning in
conventional terms. 'To know', as snakes spoke of it, was to recognise an object as producing a
particular frequency of sound, emitting a distinct musk or scent, and following a predictable pattern
of movement. Snakes knew through natural instinct and experience, recognising prey, rivals,
threats, and mates.

This Basilisk knew Tom not only as a wandering biped that could speak its language, a curiosity
that was neither food nor foe. It had, for some reason or another, attached a certain significance to
Tom's presence.

Tom was a little unsettled by it. This wasn't in the nature of a snake. Snakes—reptiles in general—
were solitary beasts. Even when they mated, it was for the length of one breeding season, and then
sire and dam went on their own separate ways, until the next season arrived, whereupon each snake
took a new, different mate than the last time. Snakes weren't like owls, the most common animal
used for pets and familiars by wizards. Pet owls lived their lives in a single household, showed
affection and loyalty to their owners, to the extent that, once owned, an owl couldn't be given away
or sold second-hand. A snake wouldn't care or understand the concept of home or ownership, so
long as it was regularly fed and acceptably accommodated.

Perhaps magical creatures are different, he considered. Captive dragons were known to live in
herds, though whether that was out of choice or necessity on the part of the reserve management he
couldn't tell.

When you hatch an egg, the Basilisk continued, then I shall know it too.

"I have no clue what egg you're speaking of," said Tom.

After your mate lays it. You must have a mate to lay eggs. The Basilisk drew its head close to Tom's
midsection. I perceive that you are unfit to lay them yourself.

"What's all this talk about eggs?"

It is how the line continues when you are gone, said the Basilisk. The speaker comes to me, as he
has come to me six times before. Then he goes, and he never returns. If I am awoken, who will feed
me when you are gone?

"When I am gone?" Tom said. "I don't intend to go."

You will die, spoke the Basilisk with a gust of foul breath. And I will endure. I was created, not to
mate and propagate as other creatures are born to do, but to endure. This is my task. You have your
own task, little speaker. The tip of its snout bumped into Tom's chest; he staggered backwards. It is
good that you are in season.

Tom coughed. "How would you know that?"

I smelled it. When you washed yourself in the water room.

"I told you not to follow me in there!"

You told me not to speak to you while you were there, said the Basilisk. So I did not speak to you.

"You were there the entire time," said Tom, rather disturbed. In hindsight, he knew the voice that
had whispered to him for weeks was the voice of the Basilisk. He'd heard it in the shower, and after
he'd actually met the Basilisk and given it some orders, the strange voices were no more. He'd
assumed that the Basilisk's absence was due to it going off and doing what it usually did—crawling
around the Chamber, swimming in the Lake, or exploring the tunnels beneath the castle. Not
following him around while he was in the dormitory bathroom taking care of business... and other
things.

Unimportant things. Not worth mentioning, of course.

Not worth thinking about, even. Just some very personal and unavoidable business—and Tom
would know, as he'd tried and failed to avoid it and had eventually given up in the interest of
keeping his trousers presentable. It was business best managed in the limited privacy afforded to a
student, where every other room he occupied, waking and sleeping, was shared with his classmates.

I have nothing to do but sleep and hunt, and you have forbidden hunting.

If a giant snake could look reproachful with its eyes closed, then this was the Basilisk's expression,
conveyed through the tilt of its head and the lazy twitch of its tongue.

I am... unfruitful. You are not. It is your duty. You must remember that.

"I will decide what is and what isn't my duty," said Tom, still unnerved about being described as 'in
season'. It was another term that was more appropriately applied to snakes than human beings,
indicating a period where steady food, higher temperatures, and longer hours of daylight had
invoked a certain desire to—to... well, know others in a very specific way.

At weeks from eighteen years old, Tom knew he was bodily capable—if mentally unwilling—of
sowing and begetting. It wasn't a common thing in a Britain that had sent millions of its young men
off to the trenches, but it wasn't exactly an unheard of thing either, for someone his age to, ah,
disperse the essence of his loins. Tom had been told that his mother died young; she wasn't even
twenty years old when she'd stumbled into Wool's on a winter's eve. Her youth hadn't been the most
shocking part; plenty of women had started families of their own at that age. Plenty of women these
days started families to avoid being sent to work on a farm in the name of National Service.

No, the shock had been in Merope's lack of escort or chaperone, the lack of a ring on her finger,
and not a mention of a husband, only the delivery of a firstborn son who had no knowledge of his
absentee father.

An animal's mind didn't understand willing or unwilling when one was perfectly capable in a
physical sense. When an animal reached that stage of maturity, they did what instinct drove them to
do, with none of a sentient human's forethought and circumspection. Tom called this instinctual
drive, which at times affected weaker humans, 'base urges'. But he had no way of explaining this to
a snake, a creature with no comprehension of propriety, vice, or the fires of Temptation.

(At this point, Tom found himself wondering if Eve of Eden had had his magical ability to
commune with snakes. And if she, too, had struggled in articulating the significance of The Rules
to a wild animal.)

"No," said Tom, clearing his throat. Speaking in Snake always made him thirsty afterwards. "I've
made no promises in that regard. But I did promise to feed you."

Tom Summoned his bag into his hand. It contained a pasteboard carton bought from the grocer in
Hogsmeade. Within was a dozen speckled brown eggs, packed in straw along with a Cushioning
Charm that was close to wearing off; when he shook the carton, Tom heard the rustle of shifting
straw from the eggs rolling around inside.

The books that Tom had read on magical husbandry had instructed him on the particulars of
keeping carnivores, which were much the same for pet snakes (Boomslang and Ashwinder) as they
were for large raptors (eagle owls and gyrfalcons). Fresh meat was their meal of choice.

But the species of magical animal he owned were nowhere to be found in the pet care guides. His
pets were more interesting than anything that could be had from a Diagon Alley menagerie or
hobbyist breeder.

His ownership of interesting pets, however, left him with difficulties that couldn't be solved with a
simple guidebook. This was due to the fact that the most interesting animals were the heads of their
respective trophic chains. Acromantulas in the jungles of Malaya and Borneo, their natural habitat,
ate giant magical land snails, or non-magical monkeys and birds caught in their webs. Basilisks
were rather indiscriminate, and subsisted on anything from fish to Sirens to unsuspecting wizards.

Tom knew he could have wheedled his way into acquiring a live goat in Hogsmeade, or done as
Hagrid had, and set snares in the Forest for small game—muskrat, fox, and rabbit, perhaps a Jarvey
if he was lucky. He could have bought raw meat, a slab of pork belly or a side of beef, and warmed
it with a charm or two until it took on a vague resemblance, in the heat-based perception of a snake,
to the body of a living animal.

He didn't, because there was a simpler solution: eggs.

A carton of eggs was easy to buy without uncomfortable questions ("Sir, I was meaning to practice
my Hover Charm—did you know that the N.E.W.T. examiners give extra points for precision?"),
easy to carry in his bag, and appealing to an Acromantula who liked its food liquid, and a Basilisk
who favoured food it could fit in its mouth and swallow in one bite. And unlike butcher-bought
meat, they couldn't turn their noses up at it for its lack of freshness.

(When Tom had asked the Basilisk what it liked to eat, it had replied, The swimming ones are the
best. They slide right down. I do not enjoy the walking ones as much.

"You've eaten wizards?" Tom had inquired of it.

It has been forbidden to me, said the Basilisk. Unless you will have it otherwise. I speak of the six-
limbed ones. Two pairs of earth limbs, and one pair of air limbs. They live amongst the trees, far
from the shore.
Tom took a moment to consider this statement. Three pairs of limbs? What manner of creature was
that—an insect?

They take hours to swallow, continued the Basilisk. Its tongue flicked out, once, twice—an
indication of impatience. It is their pelts. Too much hair. They catch from the inside for days after;
even more when they have brought with them their sharpened throwing sticks.

"Centaurs," said Tom, understanding at once. "Are they... do they taste pleasant, at least?"

If you wish to try it, speaker, I recommend tearing them into pieces first.)

Tom had no fondness for centaurs—he'd never spoken to one—but the textbook told him that
despite their animalistic appearance, they were creatures of reason and thus fiendishly difficult to
snare, and impossible to domesticate. That meant, of course, it would be an impossible task for the
average wizard; the book had said that Acromantulas couldn't be tamed either, but hadn't Tom
managed that at the age of sixteen?

It was all very well to take strategic advice from a book, but not all situations could be addressed
by a set of written instructions. In the end, one had to defer to their own judgement.

Tom removed three eggs from the carton and placed them at his feet, drawing his wand and
kneeling on the gravel.

"Engorgio," Tom incanted over them, his brow furrowing in concentration as he cast the spell on
three subjects simultaneously, wand moving in the pattern of a demi-circle between two vertical
strokes. The Enlargement Charm was taught in Second-Year, but students had only practised it on
quills and small trinkets in class.

In class, they had been told it was dangerous for amateurs to use this spell on living creatures. The
correct way to do it was to ensure all parts of the subject grew at the same rate, but that required a
depth of concentration that most twelve year old wizards were incapable of—especially when they
were busy thinking about the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch match on Saturday, or how many
chocolate frogs it would cost to copy someone's Astronomy charts.

Precision and accuracy didn't matter that much if a teacup was Enlarged in a slapdash job, so that
the bowl came out oval-shaped and the handle was big enough to dangle around a wrist; it could be
easily fixed by further Enlarging and Shrinking in the right places. But if it had been an animal, a
mouse or a rabbit, then a slapdash job at spellcasting would have killed it: a head made too big for
the skeleton to support it, and death by a broken neck; the organs expanded too fast for the rest of
the body, and death by an internal rupture. If there were any hard rules about magic—and Tom was
reluctant to accept any, for that was the dark path to embracing ineptitude and defeat—then the
hardest of all rules to defy was the impossibility of undoing death.

The eggs grew, thickening evenly all around. Tom paused to catch his breath, moving the eggs
apart so they had more space between them, then continued with his charmwork. The dimensions
of the eggshell had to match the volume of the liquid within, and the thickness of the shell had to
match its size, or else it couldn't keep its shape, and would crumple at the lightest touch.

From the size of a chicken egg, a duck egg, then past an Occamy's egg, and from there to a dragon's
egg, they grew and grew and grew, and finally the eggs were more than half Tom's height, large
enough that he could wrap his arms around them and the tips of his fingers would only just brush
together. They were larger than the bespelled eggs he had given the Acromantula as a reward for
good behaviour, but a Basilisk had a greater appetite to satisfy.

And a better reason to keep it satisfied, he thought, sliding his wand back into his pocket and
wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his robe.

The Basilisk nosed one egg, toppling it over in the gravel.

I know this smell, it said. It smells familiar.

"It's food," said Tom. "Of course it's familiar."

The Basilisk thrashed its tail, with a crunch of grinding stone and shattering pebbles—and without
it having to speak, Tom could sense its agitation. But hunger seemed to win out. The great fanged
jaws opened, letting out a pungent gust of breath, and the Basilisk bent its head over the first egg.

Its tongue licked at the shell, gauging its size, before the egg was scooped up and held in the bed of
the Basilisk's lower jaw. Viewing the jaw from the inside, Tom noticed that there appeared to be a
limit to how wide the Basilisk could open its mouth. Its jaw must not be hinged like that of most
snakes; it was no wonder it preferred to have its meals served in bite-sized portions. With this fact
revealed to him, Tom began to suspect that the Basilisk's species was some sort of hybrid of
magical lizard. Hadn't the Basilisk mentioned it had been created?

Tom had never seen a snake with eyelids, either. Lizards had them, and so did crocodiles, but
snakes had a clear scale cap over their eyes that only showed as a semi-translucent, milky white
film when they shed their skins.

Tossing its head back, the egg tumbled down and disappeared into the depths of the Basilisk's
throat. Tom could see the muscles convulsing as a visible lump moved from the base of its jaw and
down its neck—if snakes even had a neck, and weren't, as some might assume, all neck. In that
moment, Tom wished Hermione was there to see it. He knew that a snake's interior consisted of a
series of tubes, various elongated sacs for digesting and passing food through from front to back. (It
had been a leisurely pursuit in Tom's orphanage days to poke at the bodies of vermin caught in
traps and strays squashed by motorcars.) Hermione, though lacking in the bedside manner of a
medical professional, would have been able to give each part its proper anatomical name.

When the lump had travelled several feet down the Basilisk's sinuous body, it let out a breathy sigh
of satisfaction and lowered its horned head to the ground. The movement of its body had scraped
out a shallow cavity in the gravel, and now, using its snout, it nudged the other two eggs into the
centre of the hollow.

"Aren't you going to finish them?" asked Tom.

In a moment, the Basilisk answered.

It wriggled around in the gravel, enlarging its nesting hole, the heavy coils of its body piling around
on top of one another. Tom was about to make mention of the effort he'd put into charming the
eggs, but his half-formed complaint was silenced by a strange noise.

Pop!

Crack!
They seemed to emanate from inside the Basilisk's body.

Ahh, the Basilisk sighed, rolling around on its back. The horned protrusions on the top of its head
rasped against stone. That was swifter than usual. Sometimes the breaking takes me days. You must
bring more of these.

"Are you satiated?"

For now. The Basilisk lay still for a few seconds, and then ventured, But I would like it if you
warmed more stones. This one—it bumped against the rock that Tom had charmed for the
Acromantula—is too small.

Tom drew his wand and, with some exasperation, began attending to the Basilisk's rather finicky
list of demands.

The Basilisk was a powerful magical creature, and this specimen was an equal by mass to one of
the larger breeds of dragons. It was almost a thousand years old, and there were few creatures that
lived as long as that. The longest-lived creature, Tom recalled, was the Phoenix, which was
immortal. The Vampire, also immortal, was legally recognised as a Being, not a creature. And the
Dementor, Poltergeist, and Inferius were not so much immortal as amortal, unable to die because
they were not truly alive to begin with.

For a creature this old, Tom found it somehow... artless and simple-minded. It had the
approximation of a personality, but one that even the most charitable of souls could not describe as
agreeable or engaging. It had needs and desires. It could communicate these, and other things, to
Tom.

But Tom still found it dull.

He supposed it must be because the Basilisk had spent most of its thousand years asleep in the
Chamber. The few times it had been awoken by other wizards were for no longer than a stretch of
months, and so it had only spent a few years of its life actually living. Tom, at seventeen, possessed
more life experience than it did; he, by now, had formed strong positions on a number of subjects—
statecraft, theology, ethics, literature, and magical theory. The Basilisk had none of this. The one
subject that it could discuss, with any semblance of authority, was food, and the acquisition and
consumption of food.

This had confirmed Tom's long-held belief that snakes were boring. The Acromantula was the more
interesting of his two pets. Its vulnerabilities and relative size had allowed Tom to use it for
interesting experiments, which Tom would not dare to use on the Basilisk. For the fact of the matter
was this: the Basilisk was immensely powerful, and even though Tom ignored much of the advice
given him by the textbooks, he acknowledged that, yes, a Basilisk was capable of killing a wizard.
Without question.

The two things that kept it from killing Tom was his ability to speak to it, and its obedience to his
will. On every other occasion, with any other creature or person, Tom would have laid open its
mind and sought out any trace of deception and falseness hidden in its thoughts.

He couldn't do that to the Basilisk without looking into its eyes, and he couldn't look into its eyes
without dying. And he refused to do that.
Tom pondered the possibility of Death by Basilisk—not his death, obviously. He knew of this
ability from the textbooks, the distinctive trait that earned the species its five-star danger rating, but
were the textbooks always right? They got things wrong all the time. Then again, it was all the
textbooks that wrote of the Basilisk's lethal gaze... Could it be that all the authors were wrong?

His thoughts had meandered into the logistics of testing the so-called Lethal Gaze, but they were
interrupted by the sound of the Basilisk's body thrashing over shifting gravel, the crunch of stone,
and the cry of a familiar voice.

"Riddle!"

Tom looked up, his hand going to his wand.

Thirty feet up in the air, buffetted by the icy wind, was a dark rectangle, tasselled in the corners. A
face peeked over the side, pale and stricken, and Nott's voice called out to him.

"Call it off, Riddle!"

Over the howl of the wind, the Basilisk roared, its head following the sound of Nott's voice; it
lunged into the air, throwing its heavy body up, up, up into the air, its jaw opened to its fullest
extent. The mouth was pink, and the flaps of skin on either side of its scaley jaw a stark white, and
inside, the yellowed fangs were extended, the tip of each tooth stained a violent, acid green.

The flying carpet abruptly jerked to one side, and Tom saw a pair of legs dangling off the edge,
before Nott pulled them back in and regained control of the steering.

With a thump! that shook the earth beneath Tom's feet, the front half of the Basilisk's body fell to
the ground.

An intruder, it hissed, throwing several green-scaled coils around Tom; he was encircled within its
body and had to stand on his toes to look over the side. I will destroy it. You must hide yourself now,
speaker, then I will go—

The Basilisk lowered its head, sealing Tom off from his view of the sky, where the carpet had
climbed several dozen feet higher.

"No," said Tom, pushing at the Basilisk's face. "It's not a threat."

There is very little that could threaten me.

"No," said Tom again, imbuing his voice with a measure of his will. "Not much to either of us. He
is a... a servant."

In the language of snakes, there was no exact word for servant, so Tom had to rely on a figurative
description. The chirping birds pecking scraps of sinew from the teeth of a greater being as it
basked in the sun; the darting minnows nibbling at mites infesting the horned ridges above the great
shuttered eyes, which no amount of dust bathing could reach. Lesser creatures, all of them: they
were weak, short-lived, and insignificant. Not even worth the effort of eating. But they had a
purpose. They knew their place. They could be tolerated.

The Basilisk hesitated.

"Let me out," said Tom. He pushed at the Basilisk's snout, which budged not an inch. "I'll show
you."

The coils loosened; the Basilisk's head drew back, a gap appeared, and the light returned.

Tom, who had drawn his wand, clamped the handle between his teeth and crawled his way up the
Basilisk's side, grabbing onto the ridged spines on its back to haul himself across and over. He spat
his wand into his hand, then turned back to the Basilisk.

"Stay here," he murmured. "And whatever happens, don't open your eyes. This is my command."

As you wish it, said the Basilisk sullenly.

"Nott," Tom spoke, pressing the tip of his wand to his throat. "You can come down now."

"Have you got that thing under control?" yelled Nott from twenty feet away, his voice amplified by
a spell.

"Careful," said Tom. "You don't want to hurt its feelings."

The gravel crunched as the Basilisk shifted restlessly. What are you saying to it?

Nott alighted on the ground, tucking his carpet under one arm, while the other held his wand up, the
point wavering from Tom to the Basilisk and back; Tom noticed that Nott's feet were positioned in
a duelling stance, and he had taken his green-and-silver necktie from off his collar. It was wrapped
around his brows, with the ends dangling behind his ear.

"If I wanted you dead, you would be. I thought you'd have learned that lesson two years ago," said
Tom, striding forward. "Is that supposed to be a blindfold? It looks ridiculous."

"I'd rather not be dead," Nott replied. "It's in my nature. I thought you'd have figured that out long
ago."

What is it saying? the Basilisk rumbled. I cannot understand it...

Nott paused, glancing over Tom's shoulder. Abruptly, he ducked his head and drew his necktie over
his eyes. His wand, held aloft from the moment he'd stepped foot on solid earth, traced out the
circular movement of the Shield Charm.

"It's coming over here! Aren't you going to do anything, Riddle? It's looking in this direction—"

"If it were looking at you, I'm quite certain you'd know it," said Tom.

Who is it? the Basilisk asked, creeping closer. Is it your mate?

"It's coming closer!"

It has the same water room smell as you do, said the Basilisk.

"Riddle? Are you even listening to me?"

Oh, the Basilisk continued, sounding crestfallen. It has the wrong parts for you to mate with.
Unless your kind can change its parts at will.
Tom cleared his throat; it was a challenge to listen and pay attention to two simultaneous
conversations in two different languages, but he saw no challenge as impossible to overcome.
"There's no need for alarm. It's harmless."

"Harmless? It's fifty feet long! If it rolled over, it'd crush you!"

"I have it well in hand. It's very much like training a... a pet, you see."

"Well, no, I don't," said Nott, hesitantly lifting a section of necktie up from one eye—as if a one-
eyed peek would save him from being killed by the Basilisk's gaze. "Merlin's knobbled staff, it's
right behind you!"

Have you tried changing your parts?

Something bumped gently against the back of Tom's robes. Tom took a lurching step forward, then
righted himself.

Or will you make the other one change its parts?

Tom twisted to the side and swatted away a scaley snout before it made contact with the seat of his
trousers.

Nott observed the scene with a wry expression on his face. "A pet, you say."

Speaker? Why do you not attend my words?

"A new pet," Tom clarified. "But one shouldn't expect too much from a feral."

"One shouldn't expect too much from a pet, either," said Nott. "I've a dog at home, and all the
training in the world won't stop her from wanting to sniff my backside."

It took a half dozen enlarged eggs to persuade the Basilisk to leave them alone, at least for the
length of a conversation.

Whilst the Basilisk was occupied, Tom turned to Nott and demanded, "Well, did you bring it here?"

"I got it to work in the dorm; I don't know why you wanted me to come all the way—"

"You told me it worked," said Tom. "We're here so you and I can see it working. With the real
thing."

"You're testing it here?"

"I promised you that I'd find something to test it on."

Nott swallowed. "I'd very much like to hear that I'm not the test subject."

"Don't be absurd," said Tom. "I'm testing it on the snake. If anything's immune to the venom, it's
the creature that made it."

The parchment Nott gave him was the result of weeks of work, a task assigned to him the day Tom
had met the Basilisk in the middle of the Lake. Inspecting it, Tom saw that the parchment was an
even beige colour, with no sign of spots or puckers—an indication that it was sourced from an ill or
injured animal. The heft, thickness, and soft velvet finish of the surface proved it to be premium
grade material. This wasn't parchment, but the level above it. Vellum.

Nott had put his own galleons into this venture, then. At the stationery shop, the good parchment
had been cut on request, while the vellum was kept in a locked cabinet behind the till. And if this
was the tester, it couldn't be the only one.

The interior of the envelope contained no letter, pamphlet, or handbill—but the vellum itself was
far from empty. Long strings of densely packed runes were inscribed in a spiral pattern that radiated
from a central point. Each symbol was written in a glossy black ink, the stroke-widths consistent,
spacing precise, uninterrupted by odd splotches or marks. Tom hadn't the temperament for
enchanting, but he was aware that mistakes were unacceptable. A misspelled phrase—a
misattributed designation—and the intent of the composer was altered, and although one could
always scrape away their mistakes with a blade and write over them to save a sheet of expensive
parchment, the magic still left traces. Good enough for a student project, perhaps, but not for a
future heirloom or masterwork.

All in all, there was a certain grace to Nott's project, shared by all forms of well-cast magic, and
Tom had to admit that it was finely done. He had seen Hermione's work in Study of Ancient Runes.
She suffered from an over-reliance on Self-Inking Quills, which weren't recommended for
enchanting projects, as the presence of an existing enchantment could permute the function of an
enchantment in the delicate process of creation. When Hermione used her plain quills, she aimed
for effectiveness first, and neatness second, but there was no third, fourth, or even fifth for beauty.

From his bag, Tom Summoned a potion vial, filled with a bright green liquid. It was a moment's
work to slice away the layer of wax that kept the cork stopper secured and watertight, and another
moment to pour it into the envelope, as Nott had instructed him. Twelve hours, he had been told, it
would last for water and juice. Then the ink, despite being Archivist's Superior Indelible, would
begin to feather and disintegrate. It wouldn't wash away, but it was unavoidable fact that a degraded
enchantment could no longer function as well as it was meant to do.

Nott hadn't told him how long it would last with venom. "I painted it with two layers of naphtha
wax. Anything of organic origin would dissolve on exposure. It won't last forever, though; it's too
thin. A few hours, maybe. But I'm not going to test it."

If he wouldn't, then Tom would.

Nott lingered by the shore, a safe distance way, pacing back and forth in a jerky gait that suggested
he was on the verge of throwing down his carpet and flying away at a moment's notice.

Tom, the thick parchment envelope held gingerly between his thumb and forefinger, approached the
Basilisk as it rearranged eggs within its crater-like hollow, taking its time in deciding which one to
eat first.
"You should eat that one first," said Tom, pointing to an egg that was a slightly darker shade of
brown to the rest. With a few jabs of his wand, he cast a light Warming Charm on the top of the egg
and stuck the envelope to it. Snakes couldn't see in colour, but they could sense heat. The envelope
would be invisible from a purely visual sense, but the radiating heat should inform the Basilisk that
something about this particular egg was different from the rest.

Tom slipped away when the Basilisk slithered around to inspect the egg.

Nott had pulled out a pair of opera glasses to watch him.

"This reminds of a trick we used to play as children," he said, sending a cautious glance in Tom's
direction. "—By that, I mean those of us whose mothers sent us to lessons while they went for a
rack of vins pétillants and a few hands of whist. We'd sneak a few brooms out of the shed, take the
gardeners' tools when their backs were turned, then hide them on the roof. You had to wait for the
right moment before nicking a spade or a pair of a shears. Obviously," Nott added, "nothing
would've happened to us had we been caught. But this is different. Should we not make ourselves
scarce?"

"You can hide behind that rock over there," Tom replied. "I'm staying."

"Well, don't mind if I do, then."

"But," Tom said, reaching over and tugging the handle of Nott's opera glasses right out of the other
boy's hands, "I'll have these, thanks."

Nott opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to change his mind. He scurried away, pulling
his necktie lower over his brow, and ducked behind a rocky outcrop by the boat Tom had
commandeered from the Hogwarts boatshed.

And thus, The Project, the obsession of the last few months, was put into operation for the first
time.

Tom narrowed his eyes, hands tightening around the opera glasses. These were wizard-made; they
had to have special features—there! He found a knob on the side, plated brass with little notches
that tick-tick-ticked as he turned it, and then he could observe the Basilisk, in all its magnified
glory: every green scale on its belly, every ridge of horn on its head, and every fearsome tooth
glinting from the perimeter of its pink-and-white maw.

A dozen yards away, the Basilisk's tongue tasted the air around the charmed egg, then slowly,
warily slipped out. It crept forward; the tip touched the enchanted envelope where it had been
adhered to the side of the egg.

Tom held his breath in anticipation.

Nothing happened.

The questing tongue extended; it swiped against the envelope, curiously warm on this frozen
December day—

Then, with a weak and unimpressive pop!, like the sound of a bicycle tyre puncturing on the other
side of the street, the envelope burst into a small cloud of confetti, and from out of the rain of
disintegrating paper came an expanding blossom of green smoke.
In quiet discussions held in the dormitory when the rest of the boys had fallen asleep, Tom had
pressed Nott on his progress. And Nott had admitted to a few counts of 'appropriation', mentioning
that he'd copied things here and there from other sources, including Gobstones and Exploding
Snap, two things that topped Tom's list of the dullest wizarding recreational activities.

(This list included bowls, Professor Dumbledore's favourite sport—the old man had a trophy in his
office from the Bodmin Bowling Club, next to his Transfiguration Today forty year career
achievement award. Also on the list was the The Daily Prophet's mind-numbing runic crossword
puzzle, Hermione's favourite, and chocolate frog card collecting, a hobby in which his fellow
students spent tens of galleons buying and opening packs of frogs just for that one rare card. They
didn't do anything with the chocolate, nor with their cards! They owned them just to say they
owned them, so it was natural for Tom to judge it a silly, infantile pursuit.)

Plagiarism was a matter of little concern to Tom, who had profited from the wretched allure of
academic malfeasance as an eleven year old. Hadn't European black powder cannons originally
been co-opted from firecrackers, a novelty entertainment for the Chinese? No one had cared then.
There was no reason for anyone to care now.

With these expectations set for him, Tom hadn't expected anything too grand from Nott. Something
that worked, surely—he wouldn't have recruited Nott for The Project if he hadn't thought the boy to
possess some semblance of competence. But despite these expectations—and his personal
standards—Tom found himself impressed by the smoothness of the enchantment, and the capability
in which Nott had executed his part of The Project.

Tom had seen Gobstones played in the Slytherin Common Room. They shot out a solid stream of
liquid when someone lost the match, and could be dodged with ease if one was familiar with sets
displayed in the front window of Wiseacre's of Diagon. This was a fine mist, and Tom appreciated
the thoughtful detail—the surface area was greater, so the effect became visible immediately upon
contact.

Adjusting the knob of the opera glasses, Tom revelled in the sight, slowed to a quarter speed: the
cloud of green smoke, droplets of venom dispersed into a fine mist, settling on the speckled brown
shell of an enlarged chicken's egg. The egg bubbled and hissed with the sound of frying fat on a
stove, white blisters forming and popping and foaming, pinholes on the egg's surface widening into
buttonholes within the space of half a minute, revealing the sagging translucent membrane that
contained the liquid albumen.

The Basilisk had caught a snoutful of venom, but the affect was far less dramatic. Its tongue
retracted into its mouth, tasting the strange substance; it must have recognised the venom as its
own, for it made no move to attack the source of the disturbance. Instead, it scrubbed its face
against the ground, then resumed its meal. The head lowered, the great jaws opened, bent down to
scoop up the egg...

The egg, shedding dribbles of white froth, burst when the weakest part of its shell bumped against
the tip of one of the Basilisk's teeth.

Yolk splattered the ground, the other eggs in the Basilisk's little hoard, and the Basilisk's face. The
Basilisk reared back, tossing its head from side to side, and a trail of sticky liquid egg splattered
over the ground.

It had worked.
Tom resisted the urge to inspect the egg up close—it probably wasn't safe to approach the Basilisk
until a layer of oiled sand had been tamped down in its hollow.

With a bounce to his step, he joined Nott at the rocky outcrop.

"A few more tests, I think," said Tom, handing back the borrowed opera glasses, "and it should be
fit for a Christmas delivery."

"How are you going to send them off, anyway?" Nott asked. "Hand delivery?"

"Owl mail," said Tom. "I can't use one of the school owls, and they'll recognise me if I visit the post
office during a Hogsmeade weekend, so I'll have to go to one of the public offices in Diagon during
the holidays."

"You're using a public owl?" said Nott incredulously.

"I don't have my own," Tom said. "And a public owl carries a dozen letters a day. No one will know
who sent it."

"Yes, they will," Nott said. "Or they can find out—quite easily. Every public owl trained to carry
coin pouches has it clipped to a band around their leg. That band lists its hatchery and its home
roost, and if an owl takes injury or loses its delivery, the recipient can file a complaint to the owl
office via the band number. Owls that lose too many letters are sent back to the hatchery to be re-
trained or destroyed. It's how they keep track of these things." Nott shrugged, giving Tom a
sideways glance. "Not surprising that you don't know these things, if you've never lived in a home
with a family owl or two."

"I suppose you have an alternative to recommend?"

"Give me the name of the recipient, and I'll mail them with my father's owls," said Nott. "They're
trained to deliver overnight, and won't loiter around begging for scraps like half the owls I see at
breakfast."

"Excellent suggestion," said Tom. "You'll lend me one of your owls, then."

Nott shuffled his feet awkwardly. "I need the names, Riddle. Father's owls won't fly for anyone but
a member of the household."

This was frustrating, but Tom could see the reasoning: a family owl, unlike public owls that
delivered newspapers, magazines, and Chocolate Sampler of the Month subscriptions, did not like
handling by outsiders. An owl's attachment was formed within the first few months of its being
bought; this was a desirable trait to wizards who didn't want anyone else tampering with their mail.
Tom's prior experience with family owls was through the Grangers' pet, Gilles, whom Hermione
had used to send him snacks and interesting books on a daily basis from the moment she'd brought
it home from Diagon Alley. Tom had fed Gilles on his windowsill, given it some special magical
training, and Gilles, to this day, would deliver his mail. This was unusual for a family owl, but Tom
hadn't thought much of it—why shouldn't Hermione's owl answer to him?

"I'll give you the information—and the object of delivery—on the day they're to be mailed," Tom
said.

"The owls'll be sent off from home," said Nott, "so how are you going to do that?"
"I'm leaving that up to you."

"What?"

"You'll invite me to your home," said Tom. "Everyone else in Slytherin invites each other for
Christmas parties and such every year. This year, you'll invite me."

"Everyone else's family knows each other," Nott pointed out. "But your family are Muggles. Father
would never allow you past the wards if he thought you were Muggleborn."

"My grandparents are Muggles," said Tom. "My mother was a witch."

Nott, who had been about to say something, choked. "How... how do you know that?"

"My father," Tom's lip curled in distaste, upon uttering those words. Regardless of the context,
those two short words sounded terrible on his tongue, articulated in his voice. "I learned it from
him, last year. For some reason, he didn't think much of my mother's abilities—I understood that he
was rather grateful to be left a widower at twenty-two."

"So," said Nott. "You're a half-blood, and you're only just telling me this now?"

"Does it matter?" Tom asked, shrugging. "From what I've seen, what really matters isn't blood, or
honour, or cleverness. It's authority, and how to wield it well."

When he was younger, Tom would have said power was the only thing that mattered. But
Dumbledore had power—and cleverness and aptitude, too. But all that hardly meant anything when
the man frittered his life away minding children who had trouble remembering how to hold their
wands the right way around. Authority was different. It was power with the mantle of legitimacy; it
was the gulf between a rabble-rouser and a regime, or an aspiring Prince to an Emperor regnant.

"And," continued Tom, meeting Nott's eyes without blinking, "how much merit can be placed on
the value of blood, when the son of a wizard finds himself deferring to the wisdom of the son of a
Muggle?"

"'Wisdom'?" repeated Nott in a tone of disbelief.

"If you don't understand, you have the good luck in being taken under the wing of someone who
does," said Tom. "Write to your family, Nott. This is an opportunity for the both of us."

"I... see," said Nott, turning away from Tom's burning gaze to cough into his hand and scratch an
itch on his nose.

The sun had begun its descent behind the snow-capped ridgeline when they returned to the castle.

Four o'clock, or thereabouts, by Tom's reckoning. Living at Hogwarts where each school day was
divided into four class sessions, two before lunch and two after, Tom had developed a good sense
of time without having to rely on his watch. He'd noticed that wizards were a punctual lot; they
paid more attention to the aspect of the sun, the turning seasons, and the orbits of heavenly bodies
than Muggles did. Unlike Muggles, the average wizard lived outside the bounds of major cities, but
resided within small rural holdings unaffected by the coal smoke clouds that had become a fixture
of London life.
Tom had also noticed that the animals had a good sense of time, too: when the sun set and the
temperature fell, the Basilisk became more lethargic, speaking less and drowsing more. The
Acromantula, on the other hand, became more active, and it was unnerving how well it
camouflaged itself in the scrubby rocks by the lakeshore, out of sight to both the humans and the
fearsome Basilisk that had curled itself up, after consuming its dinner, in a gouged-out crater
warmed by charmed rocks.

"I've warmed that pile of rocks over there," Tom spoke to a shivering stand of marshweed. "If you
try to leave this inlet, you'll freeze to death overnight. And in the event you run away and survive
the night, I'll have the Basilisk take care of you in the morning."

"You're leaving me here?" said the Acromantula in its breathy voice.

"Don't worry, you won't be alone," said Tom, glancing over his shoulder at the sleeping Basilisk.
"You said you wanted to see the sky. Am I not giving you what you asked for?"

Tom made his way back to the boat, where Nott awaited him, his flying carpet spread over his
knees like a blanket.

"You could have waited until we got back to the castle to do your business," Nott remarked.

"When nature calls, one can't refuse," Tom replied dismissively. He tapped his wand to the boat's
rudder, and the boat juddered forward, slipping into the water without a splash. In the growing
dark, the boat navigated its way back to the boatshed, a function of its limited enchantments. Above
them, torches flickered on in the castle windows, starting from the base of each tower and rising
upwards; the final dregs of orange light glinted on the arms of the orrery fixture on the topmost
floor of the Astronomy Tower.

"It'll be a queer thing not to see this every day," said Nott, gazing at the castle. "Strange to think
there's only a term left before we're due to leave all this behind."

"When we leave, you'll have better things to do than think about terms and exams," said Tom. "I
can promise you that."

Nott fell silent, considering Tom's statement—or calculating how much of it was idle boast.

Personally, Tom didn't think much of school these days. There were other things on his mind: goals
in common, plans in fruition, and strategies to develop. He thought of the book in his bag, far
removed from the N.E.W.T.-student approved reading list.

"La prima coniettura che si fa di un signore e del cervel suo, è vedere gli uomini che lui ha
d'intorno; e quando sono sufficienti e fedeli, sempre si può riputarlo savio, perchè ha saputo
conoscerli suffienti e mantenerseli fedeli."

The first impression one forms of a leader is founded on the servants by which he surrounds
himself; when they are competent and loyal, then he may be considered wise, for this is a
leader who knows to recognise competence and ensure loyalty.
One morning, on the last week of term before Christmas holidays, Tom's breakfast was interrupted
by Hermione, who had crossed the Great Hall to the Slytherin table, waving a colourful bit of paper
in his face.

This was unusual—Hermione normally ate breakfast with the Ravenclaws, while reading the
Muggle newspaper sent from London. The other Ravenclaws ate with books on their laps or
propped on a jug of pumpkin juice, so no one paid attention to anyone else's reading material. At
the Slytherin table, when someone got mail, everyone surreptitiously leaned in to catch a glimpse
of the sender's name or the contents of their letter. This practice had led to a dramatic denouement
when Lucretia Black's letters had been delivered to the girls of Slytherin, inviting a lucky few to
join the bridal retinue of her upcoming wedding.

(Many tears had been shed, but not out of sympathetic well-wishing.)

"Tom, Tom," said Hermione in a frantic voice, "can I speak with you?"

"What is it?"

"I-it's about the holidays," Hermione stammered.

"Oh, we were talking about it just now," said Tom. "Would you like to join us?"

He patted the side of the bench on his right, jerking his head at Lestrange as a cue to slide down
and make room.

"Is this allowed?" asked Hermione, and then she shook her head and muttered to herself, "No, no,
I'm Head Girl—if I should decide to allow it..."

Tom waited patiently for Hermione to make her decision, and when she—finally—arrived to the
inevitable conclusion, he threw an arm around her and murmured in her ear, "You're invited to
Christmas with me, as usual. I told my grandmother the day before we left for Scotland; she can't
have forgotten—"

"She hasn't," said Hermione. She showed him the contents of this morning's mail: an envelope with
a Royal Mail stamp affixed to it, and a square of cardstock in the bright titanium white of factory-
produced paper. (Wizarding paper always came in some shade of yellow or brown.) The corners of
the card were embossed with silver gilt, and featured an elegant watercolour illustration of the
Riddle House's front façade.

"See? 'Tom turns 18! To mark this momentous occasion, we cordially invite you to celebrate with us
at our home...'" Hermione shoved the card under his nose. "Mrs. Riddle is hosting a birthday party
in your name. Mum and Dad said they both got invitations, and Mr. Pacek got one, too. Mrs.
Riddle's invited the Tindalls—at least, the Major and Mrs. Blanche—"

Hermione paused for the briefest fraction of a second, cheeks flaring pink; Tom found it suspect,
but she forged ahead quickly and Tom's half-baked speculation dissolved before it had reached its
full form.
"And look! She's written here that I'm to pass along an invitation to Nott." She pressed a slip of
paper in his hand, which he absently slipped into his pocket. "There's no possibility of it being an
intimate family celebration if she's invited this many people. Mum says she's making it a social
début!"

"How enthralling."

"Are you not concerned?"

"I've no reason to be," said Tom, giving her a reassuring pat on the hand. "Unless my father's
there."

"Well, I haven't heard anything about him..."

"Then there's nothing to worry about, is there?" said Tom brightly. "The more people there, the
more presents I'll get. And," he drew Hermione closer to his side, her hair tickling his cheek, "the
social début won't mean anything. Local notables, eligible flowers of Yorkshire, supplicants at our
altar of generational wealth—I'm not looking to be introduced to any of these people, whoever they
may be. I don't care what my grandmother thinks, either—there's nothing they can offer that's as
good as what I've already got."

"You have such a way with words, Tom," Hermione sighed.

"I know," Tom replied, breathing deeply of Hermione's scent. Soap, fresh laundry, herbal tea. If
there was one good thing about the N.E.W.T.s, it was that their subjects were no longer separated
by House, and he could be Hermione's desk partner for every lesson. "If I'm asked to give a speech,
there'll be no difficulty in coming up with something to say. And of course it's good that your
parents have been invited, Hermione. It'll be the perfect opportunity for us to tell them they
shouldn't expect you at King's Cross this summer."

"Sorry?" said Hermione. "You're saying that I can't go back to London next year?"

"I'm saying that there's no reason for you to," said Tom, choosing his words to sound reasonable.
Irrefutably logical. "You're an adult now, in both worlds. You'll be a fully qualified witch in June.
You've been attending Slughorn's dinners these last few months—without my having to remind you
about them—and actually talking to people about wizarding careers. What manner of career
opportunities does London have? Unless you have your parents squeak out some references
explaining why you were withdrawn from Donwell back in Thirty-Eight, then you've nothing to
look forward to but conscripted volunteer-work until you're fortunate enough—or unfortunate, in
this case—to have yourself put in the pudding club."

It was a constant struggle in his life, waiting for people to catch up to his line of thinking; where he
perceived grand visions of the What-Will-Be, others merely contemplated the possibility of having
a roast for dinner, or last night's leftovers. Hermione was an odd contradiction, in that she was
perfectly capable of grasping Tom's abstract plans once she'd asked a few relevant questions, but
unless she was led onto the right track, she would, more often than not, fixate on the small,
irrelevant things—like instrumental value, moral principle, and Things Thou Shalt Not Do.

"'Pudding club,'" said Hermione in a weak voice, "I would never!"

"Not until you're married, no," said Tom. "I can't imagine my grandfather being much pleased
about having a bastard in the house."
"I'm not getting married, either," Hermione said firmly. "You're right, I do want a career, but I want
it on my own merits. At least, I want to try earning it myself before having to resort to—to
desperate measures."

"There's no call for you to insult every married woman with a vocation," said Tom in a reproachful
tone.

Hermione ducked her head and turned away, chastened. "I didn't mean it like that!"

"I know you didn't," said Tom. "But other people wouldn't. You know, Hermione, you could take
advantage of this social début business that Grandmama is arranging. Respectable society, plenty of
introductions—it'll be a good chance to practise mingling without any lasting consequences if you
happen to fumble something. After all, you won't be seeing most of these people again."

"You certainly have a strange way of presenting an argument," said Hermione.

"I aim to be as honest as I can," said Tom. "Do you think I'd lie to you in the name of protecting
your feelings?"

Hermione just shook her head and pressed her lips together into a line. Tom, upon looking around,
noticed that the Slytherins around him, ostensibly immersed in their breakfast tea and toast, quiet
exchanges, and private correspondence, had been observing his and Hermione's conversation with
affected non-interest. It was unusual, he realised, for a young man and a young woman to indulge
in this much familiarity in a public setting. The most he'd ever seen between beaus and fiancées
was discreet hand-holding under the table, offering an arm and an escort to class, and chaste kisses
on the cheek to mark a farewell.

Here, Hermione was tucked under Tom's arm, her shoulder pressed close against his side, in the
small space that had been made by forcing everyone on the right side of the bench to squeeze up
and slide down.

I've never been kissed on the cheek, Tom realised. Except by my grandmother.

This was not a thought that crossed his mind often, but in recent weeks, he had been thinking about
it more and more.

He'd visited the Basilisk every few days, bringing it food and informing it that he would be away
during the holidays, and the each time, the Basilisk had inquired on Tom's progress in securing
himself a mate. It was irritating, but Tom held no high expectations when it came to dealing with
animals, particularly one who felt no indignity in commenting on his bathroom habits. He wasn't
fond of dwelling on those habits; Tom attributed them to the changes, unwanted and unwelcome,
that manifested themselves at the age of fourteen and had not disappeared once he'd reached
adulthood. They hadn't been limited to physical changes either: to his consternation, there was the
occasional vulgar fancy that slipped into his thoughts at the slightest encouragement.

If this is but a phase, then everyone else will have suffered it too. Hermione included. Tom consoled
himself with the knowledge that Hermione, almost certainly, hadn't been kissed on the cheek by
anyone but her parents.

When the clocktower marked the quarter-hour, the mass of students began to migrate from the
dining tables, leaving behind mounds of grimy porcelain and sticky silverware. Tom offered
Hermione his arm and walked with her up several floors to the Muggle Studies classroom. It was
the one N.E.W.T. subject that she'd signed up for, but Tom hadn't. He'd got an Outstanding on the
O.W.L. just by reading the textbook—and using his own knowledge on the 'Social Customs of the
Common British Muggle'. He saw it as a waste of five lesson hours a week, but bore Hermione's
defences of the subject stoically. (In spite of his iron self-control, Tom couldn't maintain his silence
when Hermione had suggested they write to the Board of Governors to recommend the class be
made compulsory.)

They arrived to the classroom, located in a far-flung corridor shared by the other relatively
unpopular elective subjects, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes.

On impulse, a flight of fancy that Tom definitely had not been mulling over since breakfast, he
leaned forward and down, and brushed his mouth against Hermione's cheek.

Or rather, he had intended to brush against her cheek, but she'd turned to him to ask a question
about their term-end exams, and he, to the surprise of them both, caught the corner of her mouth.

The first impression he got was of soft skin, smoothness with no trace of the coarse prickle of his
own skin, where he shaved his whiskers but could still feel the hard grains of hair follicle beneath
the flesh. His second impression was of the flavour, an uncomplicated lolly-sweetness, from the
iced bun she'd eaten with her morning tea. The third and fourth arrived all at once: the scent of her
skin and hair, and the warmth of her cheek as the red suffused her face, the heat radiating so thickly
that he felt it on his own face, until a muscle by his eye twitched and made him conscious that this
feeling of—shyness—embarrassment—confusion—thrill—was not his own, but a projection of
Hermione's emotions.

He turned his face away, and the connection, exquisitely intimate, evaporated at once.

"Tom," Hermione said tentatively, a hand pressed to her mouth.

"You should get to class. You always hate being the last one in," said Tom. "Will you join me for
lunch at the Slytherin table?"

"Y-yes," said Hermione. "Of course."

Tom stopped in the bathroom—the boys' bathroom, not the girls' bathroom with the hidden
entrance to the Chamber of Secrets—to refresh himself. And to examine the jumble of feelings he
was presently experiencing, Hermione's reaction to him, and the meaning of the... the kiss. For it
was a kiss. There was nothing else he could call it.

He'd... enjoyed it.

There was no other way to accurately describe it.

Was there a meaning behind it? He supposed he could explain it away as an experiment of sorts, a
means to determine if it was as disgusting as it looked, as disgusting as he had for many years
thought it would be. He'd caught his fair share of curfew dodgers in the halls after-hours, and to see
them, tongues lolling, mouths pressed wetly together, had put in his mind an image of Old Ab's
goats, lipping at the last chunk of apple at the bottom of the feed trough.

This, on the other hand, had felt like a more profound iteration of the First Hug. He had been
confused about that, too, but after many years and many hugs, he had grown to appreciate them as a
demonstration of comfort and affection.
There was nothing wrong with that.

In fact, his book even seemed to approve of it.

"Quelli che si obbligano, e non sieno rapaci, si debbono onorare ed amare—perchè nelle
prosperità te ne onori, e nelle avversità non hai da temere."

Those committed to you, without motivations of greed, should be honoured and loved—
because those who are honoured in times of prosperity you shall never fear in times of
adversity.

Onorare ed amare.

The translation had puzzled him at first. He'd studied Latin cases and conjugation for long enough
to recognise the root word, which had filtered down through Latin's various derivative languages.
What, exactly, was the meaning of this advice? How would it be best adapted to his own
circumstances?

Tom wasn't aware of the twenty minutes that had passed in meditative contemplation until Nott
barged into the bathroom, robes flapping.

"Riddle! There you are—I've been looking all over for you! I tried to catch your attention at
breakfast, but you were too busy making eyes at Granger."

The reflection in the mirror stiffened. Tom blinked, his thoughts derailed, and glanced over his
shoulder.

"Don't you have class to attend?"

"I've got a free," said Nott. "Runes and Arithmancy are my only electives, and we're in the same
class."

"Why are you here, then? Can't you see that I'm busy?"

"Doing what? Talking to the looking glass?"

"Practising Legilimency," said Tom.

"Oh," said Nott, deflating somewhat. "Should I come back later?"

"Just tell me what you came here to say," Tom said.

Nott rifled in his bag and held out an envelope of yellow parchment with a green wax seal, broken
in half. "My mother wrote and said that I could invite a guest for tea on Christmas Eve. Father will
be out attending a gala for writers and publishers, so charge of the wards will fall to Mother for the
day."

"Couldn't you have asked your father?" said Tom.

 "He'd have refused, since he's never met your parents," said Nott. "Mother's more lenient about
these things, and she's always been more inclined to indulge me."

"Alright," said Tom, taking the letter and opening it. There was one sheet of parchment inside;
unfolding it, he saw the time and date, approximately an hour past noon, two days past the date of
the hibernal solstice, written in astrological symbols denoting planetary alignment and point of
perigee. There was a pressed flower tucked into the crease of the parchment, and when Tom
touched it, he felt an odd tingle on the tips of his fingers, as if he'd just pressed them against the
window of a moving motorcar.

"It's a Portkey," Nott explained. "Valid for one day only. It'll take you right outside the house, since
you can't Apparate directly if you've never been there before."

"Well, as there's no better time for this, I have something for you," said Tom, fishing in his pocket
for the invitation that Hermione had given him at breakfast. "Don't worry about the part that says
'gifts are unnecessary'; every other guest will be bringing one anyway."

"A Muggle birthday party, eh?" said Nott, scanning the contents of the invitation.

"Why not?" said Tom. "We'll have something to celebrate."

Chapter End Notes

— The Prince is a handbook of political philosophy first published in 1532, and is frequently
referenced by fictional bad guys and dark-lords-in-training. It seemed like a thing edgelord
Tom would admire at age 17, thinking he's soooo smart and cultured. The quotes used here are
from the original Italian version, re-printed in 1891 with English footnotes. The full text of the
book can be read here for free.

I was tempted to title this chapter "The Half-Blood Prince", but it was way too on-the-nose.

— Basilisks are a mutant species created by hatching a chicken egg under a toad, probably
with some extra magical ritual mumbo-jumbo. In this story, Basilisks are infertile because they
are not a naturally occurring species, and must rely on wizards to perpetuate their species' life
cycle.

— We're nearing the end of 1944. What an interesting year for Tom.
 Maternal Concerns
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1944

The final days of term slipped headfirst into a roaring blizzard that laid a thick coat of ice over the
castle and grounds. Every morning, owls delivered mail so thickly encrusted with ice that they
couldn't be opened without a good thaw. Students who had only worn their scarves and matching
mittens for Quidditch games wore them to meals and indoor classes. In the short gaps between
classes, the corridors became awash in a flood of primary colours—yellow and blue, red and green.

In the Slytherin boys' dormitory, Tom's dorm mates buried themselves in their textbooks in
preparation for their term-end exams, covering the floor in loose parchment and sweet wrappers,
with one narrow path cleared from the door to the bathroom. What they had been doing in the last
three months, Tom didn't know, but he suspected it had involved late nights of Firewhisky, card
games, and gambling. (And possibly collectible posters of the Holyhead Harpies Quidditch team
straddling their brooms in mid-air.)

Tom hadn't ignored his own textbooks. In preparation for his visit to Nott's house, he'd verified and
re-verified the date of the solstice from his Astronomy books, which fell on the twenty-second day
of December. The indicated time, too, took further confirmation—solar azimuth (what the
invitation meant with its symbol for 'noon') was dependent on geographical altitude; the
measurements given in his schoolbooks used the directions for northern Scotland, not the English
Midlands where Nott lived.

When Nott came upon Tom brushing up on his Astronomy, he remarked, "The difference is only
around twelve minutes, give or take a few seconds. You don't have to bother calculating; if you
hold onto the Portkey and wait, it'll take you where you were meant to go. That's what everyone
else does."

"People who buy Portkeys know where they're going," said Tom. "This one was given to me. I
think it would be advantageous to know where exactly it's taking me."

If he kept an eye on his watch and noted when the Portkey activated, he'd be able to determine the
location of Nott's family property, within a range of a dozen or so miles. It was a rather dry way of
obtaining information, but it could come in useful someday. Wizards didn't give away information
like that—they exchanged mail or called on each other via Floo Network with informal names like
'The Black Residence' or 'Cherrytree Cottage'.

Nott's troubled expression indicated that he'd caught onto Tom's line of thinking. "Robbery is one
of the rarest crimes in Wizarding Britain, if you must know, Riddle. No one keeps piles of gold
lying about, and the most valuable magical artefacts are always associated with great lineages. It'd
be impossible to sell them off without drawing attention to yourself."

"You told me last week that you used to nick things from the gardeners," replied Tom. "Doesn't that
count as robbery?"
"They're not human, they're property. It's as if you asked whether or not trimming the leaves off a
Mandrake counts as stealing," said Nott. "If you're going to study anything, I recommend etiquette.
To put on a good showing, you mustn't appear surprised at how a proper wizarding household is
run. During meal service, the servants never touch the food or tableware. The portraits will inquire
about your family, and intrude on any conversation held in the hallways. The looking glasses can be
ignored; you shouldn't feed scraps to the animals, regardless of how much they beg; the only
acceptable Muggle-related discussion topics allowed at table are Muggle arts and history—
anything else devolves into political bickering."

Nott paused for a moment, waiting for Tom to form a response. When Tom remained silent, Nott
asked, "Aren't you going to write that down?"

"Why should I?"

"Granger would have—" Nott cut himself off, coughing. "Ah, it just seemed like something
Granger might do."

"I'm sure I can remember without that," said Tom, shrugging. "And I'm sure you'll remind me if I
forget anything. After all, any lapses on my part reflect poorly on you, as the one who invited me.
A good incentive, isn't it?"

"Not particularly."

"Don't look so worried," Tom assured Nott. "We only have to mail a few envelopes. In and out; it'll
be done before dinner."

"Are you saying that nothing will go wrong?"

"If anything does," said Tom, "I'll find a way to fix it. I've a talent with these things."

"Really," said Nott in a flat voice. "Fixing things is your talent."

"I didn't want to mention duelling, Defence, Charms, Legilimency, or leadership," Tom said. "That
would be immodest of me."

"And modesty, I suppose, is another one of your many wonderful qualities," said Nott tersely. A
vein on his temple pulsed; biting himself off from saying anything further, the boy pitched himself
onto his bed and yanked the canopy curtains shut.

Tom ignored the snide tone of Nott's remark, returning to his studies. He jotted down a note to
study Portkeys and their creation. Officially, their production and distribution was regulated by the
Ministry of Magic, who contracted licensed creators to link various major wizarding settlements, as
mass transport for sporting or entertainment events, tourism, or business. One could place an order
with the Ministry for a custom single-use Portkey, but it meant having to give them the location and
time of departure—not the best idea when one required privacy and discretion.

This was a more worthwhile field of study than... etiquette.

He'd read etiquette books as a child. A Complete Guide to Household Management; The Ladies'
Manual of Politeness; Conversation, Comportment, and Conduct for the Genteel Modern Lady—
books that had ended up in the orphanage reading room, and been overlooked by children who
wanted to read exciting adventure stories about brave soldiers and dashing swashbucklers. Tom had
perused them once or twice on a rainy day, ignoring the chapters about embracing Christian virtues
like kindness and charity in one's life, and had seen what these books were really about: educating
those of lesser station to ape their betters.

After Tom's social standing had been confirmed by the adoption by his grandparents, he had
learned that etiquette was as much of a mass delusion as Christian virtues. For those of high station,
it didn't matter that they never learned how to pen a proper missive or converse with grace, for they
were, without question, granted leniency and forgiveness for their failings, both a privilege and a
birthright. Tom's father had married poorly, scorned invitations, treated his parents with discourtesy,
threw tantrums when he didn't get his way, and was still thought of as a gentleman dandy. A bit past
his prime, admittedly, but he was nonetheless a handsome and landed widower. It made him
eligible, a status which seemed to quell even the harshest of critical voices.

The way in which people treated others wasn't out of their desire to promote a society of civil and
enlightened individuals. No, it was all to do with cultivating those of worth and value.

Tom would be appraised and treated on the basis of his usefulness, his potential—which was, all
things considered, not unfair when he himself regarded everyone else in that same fashion. Thus,
he didn't judge it worth the effort to impress a housewife, as wealthy or well-connected as she
might be. He had his own money, and was capable of earning his own commendations.

Those letters, for instance, were a good place to start.

The term drew to a close, and soon Tom bade a regretful farewell to the Basilisk and the
Acromantula. And also to Hermione, who was spending Christmas with her parents in London,
before boarding the train to Yorkshire for Tom's birthday party on New Year's Eve.

The Hogwarts Express journey was quiet, the occupants of Tom's train compartment showing very
little enthusiasm about returning home to their families. The transfer to the York Flyer after it
departed from King's Cross was even quieter, Tom sitting alone in his First Class compartment,
casting charm after charm to waft away the tobacco stench from the other passengers in the
carriage.

It was one of the many aspects of the Muggle world that Tom had to re-accustom himself every
time he left Hogwarts. The fruits of industry were an unavoidable part of Muggle life: coal smoke,
petroleum, kerosene, tobacco; it was the same for the accoutrements of a Muggle lifestyle: oily
pomades on the men, heavily fragranced hair lacquers on the ladies' roller sets, and colognes used
to cover up the stench of weary bodies that had put in twelve hours of labour and would be bathed
only at the end of the week. After the magic-facilitated cleanliness of Hogwarts, the smell of
Muggle London turned Tom's stomach. He found himself relieved to escape to the rural pastures of
the Yorkshire countryside, where there were few palls of chemical smoke produced by motor
vehicles and cigarettes—and fewer people who could afford such luxuries.
The Riddles' man-of-all-work, Bryce, met him at the Hangleton station, touching his hand to the
brim of his flatcap.

"I reckon you've grown an inch since I saw you last, lad," said Bryce, loading Tom's luggage into
the boot of the family Sunbeam motorcar. First Tom's trunk, then his book bag, and then Bryce's
carved wooden walking stick going on top. "In a week's time, you won't be much of a lad anymore,
eh? Tha will be a man grown, able to make your own way in the world. And you'll 'ave no one to
stop you from goin' back to London, if that were what you'd fancied."

"There's nothing in London for me," said Tom, as Bryce held open the door to the passenger bench.
"I sometimes wonder if it was ever my home at all."

(Wool's Orphanage had once been Tom's official residence, yes, but it was never his home.)

"Mr. and Mrs. Riddle are tickled to see you make your home here," Bryce replied. "They've been
doin' everythin' in their power to convince you of that, let me tell you. They even put up a stone to
your mother, in the family plot down the graveyard yonder, may she rest in peace. En't much, but
'tis more'n anyone else in the village would've given to one of her lot."

"'Her lot'?" said Tom. "Did you know them?"

"Not well, sir," Bryce said. "Went off to York for work at sixteen, after gettin' my school certificate,
and didn't come back, see, until my leg were done in. But I did hear tell. Not much to say about
them, and of that, nowt good. They were, and I'm beggin' your pardon, sir, bone-idle and as godless
as they come. Drunkards and thieves, of the worst sort. Never worked a hand's turn. Never stepped
a foot in church. And never would've been missed by us in the village if we weren't to lay eyes on
them again—if it hadn't been for your mum turnin' Mister Tom's head one day and takin' off with
him down south."

Tom considered the groundskeeper's words. "Am I maligned for her connection to me? My name is
'Riddle', but half of my blood is hers."

"The maids speak well of you, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Riddle've been more... friendly to the rest o' the
folks in the village, since you come to live with them. If you're an honest man, livin' an honest life,
then it don't matter who you are—there'll not be a word spoken against you."

This advice was carefully reflected upon for the rest of the drive back to the Riddle House. The
Muggles of Little Hangleton—including his grandparents—knew nothing of the real reason behind
his father's suddenly taking up with a village tramp, almost twenty years ago. That village tramp
was Tom's mother, a witch, but not one in possession of ambition, power, sense, or education.
Hogwarts coddled its students, but any student who had graduated from the seven-year curriculum
would have been able to cast spells—Transfiguration, Charms, and Defence—to protect themselves
and provide for their most basic needs. From what he'd overheard from the matrons at Wool's, his
mother had arrived to their doorstep starving and shivering, penniless and clothed in rags. It was
not how a proper witch should have entered a Muggle abode.

Tom concluded that his magical heritage, if that was where he'd gotten it, was nothing to be proud
of. Being the son of a witch—that witch in particular—was no better than being thought the son of
a tramp.

It was better to be acknowledged as the son of a gentleman.

A gentleman, by the very definition of the title, was a member of the gentry, in possession of land
and money. Land was land, and money was easily exchanged into gold galleons by the Gringotts
currency teller. In the wizarding world, there existed a hierarchy of power. Magic was might, but
wealth and land were influence and status.

Tom had the first; the second and third were his future inheritance.

The first week of the Christmas holidays passed in days of heavy snowfall, the drifts outside the
windows growing higher each night, revealed each morning when the drapes were drawn aside and
the fires lit for the business of the day. Tom fell into a bored tedium of waking, eating, writing, and
sleeping. He hadn't bought a subscription to The Daily Prophet, so there was no wizarding news to
read at breakfast; he cared little for The Yorkshire Post's Christmas appeal for the soldiers posted
overseas, or the morale-boosting stories about civilians saving their ration tickets to provide a
Christmas dinner to their évacuee foster-children.

Tom, having no owl of his own, received letters from Hermione only once every two days; it took
that long for Gilles to make the round-trip journey to London and back when the weather was this
poor. No other students wrote to him; his dorm mates had already handed over his Christmas gifts
on the train ride, and Tom, not caring to observe Christmas tradition, had unwrapped them all later
that evening. (It was the standard complement of books, stationery, sweets, and gift vouchers that
Tom sold to other students for less than their face value.)

Alone in the Riddle House, without his pets, without Hermione to proofread his homework essays
over his shoulder, Tom grew listless with his solitary routine. He was at once idle, having finished
his homework by the second day of the holidays, and yet at the same time caught in a restive state,
tense with anticipation for The Project approaching its date of realisation. His grandparents and
their servants, with whom Tom shared the house, noticed something of his restlessness. During
mealtimes, Tom put great effort into limiting the conversation to nothing but meaningless
courtesies, and with no reason to form suspicions, the Riddles ascribed Tom's dark mood to the
upcoming birthday party preparations.

The party.

Its looming presence couldn't be avoided.

Like Christmas of the previous year, the Riddle House had been decked for the season: a Christmas
tree in the front foyer, twelve-feet of fresh-cut fir, and two smaller trees in the parlour and drawing
room; tinsel hung from the hallway clocks; ribbons twined around the banisters, the woodwork
polished to a rich gleam by beeswax, lemon oil, and the maids' exertions. But this year, there were
other decorations than the Christmas baubles and garlands. With Tom's birthday falling less than a
week after Christmas Day, the decorations for his unasked-for party had begun to make their way
across the house. Banners bearing a large 18 began cropping up in the corners of rooms, and vases
of winter blooms appeared on every fireplace mantel, the number 18 sprouting out of the
arrangement, paper die-cuts held up on little wooden sticks.

Tom's grandmother flitted around the house, inspecting the chandeliers and ordering the runner
carpets on the staircases swept, vacuumed, and re-tacked. Tom's grandfather took the mounting list
of household improvements in good humour; at meals, he bore the news of this change or that
renovation stoically, listening to Mrs. Riddle natter on about the fabric swatches soon to be made
into new drapes and table linens, or her impossible decision in selecting one colour of guest towel
from the catalogue of options for use in the downstairs washroom.
None of that interested Tom, who pushed his buttered carrots around his plate in silence, whilst his
left hand fiddled with his wand under the table. The tooth gouges left by his father's dog, that night
last December, had not smoothed out, even after hours of working at it with a tin of lac resin and a
soft cloth. He hadn't noticed the gouges until the next day, when he'd tried to wash the blood off
and found that it had gathered in the newly carved hollows and crannies...

Thomas Riddle, trying to engage Tom in luncheon discourse, asked, "And what'll you have for your
birthday, Tom, my boy? Your father asked for a horse, a spirited warmblood filly shipped up from
the Cotswalds; we had to buy out a stock car on the Flyer to get her here on the day."

"I've never ridden a horse before," said Tom.

"Oh, I should think you'd take it up most smartly," Thomas Riddle assured him. "We Riddles are
excellent riders; born to the saddle, as they call it. You have the makings of a fine horseman,
Tommy; you carry yourself well. A firm hand, a good seat—it's all one needs in taking that first
step off the mounting block. Come summer, once the snow's gone, I'll show you the creek trail.
Best spot for picnicking on the property, as Mary would tell you."

"I don't like horses," Tom spoke in a cool voice. They were dull creatures, brighter than cattle, but
nowhere near as shrewd as goats. He recognised the usefulness of a wizard-bred owl, a trained rat,
or the convenience of animals like a Basilisk or Acromantula, who had the basic intelligence to
know when to and when not to void themselves. But a horse...

In the days of his youth, Tom had seen his fair share of horses in harness on the London streets:
rag-pickers' nags, draught horses on their delivery rounds with casks of beer or milk, the
Metropolitan mounted constabulary on patrol. Their animals defecated right on the road, and
motorcars would drive over the waste, smearing it around in great brown streaks, rendering the
daily commute a frightful experience to those who had no alternative to their own two feet.

No, he didn't want a horse. And there was no benefit of riding to someone who could Apparate, and
found no amusement in sitting on a witless lump of flesh that spooked at passing pigeons and
discarded handbills.

Thomas Riddle frowned at hearing Tom's words. It was an easy task of interpreting the man's
puzzled expression. A Riddle who didn't like horses? How was such a thing even possible?

"You favour motors, then?" Tom's grandfather asked. "I'm convinced that nothing's as sporting as
running a hunt course downhill through a bramble hedge, but motoring's not without its merits. An
engine's got twenty-four horses under the bonnet, or so I'm told. One must wonder how the good
chaps at the factory got them all to fit in there."

He chortled at his own joke. Tom pasted on a polite smile. Internally, he contemplated the
practicality of Stunning and Obliviating everyone in the dining room, then taking his leave.

No, that wouldn't work, would it?

With no memory of their conversation, his grandfather would find some way to use that same joke
again.

When the pudding, a buttery tart of stewed winter apples and reconstituted sultanas, made its
ponderous route around the table, Tom took a small serving and finished it in a few bites, excusing
himself from the table.
Tom had once overheard the orphanage minders say that there was no job as taxing as caring for
children, and they deserved proper appreciation for their hours of daily service. He disagreed; it
was an exhausting task on his part, having to suffer the smothering concern of parents and
guardians. He already knew how to bank his own fires, dress for the weather, and walk down to the
village without losing his way—and yet, if he was delayed by half-a-minute in getting himself
downstairs for breakfast, his grandmother would dash over and press her liver-spotted hands to his
forehead and cheeks, worried that his face looked too drawn, his colouring too pale.

(It was his natural skin colour! For some reason, the residents of the Riddle House assumed that
Tom's natural shade of pale was abnormal, because no one had skin that white. This was incorrect.
The truth was that, this far out in the agrarian wilderness, people who spurned a country lifestyle
were rare, and people who chose to spend all their hours indoors were nonexistent.)

Quitting the dining room after lunch, Tom debated between the few activities available to him—
pacing his bedroom and avoiding his grandmother. An owl from Hermione was not set to arrive for
another day, so there was no use in sitting by the window to receive mail when it came. His
Grandmother had an uncanny knack of finding him wherever he went in the house, so if he
remained in his room, Mrs. Riddle would request his presence in the kitchen to pick menu items for
his birthday canapés. She had decided, without any word from Tom's side, that the party wouldn't
include just the traditional cake and candles, but a meal and a selection of hors d'oeuvres paired
with wine and champagne.

It was best to make himself scarce, then.

He hadn't visited the Little Hangleton village cemetery since summer, and he was curious about the
gravestone dedicated to his mother. When he'd proposed the idea to Bryce, it had been a deflection
to keep him and the rest of the servants from inquiring into the reason for Tom, Hermione, and
Nott's loitering in the mausoleum. His words had been repeated, brought further up the line to his
grandparents' ears, and Tom hadn't refuted it when those same words had appeared during dinner.
No, he'd reaffirmed his view, and then—to Hermione's disgust—he had been praised for his
compassion. That night, he'd concluded that there was no cause to gainsay that praise, even if it was
based on deliberate misinformation.

Tom had also found that he liked to observe his grandparents' reactions to casual allusions to his
mother or father. Truthfully, he didn't like them either, but he'd never known either of them, so his
disdain was remote and abstract, the same sentiments he held for all those who embraced a life of
weakness and profligacy. It was likened to the conceptual aversion that the average Briton held
toward the 'Yellow Peril' or the 'Hunnic Brute'. No one in Tom's personal experience had ever met
them (not that he'd asked), but people still harboured ill-will toward them anyway. Somehow, it was
an acceptable thing to do, even though a good Christian, Tom had been informed, was expected to
love their neighbours as they loved themselves.

(Hearing this at church one Sunday morning, a young six-year-old Tom was convinced that there
was nothing as nonsensical as aspiring to be either "good" or a "Christian".)

The metalled driveway from the Riddle House down to the village was ankle-deep in snow; on
either side of the path, the snow banks had been packed up past waist-height, thawed, re-frozen,
and set every noon and night until they'd become walls as solid as mortared brick. Powder-white
snow collected on the tops, blowing into Tom's face whenever the wind changed, tiny particles of
stinging ice that needled at his flushed cheeks and coated his eyelashes.
Tom flicked his wand. A circular motion, a murmured Protego, and the wind was silenced, the
flying snowflakes suspended in the air a foot before his nose, the Shield Charm producing a brief
blue spark with each impact.

The graveyard was silent, the shade trees leafless, bare branches varnished with a layer of
glistening ice. On the villagers' side, most of the modest gravestones were buried under snow, but a
few taller stones burst through, mossy square lumps adorned with a cap of white, like Cornish
cream on a tea cake. On the opposite side—the "family" side—withered, frost-bitten stems drooped
at the base of a few mausoleums, the leeward eaves having sheltered them from the wind.

Tom inspected the headstone epitaphs as he passed, using a Hot-Air Charm to blast the crusts of
snow from each stony face.

Charles Thomas Riddle, born Sept. 7, 1857. Died April 12, 1859. Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shall see God.

Mrs. Margaret Louise Sargent Riddle. Jan. 18, 1834 — Oct. 2, 1898. Wife to Thomas Henry
Edgar Riddle.

Elizabeth Victoria Riddle. 1822 — 1831. Beloved daughter. Without fault before the throne of
God.

It was strange to think that beneath the granite slabs and plump carved cherubs were the decayed
corpses of Tom's great-great grandparents, great-aunts, and great-uncles. He hadn't seen anyone
who'd lived more than a few years past eighty, and a good portion of the graves had been dedicated
to children. Muggles were so fragile; they died of the most insignificant causes—foul water,
common sniffles, effusion of the lung, wasting diseases, minor infections. In Wizarding Britain,
few wizards and witches lost children to illness, and accidents, even severe ones, were rarely fatal.
Lestrange had once dropped thirty feet off a broomstick, a fall which would have laid a Muggle out
for weeks, and that had only resulted in a two-minute pause during a Quidditch match.

Wizards were the superior breed, he concluded. There was no doubt about it.

Merope Gaunt Riddle. Wife and Mother. 1907 — 1926.

The last grave at the end of the row, nearest the spiked iron fence that marked the boundaries of the
cemetery, stopped him short.

It was set at a fair distance to the rest of the graves, of simple construction: a chunk of slate with a
square bronze plaque, missing the gold paint or carved flowers that he had seen on all the women's
gravestones he'd passed. And the name had been cast with Merope Gaunt in larger letters at the top,
and Riddle down below, as if it was intended to be a negligible footnote. There was no prefixed
Mrs., or explanation of her relation to the family, as all the other Riddle wives had been given.
This was his mother's gravestone.

Not her grave. There was no body interred under the frozen soil, no empty casket. Not unless his
grandparents had had the paupers' graves in London searched and exhumed for a set of bones that
had long been jumbled with the bones of a dozen nameless others, stacked layer on layer over the
passing years, like brined mackerels in a tin.

For a moment, Tom stood there, staring unblinkingly at the letters, reminded of the morning two
years ago when he'd taken the shoebox out from under his bed, lifted the lid, and had been greeted
with the stiff body of Peanut the Third.

His mother had died at nineteen years of age.

How had the Riddles even known?

It must be the registrar's office, Tom thought. Without a christening or school enrollment, her name
wouldn't have entered the official census record like Tom's had, as a child born into the tender
bosom of institutional charity. But his mother had been married in York, in a Muggle civil
ceremony, and they must have taken a record of her particulars there.

Tom cleared his throat. His disliked the feeling that had quietly stolen over him while he stood in
front of the stone marker; it wasn't sorrow or melancholy, or any combination of the appropriate
emotions one ought to feel when standing at the grave of a parent. It was that distant realisation of
the What-Could-Have-Been brushing against the solid and unyielding face of his What-Is-Now,
separated by an impenetrable span of time and possibility.

If...

If Merope Gaunt and Tom Riddle the Elder had not eloped to York and escaped to London. If Tom
had been born in this village, just as his parents had. If he had been raised in the house on the hill,
overlooking the village and the cemetery, sans one snow-capped slate gravestone.

He sniffed. A ridiculous notion.

"I've been informed that the souls of wizards are immortal," spoke Tom into the wintry silence. The
banks of piled snow muffled his voice; the only response was the rising shriek of the wind. "The
reliability of this information is questionable. But if, by the magical properties of your immortal
soul, you are experiencing the Next Great Adventure, then I hope you're enjoying it—every minute
of it, for the rest of eternity.

"Alone, of course," Tom added. "Because that's what you get for marrying a Muggle. And everyone
knows that Muggles go to Purgatory."

Tom returned to the house, drying his shoes and slipping in through the servants' entrance with a
quick Unlocking Charm; going in the through the front would have left mud on the doormat and
rung a bell that alerted the staff. As he passed through the kitchen—and Mrs. Willrow's turned back
—he seized a handful of sugar-dusted sponge fingers meant for this evening's pudding, and then
headed up to his bedroom, munching them in great pleasure. On the staircase landing halfway up,
Tom encountered his grandmother, who very sternly chastised him for disappearing from his
bedroom without leaving word, right when she urgently needed to discuss the seating arrangements
of his upcoming birthday meal.
The routine of Tom's life resumed its natural course.

His straight-backed grandfather nodded to him when Tom came down for dinner, lapels brushed
and collar starched; his doting grandmother fussed over his delightful presentation and fresh-
combed hair; at the flick of Mrs. Riddle's fingers, the servants scampered off to fetch the camera
from her sitting room, and presently, preserve Tom's image for posterity. And as for his much-
treasured Foil: her letter arrived in the early hours of the next morning, borne by an owl that tapped
its beak against the iced-over window, hooting at him to throw on a dressing gown and lift the sash.

Life could be better, undoubtedly. But this was far from the worst it could be.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, Tom laid his best robes out on his bed, the same set he'd worn to
visit the Ministry last spring. Robes, a plain white wizard-made shirt, and trousers that, unlike those
of Muggle make, were not held up by braces. The outer layer was his winter cloak, fastened with a
silver pin he'd been given several years ago as a Christmas gift.

The minutes counted down, each minute passing slower than the one previous. Tom paced the rug
at the foot of his bed, glancing from his wristwatch to the mantel clock. A watch like this was as
accurate as its mechanical gears, and it lost a handful of seconds a day; if he hadn't been rigorous
about adjusting the hands whenever the opportunity presented itself, it would have been off by a
few minutes every month. But he'd set the hands from the station clock at King's Cross a few days
ago, and yesterday, he'd confirmed the time with the station operator in York, who was eager to
indulge a customer's whims after Tom had placed a booking on a First Class compartment from
London.

He knew that Mrs. Granger would have insisted on getting the tickets herself, and in Second Class,
no doubt. That wouldn't do. Second Class didn't have private compartments; they had to share an
open carriage with the other passengers—the canaille, as Mrs. Riddle called them—and Tom had
not liked the idea of meeting Hermione after so long (only a week, she'd argue) and, upon
embracing her, find that her wonderful fluffy hair did not smell of sweet blossoms, but cigarette
smoke.

Tom wandered over to the window, flicking the net curtain away from the glass. His room was on
the second floor, the house built on the highest hill in the village. Though the sun was obscured by
a veil of cloud, he could discern a single bright spot, a few fingers above the treeline.

Tick, tick, tick.

Tom cleared his throat and ensured his cloak was pinned fast. He scrubbed his sleeve against the jet
bead eyes of his silver snake cloak pin, wiping off the fingerprints, then cleared this throat.

Three, two, one.

Apparition was a curious experience, one that conferred the sensation of being compressed and
shoved along a narrow tunnel. It could be described as fitting oneself into a dumbwaiter box at the
top floor of a grand house, then sent hurtling down into the cellar, with no rope or pulley to curb the
speed of descent. It was dark and unpleasant and vertigo inducing, but it had the advantage of
convenience. As long as one had the stomach for it, a man could go places very quickly, without
making a fuss or drawing undue notice.

Portkey travel was not the same at all.

It felt like taking a dive into deep water. There was a sense of weightlessness; his bedroom and his
oriental carpet had disappeared, and Tom found no solid footing beneath him. He felt as if he'd
stepped off the edge of the shelf that separated the wading shallows from the bottomless ocean,
before a powerful force took hold of his body, dragging him along with the force of a rip current; he
tried to resist its pull as it jerked him and tumbled him in bewildering somersaults that made him
lose his grasp on what was up and what was down—Tom kicked and struggled, and his wand
dropped out of his sleeve and into his hand—

Thump!

The ground beneath Tom's cheek was cold and wet.

Wet leaves peeled off his chin as he lifted his head, his knees and the palms of his hands throbbing
from having broken his fall. The sky above him was dark and sunless; the surface cushioning his
body was soft and damp.

Tom got to his feet and lit his wand.

The pressed flower Portkey was crushed into powdery stalk and crumbling petals; he threw it to the
ground, then took in his surroundings.

A forest rose above his head, the canopy thick with leaves, an unusual sight in the middle of winter.
The rotting leaves on the forest floor weren't pine or fir, of the class of tree that kept their greenery
throughout the year. These were oak. The air was warmer than he remembered Yorkshire being, but
the Midlands were less than a hundred miles south, as the owl flew. And there was no snow on the
ground. Only water that dripped from the trees, onto his hair and down the nape of his neck and
into his collar.

A trail was cleared between the trees, a meandering line where the undergrowth had been sheared
away. Every few metres, a standing stone marked the side of the trail, carved with a knotted spiral
that glowed with a warm yellow light when Tom pointed his wand at it.

Tom followed the path, wand drawn.

The trees grew thinner. The path broadened; his shoes no longer squished on damp leaf matter, but
tapped on thick blocks of solid paving stone.

The trees abruptly gave way into a clearing. Without warning, the standing stones glowed and
flashed and flickered out. In the gloom, Tom cast a ball of light into the sky, and for the first time,
saw a wizard's manor house: it was a crumbling, ivy-covered structure with gaping windows and a
stoved-in roof. His eyes picked out the details—a tall central spire, a roofline of headless gargoyles
with broken wings, shattered buttresses, and chunks of masonry scattered all over the ground,
jagged grey stalagmites half-hidden in an overgrown field of wild grass and encroaching bramble.
This was a wizard's house?

Old Ab's grotty establishment was better kept than this wreck.

The Grangers' suburban home was holiday villa in comparison. And the Riddle House was a
palace.

"Not much to look at, eh?" spoke a voice.

Tom's immediate reaction was to cast a spell. A roaring ball of fire shot out from the end of his
wand, which promptly sputtered out as it met a strange wall of resistance that flickered into being
an arm's length away...

Almost as if it had been blocked by a powerful Shield Charm.

"Good try," said the voice. "Would you like to go again?"

Tom's view of the ruins twisted, the light wobbling and bending in the same pattern of a shoddy
Disillusionment Charm, and then he found himself standing in front of a vine-covered gate, held
between two towers of mossy stone.

One half of the gate swung aside, and there stood Nott in the gap, hands in his pockets. "Come on
then, hurry up."

"You live in this wreck?" Tom remarked, passing through the gate and feeling the itch in his scalp
of strong magic. It wasn't like Hogwarts, where each time he'd entered the grounds under the view
of the stone boar guardians, he'd felt a certain sense of... connection. Welcome. This didn't feel
warm; it felt like walking into a Piccadilly Street department store in his threadbare orphanage rags.

"Oh, the first impression isn't everything," said Nott, turning up the path. "I, for one, think it's quite
cosy."

The view had changed.

Where the ruins had been was now a grand cathedral, built in the Gothic style with trefoil windows,
stained glass, pointed arches, and a tall steeple complete with a belltower. Tom had toured London
with a school group; he'd seen St. Paul's and Westminster, and this was nowhere near their equal in
either size or grandeur. But for a second—for the briefest instant—it had looked uncomfortably
close, until Tom bit his lip and shook his head and took a firm hold on his emotions. There was
nothing that warranted his envy. Gothic architecture, with its gargoyles and spikes and wall-to-wall
religious motives, was so passé. The classical style was superior; it had a geometrical symmetry
that soothed his eyes and never sought to remind him at every turn that, Yes, this structure was
God's House, and you are only here by His sufferance.

"You live in a Muggle church," said Tom in a flat voice.

"It's called an abbey for a reason," said Nott, leading him around to the side of the house. "Or it
was, before my ancestors took it from the Muggles."

"Before the Statute?" Tom asked. "I can't imagine the Ministry being pleased by that, no matter
how many connections your family can throw around."
"Naturally," Nott replied. "You see, there was this Muggle king a few hundred years ago, a great fat
lecher of a monarch. He liked women more than he liked prayer and piety, and in some petty
Muggle squabble, he relieved a number of priests of their lands and homes."

Henry the Eighth, Tom recalled. The first Anglican king of England.

"That was in the fifteen-hundreds," Tom said.

"Fifteen hundred and forty-one," Nott said proudly. "The house is older than that, but it's the year
my distant grandfather persuaded the Chancellor of the Exchequer to sell it for a bargain price. My
family have kept all the original furnishings and most of the interiors since then."

"Does it not concern you that Muggles once lived here?"

"No," said Nott, carelessly. "My grandfather was very thorough in running off the Muggle residents
before bringing in the family. There used to be a village not far from here, and they were moved a
mile or two west after their wells were found to be tainted. No Muggles have stepped foot on this
earth in four hundred years."

"Effective," said Tom.

"It had to be done," Nott said. "There were still witch hunters roaming about back then."

They rounded a corner, past a row of flying buttresses, a wall of clerestory windows, and a low
gallery bordering a grassy cloister, from which issued the nicker of horses. At the rear of the house,
the size of the forest clearing was self-evident. A circle with a diameter of no more than three
hundred metres wide, an approximate seven hectares by land area. Large by wizarding standards,
perhaps, but tiny by the standards of a Muggle gentleman, whose rank was awarded upon the
ownership of two hundred hectares or more. And for a gentleman who had laid stakes in the
colonies of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, their estates might be measured in millions
of hectares.

Tom's inheritance of the Riddle House and lands, including the village, outlying farms, and colliery
enterprises (current production appropriated for the war effort notwithstanding) totalled a bit more
than a thousand hectares.

Tom followed Nott to the line of trees at edge of the clearing. He was struck by the size of them—
large trees were a rare sight in most of England, and non-existent in Metropolitan London. Before
the ubiquity of coal furnaces, wood had been the fuel of choice, for steam boilers and mills and
household stoves. Even before that, the tallest trees had always been treasured by shipwrights and
builders. The trees on this estate were giants; the hollows in between the spreading roots were so
deep that Tom could walk inside them on a rainy day and not get a drop of water on his robes.

A staircase of planks suspended on ropes circled the base of one tree, and ascending several dozen
feet up the trunk, Tom and Nott reached a swaying platform built between the branches. In the
centre of the platform was the tree trunk; further up the trunk was a second, smaller platform that
served as a roof. Above his head, Tom heard the calls of birds, the scratch of their talons on wood,
and the incessant beating of their wings. Sheltered square cubbies circled the trunk, suspended on a
lattice of ropes, each box filled with sleeping birds. To his left was a carved stone drinking bowl
with a broad rim, to his right a high-walled tin trough of heated sand. A hook-beaked bird occupied
the trough, squawking and flapping and throwing arcs of sand into the air.
Tom coughed. "What a din."

"Yes," Nott agreed, striding purposefully toward the sleeping birds. "Anyone with more than two or
three birds quickly learns to keep them outside. They make such a racket when they go out to hunt
each night. They also have a nasty habit of covering the window panes with droppings, and the sills
with feathers. Hogwarts has an owlery tower for good reason—no one would be able to sleep with
owls going in and out all evening."

Nott cast a Cushioning Charm on his sleeve, then reached into a cubby and pulled out an owl. It
hooted, blinked mournfully at Nott, then swivelled its head around and went back to sleep.

"Wake up, you silly thing," Nott muttered, standing the owl up on his arm. "I've got a job for you."

"Here," said Tom, reaching into his bag and pulling out an envelope and a corked vial. "Tell it to
deliver this letter to a Mr. Kazimierz Grozbiecki of Shelton Street, Coventry."

A pop of the cork, a sizzle of green liquid, a quick press of his wand against the flap to seal it
closed, and the envelope was ready for its recipient.

"Oh, and tell the owl that the contents are fragile," Tom added, handing the envelope over to Nott,
who took it gingerly, his expression sour. "Try not to shake it about."

"Who's this—this Kazimierz fellow, then?" Nott asked, tying the letter to the owl's leg. "It's not a
name I recognise from school. Not from the trophy room, or the O.W.L. records. Sounds... foreign."

"You don't know him," said Tom, "so you won't be mourning him when he's gone."

"I know that," said Nott impatiently, walking to the edge of the platform and nudging the owl off
his arm. "I'm more concerned about us. About the possible repercussions."

"No one will know we did it." Tom gave an unconcerned shrug. "How would they? We aren't stupid
enough to leave a return address, and nothing about the envelope will trigger a Dark Detector. If
someone does happen to peg it as a premeditated act of violence rather than an unfortunate
accident, they'd hardly suspect two schoolboys of the crime."

"You don't deny that it's a crime."

"It's just a word," said Tom. "Words have only as much significance as you give them. I suppose
that one might consider it a crime, but if he did, then by all rights he mustn't ignore the fact that all
individuals involved count as culpable."

"That's a relief to hear," said Nott, shooting Tom a sidelong glance. "Well, this one's off. Should we
go down?"

"Not yet," said Tom. "I have three left."

"Three?" Nott repeated. "I think you're stretching the definition of 'unfortunate accident' here."

"If this is our one and only shot before the holidays are over, then we shouldn't squander the
opportunity," said Tom, drawing another set of vials out of his bag. "These go to Pertti Lehtinen of
Stirling, Tadejs Eglitis of Swansea, and Hermann Gerdt of Hanley."
"I hope you know what you're doing," said Nott, waking up two owls and a falcon. "Stirling's in
Scotland. Three hundred miles. I'll have to send it with the fastest bird to have it delivered before
the enchantment fails." Nott stroked the birds' feathers and murmured softly to them. "It'll be dark
by the time you arrive. Deliver the letters, and don't wait for a reply. Don't let yourself be seen, and
don't stop to hunt. Fly back before morning and I'll see to it that each of you will get a fresh hare
for breakfast."

The birds took a few bites of dried meat and a last gulp of water, then launched themselves out into
the air, stirring the leaves in their wake. Drops of water splattered onto the wooden planking at
Tom's feet, which was followed, a second later, by the plop of runny white excrement.

Nott gave him a furtive look. "Perhaps I ought to have warned you about that."

Their task complete, Tom and Nott returned to the front of the house, Nott leading the way, while
Tom followed a few paces behind, surreptitiously studying the workings of the estate. The lawn
was a carpet of thick green grass, nothing like the sparse yellowed turf that his grandfather's horses
dug for in the fields at the foot of the Riddles' hill. Here and there, Tom spotted rune-carved stones
half-hidden under privet bushes and topiary arrangements. The inscriptions had to be some
combination of weather, sun, vitality, and growth—the kind of composite enchantment which had
no equivalent in terms of a conventional spell incantation.

It was somewhat gratifying to recall that an enchantment this complex could not be anything other
than the work of a master enchanter, not Nott's family, who frittered away their extended lives on
frivolous leisures—recording wizarding genealogies, a task which Tom thought of as no more
consequential or worthwhile than archiving the pedigrees of stock animals. If a stone
malfunctioned or was otherwise damaged, they would be incapable of repairing it on their own;
they would be helpless and useless, unlike Tom, who was quite certain he could get it—with the
right books and some occasional advice from Hermione, of course.

They reached a set of stone-flagged steps, then ascended to the iron-studded front door, where Nott
tugged at a bronze ring, cast in the shape of an oak wreath. The bronze acorns clacked on the door,
which swung open without a sound.

The interior was cool and dark, the vast dimensions of a cathedral nave without the clutter of pews,
dusty candelabras, or an elaborate altar at the back that, this close to Christmas, would have been
occupied with the requisite Nativity tableau: sandal-shod pilgrims with thick beards, camels and
lambs, tinsel stars, and a blue-eyed baby doll in a wooden crate. In the fading daylight, a series of
stained-glass windows was illuminated in jewel-like colour, each window a scene imbued with
charms for recursive animation. A unicorn and an eight-pronged hart chased each other around and
around the foot of a mighty oak; Merlin, staff in hand, laid a golden circlet over the brow of a
young man bent on one knee; a wizard thrust the point of a glittering lance into the breast of a
rearing dragon, while a goblin cackled and rubbed its hands in the background; a witch in a golden
kirtle strummed a lyre beneath the spreading branches of a tree, as blue-skinned pixies fluttered
around her head.

"Most wizards have a taste for romanticism," Nott explained, jerking his head at the windows. "The
style never goes out of fashion. Wizards go mad for anything that hearkens back to those grand old
days when rare plants bloomed in every kitchen garden, you could fly a hundred miles on a branch
of living pine, and a man could make a fine trade of slaying wild beasts for bounties, instead of
counting knuts behind a till."

"They aren't historically accurate, I take it," remarked Tom.

"It's art," said Nott. "When has it ever been?"

He was about to say something else, but out from the wings of the nave hurtled a large wolfhound
with a shaggy grey coat and a collar that appeared to have been fashioned from solid gold. Its
mouth opened, tongue dripping with slaver, tail wagging back and forth, but other than the click-
clicking of its nails on the stone floor, it was perfectly—unnaturally—silent.

Nott dropped to his knees and threw his arms around the dog, scratching its floppy ears. "Hallo, old
girl. Have you had your tea yet? No? I suppose we'll have to do something about that. Oh, by the
by, that's Riddle. He's a guest, so you're not allowed to bite him, but if you do notice him touching
anything valuable, I give you full leave to run him down and sit on him."

To Tom, he said, "Tea's in the solarium, round the back."

Looking around the front hall, Tom observed, "It's rather desolate, isn't it? All this space but it's
barely used."

"That's the idea," Nott answered, leading him along to the back of the nave. "The sound resonates
wonderfully when the organ's in use." He gestured to the far wall, where a set of golden pipes,
thirty feet high, gleamed dully in the half-light of the late afternoon. "But you're not here to look at
my organ, and I'm not vulgar enough to show it off."

Down a dark corridor they went, lit with glass lanterns; they passed gilt-framed portraits of sober
men in black doublets and whey-faced women in gauzy wimples, who addressed Nott in strident
voices: "What ho there, Theodore!", and "Prithee, who is this young man? Who is his father, who is
his mother?", or "Hast thou a suitor come to call?".

Nott ignored them, walking down a set of steps, turning past a gallery that overlooked the cloisters,
finally stopping at an arched wooden double door, mounted with an intricate filigree tree in worked
golden wire, a grille of leaves and branches sealing the two sides shut. The dog, having followed
them all the way down, licked its chops and planted its bottom on the flagstones, looking at Nott
expectantly.

"There's a password," said Nott. "Not a tricky one at all, but Mother finds it amusing."

He cleared his throat, pursed his lips, then, tapping his thigh to keep the time, whistled out a merry
little tune, a jaunty nautical ditty of no more than fifteen seconds' duration.

When he finished, the branches untangled themselves and drew apart with a soft, metallic chime,
revealing a pair of golden door handles.
"The medium doesn't matter—you could play it on a wineglass if you liked—but the articulation
has to be just so," Nott said, turning the handles and opening the door. "Mother! I've brought a
guest!"

The solarium had no resemblance to the functional rectangular boxes of the Hogwarts greenhouses,
or the Riddle House's conservatory, where every inch of space had been put to use growing crops
destined for the Riddles' table. Exotic fruits and vegetables, out-of-season berries and herbs,
summer-blooming flowers—necessary thrift in these times of war, but incongruous to the standard
fare of the standard British family's victory garden. This solarium was constructed in the shape of a
pudding mould, rounded tiers piled together and capped off with a crystal dome, a glass rotunda
that captured the light from dawn to twilight, and as a consequence, was as warm as a bathhouse.

Broad-leafed plants, ferns and palms and Indian lilies, fought for space around a selection of
animated statues—a whimsical centaur playing panpipes, a kelpie fountain spitting water into a
seashell-shaped bowl, a bizarre creature that had the head and upper-body of a lion attached to a
fish's tail, and a giant bowtruckle, twice a man's height from gnarled twig toes to leafy head.
Between the plants darted colourful birds, vivid blue and radiant gold, twittering and chirping and
swooping around a figure reclining on a divan, a magazine open on her lap showing a glossy spread
with moving illustrations.

The woman glanced up, face pale as if in great shock.

It took Tom a moment to realise that the paleness was merely cosmetic. She had powdered her face
white, her fair eyebrows made nearly invisible; her cheeks had been rouged in two round spots, and
if she had been wearing a wimple and starched ruff, she would have fit right in with the portraits
they'd passed in the corridor. The effect, combined with her feathery blonde hair and pale blue eyes,
gave an impression of unearthliness—as if she were sickly or insubstantial, half-woman and half-
ghost.

"The Christmas edition is as worthless as usual," she said. Tom had expected her voice to sound
high and breathy—Nott had a tendency to whine, and his screams were shriller than Hermione's—
but he was surprised to hear that her voice was an assertive one, not particularly loud, but so
precise and well-modulated that each word was clear despite the noise of splashing water and
chattering birdcall.

She threw the magazine onto a low table, then swung her legs off the divan. "How to stretch a meal
for twelve, how to prepare a chicken and present it as goose, how to use dinner leavings for lunch.
Madam Wimbourne has been losing her touch over the last few years; each holiday issue has
proven itself a sorrier showing than the last."

"Perhaps Madam Wimbourne understands that the lowest common denominator fields the greatest
number of patrons," said Tom, taken aback but nonetheless unwilling to allow himself to be
insulted. He'd worked hard on that sage-braised chicken recipe. (Or Mrs. Willrow had, in the name
of perfecting Tom's birthday dinner menu.)

"Introduce me, Theodore," said the woman, turning to Nott.

"Ah," said Nott, wincing, "Riddle, this is my mother, the honourable Madam Annis Nott, formerly
Gamp, of Wales. Mother, this is Tom Riddle, this year's Head Boy."

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," said Tom, forcing himself to dip into a shallow bow. He didn't lower his
head or follow it with a flourish. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"A deferred acquaintance," Madam Annis said, rising to her feet and giving Tom a careful
inspection. She was only an inch or two above five feet tall, shorter than his grandmother and
Hermione both, but somehow she possessed an indefinable presence that extended beyond her
physical attributes. "Due to that name, obviously. 'Riddle' is so ordinary—a Muggle name, without
a doubt."

"My mother was—"

"Hush!"

She paced in a circle around Tom, tutting to herself. Tom glanced at Nott, who shrugged and threw
himself onto a sofa, wheezing as the dog bounded on top of him and began licking his face.

"So, Horace picked the dark horse this year. He prides himself for having a nose for talent, but he's
not blind. He knows good stock when he sees it."

She took Tom by surprise, seizing his jaw in her long-nailed fingers, dragging his head down to her
eye-level and turning it this and way and that to catch the last rays of winter sunlight.

"Phrenology is an obscure science, often derided as 'scarcely a science' at all, but there is truth to be
read from the shape and conformation of the human body... For those with the knack of reading it,"
she said, and Tom discovered that he was too intrigued by her words to tear himself out of her
grasp.

"When I was a girl, we read the lines of our futures written in the palms of our hands. Love and
happiness, wealth and security—a single ordained path amongst a thousand untrodden potentials.
The reality of one's present circumstances is disclosed by the face. What nature of truth lurks
beneath the innocent exchange? What trouble disturbs a night of peaceful rest? How do the body's
vital humours wax and wane? Reading the past, however, is all through the eyes, boy. The eyes.

"You have dark hair and eyes, rare in this part of England. It speaks of foreign blood or mixed
breeding—Greek, Moorish, Celt, or Levantine. And yet the conformation of your skull suggests the
blood of Saxons and Danes—see, the occipital rounding here, the dip behind the ear, the firm brow,
high forehead, and pronounced nasal bridge," announced Madam Annis. "Both of your parents
were dark of hair, and neither showed indications of vision impairment. Your father was a
Mudblood and had the purer English lineage. He was right-handed in writing and wandwork, but
was equally capable with his left hand for other tasks; he had a dimple in his chin, and was more
inclined toward physical pursuits than you clearly are."

She hummed under her breath, then continued, "Your mother was an odd one. I think I would have
liked to read her palm—she would have had great potential under Fate, I'm sure—though a
deficient Life line follows hand-in-hand. That palate structure is from her, of course. You speak
with an unusual lisp. Not quite a true speech defect, but there's the slightest aberration in the higher
ranges of your overall vocal register... A certain tonal character that I suspect only the well-trained
ear might perceive. Have you tried learning Mermish? You might find it an easier study than most
—but if Horace did judge you worthy of your badge, you'd be a quick study in most everything
else; I have never known him to suffer the company of the dull or simple-minded."

Her eyes searched Tom's, and between the powdered white lashes, Tom saw reflected in her irises
his own image.
She rattled on and on. His mother was also right-handed, swarthier of complexion, had a
disproportionate ratio of nose to philtrum, had a round Celtic head with wide socket spacing, and a
pelvic frame so narrow that it would make any midwife within viewing distance fan herself in
agitation...

The words poured out without pause, a monologue with a curiously melodic rhythm, lulling him
like a back-row attendee in a church sermon or class revision session. Tom's eyelids drooped; his
eyes watered with the effort of not blinking, and finally, with some effort, he allowed himself to
blink...

Two hazy images swam into view, superimposed one on top of the other: Tom stood at the grave of
his mother, reading the name carved into the stone; Tom knelt at the roots of an ancient, weathered
tree, the stiff body of a tiny golden bird cupped in his hand—

"Mother," came the pleading voice of Tom's father, "if you love me, send him away!" A vein pulsed
on the man's forehead as he stood at the foot of the dining table, spittle and toast crumbs spraying
out over the crisp linens; Tom's father, a portly man with muttonchop whiskers, flung a ribbon-
bound scroll onto the inlaid cabinet of the heirloom harpsichord. He spoke, jowls aquiver, "The
dower trust has been pledged in your name. You will see the astrologist on Monday, and she will
determine when the most auspicious alignments fall for your two houses..."

The taste of her breakfast was sweet on his lips, exhilaration burning a line of fire through his
veins, as he escaped the corridor outside the Muggle Studies classroom. That sweetness became an
indelible memory, kept tucked away for brief moments of leisure and privacy, lingering long in his
thoughts and dreams and half-restrained aspirations. And then, another memory: this time he felt
the slide of a metal band against his cheek, accompanied by a brief glimpse of rheumy, knotted
knuckles resting on his shoulder. A man, with greying hair and flinty grey eyes, bent down to brush
his dry, papery lips against Tom's. He had expected to feel nothing; he felt nothing; in that instant,
however, he also felt like nothing—as if his mind had made its escape to a separate plane from his
physical existence, and nothing he did or wanted mattered at all—

"Lower your wand, boy."

Tom's hand trembled; he clenched his fist and glared at Madam Annis. His arm lowered, wand
dropping back into his sleeve. Behind him, Nott relaxed visibly and took his hand out of his pocket.

"You bewitched me," said Tom accusingly.

"I cast no spell," retorted Madam Annis. "When emotions rise to the surface, they can be read. Not
as words or runes on a page, but as footprints are—'he passed this way, this long ago, in this
direction'. Needless to say, you know of this already, if you've been initiated to the art of the
Bifurcated Focus. Who taught you this technique, may I ask?"

"I taught myself."

"Oh, keep your secrets as you please, lest their dissemination set the world aflame," she said,
drawing her wand and sketching in the air the hazy image of a silver bell, which appeared floating
handle-down, an illusory shape that gained definition and sharpness, before it dropped into her
waiting palm. She rang it, the sound echoing for some time; it was answered by a chime in the
distance. "In the meantime, we shall have tea."
Tea consisted of black tea in a pot and the usual condiments of lemon rounds, cream, and a chunk
of loafed sugar. It was paired with a selection of potted meats and sliced soda bread; on the side of
the tray was a paste of quince and a block of sharp cheese speckled with capers. For the dog, there
was a glass dish of steamed skinless chicken and boiled barley grains, which Nott set on the floor
behind the divan, wrinkling his nose as the dog began devouring its meal with a series of
enthusiastic smacking sounds.

Their teatime conversation descended into a stilted succession of bland questions. How was dear
old Horace? How were dear old Horace's dear old dinner parties—was the guest rotation just as
delightful as she remembered? (Tom and Nott exchanged a dubious look and hid their sneers
behind bits of pâté-smeared toast.) Had they been informed that Lucretia Black was due to wed in
the summer of next year? How were their N.E.W.T. studies progressing? Had they made good
progress in securing the vital connections that would last them the rest of their lives? (Nott coughed
into his tea, while Tom held his breath to keep a snort of amusement from slipping out.)

Madam Annis regarded them with stern disapproval. "You may find it a stodgy routine now, but
cultivating the right connections will have its uses. Why, I've heard that Madam Wimbourne put
forward her pet favourite for this year's Pressman's Merit Award. As her nominee was too much of
a recluse to attend the event, the award as usual will go to some war correspondent or other. It's a
shame the other candidates will get nothing for their trouble, isn't it?" She gave Tom a meaningful
look.

"Well, there's always next year," said Tom, as amiably as he could. "The Society of Journalists'
annual dinner is an annual affair."

"A select affair, too," Madam Annis specified. "Invitations are very limited—not even I could get
one this year."

"There are other affairs, and other awards," said Tom. "But I can't fathom why the career trajectory
of some unknown journalist is of such concern to you. No one's ever met him, have they?"

"Madam Melania has considered hiring him for the wedding," said Nott. Noticing Tom's impassive
face, he added, "Lucretia and Orion's mother. She wants a modern wedding for the papers,
something new and novel that will have everyone else copying along for the next ten years. Mother
disagrees, of course."

"I had a traditional wedding," said Madam Annis, studying Tom for any hint of a reaction. "It's the
way things should be done in a civilised society. We would sooner abandon our traditions than snap
our wands in half and toss the pieces aside for kindling. I should like to imagine that your young
lady would agree."

"Mother," said Nott uncertainly, "I don't recall telling you that Riddle had a... a young lady."

"You didn't need to," Madam Annis assured him. "Women can tell—it's intuition. Tell me, what's
her name?"

"Hermione," said Tom, putting down his square of half-eaten toast and pushing his plate away.

He didn't want to talk about Hermione; he didn't want to think about how he felt about Hermione
here, of all places. Tom recognised that Madam Annis was, in some form or another, a minor
practitioner of Legilimency. Not a skilled one, more of an empath honed by instinct than the
professional trespasser that was Professor Dumbledore. (The slippery old man was capable of
intruding into Tom's consciousness with the efficacy and stealth of a parasitic worm. Neither could
speak in anything but various shades of truth, and as such, their teatime visits were made an endless
game of attrition and subterfuge.) Madam Annis was someone who could read and interpret surface
emotions of a complacent, unprepared subject, a skill—if he had to find an adequate comparison—
similar to his own capabilities at the age of fourteen years old, dipping through Avery's fears during
a lazy Hogsmeade weekend.

Similar, but not quite.

Madam Annis was inferior to him in skill and experience; she had no aptitude for Occlumency.
When she'd opened her mind to touch his, he'd viewed the contents of hers, and become witness to
a sequence of linked threads, mirrored memories. And then he'd been forced to live those
memories. It was more information than she had gotten from him in exchange, but that was more
than enough; when he returned home this evening, he could already tell that the touch of elderly,
wrinkled hands on his skin—Nott's father; Tom wanted to vomit once he'd come to that deduction
—would not be so easily purged from his recollection.

"A charming name. Greek, if I'm not mistaken," said Madam Annis. "She's a special one, isn't she?"

"Yes."

"You care greatly for her," she continued, idly stirring her tea. "I suppose it must be both a blessing
and a curse that you bear your father's muddied name. For that, you have no distinguished lineage
to safeguard."

"I've no need for lineages when I can earn my own distinctions. And it's quite possible for someone
without a name to possess an unexpected talent or useful ability," said Tom, looking pointedly
across the table. "Wouldn't you agree, Madam?"

Madam Annis tittered. "Possibly."

"Riddle," Nott interjected, "what are you up to?"

Tom gave him a blank look. "Ask your mother."

"Mother?"

"It's nothing, my dear. Finish your tea."

"Whatever it is, I don't like it," Nott huffed, his brow furrowing in ire. His put-out expression did
not alter until the dog had eaten its meal, whereupon it crawled onto Nott's lap, bumping the top of
its head against Nott's hand and thumping its tail against the velvet cushions.

The conversation resumed, less tense and formal than before, but somehow always returning to the
unresolved questions—Tom's unexplained talent, Tom's mysterious young lady, and Tom's
perplexing interest in Madam Wimbourne's magical housekeeping magazine. The tea was drunk,
the toast nibbled, and the potted meat disappeared—much of it down the gullet of the family dog.
All through the meal, it had not made a peep, not a single whine or woof as one would expect of a
housepet begging for scraps; instead, it had laid its hairy forepaws over Nott's thigh, tilting its head
and lowering its ears in a woeful manner. An extremely intelligent creature, it seemed—or else Nott
was an extremely indulgent owner.
The sunlight succumbed to the plums and purples of the early evening, and outside the glass
pudding dome, lamps flickered on in the distant treeline, bright spots scattered at many different
heights. Inside the solarium, the chittering birds settled in their roosts, nestled among the stone
branches of the bowtruckle's leafy head.

When the tea tray was empty, Tom siphoned the crumbs off his robes and Vanished them away. He
stood, bowed to Madam Annis, and offered his farewells.

"Thank you for tea," he said to Madam Annis. To her son, "And thank you for inviting me. You
have a beautiful home; I'm glad to have seen it."

"It was a pleasure to host," replied Madam Annis gracefully. "I hope you found whatever it was that
you came here for. Show him out, Theodore."

They returned to the house proper, the gilded branches on the solarium door chiming as it sealed
itself shut. Passing once more the rows of inquisitive portraits and glass lanterns, Nott walked at a
fast stride, brooding away in silence.

"Do you think she knew something?" asked Nott, when they'd crossed half the cathedral nave. "The
face-reading is a party trick of Mother's, but she's caught a few people out over the years. You
know, the standard crimes—adultery, secret annulments, the destitute putting on a false show of
wealth. She says it's not so much magic as it is in being able to read minute shifts of facial
expression."

"Does everyone with a mother trust them without question?"

"Do you have to be such a pest about giving straight answers?"

"I exist to confound your expectations," said Tom. "And no, she doesn't know anything."

"Good," Nott said. "We've been sneaking around the teachers for weeks. Now today, the law. I'd
like not having to keep watch over my shoulder for my own damn mother."

"Mummy's boy, aren't you?"

"Respecting one's parents," said Nott in a haughty voice, "is a sign of good breeding."

Nott escorted Tom to the front gate, opening the latch and ushering Tom out.

"The Apparition point is down there," he said, pointing into the darkening forest. An owl hooted;
branches rustled ominously. "The path will light your way."

Tom heard the snick of the gate's latch falling closed. "If your family gets The Prophet, keep an eye
on the headlines."

"You expect our activities to make the front page?"

"I expect to draw some form of official attention," Tom replied. "I'll see you next Sunday."

The standing stones on the path began glowing with a soft yellow light, and when Tom glanced
over his shoulder, the gate was gone, and so was the cathedral. The mossy ruins had taken their
place, empty windows filled with dark shadows, the holes in the disintegrating roof looking like
great black pits.
The real cathedral was still there, beneath the illusion, its appearance preserved to its original
sixteenth century state, untarnished by the passage of years and the steady march of Progress and
Modernity. The dressed stones of its exterior weren't blackened by coal soot like the grand edifices
of central London, nor were the carvings pitted by acid rain as he'd seen on the Victorian frontages
in York. But it was more than a pretty pile of masonry: in more than a few aspects, it resembled
Hogwarts, rendered in miniature: a distinct magical ecosystem concentrated within a handful of
acres, rich in history and heritage, a material demonstration of wizarding might. Those little gold
birds in the solarium were proof—they were Golden Snidgets, a species that had once been hunted
to near-extinction, and although protected by law today, were still counted as rare and immensely
valuable.

And yet somehow, at some point, Tom's covetousness had completely evaporated; there was no
more envy of Nott, of the other boy's magical lifestyle, his conspicious displays of magical wealth.

Tom Apparated to the Little Hangleton graveyard, too far from both the house and the village for
anyone to take notice of the sound, contemplating the significance of this reversal of opinion. He
slipped into his room, unpinning his cloak and robes and locking them into his trunk, still trying to
draw a firm conclusion. There had to be one; Tom didn't believe in mysteries.

This was his conclusion:

Wealth and material possessions were not remarkable. They were resources that set those who had
them above those who didn't, but they didn't confer any innate properties to their owners. Mary
Riddle's money didn't make her a noteworthy individual, and neither was Annis Nott special
because she lived in a fairy castle filled with magical songbirds, most likely poached from a
creature reserve.

The requirements for being Special were much more stringent.

The connection that Tom shared with Hermione qualified as Special, but that was only to be
expected of two Special people. Tom found Hermione appealing in all the most fundamental
respects, and it had been confirmed that Hermione felt the same way about him, or his kiss on the
cheek would have put the lid on that particular line of inquiry.

The events of the afternoon had provided Tom with a clear example of what a kiss between other
people was like, and that had been... lacking in substance, empty, and hollow. From his father's
memories, Tom had been shown the spectacle of his mother's one-sided "love"; it was a persuasive
argument to the notion that her death had been in both Tom and his father's best interests. In
comparison, Tom's regard for Hermione was meaningful, founded on more significant things than
social obligation or sordid appetites.

He had studied the advice from the book, turning the words 'Onorare ed amare' over and over in
his head, trying to determine their exact meaning. From what he'd learned today, it was a theoretical
ideal few people ever reached; it was in stark contrast to Annis Nott's loveless honour and Merope
Gaunt's dishonest love.

Well, as the present generations learned from the past, so did children surpass their parents.

It was good thing, then, that Hermione had years ago warned him of the dangers of experimenting
alone.
Chapter End Notes

Summary: Tom experiences his first real kiss and it is more disturbing than he expected.

Some historical notes:

— King Henry VIII broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 to found the
Church of England, so he could divorce and marry a new wife. Existing church properties
were confiscated by the Crown and sold off for cash, and in this universe, one was "bought"
by wizards.

— Phrenology is a pseudoscience based on assessing people's personalities by their skull

structure. It fell out of fashion in the 20th century after association with racial stereotyping and
eugenics. In this version of the wizarding world, it is viewed as an obscure form of Divination.
 Patriotism
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1944

After a very happy Christmas spent with Mum and Dad, the season's festivities began to dim under
the weight of an encroaching deadline: Tom's birthday party on New Year's Eve.

The invitation sent by Mrs. Riddle had not asked for gifts, but Hermione knew Tom, and Tom was
unapologetic about his pastime of amassing personal effects, which included properties both
material and intellectual. N.E.W.T. preparation and holiday assignments were not a struggle for
her, but the infinite subtleties of social interaction were quite the opposite. And this was an
occasion in which Hermione was caught at an impasse, struck between what Tom expected and
what was expected of her, between what sorts of articles Tom wanted to own, and what was
actually sensible for him to own.

She settled on getting Tom a wizarding book on sewing charms, paired with a Muggle book on
menswear patterns. Tom was a wizard and exceedingly proud of it, but if she pressed him, he could
not deny being firmly set on a few minor Muggle ways. For instance: wizarding underwear came
in the form of ankle-length woollen pants with a flap in the rear, a practical garment to wear
beneath one's robes. Although this was the traditional fashion for men (the traditional wizard
dispensed with trousers), Tom did not hold with that. No, his spirit might stand unflappable in the
face of discomfort, but Tom's body drew a line at some point, and that point was in too much
'flapping', whatever that meant. As Tom had explained it, it meant that he did not wear long undies
in lieu of proper trousers; he wore trousers—that was not optional—over shorter, knee-length
Muggle-style drawers with a button-up front.

As few people knew of Tom's precise preferences, and even fewer went to the trouble of
accommodating them, it was a sensible choice of gift. It showed that Hermione knew him well
enough to know, didn't it? Tom didn't like dry chops served with a single dollop of horseradish,
mustard, or gravy; he preferred to have the sauce boat left on the table and close at hand. Tom
liked being the first in the class to produce a brew; at the beginning of the lesson, he went straight
to pre-heating his cauldron, instead of waiting to light the burner after Slughorn finished delivering
the instructions.

These things were small and insignificant to others, but she noticed them, and she was certain that
Tom would, too. It was a lesser risk to take than making a grand and expensive gesture. And
above all, it was practical. Practical gifts were always appreciated, especially with the inevitability
that, at some time in the future, Mrs. Riddle would no longer be choosing and buying Tom's clothes
for him.

Hermione reminded herself that it was only a birthday party. Tom had years of birthdays after this
one. And as this was the first birthday party he'd ever had, if it didn't come out perfectly, there'd be
opportunities later on to do a better job of it.

On the morning of the Thirty-First, Hermione and her parents had an early breakfast of porridge
and toast before setting out for King's Cross, Dad with a copy of the morning's paper tucked under
his arm, Mum carrying a basket of wrapped sandwiches and a flask of hot tea for their lunch. The
station was quieter than it was during the usual September school rush, without children running
loose and and hitting passersby with their boxed gas masks. There were fewer gas masks and
service armbands than she'd remembered seeing, too—the bombings had ceased since the summer,
and this had somewhat amended the average Home Fronter's ever-present fear of a German
invasion. Of course, that apprehension had not faded completely, but since she'd come home for
the holidays, the wireless had each night delivered more news of liberations than of occupations;
this was taken as an indication that, although reaching an international accord seemed a far-flung
possibility, Britain and her allies were making indisputable progress toward it.

A rail porter showed them to their compartment, stowed their luggage, and offered them all lap
blankets and a selection of magazines and newspapers; at nine on the dot, the York Flyer was
underway. Through the chill winter mists the train rattled, a dingy landscape whizzing by outside
the window, long stretches of grey blocky buildings indistinguishable from each other and to the
blank grey sky above. The train slowed at the approach to a handful of stops along the outskirts of
London, and the shapeless masses solidified, forming geometric rows of dour terraces and
mercantile warehouses, separated by sluggish canals and the occasional carriageway.

In the compartment, Hermione's father rolled the rail blanket into a tight bundle and set it behind
his neck, dozing off almost instantly. Hermione's mother fingered the pages of a novel, cup of tea
balanced on her knee.

Hermione, in turn, looked out the window, browsed the newspaper headlines, completed the
crossword, answered a few questions from a Transfiguration exam past paper, and checked the
pages of her homework diary for any response to the last message she'd sent to Nott.

It's Tom's birthday today, she'd written early that morning, before going down to breakfast.

A blotchy, ink-spattered sentence had been scrawled below that, in Nott's handwriting.

Go bother him about it, then.

Are you coming to the party?

It's not for hours yet...

You're still in bed, aren't you?

It's a quarter to eight on a Sunday. Let me alone, Granger.

There were no more replies after that.

Hermione sighed, tucking the book into her coat pocket.

"Mum, I'm going out to stretch my legs," said Hermione.

"If you're going to look around the restaurant car, don't buy anything that'll spoil your lunch, dear,"
said Mum absently. "They're sure to be skimping on everything but the potatoes. The porter will
be bringing around hot drinks at noon, and don't forget that I packed sandwiches this morning."

"Yes, Mum."
Hermione made a quick stop at the washroom, which, here in First Class, was the cleanest on the
whole train. Then she peered around the interior of the carriage, observing her fellow passengers
through their compartment windows: older, well-heeled ladies with pristine gloves folded on their
laps, urbane gentlemen with umbrellas and hats, all homburgs and bowlers, of a class of refinement
above the typical flatcap—a near-universal article among the workers of London and Yorkshire.
Hermione was the youngest passenger, not quite as turned-out as the rest—she didn't wear gloves,
as they slowed her wand draw; she had also never seen the sense in carrying a handbag, which
could only fit a single book and nothing else.

As she walked past, a few heads turned to watch her. At any minute now, she thought that one of
them would summon a porter to verify her ticket or escort her to her real carriage.

That did not occur.

The rails screeched as the locomotive drew in to the next stop. A few passengers stood up and
collected their hand luggage, folding their newspapers neatly and leaving them on the seat. The
older ladies let out quiet sniffs of disappointment when no porter was available to hand them out,
right at the exact moment they'd reached the boarding exit.

A mild tussle arose at the entrance-way at the rear of the carriage, as Hermione was squeezing
herself against a compartment door to allow a pack of commuters to tramp by.

"I must insist that you take the compartment—"

"Nonsense," a woman spoke, her voice firm. "We booked our seats fairly; I wouldn't dream of
inconveniencing the other paying passengers."

"The seat's not been booked until the switch at Sheffield—no one would be any the wiser if you
took it. Certainly none of the passengers would object to it; your son's an officer of the King's
army and your father's got a lame leg. Second's a squeeze; it's got no space for him to prop it up."

"Take it, Blanche," spoke an emphatic voice, this time, a man's. He thumped something on the
floor, adding, "I've got to sit down somewhere soon, and this'll do. What's the rub? We've paid;
ergo, we are the paying passengers."

"We don't need to take charity!"

"I'll take comfort any day," said the man. "You, fellow, show me to the compartment, why don't
you? If she won't have it, then I don't mind if I do. Get our bags, Roger, my boy. Oh, and you did
say that First gets tea and papers, didn't you?"

"London papers in the first shift, York papers in the second, and tea at noon, sir."

"Good, good. Roger, help me up. We'll see you in Sheffield, then, Blanche—"

"Grandfather, wait a minute..."

"Those pips are paying their worth, aren't they? Right all along, I was; told you to wear the brass
and you'd get the proper treatment—"

"Grandfather!"

"What is it? Has the fellow got the tea trolley on already?"
"No, look, there! Doctor Granger, that's him, isn't it? They must have booked the same train as we
did."

What happened next was a convoluted series of introductions and greetings, as the Tindalls—Major
Tindall, mostly—thumped his cane about and woke Hermione's dad from his doze, leaving him
disoriented and mumbling. Major Tindall then rambled on about the old days when men could fall
asleep standing up, then be roused and ready to present themselves for a parade inspection within
the minute. Next, there was the endless round of How-Do-You-Dos from Mrs. Blanche Tindall and
Hermione's mum, who pressed air-kisses to each other's cheeks and inquired about their respective
extended families. And finally, there was the rather striking entrance of Roger Tindall.

Or, to be more precise, Second Lieutenant Roger Tindall, of His Majesty's Intelligence Corps.

He wore his uniform, an officer's ensemble in olive drab with a thick belt around the waist and a
thinner one crossing the shoulder, which, thirty years ago, would have been used to bear the weight
of an officer's sword. Out of practicality, swords had been banished to ceremonial dress occasions,
and thus there was only a leather pouch on Roger's right-hand side, affixed by a series of rings and
hooks.

Not unusual for young men of his age, he'd also sprung up an inch or two. However, his most
distinctive feature, his curly hair, had been shorn to the scalp. It was a different, more severe look
to the last time she'd seen him, and something of this uncommon severity showed in the tightness
around his eyes and mouth. His expression was not quite as open and affable as she'd remembered;
his bearing was a touch more reserved. This wasn't the same person as the friendly young man
who'd proved himself tremendously keen to shake hands and sign dance cards at the Veterans' Gala
two summers ago.

Looking into her family's suddenly crowded compartment, Hermione could not think of anything to
say.

Hermione's father had been a soldier in the last war; by virtue of his education, he'd held the rank of
a medical officer rather than ending up, as many young British conscripts had, as a sapper in the
trenches. She, and everyone else in her generation, had grown up in the shadow of the Great War,
and had been told at school that they would not be speaking the King's English today, if it hadn't
been for the efforts of Britain's valiant men. At home, her father never spoke of his service; he
cared not for the approbation heaped on him and his fellow medical officers at the annual
commemorations, and in the privacy of their sitting room, derided the war as a senseless waste of
lives frittered away by foolhardy politicians—a blasphemous opinion that Mum had warned her not
to repeat to anyone outside the house

In this current war, Hermione had been placed in the position of a remote observer, instead of an
active participant. Where those her own age had joined the Home Guard or Land Army or
simplified their lifestyles in the wake of wartime austerities, Hermione had been cavorting about in
Scotland for most of the year, the realities of hardship kept at a firm distance by Hogwarts' very
limited line of communication. She had not experienced war like all her fellow Britons, and in the
year or so since she'd turned seventeen, she'd perceived a fissure widening between herself and her
old life. She was a British citizen, and at the same time a naturalised citizen of Wizarding Britain;
it was hard to reconcile with the fact that, in maintaining a grasp of both identities, something from
each of them was lost.
As a result, Hermione found herself feeling no reverence upon seeing Roger Tindall, no patriotic
sentiment, no grounds to commend him as had everyone else in the carriage. Roger was due a
certain degree of respect, but it was no more or less than anyone else was entitled to. To Hermione,
he was not automatically designated the title of Our Brave Defender; he was merely a man in a
brown uniform, one of many amongst the British enlistees and American infantrymen who'd passed
her by at King's Cross.

There was nothing to make a fuss about. So, she entered quietly, sat down beside her mother, and
drew a book out of her bag, all without saying a word.

Roger scrambled to his feet, fumbling his cap. "Hermione! It's spiffing to see you again—it's got
to be a year and a half, hasn't it?"

"Yes," she replied, "a year and five months."

"I wish you'd come to the passing out ceremony," said Roger. "It was in September. I wrote to
your mother, but she said you'd already left for boarding school a week after she'd got the letter."

"Term started on the first of September," Hermione said. "I'm sure it was wonderful, Roger.
Anyone who spends years in training must await its end with great anticipation."

"I could never call it a drudge; it's an honour, of which I strive to be worthy," said Roger, and the
polite tone of his voice suggested that those words had been rehearsed and repeated many times
before. "Grandfather gave me the sword he got for his retirement from the service. But I suppose
this is old news—and dull news, at that. Don't you finish your schooling next year?"

"The end of June."

"Have you made arrangements for what you plan to do?"

Hermione regarded him warily. "Your curiosity is rather unexpected."

"I should like to know more about your life," said Roger. "After all, it's been a long year for the
both of us. Would you be inclined to taking a stroll down to the dining car? Your mum and mine
appear to have much to discuss, and in staying here, we'd only get in their way."

"Oh... I suppose there's no harm in that," Hermione conceded.

"Good," said Roger, offering his arm. "Do you like egg creams?"

Once she'd got over the shock of Roger's appearance and new rank, she found it a strange, and yet
startlingly pleasant, experience to be able to engage in a conversation that was not predicated on
secrecy or subterfuge. With Tom, at the Riddle House or at Hogwarts, their public interactions
were, in some form or another, a performance. Tom might be adamant that his affections were
genuine, but his actions were purely an affectation. With Nott, Hermione had always been guarded
with their conversations, because Nott had a vexing habit of pursuing the most cursory of details to
the point of exhaustion.

There was no guile on Roger's part, and no need for stealth on Hermione's. To him, she was a
childhood acquaintance, just another ordinary girl on a train trip. Not a witch, not the Head Girl,
not Tom's "steady girl", for whom all the Slytherin boys made room when she was invited to dine at
their table. This easy informality reminded Hermione of the staff at The Leaky Cauldron, where
Tom had spent his holiday before Sixth Year. They had ordered the big fry-up breakfast delivered
with the fresh towels and Daily Prophet. No one working at the tavern knew them as anything
other than a pair of customers, and no would would have doubted them had they introduced
themselves as Mr. Tim and Mrs. Perdita Roddle.

Traversing the length of the carriage, other passengers stood aside for Roger and Hermione to pass.
Young boys saluted him, old men clapped him on the back or shoulder, and each time, Roger turned
away flustered, his ears bright pink under his close-cropped military haircut.

"It's the queerest thing about the uniform," Roger remarked, holding open the door to the dining
car. "How everyone responds to it. With the American G.I.'s, people lock their doors and warn
their daughters away. With the Australian diggers, it's the drink they hide. With British conscripts,
people give them small favours—flowers, cigarettes, homemade biscuits, a pair of socks. And yet,
if they happened not to be wearing their uniforms, no one's daughters would have spared them a
second look."

"I expect some people must be enjoying the treatment," said Hermione. Tom would have, if he'd
ever stooped to volunteer himself in a military career.

"It raises morale, as I understand it," Roger replied. "They should enjoy it while it lasts; I can't see
it lasting for much longer."

"What do you mean by that?"

Roger looked both ways, then ushered her into a secluded dining booth. "In cadet training, we
were taught the concept of 'des absoluten Krieges', a form of warfare where every resource,
capability, and action is pressed to its furthest possible extent. Give no quarter, allow no exception,
everything in service to the achievement of the desired outcome: victory. We treated it as a
textbook exercise, of course. In real theatres of war, there are limits to expedience, and nothing is
as efficient as it appears on paper."

"Victory at all costs," Hermione mused. "Isn't that Minister Churchill's line?"

"He meant it in the figurative sense; Britain hasn't come close to consuming every last resource to
the dregs, and that's without counting on the Empire," said Roger. "But the same can't be said for
our enemies. In the last war, the members of the Entente demanded payments of restitution from
the Germans. A fair price was determined on the basis of Germany's standing resources and
industrial capacity—the tonnage laid in their shipyards, the output volume of their coke mines, the
production of their mills, foundries, and manufactories. The restitution price is a matter of public
record, but the amount actually tendered is under restricted access."

"They didn't pay?" Hermione murmured. "Oh—that would have been during the share crisis in the
Twenties; no one had any money to spare. You must have access to the information, then."

"My department does," Roger said. "At first, I thought it was a bit of a comedown when the real
job was more schoolwork than school was—I hadn't expected to be assigned to the books, you see,
instead of getting my hands on those new teleprinter cams—"

"Roger," Hermione interrupted him, "are you allowed to tell me this?"

"The numbers have been bounced around the head office from last year, before I'd even taken the
King's shilling, so to speak," said Roger. "And in the last few months, it's trickled down through
the MP's, who've leaked it like a sieve. That's where the rumours have come from, if you hadn't
known. Since they don't have the full reports, and we're not to take numerical expectancies as a
given certainty, the official stance is to keep mum and encourage people not to listen to idle talk."

At Hermione's dubious expression, Roger continued, "I refer to the rumours about the war ending,
to be clear. Though the ones about the Minister's mistress are certainly true, as far as I've been
told."

The volume of information had come at a flood, but Hermione could begin to piece together the
picture: a nation, bereft of trading partners and colonial territories, could only assemble as many
resources as it could find within its borders. The occupation of neighbouring nations, whose
resources were seized for the war effort, could lighten the burden, but in recent months, the
occupations of Western Europe had been slowly lifted by the Allied forces, a city at a time. Now,
Germany had access only to German resources... or rather, whatever was left of them after six years
of war.

One could make a decent estimation of the amount left, if they had a good set of starting numbers
to examine.

"How long can it keep going?" asked Hermione. "I think two years would be a stretch. There
haven't been any air raids since summer, and most of them were driven off by the RAF."

"Oh, so you have heard the rumours," Roger remarked. "The office punters place it at a year from
today, though I'm not in the position to confirm or deny anything. Still, it'll be a good thing to
consider where you'll be when the time comes, and keep an ear out until it does. Things will be
different in a year, Hermione. Victory will be welcome after so long, but we're sure to get a streak
of changes, too... And, well, nothing guarantees they'll all be good."

Their egg creams were delivered. The two glasses contained frothy brown seltzer water that, they
were told, had been flavoured with chocolate syrup, but tasted like ersatz chocolate's distant health-
sensitive cousin. Chocolate just wasn't the same when it wasn't sweet. Hermione made a face,
remembering the bar of chocolate she'd bought on the Hogwarts Express, and the uneaten half
tucked in her bag, left in the compartment with Mum and Dad.

"I count the end of rationing to be an unequivocal good," said Hermione, setting down her glass
after two sips.

"As would I," Roger agreed. "Shame it's not going anywhere, even when the war ends. The
Government worries too much about self-sufficiency to allow a British reliance on imported
foodstuffs—not to mention how costly it is to keep the shipping lanes open to the Empire. If the
Dominions are conferring to renounce the King and make themselves sovereign nations, then they
ought to see their own way to defending their territorial waters."

"Sovereignty for the Dominions is quite an unusual—and unpopular—attitude to have."

"The stubbornest refuse to acknowledge that we're living in the final days of Britain's Empire," said
Roger. "Let them, I say. It will come to an end, and very soon. We've lived for years without
Canadian wheat, Australian mutton, or Jamaican sugar; many of us have grown used to the taste of
the imitations, and the youngest don't remember anything different." He raised his egg cream in a
mock toast and took a large gulp, wincing a little—at either the flavour or the icy temperature of
the seltzer. "When the war's over, I doubt their export industries will make a full recovery. And
when the soldiers come home, they'll see that Britain is a nation in need of an internal restoration—
and not of foreign luxuries."

"It's curious," said Hermione, "that you've made no objection to the Empire on the basis of ill-
treatment and exploitation."

"'Exploitation'," Roger answered, "isn't the word I would've used, to be honest."

"Oh, what would you call it, then!"

"Would it be diplomatic of me to call it a 'capital-incentivised economic transition'?"

"It would be a cautious way of putting it, certainly," said Hermione. "Almost... evasive, one might
think."

"Well, I shall make no claims that bringing 'the Light of Civilisation' was anywhere near as clean or
painless as we'd have all liked it to be," Roger said. "But one ought to consider the greater benefit
of opening new overseas trade markets. Surely, you've read of the extraction of quinine from the
bark of a Peruvian tree species. How many lives have been saved by medicinal tonics whose
provenance lies in the New World?"

"Yes, but surely you've read of the native peoples forced to log entire forests to feed European
demand?"

The remainder of their journey was consumed by a lively debate concerning the state of British
foreign policy over the past two centuries. Hermione argued from the lofty heights of her ethical
high ground, while Roger remained a down-to-earth moderate, willing to concede and capitulate on
specific points, but refusing to budge on the issue of placing British interests above those of every
other nation. As much as Hermione wanted to come out the winner, she did enjoy the act of
debating, for as long as it lasted. In the past, she'd only spoken of British politics with Tom, who
didn't subscribe to any political party or conventional movement. Instead, he presented his own
flavour of doctrine, sprinkled with the most outlandish of proposals—the least of which was his
suggestion that citizens should be sterilised until they earned the right to reproduce.

(She didn't mention this bit to Roger. His prior reservations about Tom Riddle had not changed
since the last time they'd spoken.)

In fact, the debate lasted for so long that they nearly missed the switch at Sheffield. Roger was the
one who caught the sudden cessation of rattling as the train slowed at the platform, offering his arm
and an escort back to the compartment; he then helped his mother and grandfather return to their
original seats for the final hour of their train journey.

"We can continue this conversation later, at the party," said Roger. "I'm told that most of the guests
are neighbours and associates of the Riddles. There'll be few people that either of us have met
before, and even fewer of them will be our age. With the exception of Riddle himself, of course."

Roger gave a wry smile; he had not been much impressed with Tom upon their mutual
introduction. That had been the evening that Tom found out that his family were alive and well in
Yorkshire, and Hermione recalled Tom sulking the entire night, refusing to eat or drink or smile for
the photographer. Hermione had understood the nature of Tom's conflict, compounded by his
disdain for his parentage. She had attempted to console him when she'd noticed him brooding off in
the corner, and afterwards, he still had not been visibly cheerful. But that was not unexpected; Tom
Riddle was not a cheerful person by nature. To everyone else he must have seemed... rather
disagreeable. Hostile, even.

That thought persisted in Hermione's mind all through the disembarkation at Great Hangleton, and
the transfer to hired motorcars, a fleet of them having been engaged by the Riddles to ferry guests
to and from the station.

In the past, Tom had made note of Hermione's social dexterity—or her lack of it—but Tom was
hardly much better, was he? Yes, it was true that he could slather on embellished praise with the
efficiency of a veteran bricklayer, and he'd years ago perfected the ideal wheedling face, which had
the ability to soften the hardest hearts and the tightest pockets. But when he didn't bother with it,
out of sight of anyone worth impressing, he was often, as Mrs. Riddle described it, high-strung.

And in the most unflattering of terms, (which Hermione kept to herself) histrionic.

Tom wasn't there to greet them at the door of the the Riddle House. The rôle of hostess was taken
by Mrs. Riddle, who fluttered to each new group of arrivals, kissing cheeks, handing off coats and
umbrellas, and waving over a harried-looking maid with a tray of hot drinks.

"Helen, how are you? How was the weather in London? How was the journey?" Mrs. Riddle
asked, brushing her cheek against Hermione's mum's. "I've said it before, but the rail isn't as it used
to be; there were standards, back before the war. When I was a girl, the porters all wore gloves,
and it was the height of disgrace for any one of them to let First Class luggage touch the ground.
I've written to the management, and they've nothing to show for it but paltry excuses. This would
have been unconscionable back then, for the fares we were paying, let me tell you—my own
mother would never have stood for it, may God rest her soul—"

And then it was Hermione's turn.

"Hermione, my dear, it's so good to see you again." Mrs. Riddle pressed her cheek to Hermione's,
her heavy pearl earrings bumping against Hermione's jaw. Perfume wafted into Hermione's
nostrils, a delicate fragrance of rose and camellia which Hermione would henceforth associate with
rich old ladies. Hermione's coat was whisked away, and then Mrs. Riddle smoothed down the
wrinkles on her blouse, murmuring, "Our Tommy's been waiting for you to put in an appearance
since breakfast. He'll be ever so pleased to see that you're finally here, and you've even brought
him a gift. Oh, you shouldn't have! We did write on the invitations that they weren't a necessity—
ah, but who's this?"

Mrs. Riddle had spotted Roger Tindall in the midst of handing his hat off to the maid.

"Why, it's our new Lieutenant in his new uniform! You had to have got it tailored in London, of
course—Huntsman's of Mayfair, perhaps, or Kilgour's on Piccadilly? They do pay such attention to
the details; no other firm quite compares. Did you know, my husband had his uniform made by
them when he served as an officer? He was a Lieutenant as well!"

"I've heard," said Roger. "Grandfather says he served three years and resigned his commission, not
long after General Kitchener won his treaty and sent everyone back home."

"Quite so," Mrs. Riddle sniffed. "The war never sat well with him, nor did the posting in Africa, of
all places; he was never inclined to make a career of it, regardless. Putting homesteads to the torch
in the name of the strategic imperative—well, that isn't any sort of action a respectable landowner
would take pleasure in."

"Orders are orders. Part and parcel of the job, but I suppose not everyone likes taking them no
matter their necessity," was Roger's tactful response, and then he turned to Hermione. "Didn't you
say that you'd spent last Christmas holiday here? Would you mind showing me about—that is, if
you'll excuse us, Mrs. Riddle? You do have such a lovely house, here; London has few private
estates of this size, and half of them have been requisitioned for interim offices or convalescent
homes."

"That was efficient," Hermione remarked, as a new group of guests arrived—Chief Constable
Swindon and his family. When Mrs. Riddle had gone to greet them, Hermione and Roger took the
opportunity to slip out of the foyer and out of her purview. "You've an unusual talent for deflecting
Mrs. Riddle. When she starts on like that, most times I have to wait until she runs out of things to
criticise."

"Oh, it's an unfortunate reality that I've become quite used to," said Roger. "Our director, Brigadier
Sinclair, hosts department-wide socials for the staff—the officers, the secretaries, and the translator
ladies. Keeps dishonourable conduct out of the office, though it does have the unwelcome effect of
concentrating the 'husband auditions' to a single evening each week." He gave a mirthless laugh.
"Most men on leave would be far from game to the idea of interviewing for a job they hadn't
applied for."

"I should think Mrs. Riddle would be too old and too settled for auditioning husbands!"

"Those of her breed are never too old to run auditions on the behalf of others," Roger said, shaking
his head sagely. "They consider themselves to be undertaking a valuable public service."

"I am certain that Mrs. Riddle," said Hermione, squaring her shoulders in obstinance, "understands
me well enough to know that I'd never suffer being 'auditioned'."

"Or perhaps you've already passed her inspection," Roger suggested. "Right! Show me around,
why don't you? Is there a snooker table? A library? A servants' wing?—by Jove, a house like this
couldn't be run without servants, could it?" Roger let out a whistle, looking around the corridor,
with its twelve-foot ceilings and crystal light fixtures. "And Riddle's set to inherit all of this? A
first-rate windfall, that. It's terribly lucky he had you, Hermione. My mother said that Riddle was
only invited to the Gala as a guest of your family; no one in London society has directly invited the
Riddles to a salon or soirée in years."

"Um. Here's the cloakroom, here's an airing cupboard. And the stairs. Behind the door on the
landing is a passageway that connects to the servants' hall. The passages are built all over the
house, so the servants can answer the front door or bring up a tray, without getting in the way of the
family." Hermione opened the door, allowed Roger to peer into a dusty stairwell lit by a lightbulb
in a metal cage, then closed it after he'd had his look.
"Yes, it was very lucky for Tom, and for Mr. and Mrs. Riddle," continued Hermione. "Tom's father
was their only child, and Tom is their only grandchild. If they had no one to inherit after Tom's
father, the house would have passed to the Crown. And if the house was turned into a bed and
breakfast—no, a council-maintained village day school, I imagine Mrs. Riddle would be grateful
for passing before it happened."

"You seem regretful," Roger said, studying Hermione's expression with keen interest. "Does the
loss of this—" he waved at a hand at the lavish mouldings and hardwood panelling, "—sort of
grand lifestyle bother you? Forgive me, but I can't help observing how its very existence
perpetuates an unflattering portrait of modern feudalism. One cannot deny its prestige, but in these
times, this all seems so... shockingly impractical. It's a negligent use of resources for the keeping
of a single civilian family, and not a one registered with a vital occupation."

"There's a sentimental value to it," said Hermione. "And value of another kind. The Riddles
provide employment to the village. Without their retaining the seasoned farmers to their lands, the
fields would have been put into the care of conscripted city girls."

"All things considered, they've done a respectable job of it, for amateurs, that is—" Roger began,
but his words caught in his throat as he lost his balance, tripping over some wrinkle or ruck on the
carpet. His arms pinwheeled in all directions and his legs flew out from under him, laying him flat
on his back in the middle of the floor, breath knocked out of him.

Hermione took a second to realise why: absorbed by the conversation, they had wandered up the
stairs, taking the most familiar route Hermione knew in the Riddle House, the path that led up to
the North Wing, where she had spent much of her summer holidays. She hadn't thought too deeply
on planning the route, Roger having pressed her into giving a tour without preparing her for the
request. And afterward, she'd only given thought to making it an interesting tour experience with
interesting anecdotes and ornaments to examine and remark upon. A tour devoid of guests, whom
neither she nor Roger wished to greet or be greeted by unless they had the alternative.

But this was the carpet, and this was the corridor, that had been charmed with a Tripping Jinx.

Hermione was mortified; even though she hadn't lived in this house since summer, it was
thoughtless of her to have forgotten. She rushed over to Roger and helped him sit up.

"Are you alright? I'm dreadfully sorry, Roger!"

"Not to worry," said Roger in a weak voice, rubbing his back. "Just plain old clumsiness, I'm
afraid. It could've happened to anyone..."

The door at the end of the hall opened.

Tom Riddle stepped out of his bedroom, wearing a black dinner jacket over a stiff white vest and
double-starched shirtfront.

"Who's there?" he snapped. "What's this fuss about? I asked not to be disturbed!" Tom stopped,
his eyes widening. "Hermione? You're here! No one rang the bell or told me that they'd brought
the motor around—"

"Well, obviously," said Roger, getting to his feet and brushing himself off. "You asked not to be
disturbed, didn't you?"
"Very good, Tindall, thank you," Tom said, eyeing Roger's uniform and the insignia on his epaulets
and collar. "Or should I call you Lieutenant Tindall? Second Lieutenant, congratulations." Tom's
voice was flat, not quite mocking, but this was only because it lacked any trace of enthusiasm or
emotion.

"A mutual friend is a friend of mine. No titles; 'Roger' will do." Roger offered his hand to Tom.
"If you'll allow me to call you 'Tom'?"

"Riddle—" said Nott, poking his head around the doorjamb of Tom's bedroom. "Oh. It's you,
Granger."

"What a gathering!" said Roger to Nott. "Roger Tindall, at your service."

"Riddle, it's speaking to me," whined Nott, deliberately oblivious to Roger's greeting. "Aren't you
going to get rid of it?"

"Get back in there and mind your manners next time," Tom hissed, over his shoulder. To Roger, he
said, "Ignore him, he doesn't get out much. Just an old school chum. An aspiring rugger—he got
conked on the head his first scrummage; fellow hasn't been quite right since, if you follow my
lead." Tom's eyebrows wriggled suggestively. Then, giving Hermione a reproving look, Tom
added, "And Hermione, you shouldn't bring people up here—these are our living quarters, you
know."

"I offered to show Roger the house, and your grandmother didn't oppose it. He's a guest, and these
are the guest rooms," said Hermione. "You've let Nott into your bedroom, so I don't see why you're
fretting about it."

"Because there are rules, Hermione," said Tom, speaking in a voice of grim patience. "You of all
people should know that fraternising isn't allowed."

"It is, actually," said Roger helpfully. "Despite the uniform, I'm not here in an official capacity. I
can pay calls on civilians as I please; Command won't involve themselves in private affairs unless
there are pensions and benefits to arrange. Nothing catches their eye like the twinkle of a
disappearing penny." Roger laughed, while Tom's face remained cold and stony. "But that'd be a
case of counting the chickens, eh?"

"You're correct," said Tom. "There's no call for that much boldness, Lieutenant; Hermione scarcely
knows you."

"Tom!"

"Hermione!" spoke Tom sternly. "Tindall may be a guest here, but you're my guest. You must
understand that your well-being is my responsibility."

"My 'well-being'," Hermione scoffed. "There's nothing I need to be protected from that I can't
manage on my own."

"Tut tut, such hubris, Hermione," said Tom, shaking his head. "Mark my words, overconfidence
will be your undoing." He sent a pointed look in Roger's direction, which Roger returned, albeit
rather uncomfortably. "Mark my words."
"I do apologise for Tom's behaviour," spoke Hermione quickly, nodding to Roger. "He's always
been too forthright for his own good—a quality we share, for better or worse. To our bad luck,
today happens not to be one of his better days. Now, where were we? Oh yes, the tour! Would
you like to see my room? There's a good view of the village from up here, and on a fair day, you
can see all the way to Great Hangleton. Their church steeple is taller than the one just down the
road..."

She led Roger down the hall, opened the door, and showed him the view out of the window.

"The design's a revival, not an original, but it was supposed to evoke the style of the Elizabethan
era, if you look at the shape of the mantel there, the window frames, and the gables and eaves
around the front. It was considered more contemporary than the stark Gothic style, and also more
patriotic—more English—than the intricate Baroque ornamental style you'd see in the châteaus of
France or Italy. This style's better suited for the weather up here, too; with fancy stone fretwork,
the crevices would fill with ice and cause the details to crack after a few seasons. Some estate
owners went ahead with the French style, regardless, but they soon found out the cost of
maintenance."

"You're very well-informed about the architecture of this house," Roger observed.

"She ought to be," Tom interjected, from where he stood at the door. "She lives here."

He'd kept an eye on Hermione, as she'd pointed Roger to the watercolour landscapes mounted on
the wall, followed by the Edwardian-era wallpaper patterned with prim damask roses, and finally,
the nouveau-style light fittings installed in the Twenties.

"I—it's a temporary situation," Hermione stammered. "Tom and his family have been gracious
hosts in offering—"

"It's alright, Hermione," said Roger. "You haven't anything to explain. When you showed me in, I
noticed your dressing gown hung on the back of the door, and your carpet slippers under the bed.
I'd thought it best not to mention it."

Tom snickered. "If you're finished with the tour, might I recommend having a wash-up in
Hermione's bathroom, just down the hall, before we go down to greet the company? And
Hermione," said Tom, lifting an eyebrow, "are those birthday gifts that you've brought? I'm much
obliged, truly; if you leave them on your nightstand, I'll come by later on and we can open them
together."

Hermione covered her face in her hands, her cheeks radiating with heat. Tom, tickled at her
reaction, showed Roger to the bathroom at the end of the corridor. Their two voices were audible
from her room:

"My grandmama offered me a room in the South Wing, originally," Tom spoke in a conversational
voice. "In her time, they'd have kept the male and female guests separated in two different wings
of the house—for decorum's sake. But I was adamant: if this house was to be my home, and one
day my rightful inheritance, then it should accommodate my preferences."

"And were you accommodated?"

"Very well, indeed," said Tom. "Here's the bathroom. Sink there, and the water closet if you need
it. I have my own bathroom, of course. Hermione has a quaint habit of leaving hair wherever she
goes; you can hug her once and find her hair stuck to your uniform days later. It's an amusing little
quirk of hers, but you should take it as a warning that any other young ladies in your acquaintance
would fail to see the humour in it."

"Your school chums must find you a lark," said Roger, laughing. "Goodness, you have such a dry
way with words; I almost believed you were being serious."

"I was."

"Good man—I'll buy you a pint if we're to ever go for a drink sometime!"

Shortly, Tom and Roger returned, Tom looking sour, and Roger's expression one of polite
pleasantness. Hermione resumed her half-hearted attempted of showing Roger the rest of the
second floor, which involved stopping to look at each bit of art and clock in the corridors. Roger
asked Tom if he could open the clock cases, to which Tom grudgingly assented, after a bit of
nudging from Hermione.

"The precision in these things is superb," said Roger, his eyes following the pendulum's to-and-fro
movement. "It's the teeth in the gears, you see, that regulate the degree and timing of each swing.
This one's accurate now, but you can expect it to lose a few seconds a week in the summer. Second
floors are warmer than firsts, and those metal parts will expand with the heat. Not quite as
consistent as an electric clock, but electrics are objects of utility, not art."

He patted the carved wooden clock case with a fond smile, then closed the cabinet.

"It's wonderful to share our interests with each other, isn't it, Hermione?" asked Roger. He turned
to Tom. "And what about you, Tom? From the subjects of the paintings we've passed, the Riddles
are animal people. Is that true?"

"Yes," said Tom, wincing at Roger's uncomfortably familiar use of his given name. "We're known
for our mastery of... animals."

"I'd like to hear about that," said Roger. "Living in London, no one has the room for proper
sporting. Dogs, yes, but certainly no horses unless they were working beasts or to be run at the
races. I needn't tell you, I suppose—I believe that you and I have both called London home—"

Roger was interrupted mid-sentence by the ringing of a bell from downstairs.

"Shall we continue this at supper?" Roger offered his arm to Hermione. "May I accompany you
down?"

"No, let me," said Tom quickly. "I know the quickest way to the dining room."

This time, Tom led their small group, with Hermione following at the rear. As they passed the
landing, the air shimmered, and Nott stepped out from behind the curve of a banister, tucking his
wand into the interior pocket of his dinner jacket.

"Daftest thing, that," Nott murmured, slipping beside Hermione. "I'd never have rated you for a
Muggle lover, Granger. A Muggle-lover, yes, that's nothing out of the ordinary, but a Muggle
lover." He placed an irregular emphasis on the last two words. "That's news to me. How old is he,
exactly? Riddle must be steaming right now—I don't think he's ever liked having the latest
birthday of the three of us. He's eighteen today; we've been eighteen for weeks and months."
"Roger is twenty-one," said Hermione.

"Twenty-one," Nott mused. "If he was a wizard, he'd likely be married by now. A wizard who
doesn't make his arrangements post-haste won't secure himself a good match. That is, if he prefers
a match of his own age. Do Muggles not care about that?"

"For every wizard in Britain, there are four thousand Muggles," Hermione answered. "There's far
more choice, even for those who limit their search within 'respectable' families. No one needs to
rush. Not that anyone should."

Nott was silent for a second, then he said, "That Muggle called Riddle by his name, and yet he's
still hale and breathing."

"I call Tom by his name."

"That's different."

"How is that different?"

"You're Riddle's... leman."

"His—sorry? His lemon?"

"You read everything, Granger, and yet you comprehend nothing," said Nott dismissively. "Even
Riddle wouldn't expect to be addressed by his surname when he's in the midst of, ahem,
conjugating the subjunctive."

"I do beg your pardon!"

"Pardon granted, but next time, I'd like to see a bit more effort in the begging."

When she and Nott reached the foyer, they saw that Roger and Tom had already got there before
them. A small throng of admirers and well-wishers had gathered around them; Hermione could not
attach their faces to any names she recalled—they must be, she assumed, guests of Mrs. Riddle,
parishioners of local significance, the gentle country crowd whose established social routines had
been interrupted by the advent of war. Tom looked put-out with all the hand-shaking. (Tom had
always abhorred the touch of other people, for reasons of health and sanitation, or so he'd said.)
However, the guests introducing themselves to Tom and Roger were not laying hands on them,
bare-fleshed; they were, for the most part, women in elbow-length evening gloves.

"Oh, what a sight," said Nott, stopping on the staircase to peer at the milieu below. "Riddle's been
mobbed."

"They are a touch friendlier than usual, I suppose," Hermione observed.

"They would be. It's the regular brigade of hens and heifers."

"'Hens'?" Hermione's tone was cutting. "'Heifers'? That sort of language is not just ungallant, it's
disrespectful."

"What else would you call them, then?" said Nott, amused by her outrage.

"I wouldn't call them anything."

"Not where they could hear you." Nott tapped his nose. "But look—there, those mother hens
flapping about. They're searching for the most preferable place for which to set their daughters out
to pasture. Riddle and your Muggle boy," Nott pronounced, with much relish and little sympathy,
"have been singled out as the most eligible young men on tonight's meat market."

When the sun set—an early occasion in winter—the drinks began to flow, apéritifs in fluted crystal
glasses and a parade of vol-au-vents began their circulation the room. Hermione sallied forth into
the fray, Nott scurrying along at her heels, coughing loudly and muttering to himself about the
Muggles and their peculiar Muggle ways, as several of them had lit up cigars, touching the clipped
ends to matches torn out of a matchbook.

Hermione put forward her prepared itinerary of conversational starters, starting with, "How do you
do", "The wine is excellent tonight", "Have you heard the latest news about the war?", and the
ever-reliable universal constant, "Has the weather been colder than it was this time last
year?". She sidled around the perimeter of the room, which had been colonised by wallflowers and
gentlemen retirees, people whom Hermione could expect to be mild and indulgent to a new face
unrelated by blood—unlike the rather intimidating group of ladies jostling for elbow room at the
heart of the party, where Mrs. Riddle held court.

This was somewhat of a miscalculation, as it turned out the older gentlemen could take her
conversation topics and ramble on and on about them, without allowing her to put in a word of her
own.

"—No, I remember, Christmas last, the frozen pipes put up such a banging that the missus had them
shut it off, then had me bring out the old bedpans from the attic."

"T'was that cold, was it? Couldn't tell at the time. We had the new furnace put in a few years ago
—the one I call 'The Beast'; it devours coal by the barrow-full, I swear."

"You ought to save your newspapers, letters, and scraps for that. Paper and rag are cheaper per
pound than coal; it'll save you a few shillings a week, as long as you mix in a few lumps and pack it
right so the fire lasts the night..."

Hermione was regaled by a lively discussion on the merits of outdoor washrooms; she was grateful
to be saved by the eventual migration to the dining room, once the bottles had poured their last drop
and the finger-foods had been picked clean. The foyer emptied as the guests shuffled through to
the dining room. They made a slow, chattering many-legged mass dawdling along the hall, at the
same pace of an unruly student sent off to take the long walk to the headmaster's office.

Country people, thought Hermione. In London, this sort of thing wasn't done. People had places to
go, work hours to keep, train connections to catch, and appointments awaiting. And they didn't
hesitate to use their elbows or shoulders to get through.

She and Nott were the last remaining guests in the foyer, which resolved to be a good thing, as Mr.
Pacek was let in by the maid at that moment. He shook rain off his hat, handing it off to the maid;
his Macintosh coat was streaked with wet, and with a wink in Hermione's direction, he slipped his
hand inside his lapel, flicked his wrist, and in an instant, all the water was wrung out, shedding onto
the floor before evaporating into a damp mist.

"You're here," Hermione cried, rushing forward and taking his hands. "I'm so happy to see you. I
hardly know anyone here, and then I tried to introduce myself... Well, I'm sorry to say that I still
don't know anyone."
Nott cleared his throat. "That's never bothered me."

Mr. Pacek cocked his head, studying Nott with an appraising eye. Nott had dressed in the same
fashion as Tom had, in a swallow-tailed dinner jacket over a high wing-collar shirt and white
waistcoat. "And who is this young man? Why is his waistcoat Transfigured?"

"What," sputtered Nott, glancing down at his waistcoat. He smoothed down the buttons with one
hand. "How did you know?"

Mr. Pacek smiled and, without warning, poked Nott in the stomach with the tip of his wand; Nott
flinched and hunched over, protecting his vulnerable areas with a pair of crossed arms. "A
waistcoat in this style is usually double-woven with a raised weft. It has more give for those who
plan to sit and enjoy their gastronomic comforts; the structure is also suited to take a stiff starching
when laundered. You, young man, have Transfigured this fabric to replicate a certain look, but you
have forgotten the weight and hand. This fabric looks as flat as a sheet of India rubber. When you
look down, the fabric should not form creases—it should form ripples."

"He's right," Hermione whispered, stealing a few surreptitious looks at Nott's belly. "You really
should pay more attention to Professor Dumbledore, you know."

"Who is he?" Nott demanded. "And why should I listen to him? He sounds foreign."

"Sigismund Pacek," said Mr. Pacek, offering his hand. "Wardmaster by trade, accredited in
Prague."

Nott stared at the hand, then at Mr. Pacek. Other than his accent and forward manner, Mr. Pacek
had displayed no glaring deficiencies in his appearance to which Nott could object. Nott, very
reluctantly, took the man's hand and gave it a firm shake. Mr. Pacek didn't let go; Nott tried to
retrieve his hand, tugging it back, but Mr. Pacek held on, his expression contemplative.

"Theodore Erasmus Nott. Granger and I attend the same school," said Nott, eyes darting to
Hermione and back to Mr. Pacek. "Riddle, too. You must know him if you've been invited to his
party."

"That is an interesting ring, Mr. Nott," Mr. Pacek remarked. "Sacred lineage, dare I presume?"

"Correct," said Nott proudly. "I don't suppose you can tell which one it is, exactly?"

"It is my practice to laud the accomplishments of the individual," replied Mr. Pacek, letting Nott's
hand go at long last. "You have the calluses of a musician. Do you, perchance, play the
mandolin?"

"What?" Nott said, bewildered. "That's not important—"

"Dinner's important," said Hermione, glancing around the room. The trickle of guests had
disappeared during the course of the introductions. "We might be the last ones in if we don't
hurry."
In the dining room, they were shown to their assigned seats within seconds of presenting their
names. Hermione's seat was the seat of honour, right beside Tom's, close to the Riddles and her
own parents. Farther down the long stretch of table, Mr. Pacek and Nott had taken their seats, as
guests of lesser precedence. The formalities were protracted, Mr. and Mrs. Riddle both standing up
to deliver a speech thanking everyone for their attendance, and to heap their sentiments of pride and
joy upon their darling grandson, as he entered a new juncture in his life. Hermione felt some
degree of second-hand embarrassment hearing the lavish—and undeserved, she thought—praise for
the non-achievement of Tom's reaching his eighteenth year. Tom, however, was pleased by it,
earned or not. The whole affair was finished with a minute of solemn silence for Our Brave
Defenders; at this, many heads along the table turned to look at Roger Tindall, who stiffened in his
seat and in that moment, looked as if he was desperately wishing to be anywhere else in the house
but at the table.

"The food, at last," said Tom eagerly, reaching for his spoon after the service of the first course. "I
tried to get at the savoury starters before they were all gone, but those girls kept coming over to talk
to me. Mrs. Willrow promised me eighteen different types of canapé, but I believe I only counted
twelve by the time they'd run out."

"What did they want?" asked Hermione, and some part of her dreaded to hear the answer.

"Nothing of much importance. Though if they wanted to ingratiate themselves to me, they could
stand to try a bit harder. It's my birthday, but half of them were fawning over Tindall." In a voice
of disgust, Tom said, "They think he's dashing."

"It's the uniform, I expect."

"I don't understand it," said Tom, his mouth turned down in a petulant scowl. "It's the colour of
sick."

"I don't understand it either," Hermione said, shrugging. A uniform was an indication of one's
organisation, service rank, and nationality—or at Hogwarts, one's House. It was a cursory means
of gaining the measure of a person's identity, and no measure at all of a person's character. If she
disliked Nott, it wasn't because Nott was a member of Slytherin House; if she admired Roger
Tindall, it wasn't because Roger had joined the army.

"Perhaps my opinion would be different," she continued, "if Roger was risking life and limb every
night to patrol the Channel in a Spitfire. But from what he's said about his job, he just sits in an
office with a pencil in one hand, and a cup of tea in the other. An important task, but it's neither the
time nor place for heroics."

"I think," said Tom, smoothing down his lapels, "that I'm more dashing than he is. Wouldn't you
say?"

"It's not a competition, Tom."

"And that, Hermione, is why you're my favourite," said Tom, patting her knee under the table.
Dinner continued with a course of cold white fish with Dutch sauce, followed by a suprême of
grouse hen, and a main dish of broiled beef stuffed with bacon and oysters, served with a brown ale
gravy. The conversations along the table dwindled, replaced by the scrape and clink of cutlery on
porcelain, the wet sound of many mouths enthusiastically chewing, and the slurp of wine
disappearing down many parched throats. This was the best meal that many of the guests had eaten
in the past year; with the current value of government-issued ticket books, in the past hour, each
person had been served a week's ration of meat and more.

After the main meal, there came the desserts. It commenced with the pouring of the digestifs, and
the arrival of platters piled high with bite-sized sweetmeats and confectionery—trays of brandy
meringue crisps, jam-and-sponge sandwich squares, sugar-dusted mince pies, and custard tarts
dressed with almond slivers and glacé fruit. The stiff formalities were lightened; it was now
permissible for guests to swap their seats out of the arranged pattern, and for cigarettes and pipes to
be lit at the table.

"All this tobacco is disgusting," said Tom, waving a hand in front of his nose. "If there's one thing
I'll miss about school dinners, it's that no one spoils dessert with their filthy habits."

"Tobacco isn't a habit limited to... you-know-whats," Hermione pointed out. "Don't you remember
our lessons in First Year? We had to turn mice into snuffboxes."

Tom's explanation on the differences between Tolerable Habits and Filthy Habits was postponed by
Nott joining them at their side of the table, a bottle of Madeira wine in each hand.

"Your German is an interesting fellow, Granger," Nott said, pouring a healthy dollop into each of
their glasses. "Surprisingly well-travelled, too. He's recommended going on a Grand Tour of
southern France after Hogwarts. Did you know that there are small pockets in the Occitan region
where the tradition of troubadour poetry has been preserved from the thirteenth century? I'd
thought about visiting Norway to see the Edda performed—putting all those years studying Norse
to good use—but apparently, it's not safe for tourists at the moment."

"You've already started planning what to do after school?" Hermione asked.

"It'll be top-hole to see the sights outside of Britain." Nott shot a wary glance in Tom's direction.
Tom's face remained impassive. "Take the waters, enjoy a spot of cultural enrichment, feel the sun
on my skin for once. You look like you could use some sun, Riddle. A post-exam jaunt would do
us both a favour or two, wouldn't it?"

"What favours? A sunburn and an endless encore of minstrel shows?" Tom said. "I could think of
better things to do."

"Slap on a herbal poultice overnight, and you'll be fixed fair and square by morning. More fair than
square, truth be told."

"And what about the minstrels?"

"It's an acquired taste, I'll admit, but—"

"Oh, Mr. Riddle!" spoke an unfamiliar voice, followed by several others in a chorus of giggles.

"Tom!"
"Excuse me—"

"We don't mean to intrude—"

"—But we noticed that you were inviting friends over to sit with you!"

"One at a time, please, ladies," said Tom.

A group of guests had gathered around Tom's section of the table, young women wearing dinner
gowns and glittering jewels, with little reticule bags dangling from their wrists. One of them
leaned over the table, causing Tom to lean back and wrinkle his nose at her overpowering perfume;
the girl drew a deck of playing cards out of her bag and showed them to Tom.

"We're starting a game, and I was wondering if you might be my partner," she said.

"What game?" said Tom, eyeing her suspiciously.

"Two-on-two bridge, tournament pairings," said the girl. "It'll be super—we're playing for stakes."

"What kind of stakes? Cash?"

"We're all of us putting something in for the grand prize. Pounds mainly, but Jonty Warren-Witley's
pledged a set of Queen Victoria silver crowns. Pure silver and worth a mint, he says."

"What's the entry?"

"Fifteen pounds a head," said the girl. She nodded her head at the dining table, emptied of their
dinner service china, but still littered with open bottles of wine and trays of cheese and pastries.
"It's no trouble, is it?"

"I'll join," announced Tom. "But Nott will be my partner."

Nott recoiled. "Now, see here, Riddle—"

"She said that it'll be super," said Tom, brushing off Nott's unease. "Don't you trust her?"

"The problem has nothing to do with her," said Nott.

"I'll cover you," said Tom, taking a billfold out of his jacket pocket. "We'll sort it out later; it won't
be an issue."

Tom was enticed to the far end of the table, where the dishes had been cleared, chairs paired up
two-by-two, and a fruit bowl had been emptied and piled high with crumpled Bank of England
notes, white paper slips printed with elaborate calligraphy and the robed figure of the goddess
Britannia. Tom's head turned to look at the bowl of banknotes, even as he was ushered to his seat,
and a deck of cards opened and shuffled before him.

Hermione watched for a few minutes, but it wasn't a game that held her interest. She had never
been much for sports or games; as a child, she had never been invited to play in team sports, nor
had she ever wanted any part of recreational games that depended on luck. She understood the
spirit of competition, the reason that many people participated in Quidditch or Muggle association
football, but she found it disquieting that a whole team's skills were required to secure a victory.
What if one person missed or dropped the ball at the wrong moment? The failure would be put on
show for the rest of the team, and the whole audience, too!

She decided to return to her room, picking up her empty glass to re-fill with water once she was out
of sight of the guests. The servants looked harried, flagged down from group to group in order to
keep the drinks flowing and the glasses topped up. The drinking hadn't stopped since the reception
in the foyer, and if it had slowed at all, it was to make the transition from pre-meal effervescent
tonics and herbal tipples to dinner wines, and after dinner, to brandy, cognac, and whisky.

She herself had partaken in two or three glasses, more than she was used to coming from Hogwarts,
where she'd only been offered drinks once a week at Slughorn's club dinners, and had refused more
often than not. But during tonight's meal, Tom had mentioned that all the wines had been specially
chosen to pair with the meats, and the menu had been written to a Tom-approved set of recipes.
Hermione had resolved that it wouldn't hurt to taste them, and she'd been offered to stay at the
Riddle House. There wasn't going to be any stumbling back home in disgrace for her, no thank
you.

"Aguamenti," she incanted, once she'd reached the staircase, tapping her wand to her glass and
observing the water flow down out of the tip of her wand. Perfectly clear, no sediment, full point
textbook standard. The only thing that didn't quite meet her standards was the lukewarm
temperature, but the N.E.W.T. examiners wouldn't be deducting points for that...

She sipped from the glass, making a face.

"Glacius," she murmured. "Hmm, much better."

On the second floor, the door to the servant's passage at the top of the staircase opened.

"Hermione," said Roger, waving her over, "have you come to get away from the others?"

"Roger? What are you doing in there?"

Roger pulled her inside and shut the door. The space was narrow; one person could reliably
traverse the passage with a breakfast tray, but two people could pass by each other at the same time,
only if they didn't mind a squeeze. The walls were bare cement coated in dusty plaster, a dark
tunnel interspersed with brief circles of light, where bare bulbs illuminated the various entrances
and exits. It was a bleak space, cheerless and dingy compared to the rich panelling and plush
carpets of the regular corridors.

"It's the last place they'd look for me," Roger said, walking along the passage. "The ladies out there
are tenacious to the extreme. One of them, a Miss Caroline Swindon, I think—she's set her cap on
landing herself an officer, and followed me to the lavatory trying to get me alone. The next time I
had to go, I found one of these doors you showed me earlier, and no one saw me come and go." He
loosened his collar, sighing. "My Mum's told me to be kind to them. Country girls, you see. They
think city life is exciting, and the pickings out here are slim if they want something better than a
respectable freeholder or a small-town professional."

"I'm surprised they haven't tried the same thing with Tom."

"Oh, they tried," said Roger, grimacing. "Tom's got them figured out. 'Hermione likes this', and
'Hermione told me that', and the girls left off, thinking that the competition would be less stiff
elsewhere."
"Um. That's good to hear," said Hermione, mulling over Roger's words, keeping pace with him
down the narrow corridor. This must be somewhere in the centre of the house, on the second floor
overlooking the front drive. The nursery room, she remembered, would be very near. "Though I
do wish Tom wouldn't use my name to shield himself from small nuisances. It's only one step away
from using his grandmother's health as an excuse!"

"You could use his name in exchange; he wouldn't like that." Roger paused for a moment. "Unless
you've already tried it?"

"No," said Hermione, "I think I'd rather tell people that I had to go and wash my hair."

This made Roger smile; he was about to say something, when he stopped, and his forehead
furrowed in concentration. "Do you hear that?"

"What?"

Roger pressed his ear against the wall. "Are the Riddles allowing people to explore the house? All
evening, they've had the servants herding the guests to keep them downstairs. But I hear people
talking—"

Hermione leaned in close to the wall, wincing as gritty plaster dust drifted and fell down the neck
of her dinner dress. "It sounds like talking, but I can't make out what they're saying."

She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate.

"May I have the glass?" Roger took her cup of water, tipped the last inch out, and pressed it to the
wall.

"What do you hear?"

"'Wer hätte das gedacht,'" Roger intoned.

"What!"

"Shh!" A crease formed between his brows. "'Bin gespannt, was wohl als nächstes passiert?'"

"I can't make it out, Roger."

"'Wissen auch nur die wenigsten'..." Roger stiffened and peeled his ear off the wall, brushing the
dust off his neck and collar. "'Only a few people know,' that's what it means. There's a German on
the other side of the wall, Hermione. A German agent. I only hear one side of the conversation, so
he's got to be talking to someone else through a receiving device."

Hermione snatched the glass out of his hand and listened through the wall.

"Sollte man nichts gegen unternehmen..." a male voice spoke. The words were alien and
incomprehensible, but the tone, the quiet and composed intonation of a lecturer, was painfully
familiar to her.

"Roger, that's Mr. Pacek!" Hermione gasped.

"The tutor fellow? I knew there was something off about him," said Roger. "Look, you stay here,
and I'll go and deal with him—"
"No, Roger, you can't!"

"I have to," said Roger firmly. "This house is full of old men and unarmed women. If a foreign
agent is to be apprehended, it's better to do it here and out of the way."

Without further discussion, Roger pushed past her and sprinted to the nearest door, Hermione
wobbling along after him in her party shoes, bashing her elbows a few times against the walls as
she lost and regained her balance.

He grasped the door handle and threw it open, entering the main corridor, footsteps muffled by the
carpet runners. Hermione kicked off her shoes, tucking them under her arms, trailing after him.

"Roger, Roger, wait," cried Hermione. "You don't understand!"

"I understand well enough, Hermione," Roger replied over his shoulder. His hand went down to
the pouch on his belt. "I know what I heard."

Roger flung open the first door in the hall, then moved on to the next, until the third door revealed a
room lit with crystal lamps, containing the great felted swath of a billiards table, and leaning
against it was Mr. Pacek, his back to the door.

"Tja," Hermione heard him say, "so ist das Leben. Freu dich, dass er es hinter sich hat—"

"Turn around slowly and keep your hands in sight," said Roger, pointing his officer's pistol at the
centre of Mr. Pacek's back. "Hermione, stay back. If you need to go for help, use the telephone.
There's a division stationed at Helmsley, fifteen miles away. Have the operator connect you to their
line—mention that it's urgent business of the Information Corps."

Mr. Pacek turned around, a lit cigarette hanging from his lip. His attention was riveted to the pistol
that Roger Tindall had trained on him. "I expect that you would not believe me if I told you this is
all a grievous misunderstanding."

"To whom were you speaking?" Roger demanded. "What's that in your hand?"

"A cigarette case," said Mr. Pacek, opening his fingers to show them. It was a flat silver box,
square in shape, the size of his palm and etched with a design of runes within a border of curling
flowers. "For holding cigarettes."

"Set it on the table and slide it over."

Mr. Pacek did so. Roger didn't lower his pistol, which he held in a two-handed grip, his right hand
on the trigger, and his left hand supporting it at the base.

"Hermione," said Roger, his face grim, "take it and check it for wiring or an extendable aerial. If it
makes any strange noises, throw it into the hall, shut the door, then hide under the table."

Glancing nervously at both of them, Hermione snatched the cigarette case off the green felt
tabletop. It was a metal tin, heavy for its size and made of fine silver, hinged on one side and
secured with a clasp on the other. One corner was marred with a small dent. When she held it up
to the light, she saw that the runework was more than just decorative—it served a function. A
series of linked rune sequences that made up the boundaries of a multi-layered enchantment.

Connection. Clarity. Message. Vision. True speech.

And the the final rune, etched deeper than the rest, the X-like shape of Gebo.

Exchange.

She recognised it; she'd used it to enchant her homework planners, having taken lessons several
Christmas holidays ago with Mr. Pacek.

"Open it up," said Roger.

Hermione opened it. The case had two halves. One side contained a dozen cigarettes, white paper
with gold foil tips. The other side was a mirror, and in that mirror was an eye, bloodshot and
shadowed under a heavy brow.

The eye blinked, then widened.

"Was? Pacek? Wer bist du—"

Hermione shut the case quickly.

"Caught red-handed, then," said Roger. "Brigadier Sinclair will be interested in that. A
miniaturised transceiver, smaller than the field units we sent with the Italian division. Where's the
signal transmitter? No, you must have relays hidden somewhere, though I suppose—" He cut
himself off, clearing his throat. "If you surrender now, peacefully, we should be able to negotiate a
defection deal."

"You can't arrest him, Roger!"

Roger didn't spare a glance in Hermione's direction. His gaze was fixed on Mr. Pacek, still
standing with his hands in the air, his smouldering cigarette dropping flakes of ash down the front
of his shirt.

"I want this war to be over," said Roger, his skin flushed, a bead of sweat glistening on his temple.
The muzzle of his pistol didn't waver. "Then we'll finally get our taste of peace. Britain needs
peace, a chance to rebuild. If not, she'll never be able to hold fast against the Russians."

"This will buy you no peace, Lieutenant," Mr. Pacek said. He ignored the gun pointed at his chest,
looking at Hermione, standing a step behind Roger, the cigarette case clutched tightly in her hands.
"Miss Granger. You know the law, as do I."

"Yes, well—I don't know what to do!" said Hermione. Her palms felt slippery, and the seams of
her dress felt too tight, the buttons too constricting, to allow her to draw a full breath. "Surely
there's another option!"

"I'm afraid that there is no other option but this one," said Roger.

"The hardest decision one can make upon reaching adulthood," said Mr. Pacek solemnly, "is how
much regard one places on their own desires, and how much regard is placed on the welfare of their
society. The law is not merely subject to our governments, Miss Granger, but to our active
participation. That duty is placed into our hands when we come of an age to participate."

"B-but," Hermione stammered, "there are exceptions to the law..."

"Will you trust him with that, then? If you make him your exception?" Mr. Pacek indicated the
cigarette case. "If he should ask you how it works—now, tomorrow, or in a year's time—will you
give him the answer? He is no fool. He will have questions. And he will be as curious as you
once were."

"Hermione," said Roger, his eyes darting to catch the flicker of movement in his peripherals, "what
are you doing?"

Hermione reached under her dress, digging her fingers into her stocking band. Clipped to the
ribbon band above her knee was her wand, hidden under the many flouncy layers of her evening
dress. The carven wood had been warmed by her skin, and in her clammy palm it felt red-hot and
heavier than it had any right to be, as she lifted it up and pointed it at Roger Tindall.

She didn't want to do this. She had been happy to be just another Muggle girl for the day.

"I'm sorry, Roger."

All she'd wanted was one day. A single day to just... pretend that nothing had changed in the years
since that Sunday when a man in a turquoise suit had knocked on her family's door, claiming he
had a letter addressed to a Miss Hermione Granger. A day to enjoy herself in good company, to
celebrate a milestone of a good friend, without outside intrusions or conflicts of interest.

"Hermione—"

The pistol swung awry.

Why was it so hard to have just one uncomplicated friendship?

"Stupefy."

A flash of light seared into Hermione's vision. Her eardrums rang with the report of a pistol shot;
glass shattered on the far wall, and the air grew thick with the stink of spirits.

Roger Tindall folded to the ground, sinking to his knees to the floor, his arm dropping limply to his
side. Hermione caught him by the shoulder before he ended up blacking his own eye, then propped
him up against the leg of the billiard table.

Her hands shook as she removed the pistol out of his hand, searching down the length of the barrel
—engraved with the initials R.C.T.—for the little catch that put the safety back on. The magazine
would be missing one round, but there was nothing she could do about that; she didn't know how to
eject it, and knew too little about firearms to successfully duplicate the various metal and chemical
components of an ammunition cartridge.

Hermione still needed to roll Roger's body over to unbuckle his belt pouch and return the pistol.
Her muscles strained as she manoeuvred him with an arm around his chest. In his sleep, without
urgency or the threat of forceful confrontation pressing upon him, he looked peaceful. Trusting.

When she was finished, she shoved her wand into her stocking and pressed her fingers over her
eyelids, feeling boneless and dizzy and out of breath, one deviant thread of thought contemplating
the degree of pitch and yaw of the carpet. A list of twenty degrees, she vaguely recalled, was
counted by nautical manuals to fall under conditions of rough weather.
"Miss Granger."

Hermione looked up.

Mr. Pacek knelt beside her, wand in hand. "Do you know how it is done?"

"How—what are you talking about?"

"The young Lieutenant," said Mr. Pacek, glancing at the unconscious Roger. "He must be made to
forget this incident. If you like, I shall remove the last few hours entirely—but you know him
better than I. You would do a better task of taking his last few minutes and replacing them with a
believable altered account."

"I don't know how to—" Hermione began, then stopped. Nott had done it to Lestrange on the
Owlery staircase, a year ago. "I mean, I've seen it done once before. But I've only ever read about
how to cast the spell."

"As with most magics, it requires creativity and a good eye for visualisation," said Mr. Pacek.
"Where were you five minutes before this, ten minutes, or twenty? There must have been a choice,
a moment of divergence, where you or he made a decision that set all this into motion."

In a calm voice, Mr. Pacek showed Hermione where to place her wand to Roger's head, explaining
how the various placements—brow, temple, crown, and nape—related to mental function:
language comprehension, decision-making, auditory memory, visual memory, short- and long-term
recollection. He was patient, guiding her through the incantation, wand movement, and the frame-
of-mind best suited to effective spellcasting.

"Once you have selected the memory in question, place your wand here, like so. Relax your arm,
loosen the grip. What you feel may be carried through the spell into his mind—if you are tense, he
will associate the images you have given him with a sense of unease. Do not force it, Miss Granger
—gently, gently there. It will merge cleaner if the modification is natural, if there is nothing said,
seen, or done that will engender in him any trace of scepticism or suspicion. This is not meant to
be dismissed as a dream, but as a living reality."

"Do you hear that?" asked Roger.

"What?"

Roger pressed his ear against the wall. "Servants outside. I think they're coming in through that
door."

"We should go—if they find us, they'll tell Mrs. Riddle!"

"Downstairs, then?"

"No," said the other Hermione, "follow me. No one will be in the library at this time of night."

Hermione sagged when the spell was completed. "I made him think we went to the library and he
fell asleep there. We'll have to carry him so he wakes up in the right place."

"I shall Disillusion him. Will you show me where this library is?"
Mr. Pacek floated Roger out of the door, Hermione peeking into the hall and looking both ways
before waving him to follow her.

"Who were you talking to?" Hermione asked, turning the cigarette case over in her hands. Mr.
Pacek hadn't insisted that she return it. "This is a two-way mirror, isn't it?"

"A connection of mine. A former schoolmate," Mr. Pacek answered. "He received urgent news,
which delayed my arrival this evening."

"Good news?"

Mr. Pacek shook his head. "Disturbing news. A week ago, a wizard was admitted to the wizarding
hospital in London, with reports of being burnt severely across the front half of his body. He died
without a known cause of death. Over the last week—and today produced the most recent case—
several other bodies were found in their homes, suffering from wounds in a similar pattern. They
had one thing in common: they were clandestine operatives of Gellert Grindelwald."

"How would you know that?" Hermione frowned. "If they were clandestine operatives, wouldn't
they ensure their status was kept a secret?"

"Members of the underground resistance, who had kept watch on them, searched their homes after
noticing a break in their routines. They discovered the bodies. The operatives' allegiances were
suspected previously, and now they were confirmed. Your Ministry is not aware of this—the first
wizard's injuries were reported by the hospital as caused by an accident. The other bodies were
destroyed. If there is a militant resistance cell gone rogue, heretofore unknown to the present
alliance, then it is safer that unwanted attention not be drawn. Not from the British Ministry, or
from the powers in Europe."

Mr. Pacek fell silent, expression contemplative. "Miss Granger, do you understand what this
means?"

Hermione peered around the corner and, seeing the corridor deserted, gestured at Mr. Pacek to
bring Roger into the library.

"It's an act of war," she said.

"The Grand Minister has been content to establish his seat of power in Europe. He has never made
overtures at a British occupation," said Mr. Pacek. "Until now, there has been an understanding of
sorts, maintained between the British Ministry of Magic and the occupied governments of Europe.
Britain would not challenge Grindelwald's legitimacy, and Grindelwald would not seek to liberate
another wizarding nation of their self-imposed shackles."

He levitated Roger's prone body to one of the horsehair-stuffed sofas by the library fireplace, then
Summoned an ottoman and placed it under Roger's feet, tilting his head this way and that to inspect
the effect.

"Of course, each side has engaged itself in espionage and surveillance, for practical reasons," Mr
Pacek continued. "But they have never taken overt actions against one another. Nothing, until
now, that could be misconstrued as an act of war. There—does this look authentic, Miss Granger?"

"Loosen the tie and undo the top jacket button," said Hermione. "Everyone at school who naps on
their desk during lessons loosens their necktie. They were made to force people into good posture;
when they're done up properly, they pinch and pull unless you sit straight."

"Will you stay until he wakes?"

Hermione hesitated.

"I shall cast the charm to keep him asleep for at least an hour more," said Mr. Pacek. "You may
leave if you choose. It might be best that you are not present when the memories have scarcely
settled. You have your own concerns."

"What was I supposed to do?" Hermione asked, hating that her words had taken on a tremble.
What had happened to her conviction, the surety that she'd been so proud of, in always knowing
wrong from right? She wiped her damp palms on her skirt, but they still felt sticky and unclean.
"The first time I read of the Ministry Obliviators, I thought it was the crudest way of solving the
issue of wizarding secrecy. Surely there had to be another way than that; surely wizards, with all
their magic spells and hundred-year lives, could find something else more humane than tampering
with the consciousnesses of our fellow human beings."

"It is not the best way. But it was the better way of all possible choices. It was kinder that you did
it then, rather than allowing the Ministry Obliviators to catch word of it later and manage it
themselves, with the finesse for which they are renowned," said Mr. Pacek gently, placing a light
hand on her shoulder. "You may be born of those deprived of magic; you may eat their bread and
taste their salt, Miss Granger, but you are one of us. You and I are wizards. Wizards do not fight in
Muggle wars."

"B-but you helped my parents! You warded their house!"

"Officially, I undertook a project on the contract of an H. Granger," said Mr. Pacek, referring to the
original advertising spot that Hermione had placed in the Daily Prophet, five years ago. He slipped
his wand back into the pocket of his dinner jacket. "We serve in no armies, but we do not forget
compassion where it can be granted. You have not forgotten yours. For that, Hermione, you have
my sincere gratitude."

In a half-daze, Hermione left Roger and Mr. Pacek in the library. She found her shoes somewhere
on the landing, then trudged to her room, tossing the shoes under the bed. She untied her garters
and kicked off her stockings, using her wand to undo the many tiny buttons at the back of her
dress. The dress was thrown over the back of her desk chair, the dozens of pins binding her hair
strewn over her desk, with none of her usual neatness or care.

The disarray is appropriate, she thought, yanking her nightgown on over her head and sliding into
her bed, burying her face into the feather-stuffed pillows. She'd been up early to catch the train,
forced herself to hold conversations with several dozen people over the course of the day, and had
performed a taxing spell for the first time—a spell not taught in student N.E.W.T. courses for good
reason. With her mind in such a muddle, it was not reasonable for her to form a clear judgement of
recent events.

She drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

Hours later—or the next day; she'd lost track—the mattress squeaked as Tom slipped under the
blanket on the opposite side of the bed.
 "I won the two hundred pound pool!" Tom gloated, plumping up a pillow and tugging the blanket
away from Hermione so he could cover himself. "You should have seen their faces! I wish you
were there, Hermione—I promised the money to the parson; he's going to put it into the parish
bursary in my name. 'The Tom Riddle School Fund for Boys and Girls', how does that sound? I
want it printed on the end-pages of the textbooks they buy with my money; those ungrateful brats
should know whom to thank. I don't give charity for free!" Tom sniffed. "But I did keep the silver
coins. They're from 1847, did you know? Nearly a hundred years old. I don't think I've ever
owned anything that old. Grandmama says she'll have a case set up in the library, if I want them
displayed..."

Tom let out a blissful sigh, rolling over. "Hermione?"

Hermione didn't answer.

"Hermione?"

She heard the blankets rustle; she felt Tom's hand brush her cheek.

"Hermione, why are you sad?"

"Because," said Hermione, "I'm tired."

"You shouldn't be sad," said Tom. "You can't be. It's my birthday, and on my birthday, everything
should go how I wish it."

"Some people are sad sometimes, Tom."

"Some people. But not you," said Tom mutinously.

He slithered to her side, wrapping Hermione in a very tight embrace and securing the blanket
around the both of them, until there was not much room to breathe and even less room to move.
Tom stroked her hair, pressing his mouth against her throat and the line of her jaw.

"There," he said, holding her close. "Now you feel better."

Chapter End Notes

Leman — from Middle English lemman, variant of leofman, from Old English lēofmann
("lover; sweetheart"), equivalent to lief + man ("beloved person"). Or, the circa-1300's Ye
Olde English word for "girlfriend".

Poor Mr. Pacek, everyone seems to think he's German, when he's actually Czech. The
ignorance is a deliberate reference to the poor treatment of Europeans by the average Brit
during WWII. European nationals (German, Austrian, and Italian) living in Britain were
rounded up and sent to internment camps for being potential "enemy aliens". A good number
of these internees were also Jewish refugees. More info here.
This chapter is the longest in the story so far, clocking in at 15k words. Sorry for being
unnecessarily long, but I wanted it in one piece instead of broken up into two smaller chapters.
I wanted the foreshadowing, character moments, and the emotional connection to be placed in
the right places, so that the climax at the chapter end feels... climactic. Not to mention
continuing to progress the wider-scale plot, the smaller-scale relationship growth, and the
internal character development.
 Avant-garde
Chapter Notes

Content warning: Graphic violence.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

1945

On the First of January, Tom Riddle awoke a new man.

He was no more a ward, no longer under the care of a guardian. There was no one whose direction
he was obliged to conform, no one to whom he was beholden. The one entity with legal authority
over Tom's life was Tom himself.

This was true independence.

With a sigh of deep contentment, Tom cocooned himself under the blankets; he threw an arm
around Hermione and towed her nearer, tucking the top of her head beneath his chin.

"Tom," said Hermione in muffled voice, rousing from her sleep, "what time is it?"

"No school today, Hermione. Go back to sleep."

"Tom." Hermione pushed at his chest. "You have to go back to your own room!"

"No I don't."

"What if your grandmother comes in and finds us like this?"

"Then," Tom murmured drowsily, "she'll invite the parson in for tea, so he can recite his verses at
us. Which will it be? Hmm. Reverend Rivers had a few favourites. 'One who lustfully looks at a
woman is an adulterer in his heart'. Do you want to be an adulterer, Hermione?"

"No," said Hermione, rolling over to face him, "'His heart'? Why would that make me the
adulterer? One of us would have to be married for it to be adultery!"

"It would be in poor taste to call you a fornicator," Tom replied. "Considering the utter lack of any
fornicating—not to mention the logistical difficulties of fornicating alone. You understand that
there's no possibility of my being the culpable one in this situation; the parson knows too well who
pays his living stipend." He yawned and stretched, muscles creaking from disuse. "Sorry,
Hermione, but you're an adulteress."

"But I haven't looked 'lustfully' at anyone!"

"You haven't?"
"Never."

"Lustful thoughts, then? Dreams count, too."

"None."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Yes!"

"You know," whispered Tom, "if you did happen to have any, I'd never tell anyone. You can trust
me, Hermione."

"You want to hear about my, um, bawdy dreams?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"With as much detail as you can provide."

"Alright," said Hermione. "I had one, not too long ago."

"Go on," Tom urged her, propping himself up on his elbow.

"Well, there was a boy, and he was sleeping in my bed."

"Was he?"

"He was," confirmed Hermione, sounding very serious. "He was also a restless sleeper. All
through the night, he couldn't keep his hands on his own side. And he had a great, big, swollen—"

Tom was near breathless with anticipation.

"—Sense of self-importance," Hermione finished. She gave Tom a reproachful look. "Honestly,
Tom, what did you expect me to say?"

To his disappointment, Hermione threw off the blanket that Tom had so painstakingly wrapped
around her during the night, wriggled into her carpet slippers, and flounced off to begin her
morning routine. Tom was left alone in the bed, frustrated beyond words, but not discouraged in
the least. Reverend Rivers, the shepherd of the Wool's Orphanage flock, would have disapproved.
But Tom was sure that the Hangleton village parson—after a subtle reminder that the man's
benefice was drawn from the fruits of the Riddle estate—would have offered an enthusiastic
vindication on Tom's behalf.

That was a privilege of the Riddles' status as the leading family within their social set, and it lent
Tom's opinion a greater authority than that of the average man. He was listened to; his words had
weight.

Except when his audience was one Hermione Granger.

It was vexing how his signals had been mis-interpreted, his overtures re-buffed. For the first time
in a long time, Tom was found wanting—very wanting indeed—and he was forced to admit that it
was a thoroughly unpleasant sensation.

He groaned, slumping into the pillows, frustrated about the state of his own frustrations. He could
confess that his feelings were pathetic, and how unsettling it was to witness this erosion of
discipline, his steady capitulation to the Fires of Temptation. His mind was as keen as ever, his will
resolute, but his body was weak to the works of the flesh.

Although he could have resented Hermione for the troubles she wrought upon him, he didn't. That
was the easy way out—the coward's resort, like a tavern sot blaming the barman for his own
drunkenness. No, Hermione wasn't to blame. The fault was Tom's, or to be more precise, the
various glands in Tom's body that sent him lustful dreams at night, and woke him in the morning
with painfully thwarted expectations.

Those various glands were still up to their pernicious business when Hermione returned to her
room, dressed in a fresh set of day clothes—a blouse worn under a thick woollen jumper, a modest
skirt, and a pair of neat patent lace-up shoes. Hermione hummed to herself, running a brush
through her fluffy hair and wincing as the bristles caught on a tangle and could not be pulled free.

"Why aren't you out of bed?" Hermione asked, settling into the chair at her writing desk and
unfolding the mirror. She began inspecting the knot, prodding at it with the tip of her wand. "It's a
quarter to nine. They'll have breakfast started by now."

Tom coughed, rolling onto his stomach and pulling the blankets tighter around himself. "It's too
cold."

"Cast a charm. Are you a wizard or not?"

"My wand's on the nightstand, on the other side of the bed," Tom returned. "It's too far to reach."

"How curious," said Hermione, picking the knot apart. "When I first met you, I'd never have taken
you for a layabout."

"When you first met me," said Tom, intently observing Hermione pull her hair over her shoulder
and expose the pale stretch of skin at the back of her neck, "I wasn't a member of the leisure class.
Now that I am, I'm obliged to fulfill the requirements of the position."

"I don't see why you have to do it on my bed," Hermione protested. She glanced into the mirror,
showing a reflection of Tom sprawled under her blankets.

"Our bed," said Tom. "Since I'm noble enough to share houseroom with you, it makes this bed
ours. It'd be a different situation, of course, if you were paying me rent."

Hermione scoffed. "Playing the landlord now, Tom? And you call Nott a parasite."

"He is one, but I'm not. I haven't charged you a knut, have I?"

"As if the noble Tom Riddle would take payment in knuts. 'The pound of flesh, which I demand of
him, is dearly bought'," recited Hermione, brushing her hair. "'Tis mine and I will have it!'"

"That sounds like Shakespeare."

"If you'd read the books I gave to Wool's, you'd know," said Hermione. "I donated the entire First
Folio during the Christmas visit of Thirty-Seven!"

"I've only read The Winter's Tale, and that wasn't because I found it entertaining," Tom said. "The
rest could go hang for all I cared. It's the same story in every play: the worthy are rewarded, the
guilty are punished, and the comic companion tells a filthy joke about breaking wind or dropping
one down the bog. I've never understood why you like theatre so much. The serious ones are all
melodrama, and the comedic ones are all vulgarity, wrapped up in pentameter, spectacle, and the
illusion of 'culture'. A sensible person ought to—"

Hermione had set aside her hairbrush, and was now unbuttoning the collar of her blouse, leaning
over her desk to get a better look in the mirror. With a huff, she reached into her desk drawer and
pulled out a jar of cream, then proceeded to dab at her neck and throat with it, her shoulders bare
but for the thin straps of the slip she wore under her shirt.

It was difficult for Tom to tear his eyes away from the sight. He coughed. "Hermione?"

"Yes, Tom?"

"What on Earth are you doing?"

"Remedying all the marks you left last night," said Hermione, smearing cream on the underside of
her jaw. "When your whiskers grow in, they're prickly. You left my skin with raw patches."

Instantly, Tom's hand went to his chin. He had shaved early yesterday morning, but stubble would
have darkened his skin by the late evening. His moustache grew at a slower rate than his beard, so
he preferred to go clean-shaven than let it grow out, unlike a few of the upper-year boys at
Hogwarts who'd embraced the traditional wizarding ideal without a hint of contrition. They looked
like filthy vagrants; it was ridiculous that his fellow Slytherins would mock students who pinned
their cloaks wrong in the winter, and not the students whose facial hair gave them the appearance of
a stray dog who'd caught the mange.

"I apologise." (Tom didn't mean this.) "Next time, I won't be so rough." (This one he did mean.)

"Sorry?" Hermione said. "Next time?"

"Tomorrow," said Tom. He glanced at the clock over the mantel. "Or tonight, rather. You'll be
staying here until term starts next week—I had Grandmama arrange it with your mother."

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Hermione demanded.

"I told you to bring a spare change of clothing, didn't I? Everything else you need is here already,"
said Tom. "They won't let us share rooms when we have to go back to Hogwarts, so it's best that
we make the most of it while we can. And there's no one else who could stand as a credible witness
to any accusations of impropriety directed toward you, Hermione. Who else could it be—
Lieutenant Tindall?" Tom couldn't bring himself to use the man's given name. It was too familiar,
and they weren't friends, no matter what Tindall thought—or rather, presumed where they stood.
"He didn't donate two hundred pounds to the poor children of North Yorkshire."

Hermione shook her head and buttoned her blouse back up, clearing away the odds and ends that
cluttered the desk, and then her clothes strewn about the room, including the evening dress that had
been thrown over the back of her chair.

She was distracted, and in that time, Tom's glands had settled into quiescence; with a quick glance
around, he was able to vacate himself to his own bedroom, dignity preserved. He was glad to be at
home and not at Hogwarts. He was without doubt that if he'd stepped into the shower in the
Slytherin dormitory bathroom, he'd be greeted by a susurration of noise echoing around the drains,
a display of the Basilisk's amusement.
The creature, for some reason, found entertainment in Tom's failed "attempts" at securing a mate—
not that Tom was even attempting. The "securing" part, certainly, but it was not for any common
purpose like mating. Tom had tried to explain it to the Basilisk, but his translation abilities must
have been deficient; the Basilisk refused to take Tom at his word and kept offering him advice on
how to attract a female. Hide food in her nest, the fresher the better; urinate on her doorstep,
making sure to go without water for half a day so he produced an extra-potent scent; wait for her to
eat a big meal and become sleepy and lethargic in digestion, then wrap himself around her until she
gave up on chasing him off.

Poor advice, as to be expected, Tom had thought. That last tidbit of information was not as
promising as it had first sounded.

Going down after washing and shaving, Tom saw that Hermione had beaten him to breakfast. The
table was occupied by a handful of guests that had stayed at the Riddle House overnight. The
North Riding locals had left for their homes after the winner of bridge tournament was decided, but
the guests who had arrived by rail had been invited to stay until the train service resumed in the
morning. That number included the Grangers and the Tindalls, who looked bright and chipper as
they served themselves from a communal platter of eggs, beans, and a hash of potatoes fried in the
drippings of yesterday's beef dinner.

The most chipper of all was Roger Tindall, who appeared better rested than everyone else.
However, his appearance was brought down by the rumpled state of his uniform, which looked as
if he'd slept the whole night in it. His collar was crushed and lay askew, the sign of someone who
had done a poor job of hanging his clothes before bed, and although he'd tried to hide it under his
necktie and tunic lapels, Tom noticed it and could not tear his eyes away.

"—And you had the presence of mind to light the fire and cover me a with a blanket," said Roger,
speaking to Hermione. "I must express my greatest regrets, Hermione. I don't know what came
over me—must've been the train journey, or one glass too many of the wine. I dread to think that I
was such dull company; you must think me a complete and utter scrub."

"I couldn't think such a thing, Roger," said Hermione, picking at the contents of her plate. She
glanced away from Roger as the butter dish came around, and began buttering her toast so
rigorously that her knife poked a hole straight through the bread. "It's not your fault. You have a
demanding post, defending Britain. Knowing that, I couldn't bear to wake you. If anyone should
apologise, it's me."

"If you'll allow me, I should like to repair the situation—"

"What situation?" asked Tom, sliding in next to Roger. The maid at the sideboard hurried over to
pour his tea and serve him two slices of toast kept warm in a chafing dish. "What's all this about?"

Hermione reddened. "Nothing, Tom."

"Nothing's ever nothing," said Tom. "Did something happen last night?"

"Nothing happened, I'm afraid," said Roger with a sheepish smile. "A tremendous disappointment.
On both sides, I dare to hope."

"It's alright, Roger. Let's both of us banish it from our thoughts; it won't do any good to keep on
about it."
"Well," said Tom, "I'm not going to banish it from my thoughts. Let me hear it, and I'll be the judge
of how much 'nothing' happened last night." He shot a stern look at Tindall. "Hermione is my
guest. Not only that, but she's a respectable girl, and this is a respectable house. I won't have any
sort of low business conducted under my roof, thank you."

"Who made you the judge?" said Hermione.

"And who said this was your roof?" asked Roger.

"Me, on both counts," said Tom impatiently. "Now, if you please—"

"I thought this was your grandfather's house," said Roger, gaze flicking to the end of the table,
where Mr. Riddle was working his way through a beef butty with brown sauce, a copy of the
Yorkshire Post open at his elbow, unaware he was being observed, and also unaware of the dollop
of sauce that had dripped onto the paper.

Tom scowled. "In a legal sense, yes. And it'll be mine in a legal sense, too. There's just a bit of a
delay for now."

"A 'delay'," Roger echoed. "What a funny way to refer to your father. How is he, by the way?
We'd expected to meet him, but I've not heard a word spoken about him for all the time I've been
here."

"He went on holiday," said Tom, his tone dismissive. "He's not important."

"But he's your father," said Roger. "How is he not important?"

Hermione's eyes were alight with curiosity. "Weren't you worried about his health? Isn't that
important?"

"It isn't. Not anymore," Tom muttered. "He's packed off to Harrogate. The doctors have come up
with a cure called 'hydrotherapy'; they've mentioned something about regulating his inner balance,
whatever that means. Mrs. Willrow sends him a basket every week of all his childhood favourite
cakes and biscuits, and Grandmama had Bryce put the horse on a stockcar so he can ride his own
beast around instead of hiring one there. He's doing quite well for himself, I'd say. Your concern is
unwarranted."

Harrogate was a spa town, a minor Yorkshire city with a reputation for health and leisure, famed for
its mineral wells. It was a local holiday destination for the workers of Sheffield and York,
industrial towns that had become grim factories for war materiel these past few years. Though
Tom's grandparents still went up to York to have their clothing made—they'd hoarded bolts of
worsted and gabardine before the implementation of the fabric ration in Forty-One—and to buy the
more exotic drygoods not stocked by the Hangleton grocer, much of their socialisation was done in
the tea houses and dining establishments of Harrogate.

He had heard the town mentioned over dinner during the summer, but he'd hardly paid attention to
it, concluding that the affairs of his grandparents' social calendar had no relevance to him. It was
only when he'd eavesdropped on the maids whispering to each other that Tom became aware of
what had happened to his father after The Incident. He'd been sent away—Tom knew that—but not
just for an extended holiday. For treatment.

For Tom recognised what the term 'treatment' meant.

He'd heard it discussed in the matron's office of Wool's Orphanage more than a few times, used in
conjunction with a handful of ominous associated phrases: 'He'll Be Looked At', 'The Doctor Said',
and 'It's For the Best'.

As it was his father who had been sent away, not him, Tom didn't feel much sympathy for the man.
His experience had showed him that it wasn't difficult to avoid treatment; if a person simply
pretended that he didn't need treatment, its necessity would never enter discussion. If, however, a
person was incapable of performing such a simple task and making it look convincing—then he
deserved what he got.

To his dismay, Hermione and Roger Tindall didn't understand this, and pecked at him throughout
the rest of breakfast.

"What manner of illness ails him? Morale always helps with these things; you could try an
excursion to the Monkton Priory, not far from Harrogate. They have group singalongs every
Wednesday night for recuperating soldiers on convalescent leave, or so I'm told by one of the lady
guests from your party."

"Tom, do you want to visit him before term starts?"

"What a bad business—have your family consulted with a solicitor?"

"I'll come with you if you want to go!"

"You can't leave them isolated, or they'll start malingering. It's all in the mind, you see."

Tom was grateful when the maid whispered to Mrs. Riddle that the motorcar had been brought
around the front, ready to deliver the guests to the train station. This was a tactful reminder that
they had better get on with their meals, instead of needling Tom with their questions.

The sheer audacity of it, probing into one's personal affairs at the dining table, without a shred of
common decency. It was the pinnacle of poor manners, an effect amplified by their lack of
awareness to their own offences. A man, interrogated in his own house? It wasn't to be borne!

Outrageous.

Hermione wasn't to blame, of course. It was Roger Tindall who was the instigator of all Tom's
troubles. Tom rightfully blamed him for whatever mysterious situation had occurred between
Tindall and Hermione the previous evening; Hermione was awkward around the other fellow
throughout breakfast, as if she were pained by the thought of being too long alone with him.

In the name of propriety, Tom observed the departure proceedings at a distance. Coats, scarves,
and umbrellas were brought and distributed to their proper owners. Newspapers were handed out,
along with packed lunches of cold beef sandwiches and small sweets from the party, wrapped in
sturdy brown paper and tied up with twine. Then came the exchange of visiting cards, a last
farewell, a flurry of kisses on cheeks.

Tucked behind an ornamental flower arrangement, Tom listened to Roger bid his goodbyes.

"—If you write to me with the directions of the department's officer quarters, the letters will be
delivered as priority mail. But the censors open and read everything we get, so you can't write
anything too sensitive," said Roger.
"Do they censor your outgoing mail, too?"

"Oh, without question. I'd say that they're tremendously overzealous with it." Roger laughed, and
then continued on, "You'll be done in June, won't you? You should come back to London when
you've finished school. You've a good mind and I shouldn't like to see it wasted; I'd certainly vouch
for you, and so would my grandfather. We could see about having you start with a secretarial
traineeship in the department—it's not much, a Government job's far from lavish if you're in
desperate need of ready money, but it's still a Vital Occupation. Good benefits, no need to worry
about counting ration tickets, and you'll be set for yourself when the war's over."

"I don't know, Roger," said Hermione, her voice taking on a quaver of uncertainty. "I haven't yet
made up my mind."

"Trust that I wouldn't have you wasting your time serving tea and taking dictations," Roger said,
patting Hermione on the shoulder. "I'll see you in the summer, alright? Take care and steady on,
Hermione."

Roger gave Hermione a decorous kiss on the air beside her cheek, whispering a few final words,
too softly for Tom to overhear them. Hermione endured it with a stiff posture, as Roger leaned in
and drew himself away, turning to the maid to take his coat.

The Tindalls left, Hermione and Mrs. Riddle waving them from the doorstep, handkerchiefs in
hand. The motor chugged away down the hill, the engine sounds soon muffled by a bank of
morning fog, a damp mist that merged with the perpetual winter drizzle.

Tom stepped out from behind the flower arrangement. "I still don't know what you see in him."

Hermione frowned, but didn't seem too offended by Tom's statement. "He's a good man, Tom."

"Despite the uniform and shiny pips, he's a desk warmer. He's not a real war hero."

"Are you saying that only war heroes are worthy of admiration?" said Hermione waspishly. "That
limits my social circle to... Major Tindall and my Dad."

"For now," said Tom, taking her hand and leading her upstairs to their rooms. "Anyway, what has
he got to offer? A 'Vital Occupation'? Extra rations? Tsk. You know and I both know that you can
do better than settling."

The Grangers stayed until lunch, a light meal consisting of yesterday's meat with a side of coddled
eggs and potatoes gratiné; the ensemble was paired with an equally light white wine, and finally, a
dessert selection of peeled hothouse fruits glazed with liqueur syrup and dusted with confectionery
sugar. Mrs. Riddle took great care in expounding upon the finer details of the lunch menu,
sprinkled with a liberal helping of French terms.
"The meat sauce is a classic demi-glace, Thomas' favourite. We make it the proper way here, with
the roast ends, not that awful modern ready-made nonsense from a factory. Packet gravy. Bovril."
Mrs. Riddle gave a haughty sniff at the mention of the name. "Nothing wrong with a spot of beef
tea to have on the train on a cold day, but I refuse to have it served at my table, and to guests?
Never. The war may force us to lower our expectations, it shan't see me lowering my standards."

This talk segued into other minimum standards that Mrs. Riddle kept for her household, and in
particular, the living accommodations maintained for family members and offered to personal
guests. She made a point of showing off how well-kept Tom and Hermione looked; Tom's
grandmother had found out about Tom sleeping in the Grangers' cellar during their past summers—
nevermind that most families in London slept underground during the air raids—and somehow took
it as a black mark against Mrs. Granger's aptitude and adequacy as a host.

"Look at their healthy colour," said Mrs. Riddle, nodding at Tom, who had, in favour of listening to
Hermione, learned how to relegate her background noise. "Their hearty appetites! It's the fresh air
and space out there. You don't have that in the city. Everyone living up in London must be packed
elbow to elbow; we've heard all the dreadful stories on the wireless. Armament workers forced to
share tiny rooms near the factory, no privacy but a bedsheet strung on a hook between beds. How
terrible their conditions sound."

"With this time spent preparing for the party," Hermione said to him in a low voice; she was always
respectful during meals, but she, like Tom, began to glaze over with disinterest when Mrs. Riddle's
sensibilities were affronted by something too different or too new to meet her standards. "I haven't
got around to finishing the set of past papers the teachers assigned for the holidays. They told me if
I completed the extra questions, they'd mark them to the examiner's criteria points."

"It saves on work commutes and keeps non-essential vehicles off the roads," Dr. Granger remarked.
"Many a life has been saved because an ambulance didn't have to wait for a commercial lorry to
unload its cargo."

"Can we compare answers?" asked Hermione, impervious to the conversation carried on by the
other half of the table. "You must have made some progress on them. I didn't get the one on states
of altered matter and their relationship to the state of non-being. Which books did you use as
reference?"

"Convenient or not, it doesn't make sense that young girls would so willingly volunteer for such a
dirty business," said Mrs. Riddle. She shook her head, adding, "It would be different if they were
all reformatory girls—those of that kind should feel lucky to be given employment with no prior
references. But the man on the wireless interviewed one working girl, and she was from a good
family! Gentle girls ought to be treated gently."

"The factories pay a fair wage," Mrs. Granger pointed out. "And the ability to earn a wage and
serve her country is a firm assurance to a young lady: that she can make a worthwhile living
beyond relying on the indulgence of a good family. The gift of independence is one that most of
those girls have never been afforded."

"In my expert opinion, I cannot see any reward more worthwhile for a properly raised girl," Mrs.
Riddle returned, "than a good family."

She glanced over to Tom, who was whispering quietly in Hermione's ear, not wanting to be
overheard discussing magical subjects: "Extension questions, if they're on the exam, won't lose you
points if you skip them—you can still score a perfect one-hundred percent without them. And no,
you won't find the answer in Advanced Transfiguration; yes, I know it's the official school textbook
—the purpose of the extensions is to encourage an understanding deeper than the fundamentals of
workaday spellcasting. I can recommend you the following books..."

Hermione leaned in closer, her eyes bright with eagerness. Tom noticed the lull in background
conversation, followed by his grandmother's—and soon, Mrs. Granger's—attention on him and
Hermione; he bestowed the two observers with a brief, knowing smile.

He tilted his head down, raising a hand to tuck a curl of Hermione's hair behind her ear, and
murmured, "Try Wildsmith's The Transference of Substance, or Rastrick's Apocrypha of
Materiality. The last one's pure academic theorisation, but the logic is sound. The disadvantage is
that you'll have to get Dumbledore to write you a note for it. And it was never completed—
Rastrick never found a way to apply his theory to functional spellwork. They had to compile the
book from his notes, and his last words seemed to indicate that he died in an accident, from
Vanishing himself."

Hermione's breath caught. "That sounds like a dangerous book, Tom."

"It's just a book," said Tom. "And some books are worth the danger, wouldn't you agree?"

Hermione gave a soft laugh. Their legs bumped under the table; Tom brushed his knuckles against
Hermione's stockinged knee, pleased that she didn't immediately bat his hand away.

Mrs. Granger was the first to break eye contact, and her conversation with Mrs. Riddle resumed,
albeit on a different topic of conversation. Dessert was consumed, the meal wound down, and the
Grangers' imminent departure loomed with the approaching hour. The cue for the end of the meal
came when the maid appeared with a pair of coats brought out of the cloakroom.

"Hermione," said Mrs. Granger, in an almost resigned voice, "are you sure you want to stay here?
The Riddles have been kind enough to book us a compartment on the London train. It would be no
trouble to have you join us—you could spend the rest of your holiday at home. Roger would be
close enough to visit on the weekend; the Tindalls live in Weybridge, and that's no distance at all
from London."

Hermione's expression shifted from bright-eyed academic rapture to confusion and then to
hesitation.

"I finished my Transfiguration paper. Defence and Charms, too," Tom whispered, deciding that the
silence had gone on for far too long. "References sorted by alphabetical order, just the way the
professors like it. It's in my room."

"I'm sorry, Mum, but our exams are only months away..."

Tom smiled, taking Hermione's hand, the action obscured by the drape of the tablecloth.

Some might have considered it an act of unscrupulous intent for Tom to persuade Hermione in this
particular manner. It crossed Tom's mind, but he disregarded it in an instant. It could not be a
malicious act if there was no harm done, nor any intent to cause harm.

He wanted to help Hermione.

Yes, it was natural—as with all actions he undertook—that there was an element of serving his own
interests: he preferred having Hermione near at hand, and there was nothing he liked as much as
slipping into bed on a cold winter evening, and finding the blankets warmed by the pleasant heat of
soft flesh and a sweet-smelling body. A charm wasn't the same, just as an animated wizarding
portrait could never hope to reproduce the true substance of the original wizard, even if their
surface appearance and mannerisms were one and the same.

Over the next few days, Tom discerned the full spectrum of Hermione's changing moods. They
oscillated from anxious to guilt-ridden, to an odd and inexplicable melange of self-pity and
melancholy. He tried not to look—Tom respected Hermione's sense of privacy, though he himself
didn't understand her peculiar obsession with it. It was as much an inconvenience as Hermione's
demand for privacy when she changed clothes for bed.

(He'd tried bringing his dressing gown and bed clothes into her room, with the expectation that they
should learn to consolidate things and share a single room, but Hermione had squeaked and pushed
him out just as he'd gotten the first handful of buttons undone. It was shockingly rude; he would
never contemplate treating Hermione with such discourtesy, and no, the marks he'd left on her
throat and collar in his enthusiasm did not count.)

Normally, Tom cared little if people liked or approved of him. Their opinions were irrelevant, their
perspectives close-minded, their principles self-limiting, and thus they had no influence on what
Tom wanted or how he acted. But Hermione's reticence confused him; he felt that Hermione
should enjoy his company, as he'd taken deliberate care to learn what touches soothed her and
which ones made her erupt into spontaneous giggles. It was all part of his 'conditioning' treatment,
which had been a great success in training the Acromantula.

The maids, when pressed for advice, were unhelpful.

"She'll come 'round in a week or so," the first housemaid had told him. "Not to worry, sir. Nowt
but the common sufferin' of women, I reckon. 'Tis a good sign. Your grandmama will be pleased
to see the two of you takin' the proper precautions—" she gave him a huge wink, then went on, "—
She were lookin' forward to havin' more family in the house, sure enough. But if I'm to put it
plainly, sir, she'll expect fair warnin' when you get 'round to it."

"Precautions," Tom repeated, his expression blank. "Oh. Yes. Those 'precautions'."

"The chemist down in Easingwold has a good reputation for—"

"Thank you, Frances," said Tom quickly. "You're dismissed."

That was hardly constructive, so Tom waited for an opportunity to ask Hermione, late one night
when they'd settled down for bed, having finished their post-dinner revision session.

"I'm not ill," Hermione said, peeling a pair of red rubber hot water bottles out of the bed—the maid
had left them the last few days, believing Hermione suffered from feminine ailments. "I'm just...
worried."

"What about?" asked Tom. He stretched and yawned, looking very natural about it and not at all as
if he was angling for information. "The exams? You got full marks on the practice paper. Not that
it's hard to do once you learn how to decipher the exam structure. 'Assess', 'Define', 'Examine', and
'Compare': when you know how they phrase the questions, the answers are simple."
"Well, yes," said Hermione. She shrugged. "The exams. And what comes after the exams. The...
you know, the future."

"What about the future?" Tom had never been one to waste his time stewing in indecision. The
future became the present; it was inevitable, and to remain undecided was to be left behind.
Decisions had always been clear to him. He measured with a scale, weighted by benefit,
detriment, an acceptable level of contingency, and no room for hemming and hawing.

"My future. What I'm going to do when, for the first time, I'm given my own life to forge to my
own desires. How do I choose? How am I to pick something? I've always known what I wanted
done, but that raises the question of what's available to do, and what's even feasible?" Hermione
sat down heavily in the bed, shoulders slumped. "I'm afraid that I'll choose the wrong one, or
choose the right one and find I'm woefully under-prepared. I've been studying for years and years,
these past seven years at school, there hasn't been anything that's ever made me feel... unqualified.
If I didn't understand anything, all I had to do was visit the library."

"You've nothing to fear," said Tom, rolling over to her side of the bed and throwing a comforting
arm around her shoulders. "I'll be here, too. I've spent as many years at school as you have. We'll
explore the future together, wherever that takes us."

He manoeuvred her into the bed, tucking her under the blankets, then settled in himself.

With a flick of his fingers, Tom extinguished the light.

"You can take as much time as you want," he whispered. "You can live here, with me, until you
decide where you want to go. I'll take care of you."

On any other day, Hermione would have huffed and grumbled about being 'taken care of', as if she
were a pet or an invalid. But on this night, she didn't offer a word in complaint. She just let out a
tired sigh and turned to her side, presenting Tom with the back of her head.

Tom wasn't discouraged. He folded his arms around Hermione's waist and held her until her
breathing evened out and he sensed the dispersal of her black mood. The lifting of her spirits left a
palpable impression in his mind; he presumed he'd spoken the right words, and was profoundly
grateful for his natural ability to perceive emotion and intent.

If this happened to be a consequence of Hermione's mysterious feminine ailments, then Tom did
not think anyone else could have managed it better. Another person could hug Hermione and speak
consoling words—a hypothetical (and highly unrealistic) situation that was unpleasant to even
consider—but there was no one else who could perceive what she felt, and be confirmed that his
words were taken to heart rather than taken as words spoken out of turn.

On the last day of holiday, Tom woke early for his pre-arranged meeting with Nott.
They'd planned this on the day of Tom's birthday. Nott had had no need of train timetables or
Muggle chauffeurs; the boy had Apparated directly to the Riddle House, arriving earlier than all the
other guests and bearing news of their success. The enchanted letters had done their work, the
enemy sympathisers had been neutralised; it had been a quiet and discreet job, with the sole proof
of their triumph printed as an inconsequential footnote in the Daily Prophet's social announcements
section, a page at the back of the paper dedicated to obituaries, anniversary commemoratives, and
declarations of betrothal.

Notices of Deaths:

Grozbiecki, Kazimierz — Passed on Sunday, Dec. 24, 1944, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical
Maladies and Injuries, London. Witnessed by Healer McIlwrick and Healer Attendant
Gordon. A repairman for astrological equipment contracted by prominent Diagon Alley
businesses of Wiseacre's, Beringer's, and South Side Second-Hand Goods, Mr. Grozbiecki
presented himself to St. Mungo's reception staff before collapsing in the waiting room and
falling unconscious. He could not be revived. Healers pronounced his death as caused by an
artefact malfunction in his workroom. Mr. Grozbiecki's body was claimed by a friend of his
family and will be transported and laid to rest in his hometown of Poznań. We express our
sincerest sympathies and wish that he may find comfort and beloved companionship in what
lies beyond.

Townshend, Fabiana — Passed on Sunday, Dec. 24, 1944, her home in Skegness,
Lincolnshire. Survived by her family: her son, Mr. Regis Townshend, daughter-by-marriage
Mrs. Susanne Townshend, her grandchildren Willard (36), Norwick (32), Violet (25),
Engelbert (18). Her daughter, Mrs. Richilda Hittock, son-by-marriage Mr. Lester Hittock,
grandchildren Edith (33), Mordecai (25)...

The section had been been sliced out of the newspaper spread, cutting through a tedious list of
bereaved family members who'd waited out their dear old Nan's last breath, just to make sure that
none of them took anything from the house that wasn't a properly agreed-upon portion of the
inheritance.

It was somewhat concerning that one of their 'volunteers' had retained enough of his senses to Floo
to the wizarding hospital, but there was a benefit in having his death recorded on paper, proving
that what they'd done had produced results. Nott hadn't got word of what had happened to the three
other letters they'd mailed off the same day, so Tom was forced to presume that they'd worked as
intended, without unanticipated surprises, as the late Mr. Grozbiecki had had the misfortune of
giving them.

A success in Tom's book, though it took him some time to convince Nott of it.

"Doesn't it bother you," Nott had said, when Tom had invited him into his bedroom and cast charms
on the walls and corridor to detect intruders. "That we've just... killed someone? Several
someones."

"Are you having a stroke of conscience?" Tom asked. "Need I remind you that your family
poisoned wells to drive off Muggle villagers."
"Yes," said Nott, "but they were Muggles."

"And these were all foreigners."

"But they were wizards."

"Is that important?" said Tom. "I've never seen you have any trouble deciding that some wizards
were inherently better than others. Betters like you and me. And lessers like that half-breed oaf,
Rubeus Hagrid."

"By that, I meant that someone of Hagrid's origins should dedicate himself to positions to which
he's best suited—an estate retainer, stablehand, or labourer. Leave the thinking and leading to
others. We're all wizards, obviously, but some of us are better wizards. More capable of certain
positions, and if that just happens to be the important ones..." Nott shrugged. "Well, I suppose
that's life. Nowhere did I say that our lessers should be condemned to death."

"Death, versus a life of common labour and indignity," Tom remarked. "There's not much of a
difference between them, is there?"

"Riddle," Nott spoke abruptly, "do you know much about the workings of the soul?"

Tom scoffed. "It's all rubbish, whatever you've been told. I don't believe it. Yes, we carry around
souls—without it, the Dementors would be completely useless—but I don't believe in superstitious
nonsense." Tom flapped the half-sheet of newspaper at Nott. "'What lies beyond'. The Next Great
Adventure. If we go there together one day, if they haven't made that part up too, I'll gladly tell
them that I talked you into committing acts of sin. There, you're absolved."

Tom tapped Nott on the chest with the tip of his wand.

"It's no divine blessing, but I expect that I'm the closest you'll get," said Tom, in his most serious
voice. "I, by the powers invested unto me by the badge of the Head Boy, dub thee immaculate,
now and henceforward."

Nott pressed a hand to his chest, turning away from Tom. For an instant, Tom thought he looked
uneasy, but the moment passed, and they returned to their discussion on the logistical requirements
of collecting and storing Basilisk parts after their Hogwarts graduation.

Tom didn't think much about conflicts of conscience; the concept never crossed his own mind when
he acted or spoke. He deemed it an affliction suffered by some distant others, like faith or poverty
or a penchant for strong drink, and he paid it little heed unless it intruded upon his personal
interests. And his interests were simple: ensure that people did what he wanted them to do. If they
did, it was thus that they proved their usefulness to him; if they didn't, they proved their lack
thereof, and could be discarded without further consideration.

Nott's usefulness had been cultivated these past few years, carefully tended, fertilised, and pruned
when necessary, like a plant on a trellis. The fruits of Nott's loyalty were accepted by Tom as his
due. Their current arrangement had been to their mutual advantage, and Tom had not considered
the possibility of Nott dithering about it, this far along in their planning.

They met after breakfast, in the wooded path outside Nott's home. Tom Apparated, recalling his
first and strongest impressions of the place: dim light filtering through a stand of forest in full leaf;
the ground beneath his feet springy with mouldering litter; a dampness that never went away,
dripping from the canopy and in every clammy, indrawn breath. An unspoiled slice of the English
countryside, untouched by plough or axe, a wizarding weald preserved in full growth and protected
from the course of seasons and the greed of Muggle surveyors.

He felt his body compressed into un-space, the nothingness that connected one location to the next,
the discomfort fading as he was ejected out the other end, like sausage from a meat grinder. Tom
didn't stumble this time; he kept his balance as he completed the proper half-turn the Ministry
instructor had taught him, wand at the ready. Not drawn, but at hand.

The air was different here, not like Yorkshire's, which was also damp—a chill, miasmic dampness
that brought out pneumonic coughs and itchy chilblains—and lightly suffused with the familiar
character of burnt coal and firewood. This air carried a strong vegetal aroma; if a smell could have
a colour, then Yorkshire's would be murky grey, and this one a lively green. Like the Hogwarts
greenhouses, there was a trace of magic in the atmosphere. Perhaps, mused Tom, it came from the
standing stones on the path, or the trees, ancient oaks with gnarled branches of wand-calibre timber.

A dog barked, the sound growing louder and louder, resolving in a pair of figures lurching around a
bend in the path: Nott, dragged forward by his leashed dog, which woofed and whined and danced
around his feet, stopping to nose at every stone and tree along the way.

"Good morning," said Tom, watching Nott straighten himself out and untangle the leash from
around his knees. "You look well."

"Kind of you to notice," said Nott, sounding out of breath. "I told Mother I was taking the dog out;
she didn't question it. I can only remove the silencing collar when I'm past the estate bounds, so it's
always a very exciting event whenever it happens. As you can see." Nott patted his dog, a rough-
coated wolfhound, standing shoulder-high at his waist. The dog butted its head against Nott's chest,
barking happily. "For centuries, families have petitioned Hogwarts to allow students to bring their
dogs, but the motion has never passed the annual Governors' assembly. An estate hound would
destroy a school dormitory in the time between breakfast and lunch."

"I've never liked dogs," Tom remarked. "Whatever the Governors say about the rules, I rule that
dogs aren't allowed in dormitories. Not mine, at least."

"That's rich. You're the one with a—" Nott glanced both ways, then muttered, "—a Basilisk!"

"I keep it outdoors; that's what matters," said Tom. He could not imagine bringing the Basilisk into
his dorm, even if it begged him for the privilege. Its infringement of Tom's privacy in the bathroom
was too much. Tom had reason to suspect that the Basilisk had found his dormitory window and
watched him during the night; it had once or twice hinted that it knew a cure for Tom's odd habit of
hissing in his sleep.

"But what I do with my Basilisk is neither here nor there," continued Tom. "Do you have what I
wanted?"

Nott slipped one hand under his robe, rummaging through the contents of his satchel, the other
hand pushing his dog's nose away from the flap. "You had your breakfast already, leave it alone...
Where did I put it... Ah! Here."

He handed Tom a list of names, one that Tom had given him earlier. It wasn't Tom's Master List,
the original document he'd taken from the Ministry's archives last year. This was a dictated copy,
names only, without the addresses or matriculation dates. As Tom glanced at the page, he noticed
that half of the names were marked with pencil tickmarks on the side, a handful of names at the
bottom circled in red ink, and the remaining handful scored through with blue ink.

"You told me that you wanted me to separate the list into groups," said Nott. "We have the most
complete genealogical records held in private collection in the entirety of the British Isles, but most
of these are British families and their various offshoots in Quimper, Launceston, Salem, and
Roanoke. We only have reliable records on European families if they've married into a British
bloodline. In the infrequent instances that it happened, it's usually a French or Walloon family, and
usually married to a Malfoy or Rosier, who trace their origins to France and don't have as many
reservations as the rest of us do about dipping toes into Continental waters."

"I was told that your records traced the blood of the best families in all of Europe," said Tom.

"The best families in Europe are British!" Nott replied, then quickly added, "But as you asked, I did
find some references for the leading Germanic families in Vienna, Brandenburg, and to a lesser
extent, Augsburg and Prague." He pointed to the names. "The circled ones are direct members of
good families. Easy to find. I counted anyone with a Von or a Zu before the surname. Gerhard zu
Eichfeld-Mureck, Ranulph von Teschen. The ticks are for the descendants of maternal lines and
cadet branches, and also include close relations or members of good family whose origins lie
outside the German nations. Marenka Erdődy, Salome Kopácsy, Sigismund Pacek, Aloys Andrássy,
Feliks Strattman, Sabina Wilczek, and so on.

"The last category are what I'd call the 'commoners'. The names that I couldn't trace to any major
ancestry or genealogical reference, or were so frequent I couldn't associate any historical
significance to them. I need more time with that. The records were hazy once they went too far
east or north, and the translation quality was spotty. These ones here—" Nott pointed to several
names, "—are Latin transliterations of names originally written in Cyrillic script. And those
transliterations are inconsistent, to say the least—do you know how difficult it is to write such a
language? Their alphabet has individual consonant phonemes for tch, schtsch, and shh..."

Nott made three different sounds, all of which resembled the noise a child would make blowing
bubbles through their straw into a glass of malted milk.

Tom interrupted Nott in the middle of his verbal dissertation on the distinctions of Ruthenian
phonetics. "Which of these names can be definitively confirmed as commoners?"

"Well, I can't be perfectly sure about all of them, without access to more thorough resources and a
better translator. But," said Nott, jabbing at the centre of the parchment, at a pair of names marked
with blue scores. "These two here, I'm quite certain."

"'Linde Tischl' and 'Diether Hübner'. Interesting."

"The name 'Tischl' is derived from the occupation of 'Tischler', a cabinetmaker," explained Nott.
"In wizarding occupations, a skilled woodworker whose craft encompasses magical trunks, portrait
frames, and fine furniture. Excluding wandcraft and broomsticks; those are, hah, a separate branch
of the woodworking trades. The other one, 'Hübner', denotes the owner of a minor property, of a
size to be managed by a single household without servants. Neither gives a clear indication that
they're Mud—Muggleborns—but the names are common enough among Muggles. No illustrious
lineage there."

"Good," said Tom, nodding. "Those will do. Have you prepared the envelopes?"
"What!" Nott cried. "You're sending them right now?"

"Of course," Tom said impatiently, "why else would I have asked to meet here? Not out of personal
convenience to you."

"But I need to do more research—the Nordic and Baltic wizarding communities have their own
family pedigrees that I've scarcely had a chance to touch—"

"The research can come later. You have two names right now. Term starts tomorrow. This is our
opportunity."

Tom nudged a resistant Nott back up the path to the front gate, the dog trotting at their heels. It
sniffed at Tom's shoes, prompting Tom to glare down at it. He stared the dog in the eyes with a
light trickle of power to impress his will upon it. The dog hunched over, a low growl building in its
chest, and avoided him for the rest of the walk, staying so close to Nott that the other boy was in
constant danger of tripping over a wagging tail or hairy paws.

They passed through the gate without incident, only pausing to allow Nott to fix a thick golden
collar around the dog's neck. A gravel path turned off the front drive, marking a boundary between
the grassy clearing around the sweeping buttresses of the cathedral and outbuildings, and the circle
of trees of the surrounding forest. It led straight to the owlery.

Nott finally spoke when they approached the owlery treehouse. "Are you going to tell me where
you got the names?"

"Your ignorance on the matter is your insurance," said Tom.

"So I'm privileged to be ignorant of vital information?"

"Exactly."

Nott sniffed.

They climbed the steps to the owl platform, leaving dog sitting forlorn at the base of the tree,
unable to ascend the rope-and-board staircase. Nott paced around the rows of square cubbies,
muttering to himself, and after some deliberation, picked out two owls: a medium-sized owl with
light grey feathers—plain, unobtrusive, indistinguishable from the hardy public messenger owls;
the second was a tawny creature with a broad wingspan, delicate furred legs, and elegant white
markings across its back. A private owl for formal correspondence, of the kind used by Hogwarts
School Governors to write to the Headmaster, or a Ministry of Magic department director
delivering offers of employment to the best students of the latest crop of Hogwarts graduates.

Nott drew two envelopes out of his bag, thick ivory parchment folded into a rectangular shape with
an open flap at the top. The inside of the flap was covered in lines of glossy black script, the head
of each line an intricate knot of runic phrases. To Tom, it resembled a monk's illuminated
manuscript.

"Well?" said Nott. "Aren't you going to do the honours?"

Tom handed over two corked vials of Basilisk venom, then took his own list out of his pocket.
"Tischl. Hübner. Let's see..." Paper rustled. Tom turned to the other side of the page. "'Linde
Tischl. Daintry Street. Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.'"

"And Mr. Hübner?"

"Daintry Street, Stoke-on—"

Nott clapped a hand to his forehead. "They live together, Riddle."

"Yes, and?" said Tom. "It's a Sunday morning. They'll both be in."

The names had been on the bottom of the list, one after the next, indicating that they had been
entered into the Ministry's archive records within a small window of time. He scanned the listing.
He was right, the dates were close, within a few days of each other.

Linde Tischl (matric. 1931) — Registered wizarding residence in Muggle locale on 4 April,
1938. Applied for remote Apparition Point inspection on 4 April, 1938. Applied for
Wizarding Residential Warding Scheme Permit (A4 Area Muggle-Repelling Charmwork; A7
Street-frontage Visual Concealment Charmwork; G6 Anti-Apparition Anchored Ward).

Diether Hübner (matric. 1931) — Applied for Stage 2 Apparition Point Permit in Muggle
Locality on 6 April, 1938. Approval granted on 18 April, 1938 for remote concealed
Apparition Point within 1/4 furlong radius of registered wizarding domicile.

He hadn't thought much of it, hadn't thought of those names as representations of people. If they
weren't Special, then they weren't exactly People, in his private sense of the word. They were
merely... there, shapes in the background, as everpresent and eternal as English weather, train
delays, and the exorbitant price of eggs and milk. In his plans, one name was the same as any
other. He wasn't going to befriend them, speak to them, or engage in any sort of personal
communication to ascertain how deserving they were of the fate he was granting them.

It was safe to admit that he spent more time thinking about his own life than that of the dozens of
names on the list.

"How do you think it'll go, Riddle?" said Nott, his voice taking on a shrill note of exasperation.
"One person fetches the mail, and opens theirs first. The second person isn't going to open the
second envelope when they've been distracted by the screaming. The last thing we want is for the
letter to be examined by someone who knows what they're doing."

"The last thing I want to do is waste an opportunity when I have it," said Tom. "So all we have to
do is make sure both of them open theirs. Post-haste."

"I've started studying magical compulsions," Nott said. "They aren't mentioned in advanced
enchantment textbooks, but I think we have some out-of-print grimoires in our library that might do
the trick. If I alter the enchantment to confuse or compel the recipient—"

"How long will that take?"

"Erm," said Nott, scratching his nose, "ten months with testing? It's taken around four months to
perfect the envelopes, and I've been adjusting the newer ones still."

Tom shook his head. "There's a faster way."

"You can't rush enchantments! Even a master following a set pattern needs the time to impart it
onto a physical medium."

"I didn't say we had to use enchantments. A spell will do." Tom glanced at the sky. In winter, the
sun rose at half-past eight, and he'd left the Riddle House at nine. The sky was dim, the sun's light
obscured by trees and a blanket of gloomy cloud cover. Poor visibility. But it served to his
advantage. "Hmm..."

"What is it?" said Nott, his expression torn between two extremes of curiosity and aversion.

"'Stoke-on-Trent'," recited Tom from the list. "It's a mill town in the Midlands. If I'm correct, it
can't be more than fifty miles from here."

"What does that matter?" Nott scoffed. "I've never been there. And if you aren't sure of the
distance, then neither have you. Apparating's out, and I doubt they'd invite us in by Floo for a spot
of breakfast. Or for official business. 'Hello there, friends, we're Ministry inspectors here to visit
you on a Sunday morning!' Anyone who's ever had business with the Ministry knows that they
start dawdling at their desks after they finish lunch on Friday, and don't start up again until teatime
Monday."

"Lestrange bragged that his Cleansweep topped at eighty miles an hour," said Tom. "Have you
ever tried going top speed on a flying carpet?"

"You want to go there in person," said Nott incredulously. He groaned. "'A spell will do'."

"It's a good job that you've already picked us an owl," said Tom. "We don't need to know how to
find the address when an owl can do it for us."

Air travel was a luxury for Muggles. Aeroplane fare for the trans-Atlantic route cost £110 per head,
for a journey of less than a day, with no fare grades outside of Expensive and Even More
Expensive. The equivalent London to New York route by ship cost £35 for the lowest class ticket,
took five days, and offered meal options of Milk Gruel for breakfast and Meat-Inspired Gruel for
supper.

Having known this, Tom had taken to his First Year flying classes with great zeal, studying how the
other Slytherin boys had summoned broomsticks into their hands with a single firm command, how
they threw their legs over the floating wooden handles in a graceful arc that never had their feet
make contact with the broomstick bristles, and how they arranged their robes so they wouldn't
catch the wind and drag like sails. Tom had no fear of heights (nor anything else), and picking the
knack up quickly, was not assigned to remedial lessons or judged to be any different to the wizard-
raised boys who had learned to fly sooner than they'd learned to walk.

He was a good flyer—better than adequate. He was certainly better than Hermione, who didn't like
going past head-high, and fretted about the likelihood of flashing her knickers or falling from a
height, because there was nothing worse than missing lessons and having to study the material from
someone else's notes. Since First Year, however, Tom hadn't done much flying. He hadn't joined
the Quidditch reserves in Second Year, and when he'd begun selling his articles in Fourth Year, the
thought of buying a racing broom with his newly acquired fortune had never crossed his mind.
He'd decided to wait for his Apparition License, which was both instantaneous and free, and until
then, he'd suffer through the rail system, which had involved much less suffering after his
grandparents had set him up to ride the First Class gravy train.

He'd forgotten how inconvenient flying could be. Or rather, he'd never found out what real flying
was like. Tom had never flown in real weather, with a co-passenger, or at a higher altitude than a
few dozen feet.

Flying at an altitude of seven hundred feet, his vision obscured by low-lying clouds and his collar
rimed with ice, was not what he'd expected. But he refused to complain, ducking behind Nott who
sat in front, as the boy scanned the sky with his opera glasses, searching for the bobbing black dot
of the owl.

For a short flight of under fifty miles, Nott had chosen the fancy private messenger owl. It wasn't
as hardy as the plain one, which could be expected to deliver a full tin of biscuits to northern
Scotland in time for the breakfast rush, and be back before dinner no worse for wear. The tawny
owl's broader wingspan lent it speed for fast deliveries, and Nott had promised it could reach Stoke
in three-quarters of an hour.

Tom hadn't predicted that a fast delivery meant having to brave a howling wind or the loss of
feeling in his fingers, as he clung to the edges of Nott's carpet, the tassels of which had gone crispy
and white. It took all his effort to hold the Disillusionment over the both of them, along with a
small Shield Charm that protected their faces from flying shards of ice. Neither of them had
thought to bring a pair of flying goggles, as worn by Quidditch players in inclement weather. Nott
maintained a minor charm to keep them warm, but it sputtered in and out as his attention wavered,
tracing the path of the messenger owl keeping just abreast of them.

England from this height was reduced to a patchwork of snow-coated farms and tiny villages, the
monotonous view broken up by the iron line of a railroad, a slow-moving canal bobbing with
broken ice and tarpaulin-covered barges, and the outskirts of the city of Derby passing down below.
The owl flew straight, avoiding main roads and major settlements, so Tom wasn't concerned about
being spotted by Muggles, or Muggles wondering why there was an owl flying about in daylight.
Muggles weren't observant; plenty of his fellow Hogwarts students wandered around King's Cross
before the Express' departure, and in his years of experience, no commuters or porters had ever
seen fit to comment on a child wearing a woollen jumper with the Hogwarts school crest
emblazoned on the breast.

Their journey terminated when the owl alighted in a dingy alley behind a narrow street of two-
storey row houses. Soot-grimed brick, blacked-out windows, pebbledash paving, and battered
dustbins: this was evidence of a working neighbourhood, it brought to mind Tom's early years in
London—Wool's Orphanage had been situated in a similar area. Tom rarely gave thought to the life
he'd lived just a few years ago, and seeing this now, he couldn't help but view it from the
perspective of a wizard.

It was a grim sight.

Dirty snow clung to every flat surface, and dirt to every vertical. Each house in the row had a
tradesman's door; to the left of the door was a window covered in a metal grate, and on the right, a
cast iron hatch meant for coal deliveries. This was no posh Victorian terrace in London's Belgravia.
To save space, the houses had no gardens, stables, or servants' quarters; the residents here weren't
the sort to have hired help or private motorcars. From between the two second-storey windows,
several houses had frozen clothing strung out on a laundry line. They rustled and scraped against
the walls, and that was the only noise Tom could hear, with the exception of the solemn hoot-hoot
of the owl as it landed on one windowsill, poked its head through a gap in the bars, and began
tapping at the grubby glass.

Tom dragged Nott behind the neighbour's dustbins. Nott, who had been in the process of shaking
off his ice-covered carpet and stuffing it into his satchel, lost his balance and toppled to the ground.

"This is the house," Tom hissed. "Give me the binoculars."

Silently, Nott handed them over. Tom snatched them and adjusted the settings.

From within the house, the curtains were peeled aside, and the sash lifted up.

A woman stood in the window, peering down and studying the owl. She was blonde, not a tow
blonde like Nott's mother, but hair a dishwater shade, coiled up in rollers. (Tom was surprised to
learn that witches used hair rollers, as he'd taken it to be something only Muggle ladies did. In fact,
witches soaked their hair in a potion before setting their rollers for the night. The resulting curls
lasted well over a week, as the potion was washed out during regular bathing. Mr. Bertram's
readers preferred hair potions to the more effort-intensive and shorter-lived wand curling method.)

The woman in the window looked recently awoken. Under a plain wool day robe, Tom could see
the edges of a dowdy-looking white shift, buttoned right to the throat. The owl, a sleek, well-kept
creature of elegant proportions, proffered its delivery and hooted softly.

Tom drew his wand. At his side, Nott stiffened.

The woman took the letters from the owl. The owl winged away from the sill and landed on the lid
of the dustbin behind which they'd hidden, cocking its head and blinking down at Nott and Tom.

Nott flapped his hand at it. "Shoo! Go home!"

She turned one envelope over, inspecting it for any sign or seal of the sender's identity. The view
through the binoculars proved it was the one with her name, Linde Tischl, in Nott's handwriting, the
letters finished with elaborate sweeping curlicues. Hermione had commented on Nott's formal
handwriting before, and Tom disliked her praise of it; it was terribly inefficient, and a waste of
parchment. The envelope itself was heavy, half an inch thick, constructed of premium vellum, and
the contents obviously more significant than a casual note or invitation card.

The owl hooted.

The woman glanced at the owl, her finger on the flap of the envelope, about to pop it open with the
edge of her nail.

"Confundo," Tom murmured, pointing his wand at her.

She set the envelope down without opening it or inspecting it further. It was best that both
envelopes were opened at the same time, if the records were correct about there being two people
residing at the same address.

With the woman's eyes bleary from the charm's effects, Tom took advantage, popping his head over
the edge of the bin and meeting her eyes, pressing down with the full force of his will.

Close the window. Undo the locks on the door. Disable any intruder charms. Do not open the
door.

He felt some resistance; the command he projected to her was laboured and slow, each word
needing to be forcefully shoved from his mind and into hers, like mud through a sieve. As he
pushed, sweat beading at his temple, he saw small snatches of memory:

Torn papers were fed into a burning brazier, black writing curling up into threads of black smoke.
A basket on a writing desk was filled with more curling fragments of parchment, piled into a great
yellow heap like sawdust on the floor of a horse's stable.

Basking in the warmth of a freshly-stoked fireplace, a thick-limbed man with a ruddy complexion
and a heavy fur robe sat on a comfortable armchair. He looked like a traditional wizard with a
traditional wizarding beard, long and luxurious moustaches and whiskers with silver tips, matching
the silvered fur on his robe collar. A slim book lay open on his lap, showing smooth yellow
parchment and an animated engraving. He read aloud from it; the cover, shown as he turned the
page, was bound in fine leather and embossed with a strange triangular symbol.

"Ah, was soll man von solchen Wilden auch anderes erwarten, Lindelein?" said the man, gazing
fondly down at a blonde-haired girl sitting on the floor, her head resting against his knee.

Through his lessons with Dumbledore, Tom had learned that Legilimency was more than just a
magical staring contest. It wasn't categorised as a dark art, because its core intent wasn't to cause
harm or master one's enemies: it was a magical discipline whose core was empathy; taken to its
zenith, a trained practitioner developed a complete understanding of another human mind.

At Hogwarts, Tom had tested the skills he'd learned in Dumbledore's office on the Acromantula,
delving into its memories to weed out any traces of opposition until it posed no resistance to Tom's
explorations. That had been simple. This wasn't so easy; it was odd not being able to delve into the
woman's mind at will, and he felt the force of her will pushing back against his, fighting against his
entry. He was determined, and gritted his teeth.

Unlock the door. Open both envelopes at the same time.

He repeated this over and over, reminded of the time he'd heaved himself into Hermione's bedroom
late one evening last December, faint and shivering and limbs numb with shock. One step, one step
more, one step, one step more. That had been his mantra, an incessant beat drummed into his mind,
swallowing every other feeling or thought inside him. Pain, distress, panic, the blow at the
revelation of his mother's fatal weakness, everything but the determination to keep moving.
The woman turned away from the window. The sash slid down, the curtains closed. The doorknob
rattled and went still.

Nott glanced at Tom. "Did you do that?"

"Yes," said Tom, his tone brusque. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand,
his undershirt sticky and damp under his jumper. He loosened his necktie and breathed deeply of
the rubbish-infused air. "When I'm concentrating like that, do try not to interrupt."

Nott looked both ways down the alley and rushed for the door, casting a Silencing Charm at the
hinges and his feet. They entered, Nott quietly shutting the tradesman's door behind them,
muttering to himself on the runework carvings on the wood panels, as Tom cast about the small
laundry room, searching for the best place to hide.

"Anti-Muggle ward? Normal, for this kind of neighbourhood. Anti-Apparition ward? How
unusual. And expensive, too; only official buildings and businesses get it done—keeps thieves
from Apparating in and making off with a new broomstick or the money chest. There's no reason
why an average wizard would get one for his home..."

The walls were bare brick coated in cracking plaster, black with mildew in the corners. Much of
the room was occupied by a wooden laundry mangle, sharing its territory with a variety of cleaning
apparatus: a folded clotheshorse propped against the far wall, an upended tin tub, and a squat cast-
iron boiler, dusty with disuse. It was obvious that this was built as a Muggle house, taken over by
wizards. It was, Tom thought, eyeing the clothes iron rusted to the boiler hood, the last place
anyone would ever expect to look for a wizard.

They ducked behind the laundry mangle as the woman, envelopes in hand, pushed open a swinging
door into what appeared to be a tiny combination kitchen and dining room.

"Diether!" called the woman. The kitchen door swung shut. In a house like this, the interior walls
were built of thin plywood; they could hear her very clearly. "Post!"

"Sonst etwas, außer Zeitung?" a man's voice replied.

"Ja, ein Paket für uns!"

"Noch haben wir Schinken, lass uns erst einmal frühstücken, danach kümmern wir uns um das
Paket," said the man. Tom heard furniture scrape the floor, and the clatter of cooking implements
banging on the range. "Es sind nur zweihundert Gramm Schinken, weil der Metzger mir gestern
nicht mehr geben wollte..."

Porcelain clinked. Something was scraped off metal. The smell of sizzling fat leaked out from the
gap between the door and the lumpy linoleum floor.

"What are they saying?" Nott asked in a low voice.

"Don't know," Tom whispered back. He was closest to the kitchen door. "Something about food, I
suppose. I think they're eating now. They haven't opened the envelopes yet."

"Should we jump in? I can cast the Imperius on one, if you take the other."
"I cast a Confundus outside," said Tom. "If we use those spells inside the house, it can be detected
by anyone who knows what to look for." The Auror handbook had given him a brief overview of
the various types of Dark Detectors available to Ministry officials. He didn't expect his present
misadventures would merit official attention, but Dark Detectors were relatively common, and any
wizard could purchase one from a Diagon Alley shop.

"If you'd given me warning, I might have nicked an artefact from Father's office."

"It doesn't matter," said Tom. "Unless you're completely inept, you can make people do what you
want without resorting to Unforgivables."

"Few of us are as 'gifted' as you are," remarked Nott, with a sour look on his face.

In the next room, the two Germans ate their breakfast, silverware clattering off their plates. At one
point, they heard the scritch-scritch of a knife scraping over toasted bread. Nott's stomach rumbled
and he licked his lips; Tom shot him a quizzical look, but made no comment.

"So this is what you meant by attending to the 'future of Magical Britain'," Nott whispered,
crouching on the floor beside Tom. He bundled the voluminous tails of his robe over one arm,
wincing at the plaster dust sprinkled over the fine fabric. "I'd assumed you had something grander
in mind than the Chamber of Secrets. And now we're... here."

"You trusted me to keep to my word," said Tom. "I haven't lied."

"No. But you haven't told me how you knew the addresses of a bunch of Grindel—"

"Shh!" Tom hissed. "It's started."

The lives of the impoverished class—and Tom counted this as any person who had to save their
coins to make a purchase of such household necessities as tea or laundry starch—were the same
across the towns of Merrie Olde England. But what separated the city of Tom's birth from the
dozens of working towns whose residents earned their daily pittance in the mills or down the mines
was London's sheer population. Working citizens of London didn't return to their homes after work
to waste their time with quiet prayer and contemplation. Some did, of course, but the ones that
didn't set a conspicuous character for the rest of the borough.

As a child, Tom had overheard his share of drunken disputes, alleyway scraps, and domestic
quarrels. Wool's had no wireless, only a reading room whose educational value declined in the
months after Christmas, as the most interesting books from each donation delivery were taken away
for private use. There was simply not much entertainment on offer to the poor soul who couldn't
afford the penny cinema and refused to demean himself by shining shoes or hawking newspapers.
To relieve the boredom of waiting for his eighteenth birthday, Tom had been reduced to amusing
himself with the antics of his fellow orphans and their neighbours.

This domestic disturbance began as many others had. A shatter of glass, a woman's wordless
scream, high and piercing, like the sound of live Chizpurfles—a tiny, crab-like species of magical
vermin—being tossed into a bubbling cauldron during a Potions demonstration. Then a man
howled with pain, wooden furniture thudded on cheap linoleum, and heavy footsteps shook the
floor, retreating from Tom's hiding spot by the back door.

"They're not staying put," whispered Nott. "Ought we to do something about that?"
"If they're going for the medicine chest, a bezoar won't cure them," said Tom smugly.

"A bezoar won't, but Basilisk venom does have a cure," said Nott. "Phoenix tears."

"They couldn't have got their hands on that. Phoenix tears are one of the rarest magical substances
in existence."

The next room over, crockery smashed. A man groaned and gasped for breath.

"One could say the same for Basilisk venom," Nott pointed out. "And you've been handing it out to
strangers."

"Alright," said Tom, sighing. "Come on, then."

When they entered the kitchen, they found the dining table toppled over, scraps of parchment
confetti on the floor, coffee splattered against the walls, and a woman curled up on herself, holding
the tattered shreds of a smoking hand against the perforated flesh of her cheek. Nott stopped in his
tracks and looked at Tom, who was observing the scene with an academic sort of curiosity.

The Basilisk venom had drifted onto the wooden table, which was pitted with black marks. A foul
vapour rose from it, the stench comparable to that of a jar of canned vegetables opened after a few
seasons of improper storage. The woman's flesh, having taken the brunt of the exploding envelope,
had bubbled, her skin rising with pockets of clear liquid; it was interspersed with red patches of
exposed muscle tissue, rimmed with melting dribbles of subcutaneous fat. On the scattered
dishware, the remnants of bread and fried ham had dissolved into an oily sludge. But the dishes
themselves, of glazed china, were perfect and untouched.

"She's still alive," Nott murmured, holding his robes above the mess, like a dainty young lady over
a mud puddle.

"If any of it got into her mouth, then not for much longer," said Tom.

"Don't you think this is a bit..." Nott sought for words.

"Cruel?" suggested Tom.

"...Excessive," said Nott, settling at last. "It's one thing to send trapped letters to people, another to
watch them suffer like this. The former is cruel, I suppose. But the latter is downright morbid."

"You go look for the other fellow, then," said Tom, rolling his eyes. "I'll take care of her."

Nott tiptoed past him, avoiding the woman, and pushed through to the room adjoining the kitchen,
a small parlour with street-facing windows.

Tom bent over the woman. Her eyes were rolling in their sockets, her eyelids flecked with a pattern
of tiny, lace-like holes, her cheeks glistening with a steady trickle of lymph fluid. She hadn't cried
out in some time; Tom guessed that she must have breathed some of the vapourised venom.

"Stupefy."

There was a spell to end things quickly and painlessly, to give the woman the closest thing to
mercy, but Tom refrained from using it. Efficient as it was—and as much as Tom wanted to see
how it worked with his own eyes, having read the descriptions from various textbooks—it was
immensely powerful and left magical traces for days and weeks afterward, unlike Basilisk venom,
so potent a substance that it consumed itself within minutes of being exposed to organic materials.

With a scowl of distaste—he didn't want to touch her—Tom used his wand to raise the sleeve of the
woman's robe, up to her shoulder. Many months ago, he'd been told that the flesh under the joint,
where arm met body, was the point that the blood ran warmest. This time, it was an almost routine
task. He lifted one limp arm and found the spot; without the camouflaging effect of grey skin and
silver scales, it was easy to find. He cast a charm, cutting a tiny, quarter-inch nick over the blue
line of an artery, before drawing a pair of corked vials from his pocket. A dab of Basilisk venom, a
dribble of Dittany, and the wound sealed itself closed. Tom smoothed her robe back down, noting
that her knees, drawn up to her chest, were an offensive sight. The skin was a strange combination
of cheese curd white and mottled purple bruises, veined through with black, web-like striations.

In the parlour, Nott was repairing an urn over the fireplace, siphoning up handfuls of glittering sand
that had sprayed all over the carpet.

"Apparition's blocked, so he tried to go for the Floo," Nott explained. He jerked his head over his
shoulder. "He saw me, and I disarmed him on the spot. Are you going to search the house?"

The man was sprawled over the foot of the narrow staircase, leaving no room to walk. Tom
Levitated him back to the kitchen and, rather distractedly, took care of him as well, returning to the
parlour to see Nott giving the stairs and carpet a good dusting off.

"I've never been in a house this small," said Nott, looking around. The furniture was worn but
serviceable, the light fittings were electric, and the bay window that overlooked the street was
covered with a thick black cloth, affixed to the window frame with nails. "It's tiny. Not a single
Extension Charm. Is this how all Muggles live? I don't see how a proper wizard could stand this;
even a portable tent for hunt season is more comfortable than this."

"They must not have wanted to draw attention to themselves," said Tom, taking in the dimensions
of the room. Like most terrace-style houses, the rooms were long and rectangular, with shabby
wallpaper and high moulded ceilings yellowed with years' worth of tobacco stains left by previous
tenants. It was an entirely different aesthetic to the refined Georgian stylings of the Riddle House,
or the Gothic romanticism of Nott's family cathedral, wherein gargoyles had been embraced as a
linchpin of good taste. Different to the Grangers' suburban home as well, whose interiors had been
made to conform to Mrs. Granger's standards of hygiene and modernity.

The upstairs was as plain and Muggle-ish as the downstairs. A shared bedroom, a small bathroom
with toilet, washstand, and basin. A linen cupboard, smelling of cedar. But the second bedroom
was the true prize, converted into a study, and the clearest evidence that this house belonged to
wizards.

The windows were covered, and it took a minute or two for Tom to find the electric light switch;
Nott was no help in that regard whatsoever. Where the rest of house had been made to be
unremarkable, so that anyone who happened to look in when the front door opened and the
residents came in and went out assumed nothing out of the usual. But this room, on the second-
floor facing the alley, was far from it. A floor-to-ceiling map of the British Isles had been pasted to
the wall, the legend and titles in German, but the names distinguishable: London, Wimbourne,
Falmouth, Tutshill, Godric's Hollow, and Hogsmeade. The largest wizarding settlements in Britain.

Nott had wandered over the creaking floorboards to the desk, piled with small booklets. He'd
picked one up, the title of which read, 'Für das Größere Wohl', and Tom recognised it as the first of
a series of pamphlets authored by Grindelwald, in the decades before his transition to formal
governance. They were in German, but the printing quality of these was better than the translated
copies Mr. Pacek had given him years ago. Tom had lost one of them, torn in half and eaten by a
goat outside The Hog's Head, and since then he'd never got around to replacing it.

"How much room do you have in your bag?" asked Tom. "We'll take the lot."

He shovelled them into Nott's arms, then continued poking about the study. There was a hamper of
torn parchments under the desk. At the wall opposite the map, a fireplace butted into the room, its
claw-footed iron basket empty of coal briquettes; it instead held white ashes and shreds of paper.
Tom poked at the scraps with his wand. The paper crumbled into dust.

"Do you see any incriminating documents?" said Tom. "Secret German code books? Password
ciphers?" Roger Tindall had gone on and on about them during Tom's birthday dinner; for someone
who hated the public veneration of being one of Britain's Brave Defenders, it was funny how he
much he liked to remind Hermione of it at every opportunity. "If they had communication with
others in their group, you'd think they'd write in code. Most British wizards wouldn't understand a
lick of German, but it's hardly an obscure language."

"It looks like they've been thorough in destroying their papers." Nott had stacked the booklets into
groups and was trying to fit them all through the opening in his bookbag, re-arranging the contents
so that the flying carpet remained on top. "Check the desk drawers, perhaps they've got something
useful in them."

Tom did so. He found a selection of stationery and writing implements; a stack of maps that
included a directory of Diagon Alley and several shop catalogues; a small chest of galleons (Tom
confiscated them, tying them into a handkerchief and handing them over to Nott); various English
dictionaries and O.W.L-level spellbooks (Tom left those), and in the bottom-most drawer, a parcel
of rectangular proportions, wrapped in a dense-pile velvet cloth embroidered with runic designs.

"I think I've found something," said Tom, holding the parcel up. It was the size of a large book, not
a conventional school textbook, but the one-of-a-kind handwritten antique tomes that populated the
Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library.

He held his breath, undoing the cords tied on each side. The fabric cover lifted off.

Nott crowded in at his elbow, peering over his shoulder. Tom heard his sharp intake of breath as
the first corner was revealed.

"Oh," said Tom, sounding disappointed. "It's a blank portrait frame."

"Turn it to the other side," Nott said, taking it by the edge and flipping it around.

The image of a wizard slumbered within a carved wooden frame, his shoulders rising and falling as
he breathed. He was a large, jolly-looking man, his shoulders and belly disappearing off the frame;
his beard was at an impressive length, streaked white with age. He must have noticed the
movement of his frame, for he cracked open one sleep-crusted eye.

"Lindelein?" he said. "Diether?"

It was the same man as Tom had witnessed in the woman's memories, the one who'd read to her by
firelight.
"Who are you?" Tom demanded.

"War da was?" the man demanded in return. "Was suchen Sie in meinem Haus? Einbrecher! Hört
mich jemand? Hier ist ein Einbrech—"

"Immobulus," said Nott.

The portrait froze mid-sentence.

Tom glared at Nott. "I was interrogating it!"

"You can't interrogate portraits, not effectively," said Nott, his wand still pointed at the portrait.
"They don't learn or understand like real people. If he doesn't speak English now, then he never
will. If these people were clever, they'd have a second portrait frame somewhere else, so this
wizard—" Nott indicated the frozen image of the wizard, its mouth agape, "—could travel and
transmit information. Possibly straight to Europe. It would be only a few sentences at a time, but
it's got to be more secure than owls or Portkeys. That's probably why they destroyed their
documents: they'd be a liability, once the other side has the information."

"Can we take it?" asked Tom. "I know a man who speaks German."

"He won't co-operate unless he wants to," said Nott. "If he's a relative or friend of the two
downstairs, then he knew them during his lifetime. He doesn't know us. And you can't... coerce
him into speaking; he's only an imprint. A likeness. Not a real, living being."

"He's of no use to us, then."

"No."

Tom sighed. "Very well. Incendio."

Nott yelped and dropped the portrait, which had quickly caught alight. Tom had been a bit
overzealous with the casting (Dumbledore had reprimanded him for that very spell), and the
portrait's broad sweeps of oil-based paint made a fast-burning fuel.

What Tom didn't expect was the edge of the portrait falling into a basket of shredded parchment
and toppling it over. The fire caught on the dry wicker hamper and, in an instant, spread to the
threadbare carpet under their feet.

Nott covered his face with his robe sleeve, holding his bulging bag to his chest. "You burnt it!
Whoever's got the other frame will suspect something's up!"

"They won't suspect anything. We'll destroy the evidence." Tom sent a thoughtful look to the coal
grate in the fireplace. "If they can burn their evidence, then so can we. Incendio."

This time, Tom was deliberately enthusiastic with the spell. The map on the wall blackened and
peeled; the plaster behind it crackled ominously.

They retreated downstairs, where the air was clearer. But not for long. In the kitchen, Tom
dumped out a tin of pork lard onto the stovetop to enact a disastrous kitchen accident which
resulted in an unfortunate—and fatal—house fire. He tipped the empty tin on its side, overturned
the frying pan, and tossed the cooking utensils to the floor. From the parlour, he summoned the
wizard's wand where Nott had disarmed him, and the witch's wand from under the cold cabinet. He
cast a few Aguamenti charms with each, dropped them on the floor by their owners, and finally
inspected his handiwork.

The scatter of objects on the linoleum made a striking tableau, he thought, brushing off his hands.
Very avant-garde.

He was almost sorry to set it on fire.

When he was finished in the kitchen, he and Nott Disillusioned themselves and slipped out through
the back door.

"How long do you think it'll take for the Muggles to notice?" Tom asked, as they blended into a
group of churchgoers carrying hymnbooks and lunch hampers.

"As long as it takes for the fire to destroy the anchor runes in the wards," Nott replied, glancing
around at the oblivious Muggles and shying away from any that came close enough to risk
accidental contact. "I can see the smoke already." He pointed to the line of roofs, shimmering with
heat. "When the house goes up, it'll disconnect the fireplace from the Floo Network. You can
expect the Ministry to send investigators on Monday; occupants aren't supposed to connect or
disconnect a Floo without giving notice and lodging the proper forms. And paying the fees."

"Don't worry, the Ministry will be as clueless as usual," said Tom. "What a shame it is that no one
ever taught these poor wizards that Conjured water won't put out a fat fire."

Nott looked sceptical at Tom's words, handing over Tom's pillaged sack of galleons. "What do you
worry about, Riddle? Seven years, and it's still a mystery to me."

"What I'm going to spend this haul on," said Tom, hefting the tied-up handkerchief. It was about
five pounds in weight, an approximate value of a hundred galleons. Not a fortune by Nott's
measure, but a handsome sum nonetheless—two months' wages for a senior Auror. "Are the shops
in Diagon Alley open on Sunday?"

"Why wouldn't they be?"

Tom glanced at the Stoke locals on their way to church. "Oh, no reason at all."

"Well, if we're done here, where's the nearest Apparition point?"

Their paths diverged at a small gap behind several buildings on a corner lot, a concealed spot that
allowed wizards to Apparate in a Muggle area without breaking the Statute of Secrecy's rules on
conspicuous use of magic. The Ministry-approved wards deflected Muggle attention (it was clear
of cigarette ends and the sour smell that drunks left on the way home from the pub), as well as
silencing the trademark gunshot sound of Apparition. Nott went first, cleaning the soot and plaster
dust off his robes before spinning on his heel and disappearing.

When it was Tom's turn, he didn't go home.

No, he visualised a cobbled street, crowded with timber-framed buildings, upper floors projecting
over the crooked walkways below. The wooden beams were stained with age, the door lintels set at
an uncomfortable height, but the diamond-paned display windows were aglow with magic. Dozens
of wooden signs swayed above the heads of passersby, each one bearing an animated representation
of the business within: an owl in flight, a wand performing the looping movement of Lumos, a book
 with pages flipping back and forth, a pestle grinding away in the bowl of a mortar, a thread
wriggling off a bobbin and through the eye of a glinting needle...

The proprietor of the Diagon Alley second-hand shop directed Tom to Glimwitt's, the antiquarian
bookseller whose establishment lay at the border between Diagon and Knockturn. To his
satisfaction, they had an original copy of Rastrick's Apocrypha of Materiality, in lightly worn
condition. It was a rare book from a single print run in 1837, one of seventy-five copies; the asking
price came to a total of sixty galleons, but Tom haggled it down to fifty-four galleons and twelve.
He made it understood that he was paying in coin, not a book-for-book barter that many of the
shop's bibliophile customers came in requesting.

Luncheon had arrived by the time Tom arrived at the Riddle House. Hermione cornered him in his
room later, asking him where he'd gone after breakfast. He sat her down on his bed and, in lieu of
an answer, presented her with the book, packaged in a gold gift box tied with ribbons, courtesy of
the bookseller's gift-wrapping service.

"This must have been expensive," said a pink-cheeked Hermione, peeling aside the layers of tissue
paper. She cradled the book to her chest, stroking the spine and smelling the paper, in no hurry to
put it down. (Tom found it bizarre; in the past hundred years, no one knew how many people had
touched that same book.) "Oh, Tom, you shouldn't have! The library has a copy!"

"I'd been thinking about it," said Tom. "Anyone else who wanted a good mark could have
borrowed the book, and there was only the one copy. You'd have been inconsolable if it'd been
reserved to the end of term."

He sat down on the bed next to Hermione, sweeping away the pile of ribbons and tissue between
them. Hermione leaned against him and opened the book across their laps, sighing in appreciation
as the pages were revealed: crisp paper free of ink smudges and scribbles, a scourge of the cheap
second-hand textbooks Tom had purchased as a First Year.

"You'll be perfectly prepared for the future now," he said, brushing his knee against hers under the
book's open covers. "After all, you have me."

Chapter End Notes

Chapter Summary: Hermione feels guilty about mind-wiping Roger. Tom's new middle
name is "Slippery Slope". The Basilisk offers mating advice. Nott's mind is blown when he
learns about Ш and Щ.

I'm aware that it's annoying when character dialogue suddenly switches to another language. If
you watch fan-subtitled anime or read fanfiction based on Japanese franchises, you've
probably seen the "All According to Keikaku" meme, or people calling each other "Senpai"
and "Baka" out of nowhere. But it just didn't make sense for random Germans in this story to
speak English. Yes, I have seen Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber in Die Hard, and I didn't like
that. I didn't like Johnny Depp as Grindelwald either.
Translation guide:

— "Ah, was soll man von solchen Wilden auch anderes erwarten?" - "What can you expect
from such savages?"
("Wilden" = uncivilised peoples, in reference to Muggles.)

— "Sonst etwas, außer Zeitung?" - "Anything other than the newspaper?"

— "Noch haben wir Schinken, lass uns erst einmal frühstücken, danach kümmern wir uns um
das Paket..." - "Let's have breakfast, then we'll open the mail. The butcher wouldn't sell me
more than 200 grams of ham..."
(Late war rationing, 200g = 1 week's portion for 2 civilian adults.)

— "War da was? Was suchen Sie in meinem Haus? Einbrecher! Hört mich jemand? Hier ist
ein Einbrech—" - "What's this, what are you doing in my house? Thief! Can anyone hear me?
There's a thief!"

If you feel sad about the deaths in this chapter, remember that Grindelwald's ultimate objective
was to dismantle the Statute of Secrecy and turn Muggles into a slave caste under wizards.
Tom disagrees with this; he believes his power and intelligence gives him the right to rule, but
Tom Logic™ dictates that no one else is allowed to have this privilege.
 Public Confidence
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

On the first day of the new term, the crossing point at Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters was put
under blockade by Aurors.

Black-robed wizards and witches stood sentry at the Floo fireplaces, the emblem of the DMLE
glinting from badges pinned to their chests. At the brick pillars marking the entrance from King's
Cross Station, a pair of wizards crossed names off a list, turning away a steady stream of anxious
parents, restless younger siblings, and unauthorised pets.

"What do you mean, I have to go back?" said one indignant witch, planting her feet at the
threshold. The brim of her pointy hat flapped up and down as she harangued the guards. "We've
always been let on the platform to see our children off to school! Rain and snow or cats and dogs!"

"Madam, please! Only students are to be allowed on the platform today. No, you don't need to help
young Onslow with his luggage; we'll take it from here. Sorry, sir, but is that a parakeet in your
cage? Do you have a note for it? I'm afraid that unauthorised pets without notes signed by your
respective Heads of House will have to be sent back home. Yes, we are checking!"

"Onslow needs me!" snapped the witch. "He's a delicate child; he needs a delicate hand. You don't
understand it, do you? Only someone who's carried a child for nine months understands how it feels
to be separated from such a part of yourself. Let me tell you, sir, when your firstborn child struggles
to catch the teat as he did, you'll be just as careful as I am in making sure he eats properly for every
meal—"

"Madam," said one choking, red-faced Auror, "pardon me, but you're holding the queue!"

Tom pushed past the rather impassioned witch, chuckling to himself.

"Excuse me, sorry, my sincerest apologies," he said, sliding people out of the way with one hand,
his other hand flicking his wand to Levitate their luggage off to the side. "Head Boy here, coming
through. Make way for the Head Boy. Oh, and the Head Girl, too."

When he reached the front of the meandering queue, he was swiftly obstructed by an Auror who
slid into his path, wand drawn. "Stop it there, young man. Name, year, and House?"

Tom cocked his head. "What's this in aid of? No one at the station bothered taking roll when we left
for the holidays."

"That's not your concern," said the Auror, shooting an irritable look at his partner, who was very
firmly escorting the hatted witch off the train platform and back to the Muggle side of King's Cross.
"We're here on official orders, and that's all you need to know. Our duty requirements do not
include making explanation to the general public. The matter's been approved by the Hogwarts
Board of Governors, so direct your inquiries there, thank you very much."

"But I'm in charge here," Tom insisted. He tapped the pin on his chest. "Look, Head Boy. When
there are no teachers or members of staff in attendance, the Head Boy and Girl are rated the highest
in precedence."

The Auror gave him a blank look. "Don't mean nothing to me. I'll have your name, year, and
House, please."

"'Tom Riddle, Seventh Year, Slytherin'," Hermione volunteered, pushing past Tom. "And 'Hermione
Granger, Seventh Year, Ravenclaw'. Did the school Governors leave any standing instructions? Or
will onboard and debarking procedure follow the same schedule as usual? It's a seven hour trip; any
delays now will keep the dinnertime announcements running late and ruin tomorrow morning's
early start."

"There'll be a patrol on the train. Any suspicious activities or articles should be confiscated and
brought to us immediately," the Auror told her. "We're in the first carriage opposite the Heads', by
the conductor. Be prepared to report anything untoward, and don't bother with standard disciplinary
procedure if it's urgent or dangerous. Otherwise, everything's to go as usual."

"'Suspicious articles'?" Tom repeated. "Are you looking for anything in particular, sir?"

"Anything at all that poses a risk to the safety of Hogwarts' students," said the Auror, glancing over
his shoulder. His partner had returned, and had resumed ticking names off the roll, pausing every
now and then to herd a group of Hufflepuffs into some semblance of a queue. "That's all we can
divulge about our duties here. Student safety is paramount."

"Well, if child-minding is the assignment, I don't see why you lot are here, then," Tom said, giving
a rueful smile at the beleaguered Aurors swarmed by dozens of young students. "The Heads and
Prefects are more than capable of doing that job. It's my third year with a badge, and I can say with
certainty that, despite all efforts, no student has died under my watch. How long have you had your
badge, sir?"

Tom turned his gaze to the DMLE badge on the Auror's uniformed chest, his expression
contemplative.

Hermione dragged him away before he could get into it with the Auror, leading him up the steps to
the train.

"Well, that was exceedingly helpful," Tom grumbled.

"You were rude to him, Tom! You can't expect him not to be curt with you."

"He just told us he was taking the confiscated goods for himself," groused Tom. "That's meant to be
an official perk of the Heads."

"Perks?" said Hermione, who had never read any of this in the manual that last year's Head Girl,
Lucretia Black, had given her the previous summer.

"Perks," Tom said. "I'm sure you've heard of them before. Waitstaff and housemaids get to take the
table scraps home. Military quartermasters write off damaged supplies for private sales on the black
market. Head Boys and Girls get first pick of the seized goods, then the Prefects. It's a tradition in
Slytherin that spirits confiscated off the underage are forfeited to the highest ranked badge in the
house."

"You're supposed to take points off for underage drinking," said Hermione, frowning. "And report it
to the Head of House. That's what the rules say."

"Why would I take points from my own House?" Tom said with a scoff. "Sluggy knows how things
are done; he leaves the day-to-day discipline for Prefects to manage as they see fit. He likes it when
the Hogwarts House Cup stays in his office for so long that it's grown a dust ring in his display
cabinet."

"You should take points off for poor conduct, no matter the House," said Hermione. "It's only fair,
and consistent with the standards set by the other Houses. And because how else would you learn
from your mistakes? Taking a bottle of whiskey doesn't teach people not to drink, it only teaches
them to hide it better next time! Is that really the lesson you want to encourage?"

"Well, yes," replied Tom, not missing a beat. "What's the issue here?"

It became a subject of debate during their train journey. In Tom's compartment, Hermione posed the
question of protocol to the Slytherin boys, who, as a man, showed complete indifference to
Slytherin's unconventional observance of the Hogwarts rules.

"Lucretia never wrote a word of it in her guide!" insisted Hermione, digging through her bag for
her well-loved copy of The Prefect's Handbook. "I'd have remembered reading it if she had."

"Lucretia understands how a message should be adapted for all Houses, not just her own. Everyone
else reads the lines as they're written. Us? We're expected to read between the lines. Old boy Sluggy
sees no sense in coddling an illiterate Prefect," said Orion Black, who wore a Prefect badge on his
robes. He picked through a large sampler tin of wrapped chocolates. "Yuck, rum and cherries? Who
in their right mind would ruin perfectly good rum by putting cherries in it?"

The boys in the compartment snickered; Lestrange mumbled through bulging cheeks, "Give 'em
here, then."

Orion chucked a handful of red foil-wrapped chocolates in Lestrange's direction, and continued,
"She wasn't ignorant of the tippling going on, obviously. Whether or not she agreed with it, she
knew addressing it to be a separate matter altogether. She also knew that the tradition of the
'Rightful Tithe' was older than she was. The current Prefects do it because that's what their Prefects
did when they were in First Year, and so on. If she'd tried to change things, it'd be an endeavour
of... what's his name? Greek chap, sent to Hades, had to push a rock up a hill... Tantalus?"

"Sisyphus," said Nott helpfully.

"Ta, that's the ticket. An endeavour of Sisyphean proportions. Whatever one well-meaning Prefect
or Head tried to do, it'd go right back to the usual as soon as he left for greener pastures." The foil
wrappers rustled as Orion dug through them, somehow elbow-deep in a tin that was no more than
six-inches tall. "Besides, just because we won't deduct House points in the usual fashion, doesn't
mean that those who take advantage of Slytherin's understanding of nuance are altogether exempt
from discipline."
"What does that mean?" asked Hermione. "Do you assign them to copying lines? If these last few
years has taught me about the way Slytherin House does things, when someone says 'unusual' in a
disciplinary sense, it's got to be more than taking dictations."

"It means," said Tom, "that even if we don't... interpret the rules to the exact letter, we do our best
to uphold the spirit of what the rules intended: guided self-improvement. Someone who earns the
infraction also earns their penitence. If that's not the very definition of justice, I don't know what is.
And I'm quite dedicated to making sure of it."

Hermione noticed that no one elaborated on what Tom had said, which had been somewhat vague.
Not just somewhat vague, but completely vague. Tom didn't elaborate on his explanation either, nor
did anyone volunteer any specific details on what 'earning penitence' meant. The only sound in the
compartment was Orion Black noisily opening a sweet, a chocolate truffle rolled in desiccated
coconut, which sprayed white flakes all over his winter robes.

"It works," Quentin Travers said after a while, peeking up from the newspaper he'd hidden himself
behind. "Can't say anyone appreciates... correction, but that's the nature of the process, isn't it? But
we all agree that the arrangement works. It keeps order. It reinforces House unity. And we win the
House Cup every year. How many years in a row has it been?"

"Thirteen," said Black helpfully. "And eight Quidditch Cups."

"There you go, then," said Travers, nodding in satisfaction.

"And everyone in Slytherin is fine with it?" asked Hermione.

A chorus of "Yeah", "I am", "Of course", and "'S'alright with me" filled the air.

Hermione glanced around the compartment. Tom looked very pleased with himself.

Their train journey continued in this fashion, mundane conversation that Hermione observed with a
benign sense of curiosity. Though the Seventh Year Slytherins were adults of wizarding majority,
and half of them adults by Muggle standards, it was hard for her to look at them and see a group of
men. It was a group of overgrown boys... and one Tom Riddle. Hermione knew Tom counted
himself as a man grown, and considering the way he'd behaved during the Christmas holidays, she
wasn't sure she could call that innocent boyish exuberance. Tom, who had used the word
"Adulteress" with far too much glee, would willingly concede that adult behaviour was indeed a
recurring and intentional theme.

She was still pondering on its implications when the compartment door slid open. Two Aurors
stood in the threshold, a long-haired wizard and a short-haired witch with cloaks thrown over
quilted duelling robes. There was a second or two of silence as they regarded the sweet-wrapper-
littered seats, then shared a look with one another.

The witch, from beneath her cloak, brought out a bundle wrapped in a red checkered cloth. She
cleared her throat and said, "Mrs. Travers says you left your lunch on the kitchen table this
morning. Your father instructed us to deliver it, with your mother's message. She says, and I
quote..."

Her voice abruptly took on a flat, toneless quality, as if she were reciting from memory. "'Always
eat the vegetables first before looking to dessert, and don't buy anything from the trolley, dear, you
remember what that sort of food does to your constitution.'"
Travers glanced around the compartment, at the spectators whose expressions ranged from disbelief
to suppressed amusement. Guiltily, he stuffed half a pumpkin pasty up his sleeve and wiped the
crumbs off his chin.

Nott cleared his throat in the silence.

"Thank them and send them on their way, Travers," said Tom finally. "My goodness, man, do I
have to do everything around here myself?"

Travers mumbled a few words and took the bundle from the Aurors, who gave him a brief pat on
the shoulder, and murmured something along the lines of, "...Should remind you that the physical
examinations are to be held next August..."

Then they shut the compartment door and Travers returned to his seat.

"Have some faith," said Tom in a consoling voice. "You'll be in the Auror Office this time next
year, surely. The qualifications are easy enough to manage."

"Easy enough for you," said Travers. "You've never been marked below an Exceeds Expectations in
your life."

"Because an Acceptable is a personal insult, and the markers know it," Tom answered. "I know it,
you all know it, and so do the professors. But you, on the other hand. You're unconvinced of the
existence of your own merits. How's this for a motivation, then: if you end up as the department
chore boy instead of an Auror, you'll be of no use to anyone. When Old Sluggy finds out about it,
he'll pretend he never taught you. You'll have an owl mail cubby shared with four colleagues. And
if the letter delivery is mis-sorted and someone else tries to return your mail, the response in the
office tea room would be 'Who's Quentin?'." Tom chuckled humourlessly. "To have set oneself up
as a wizard of negligible consequence, to have proven nothing of worth, not even to yourself—it's a
hard fate to be borne. But if you aren't dedicated to bettering yourself, let me assure you that there's
no one else who would burden himself to the task."

Tom had many years ago proclaimed himself a natural leader, and it was times like this that
Hermione wondered about those whose natural course of action was to become Tom's follower.
Had they no discernment, no independent thought of their own? She supposed that for some people,
it didn't matter because Tom had taken the hard chores of discerning and thinking himself so that
they wouldn't have to.

Somewhat heartened by Tom's motivating speech, Travers returned to picking at his packed lunch,
and the discussion shifted from school marks to Quidditch rankings and Slytherin House's
prospects for yet another Cup. Lestrange had the most seniority on the House team, having played
since Second Year; he was this year's Captain. Captains, just like Head Boys and Girls, got their
names engraved on a plaque in the Hogwarts Trophy Room. They also shared use of the special
bathroom, though Hermione hadn't made much use of it since the days of searching for Slytherin's
mysterious Chamber. The obsession with which Tom had for it had faded recently, as had Nott's.

Arriving at Hogwarts, Aurors escorted students to the carriages; Aurors mounted on broomsticks
swept back and forth above the Hogsmeade station platform, wand tips glowing like signal flares in
the black sky. Hermione and Tom shuffled the First Years along. They'd arrived via the boats back
in September, but with the Lake frozen for winter, it was customary for all students to take the
carriages, and these students had never ridden them.
Their group was the last to make it to the Entrance Hall, where fires burnt merrily in their sconces,
and the scents of a roast dinner came wafting in from the Great Hall. All along the corridor were
piles of trunks and hand luggage, floated in from the cargo car of the Express and nearly reaching
up to the height of the portraits. Hermione felt a pang of unease passing one group of Aurors
gathered around an opened trunk, whose contents had spilled out onto the floor. Pyjamas, a woollen
cloak, a pillowcase stuffed with spare socks and pants, and a set of robes lined in Gryffindor red...

Hermione turned to look over her shoulder, but then Tom took her by the elbow and pulled her
onwards, so she never saw what the Aurors had been passing from hand to hand, whispering to
each other under a bubble of silence.

"What was that?" she asked Tom, who was occupied with straightening his collar and cuffs in
preparation for making a fashionable entrance to dinner.

"A security concern," said Tom, sounding unconcerned. "'Suspicious articles', perhaps. Don't bother
trying to beg an answer off the teachers; I can tell that it'll be out of their hands." He nodded in the
direction of the High Table. "There's a new fellow next to Dippet. Auror badge and robes. How
long do you think he'll stick around before the newspapers start calling it a waste of Ministry
resources?"

There was a new face sitting among the staff. A man with sharp sideburns that merged into a neat
bottlebrush moustache, wearing a robe with a high starched clergyman's collar. He looked at once
very grave and very well turned-out, and sat in the centre section of the staff table. Not in the seat
directly next to Headmaster Dippet, who had, as usual, taken his great carven monument of a chair
in the middle of the long table. That space was reserved for the most senior of the staff members,
Deputy Headmaster Dumbledore. But it was close enough for the wizard to address the Headmaster
and Deputy both; they were speaking together now, as the final procession of students trickled into
their seats.

Hermione didn't like it; annoyance rose within her, the same feeling she'd had that morning at the
platform. This was another disruption to the natural order. In the Muggle world, there would have
been questions. Inquiries, even. Parents whose children attended legacy boarding schools would be
terribly interested to know why the police were calling on the school. It didn't look respectable, and
she had learned from her holidays with the Riddles that the gentry class, lacking the formal titles of
the Peers of the Realm, clung tightly to their respectability, being the fragile barrier of separation
from common-ness.

The first half of the Headmaster's speech was the welcome, the second a brief schedule of
Hogsmeade visits, Quidditch matches, and exam dates. At no point was the Auror presence around
the school explained, and it gnawed away at Hermione's organised soul, which still expected the
Magical government to run roughly congruent to the Muggle government. A Minister, a sprawling
bureaucracy of ministerial departments, was there so much of a difference?

She recalled that at the beginning of the school year, last September, Headmaster Dippet had
announced Aurors were to supervise Hogsmeade outings along with the teachers and Prefects.
She'd been so distracted by the prospect of venturing into the Chamber of Secrets the evening of the
Welcoming Feast that she hadn't considered the implications of Ministry-officiated security. When
the Hogsmeade weekends of autumn and early winter had come and gone, she hadn't thought much
of it then, either. She hadn't even gone most weeks, since the shops were always chaotic and packed
full of noisy students; if she needed to buy anything from town, it was more convenient to owl
order instead of queue for ages at the till. With other concerns more pressing and more visible at the
forefront of her mind, the Auror supervision had not merited anything more than a passing thought.

But now?

This was no longer a brief interaction outside school grounds, and could not so easily be ignored.
For that, undeniably, was what it was: the Ministry of Magic had decided that Hogwarts was
unsafe. The government had taken it upon itself to intrude upon the daily routines of what was
supposedly an independent entity. Certainly, the government administered examinations like the
N.E.W.T.s and the Apparition licence, and it provided scholarship funds to be disbursed at the
pleasure of the Board of Governors, but the Ministry of Magic did not involve itself in the internal
workings of the school itself. It was an overreach, as Hogwarts was founded long before British
wizards had cobbled together their national bureaucracy as an offshoot of the ancient Wizengamot.

It was unprecedented; she had looked it up in the library!

In the books of wizarding law she had browsed in First and Second Year, after hearing Tom's
confession of an interest in mind-control magic, she'd looked into the state of the wizarding prison
system. One book had informed her that should an inmate escape the high-security ward of
Azkaban Prison and present a danger to public safety, the Ministry was granted emergency powers
to install safeguarding measures for the protection of vital public institutions. Including Hogwarts.

As no inmate had ever escaped Azkaban, these emergency powers had never been used, and
remained to this day an obscure by-law in a dusty and forgotten book.

She concluded that there must be a grave emergency for the Ministry to rouse itself into action in
such a conspicuous way. Wizards cared quite a lot about proper precedent, with an especial
emphasis on the proper. One of the very few things the Ministry cared more about than propriety
was maintaining public confidence, otherwise wizards and witches might form the uncomfortable
notion that it was perfectly possible to live as comfortable a life without a Ministry of Magic as
they could with it.

Over the next few days, school settled back into a pattern of lessons and practicals, partitioned by
the hourly peal of the clocktower bells. Day by day, the deadlines accumulated, and the students of
Hogwarts soon became accustomed to the pervasive company of the Aurors.

Hermione remained wary.

In class, while the rest of her classmates drooled at their desks or scribbled games of naughts-and-
crosses on the margins of their textbooks, Hermione observed the comings and goings of Aurors,
tiny black specks walking about the grounds, escorting students to flying lessons, Quidditch
practice, Care of Magical Creatures, and Herbology, any activities conducted out of doors. No one
remarked on it. Some of the younger students appreciated it, as the Aurors cast charms to block the
rain, sweep the snow from the path, and warm chilly fingers.

For what reason would Aurors bother with Hogwarts? What danger was worth such a costly
investment of resources? A year ago, she'd heard Slughorn lamenting that his dinner party
invitations to Aurors had been roundly rejected; they had, unfortunately, had more important things
to do than mingle with schoolchildren.

In the hallway after leaving Ancient Runes, passing the Auror standing watch at the corridor
intersection, Hermione cornered Nott and pressed him for information.
"For someone who's always made a big noise about the wizarding world being run on 'patronage
and connections'," Hermione began, ushering Nott behind a suit of armour and casting a silencing
spell to muffle their conversation. "Surely your pureblood connections have supplied some inside
information about what this is about. Aurors at Hogwarts? This is just not done. You know it and I
know it. Yet the Board of Governors approved it anyway. This is different from last term, and you
can't deny it."

"If you'd wanted me to get your underage magic charges expunged from the records, or ensure an
application crosses the right desks, I could help you with that," Nott answered. "Pureblood
connections, as you're so gauche as to call them, are about the soft touch. Shaking the right hands
of the right people. Arranging the subtle feather that tips the scales. This type of matter is different,
and I'm not denying it. But I'm afraid I can't tell you anything."

"Can you make an informed guess, at least?" Hermione insisted. "You're familiar with how the
Ministry is run. You're aware of the current shape of the wizarding world outside the British Isles.
Are we in danger here at Hogwarts?"

"No one is in danger who keeps his head down," Nott said, his voice low and careful. "That's just
common sense."

Hermione posed another vital question: "Has this anything to do with Grindelwald?"

Nott stiffened. "Why would you think that?"

"The tides are turning for the Muggle war. Considering how Grindelwald took Denmark and
Norway weeks after the German Muggles began their occupation, he must have been siphoning off
their logistical lines. It's not that easy to launch a national takeover, even for wizards." Hermione
recalled the headlines of Mr. Pacek's newspapers from the Leiden Free Press. "If the Muggle
governments are throwing off the German yoke, then Grindelwald must also be feeling the
pressure. Beneath the flimsy cover of his paper titles, Grindelwald is a Dark Lord. And even if
Dark Lords aren't elected by the voting populace, they still rely on public regard to maintain their
positions. You can't be a 'Lord' with no subjects... You'd just be a plain old Dark Wizard."

"Incisive analysis, as usual," Nott remarked. "Is there a central thesis in there that I'm missing? Or
will its arrival be any day now? I shouldn't want to be late to my next appointment."

"Our next 'appointment' is lunch; you'll be fine," Hermione snapped. "Here's the gist: why aren't
you worried? If the Aurors are worried about Grindelwald, then we should all be worried!"

"If it is him, then what am I to do about it?" Nott retorted. "Until the end of the term, I'm a
schoolboy. You're a schoolgirl. We're nobodies, and that's a good thing. Leave the problems for
those whose jobs it is to solve them."

Hermione hesitated. "You might have a point there."

"Of course I do. Mine is the voice of common sense that no one seems to pay any attention to."

"The appropriate strategy from the start should have been to get the information from the Aurors,"
said Hermione breathlessly. "It's obvious; why didn't I think of it?"

"Granger..."
"Thank you, Nott!"

"Granger!"

"And you can stop complaining that no one listens to you!" she told him, leaving him sputtering
behind the armour.

During lunch that day, Hermione asked Tom what he thought about the Aurors, and Tom's response
had been neutral.

"If they don't talk to me, or bother me in any way, then I shall do my best to overlook their
existence," said Tom. "It's not as if I've done anything wrong, have I?"

"Why do you think they're here, then?" Hermione asked. "They took that Gryffindor's fireworks,
and that was a fortnight ago."

Several boxes of premium enchanted fireworks were the 'suspicious articles' turned out of the trunk
on the way to dinner that night. These fireworks weren't the simple pasteboard tubes sold in Diagon
Alley, which lit with a tap of the wand on the fuse and sent a small burst of colourful light into the
sky. These were dozens of charmed sparklers packed into small crates, bought by a student during
his Christmas holiday in Malta. When lit, they took the form of pixies that nipped and bit as they
darted across the ground. A novelty rarely seen in Britain, they would have made a profitable
enterprise when sold by the individual stick in bathrooms and dusty alcoves.

Tom was silent in thought. "Why, would you like to give them a reason to keep skulking around the
castle? Do you remember Hagrid's Boomslang? Do you suppose he still has it?"

"I warned him last year of the consequences for keeping it!" said Hermione. "I'm sure he took it as
wise advice."

"But if you're not certain of it, it wouldn't hurt to make sure..." said Tom, trailing off ominously.

"I think it would be simpler to ask them why they're here and when they're leaving," said
Hermione. She changed the subject. "Have you finished your Arithmancy homework? May I check
my numbers against yours? Please tell me you've shown your workings; you know I hate it when
you just write the answer at the bottom. You can't just say that you've done the calculations in your
head!"

She spoke no more to Tom about the topic, sensing his annoyance with the Aurors' constant
obstructions to his regular "wanderings" about the castle. But she kept a close watch on the Aurors.
The next day, before her Herbology lesson, she caught an Auror outside the greenhouses, and his
response was inconclusive.

"I'm here because that is my job. How long might that be, you ask? My relief arrives from
headquarters at five o'clock. If you must lodge a non-urgent report—as I am on duty right now—
you may find me in the teacher's staffroom, where I shall be writing the day's log. Have a fine day,
Miss."

He tipped his hat to her and strolled away.

Hermione, catching the peal of the two o'clock bell, rushed to Herbology. Half-listening to
Professor Beery, Hermione spent the lesson picking away at the Auror's answer and came to the
conclusion that he had not given an answer at all, and that was entirely intentional.

After a week of deliberation, Hermione had found a new target for her inquiries: Quentin Travers.

She couldn't say she knew him well; he was one of Tom's "associates", the group of boys who were
regular attendees to Tom's secret and exclusive Homework Club, which had somehow, over the past
two-and-a-half years, become Tom and Hermione's Homework Club.

Quentin Travers was someone who drew no attention to himself, but not in Nott's contrived fashion
of avoiding notice (that is, skulking around in corners and barging in on conversations without
seeming too interested in the subject matter). Travers was a person whom Hermione could describe,
after all these years, as... 'adequate'. He could be trusted with a fair contribution in a group project,
or deliver a passable performance in a duel or class exercise. He wasn't as fixated on Ye Olde
Wizarding Traditions as Lestrange and Black, which Hermione had not learned from talking to
Travers directly, but from checking his homework. Unlike others, she'd never seen Travers use the
long ſ.

('An Eſsay on the Principleſ of Affinative Tranſfiguration', my goodness! The novelty didn't last for
long.)

Since she'd barely spoken to him, it wasn't quite fair of her to come to a conclusion about Travers'
character until she'd made an effort to know him personally. And given that neither of them was the
most personable of people, she found herself not taking the direct route of the friendly introduction.
Instead, she watched him.

During class lessons (and this was difficult because she always sat in the front row, and he
somewhere in the back), their extra-curricular activities, and most significantly, in the library.
Because what books one borrowed and how long it took to return them was the best gauge of a
person's character that Hermione could find.

Her research consisted of skulking behind the library bookshelves, occasionally poking a gap in the
stacks through which to peek at Travers' table on the other side.

Travers was writing his essay, heavy books piled around him, a serious-looking young man with
dark rings under his eyes no matter if it was a school day or a weekend. His mouth was thin and
lipless, and deep lines had already set on his brow. It gave him a perpetually grim appearance; in
high spirits, his face still looked sour, and when he was in a neutral mood, as he was now, he
looked miserable.

"Good afternoon, Granger," said Travers. He didn't look up from his parchment.

Hermione peered around the edge of the bookshelf. "Aren't you going to ask what I'm doing?"
"We're in a library. There are only so many things one can do in a library. If you care about
following the rules, at least." He spared her a short glance, eyeing the Head Girl badge gleaming on
Hermione's lapel.

"O-oh. I see," Hermione stammered, not certain as to what Travers was insinuating. "Well, may I
join you?"

Travers grunted, sweeping a heap of books into a pile on one side and making room at the table.

Hermione took that as an indication of assent, pulling out a chair and sitting primly down on it,
smoothing her skirt and holding her bag on her lap.

"Did Riddle send you for something? A message?"

"Tom?" said Hermione. "Why would he?"

"He's a busy man these days. He doesn't wait for anyone's convenience; everyone else waits for
his," said Travers. "What is it, then? He usually sends Black to deal with Prefect business. Or
Lestrange, when the business is... personal."

Hermione couldn't quell her curiosity. "What's 'personal' business?"

"Private affairs, outside school duties. You know—settling grievances, collecting debts, favours
owed, honour duels, and everything else in that vein."

"I didn't know that Tom participated in honour duels," Hermione began hesitantly. "He's never
mentioned it to me."

"Technically, he doesn't participate. Because technically, they're against the school rules. But if
Riddle sends a message that sounds like a duel challenge, anyone who has a public quarrel with
Riddle soon retracts his dissent. No one's called Riddle to wands since Malfoy got enough of taking
his lumps and called a truce," said Travers, wetting his quill in his inkpot and drawing out a fresh
sheet of parchment. "That must've been... three years ago, I think. Now if you don't mind, some of
us have homework to finish."

"Sorry," said Hermione. "That was thoughtless of me. I'll let you get on with it, then."

Without another word, Travers resumed writing his essay. Hermione wasn't as good as Tom with
reading upside down and not getting caught doing it, but from the books arrayed around the table,
she had a good idea of the subject of his essay: wizard-goblin diplomacy. She was certain that
Travers had, in fact, caught her reading his parchment from across the table, but he seemed
perfectly happy to let her do it. He continued in silence, with only the occasional glance at her, as if
it was the most normal thing in the world to be writing a History of Magic essay with the Head Girl
scrutinising every word as it left his quill.

Half an hour later, Travers wrote his last sentence and placed the last full-stop. Hermione, who had
been stewing impatiently the whole time, could not keep her curiosity buttoned up any longer.

"What do you know about why the Aurors are here at Hogwarts?" she demanded.

Travers blinked. "Why are you asking me? They've been talking about it in the Prophet's editorials
for weeks."
"The Daily Prophet doesn't have answers, it has propaganda," said Hermione. "I remember hearing
that you worked at the Auror Office last summer. Wouldn't you have insight to the real answer? So,
what is it? Why the Aurors? What's going on?"

"I worked at the Auror Dispatch Office. It's not real Auror work; they'd hardly assign Auror jobs to
someone who hasn't even been accepted to Auror training. The job was answering Floo calls and
writing memos," Travers said patiently. "If I have any special insight, then it's to how wizards and
witches dress when they're not expecting company at home and don't care about looking
presentable. You should trust me, Granger, in that it's not particularly special of an insight, and I
wish I didn't have it."

"Can you at least tell me," Hermione said, "what the official reasoning is behind the Auror
presence? We've been here seven years, and it's never been like this before. They searched and
confiscated student contraband, but it's nothing the Prefects haven't seen. Are they looking for
something? What could it be?"

Travers shrugged. "As far as I can see, the official line is: 'The Aurors are keeping the students safe
at Hogwarts'. Considering that nothing remarkable has happened, it seems to be working."

"Yes," said Hermione, "but nothing remarkable happened last year. Or the year before. If that's the
official line, then it's a distraction. A convenient obfuscation. People can't be that stupid as to take
that 'Keeping Us Safe' excuse at face value. There must obviously be an unofficial line."

"Haha," said Travers. "Obviously, there must be."

"Good, you agree with me," Hermione said, beaming. "So, what is it, then?"

"Oh," Travers coughed. "Uh... I didn't think you were being serious."

To Hermione's dismay, Travers had been unconcerned about the Aurors at Hogwarts, and lacked
the curiosity to make enquiries through the personal grapevine of gossip Hermione was certain that
he possessed.

"Didn't you know there's a Dark Lord out there?" Hermione asked Travers, as he was putting away
his reference books. "That must be the real explanation for the Aurors. They're supposed to be
protecting us from him, I'm quite sure of it."

"Well, yes, of course I know about Grindelwald, if that's who you're referring to," said Travers.
"But Grindelwald's hundreds of miles away, and anyway, he's got nothing to do with us.
Grindelwald isn't interested in Britain. He's been frolicking around the Continent for decades like
the living embodiment of Charlemagne, and he's never demonstrated interest in an invasion of
Britain. There's no reasonable justification for your worries."

"And you're sure about that?" said Hermione doubtfully. "How would you have such deep
knowledge of the mind and intentions of Grindelwald?"

"Yes, I am sure of it," said Travers. "I heard it from Father."

"I can't help being sceptical about things 'My father said'," Hermione replied. "As a Slytherin, I'm
sure you've heard it more often than I have in your Common Room, and have learned to trust it less
than I do."
Travers frowned. "Look, Granger, can I trust you to be discreet?"

Hermione nodded eagerly. "Loose lips sink ships, of course I can." At Travers' continued frown,
she added, "I can respect your desire for privacy. I've even studied a bit of Occlumency, and I think
I'm fairly decent at it. Not that I've put it to the test. But I did complete all the visualisation
exercises in the book, and that ought to count for something."

Casting an apprehensive look around the quiet library, Travers ducked his head and spoke in a low
voice, "Paranoia about an impending attack is just that: paranoia. There's something of a
gentleman's agreement between Britain and the Continent. A sort of non-interference status quo
where each side refrains from interfering in the domestic political affairs of the other. Father was
department Head when it was worked out, so it must have been in the Twenties. Given that we still
have our own Minister, and he speaks English, I don't suppose anything's happened to change that."

"Are there any books where I can read more about this?" asked Hermione. "I've never heard of such
an agreement mentioned in the Daily Prophet. And I've never overheard anyone talking about it in
my Common Room or at dinner."

She had heard of this agreement, this informal "understanding" of a peace pact before. It was a
passing mention from Mr. Pacek on the evening of Tom Riddle's birthday celebration, and its
existence had been unconfirmed by no one else. Until now. From Mr. Pacek, too, she had learned of
the mysterious deaths of foreign agents, which put the aforementioned pact in a tenuous position.

Travers gave her a blank look. "It's a gentleman's agreement. A handshake deal. It's not written
down for seals and signatures, that's the whole point." His brow furrowed in displeasure. "As it
was, it was considered an unpopular compromise by the department, who are Dark Wizard catchers
by profession, and Father was eventually persuaded to resign his post because of it. It was too
dangerous a political position, smacked too much of appeasement to be palatable for the public.
Father, however, judged that a compromise of mutual self-determination to be the best Britain
could get to pull herself out of the cauldron. But the Aurors didn't like it. I'm not a Gryffindor, so I
may only presume they thought it weak and cowardly."

"Have you asked your father about it?"

"Interrogated my father on the circumstances of his fall from grace, you mean?" said Travers. "I
should prefer not to, thank you. He only talks about the glory days when he's had too much brandy.
Well, rants, really. He saved Britain and they rewarded him for it by hushing it up and ushering him
out the door. Minister Fawley told him there was nothing to be done about it. 'Oh, sorry, my old
friend, it wasn't personal' whispered in private, but in public, no one wanted the stink of
unpopularity clinging to their own cloaks. Bad for upcoming election campaigns. But the next
Minister never rescinded the agreement Father had orchestrated with the Germans. It was simply
too valuable to let go."

"Your father fell on his sword," Hermione mused. "Or fell on his wand, rather. What were the exact
terms of the agreement, do you know?"

Travers shrugged. "This happened when I was a baby, Granger. The only reason I'm aware of it is
from hearsay and eavesdropping. For all I know, there's more to the story; Father has consistently
held to a traditionalist 'Rule By Precedent' platform, and for him to choose the unproven path, he
must have placed strategic outcome first and principles second."
"If the Aurors won't talk about Grindelwald, and that's fair enough, it's a national security issue...
What can they talk about?" Hermione trailed off, deep in thought. "What questions can I ask of
them to find out what exactly they might do to address a threat, in a hypothetical sense, since they
won't—or can't—answer directly? The Ministry must have chosen Aurors to guard us for a reason,
instead of a monitoring mirror and an alarm bell. I had asked before, but he was on duty and not
very receptive. What if we tried while they were off duty, and in a more receptive situation? Yes,
perhaps that might work..."

"Pardon me, Granger," interrupted Travers, "but you said 'What if we'. What exactly is this 'We'
you're talking about?"

"You'll help me, won't you?" Hermione asked. "If you're going to be all Slytherin-y about helping
someone when it doesn't overtly serve to your advantage, I have a counteroffer: I shall do my best
to help you gain entry to the Auror trainee program you were set on, if you do your best to help me
in this."

"If I accept this mutual agreement," said Travers, "then I'd rather get it out of the way early and
warn you that you're not going to enjoy it."

Travers was right.

Ingratiating herself with the Aurors required elbow-rubbing in the same manner of Slughorn's
special evenings. She might observe properly the niceties of expected behaviour, according to the
long list of rules of social etiquette she had read as a little girl, but Hermione did not think she
would ever come to enjoy it. Travers didn't much enjoy the process of mingling himself, even
though it was a vaunted talent of his House, so that was a consolation. And she didn't think Tom
liked it either, though she suspected that it wasn't "ingratiation" as a concept with which Tom found
fault. More like the fact that, due to his age and position, it was Tom who was expected to ingratiate
himself to another person and feel grateful to be deemed worthy of their notice.

(If Hermione had not known Tom as well as she did, she supposed his lack of adherence to any
consistent set of principles might have bothered her.

Because she did know him very well, she also knew that Tom would claim that he indeed adhered
to at least one consistent guiding principle: his own self-interest.)

"They'll be expecting certain formalities if one wishes to make a fair impression," Travers
instructed her. "While the promotions at the DMLE come from connections, the barrier to entry is
strictly N.E.W.T. marks, which makes it more egalitarian than the other departments. But the old
guard Aurors my father personally trained put stock in proper appearances, to distinguish
themselves from the new guard of wand-happy glory seekers modelling themselves off MACUSA's
style of informality. Father says it's a dying breed, the civilized hand of civil service. Oh, and on
that note, be sure not to come empty-handed."
After bearing a parcel of delicate pastries to the teachers' staffroom, Hermione was introduced to
the witch and wizard who had appeared in their train compartment on the journey back to school.
Mr. Wilkes and Madam Trombley were seasoned Aurors, former Slytherins mentored by Quentin
Travers' father, and rather sad to have seen him go. They were personal friends of the Travers
family, and as the particulars of Mr. Torquil Travers' departure from the DMLE were not disclosed
to those without clearance—and not at all outside the department—the former head retained a
remnant of his influence within the halls of the Ministry.

The two Aurors were impressed by Hermione's Head Girl badge and participation in Travers' "little
homework study group", and disappointed when Hermione admitted that her favorite Hogwarts
subject was Arithmancy.

"B-but I do very well in Defence," Hermione quickly added. "I've always been within the top five
students by the rankings. I got an Outstanding mark for Defence in my O.W.L.s, one of ten, and I
expect to get an O for my N.E.W.T.s as well. I've considered applying to the Ministry after
finishing school, and I don't see my marks being below the minimum thresholds. Doesn't the
DMLE require at least five Exceeds Expectations?"

She was twisting facts a bit, but it wasn't dishonesty by intention. She did want to work in the
Ministry, and had discussed her career plans with Tom years ago. She hadn't, however, ever
planned on joining the Auror force to become a wizard constable, of all occupations. But she wasn't
going to mention her lack of interest, and it wasn't lying if she said she had very seriously
considered an Auror job, and simply let any further impressions pass as a benign assumption.

"Ten Outstandings!" exclaimed Mr. Wilkes, a wizard whose long hair was tied up in a practical
queue. "You must be at the top of your year, young lady."

"That would be Riddle," said a helpful Travers. "The current Head Boy, from Slytherin. He got
eleven O.W.L.s., with the full set of O's."

"Hah, he must be the fresh one," Madam Trombley snorted, dancing sugarcubes over the lip over
her mug and into her tea with a flick of her fingers. "Heard Probert had his robes in a twist after the
Head Boy gave him some lip on the train. Marks like that could explain the arrogance. With eleven
O.W.L.s, I'd say he deserves a bit of pomp and vanity! I myself got eight, more EE's than O's, and
that was considered excellent."

"Top marks won't do favours for anyone who thinks it makes him exempt from minding his elders
and betters," Mr. Wilkes grumbled. "With a name like 'Riddle', if he's a halfblood or lesser who
wasn't taught proper manners, he may well be granted some leniency. But not forever, and not
while working at the Ministry."

"Tom, I mean, Riddle, isn't going to work at the Ministry," said Hermione. "He's told me of his firm
disinterest in such a career."

"Where else would he go, a Slytherin Head Boy with eleven O.W.L.s and no doubt bearing
generous commendations from Horace Slughorn?" asked Madam Trombley, as if she couldn't
comprehend that anyone with ambition could use it anywhere outside a Ministry office. "The
Ministry of Magic diverts into its ranks the most academically-inclined students from each
graduating cohort, because it's Britain's only employer with the kind of hierarchy that rewards the
sufficiently motivated. Rising to the top is a competitive business, to be sure. But the competition
winnows out the truly excellent, and really, nowhere else is better suited for those with the vision
and talent to excel."
"Well," Hermione replied, "he has a handsome family inheritance waiting for him at home, so
there's no urgency for him to choose an occupation, if he wants one at all. And on the subject of
riddles, might I request some insight on a speculative scenario I've been contemplating over the
past few days? I should much like to hear from the perspective of professionals trained in
wizarding combat."

The question she really wanted to ask was this: "What exactly is this hazard that the Ministry of
Magic does not see fit to inform anyone about, while simultaneously believing that the the
Hogwarts staff and enchantments are incapable of defending against it?"

That would have been a Gryffindor's approach, straightforward and sincere. So flagrantly lacking in
pretension it flipped right around to pretentiousness, in the manner of subtracting a negative
number. But Hermione had decided that a more circumspect route was more appropriate. Did it
truly matter if it was Grindelwald's hands who had originated the changes at Hogwarts, as she'd
suspected? If it was something or someone else, it didn't change the fact that the Ministry had
decided the threat worth the expense of a visible intervention. Or a visible deterrent.

Whatever it was, she should do her best to deduce the clearest picture of the problem, based on
what the Ministry was using to solve it: Aurors, a group well-versed in subduing human wizards by
force. The risk was judged not suitable for relying on an alarm system to alert the proper authorities
if an "incident", whatever it was, had occurred. The Aurors were the proper authorities.

"I've read reports about real magical combat situations," Hermione continued, "which are different
than exhibition duels where a wizard fights one-to-one on a platform, and receives points for style,
technique, and efficiency. In real combat—or to be more accurate, warfare—fighting is about more
than merely disarming your opponent. I've heard about the use of area effect spells, or the more
durable alternative of fixed wards, to control the theatre of war. Forest defoliation, transmuting
standing water into impenetrable fogbanks, pyres of everburning flames, and other manipulations
of one's environment to deny or produce cover for combatants. Anti-Apparition jinxes and
anchored enchantments to control battlefield mobility, though such a blade easily cuts both ways.

"I had been wondering, sir and madam, that in this type of a combat scenario, what would be the
most optimum strategy? If I wanted to win, I suppose, or at least leave the field of battle in relative
health? Is it better to concentrate on the environment or the other combatants? Should the most
favourable approach to real combat be as a duellist, or as an enchanter?"

"Oh," exclaimed Madam Trombley, looking rather pleased and giving a Mr. Wilkes a meaningful
smile. "Oh, Travers, I see what this is. You've brought us a little tactician, haven't you? Miss
Granger, you've defined the situation in general terms; it's not enough for a precise answer."

"Correct," Mr. Wilkes said. "Define the players. Is the principle actor yourself?"

"Yes," said Hermione. "But—"

"Skill level?"

"Well, being generous, N.E.W.T. Outstanding level for the core competencies. Extension credited
for Runes and Arithmancy."

"No, your skill level," snapped Mr. Wilkes.

"He means wandwork skills," helpfully Travers put in. "Can you cast non-verbally? Can you
abbreviate wand movements? What's your répertoire, how's your aim? You force the enemy into
more effort-intensive shielding or physical cover if he can't counter your spells directly, from
recognising the casting gesture and spell flash, or hearing the incantation. How about two spells at
once? Can you cast on the same turn as Apparition or Disapparition?"

"Yes, non-verbal and abbreviated for standard charms and common spells, but not for technical
work like advanced Transifiguration. I know all seven years of textbook spells, and the competition
duelling legal spell list. I can hold a Shield Charm and cast, and I've never cast while also preparing
for Apparition." Hermione added, a bit snippily, "But I've never tried it before, so I'm sure I can
pick it up quickly."

"The players?" Mr. Wilkes pressed on. "Are you alone? How many on your side, how many of the
enemy?"

"Even numbers for each, say five-on-five," said Hermione. "And N.E.W.T. graduate skills for my
side, unknown skills for the opponent." She remembered a conversation from Mr. Pacek from years
ago, during his first visit in the summer of 1940. "The opponent is assumed to consist of 'soldiers of
fortune'."

"Dead. You died," said Mr. Wilkes bluntly. "In such a theoretical exercise, if your team had a
jointly prepared goal to evade and escape, then not everyone dies. But the slowest and weakest?
Gone. Dead."

By asking these questions, Hermione was starting to form an understanding of the Aurors' purpose.
If the problem was one that required sufficiently advanced magical skill, there would be no need of
Aurors. The Hogwarts teachers were some of the best spellcasters in Britain; Professors
Dumbledore and Slughorn were celebrated academics within their respective fields. Aurors, on the
other hand? They were better-than-proficient spellcasters, but their specialty was in practical magic.
Martial magic. They were as close to a standing army as a population the size of Wizarding Britain
could field.

And 'soldiers of fortune': these were magical mercenaries whose continued livelihood came from
being better at combat magic than everyone else. A qualification of N.E.W.T. "Acceptable" was one
which the vast majority of underage students—and even a good number of students past majority—
could not achieve. The Aurors knew this, that the difference between amateurs and professionals
was a gap too vast for a school lesson or textbook to bridge, and the only way to counter a
professional was with another professional.

"Suppose my team had a plan then, to ensure survival for as many team members as possible, in a
battlefield laid with wards to prevent Apparition, Floo, Portkeys, owl mail and other types of
messages meant to gather reinforcements. How would you advise we go about it?"

Madam Trombley let out a delighted laugh. "You've just happened upon the greatest debate of the
ages: team combat strategy. Should we confront the strongest opponent or target the weakest?
Skulk in darkness and lure the enemy into hidden snares, or brawl with sword in one hand and
wand in the other, following the example set by the legendary Godric Gryffindor? Ought we to fly
like Valkyries into battle on armoured Granian steeds, and accept their noble deaths as the
necessary cost of victory?"

"But the simplest team strategy that even students and dabblers of the combat arts can remember in
the heat of action," Mr. Wilkes said, "is the defensive retreat. The strongest duellists protect the
 most vulnerable, be it the wardbreaker, enchanter, animator, Mediwizard, or conjurer, until the
wards are broken, the enemy wardcaster is dead, or the last man is out. In the Auror Corps, we fight
in pairs, and we trust that our partner has eyes on our backs, as we have our eyes on his—or her—"
he nodded to Madam Trombley, "—back. Simple strategy. With one rigid requirement."

"What's that, sir?" asked Hermione.

"If young Travers was assigned as your partner in the Auror Corps, as he is surely angling for with
this 'calling on old friends' hogwash, would you die for him?"

"Er..." Hermione stammered. "I, um—"

Mr. Wilkes spun to Travers and pinned him down with a hard stare. "Would you die for her,
Travers?"

"Uh," Travers croaked.

"Students and dabblers, the two of you," pronounced Mr. Wilkes with a sneer. "Forget the
N.E.W.T.s. Cast aside the spellbooks and diagrams. Take up your wands and feel the blaze and
thunder of wizarding combat, in a mock battle if you have to. Vouchsafe your life to the skill and
wit of another, and defend him, body and soul, with your own. Unless you know your own mind in
such a state, then you cannot know your own reactions and judgement, let alone calculate what the
'optimum' is or isn't." His voice softened a little, and he continued, "Not everyone is suited for
fighting; there's no shame in admitting it. But it is a damn shame when a talented wizard assumes
his abilities in one discipline transfer to another, and discovers in hindsight that he's overestimated.
There's no coming back from that."

When Hermione and Travers bade their farewells and left the staffroom, Travers expressed the
urgent desire to duck into the nearest alcove and scream silently into his robe sleeve.

"Well, that was intense, wasn't it?" Hermione asked, trying not to comment on Travers' reaction.
"Trombley was alright, but my goodness, Wilkes was... exciting. Very different to Professor
Merrythought's style of lecturing. Is he always like that?"

"I'm not sure if I want to be an Auror anymore, Granger. I don't want anyone's life in my hands.
And how do you know that you can trust someone with yours?" Travers spoke in a quiet voice,
straightening up and adjusting his necktie with trembling fingers, as if he had not been witnessed
doing anything out of the usual. And even more quietly, so that Hermione could barely catch his
words, he said, "You can't know. It's impossible."

"I promised I'd help you," Hermione reminded him. She patted his back consolingly. "I can't help
you or keep my promise if you give up now. Nor would I let you give up, just like that. Come on."
She tugged at his sleeve. "I think it's time to call another meeting of the Homework Club."

Chapter End Notes

When you die but your horcrux brings you back...

 Natural Philosophy
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

Tom found Hermione's interest in the Aurors perplexing.

Personally, he tried to avoid their notice as much as possible. He loathed their ubiquitous presence,
always feeling the need to ask "Why? Where are you going? Who are you meeting?", as if the
Hogwarts Head Boy was obliged to answer to anyone but the Hogwarts staff. And he had
unpleasant things to say about the way they further usurped his authority, taking charge of the night
time patrol schedule, dormitory inspections, and confiscation of contraband items. It wasn't as if he
wanted these chores for himself, but he had enjoyed delegating them to the ever-dutiful Prefects.
They were thankful for every scrap of drudgework conferred upon them from above, as if Tom's
recognising them as "Hard Workers" was any different from his recognising them as "Easily
Exploited".

He kept silent about his suspicions on the Auror involvement at Hogwarts, even when Hermione
had shared with him her own speculations, bringing out London newspapers to track the state of the
Muggle war. She thought the Ministry had taken action because they had received intelligence
about Grindelwald's making suspicious movements on the Continent, and he didn't correct her
assumptions. He certainly didn't confess to her of his own involvement, if it could be called that,
with Grindelwald. Which was non-existent, as far as he was concerned, since he had never
interacted with Grindelwald. Not directly, in any case, but if it was plausible enough for 'plausible
deniability', who was he to haggle over the insignificant details?

He said as much to Hermione directly as they walked along the viaduct bridge, one of the few
places considered "within bounds" and also too unpopular for couples' private conversations to be
noticed by others and overheard for the school gossip mill.

"There could be other reasons for the Ministry's interest," Tom said mildly, as he leaned over the
railing to look at the ice-filled chasm at the base of the bridge. In the loosening grip of a dying
winter, the ice in the Black Lake had begun to recede, but the deepest shadowed crevices of the
highland hills remained frozen until the early days of May. "I wouldn't presume to know, of course.
But the Aurors seem very cosy at the table with Dumbledore during mealtimes, although it doesn't
look like he enjoys being cosied up to. It's like they want something from him. Like they're waiting
on a decision. Waiting for... something."

Tom let out an irritated plume of breath and drew his wand. "They're not alone. I expect we're all
holding our breath, having come to different logical conclusions about what the future holds."

"What do you think it is?" asked Hermione in a nervous voice, nestling close to his side for
comfort.

"It could be any number of things. A cynical mind can invent an infinite variety of disasters.
Someone's guess will be proven correct in the end, and the possibility too terrifying to contemplate
is that it just might be your own." Tom shrugged. "Best not to dwell on it, I say, and concentrate
your attentions on the changes you can make in this world."

He aimed his wand over the side of the bridge. "Incendio!"

With a great whoosh, a blinding torrent of fire erupted from the end of his wand, which he directed
to maintain its shape as a solid beam of flame, to reach as far as it could without surrendering its
energy to the frosty wind. If he could melt the ice at the bottom of the chasm, it would be his magic
that had effectively replicated the turning of the season. Ordinary-minded people only thought
about making small changes, or didn't think about it at all. If Tom was to be limited to only what he
himself was capable of, then he ought to ensure that limit posed no such obstacle to the scale of his
ambitions.

"You and I, Hermione, would be better served if we—"

"Tom!" cried Hermione, whipping out her own wand. "Ventus!"

A smothering wall of heat rose up in front of Tom, sizzling his eyebrows and stealing the breath
from his lungs mid-sentence; the tongue of flame extending from the tip of his wand flickered out.
With a sweep of Hermione's arm, the heat dissipated in a charmed breeze, and suddenly he could
breathe again.

"That was stupid and short-sighted of you," Hermione remarked, sniffing. "Experimenting with the
permutations of spellcasting configuration may be an interesting exercise of magic, but you
shouldn't forget that while magic is, well, magic, the rules of natural philosophy still apply to spells
that manipulate physical elements. Magical fire creates real heat, and the heat has to go somewhere.
It's elementary thermodynamics. You had better not be doing that in a closed room; none of the
classrooms here have artillery wards like my cellar at home."

"I may be stupid, but I'm not that stupid," Tom huffed, and put his wand away. With his hands free,
he gathered Hermione into his embrace, enclosing her within the folds of his cloak. "Would a
stupid person be able to do this? Look at this, my patented and extra-exclusive wandless, wordless
Disappearing Charm. Oh no, where did the Head Girl go?"

Hermione's squeak was muffled by the woollen cloth, which covered her up to her ears. "Tom,
Tom, let me out! This is so silly!"

"The counter-incantation is 'Tom Riddle is the most brilliant Head Boy ever'," said Tom, holding
Hermione close, the cloak around her head like a privacy curtain. When she lifted her gaze, words
of protest poised to burst from her lips, he saw that she was wide-eyed and breathless. "Come on,
Hermione, I know you can say it. Just a few little words..."

"Tom Riddle is the most brilliant—"

"No, no," Tom chided her. "Are you a witch or not? Remember, it's a magic spell."

"Tom!"

"You can't just say the words, Hermione. You have to mean them."

Hermione buried her face against his collar to stifle her laughter.
Tom gripped her tighter, resting his chin on the top of her head. As the ice crackled and groaned in
the crevasse below, he contemplated the feasibility of keeping Hermione under his cloak forever.

By late February, Tom had observed enough Auror shift changes to know when and where it was
possible to sneak around without being seen. Confident in his knowledge of their rounds and
routines, Tom planned another "owl mail delivery" excursion to take place during one of the
Hogsmeade weekends. Or rather, he and Nott had attempted to plan one. This didn't go as
successfully as the first set, due to an unfortunate and unpredictable complication.

The first part had gone faultlessly. They'd slipped out to the goat pen at the back of the Hog's Head
Tavern, and Apparated behind the shed. No one noticed the crack of their leaving over the bleating
of the barman's pampered goats.

After climbing up to the Nott family's owlery, Tom opened his potion case and selected a crystal
vial of Basilisk venom. Only three more left; he would need to collect more from the Basilisk soon.
The Auror patrols were making it harder to sneak a boat out from the Hogwarts boathouse, to visit
the Basilisk's sunbathing beach. But it wasn't impossible, not for someone of his abilities.

He checked the rest of the glass vials in the potion case: Acromantula venom, Essence of Dittany,
Blood Replenisher, a few tubes of pain reliever potion poured from the large bottle in the dormitory
bathroom labelled HANGOVER CURE. Draught of the Living Death, which he'd used to keep his
pet spider in stasis while he was away for holidays and couldn't bring it food. He knew he needed a
plan to remove the Acromantula permanently before his last day at school, as it would be an
unconscionable waste to leave it at Hogwarts. Otherwise Hagrid might find it and reassert
ownership, and Tom knew Hagrid was a careless at best beast keeper.

"The address is: Number Eight, Eskwater Road, Montrose wizarding village, Scotland," Tom told
the owl. When he finished speaking, the owl cocked its head and blinked its big round eyes. "Go
on, time to earn your keep."

The owl didn't leap from the perch and flutter off. Tom made to shoo it off. It pecked at his hand.

"Montrose, Scotland," Tom repeated. "Did you not hear me? Deliver to Mr. Vajkard Kozel of
Number Eight, Eskwater Road." With slow and careful enunciation, Tom read the name again.
"Vajkard Kozel."

The owl still didn't move.

"Nott, I think your owl is broken."

"Here, let me try it. You must not be pronouncing it right." Nott snatched the address list from
Tom's hand and read out the directions, along with the recipient's name. The owl didn't fly off. It
fidgeted around on the perch, squawked, ruffled its feathers a bit, and did a poo. But it didn't cast
itself into the arms of Zephyr, as expected.

"Huh." Nott frowned. "Well, that's unusual."

"Try a different owl," Tom suggested. He began untying the letter from the owl's leg.

The second owl didn't fly off, either. Neither did the third. Or the fourth. Tom was starting to
become irritated.

"Are wizarding owls this incompetent?" said Tom. "Must I do everything myself?"

"It can't be the owls," Nott said thoughtfully. "It can't be. One owl, perhaps that could've been
written off as the hatchery having sold us a bad egg. But four owls, purchased at four different
instances, of four different breeds? Can't be a coincidence. It's just too unlikely. More than possibly,
they, he, the—you know, the lucky winner of the day—has cast a Fidelius Charm to keep away
unknown deliveries, some time between right now and when we first looked at the address list.
They might've begun to expect foul play with regard to the previous deliveries. As I had figured,
they also must have guessed it's too unlikely to be coincidence."

"The Fidelius," Tom mused, "I've read about it. An advanced magical method to hide some
important object, place, or piece of information, but I considered it useless since it required
entrusting a second party to keep that secret. If you need a second, what's the point? You've just
defeated the purpose of having a secret."

"Subverting the Secret Keeper is historically how the Fidelius Charm has been broken," Nott said,
placing the useless owls back into their sleeping niches. "It should be used as one redundant line of
defence out of multiple, not the defence in and of itself. It'd be too vulnerable otherwise. Anyone
who knew the secret before the secret was placed under the Charm won't be forced to forget it after
it's cast. They'd find it hard to remember the secret unless they're thinking directly about it, and
they can't pass it on to new parties, like we can't tell the owls the address, because we aren't Secret
Keepers."

"That's such an obvious flaw," Tom pointed out. "There's no guarantee that the auxiliary keepers
would feel impelled to protect the secret, or feel pleased that the Secret Keeper has meddled with
their recollections for his own benefit."

"I believe the strategy is to choose relatively obscure knowledge to place under Fidelius," said Nott.
"It reduces the potential number of 'auxiliaries', or secondary keepers. Nonetheless, they can't pass
it on through the most common means of communication, and that is sufficiently protective for
most people."

"The more I hear about it, the more useless the Fidelius Charm sounds," Tom remarked. "Any
auxiliary keeper who discovers that a fact he knew yesterday becomes unutterable knowledge the
next day would recognise that someone has deemed that fact too important, dangerous, or valuable
to be openly known. Would this not prompt scrutiny? A smidgen of curiosity? Secrets aren't kept
and protected for no reason. Tell me, Nott, is it common for wizards to cast Fidelius Charms for no
other motive but personal amusement?"

"No," admitted Nott. "Never. It's tricky magic, devilishly complicated. If the caster and his Keeper
get it wrong, or waver in their intent and resolve, they can scramble their own memories beyond
repair. This is deep stuff, far beyond the school textbooks, because it's soul magic. It affects the
minds of uninvolved passersby as it does because it transfers knowledge from the mind to the
Keeper's very soul."

"Then, do you suppose," Tom mused, "if we're auxiliary keepers, we ought to be able to see the
address hidden by the Fidelius? An owl sent in our stead wouldn't find it, but surely there is nothing
stopping us from calling in person. If it is a secret worth protecting, then obviously, is it not a secret
worth investigating? Fidelius Charms aren't cast for no reason."

"You're suggesting, Riddle, that we visit the home of an individual who goes above and beyond the
average wizard to defend his person and privacy?" Nott said, a shrill of alarm entering his voice.
"Are you mad?"

"No, I'm not mad," said Tom. "And I'm not an average wizard. Come now, Nott, if they're putting
up protections like this, they're starting to suspect being targeted. The days of quick and easy marks
have passed us. We might as well investigate a bit. Just a peek or two; no one will ever notice us.
Then we can go back to Hogsmeade."

"This is a terrible idea," Nott muttered. "I can't see how this won't go badly. Ugh. Wait here for a
moment, Riddle."

With a pop of Apparition, Nott disappeared from the estate owlery, and soon reappeared, holding a
thick bundle of heavy black cloth. "Here, cloaks and scarves. Cover up your Hogwarts robe;
everyone in the Isles recognises a House crest when they see it. Put the hood on, and tie the scarf
over your face. Sticking Charm if you need it so no one can pull it off in a tussle." When Tom
complied, Nott covered his own uniform with a hooded cloak, still muttering to himself.
"Montrose... Montrose, where was I there last? Can't remember, must've been years ago...
Montrose, ah, yes, Summer of Thirty Nine...

"You're lucky I've been to Montrose before," Nott said, charming his scarf to his face. "Else you'd
have to go through the Floo on the high street, and they can track those. Here, take my arm. No,
you have to take it, not touch it; it's not the same as a Portkey—yes, I don't like it either, but I
daresay you'd like getting Splinched more. We'll have to go Side-Along. Keep your wand out; we'll
Disillusion ourselves on the moment of arrival."

With a pop! and a barrage of mumbled profanities, they stumbled off each other's feet and into the
shadowed ranks of a tiered seating deck. On either side and over their heads, canopy cloths in black
and white whistled in an icy wind, tied to wooden support struts. The long rows of seats were
desolate, the pitch outside frosted white and empty, and under Tom's feet, a forlorn paper wrapper
gave a dry crunch.

"The clearest memory of Montrose I had was the balcony box for the league final in 1939, Magpies
versus Tornadoes. Rosier wanted a Quidditch box for a late birthday present, instead of luncheon
and cake at his house like a normal person; that's why I remember it well enough to Apparate. No
one should be here. Still, better be careful." Nott touched the tip of his wand to his hooded head and
Disillusioned himself. "We may have a bit to walk to the high street, and Eskwater Road leads off
that. The whole village is under Extension Wards that connect it to the Muggle town."

Tom and Nott slipped down a corkscrewing staircase from the windy top box down to the stadium
foyer, hollowed out beneath the Quidditch pitch. Tom noted rune sequences indicating that the
staircase could spin so passengers wouldn't have to expend the effort to walk themselves down, but
the enchantments were quiescent at present, presumably because there was no match being played.
On the underground level, broad pillars rose up to support the ceiling, dividing the foyer into
different entrance gates leading to the seating sections: Premium Deck, Magpie Gallery, Economy
Stalls. Tom ran a curious finger over one carved rune on the base of a massive wooden pillar.

"Interesting," he remarked. "This looks fresh, compared to the rest in the runic phrases underneath.
The edge is crisp, not weathered like the rest. Dagaz. Illumination and revelations. Are they
renovating the stadium, do you know?"

"If the village council is renovating, then this job is being done cheaply," Nott whispered. "There
are cleaner ways to inspect the state of the original enchantments than carving revealing runes on
top. You'd have to write another line or two to hide the runes again when the renovation is done,
with the added complication of ensuring it won't conflict with anything else. Leaving the runes
exposed is like going out with your shirt untucked. Needlessly sloppy craftsmanship and no
attention to detail; I hope the savings are worth it."

In the late morning, the village of Montrose presented a cheery image, full of tidy Tudor row
houses with sharply angled roofs and exposed beams. The pace of life in Montrose was noticeably
less frantic than Diagon Alley, the premier business district of Wizarding Britain. It lacked the
blatant commercialism of Hogsmeade's shopping square, in which every inch of frontage on the
path from the Hogwarts gates was turned into garish window displays of expensive sweets and
useless baubles. The village houses had second-storey window boxes dripping with dewy blooms,
and neighbours greeted each other from across the cobbled street. Songbirds chirped and enchanted
brooms swept clean the front steps of fallen leaves, but Tom didn't spare the sight more than a
cursory glance. He was too busy looking for the house marked "Number Eight", which he found
eventually when he saw the one house in the row whose window boxes were choked with dead
flowers and truncated stems.

Number Eight looked the same as the other houses in shape and size, but the front steps were
covered in dried muddy footprints and the view from the large front windows concealed by
blackout curtains on the inside. With exhilaration hot in his veins, Tom made to ascend the steps
and inspect the door, but Nott pulled him back with a hiss.

"Wait, Ri—" Nott cut himself off. He glanced down at his hand, the one bearing his family ring,
and took it off, secreting it somewhere in an inner pocket of his robes. "Right. No names from here
on. Hold on a moment, there."

"Why? We're still Disillusioned, no one can see us!"

"Disillusioned, yes, but corporeal. You could trigger a pressure alarm if they've set one," said Nott.
Still standing on the street, he drew his wand and twirled it over the front door and steps. "Revelio.
Revelio Incantato. Aparecium."

"Well?" prompted Tom.

"Shh! Have an ounce of patience. Specialis Revelio. Incisus Apparesco. Incisus Revelio."

Nott scanned the rippling golden line of runes that appeared on the doorframe, spiralling out from
the door itself at the initial rune placed at eye-level. The symbols pulsed for a moment as Nott held
his wand to them, but the moment he lowered his wand and his attention faltered, they began to
fade back into invisibility.

"Standard weather-resistance and draught-blocking spells; this door is basic commercial

enchantment, not a custom job. The one interesting thing is the peephole." Nott pointed to the eye-
level rune, dimmed to dullness. "You only see that in town houses. Anyone who lives on their own
land doesn't bother; they set boundary wards on the property border. This rune means that there's a
small paired looking-glass on the other side of the door so the resident can see who's knocking."

"That's interesting," said Tom. "I wonder what happens if I do this."

He conjured a black handkerchief from his wand, levitated it over to the viewing rune, and attached
it to the door with a Sticking Charm. Then he conjured a small rock and shot it at the door.

Knock!

"What are you doing?" said Nott in a panicked whisper.

"We couldn't have just looked at the door and then gone home," said Tom, keeping his wand at the
ready. "It's a door. That doesn't count as 'having a look', not really, since I haven't seen anything."

Nott was about to respond when the door opened a crack.

With a burst of motion, Tom shifted Nott out of the way, directed the tip of his wand into the crack,
and cast his spell. "Imperio."

Disable any intruder alarms or locking spells. Admit us to the premises. Stand down. Do not
draw your wand. Treat us as if we were friendly compatriots, he ordered.

"I didn't think that would actually work," Tom admitted. "I thought for certain that no wizard would
be foolish enough to open the door when he couldn't see what was on the other side. I shall concede
to being proven wrong. Such a rare and unfamiliar sensation. Is this what it feels like to be
'normal'? Ah, and now it's gone." He lifted one foot, but before he placed it on the front step, he
paused and asked Nott, "I ordered him to disable the door locks and alarms before letting us in. Is
there anything else, to ensure no one knows we've visited?"

"Some door enchantments record a magical imprint of visitors that cross the threshold, friend or
foe," Nott whispered. "Or record the spellcaster's imprint if magic is aimed at the door itself. Tricky
work and horrendously expensive, binding a Priori sequence over a wooden slab the size of a door.
I haven't seen it with my own eyes, only heard of it used with doors built of wand-quality wood.
Never on doors made of stone, metal, or glass."

Deactivate any spells, charms, runes, enchantments, or magics that may be used to indicate,
record, or communicate our presence to any entities living, unliving, dead, or undead, Tom
ordered, feeling his temples throb with the effort of maintaining control. The more tightly he
defined the terms of the spell, the narrower grew the subject's freedom of interpretation. He could
feel the wizard on the other end attempting to repel the compulsion, hurling himself at the
boundaries of Tom's will like a feral hound on a short leash. Let us in.

The door opened.

Tom glanced at Nott, flourished his wand, then stepped inside Number Eight, Eskwater Road.

The interior was dark and gloomy with the covered windows, white plaster walls with traditional
wooden beam ceilings magically Extended to rise high over Tom's head, dimensions grander than
what was presented by the house's humble exterior. Nott hurriedly followed him in, pulling the tail
of his cloak in just before the bespelled wizard shut the door and pressed his hand against the small
round mirror fixed to the inside.

The wizard. Tom supposed this was the Vajkard Kozel fellow, the person they had... well, Tom had,
at least, come all this way to meet. He was a rather forgettable looking man, lank brownish hair and
sunken cheeks, a scruff of short beard on his chin and neck, and a gleam of sweat on his furrowed
brow. Tom raised his wand, and the wizard, without any conscious intention, gave a feverish shiver.

Tom's wand glided over the man's face and jabbed under his chin, lifting his head to meet Tom's
eyes. The man's eyes, Tom knew from reading the Auror handbooks back in Fifth Year, should be
milky and dazed. The expression vacant and unfocused. He'd tested it on the Acromantula
confiscated from Rubeus Hagrid, but never on a human being. He was pleased to see that the books
were accurate in their descriptions. He had cast the spell correctly.

"Tell me your name," said Tom.

"Vajkard Kozel."

"Your occupation?"

"Construction tradesman by profession, humble servant of the Glorious Revolution by calling."

Nott let out an emphatic cough, which Tom ignored. "What exactly is the wording of the secret
hidden by this Fidelius Charm?"

"I cannot say. I am not the Secret Keeper."

"Who is the Secret Keeper?"

"Václav Janošík."

"What is the reason for your hiding in this house? Why are you in Britain? Wouldn't you be better
off bringing the Glorious Revolution elsewhere, to people more eager to take part in an idealist's
fancy of a perfected society?"

"The Revolution must be brought to those who are least eager to hear its message. They are the
people who are so thoroughly enslaved by the chains that shackle them in mind and thought that
they quail at the possibility of liberation. They are the people whose natural impulse to hearing the
briefest mention of freedom is to recoil with fear and outrage."

"You have to be more specific with this one," Nott suggested. "He's swilled too many of The Truth
They Don't Want You To Know pamphlets to give a clear answer unless you push for it with
concrete questions. Ask him what the Revolutionary leadership decided to give him as a personal
task or assignment."

Tom repeated the question.

"My task..." The man shuddered, his back bowing and his lips quivering as he tried to resist Tom's
order. "T-to demonstrate the might and reach of the Revolution. To inform the petty bourgeois of
Britain of how well they are taught to waste their vital energies, their lives, their magic, on shallow
diversions that contribute nothing to the greater path that would better us all. T-to destroy the
townsfolk's precious sports stadium and remind them that if they, too long coddled and pacified
into complacency, are frightened of what it means to embrace the Revolution, then they shall be
taught to overcome their reservations."

"How will you destroy the stadium?" Nott spoke sharply. "The Montrose village Quidditch pitch. Is
that what he means?"

"Runic enchantments. The stabilising wards in the stadium foundations," said the choking,
tremulous voice of Valkard Kozel. "The plans showed a circular, mirrored sub-structure. Seven
pylons, the most Arithmantically stable number. The enchantments of each pylon are linked to each
other, and linked to the power of seven. Without seven..."

Tom and Nott exchanged a glance.

"Do you have written diagrams?" Tom asked. "Blueprints, schematics, drafts, any kind of prototype
or tangible efforts you've made to enact this 'Revolution in practice' scheme?"

The wizard trembled, twisting and writhing in the grip of Tom's spell. Kozel's will battled against
Tom's.

No, thought Tom. You won't win. Not against me.

With his wand-tip, Tom turned the man's face to his and glared into his eyes. Tell the truth.

Kozel resisted, face reddening with the strain. With his inner vision, Tom pushed his way into
Kozel's mind, and was bombarded with a whirl of flashing lights and sounds, scored by deep, habit-
carved tracks of repetition and muscle memory. With his peripheral vision, Tom distantly observed
the wizard moving his limbs, then saw Nott leap forward with wand raised, but he didn't dare break
his concentration. He was almost there; he could feel a gap, a slender fissure prised open by the
force of his superior will and the crackling yellow-green spell boundaries of the Imperius. He found
it; he pushed in remorselessly, setting his mental claws into the rupture and bracing himself with
the implacability of his conviction.

I will never yield, he projected into the alien mind. There is nothing you can do. You will tell me.
There is no other choice.

"U-upstairs. Blood-bound w-w-wa—" the wizard choked out, his eyes bulging, tendons in his neck
thick with strain. With a monumental effort, he jerked in the thrall of Tom's control, nostrils flared
and snorting, with blood drawing red runnels down his lips and crusting on his beard. His body fell
limp, eyelids fluttering.

Tom reared back, avoiding the blood. The wizard collapsed to the ground, spasming manically.

"What's wrong with him?" said Nott, his wand raised.

Tom glanced around. "I don't know. He tried to resist me, and I had to push him a little to get
through." The man gibbered, grimy fingernails splintering on the stone-flagged floor as he clutched
and gasped and shook with convulsions. "Ah. I think he must be having an aneurysm. That happens
sometimes," said Tom, remembering the first two Peanuts from First Year. It wasn't usual that
Tom's abilities caused spontaneous fits. But it wasn't normal for Tom to meet such a level of
resistance as he had in this wizard. If he had to guess, it would be due to some proficiency in
Occlumency.
"Is he going to die?" asked Nott. "And was that part of the plan?"

"He might die, yes. That also happens sometimes." Tom made a face. "Get out the potion case from
your bag, I have a vial of Draught of the Living Death in there. It'll put him in stasis until a
Mediwitch can fix him."

Tom forced the vial down the wizard's throat, observing him warily until Kozel's skin grew waxy
and the spasms reduced into little quivers and finally to stillness. He noticed that the man's wand
was on the floor by the door.

"Why did you Disarm him?" Tom asked Nott.

"He was reaching for his wand while you were distracted," said Nott, adding quickly, "I assumed
that you'd win in the end. Had no doubts whatsoever. But it was best to make it as clean as possible.
Uh, did you want to have a look upstairs?"

"Blood-bound... something," Tom murmured. "He was trying not to think about what it was he'd
hidden upstairs, but I saw how it was protected. Blood."

"Blood ward, I suspect," Nott nodded. "Very traditional, I approve. Rather unfashionable in recent
decades since it's considered inconvenient and messy, but one can appreciate the benefits. If an
ancient paterfamilias crosses the final bridge without telling anyone the password to the family
vault, the descendants can access it if it's sealed by blood. Appallingly common habit, that is. You
aren't the only one who goes around thinking he can greet Death on his own terms, instead of
unexpectedly being greeted by Death while sitting in the garderobe."

With a conjured handkerchief, Tom swiped up Kozel's blood where it had begun congealing on the
floor, then ventured upstairs, Nott at his heels. The door was barred with a heavy length of wood,
and Nott showed him where to dab the blood to make the bar slide into a concealed wall pocket.

"Another benefit of those blood wards: you don't have to be an exceptional wizard to cast or use
one. Very simple intent in the end, based around a magical sacrifice of one's essence, but even the
people who appreciate the elegance of blood magic are leery of admitting it. There's a tendency for
the laymen to get squeamish about the—oh." Nott's ramblings were abruptly silenced. Hesitantly,
he turned to Tom. "I suppose he wasn't lying about his secret schemes, then."

The floor upstairs had been turned into a carpentry workroom. On a large trestle table in the centre
of the room, a wooden scale model of a Quidditch pitch squatted ominously, its hoops rising past
head-height, unpainted and rough with unsanded chisel lines. The various struts of the model were
of light wood, run up and down with stark lines of runic stanzas that looked like they'd been burned
on with a hot needle. By the wall, a sideboard cabinet lay cluttered with a number of smaller
models in various stages of construction. Syllabary reference books splayed in uncoordinated piles
on the floor, parchments black with cramped handwriting sticking out between the pages.

"I have excellent intuition. It never leads me wrong," said Tom. "There is no reason why it would
ever lead you astray."

Nott snorted. "Yes, therefore I should put my trust in your intuition to lead me. How could that ever
go wrong? What about about my intuition, then? Where does it go?"

"If the day should come that I haven't enough intuition for the both of us, by all means, use your
spare. But you'll be waiting a long time for that day," Tom replied. "In the meantime, remember the
last time we scavenged a house. Grab anything that looks incriminating first, anything interesting
second. Oh, and be careful in case you find another portrait."

"I never found the last portrait," Nott grumbled under his breath.

Tom ignored the mumbling to scan the pile of books. Logogrammatica, 14th Edition. Advanced
Runology. Spellman's Syllabary. Futhorc for Frühstück: Recipes for Runic Concatenation. These
were standard texts, nothing of value worth keeping or reselling second-hand. Other titles at the
bottom of the stack looked more exotic. þeory of Fuþark. Runae Futhark Vetustioris. Norsk
Runealfabet og Runeinnskriftene. He hefted one of the unusual books, bound in scuffed leather, and
had just opened it to the table of contents, when Nott spoke.

"The Montrose stadium was enchanted to be impervious to physical and magical elements. The
stadium itself is the spell boundary, consisting of one whole built of seven parts—the seven pylons
holding up the wooden skeleton. If one pylon is removed from the array, then there is no longer a
harmonic 'whole' to which the magic should be focused. Kozel planned to re-focus the unbound
magic into rune sequences of his own creation. Wooden pegs inscribed with runes, driven into the
pylons at strategic points, could negate all layers of spellwork at once. Among other things."

Unfurling another scroll, Nott continued, "It's quite ingenious a proposal, I have to admit. Mad, but
ingenious. He was going to use a ritual of Alchemic Transfiguration to damage or transform a
pylon, a loophole through the definitions of the original Impervius enchantment. I don't know if it
would actually work, but it may very well have done the trick." There was a sharp intake of breath.
"Oh. I see now why he was building the wooden models. He didn't know if it would work either.
But he was going to figure out how to do it. Given the state of those models over there, he wasn't
far from his Eureka moment."

Nott hesitated. "I think we both agree that the wizard downstairs is an eminent danger to public
safety. Why didn't you let him die? If you left him there long enough, he would have suffocated on
his own blood, and you wouldn't have had to lift a finger."

That was the question, wasn't it? Why had Tom stayed his wand, when he had not been quite so
modest in the recent past?

He supposed it was due to the Aurors at Hogwarts. They bumbled about the grounds and castle
corridors with a vague awareness that out there was lurking a threat to the wizards and witches of
Britain, but were utterly clueless as to what it was. He, Tom Riddle, had been eradicating the threat
under their noses, garnering no appreciation for his exceptional deeds of cunning and valour. As the
days passed and the threat continued to lurk, the Aurors did not gain any greater awareness. And
Tom did not gain any greater appreciation.

It was frustrating. He had expected someone at the Ministry of Magic to have figured it out by now,
the growing list of coincidences that were too unlikely to be due to chance, as Nott had the sense to
realise. That would be Tom's cue to step out of the shadows, doff his mask of mystery, and
announce himself as the Brave Defender that the nation never knew it had. After that would come
the applause, the standing ovation, the curtain call where he ducked his head and gave a humble
explanation while shaking important hands and receiving his justly-earned Order of Merlin medal:
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of myself at all, I was simply doing my duty to Britain".

He knew Hermione called this aspect of him "histrionic", but he didn't find it insulting. Pageantry
was an expected part of public life, and he was a public figure. Well, his journalist pseudonym
Thomas Bertram was, and Tom Riddle wasn't... yet.
"I didn't kill him because I want the Ministry to do it," said Tom. "We're handing him over to the
Aurors, along with the papers, models, and books. If you've found any gold, I'll hold onto that for
safekeeping."

Nott stared at him. "What took you so long to get there? You could have done that from the start.
Last year, before you decided that the best course of action was a 'parsley juice' adventure."

"Last year, I only had a list of names. The Ministry wouldn't have done anything but send it to the
Archives if I had given it to them." Tom knew this to be a fact, since he'd taken the list from the
Ministry Archives. "Unfortunately, if I had told them that certain people were up to no good, and
this was corroborated with my remarkably accurate intuition, it wouldn't have been deemed
sufficient evidence to take action."

"Inconceivable!" Nott interjected. "How could anyone conclude that your intuition is inadmissible
evidence?"

"But now, we have physical proof," Tom continued. "The Ministry, who is always looking to Be
Seen Doing Something for the newspapers, can't ignore that if we deliver it to their doorstep. They
won't brush it off and assume it's some eccentric craftsman's hobby activity, because the wizard
downstairs admitted, at wandpoint, what he had planned to do." Tom began pacing in thought,
speaking quickly. "I'll write a note and include bottled memory snippets, from both of us, of our
conversation." At Nott's startled look, Tom clarified, "Only our conversation, from us coming in the
door, until he has the fit. I'm not going to incriminate myself by putting an Unforgivable in the open
like that. And the result of this is that the Ministry will investigate the stadium tampering. I didn't
want to do it myself, of course. While I appreciate the skill and craftsmanship of runic
enchantment, the work itself is, quite frankly, as dull as watching two courting Flobberworms
trying to figure out which end is which."

"How exactly is the 'package' going to be delivered to the Ministry's doorstep? Have you thought
about that part of the plan, or are you going to make it up right now?" asked Nott.

"We'll grab any important information—shrink the models if we have to—and burn whatever's left.
Tie an envelope around the wizard's neck containing the memories and a note. Apparate him Side-
Along to the Ministry Atrium, dump the evidence, then Apparate back to Hogsmeade. Simple,
clean, easy," said Tom. "A Fidelius house shouldn't have Anti-Apparition wards on the inside, like
the last house we visited. It wouldn't make sense to have to go outside every time someone wanted
to visit London. The neighbours would notice a wizard walking out of an invisible gap between the
houses, and that'd be suspicious. Any questions?"

"Yes, in fact, I do," said Nott. He began ticking points off on his fingers. "Firstly, have you ever
extracted a memory before? Second, did you know that for security and emergencies, the Ministry
Atrium only allows one-way Apparition for unauthorised visitors? You can Apparate in, and only
as far as the Atrium, that's true. But if you want to leave, you have to go out through the Floo
fireplaces or the gateway to Muggle London. And third, do you have any idea what effect doing
this will have on Britain?"

"Plan adjustment, then: Apparate in and Floo out," said Tom. He had read about memory extraction
during the brief phase in Fourth Year when he was interested in mind magic, and Rosier had lent
him a few books in exchange for spell training. He didn't believe his lack of real experience was an
issue worth addressing. "And yes, I do have some idea of the repercussions. Magical Games and
Sports will probably be forced to cancel the League Championship while Quidditch pitches all over
the country are checked for safety. The loss of the Quidditch season carries a priceless emotional
toll, and on top of that they'll have to refund the ticket sales, but I'm sure we can bear it with proper
dignity. Anything else?"

"Fourth point: Do you expect people to be warm and friendly to two hooded figures dropping off
what looks like a dead body and running away?" asked Nott blandly. "We'd look indistinguishable
from the foreign menace from which we are supposedly defending Britain."

"We'll Disillusion ourselves and slip in without being noticed. They'll understand our intentions
once they look at the memories," said Tom stubbornly. He drew his wand. "I have extra vials in the
potions case, for you and me. Only a master of mind magic can alter his own extracted memories,
and altered memories compress time or dampen the senses in a distinctive manner. A congruent
pair of memories is near impossible to forge. After you're done, take the papers. I'll shrink the
models."

Nott sighed. "I recommend you refrain, if it's at all possible, from casting illegal spells. Otherwise
the Ministry might not be so sympathetic as to ascribe good intentions to your actions."

"Very well," said Tom. "I shall keep your advice in consideration. Now, on to the next point: how
will we sign our note? If we leave it anonymous, they'll not only assume it's a one-time occurrence,
they'll forget who we are because they can't attribute a motivation to our deeds. If we leave it as
'Messrs. N and R', they won't take us seriously. I wouldn't. We need to give them a name so they
can remember us properly, and reward us when the time comes. Something significant to our
identities, so we can say it was us all along, and they could have figured it out had they been paying
attention."

For many years, Tom's extracurricular motivations had been bolstered by the glorious satisfaction
of one day revealing his identity. The theatrical denouement where he could openly claim credit for
his exploits and not have some cheeky bystander or interfering schoolmaster in the peanut gallery
pointing out that the real Tom Riddle was a Cockney pauper, a schoolboy charity case, a pompous
gutter-rag writer whose talents lay in producing more flash than substance. He had excised from
himself the first two points with his familial discovery; the real Tom Riddle was by right of birth a
gentleman of the leisure class, a matter of public documentation. But Thomas Bertram, a mask of
convenience who overshadowed his real face? Bertram was much admired by a certain segment of
the population who tended the family hearth, and while it may have given him some level of
notability in wizarding society, it did nothing for his reputation as a serious scholar of magic.

This bothered Tom more than he thought it would.

"We want them to take us seriously," Tom continued. "'Yours sincerely, Mr. So-and-So' is too
common. We should go by an alias. Something impressive, like a title. Everyone respects a proper
title."

"What kind of title?" Nott asked, skepticism colouring his voice. "A Wizengamot judge can legally
sign his notes as an 'Honorable', and the same for magical Masters and Healers with legal
accreditations. But as far as I know, you don't have one."

"I didn't mean real titles," said Tom. "The whole purpose of this was not to tell them who we are,
but hint at it."

"What level of artistic license are we talking about here? As much as the 'Most Noble and Ancient'
designation appeals to me, it's not a good idea to associate your identity too closely with a political
agenda, unless it's destined to be a tool to further that agenda."

"When you invited me to your house last Christmas," Tom mused, "you mentioned the positive
sentiments held toward wizarding romanticism. If we want to make ourselves known as gallant
defenders, champions of the people, we should have suitable names. It would be harder for the
Ministry to frame us as outlaws and vigilantes if we played that hand before they could, so to
speak. But if they are as unscrupulous as I would be in their situation, it'd be best if we set aside a
contingency..."

Tom propped the unconscious wizard up against the rim of the Atrium fountain, ensuring the
envelope addressed "To the DMLE" was in view. He stacked the piles of papers to one side of the
wizard, then placed the shrunken models on the other side.

Perhaps I should un-shrink them, Tom considered. The Aurors wouldn't know what size they're
meant to be.

"Psst," Nott hissed. "Hurry up. The Atrium guards are walking in this direction. I think they've
sensed something's up."

"But we're Disillusioned," Tom whispered back. "How do they know we're here? Did you bungle
your charm?"

"We Disillusioned ourselves and this fellow here—" Nott emphasised the last word with a kick to
the man's shoulder, "—But you didn't Disillusion each sheet of parchment or stadium prototype.
Once they've left your hand, they become visible. To everyone around us, they look like they've
been popping out of thin air."

"Oi!" shouted a guard, drawing his wand and pointing it in their general vicinity. "Who's there!
Show yourself!"

"Right. Time to leave," said Nott, tossing the last handful of scrolls out of his Extendable bag and
turning for the Floo fireplaces.

Tom turned to follow him. As he was sliding his wand out of his sleeve, he felt the faint electric
tingle on his skin of someone else's magic interacting with his own. His Disillusionment Charm
dissolved mid-step, and Nott's figure flickered into view a heartbeat later. The Sticking Charm
holding the borrowed black scarf over Tom's nose and mouth slipped; with a mutter, Tom held the
scarf up with his free hand and re-stuck it to his face.

"Intruders!" the guard yelped. All across the Atrium, heads turned, the assorted workers and
registrants letting out a gasp of shock at an ominous pair of black-cloaked wizards appearing within
their midst, wands brandished. From the corners of the Atrium, uniformed wizards with the M-
insignia badge of the Ministry abandoned their watch posts, scurrying toward Tom and Nott.
"The Ministry's under attack!"

"Stop them!"

"Close the Floos!"

The shouts of alarm echoed their way through the room, but the hue and cry was muted by the
grind of metal grates sliding out of the walls over the bank of fireplaces. The fireplace entrances
were being blocked, Tom realised. As he had desired, the Ministry has responded to his
provocations, but much faster than he'd liked, and not at all to his own preferences. His daring plan
would end with him trapped in the Atrium and left to the grace and mercy of Ministry justice.

Not today, he thought.

"The gates!" Tom snapped at Nott, both of them thudding across the slick tile floor. "You didn't
mention the gates!"

"I didn't know!" Nott panted back. "They're new, weren't there the last time I was—incoming!"

Protego, Tom incanted, flicking his wrist in the familiar downstroke of the Shield Charm. White
light burst over him and Nott in a sparkling dome as it was hit by a volley of spellfire.

"Go," Tom ordered, maintaining the spell as whistling stars of red and blue light scattered over his
shield. "Get to the Floo and open a gate. Break the wards, I don't care how. I'll hold them off."

The grates had fallen over the fireplaces by the time they'd reached the other end of the Atrium.
Nott knelt down and murmured a complex string of revealing spells over the shining golden bars,
but Tom couldn't observe any longer, for all his attention was now on preparing for a duel. A real
wizarding duel, which Tom had only read of in books and heard stories second-hand from
Hermione, had different rules than stage duelling. But this wasn't a proper firefight; the Atrium
casters had so far only sent Disarmers and Stunners at him. In the Auror manual, the policy was not
to escalate, it was to reciprocate. An opponent who used lethal magic against Aurors would be
answered in kind, but it was not the standard procedure to jump in with Cutting Curses unless they
knew without a doubt that the wizard on the other end was a legitimate Undesirable.

"...Damage resistance, curse deflection, physical impenetrability," Nott muttered behind him,
engrossed in disentangling the revealed runic phrases on the fireplace bars. "This is some damned
good work, almost as good as goblin smithing..."

"I'm going to try something to buy some time," said Tom between gritted teeth. "But do hurry it up,
we haven't got all day."

Standard charms and spellwork could be countered with a simple Finite Incantatem. The
Disillusionment Charm, which granted a semblance of invisibility, had fallen after a quick spell
shot by a guard. As Hermione had reminded him, spells affecting the natural properties of the
material world were different. Particularly elemental manipulation spells, which were resistant to
simple Vanishing or termination due to the vagueness of their boundaries. How might a wizard
outduel a hot summer's day? What was the method by which one could challenge a monsoon or
disarm an avalanche?

Finite Incantatem required a finite spell boundary. Hermione could neutralise the flame, but it
wouldn't counter the heat wave produced by his overenthusiastic Incendio through the conventional
means, because the heat wave was an effect of the spell, not the spell itself.

Aguamenti!

Holding steady to the Shield Charm protecting both Nott and himself, Tom sent a sheet of water
surging across the floor tiles, a violent, churning tide that roared loud over the shrill voices of the
Ministry employees, spraying white froth over robes and shoes and the yelping bodies of wizards
who'd been knocked down like ninepins and swept away by the flood. After clearing the area in
front of him, Tom sent a controlled tongue of fire licking over the water's surface all the way to the
Atrium fountain, from which rose with a menacing hiss a great rolling bank of white steam. By the
time the fountain had boiled dry, his pursuers had lost the advantage of visibility, and the volume of
shouting increased.

Glacius, Tom incanted, his wand sweeping in a demicircle, punctuated by little flourishes at the
cardinal points. Iterative conjoined casting: this was an advanced Charms technique that spread the
effects of multiple charms over a broad area, instead of casting a single overpowered spell in one
direction. He drew on memories of freezing nights and frosted mornings to focus his intent: the
sombre winter walks in the Little Hangleton graveyard; the lines of snowcapped marble
monuments, white on white; the sudden and piercing realisation that the ice-rimed gravestones
shared one thing in common: the name Riddle.

lce crackled in a swathe around him, intricate lacy patterns leaping forwards in an ever-expanding
arc, forming treacherous rings of frozen stalagmites. Snowflakes burst into the air from his upraised
wand, drifting throughout the vast chamber of the Atrium, further obscuring his apprehenders' sight
and aim.

In the freezing white fog, Tom glimpsed flashes of light—red, blue, yellow, and orange—which
hissed and popped on his shield. Other spells, careening through the fog and going wide on either
side of him, hit the metal grates of the nearest fireplaces to dissipate into nothing. Without
visibility, the casters on the other side of the fogbank had wavered in their certainty and their spells
were not quite as fierce or rapid as they had been before. Which was a relief, because Tom was
starting to feel the strain of holding the Shield Charm while performing a number of area-effect
spells in quick succession. These charms, water conjuration, flame, wind and ice, were expected
competencies for even the poorest of students, and their proficiency was measured by conjuring
and freezing a simple cup of water.

But he wasn't an ordinary student. No one had beaten his O.W.L. record in Charms; he'd only been
matched once in forty-six years, and he had his suspicions as to who had done it. He wasn't content
with pleasing an examiner with a sculpted ice dove animated to sing and flutter. It would be a
testament to his own humiliation if his student charms were perceived to be of student proficiency.
That was the purpose of this entire convoluted exercise, wasn't it? To create this public image of the
wizarding ideal, ready and waiting for him to step inside and inhabit its form like an old cloak. He
could bypass the expectation of having to prove himself as every other Hogwarts graduate in his
year was required to do, because he'd already done it, and the salient point was that while the shell
was false, the core was real.

The magic, the deeds, the talent, the panache. That was his.

He made out dark figures approaching through the fog; it looked like the Ministry guards had tired
of shooting spells blindly into the white mist, and had decided to wend their way through the
garden of frozen spikes and apprehend the intruders in person.
I need more cover, he realised. I can take some pressure off the shield if I have a strong physical
barrier in front of me.

With that thought in mind, Tom flourished his wand once more in an arc, throwing sheets of water
out in front of him with alternating Freezing and Engorgement charms to construct the start of a
crenellated castle wall, curved around the fireplace opening. It was growing taller, but still too low;
he'd have to crouch behind it and maintain his Shield Charm anyway, since he didn't put much faith
in the restraint of zealous Ministry guards. The Reductor Curse was considered lethal for human
combat, but it was perfect for destroying physical barriers. At least his ice wall could block the
Auror handbook's standard Bodybinding and Incarcerous charms for detaining lawbreakers.

Tom built up his ice barricade as it took blows from the across the Atrium. Whenever the
occasional spell glanced along the top of the ice wall, it threw up knife-like slivers of ice which
vapourised on his shield, inches away from his face. None of the flying ice shards cut him, but he
could still feel the wind and chill of their passage.

He massaged his wand arm with his left hand; it had begun to ache.

"Are you nearly done?" Tom rasped.

Nott's reply was a tinkle of tile, a short pause, and a grunted, "Nearly. The bars are too strong to
break, but I can raise them manually by cracking the enchantment of the tile where the bars are
ejected." There was another jangle of broken ceramic; Nott had the bars gripped in his hands and
was pulling them upwards, gradually returning them to their slots in the tile above the fireplace.
"There! Get your back up against the grate, as close as you can. My magic's completing the
augmented runic circuit, but as soon as I let go, they'll come crashing back down."

When he'd raised the bars to knee-height, Nott wriggled underneath and started lifting the bars from
the inside.

Tom couldn't look any further, as the guards had ventured close enough to start throwing jinxes at
him, thick and fast. He concentrated on flicking spells at them to freeze their sodden robes and
trousers into stiff, inflexible boards, before adhering them to the icy floor. This was real ice created
from water, not sparkling spell-ice conjured wholesale for Christmas party decorations, so it had to
be melted the old-fashioned way. And that hurt. He could hear the guards' vigorous swearing over
the chaotic noise of people shouting, owls screeching, and elevator bells dinging in the distance.

Red light flashed in his peripheral vision, fizzling on the metal bars in front of Nott's scarf-covered
face. Nott reared back and let out a low cry, his hands momentarily losing their grip on the bars,
which jerked down almost a foot before he caught them again. "That was a Crucio! Come on, come
on, you'll have to duck and get under; they know you're relying on your shield—"

Nott's warning came too late. The top of the ice wall exploded into pinging chips of icy shrapnel,
followed by a Cruciatus Curse that hit Tom in the shoulder, and then he was gripped by a wave of
bone-rending pain, rising and rippling through his body with the force of a gunshot. Tom wheezed;
his eyes watered and formed glistening icicles that clung to his cheeks and spiked from his
eyelashes, and his vision narrowed to a wavering line of grey figures.

His wand slashed a line through the air; a barrage of powdery white snowballs knocked down the
figures and set the next wave of spells ricocheting in all directions, crashing off shattered tile and
throwing mortar dust over the hood of his cloak. Tom ducked, feeling another Cruciatus hit him in
the back, but he kept moving, the mantra of One step, one step more, just another step playing in
his mind like a broken gramophone, and then he'd slipped under the golden bars and grabbed Nott
and hurled them both into the green flames, while red flames seared mercilessly up his back,
puncturing through his flesh and into his spine and out the other side, then doubling back for
another round of torment like a moon-drawn tide. He was paralysed into a humourless parody of
rigor mortis—but he wasn't dead, even if right now he considered it to be a slight improvement on
his current situation; he was still alive—

For as long as I can help it, thought Tom, then cleared his mind of all thoughts, emotions, and
sensations, as he had been taught by his most beloved teacher, Professor Dumbledore.

As soon as the distractions were driven away into the farthest distance, he was able to focus on a
location. The Leaky Cauldron.

The flames surrounding him flashed green, then the view resolved into the dingy pub in Charing
Cross, with a hubbub of hungry travellers calling for another round of ale and a bowl of the soup of
the day. Nott loosened his grip on Tom's forearm and stepped forward, but Tom pulled him back
again.

The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade. Flash.

Borgin and Burkes, Knockturn Alley. Flash.

Home. The Riddle House, Little Hangleton. Flash.

They smacked against the grate when they landed, this time a regular latticework fire cover of cast
iron, which toppled onto the hand-knotted Turkey carpet of Tom Riddle's bedroom in the North
Wing of the Riddle House. Nott collapsed onto the grate, covered in soot and ashes, and Tom fell
on top of him coughing, a hollow rattle in his lungs. The Riddle House was registered as the
residence of an adult wizard, so he could use magic without restriction here, but the fireplace was
Muggle-made and of Muggle dimensions. Hardly built for leisurely strolling.

Nott pushed him off and rolled onto his back, gasping for breath, peeling the scarf from his face
and wrinkling his nose at the state of the once-fine wool. "What was that for? Why didn't we get off
at London?"

"You mentioned that the Floo at the Montrose high street could be tracked," said Tom from his
comfortable resting position on the floor. He tested his control over his muscles and, finding that
they responded to his will, forced his fingers to unclench and release their hold on his wand. "So I
thought I should make it harder for any trackers. And we had our hoods on and faces covered. Not
exactly your typical dinner guests, were we."

"Oh. That was clever thinking."

"I know."

"Do you think the Disillusionment has worn off the wizard we delivered to the Aurors?"

"Yes. The Finite they cast got him when it got us."

"So... What happens next?"

"We sit and wait for the fireworks," Tom said, after a minute of contemplation. "There were too
many witnesses today. Too many questions fielded which give them no choice but to launch an
official investigation. It should be obvious in hindsight that I hadn't cast a single curse, only
variants of textbook charms, and none with lethal intent. You weren't fighting at all. The Minister
has to respond with something or he'll look weak. A desperate grasp for any good publicity, and
although the Montrose stadium landed in his lap today, he won't be able to claim full credit for it. I
unshrunk the wooden models from the house, and they'll be the first thing the investigators see
when they retrace our steps. He's walking on treacherous ground from here on."

"Father will be pleased to hear it. He despises Spencer-Moon and preferred the old Minister, Hector
Fawley. Good family, diplomatic to a fault, but no surprise there as his line runs to Hufflepuffs,"
remarked Nott, sitting up on the carpet and pushing back his hood. "You could use this to your
benefit, had you any ambitions in wizarding politics, you know. A Ministry shuffle is the perfect
opportunity to allow the well-positioned to adjust their spots on the company ladder."

"I've no personal interest in office politics," said Tom, staring at the moulded plaster ceiling of his
bedroom. "But Hermione does."

"Hmm."

"I won't pretend to know what you're implying there."

"That we should clean up and return to Hogsmeade, obviously. If it's a dire emergency, the London
Aurors will send Patronus messenger signals that outfly owls. They'll start herding everyone back
soonish. No student wants to be found outside the gates during a castle lockdown. Not even the
Head Boy."

"Alright. I'm getting up." Tom groaned and pushed himself to his knees. "I thought the Cruciatus
would be worse than this."

"They probably didn't cast it as strongly as they could have," Nott theorised. "Senior Aurors are
given special dispensation to use Unforgivables during appropriate occasions, though they don't
like to talk about it because it confirms the unflattering rumour that connected individuals follow a
different set of rules than everyone else. Which, by the way, isn't a rumour, it's a fact. But even the
weakened version of the Cruciatus isn't meant to be walked off like that."

"I've had worse. Remember the New Year's Day of last year you spent in the St. Mungo's waiting
room?" Tom gave a hoarse laugh. "I suppose I can say that I live to be disappointed."

Nott gave him a mystified look. "Riddle, I think you're the farthest thing from a normal wizard that
I've ever encountered."

"Thank you for the compliment, Nott," said Tom graciously. "I think you make a fairly adequate
minion."
It was mid-afternoon by the time they'd finished cleaning themselves up in Tom's bathroom, aware
that while a Scouring Charm cleaned the grime off one's skin and robes, it did very little for the
distinctive smell of a young man's physical exertions that lingered on the body, wizard and Muggle
alike. (Nott informed him that his own witch mother found the smell unseemly. This confirmed
Tom's assertion that, contrary what he'd been told as a young child, rich people's bodily functions
were no more superior than that of a poor orphan's—they merely covered it up better.)

After Apparating to shadows behind the Hog's Head goat shed, Nott tossed Tom a vial of pain
reliever from his potions case.

Tom broke the seal and sucked it down, letting out a breath of relief as the stiffness of his back
began to ease. "The Auror manual said the tremors would last up to a day after curse exposure. I
assumed I'd be able to repress them..."

"With what?" Nott snorted, peering around a feeding trough; he ducked back against the wall
immediately. "By sheer force of willpower? Watch out, Aurors on broomsticks overhead. It looks
like they're bringing everyone back in early; they must have got the message from London already."

"Willpower worked for the curse itself, didn't it? I'd assumed that because the pain was only a
mental illusion, not real torture, a well-organised mind would be able to, hmm, negotiate the pain
levels," said Tom. "We'll have to make sure we're seen with the rest of the crowd returning to the
castle. Until the moment is right, no one should have any suspicions that we weren't where we were
supposed to be."

"Just because it's a mental construction, doesn't make it any less real," said Nott, looking
bewildered at Tom's explanation. "The others told me they'd be spending the day at the Hog's Head.
We should join them inside; that way they'll be able to claim truthfully they had been with us at
Hogsmeade if anyone asks. We'll be two innocent students too busy having a drink with friends to
be jaunting off to London."

"They'd claim they had seen me in Hogsmeade if asked, even if it wasn't true," Tom pointed out.
"But not the same for you, I expect. Let's go in, then. A drink wouldn't go amiss."

They crept into the dimly lit tavern with the Aurors none the wiser. At the bar, Tom ordered the
goat milk, while Nott had himself a gin served neat, each of them making an expression of mild
revulsion at the other's choice of drink.

"What's wrong with goat milk?" Tom asked, sipping from his cup. "Wizard-raised goats are subject
to prolonged ambient exposure to magic, extending their lifespans and making their bodies take on
magical qualities. I should think magic-infused milk to be a few degrees less offensive than
bezoars, yet I doubt you'd have a problem with eating a bezoar."

"They're completely different situations! If I was eating bezoars, I can't imagine I'd be doing it out
of choice. No one eats bezoars because they taste good," Nott said as he knocked back his glass.
"Where are the others? Do you see them?"

"The back table, by the kitchen," Tom pointed out. "They haven't noticed we're here—"

Nott slid back his stool; Tom kicked it back into place. "Don't. Not yet. I want to observe."
In the dimmest corner of the tavern, farthest away from the grimy, blown-glass windows, the
members of Tom Riddle's Homework Club listened intently to the witch sitting at the head of the
table. Hermione's bushy-haired head slanted over a roll of parchment, the soft plume of a quill
bobbing to and fro. She looked up now and again, her mouth forming a question he couldn't hear
over a discreet Silencing Charm, then placed her full concentration in turn on Travers or Rosier or
Mulciber, granting them leave to speak while her soft brown eyes attended them like they had
anything of worth to say.

It was odd how throwing a single witch into a pack of traditionalist wizards in one instant
transformed a brotherhood into somewhat civilised mixed company. It altered the established group
dynamic; it sanitised the boisterous and often crude humour of schoolboys, softening the edges of
interpersonal squabbles for dominance, because although it was a fact that Tom alone was on top,
the pecking order below him was a matter of contestable opinion. Since it was Hermione who led
the discussion, however, the elbow-shoving had been replaced by talking in turns and respectful
interludes while waiting to speak.

Disturbing, was it not? Tom thought. It had taken him until midway through Fourth Year to revise
the impressions the Slytherins of his year group had formed of him at his Sorting. How on Earth
did they do it, he wondered: how did they create a compartment in their heads that told them
Muggleborns should be scorned for counting as people by no more than a hairsbreadth of
technicality, and another compartment that told them that witches should be esteemed and protected
as the means by which the wizarding race was propagated into the future. For they must have been
made aware that there was no such thing as a powerful lineage without the sufferance of
accomplished witches.

How did they manage it without their brains, whatever shrunken kernels of it existed, exploding
from the sheer hypocrisy? he wondered. And as he continued observing, he supposed he found the
answer: the power of selective ignorance.

If Tom Riddle had a "Killing Face", as Orion Black had once joked, then Hermione Granger had a
"Learning Face". Her eyes shone in the satisfied light of discovery, her whole body animated in the
excitement of absorbing the newest tidbit of information, pursuing the next page in the book or the
lecturer's next word as eagerly as Hipparchus the Stargazer followed the waxing moon, waiting to
pounce on the answer to a problem she'd devised for her own pleasure. There was an extraordinary
vibrancy to her when she was in that state; her enthusiasm was so sincere that one couldn't help be
captivated by that rare combination of earnestness and aptitude. She knew enough about most
subjects to volunteer an intelligent opinion, but little enough that she remained appreciative of the
expertise of another. People found that flattering. Tom knew it from personal experience.

He was still looking when his thoughts were interrupted by Nott shaking him on the shoulder.

"Riddle," Nott whispered, glancing at the tavern door, which had just been thrown open. "The
Aurors are here to kick us out."

The Aurors' arrival caused a cacophony of screeches and squeals as chairs were pushed back and
suddenly all the day drinkers and unlicensed businessmen found they had other places to be than
enjoying the culinary delights of the Hog's Head.

"Hogwarts students, please return to the castle," the Auror at the door announced. Then, eyeing the
mad rush to the fireplace, she continued, "We're not here for anyone else but students today; you
may sit back down, sir. But tomorrow, who knows? Hahah!"
Her partner brandished his wand, pulling out chairs and Vanishing the contents of tankards and
glasses. "You there, those Gryffindors by the window, quickly now! You're to assemble by House
group at the carriages. Smartly, sir, if you don't mind. And Slytherins, that means you as well. Yes,
I know the Three Broomsticks has the venison pie special tonight, but you can come back another
week and the Hogwarts supper is just as good. Trust me, you shall miss it when you've left school.
We're to be taking roll in the courtyard—oh, good day, young Travers, didn't expect to see you here.
Please relay my regards to your father—"

Tom joined the growing crowd of students milling about the cobbled street, having been turned out
of the various shops as the Aurors went around door to door. He quickly found Hermione by her
distinctive hair. When he came up and tucked her under his arm, so as not to lose her in the fray,
she gave a little squeak of surprise.

"Tom!" she cried. "I didn't see you there. Were you in the Hog's Head? I haven't seen you all day; I
would have invited you to join us if I'd seen you!"

"I was busy," said Tom, guiding her around a knot of mutinous Gryffindors intent on hiding
contraband fireworks down their trouser legs. "I thought, since the Aurors were out in the village, it
would be a good opportunity to visit... certain places I shouldn't be in." He gave a meaningful look
at her.

"Oh," she gasped, and lowering her voice, said, "Do you mean... certain places like the bathroom
that shouldn't be mentioned?"

"Yes," Tom nodded. "Places like that."

"You have to be careful," Hermione said. "Even when most of the students are in Hogsmeade, it's
not everyone. The First and Second Years aren't allowed to go. You could've been seen!"

"'Careful' is my middle name," Tom assured her. "Anyway, I didn't find anything other than some
interesting architectural designs, so I left early. And I do know that if I run across a difficult
situation outside my personal, ah, arena of interest, there's nothing wrong with deferring to the
Aurors. I'm just a student, after all."

"That is prudent advice," said Hermione approvingly. "You've really learned a lot about
responsibility since becoming Head Boy. I quite admire it. Do you remember when you'd only just
got your Prefect badge, and you were boasting about some nonsense like, 'I'm a Prefect now, which
means I can do whatever I want'?" She clung to his arm, and added, "I'm glad to see how far you've
progressed, Tom. You should be proud of it, truly. It's called emotional growth."

On the way back to the castle, Hermione was so delighted with his "emotional growth" that Tom
didn't have the heart to correct her. After his day of mishaps—attributed to no other reason but a
poor roll of the dice, of course—he was happy to see that she, at least, had had a pleasant time.

The combination of magical exertion and the pain reliever potion wearing off left Tom ill-tempered
for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. His sour mood lasted until the next morning, by
which time the mail owls had come in and unveiled the existence of two unlikely heroes: the Prince
and the Knight.
Chapter End Notes

— It's assumed in this story that the Fidelius Charm doesn't mindwipe anyone who knew the
information before putting it into a secret. Otherwise, the Order could have turned "Harry
Potter lives in the UK" into a secret to protect Harry's location, and made anyone who knew
about the UK forget it existed. That would be storybreaking and brainbreaking.

— This chapter ties back to the previous chapter: "Vouchsafe your life to the skill and wit of
another, and defend him, body and soul, with your own." Is this what emotional growth looks
like?
 The Prince and the Knight
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

For the better part of the last three years, the Defence Homework Club had been scheduled for once
per fortnight, so the members were naturally surprised when Hermione called a meeting on the next
Hogsmeade weekend. They were even more surprised when the meeting, which the message had
claimed would be on the subject of "Duels", turned out not to be in the classroom they'd claimed in
the Dungeons, but in the least popular business in the village, the Hog's Head.

"I'm aware that this is a bit irregular," Hermione said, as the members took their seats at the table in
the back of the tavern. "And I am sorry for distracting you from the exam revision I'm sure you've
all been busy with. But this is very important, possibly even more important than the N.E.W.T.s.
Yes, shocking, I know!"

She cast her gaze over the attendees of the meeting: Travers, who had delivered messages on her
behalf; Rosier, who sat behind her in Arithmancy and tried to peek over her shoulder at her
probability diagrams; Lestrange and Avery, Tom's mealtime bookends who collected on unpaid
favours, as it would look badly for the Head Boy to be seen shaking down Second Years himself;
Black, a Sixth Year Prefect whose deference to courtly manners flustered her as much as it amused
him; and Mulciber, a sturdy young man of gruff demeanour with a heavy brow and persistent
stubble no matter the time of day. Tom and Nott were not present. Tom had apologised and
explained that he had "important business", and Nott had simply scribbled "No" on the back of the
message she'd written and dropped it in her lap on the way out of the classroom door.

Hermione squared her shoulders and wished she had some of Tom's magnetism, his ability to make
up a speech in the Hogwarts Express Heads' compartment and have everyone hanging on to his
every word. How did he do it? What did Tom have that she didn't? Tom looked people in the eyes
(oh dear, the implications of that were awkward), his focus roved from person to person to reassure
them that they had caught his notice, that he was listening; when he listened, he mirrored their
words and posture with his own subtle touches of appreciation. And always maintained the superior
position. He was the authority figure who doled out his divine wisdom, and they were the acolytes
who came away grateful for getting anything at all.

Tom wasn't here, but she didn't want them to think of her as a Tom substitute. She didn't want to be
regarded as if she had no inherent authority of her own, or that her first recourse was to run into
Tom's arms and weep pitiful tears for being so poorly treated.

She drew her wand, and the boys sat up straighter, eyeing her with caution. Mulciber's hand drifted
to his breast; bespoke robes had a narrow, rectangular breast pocket on the interior of the left or
right side for holding wands, depending on one's dominant hand.

With a light flick, she cast a non-verbal Silencing Charm, muting the sighing and grunting of the
customers a few tables over. Another flick, and she Levitated the glasses off a tray she'd organised
earlier and directed one in front of each seat, followed by a generous pour from the bottle of
Firewhisky; she chewed the inside of her lip while concentrating on not spilling the whisky or
dropping the bottle. Travers had recommended she buy it from the bartender in the name of proper
hospitality, mentioning that she had to follow a different protocol because she'd set the venue for
Hogsmeade, and not their regular school classroom. If her invitation was accepted and she'd offered
a drink, then the guests were expected to stay for at least as long as it took to finish. Travers hadn't
elaborated on why that was. (Which was better than Nott at least, who would do the same thing,
only with a rude insinuation or two.)

"This could be a matter of life and death," continued Hermione. "You've seen the Aurors about the
castle. I've had tea with two of them. And I've come to the conclusion that the Ministry is aware of
a danger to the public, even if they won't say what it is. They're so scared that they'll send Aurors to
walk students, even adults like you and I—" she turned to each member of the club, hoping they
couldn't see her nervous fingers gripping tightly to her wand—"to the Quidditch games in groups,
as if they were expecting that someone who would brave the Hogwarts enchantments and attack
students at the pitch could do it. I think we ought to be concerned about that. And I think we ought
to be enterprising."

She paused, taking a sip of whisky from her glass and feeling it scorch her throat, filling her belly
with a pleasant warmth. Summoning the conviction for which Tom had always praised her, she
said, "If my life is in danger, I refuse to quietly sit down and be taken care of in the way the
Ministry feels is best. But if you agree with the Ministry, then I won't insist you sacrifice the rest of
your Hogsmeade visit for me. In that case, I will happily bid you a good day, with no ill feelings
between us."

The Slytherin boys glanced around the table, then at her, but after each had taken his measure of the
others, no one moved to leave. There was not even a single tentative chair scrape from someone
attempting to bluff another into going first.

"Uh, Granger..." ventured Rosier, breaking the silence at last. "If what you said was true, what do
you intend to do about it? Does Riddle know you're planning something?" He coughed and added,
"Oh, and Quidditch dilettantes who think it's just a 'game', by the way, are wrong. It's not a game
played for fun, because it's not about fun. It's about winning."

"Thank you, Rosier," said Hermione, giving him a polite nod. She wasn't sure if he'd personally
called her a 'dilettante', but since it was related to Quidditch, she wasn't going to argue the point. "I
intend to practice duelling. Not stage duelling from Professor Merrythought's club with the point
tallies and penalty marks, but proper duelling to instill in ourselves the capacity to react and
respond to real threats. Duelling with multiple partners against multiple opponents." Hermione
remembered Tom teaching the others how to cast Shield Charms back in Fifth Year. "So far in
Defence class, we've only been taught how to cast defensive shields for ourselves, and cast
offensive spells at a practice dummy or one other student assigned as our class partner. That may
well be appropriate for passing the standards set for the exams, but do you think this is how it
would work in reality? Would any real opponent trying to catch you with a Diffindo stand still for
you, because there are twenty other students in the room and he didn't want your spell to go flying
off and hitting the person beside you? Would real enemies sort themselves into neat little age
brackets to make sure it's fair?

"I've thought about it, and I'm sorry to say that as much as I like Professor Merrythought, the
Defence classes aren't good enough. Even in our Homework Club lessons, once we'd mastered a
spell in a controlled environment, we moved on to the next. It taught us little about our ability to
use the spell when we really needed it, when we didn't have the time to think through our
visualisations before casting."

"Oh," and Hermione said, as a brief afterthought, "Tom did tell me he approved, saying I was better
suited to take the lead in this. He thinks that my patience is infinite relative to his own, and you
would understand what he meant by that."

She refrained from quoting Tom's final words: And remember what I said about the chinless
inbreds? If anyone should be putting them in their place, it's you. Trust me, Hermione, you'll have
to learn to do it sooner or later.

At once, Hermione was assaulted by a volley of questions.

"Does this mean we can use spells outside the competition legal list?"

"How are we going to practice duelling in a classroom? It's too small for running around."

"Battlefield duellists use Unforgivables—are you and Riddle going to teach us?"

"Won't Riddle be sore if you get cursed in a duel?"

"One at a time, please," said Hermione. "I've decided that if we're to learn how to use area effect
spells, the best place to do it is outside, on the grounds. The snow's melting, so we can go outside
without having to choose between four layers of jumpers or freezing our toes off. I'll allow spells
outside the student duelling list, and spells outside the Hogwarts curriculum. But you have to use
sensible discretion; if you know your lack of experience with a spell will have a good chance of
sending someone to the Hospital Wing, then the Hospital Wing must be able to fix it with no
permanent harm done. Nothing that will send anyone to St. Mungo's—and definitely no
Unforgivables!"

She sent a stern a glare around the table. "This practice is for our own benefit, so keep that in mind.
It doesn't benefit you or me if we're expelled right before graduation for botching a spell that we
didn't research before using it on another person. If an advanced spell needs that much control, then
you should be practising your control before opening advanced-level spellbooks. Besides, if we're
expelled, how will we take our N.E.W.T.s? We've been preparing for them for the past year and a
half!"

"I don't mind missing my N.E.W.T.s," Avery offered.

"Well, I mind." To forestall any more arguments from that corner, Hermione said, "And so would
Tom. He'd be very disappointed if he wasn't allowed to take his N.E.W.T.s because of something
one of you did."

Before she answered more questions, Hermione took a roll of parchment out of her bag and
presented it to the Slytherins. She'd written up a permission slip that laid out a few key points: that
the members of the Homework Club who participated in "practical duelling" did so voluntarily, and
entered with an understanding of the risks involved. If there were any unfortunate outcomes, then
she and Tom couldn't be held liable for the damages. She'd remembered talking to Tom years ago
about his writing essays for one of his dorm mates; back then, she'd worried that if one of them got
caught, then Tom would be the one to face the consequences, because he'd lacked the name and
standing to properly defend himself.
This permission slip was an assurance. Double insurance, since each signatory bore witness for the
others, and there was a clearly delineated penalty clause. On the back of the page, in hidden runes,
she'd marked out a variation of a compulsion enchantment she'd learned about when researching
mind-control magic. If anyone knowingly broke the terms of the agreement, then the other signers
would be compelled to shun him. Even if they dined together at a shared table, the oathbreaker
would not be talked to or even looked at; he would be treated as worse than invisible.

"...I didn't want to do it," Hermione said apologetically, passing the parchment to Travers, who sat
nearest to her. He signed, passed it to Rosier, then to Black, who took a few minutes to read the
small print before signing his name with a flourish.

"Learning to duel is important, not just to me. And one of the fundamentals of team duelling is that
we must be able to trust each other. We mightn't be at the same footing of blood-bound brothers—
or blood sisters. Not today, or tomorrow. That's fine for now. But we should start somewhere, and I
couldn't think of a more persuasive way to do it than a... a form of persuasion. Though the good
news is," Hermione added, "you can leave the duelling practices and only come to the fortnightly
meetings for textbook N.E.W.T. revision, and you won't be punished. So long as you hold to the
terms of the agreement. If everyone keeps true to his word, then I'll destroy the parchment at the
end of term."

Mulciber squinted at the parchment on the table in front of him. When Black prodded him and held
out the inked quill, Mulciber studied Hermione with wary eyes. "What's your angle, Granger? What
advantage to you get from this?"

"N.E.W.T. exams—"

"You want us to do stuff outside the textbooks. That's not on the exam, for any subject. If you want
to think of yourself as my bound sister," Mulciber scoffed, "then have the grace to speak plainly to
me, your favourite brother."

"I..." Hermione hesitated. Her plan had been to maintain the superior position, but her honest
response was not that flattering. She knew that Tom would have found it easy to lie to retain his air
of superiority. Hermione didn't want to. She had put that penalty in the contract, so if she was
superior in some manner, then it wasn't moral superiority. "I think the world is a dangerous and
unforgiving place. The quiet seclusion that Wizarding Britain has enjoyed for the past few decades
has allowed people to forget something what once was, and should still be, a matter of common
sense. If I should have to fight for my own survival, then I'll do it with the best chances I can, thank
you."

"You take Arithmancy, that's like Divination but with squiggles and sums, isn't it?"

"Er, the 'squiggles' are Greek letters."

"Did you do a squiggle reading and foretell that Britain is going to war?" asked Mulciber.

"That's not how Arithmancy works," said Hermione. "But if I said yes, would you believe me?"

"I would, yeah."

"Then, yes, I believe there is a reasonable certainty that Britain's isolationist policy will reach a
tipping point within the next year or so."
"Why didn't you just say so?" said Mulciber, finally taking the proffered quill from Orion Black.
"You know, Granger, if any sister of mine was good at picking horses, then she'd be worth leaving
on the tapestry, if you follow my lead."

"I'm pleased to hear it," Hermione awkwardly replied. "As a word of sisterly counsel: anyone with
a consistent record of success at the races could make more money in other ways. The Daily
Prophet's annual Grand Prize Draw or pound sterling-Galleon arbitrage, for instance. Um, not that I
condone it or anything!"

Once she had finished the explanations and gotten the full set of signatures, the tension eased
somewhat. It helped that the Firewhisky bottle had been passed around again, and Hermione, with a
surreptitious peek around for the bartender, refilled it with a wave of her wand. It was impolite for
guests at a drinking or dining establishment to magically duplicate their purchases, but the
Firewhisky was rather dear. Although she had taken money out of her book budget to buy one
bottle, Hermione hadn't accounted for how much the boys would put away, considering it was the
middle of the day.

It wasn't a school day, she was informed, and that was the difference which mattered.

As the drink flowed, so did the conversation. Hermione took out a blank roll of parchment to jot
down important ideas.

"My father told me that most wizards can't perform spells non-verbally to save their lives. If you
Silence them before they can speak, you may have a chance to beat them even if they know more
spells than you do," said Travers. "Even top wizards cast Unforgivables verbally. That's how they
get convicted, witness testimonies from people who heard them."

"High level spells, or spells that require highly specific intents, are easier cast verbally," said
Hermione. "If I wanted to Summon the bottle, I could say 'Accio Firewhisky' and it would work,
because there's only one bottle. If I wanted a cup, then 'Accio cup' would be ambiguous, because
there are seven of them here on the table. I would need to append the incantation with a direction or
location, like 'Accio Rosier's cup'. Casting it silently requires a strong mental definition on who
'Rosier' is, and even more if his sister had joined us and there were two Rosiers."

Rosier said, "That would be hard to cast if you can't speak. Harder, even, if it was at night and you
couldn't see..."

Black added his own contribution: "Anyone who can non-verbally cast Finite Incantatem is
resistant to being Silenced."

"There are other ways to force a silence," Lestrange said. "My library at home has a book with
pictures that shows you how to curse someone's mouth off. As in no mouth at all, just smooth skin,
really eerie stuff. I wanted to try it out, but I couldn't make sense of the instructions—something
about envisaging 'the malleability of Meissen dolls, wet in the mould'. Wet mould? What does that
have anything to do with cursing off mouths?"

"Lestrange, you uncultured pig," Black said mockingly. "Meissen dolls are those expensive little
chinaware figures old witches collect for their curio shelves. The best ones have had their
animation charms going strong after two hundred years."

"How am I supposed to know that?" complained Lestrange. "My grandfather locked up the
heirloom gallery years ago, after he caught me riding my broomstick in the house."
"I don't know," said Black with a shrug. "Try reading something other than a Quidditch magazine
now and then; maybe you'll learn something."

"I do read things other than Quidditch magazines," Lestrange protested. "Actual books. You've seen
me with a book, haven't you?" He turned around to Avery and Rosier, on either side of him.

"No," they both said.

"What about that book, the one I showed you?" asked Lestrange. In a lower voice, he added, "The
one with the pictures."

"What book?" said Avery, looking confused.

"I don't know about any book," said Rosier, suddenly appearing very shifty.

"Oh, that book," said Avery, nodding sagely.

"Le Jardin Parfumé! The book with pictures of girls wearing barely a handkerchief to cover their
bosoms—"

"I've never heard of such a disgusting book," Rosier announced loudly. "That sounds unspeakably
vulgar and I definitely was not involved with it in any, way, shape, or form."

"Come off it, weren't you the one who asked to borrow it? When you gave it back a week later, I
could tell by the spine how well-worn Chapter Nine was."

"That's slander, that is. Don't anyone hearken to the ramblings of a madman! Remember back in
First Year, when Lestrange was convinced he was being cursed while he slept? Claimed someone
had sneaked in and gave him that gimp leg of his, with all of us in the dormitory none the wiser.
Mad, I tell you. Utter madness!"

The other boys watched the bickering with interest. Mulciber and Black, who had not been at
Hogwarts when this "sleep curse" drama had apparently occurred, passed the whisky bottle with
smirks on their faces.

"You need to take charge, if we're to ever get anything done," whispered Travers to Hermione.
"Make them stop it."

"Why can't you do it?" she asked.

"I'd get pulled into it, too. But you won't; you're a girl," Travers muttered. "Riddle would have told
them to sort themselves out or he'd sort it for them. Maybe you should do the same."

"Ahem," Hermione gave a light cough. When no one heeded her tactful cue, she drew her wand and
non-verbally cast a Silencing Charm on the instigators of the quarrel. "Shall we return to the main
subject? Theoretically, it should be possible to replicate the effect of cursing off an opponent's
mouth with some form of partial human Transfiguration. As a Transfiguration, it's fully legal in
exhibition duels, and like Lestrange's mouth curse, it takes more than a Finite to counteract it,
because a completed Transfiguration is no longer bespelled. When the subject has finished its
transformation, the spell is also finished.

"The really tricky part is that the target of the spell must perform the reverse Transfiguration non-
verbally. Since that may be too advanced to start with, we'll have a trial practise of non-verbally
countering a simple Silencing Charm and go on from there. Lestrange and Rosier," Hermione said,
nodding at the two reddening faces glaring at each other, "you two can take the lead and
demonstrate how it's done."

The meeting of the Homework Club continued on fairly smoothly. Hermione had noticed the
existence of a natural competitiveness between the boys, which had emerged from its hibernation
when it was noticed that there was no Tom Riddle to compete with. She tried to make use of it in
teaching them how to take turns, because she couldn't think of any better means to motivate them.
They weren't Ravenclaws; there was no inherent desire in them to seek knowledge for knowledge's
sake. When Lestrange and Rosier had gotten their voices back, she allowed them to pick the next
volunteers for non-verbal counterspelling and cast the Silencing Charms themselves, which they
did with gleeful enthusiasm.

She even had a small competition where she Silenced all six of the boys and told them whoever
annulled his spell first was the winner. And the winner's prize was the choice of who would get his
mouth Transfigured off.

Hermione reminded herself that her instructional technique might have been unorthodox, but it
wasn't cruel, because partial Transfigurations like this weren't painful. A bit itchy, a tad crawly, but
not painful when performed by a competent caster, which she was. And while it was considered
good form not to Transfigure other students against their will or as a punishment, the boys had
signed the permission slip which stated they had joined the training without coercion or deception.
As a preparation for the conditions of real combat, it would do them a disservice if they assumed
anyone encountered on a magical battlefield believed in following the unspoken rules of good form
and politeness. Let alone cared about handing around a permission form and performing the
requisite ritual of bow and salute.

When lunchtime rolled around, one of the boys was sent to the Three Broomsticks to collect food
for the group. When he came back with piping hot parcels of battered cod and chips wrapped in
newspaper, Hermione posed another challenge: he who could not Conjure or Transfigure the paper
wrappings into dishes and silverware for the meal must accede to eat with his hands off a greasy
sheet of The Daily Prophet's society pages.

Eating vinegar-doused fried chips with one's fingers from a paper cone was a normal event in
Muggle towns. The boys were horrified by the prospect; Hermione was amused that what she had
thought of as a creative incentive, they saw as a monstrous punishment.

By the time the Aurors had arrived to escort the students back to Hogwarts, the group members had
mastered the non-verbal counter to the Silencing Charm. Hermione encouraged them to practice
non-verbal casting in their spare time, focusing on common household spells with Defence
applications: Summoning, Banishing, Vanishing, and Switching.

"If you can't perform Mastery level extracurricular spells, it's alright. Try to think of other ways to
replicate the effect. Conjuring a lifelike tiger to attack to your opponent is an example of highly
advanced magic. As an alternative, you could Summon a branch, Transfigure it into a cat, Engorge
the cat, then jinx it to attack at your direction. It's not as tidy or as spectacular as having a single
specialised spell to do the job, but each of the components of the spell sequence is within reach for
the N.E.W.T.-level student. If it works at saving your skin, then it hardly matters that it wasn't a
dazzling piece of magic," Hermione said, twirling her wand to break the bubble of charmed Silence
around the tavern table. "Oh, and next week, we shall begin our first field trials. If you insist on
bringing the dazzle, however, that would be the appropriate opportunity to show off your skills.
Perhaps if you do very well, you might even impress Tom."

On their return to the castle—where they were joined by Tom and Nott—they had their names
ticked off a list by an Auror, before being sent to their dormitories to wash up for dinner. When
Hermione and the Slytherins went their separate ways, she was treated with a few muttered
'Thanks, Granger's, with not even a hint of irony.

Ah, emotional growth. What sight could gladden the spirits quite like a heartfelt appreciation of
learning?

At breakfast the next morning, the High Table was empty of Aurors, and the House tables were
awash with owls.

Hermione's first notice of something odd was the clumps of students huddled in the corridors,
whispering to each other as if the Hogwarts rumour mill had got its hands on some salacious news
featuring a Slytherin Prefect and a Gryffindor Quidditch Captain having been caught in the
Astronomy Tower past curfew. But as she neared the clusters and ordered them to move to the side
and stop blocking the halls, she didn't hear the giggles and tittering that she'd expected. The general
mood, she observed with curiosity, was one of trepidation and uncertainty.

The Ravenclaw dining table was quiet, which was not unusual, and occupied with students
immersed in the day's newspaper, also not unusual. But this morning, it wasn't just the Ravenclaw
table reading avidly, it was all four of the House tables, and the teachers, too.

"Don't you usually get the newspaper for the horoscope page?" Hermione remarked to her dorm
mate, Twyla Ellerby, who was so intent on reading The Daily Prophet's cover story that her
porridge had gone cold and grown a skin. "Did something happen yesterday? People normally
aren't that interested in following current affairs."

"Oh, Hermione, it's dreadful news, really dreadful," Twyla replied excitedly. "I knew it was going
to happen, naturally, after seeing the Grim in my tea leaves last week. The Grim!" The papers gave
an exuberant rattle. "I'm going to write about it in this week's portents diary; I don't care that
everyone else taking Divination is going to have the same entry."

"Write about 'it'?" Hermione said, trying to read through the shaking pages and animated
photographs on the cover sheet of today's Daily Prophet. The jittering images and mismatched
typefaces always gave her a headache; she preferred the London papers for a reason. "What exactly
is 'it'?"

"The biggest news of the year!" said Siobhan Kilmuir, dropping into the bench on Hermione's other
side, a wrinkled newspaper folded over her arm. "For my diary exercises, I kept drawing the Eight
of Wands." At Hermione's blank stare, she elaborated: "That means important messages, swift
changes, and depending on the moon phase, heeding the instincts of your inner eye. I didn't know
what it meant until today, and then it struck me all at once! What else could it be? I ran to the
Owlery this morning to tell Mum that my inner eye had opened, but there was a queue all the way
down to the bottom of the stairs, so I couldn't get in. You'd think my Gift would warn me about
that! Ah, but it can't be commanded; I am but its humble vessel in this mortal plane..."

"What's the news?" Hermione grabbed the newspaper off Siobhan's arm and read the headline.
"Oh."

Under the masthead, the headline blared out in big black letters.

MINISTRY TAKEN BY STORM!

The animated feature photograph depicted a fantastical wintry landscape of falling snow under an
evening sky, the snowdrifts lit by charming fairy lights that twinkled like lanterns in a cottage
window. Then Hermione peered closer and noticed that the evening sky was, in fact, the dark tiles
on the walls of the Ministry of Magic Atrium. And what she'd mistaken for fairy lights were distant
spellbursts flying through the snow, taken from a photographer who hadn't dared to get too close to
the action but nevertheless recognised the potential of a good composition.

The Ministry of Magic, London, 3PM.

Ministry officials detected the presence of two unidentified visitors yesterday afternoon, to
which they immediately responded with an attempt at peaceful detainment. To the Ministry's
dismay, these black-hooded visitors were disinclined to reveal their names or surrender their
wands for weighing, and put up an energetic resistance to Atrium guards. A short verbal
confrontation between the two parties resulted in a most impressive performance of the
defensive arts within recent British history.

Madam Griselda Marchbanks, 79, Governor of the Wizarding Examinations Authority,

described the event as "a magnificent demonstration of elemental magics raised to the
pinnacle of their potential. This cannot be the capable handiwork of any workaday wizard, but
one with a thorough understanding of magical principles combined with uncommon power
and precision, considering the deliberate lack of human casualties. Simply beautiful
charmwork; it would have been a great honour to have had this Charms Master as my student.
Shame about the Atrium, though I have never liked the tile myself. It might be easy to keep
scrubbed, but it is rather drab."

Mr. Sherwin Cutcheon, 47, Department Head of Magical Accidents of Catastrophes quoted,
"Unfortunately, repairs for this incident will surpass the labour hours of routine assignments
undertaken by the department. Because the individuals responsible charmed snow from a
physical mist, unfreezing it resulted in an unavoidable cloud formation near the Atrium
ceiling. Travellers, pleased be advised to carry umbrellas for the next week when commuting
on Ministry business. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience."
 This feat of magic perhaps rivals the great wizarding duel of Godric's Hollow, which some
readers may recall occurred during the summer of 1899 when...

Before Hermione could read the rest of the story under the fold line, the newspaper was snatched
out of her hands.

"Hey!" said Siobhan. "You should get your own paper, I'm not finished reading it!"

Surveying the Ravenclaw table, Hermione saw that there were no abandoned newspapers; students
who didn't have their own papers huddled in groups of two or three around someone who did have
a Daily Prophet. She could have, in the name of the Head Girl, demanded a lower-year student
surrender his paper, but she thought it a judicious decision not to encourage defiance to authority on
the day when Authority had had a great blow struck against it. And it was also a misuse of her
position, of course.

She looked across the Great Hall to the Slytherin table, where it appeared that Tom hadn't any
reservations about using his own authority to commandeer a newspaper from a fellow student. The
Slytherins were more subdued in their reactions than the other Houses, and Tom's Slytherin group
in particular seemed as if they were hanging on fretful tenterhooks for Tom to finish perusing the
paper and divulge his personal opinion on the events. Tom himself was not visibly peturbed by the
news; with one hand, he wandlessly stirred a spoon in lazy circles in his teacup, while the other
turned the pages of his newspaper. The corner of his mouth was quirked in a small, self-satisfied
smile, but that wasn't an unusual expression in Tom's limited range of publicly demonstrable
emotions. From knowing him for so long, Hermione could only guess that Tom was amused;
something in the paper had tickled his rather elusive and incomprehensible funny bone.

(Contrary to expectations, Tom did have a funny bone. Most of the time, she hardly noticed it
because it had a habit of being annoyingly cryptic. But then when she did notice it, it often came
with an equal helping of regret. Tom Riddle's sense of humour, like the rest of his unique attributes,
was... "special".)

Well, thought Hermione, I don't suppose I have another choice.

She picked up her breakfast plate and marched over to the Slytherin table. When Tom noticed the
shadow looming over his newspaper, he glanced up and saw it was Hermione.

To the large and ravenous forms of Lestrange and Avery at either elbow, Tom gave a single curt
order.

"Move."

The occupants of the bench seats shifted down with a handful of suppressed grumbles, but soon
there was room enough for Hermione to put down her plate of eggs on toast next to Tom's. Tom
made sure he didn't sit on the hem of her skirt when she plopped herself in the spot next to his;
Hermione ensured she wasn't sitting on his robes and pressing them into wrinkles—one of the rare
crimes worthy of subtracting points from Tom's own House. Hermione Summoned a clean cup and
saucer from the stack in the centre of the long table, and Tom poured perfectly steeped tea from his
own pot, kept under a Stasis Charm, and the exact amount of milk she preferred, followed by a
wandless stir. They didn't even need to speak to enact such a scene of easy domesticity, borne from
years of habit.
"You must have been wondering what I make of all this," said Tom, gesturing at the open
newspaper. "Oh, and good morning to you too, Hermione."

"It goes without saying that Britain, with bated breath, awaits what you of all people think about
anything," said Hermione. "Good morning, Tom."

"See, Nott? This is what an exemplary minion looks like." Tom spoke over the table to Nott, who
was glowering at his own newspaper. Then he turned to Hermione and said, "The Ministry couldn't
keep itself from flailing frantically to avoid accusations of incompetence, and the reporting was so
credulous it was like they had no other choice but to nod along. They're relying on outsider
quotations to maintain the impression of even-handedness in praising the heroes along with the
Ministry. I don't envy the editor in his effort to balance the tightrope between All Is Well from the
Minister's office, and The Sky Is Falling headlines that sell out before noon."

Tom made a scoffing noise, then turned to the front page, pointing to the secondary story under the
fold, entitled UNLIKELY HEROES?

"They should have led with the Prince," said Tom. "Everyone knows the Ministry's strategy with
bad news is to deny and deny until it's forgotten by tomorrow's bad news. It's not news; it's the
standard operating procedure. The Prince is the real news!"

The Prince, as it turned out, was the identity of one of the mysterious "visitors" to the Ministry,
which was revealed in a shocking twist was not two people, but three. The third visitor was the true
villain of the entire saga, a foreign saboteur who had not been known as anything but a quiet and
unremarkable contract labourer. The story had not elaborated on what it meant by "foreign", but
had briefly mentioned that the DMLE, under orders from the Minister's office, was planning to rush
the foreign agent into a Wizengamot trial and a sentence of "The Kiss". The self-proclaimed Prince,
who had taken it upon himself to perform an unconventional citizen's arrest, had written a letter to
The Daily Prophet to defend his personal actions. This letter was printed on the second page.

To the Daily Prophet,

There are few who represent the best interests of the British public as admirably as you do. If
it obliges you to overlook our presumption, then perhaps you may see us as equals in that
regard.

As a token of this regard, from equal to equal, we present you with information that you may
find unexpectedly illuminating. Enclosed below are a pair of extracted memories.

With fond hopes for a future co-operation,

The Prince of Charming

and
The Green Knight

P.S. The DMLE has received the same information. If their story is inconsistent, you will know.
P.P.S. This message has been imbued with an Anti-Tampering Jinx.
Beneath that was a lifelike sketch of the two Unlikely Heroes, the hooked and cloaked figures who
called themselves Knight and Prince, wands upraised and veiled in swirling eddies of animated
snowflakes. One was taller than the other, and his wand was of a lighter wood, which was a bit
unusual, wasn't it? Most wands, like her own, were in some shade of brown. But it was hard to be
certain, as the picture was an engraving shaded with black ink cross-hatching, and the only real
information she could glean from it was that both were male adults. With their choice of names,
that wasn't surprising.

The Prophet anticipates a formal investigation to be conducted by the DMLE at their earliest
convenience. We shall relay faithfully to our readers official developments as they are brought
to light, in the spirit of our unwavering service to the public interest. To the Prince and the
Knight: we cordially impart our sincere intentions to represent your words and endeavours in
the spirit in which they were expressed to us. We hope to maintain an amicable
correspondence, and desire that one day, should you wish to claim your heroic dues, you may
allow us to bear this news to the public for whom we both strive, most loyally, to be of use.

"Well?" Tom demanded, waiting for Hermione to finish reading. "What do you think?"

"Hmm," said Hermione, taking a drink of her tea. "I think that, without the evidence of
extraordinary magical feats, most people would laugh at the prospect of a wizard calling himself a
'Prince'. Noble titles are a Muggle affectation, at least in Britain—although Mr. Pacek has said
things are different in the territories of the former Holy Roman Empire, with their system of
partible inheritance. Few wizards care for titles because it requires involvement in Muggle politics,
and often swearing fealty to Muggle rulers. Even fewer self-respecting wizards would care to be at
the beck and call of a Muggle who wants all his problems solved with magic—Chapter 23, A
History of Magic. Historically, English wizards with noble titles were granted them by Muggles:
Sir Nicholas was knighted by King Henry VII, the Bloody Baron was ennobled by William II, and
Lady Luckless from The Fountain of Fair Fortune married a Muggle knight. The Hogwarts
Founders didn't even use titles; they chose to let their abilities and accomplishments speak for
themselves. And one of the lessons of the Merlin story is that he legitimised Arthur, a Muggle boy,
as the rightful king instead of taking it for himself.

"The small group of British wizards who might be interested in perpetuating a hierarchy of fictional
styles have very little in common with the group who would want to loudly announce their close
relations with Muggles. And furthermore, in a post-Statute of Secrecy era where wizards are
completely divorced from Muggle politics by necessity and interest, claiming lordly and princely
titles is an act of tasteless pretension."

She heard Nott snicker into his breakfast, "As usual, more verbose than necessary. And as usual,
she's right."

Tom stiffened and his dark eyes narrowed with displeasure. Nott's snickering fell silent.

"Are you saying that the Prince and the Knight are trying to ape Muggles, then?" asked Tom.

"If they had simply called themselves 'Prince' and 'Knight', I would believe so," said Hermione.
"But they didn't choose the titles by themselves, they're one part of the total appellation. It's not so
much a title as a literary reference: Prince Charming and the Green Knight! They're not exactly the
type of names meant as a declaration of self-important grandiosity or to strike fear in the hearts of
men. The names are meant to... to evoke whimsy, to intentionally draw reference to the themes and
motives of the originals."

"It's 'The Prince of Charming'," Tom corrected her, with the grammatical pedantry of which
Hermione was more frequently accused. "Not 'Prince Charming'!"

"Oh," said Hermione, "Yes, you're right. I wonder what that means. Why not go with the more
famous literary pseudonym, Prince Charming? It's an odd choice, isn't it?"

"I don't think it's that odd," remarked Tom. "If we're talking about the structure of noble styles, the
'of' indicates a nobleman's fiefdom, his domain of ownership. The Prince of Charming isn't a
charming prince prancing about at tourneys. He's the Princeps, the first and foremost, in Charms
spellwork. It is quite obvious to anyone who stops and thinks about it!"

Hermione frowned. "You sound like you admire him."

"Anyone who embarrasses the Ministry, gets away with it, and is praised for it the next day by the
papers sounds pretty admirable," said Tom. "What are your thoughts, Nott? Do you think the Green
Knight wishes he had chosen a grander title for himself?"

Nott shrugged, jabbing his fork at the coddled egg perched atop his black pudding. "I think his
story speaks for itself. 'Thou art confessed so clean; I holde thee polished of that plight, and pured
as clean'. A man who confesses of his failures to the knight in green shall be purged of his sins.
Given a reward of purification. It's an appropriate name for someone who obtains confessions at the
point of a blade, or a wand, in his case. It's not meant to be a grand title, it's symbolic. Some of us,
unlike others, can appreciate the merits of subtle symbolism."

"If it's too subtle, no one will understand it," said Tom. "They wrote to The Daily Prophet; the
readers' understanding of subtlety barely surpasses that of the average household boggart. Any
more than that, and it goes right over their heads. Did you understand it, Hermione?"

"I assumed it was a reference to the Arthurian tale about Sir Gawain," said Hermione. "I know the
Arthurian romances are one of the few Muggle stories wizards enjoy, because the setting is
magical. The Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts puts on a Camelot-themed production nearly
every year because it brings in the rich patrons. In our Fifth Year, it was The Lake of Shining
Waters, about Elaine of Shalott. In Sixth Year, they had... oh! Le Chevalier Vert. Perhaps the
mysterious Green Knight is a patron of wizarding theatre. That explains making such a big scene in
the Ministry, of all places. It's a show. And we, along with the British public, are to provide his
audience and applause."

Tom's expression was thoughtful. "What's made you so cynical, Hermione? That's my job. Or was,
if you've decided that it's a better fit for you."

"Having one's darkest suspicions granted a firm confirmation tends to do that," said Hermione.
"Doesn't it make you the least bit discouraged to know that the largest employer in the country has
had their duties upstaged by two anonymous wizards playing out their own folk hero fairy story?
Then when they're asked about it, the government pretends nothing is wrong, and even if there are
problems, we shouldn't be worried. Given the facts, we end up with two possible paths: rational
cynicism and blissful ignorance. Neither of them are particularly enjoyable to walk."
Hermione took a deep breath, feeling a great weariness descend upon her, not far removed from
how she'd felt standing over the unconscious body of Roger Tindall, on the floor of the Riddle
family's billiards room. It was the uncomfortable cognisance that the life she wished she could have
had—a quiet and peaceful existence of learning at her own pace, on subjects that she was
personally interested in, rather than those that were selected for their necessity and practicality—
was a fragile illusion. In Obliviating Roger that night, she had chosen to uphold the illusion of
being removed from a war that had nothing to do with her.

The reason, she had discerned, was due to her own nature. She was not one who sought conflict;
there was no honour to it by which she felt bound. Conflict was unpredictable. Messy and
disorganised and painful, even for those on the sidelines. There was no glory to tempt her, only a
burden to be shouldered.

And the news of the morning? This was conflict baring its face to the daylight. She could refuse to
involve herself one time, but that was no permanent dismissal. It would come again, and again, and
at one critical moment there would be no choices anymore.

Reading the newspaper, she felt that moment approaching, and some part of her wanted to retreat to
her parents' arms and let them tell her it wasn't right, it wasn't fair, that their daughter should have
to bear it when it was supposed to be someone else's task. Allow those with the proper
accreditations and the correct jurisdictional authority to take charge. Wasn't that the most logical
solution? Who was she to know better than those with credentials and expertise? Another part of
her, the voice of pragmatism that had stopped complaining about Tom sneaking into her bed during
summer holidays, reminded her that those same people were not worth depending on.

Under the table, Tom's hand drifted across to her side, and with the thin stocking separating her
flesh from his hot palm, he gave her knee a reassuring squeeze. She turned to him with a question
on her lips, and saw that while his expression on the surface appeared mild, his dark eyes were
sharp as flint.

"No," said Tom firmly, "I've changed my mind. You're not suited for cynicism at all. I don't like it
on you, and you don't enjoy it either, so I think it best that you dispense with it for good and leave it
for others to whom it's more tolerable of a habit."

"You won't 'allow' me to be cynical?" said Hermione, with much incredulity. "For your information,
Tom, I can be as cynical as I want to be."

"Yes, I know, the Head Girl can do as she pleases; that's the rule," said Tom patiently. His hand still
lingered on her knee. "But just because she can, doesn't means she has to—is that not the emotional
growth that you commended me for only yesterday? You shouldn't want to be cynical, that's the
thrust of it. Other people can be cynical, but not you.

"Your father lent me books on Greek and Latin years ago," Tom said, turning in his seat to face her.
"In one of them, Plato said in his Laws that honour was derived from wicked souls following the
good counsel of their betters, because the soul's divine inclination is to bend toward virtue. Greek
virtue, which meant the blessings of being just but gentle, wise and fair. Without the gentle souls,
the wicked ones would be irredeemable." He lowered his voice, and with his eyes fixed so intently
on hers that she couldn't bring herself to look away, he murmured, "Plato wrote that the wicked
were of a self-serving nature. What if I've a wicked soul, Hermione? Without you, who would be
my good counsel?"
"Tom," said Hermione, shaking her head, "life isn't a theoretical experiment like Plato's utopia. I
can't help it if I don't feel blessed and fair every single day. It's an unreasonable expectation to
have."

"Perhaps you can't help it," Tom replied. "But I can. You haven't forgotten that you're my foil, have
you, Hermione? We're supposed to be of complementary natures, not one and the same."

"If only I could forget," Hermione sighed, refilling her cup from Tom's teapot. It was the perfect
temperature of hot but not too hot, a reflection of Tom's insistence that everything had to follow a
certain order, the way it was "supposed to be". That supposed ideal, of course, was decided by Tom
himself.

Tom must have realised that the Slytherins sitting at their end of the table had been listening
intently to their discussions, eager to hear an intelligent opinion on the news. The news discussion
had wandered into personal waters, but that hadn't stopped them from listening. It was clear that the
personal lives and feelings of the Head Boy and Head Girl were just as, if not more, fascinating
than the news that Grindelwald had moved pieces on a chessboard that the Ministry had for the past
decade declared did not exist.

"What, is the Hogwarts breakfast not up to par?" Tom snapped, glaring around the table.

With a clatter of silverware, breakfast resumed. For a short while, the illusion of normality was
upheld. The background conversations resumed. Hermione finished her toast and drank her tea.
Tom put aside his newspaper and talked about the research he was doing for his next published
article. When the dishes disappeared, signalling that mealtime had drawn to its close, Tom offered
her his arm and escorted Hermione to her next class, Muggle Studies, which he didn't share.

They discussed his latest subject of interest on the walk. "Wedding season is coming soon, and the
editor wants me to focus on preparing for society weddings. Black and Prewett marry in August;
that's the highlight of the season. It's also the season for blooming, and it's considered bad luck for
brides to use Conjured bouquets for their arrangements. Cheap, too, but Witch Weekly's too tasteful
to point that out directly, so we write 'Whatever will the neighbours think?' and let the readers fill in
the blanks. Oh, and when I was looking for information in the library the other day, I happened
upon the most diverting read: Magical Matrimonials. Have you read it?"

"No, I haven't," said Hermione, "But then again, I haven't poked around in the wizarding culture
section since Second Year. I found that the information in the law and justice section was more
concrete and useful. Did you find anything valuable?"

"Some interesting features on the nuances of wizarding marriages," said Tom casually, glancing at
her out of the corner of his eye. "Did you know that when a wizard takes a wife, it's expected for
his home to be hers? And that her happiness is to be his as well?"

"That does sound... interesting." Hermione was puzzled at the direction of the conversation. "It's
not dissimilar to Muggle wedding vows, so I can't see why this is new information to you."

"The difference is that wizarding vows are made with magical intent," said Tom. "I didn't
understand what their purpose was until this morning, and then it became clear. If a witch's
happiness is her husband's delight, then it stands to reason that your unhappiness becomes my
sorrow. I know I was a bit, well, officious about it at breakfast, but I don't like it when you're
cynical because it's unpleasant for the both of us. You know about my inborn gift, how I can feel
things from others without meaning to, when they're lying or truthful. I... Hermione, I felt your
unhappiness, and in that moment, your unhappiness was my unhappiness."

He stopped, and Hermione, holding onto his arm, was jerked to a halt mid-stride. Tom leaned in
close, and in a low voice, said, "I would wish for your happiness, Hermione. I've never put much
by ancient tradition or dusty convention, but I see the heart beneath the rules and rituals—the true
intent."

"O-oh," stuttered Hermione. "I should wish happiness for you in turn, Tom. Of course I would."

"I'm heartened to hear it," Tom said, giving her a toothy, gleeful smile he never showed in public,
the one she saw when he'd talked his way into a blank Restricted Section pass and the librarian
could do nothing about it. "And very glad that you know the words of the witch's vow without
having read the book, which means you could skip the rehearsals if you wanted it. Ah, Hermione, I
always knew, from the first time we met..." He trailed off, his voice soft and thoughtful. "Huh, so
the book was right about the husband's delight. It is real."

"Tom," Hermione said, frowning. "I think this conversation has drifted away from the article you
were writing."

"I'll keep it between us, don't worry. No one else deserves to hear about my feelings," Tom
reassured her. He let go of her arm and with one hand, cupped her cheek in his palm. Looking
closely into her eyes, he whispered, "Do you know what else I learned from the book?"

Hermione gazed up at him, his dark eyes and black pupils that wanted to swallow her up. She
couldn't feel the tickling sensation in the back of her mind like the Occlumency book had
described; he wasn't actively using Legilimency. She could only feel the tickle of her hair being
swept gently aside by his fingers. "What did you learn, Tom?"

"If a witch's happiness is her husband's delight," he said, "then her pleasure is his satisfaction."

Tom pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, right beside her mouth, and withdrew his embrace, leaving
Hermione flushed and trembling against the cold stone wall. She was short of breath, and her heart
fluttered far too quickly, and she almost wanted to call Tom back—

To explain what he meant by such ambiguous words!

When he walked away, chuckling quietly to himself, Hermione remembered the time and stumbled
to Muggle Studies in a daze. Clarence Fitzpatrick had reserved her a seat in the front row, and while
moving his bookbag off the bench to make room, he noticed her pink cheeks and rumpled hair.
Absent-mindedly, Hermione ran a hand through her fringe. Tom had stolen her hairclip, for some
reason.

"Were you upset about the news this morning, too?" asked Clarence. "It was such a shock when I
saw the papers..."

And in the span of a few seconds, the fragile illusion of relative normality wisped away into thin
air.
Over the next few days, The Daily Prophet published more information on the Ministry
investigation.

Mr. Vajkard Kozel was a genuine saboteur, and his target wasn't an empty threat to proliferate
distrust and hysteria amongst the British public. The Department of Magical Games and Sports had
called an indefinite postponement of the British Quidditch League season, to the great
disappointment of sports enthusiasts who wrote many irate Letters to the Editor. (There were even a
few transcribed Howler messages, with the swear words censored out for propriety's sake.)

A few details of Mr. Kozel's ward disruption scheme had been analysed by professionals, who had
unanimously agreed that his idea of inserting his own enchantments within an existing enchantment
structure were somewhat experimental. But as the experiment was based on established concepts of
wardcrafting they were, in theory, achievable.

Hermione devoured the "ward within a ward" schematic explanations, and applied it to her personal
project of preparing for the Homework Club's upcoming field practicals. She read that it was
possible to define the boundaries of an independent ward contained within another ward created by
someone else, if one ensured that the interior ward's definitions were carefully written without
direct contradiction to the superior ward's fundamental intent. That was how the enchantments in
the Headmaster's Office worked, she found out. The Common Room fireplaces couldn't be used to
Floo elsewhere, but the Headmaster's could, because there was an inner layer in the Office that
gave permission but didn't oppose the greater directive laid by the Founders, of protection.

With this in mind, she created a set of seven wooden stakes carved with runic incantations, to
replicate the "inner layer" effect. This boundary, when spells were directed at it, would absorb the
magical energy and disperse it into the outer layer. Anyone inside the boundary defined within the
stakes casting Blasting Curses would not have his curse whizz out and hit random students walking
to Herbology or Flying Class, an incident which would put paid to their extracurricular learning
exercises. If a stray curse was not absorbed by another wizard's Shield Charm or Conjured physical
barrier, then upon reaching the bounded line, it would be sucked in by the nearest stake and
directed into the earth that it was pounded into, all of which was contained within the wards set
over the Hogwarts grounds.

It was a rough idea, but it worked, with certain restrictions. Hermione needed level ground with a
deep enough layer of earth, and a heptagonal area large enough for half a dozen adult wizards to
run about without tripping over each other's robes. That wasn't so easy to find, and it forced
Hermione to venture, rather regretfully, from her favourite library table and into the fresh air of the
outdoors to find the right location. That was not an easy task in a school located in the highlands of
Scotland; she hoped the Slytherins would appreciate her sacrifice.

So she rambled the heathered hills, as the Scottish poets described the miserable chore, homemade
plumb bob in hand. On one morning, however, she couldn't help but notice Rosier walking the path
from the castle to the Quidditch Pitch. He had a pair of opera glasses dangling from a strap on his
wrist, and wore his outdoor clothing of Slytherin scarf and winter-weight woollen cloak. It being
the natural thing to do, she followed him and found him sitting in the Slytherin section of the
stands, glumly watching the Hufflepuff Quidditch team fly laps around the perimeter of the field.
Sebastian Rosier was a young man of lean proportions, his hair an indeterminate shade from the
patent leather-like slick of hair lotion applied with too liberal a hand. His skin was perpetually
wind-chafed on the cheeks and nosebridge, and his eyes were a shrewd and searching dark blue
that, when she faced him in a duel, leapt from face to wand to feet and back again with an alarming
rapidity. He had better reflexes than most in their little group, almost as good as Tom (who cheated
by reading his opponents' intentions with his special abilities).

She assumed that with those reflexes, Rosier knew someone had climbed up the creaky wooden
steps to the top of the stands. She saw him twitch a little hearing her footsteps, and his head jerked
to the side, but he didn't turn around to look.

"Good morning, Rosier," said Hermione.

"Granger," he said. "Not a day finer, I'll wager. Have you finally come around to studying the
marriage of grace and beauty that is this peerless sport? Seventh Year is a bit late, but better late
than never." In an unhappy grumble, he added, "So says the Department of Magical Games and
Sports."

"Is that why you're here?" Hermione asked. "The beauty of the sport?"

There was a brief lull in their conversation as they observed the Hufflepuff Seeker attempt a low,
stooping dive. He couldn't pull up his broomstick fast enough at the bottom of the dive, and was
flung off the broom and into the sand at the base of the goalhoops. It looked painful; when one of
the Chasers alighted to help the Seeker get up, he was walking bow-legged. Rosier gave a
sympathetic wince.

"I'm absorbing as much Quidditch into my veins as I can, before the end of the term," said Rosier.
He held his arms out, as if he was basking in the rosy glow of subatomic Quidditch particles
emitted by the Hogwarts school pitch. "This year's British League Championship is dead. The
Ministry killed it. Come July, there won't be any professional games to attend. No League Cup, and
I had sixty Galleons riding on the winner. Probably no job for me at the DMG&S when I graduate,
either."

Rosier continued to grumble, his voice growing louder and louder as he spoke. "The Minister's a
useless bungler. That Kozel fellow is a loose-hafted knave, a fiend of the lowest order. A wretched
cocklorel, is Grindelwald. How could he do this to me? Fuck him. Fuck Grindelwald. There, I said
it! I'm not taking it back!" He was shouting by now. "FUCK GRINDELWALD!"

The Quidditch players stopped mid-air and stared at the Slytherin stands.

Rosier coughed lightly, and in his normal voice said, "Pardon my French, Granger." To the
Hufflepuffs, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "CARRY ON! BURROWES,
DROP SPEED AND BRACE YOURSELF ON THE FOOTRESTS WHEN YOU PULL UP,
DON'T LEAN ON THE NOSE!" At Hermione's reaction, Rosier shrugged. "If you can't dance on
air as easily as you breathe it, you're not worthy of calling yourself a Quidditch player. Sometimes I
don't know why I bother."

"Er, that makes sense," said Hermione, gingerly taking the spot on the bench beside him and
casting a Warming Charm over her robes. She settled in to watch the Hufflepuffs engage in some
basic flying drills. For a while neither she nor Rosier said anything.
After ten minutes of silent appreciation of amateur student athletes who were in every way better at
flying than Hermione ever could be, she posed a question. "Why do you think he targeted
Montrose? I looked it up in the almanac of wizarding geography, and Montrose is a tiny village.
Not even a real village, just a satellite neighbourhood with a handful of streets attached to a Muggle
town. It's not a true mixed town like Godric's Hollow, or an independent village like Hogsmeade."

"Were I the loyal minion of a Dark Lord, Montrose would be the place I'd go for," replied Rosier.
"Looking at the recorded league standings, the Montrose Magpies are consistently at the top of the
chart, placing in between first and fourth every year, depending on how hard the manager is willing
to burn out the current crop of players. Year to year, they rival the Irish for the title of most
Championship trophies in the league. This year, they were ranked number two, next to one of the
Irish teams.

"If the league final wasn't cancelled by the Ministry, it'd most likely come down to the Magpies and
the Ballycastle Bats. The DMG&S would have chosen Montrose as the stadium venue. They never
pick the Irish stadiums, given the choice. It's a matter of logistics." Rosier glanced at Hermione's
puzzled expression. "Come on, Granger, put yourself in the mind of a minion. You can figure it
out!"

"Um," Hermione ventured, "Ballycastle's in Northern Ireland... Do they not want to deal with
hordes of Republicans crossing the border to watch the game? No, wizards don't separate the
island, it's just one Ireland to them."

"It's an island," Rosier said. "That's why. English, Scottish, and Welsh wizards can't Floo across the
sea. Few wizards can Apparate across the sea either, especially not the parents with children to
Side-Along. The families are the ones who buy all the souvenir pennants and toy miniatures, so the
League knows it's best to keep them satisfied. To get the spectators over to Ireland, the Ministry
would have to pay for and provide Portkeys, and that's too expensive for anything but a World Cup.
So they'll pick the team stadium in Britain proper and make the Irish wizards ride the ferry.

"This year, if it was down to the Magpies versus the Bats, there would be five thousand wizards
crammed into a stadium. A stadium attached to a Muggle town. Then once you dismantle the
structural wards, the Muggle-repelling enchantments would go too, and the Muggles would bear
witness to five thousand wizards trapped in a collapsing stadium. Imagine the chaos if you added a
few Anti-Apparition Jinxes at the right places in the stands. Splinching galore." Rosier grimaced.
"If your goal was to cause a rupture in the state of wizarding secrecy, then that would be a job done
well, wouldn't it?"

Hermione blinked. "That's... a surprisingly insightful analysis."

"I may not spend all my recreational hours in the library, but I do read a book every now and then,"
said Rosier reproachfully. "Some of the books have big words and no pictures, even. I got an
Exceeds Expectations for my Arithmancy O.W.L.s, so I must be doing something right."

"Oh, yes," said Hermione. "We're in Arithmancy together. You and Nott sit behind me and Tom in
class. Since we're here, do you mind having a look at a personal project I'm working on? It's for the
duelling practice I'm organising for next week."

From her bag, she pulled out the seven carved wooden stakes of her portable warding scheme. It
was a little like the altered Poacher's Pall ward she'd written in the snow years ago, during the
tentative first stages of her misadventures with Nott. Unlike typical household wards, the effect
boundary created by the stakes wasn't permanently anchored and didn't require the enchantments to
be broken to nullify the effects; all one had to do was pull up the stakes and pack them away.

She gave a short explanation of their purpose, skimming briefly over the admission that she'd been
inspired by the work of the "loose-hafted knave" that Rosier had earlier derided. Rosier seemed to
have understood the implication, for his eyebrows rose when she mentioned reading about the
technique from the newspaper, but he didn't condemn her for it, or even offer more commentary
than a shrugged, "Well, as needs must."

Rosier picked up a stake and inspected the carvings, rolling it over in his palms to inspect the
handiwork. Seven stakes, each planed with seven flat sides that narrowed into a sharp point.

"If you need help with Ancient Runes, you should ask Nott," said Rosier. "My electives are
Divination and Arithmancy. He does Runes and Arithmancy. I know the fundamentals of
enchanting, but don't ask me to translate a runic Edda; I wouldn't know where to start."

"I wanted to ask about Arithmantic properties, actually," said Hermione. "Wenlock's Numerologia
advises the use of seven, or multiples of seven, as a stable basis for applying enchantments. I used
seven stakes, with seven sides, and seven runes per side. Is that the typical way wizards stabilise
magic imbued into physical objects?"

"Not always," Rosier said. "There are other magical numbers in other syllabaries: three, five, eight,
and nine. Magical times of the year, the high solstices and equinoxes. Intrinsically magical
ingredients used as the medium, such as ink brewed from mandrake charcoal or dragon's blood,
keystone tablets masoned from ancient menhirs—similar to Potions in that manner, where you
could also draw power from a wizard's blood and bone, but we all pretend it's a hypothetical
exercise and no one would really do it.

"And then there's my preference," he continued, and Hermione wished he would slow down so she
could pull out her notebook and save his words for later study. "The use of numbers of personal
significance to the subject. For an Arithmantic prediction meant to calculate the ebbs and flows of
your own path, you'd use your own birthdate and the planets in your cosmic alignment. For an
enchantment meant to be placed within the physical bounds of Hogwarts, you might draw on the
number four for its magical significance, which in this specific context has more power than seven.
Four Founders, associated with four elements of earth, water, air, and fire. Linked to the four
cardinal directions." He rubbed the back of his neck and admitted, "This would have worked with
four stakes instead of seven, you know. And saved you half the effort."

"Oh," said Hermione, "I copied the structure from the textbook, and the idea came from the
newspaper article. I didn't know about the personalised magical significance; the book never
mentioned it."

"It's a concept from advanced level Divination," Rosier explained. "Arithmancers and Diviners
don't get on; they have a long-standing intellectual rivalry where Arithmancy claims to be an
evidentiated science, but Divination is vague dream interpretations. While the Diviners say they're
artists of reading the truth of the soul, and Arithmancers are wasting their time trying to calculate
how many souls can fit on the head of a pin. Of course an Arithmancy textbook wouldn't mention
Divination ideas; individual significance ruins the rule of replicability that Arithmancers revere."

Hermione found the conversation fascinating, though she had strong feelings about the importance
of replicability. If everyone got a different answer each time, how would anyone be able to know
who was wrong or right? You couldn't check someone's work if it was based purely on
 interpretation! That was worse than Tom's habit of calculating Arithmantic operations in his head
instead of committing them to paper. At least he arrived on a consistent answer that followed a
series of logical steps that he could explain and repeat.

Had she been discussing the subject with Tom, she didn't think Tom would have had as much
esoteric knowledge as Rosier. Tom's electives were Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, and Care of
Magical Creatures, not Divination. She had no experience in Divination herself, and wasn't
impressed by the "wooliness" that so intrigued her dorm mates, but she could with some accuracy
predict that Tom's answer to the Arithmancer-Diviner rivalry fell squarely on which one would be
most useful in serving his personal goals. He was a very single-minded thinker in that way.

(She could also divine why Tom and Rosier weren't truly "friends", despite Rosier's passion for
certain aspects of magical theory. Maths was a rare interest among wizards, who were as a whole
not particularly logically minded. But Rosier liked odds and algorithms because his goal was to
gamble well. He didn't care much for their Arithmancy class projects because they had nothing to
do with his sporting passions or lining his own pocket. This did not make him good "Foil" material,
by anyone's estimation.)

"Knowing so much about Divination and Arithmancy, I'm surprised you got an Exceeds
Expectations instead of Outstanding in your O.W.L.s," said Hermione.

"That's why I got an EE," said Rosier. "The Arithmancy examiners don't like when students wander
outside the proofs and set theorems. They believe the result of diluting the purity of the discipline is
a profane abomination of empiricalised soothsaying. Uncanny and untrustworthy. Given the
existence of Quodpot, I hardly think they'd recognise a profane abomination if they saw one." His
eyes narrowed, and then suddenly he dragged Hermione to the side and shoved her to the floor of
the stands, his cloak falling over her face and his weight heavy on her back.

Hermione groaned. "What—"

A thunderous crack sounded above them, and Rosier hissed in pain.

The weight disappeared as Rosier leapt up. Drawing his wand, he bellowed at the Hufflepuff
Quidditch players, "FOUL PLAY! THAT'S A FOUL, HURLEIGH, YOU DIRTY, DIRT-
GRUBBING BADGER! TEN POINTS FROM HUFFLEPUFF!"

When Hermione picked herself up from the floor, she saw that the row of seats above theirs had a
hole smashed into it from a poorly-aimed Bludger. Rosier's cloak was covered in wooden splinters.
Down below, Hurleigh, the Hufflepuff Beater, was being lectured by his Captain.

"Is this the marriage of grace and beauty you were talking about earlier?" asked Hermione
innocently, drawing her own wand to clean off Rosier's robes. "Turn around," she ordered, and
began suctioning splinters out of Rosier's shiny, brilliantined hair.

"Yes," said Rosier, bending down so Hermione could reach the top of his head, "but I didn't say
'peace and harmony', so I'm not wrong. It's a marriage, what did you expect?"

Chapter End Notes

— On Slytherin characterisation: In the books, Slytherins aren't refined, super-aristocratic
mini politicians, they're dumb kids who can be as mean, petty, stupid as any other Hogwarts
House. Some are nice, some are selfish, but they're all human. This is how I write them here,
with the added 1940's too-posh-to-live British boarding school flavour. There is no Lord
Malfoy or Lord Black, that isn't canon. The only "Lord" from the books is Voldemort, and
there's a reason why he chose a title: it's grandiose, rare, and breaks the norms of wizarding
society. This is why BoaF Tom wants to be a "Prince", based on the Latin root "Princeps",
meaning "first and foremost". He is addicted to Roman statue shitposting and Machiavelli (see
Chapter 43).

— In a setting where every other pureblood was a powerful political mastermind "Lord" or
"Heir", I don't see any justifiable reason why they would follow around Tom Riddle, random
orphan half-blood claiming to be a Lord and Heir himself. It just doesn't make sense to me. I
think the canon explanation makes more sense if the original Knights of Walpurgis were
regular schoolboys who didn't really like each other and would never form a group
organically, but met a Tom Riddle with a level of intelligence and charisma that makes him a
natural leader. Without Tom, the Slytherins would have nothing in common but being
Slytherins and move on with their separate lives after graduation.

"They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious
seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them
more refined forms of cruelty." —HBP

— Slytherins have a "House Unity" policy where they stand united against the other Houses at
Hogwarts. If students of other Houses get mad that First Year Tom Riddle gets first place in
every subject and doesn't share his notes, Slytherin will back him in public even if they don't
like Muggleborn street urchins. In private, it's fair game and every man for himself. It shows
trust if someone like Hermione is allowed to see behind the curtain.
 Strategic Alliance
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

Magical matrimonial vows, commonly understood to be a formal attestation of deep affection

between wizards and witches, are but one strand of an extraordinary and understudied branch
of the magical arts: soul magic. If one favours an oath with sincere feeling and intent, then
depending on the specific wording, he has made a permanently binding magical contract. As
such, it cannot be so easily gainsaid, even if wizard and witch with mutual assent attempt a
retraction with full sincerity of intent. A notice of annulment from the Ministry of Magic's
Department of Administrative Registration may rescind a civil contract of marriage, but the
binding of soul to soul remains, and one might discover that the same vow cannot be
performed again with another. It is fair to say, then, that divorce within a wizarding society is
infrequent, as should it be...

From the beginning of First Year, Tom had always been the first one up in the Slytherin boys'
dormitory. Sleeping, he believed, was a waste of time when he could be making the best use of his
scant few years at Hogwarts. He could sleep anywhere, but there was no magical library like
Hogwarts'. And he'd been warned, over and over, that going out past the night time curfew was
against the rules, but there was no rule against getting up extra early. The only instance where he
ever slept in was during holidays at the Riddle House. His justification: it wasn't a waste of time,
because regardless of what Hermione preferred to call it, it wasn't exactly sleeping.

It surprised him when, well before dawn, the other boys lit their night lamps, started stumbling
bleary-eyed out of their four-poster beds, and began the chaotic morning symphony of toilet
flushing and shower splashing.

Tom sighed and pulled open his green velvet bed curtains. With a flick of his fingers, he wandlessly
Levitated the book he was in the middle of re-reading, Magical Matrimonials, in front of him. He
planned to continue reading while gathering his clothing and readying himself for the day. It had
been a substantial improvement to his quality of life when he'd finally gotten the hang of being able
to read and turn pages in a book completely hands-free.

Nott, dressed in his long woollen underpants with his silk nightshirt unbuttoned to reveal a slice of
bony bare chest, noticed Tom's reading material first.

"Not fully prepared for the duel, are you, Riddle? What last-minute spells are you brushing up on
now?" Nott tried to grab the book floating in mid-air, but it wouldn't budge even when he put his
entire body-weight behind it. "Magical Matrimonials? Why in Merlin's name are you reading
that?"

"It's interesting," said Tom. He turned a page with the force of his thoughts. "Did you know that
some marriage vows are considered within the category of 'Unbreakable'? If you make the formal,
bonded vow of fidelity, then stray from your marriage, the vow kills you."

"Uh, yes, Riddle," said Nott. "That's what Unbreakable Vows do."

"Seems like a misnomer to me," remarked Tom. "Since you can break the vow, it's not technically
unbreakable. The 'killing you' bit doesn't prevent you from breaking it, it punishes you after the
deed is done. The penalty becomes inconsequential if breaking the vow is valuable enough."

"Well, this may be a revelation to you, but most people think being killed is consequential enough
of a penalty to be worth keeping their vows," said Nott. "What's your interest in this subject?"

The other boys, mostly shirtless and in the case of Lestrange, fully trouserless, had been listening in
to the conversation.

"Oooh," hooted Lestrange, a grin crawling across his face as his brain plodded its tedious way to
the obvious conclusion. "Riddle wants a wedding!"

"Yes," said Tom coolly. "Have you got a problem with that, Lestrange?"

"Er..." Lestrange's grin grew slightly strained. "No. No problem at all. It's respectable and proper
for an adult wizard to take a witch wife on which to father magical children. You haven't... um,
fathered children, have you? That's dishonourable and low-mannered behaviour for unmarried
wizards. Or so I've heard some people say. Heheh..."

"There are no children at present, to my best knowledge," said Tom. "You know me to be an
honourable man in every way, of course."

Lestrange coughed. "Of course."

A silence fell as the boys busied themselves with getting dressed. Rosier quietly Summoned his
duelling gauntlets from his trunk, while Lestrange fiddled with the straps of his shatterproof flying
goggles. Avery plaited his hair back and tied it into a tight knot secured with a Sticking Charm.
Nott counted vials of healing and pain reliever potions before shoving them into his bag. Travers
wrangled with a heavy leather doublet covered in silver studs; it was a size too large for him, and
he had to yank the laces to pull them tight.

"Congratulations, Riddle," spoke Travers into the awkward lull, fingers knotting at his laces.
"Marriage announcements are glad tidings."

His words were echoed by the other boys.

"Felicitations, Riddle."

"Happy blessings."

And from Rosier: "Is it Granger? Is that who you've picked for the future Madam Riddle?"

Tom's gaze bore down on Rosier. The other boy's throat bobbed, but he stood his ground. "Who
else would it be?"

Rosier broke into a cackle. "Ahahah! I told you so, didn't I tell you! Nott, you booby, you owe me
fifteen Galleons!" To Tom, he turned and said, "I knew it couldn't have been anyone else; the
crystals don't lie. So, Riddle, how did it go? How did you ask her? When did you ask her? I haven't
seen her wearing a ring—or did you get a bracelet or necklace instead?"

Tom didn't answer.

"You did ask her, didn't you?" said Nott. "Booby or not, even I know you have to ask the witch and
have her accept you, or it won't count."

"I did make my intentions known during our Christmas holidays of Sixth Year," Tom reluctantly
admitted.

"Well... Did she say yes?"

"It's an operation in progress."

"Looks like you won't be getting your fifteen Galleons, Rosier," said Nott smugly.

"Shut your gob, Nott," snapped Lestrange. "Riddle doesn't need to explain himself to the likes of
you." To Tom he said, "We'll help you, if you want. I know a man in Knockturn Alley who can get
his hands on a full set of heirloom-quality bridal jewels, barely cursed, for a fair price. And my
mother knows Malfoy's mother who knows Lucretia Black's mother who knows a famous party
decorator from the girly magazines."

"Toady," muttered Nott under his breath.

"Why are you so invested in my future matrimonials?" Tom asked, peering into Lestrange's eyes.

"You always said loyalty was worth rewarding. Hasn't she been your oldest follower?" said
Lestrange. "Six years—"

"Ten," said Tom softly. "She'll have been mine for ten years this coming December."

"Last time at dinner, Sluggy asked you, 'What would you like to be after Hogwarts?'. And you
replied, 'I should be well-pleased if every household in Britain knew my name.' If that's not a
declaration of your ambitions, I don't know what is, and I know that getting there doesn't come by
dint of fortune. When anyone with that level of importance says he got there by good luck, what he
really means is that he's got good connections." Lestrange drew in a slow breath as Tom finally
turned his burning gaze away. "I have connections. And I can be loyal, too, Riddle. If you'll allow
it."

"Slytherin ambition is surely only matched by its subtlety," Tom remarked in a dry tone. "If you
want to help me in my suit—and that goes for all of you—then I implore you to put forth your best
efforts in today's practical exercise. Your actions are a reflection on my leadership."

Preparing for the chill of pre-dawn, the Slytherins donned their black winter cloaks, and when Tom
pulled his hood over his head, they copied him. Without speaking, Tom led them out of the boys'
dormitories, dead silent this early on a Saturday morning, and they did not see another student until
they'd reached the Common Room.

A girl in a velvet dressing gown over her nightshift sat in the choicest Chesterfield sofa by the
fireplace, half a dozen pet cats piled in a furry lump in her lap. She was feeding them treats from a
pouch, and they purred contentedly and in concert. Her dark hair was braided, her cheeks round and
flushed; she couldn't have been more than a Fourth Year. When she spoke, her voice was high and
childish, as if she not yet been forced into the mandatory transformation that most female
Slytherins underwent when they drew near their majorities, the one which turned them into prim
débutantes.

"I want to come with you," she demanded, standing up. The cats fell out of her lap with a yowl.

Tom, who had planned to ignore her, stopped in his tracks. He flipped back his hood so she could
see his face. "How brave of you to assume the Head Boy can be commanded such. Who are you,
anyway?"

"Rosier," said the girl. "Druella Rosier. Cygnus told me at dinner last night that you'd be sneaking
out. I want to join."

"Cygnus Black has too little respect for the trust to which people feel he's worthy," said Tom. "And
we're not sneaking out. We're going to practice Defence for the N.E.W.T. exam. When your own
exams are months away, you'd be doing the same thing. Until then, go to bed, mind your elders, and
be grateful I'm not taking House points for your impertinence."

"Cygnus tells me everything," Druella replied. "As he should. He'll be my husband one day, you
know. Tell him, Sebastian. I know that's you, third man from the door. The rose crest on your
gloves is showing."

Rosier groaned and threw back his own hood. "Listen to the Head Boy, Dru. Go to bed. What we're
doing is hardly suitable for little girls."

Druella folded her arms. "I don't see why not. Riddle's sweetheart gets to join you in whichever
empty classroom you've found in the Dungeons."

"She's an adult witch, not a little girl. And she's Riddle's intended," corrected Lestrange. His
hooded head turned to Tom, as if waiting for an indication of approval.

"Oh, is she?" said Druella. "Thou shouldst ever be true in life and love. Congratulations, Riddle.
When you have your firstborn, I offer Sebastian for godfather. He's good with children, and so am
I."

"I shall take that under advisement," said Tom. "Now go to bed and don't let me catch you
spreading rumours. When you're an adult, we may have this discussion as equals, but until then,
you have no authority over me."

Druella scowled. Rosier sighed and had a silent conversation of eyebrow wiggling and hand
gestures with her over a chorus of insistent mewling. Druella's pink face reddened, and she glared
at her brother, eventually stomping back to her dormitory trailed by a line of hungry cats.

When they left the Common Room, Avery murmured, "Cygnus Black is going to have his hands
full in a few years. Wilful little chit, that one. Don't envy him in the least."

"Some wizards, unfortunately, have a taste for the mouthy ones," said Nott.

"Hah," said Avery with a snort, "like your father, you mean. Came up with the Sacred Twenty-
Eight, then wed a witch who wasn't even on the list. He didn't marry Annis Gamp for blood or
money, that's for sure."
"For your information, my mother may have half-blood cousins, but she herself is pure of blood. In
fact, all of us have half-blood cousins, we just don't invite them over for Christmas parties," Nott
replied icily. "And Father married Mother because Gamp women breed great scholars and
artificers. Can't say that about your line, Avery, can you? The only winners your family breeds are
Granian goers at the Bodmin Moor races."

Lestrange and Rosier chuckled at Avery's sputtering affront.

"Gentlemen," Tom cut in, "can we save this competitive spirit for the ring? For now, let's agree on
this: if you have no preference for outspoken witches, then learn how to cast the Self-Deafening
Hex."

They Disillusioned themselves once past the dungeons and into the corridors filled with sleeping
portraits and drifting ghosts. At one point, they passed an Auror standing his patrol at the corner of
the main staircase, and Silencing their footsteps with a non-verbal spell, they crept past him one by
one. The place Hermione had arranged for them to meet was a flat patch of land by the edge of the
Black Lake, within sight of the Herbology greenhouses. It was still dark when they arrived, the
other boys cursing and stumbling as they tripped over the gravel and slab pathway that twisted its
way down the sloping side of the hill on which the castle stood.

Matthias Mulciber and Orion Black had beaten them there, Mulciber holding his lit wand aloft to
provide a source of illumination for Black and Hermione. Black was speaking softly to Hermione,
whose cloak and robe were off, folded on the ground in a dark heap. Black stood unpleasantly close
to her, pulling on the laces of a thick doublet of pebbled burgundy leather, while she held her arms
out.

"Uncle Pollux gave it to Cygnus for Christmas, saying, 'You won't do well in the Hogwarts
Duelling Club if you don't have a proper dragonhide vest.' Cygnus never told him he signed up for
the Gobstones Club instead. It'd be a terrible shame if he brought it back for the summer without a
single scuff." Black tied off the laces at Hermione's waist. "Good thing you're short and rather, uh,
modest in the bust department, Granger. Otherwise you'd never be able to close the laces on a
fourteen-year-old boy's duelling vest."

Hermione, hearing the scuffling feet of the Seventh Year Slytherins' arrival, glanced over her
shoulder and saw Tom. "How does it look?" She turned around to show the laced doublet she wore
over her white uniform shirt.

"You look... decent," said Tom, who liked the way Hermione looked with or without expensive
clothing. "I'm very nearly intimidated."

"Thank you, Tom," Hermione replied. "I can see why witches across Britain would never doubt
your sense of taste and discernment." To the boys, she turned and said, "We're nine people, so the
teams will be unevenly split—"

"I'm on Riddle's team!" said Lestrange quickly.

"Me too!" Avery joined in.

"If you want to, I suppose we can start with six versus three," said Hermione. She waved her wand
and Summoned two objects from the pile of her bundled robes. The boys lit their wands to take a
closer look at the items in her hand, a necklace and a pair of spectacles. "These enchanted
eyeglasses are the equivalent of a racing handicap, altered from joke glasses I borrowed from the
student confiscation box. If you put them on, your vision will flip one-hundred-and-eighty degrees
—meaning that you'll see the sky below you and the ground above. I thought about making the
wearer totally blind, but that's too dangerous, and I didn't want to disable the wearer, just weaken
him in a way that wasn't physically harmful. Don't worry, they aren't cursed to make you vomit,
you'll only feel like you need to! The Auror I spoke to, Mr. Wilkes, said the weakest in any group
are often taken first, and in training, I think the weakest should have some faculty to defend
himself."

She handed the glasses to Tom, who unfolded them and inspected the tiny runework etchings inside
the arms that looped over the wearer's ears.

"This necklace is linked to the glasses," she continued, holding out a gold chain with a glass bead
pendant. "Once you put the glasses on, the only way you can take them off your face is by touching
the lens with the pendant on this necklace; Summoning it off won't work. And that's the goal of this
exercise. Tom will wear the glasses, and bear the handicap. Lestrange and Avery will defend him
and try to get the necklace from the six of us on the other team—Black, Mulciber, Travers, Rosier,
Nott, and me. If Tom's team of three gets his glasses off, they win. If my team of six takes Tom's
glasses from him, then we win. So you can see the objective there: a team can't simply avoid the
opposing team to wait out the hourglass. They must actively confront the other team to win. There's
no sense in practising practical magic if we can't cast offensive spells. Any questions?"

"The sun rises at six, and it's barely a quarter-past five," said Travers. "How are we supposed to
see?"

"Cast a Lumos," said Rosier. "If you want to let everyone know to aim their spells at you."

"You could perform a partial Transfiguration and turn your eyes into owl eyes," Hermione
suggested. "Or your ears into bat ears. Transfigurations are duel legal, as I mentioned during our
previous club meeting. I also recommended studying up for them, didn't I? Right. Now, who wants
to wear the necklace? Travers, what about you? Rosier? No?" Hermione looked around; not one of
her other five team members volunteered for the job. "Goodness, you lot, where's your initiative?
Fine, I'll do it. And Tom, since you didn't attend the last meeting, the rule is that you can
incapacitate with spells outside of the exhibition duelling list and use area spells to control your
environment, but you can't cause permanent damage or cast spells that will result in expulsion. If
your opponent yields, you must restrain yourself. Though I'm sure you're sensible enough that such
a reminder is redundant information."

Hermione bent over and tapped something on the ground. A soft glow arose form the darkness in
the shape of a ragged circle outlined by seven points. The dim marsh-light glow illuminated a
muddy stretch of earth by the lakeside, covered with slippery rocks, dewy grass, and dense waist-
high saw-sharp sedges that soughed in the chilly morning breeze. "This is a boundary ward. In
seven minutes, the lights will go out and the practical exercise will start. Don't leave the ward! It
ensures that a spell can't be traced to its caster if it was cast within the boundary, as it disperses the
magical signatures. So we are ensured some, um, discretion there. But don't take this small measure
of protection for granted; Priori Incantato on your wands will still work so if you do something
very naughty, that's on you."

She glanced around at the line of pale faces under black hoods. "Ready? Good luck."

Hermione grabbed her robe and cloak, then stepped over the boundary. Five hooded figures
tramped after her like a line of ugly but obedient ducklings. Tom stepped over the line, opened the
arms of the enchanted eyeglasses, and placed them over his eyes.

His vision flipped instantly along the horizontal axis. His feet were flat on the ground. Avery and
Lestrange were standing on either side of him, their drawn wands dangling at their sides. But the
ground was up, and the sky was down, and when he took a step, the discord between what his mind
knew and what his eyes saw overwhelmed him; he felt as dizzy with vertigo as if he'd been forced
into a handstand, and every step he took gave him the impression that the next one would send him
hurtling into the sky.

It was seamless enchanting on Hermione's part, and followed a sound line of logical thinking that
was typical of the way she approached magic. Sensory impairment was the standard strategy to
which wizards hindered an opponent in a confrontation. Take away the advantage of sound and
voice, and you restricted the enemy to non-verbal casting. Take away sight and vision, and
visualisation, a core component of spellcasting, was hindered. Transfigurations, physical
manipulations, spells requiring directed aim such as Stunners, Disarmers, and the entire catalogue
of jinxes and curses, including Unforgivables, became unreliable. In exhibition duelling, this was
the basis of one strategy in which a wizard would try to get a legal but effective Conjunctivitis
Curse in as quickly as possible, to create an opening for Disarming his competition.

Tom understood very clearly why he was the one who had been given the handicap. And he
understood why Hermione didn't enchant the eyeglasses to blind the wearer completely, instead of
granting the user a debilitating inconvenience. She'd wanted to force a reliance on one's
companions without the bitterness of being allocated a complete millstone. It was meant to be fair.

What debilitated others, he decided, should be only an inconvenience to him.

(He had also decided that vomit-stained robes did his reputation no favours.)

"What do we do?" said Avery.

"What's the plan, Riddle?" Lestrange asked nervously. "When the lights go out, it will be pitch dark
out there."

"Do you trust me?" asked Tom.

"Yes..." the two boys spoke with one evasive voice.

"Then prove it," said Tom.

"What do you want us to do?" Lestrange asked.

"Do you remember, last year in the dormitory, when I mentioned that I had been taking
Legilimency lessons from Dumbledore?"

"You tried it on Nott, I remember," said Lestrange. "He fell down and started bleeding..."

"I've gotten better since then," said Tom. "These glasses weaken my physical faculties, but not my
mind or my magic. They're just as strong as ever. I need you, Avery, to allow me into your head, so
I can use your eyes."

"M-me?" croaked Avery. "Why not Lestrange?"

"Lestrange plays Quidditch and has good reflexes on and off the pitch; if I try to take him over, I'll
need to fight against his muscle memory. He'll be better as a guard," Tom explained. "Your mind is
better suited for taking a passenger." At Avery's continued reluctance, Tom added, "This practice
isn't for scoring extension points from an exam officiant with a clipboard. There's a real Dark Lord
out there. In a real battle, it doesn't matter if you look undignified or weak. Looking weak doesn't
mean anything. What matters is being weak. Being too weak to value your own survival. There is
nothing," said Tom with great conviction, "as weak as a weakness of spirit, and nothing as pathetic
as an avoidable death."

All death is avoidable, he thought to himself.

"What must I do?" asked Avery.

"Do I have your permission?"

"Y-yes."

"Good," said Tom, giving him a reassuring smile. Avery did not appear reassured. "Bring to the
forefront the most vivid memory or vision you have of feeling profoundly at peace, a quiet moment
of thought and reflection reserved for the privacy of your own mind. A sanctuary within your
recollections where, for the space of a few breaths, you might allow yourself to retreat, to gather
yourself together before facing the clamour and fury of the outside world. There, have you got it?
Excellent. Look at me."

Through the lenses of the glasses, Tom stared into Avery's upside-down eyes. Avery had light
brown eyes, dull and bovine in character, without the frequent sparks of intelligence that stirred
behind Hermione's starry doe-eyes. As he peered deeper, a curtain between them fell open, and the
brisk air and darkness of the lakeside marsh lifted away to leave him in the close and muggy
warmth of an occupied barn stall.

The wooden posts of the barn were carved with elaborate Celtic knotwork, the roof beams rising
overhead incised with the sharp, slanting lines of the Ogham alphabet. Charmed lanterns containing
balls of warm yellow light hung from hooks in the ceiling, and in the distance, horses whickered
and snuffled. A sturdy-looking boy of twelve or thirteen knelt in the straw at the side of a grey
horse with long, feathery hair over its hooves. Its sides were slick and heaving, and its dove-white
wings beat weakly with each painful, snorting breath. The boy, Tom knew, resembled a young
Avery from his own memories. Young Avery whispered soothing words to the horse, stroking its
muzzle and wiping away foam from its flaring nostrils with a dirty handkerchief.

"There's something wrong with your horse," said Tom bluntly.

The boy, having noticed the man in a black cloak standing in the corner of the stall, said, "Riddle?
Is that you? What are you doing here?"

"You invited me in," said Tom. "Is your horse broken?"

"She's dying," said Avery. "Father had her serviced when I was at school. I told him not to, it was
too high a risk, but she was the only mare in the stable without a stud contract. Apollonian's owner
was selling him to a Frenchman and the chance of getting a foal from him would be lost."

"Why don't you get a doctor to fix it? You have magic; your family has money. Surely you can use
it to heal a horse."
"We Floo-called a Magizoologist and he said he could come by in six hours," said Avery. "That's
too long. Any longer than one hour for a delivery means something's gone wrong. Father says I
should stop worrying and let nature take its course. If she's strong, she'll live. If she's defective,
then nature takes its due."

"How long has it been so far?"

"Almost three hours. Her foal's still in there and isn't coming out. I think it died."

"Is this your memory?"

Avery nodded.

"So it's already happened," said Tom. "If this is just in your head, you can change it. You can make
this memory into anything you want it to be. Like with a dream, you can control it if your will is
strong enough."

"I can't use magic outside of school," said Avery. "And I don't know much magic. Nothing at all
about mind or healing magic."

Tom almost rolled his eyes. It was a years-old memory, not reality. There were no underage magic
laws. No laws at all, if you didn't feel like having them.

"I can save her," said Tom, drawing his wand. "But you're not allowed to resist me. You have to
stay in this stable with the horse, and you can't come out until I tell you I'm done. Do you
understand?"

"Yes," whispered the boy, his expression torn between apprehension and calculation. He glanced at
the horse, then up at Tom. "Do what you need to do."

He had always known it was possible: bodily possession.

In his too-frequent-for-comfort teatime visits with Dumbledore, the old man had described the legal
application of mental magics as a career path. Through this, Tom had learned of the curious
intersection of the medical arts known as "Mind Healing". Dumbledore had danced his evasive way
around the topic, lest Tom form too many pesky independent ideas, but had mentioned that a
wizard might enter the domain of a willing consciousness and take on the suffering and torment of
a past experience, soothing or exploring it through the quiet neutrality of an objective eye and
mind. It was followed with a gentle warning that registered Mediwizards and Mediwitches who
specialised in healing such mental damages must restrict themselves to the mental sphere only, as a
requirement of their professional oaths. The implication being the existence of another sphere a
visitor might explore.
Tom blinked. He could see nothing but blackness around him. He could feel a heavy, constricting
weight pressing on him, from his head and shoulders and down to his limbs. For a few suffocating
breaths, he struggled with the weight, trying and failing to lift it off, only to realise that this weight
was the mass of his own body. Avery's body, thick with muscle where his own was lithe and rangy.

"Iain?" murmured Lestrange, blindly plucking at Tom's sleeve. "The lights went out and I can't see
anything. Riddle's a stiff. What should we do? If I cast a wandlight, they'll know we're here."

"Lestrange," said Tom, in Avery's voice. It was an unfamiliar sound, used to rounded rhotic burrs,
and his—Avery's—tongue stumbled over the brisk consonants of Tom's London accent. "What type
of wand does Avery have?"

"R-Riddle? Is that you?"

"Yes," said Tom impatiently, "I met you at a shoe shop before Second Year; you told me you had to
get your toenails removed and re-grown. Do you know what kind of wood and core Avery has for
his wand?"

"Chestnut and dragon, I think," said Lestrange. "Are you going to use his wand?"

"I'd prefer to use my own, but I might have to," said Tom. "My magic is still in my body, forming
the connection to Avery's body and his magic. Dragon is good; unicorn is more finicky with
borrowers."

"Is he alright?" Lestrange asked. "Can he hear me?"

"He's... resting," said Tom. "He'll come back when I call for him. Now, seeing as you've been
sitting blind in the dark this whole time, clearly you haven't the skill for what I'm going to do. I'll
Transfigure my eyes, then I'll do yours, so we can see what we're doing out here. I'm in charge of
taking the necklace to reverse the enchantment on the eyeglasses, and your job is to protect my
body. My other body."

Raising Avery's wand to his temple, he twisted it slowly and performed a partial human
Transfiguration, making his eyes that of a cat's. He had thought about using Hermione's suggestion
of owl eyes, but as Miss Druella Rosier's interruption had reminded him, cats were crepuscular
creatures, active at dawn and dusk. Dawn was arriving soon, and cat eyes would allow him to
adjust from low light to sunlight. It was a complicated bit of work to make sure the optical nerve
connected to the right places, and then he was done, and he could see the silvery moonlight
reflecting off the slick rocks and whispering marsh grasses, and the far-off glow of candle-light in
the tower windows. He quickly repeated the process on Lestrange, ordering him in Avery's gruff
voice to, "Stay still and don't move or your eyes will burst out of your skull."

A series of spells followed that: a Feather-Light Charm on the meditating form of the original
Tom's body, a Levitation and Cushioning Charm, then a Conjured rope to tie his belt to Lestrange's
wrist. It was bizarre seeing Lestrange tug the bobbing, floating body of Tom Riddle along on a
string like a hot air balloon, but Avery-Tom finished it with a Disillusionment Charm so it was very
quickly hidden from sight.

He noticed that the Transfigurations were smooth and the magic came eagerly from Avery's wand,
but there was a peculiar resistance to casting charms, requiring him to be more explicit and forceful
with his intent, where his white yew wand could have anticipated his desires at the first
glimmerings of a visualisation.
Better to be done with this quickly, he thought. Imagine if I were trapped in Avery's body forever.

By the time he was finished, a misty white cloud had begun creeping steadily over the sedges,
around eight feet high and as thick as a London pea souper; it clung to the ground and beyond
head-height, melted into the pre-dawn air. Not a natural fog in any way. Tom wasn't sure whether to
be proud or annoyed that the members of Hermione's team had, in concert, cast his variant of
Thomas Bertram's Super Steamer Spell—the Vaporatus. An average spellcaster could conceal a
duelling stage, but to have created such a thick stretch of it required a minimum of four wizards. Or
one Tom Riddle, of course.

And like an eerie shadow, the white fog was accompanied by a silent flock of moon-faced barn
owls, swooping above them in an organised grid-shaped search pattern.

Hermione, thought Tom. Bird conjurations were such a distinctively... Ravenclaw affectation.
When the Ravenclaw Quidditch team won a match, the stands would, quite inevitably, be filled
with a raucous convocation of Conjured eagles. It was so loud he and Hermione could hear it from
the library windows when they went for a spot of quiet study. He preferred the Slytherin tradition of
applauding after each daring performance of bravura, in the manner of opera attendees; at least they
didn't leave feathers and droppings laying about for as long as the magic lasted.

(It was another Ravenclaw affectation to pursue perfect technical wandwork, meaning that the
Conjured animal must be true to life in every respect, internally and externally. The Ravenclaws
didn't realise how irritating this was to the other Houses, because shouldn't everyone delight in
well-cast magic when they saw it?)

"They're looking for us," said Lestrange, stating the obvious. He blinked at Tom with his yellow cat
eyes.

The fog enclosed them with the soft swoosh of a shower door, with the wet and breathless warmth
of the Herbology greenhouses during an afternoon class. Then a gap in the white mist opened up in
front of them, as if beckoning them to walk inside.

"You didn't think they'd stand down and let us take them, did you?" said Tom, glancing up. The fog
above his head was thinner than in front of him, and he could see the flicker of moving shadows as
owls swept back and forth across the star-strewn sky. "Cast a Disillusionment Charm on yourself.
We're going in."

One owl, swooping close above them, caught their movements and began hooting; other owls soon
joined them in making a racket.

"I can't hold a Disillusionment for more than ten minutes at a time," Lestrange said sheepishly.
"And not if I have to duel."

Tom sighed and tapped Lestrange on the head with Avery's wand. "There. Stay close to me, but
don't get underfoot. And above all, don't let anything touch my body, do you hear? Cast a Shield
Charm if you need to. If you can't, then use your own body to block spells."

Ventus, Tom incanted, blasting his own tunnel through the fog. His cloak flapped in the wind, he
could hear Lestrange's heavy footsteps crunching on the grass behind him, but no longer did the
hooting owls announce their location to the others. The fog had fallen over them like a veil from
the outside world, and for a brief passing moment, he wanted to marvel in the power of his own
creation. It was the subject of one of his first successful modified wand movement diagrams, and
this casting of it was made even more powerful from bearing the peaty, brackish scent of lake
water.

The first pair of wizards he encountered consisted of Mulciber and Rosier, arguing with each other
about which owl out of the half-dozen circling in the air above should be followed. He caught a
glimpse of them in the fog with the edge of his Wind Charm, and having noticed him, abruptly
ended their row and drew their wands.

"Expelliarmus!" Mulciber incanted.

Rosier tossed a silent Stunner at him.

Both of them bounced off Tom's non-verbal Shield Charm, and then it was Tom's turn to answer.

Ordinarily, he would have relied on his extensive library of charms for a non-lethal duel, as they
didn't have straightforward counters like every duelling spell in the Defence curriculum. You could
instantly reverse a pimple jinx; there was no textbook counterspell to being smashed in the face by
a hovering watermelon. But he didn't like how Avery's dragon-cored wand resisted him with
charmwork, needing a fraction more detail for every visualised intent, the slightest extension of
every wandstroke in each movement. Transfigurations were fine, however. It wasn't his favourite
discipline, requiring less imagination and greater memorisation of phase states and material
properties, but he was competent.

(And he hated it when genial Professor Dumbledore wandered over to Tom's desk during
Transfiguration lessons to correct his casting. Better to be perfect on the first try so he would be left
alone in peace. Tom's motivation for the achievement of perfect technique was why he did not
make a good Ravenclaw.)

Avery's wand twirled in an intricate pattern, and amorphous curls of white mist peeled away from
the greater mass to spiral around the tip of his wand, becoming thicker and more solid the closer
they got. From soft and languorous tendrils, they condensed into gauzy lengths of chiffon silk, as
white and delicate as the bridal veils featured in his latest article. It wasn't much of a physical
barrier in a Muggle brawl, but for a magical duel? They had substance enough to absorb a single
burst of spellfire, which shrivelled them into grey ashes and then back to hissing steam.

He concentrated on keeping them aloft and floating around his body, while Transfiguring more
silken swathes from the mist, hardly paying attention to the quiet footsteps of the Disillusioned
Lestrange slipping around him.

Rosier's eyes narrowed, and tracking the pattern of undulating stretches of fabric, flicked his wand
and incanted, "Incendio—"

"Stupefy," muttered Lestrange, and Rosier dropped to the ground, Stunned. The orange flame at his
wandpoint extinguished itself.

Mulciber's head jerked as he noticed his duelling partner fall, and in that moment of distraction,
both he and Lestrange cast their spells.

"Stupefy!"

Mulciber also collapsed, the back of his cloak squelching into the mud. His attention faltering for
an instant, Tom's Transfigured veils began fluttering to the ground. He jerked his wrist; they swirled
back into the air.

"That was neatly done," Tom said to Lestrange. "Mulciber and Rosier were surprised by the
technique of using Transfigured physical obstructions instead of the standard Shield Charm. Rosier
figured out how to counter it; good job that you got him first."

"They were surprised because Avery wouldn't have thought of it," Lestrange replied. "You look like
Avery, but you stand like Riddle. You walk like Riddle. You even hold Avery's wand the way
Riddle holds his. Or the way you hold yours—Merlin's pants, this is strange, having two Riddles
side-by-side." He gestured with his left hand, to which was tied the Conjured rope and the floating
body of the original Tom.

"Take advantage of their surprise if you can, then," said Tom. "Let's finish this."

The next pair they met were Travers and Black, conveniently heading toward them, following the
surveyor owls attracted to the sparkling spellfire of the duel between Tom, Mulciber, and Rosier.
Travers and Black both wore duelling vests, and any Stunner or Disarmer cast at their centre of
mass was absorbed by the thick dragonhide with nothing but a wince at the heat burst of a
dissipating spell. Travers used only legal spells; Black had a handful of moderately questionable
dark curses that soared by in flashes of noxious green and pulsing violet.

Tom had to concentrate on Transfiguring as many silk cloths as he could, as even a slight edge
graze by one of Black's curses set the whole length of chiffon afire. The longer he kept at it, the
thinner the misty walls got, until they were duelling in a broad clearing that was gradually taking
on the copper glow of the dawning day.

Lestrange, having tapped Avery's shoulder to indicate his presence, sneaked around once again, and
from outside the cyclone of whispering veils, cast a Tripping Jinx on Black. Orion Black's Nerve-
Render Curse sputtered out mid-incantation, and Tom used the opportunity to entangle him in long
white ropes of silk, right before Lestrange cast a Stunner to the boy's unprotected face.

Travers saw Black fall, and without an instant of hesitation, aborted his own half-traced wand
movement and switched to a Shield Charm. Holding the glittering half-dome to his back, Travers
picked up the hem of his cloak with his free hand and dashed into the fading mist, the splash of his
feet on wet ground echoing into the distance.

Lestrange glanced at Tom. "The last pair is Nott and Granger. They'll be ready for us, thanks to
Travers. I assume you don't want any marks on her?"

"No," said Tom. "But I'm not going to go easy. I like to see her take on a challenge."

None of them remarked on the fact that Travers had run away when he'd become aware of the
presence of a lurking, invisible Lestrange, and that Black's defeat left him outnumbered, two to one.
Retreat to a stronger position, seek reinforcements, and don't waste energy on a foregone
resolution: they were qualities of Slytherin pragmatism that all members of their House thoroughly
understood. Travers was more uptight about acceding to the written letter of the rules rather than
the spirit of the rules' intentions, relative to the other boys in their group, but when it came down to
it, he was a Slytherin where it mattered.

Hermione and Nott had chosen to make a stand outside the wall of charmed mist. When Tom first
saw her defences, he was puzzled at its sheer incongruity, on the grounds of Hogwarts of all places.
But once he recognised what she'd done, he had to let out a wild burst of laughter at her
unparalleled audacity.

It was one of his rare genuine laughs, sounding much like himself even from Avery's mouth. The
surrealness of it must have disturbed Lestrange, who by now had nulled his Disillusionment
Charm. The other boy cringed at Tom's audible amusement.

Instead of obscuring their presence with the steam spell, Hermione had decided on a physical
deterrent. Long coils of Transfigured barbed wire hung from Transfigured fence posts made from
sedge stalks; they were hastily done, sturdy rectangular posts green and plump with water instead
of resembling properly sawn wood. There were several layers of fences, and between each line of
fencing and the next, Tom saw a deep trench filled with silted water, brown with disturbed muck.
Visually, it was ugly as sin, but the magic itself was beautiful, a creative application of Switching
spells that used her environment to its best potential. Dirt and mud to an equal mass of lake water,
requiring a careful assessment of cubic density for the most efficient casting. And done in darkness,
at that.

In the centre of the barbed wire barricade lay a muddy foxhole covered in sandbags. There was a
narrow gap between the low, sandbagged roof and the dirt wall holding it up, and he saw three pale
faces peeking out at him: Travers, Hermione, and Nott. Their heads craned around, and he realised
they must have been looking for Tom Riddle. The only two visible figures outside the No Wizard's
Land were himself, in Avery's body, and Lestrange.

"What now?" asked Lestrange. "There are four rows of fences. If we try to cross them, they'll have
plenty of time to block us or trap us in the water pits. If we try to throw Reductos or Bombardas
from out here, they can take turns Shielding each other. If we catch them in between swapping
shifts in the Shield relay, anything other than a direct hit through the window would only break the
bags and cover them with sand. It won't knock them out or anything. We'd tire out before they did."

"That is exactly what Hermione expected you and Avery to do."

Hermione had a logical mind. She liked being prepared. She'd also read a lot of Muggle military
history, the same as he did... but there was a difference between the two of them. Tom thought of
himself as a wizard. Waking, scheming, sleeping, studying, dreaming, he was a wizard first. He
breathed magic like he couldn't live without it; his wand had been kept within arm's reach since the
very minute it had chosen him. Prince, scholar, gentleman, Head Boy, Slytherin: they were merely
secondary and tertiary categories of description.

Hermione, on the other hand, thought of herself as an individual who happened, quite incidentally,
to be a witch. Magic was simply a tool, like electricity or bureaucracy, to be wielded on the way to
solving a greater problem. Hermione had prepared for a textbook attrition front, from Muggle
textbooks. The way to best her was with a purely magical strategy.

Accio sandbag!

Tom began the process of Summoning sandbags off the roof of the foxhole, abruptly interrupting
the spell before the bags reached him—an easy enough proposition for a beginner wizard learning
how to maintain his intent, but arduous for the proficient wizard to compromise his own
spellcasting on purpose. The sandbags plopped into the trenches, crushed the coils of wire flat to
the ground, and built a pathway to where he and Lestrange stood outside the siege line. Siege
fortifications were pregnable in that way, weren't they? They protected the people inside from an
external intrusion, a perfectly logical defence planned out by a logical mind. But sieges had few
protections against things from the inside coming out.

Once the foxhole roof was denuded of sandbags, Tom took them from the walls, and once the walls
were bare, he broke apart the roof boards and gouged chunks from the rammed earth interior walls.
He could feel resistance on the other end of his Summoning spells, as if someone else was trying to
Summon a sandbag in the opposite direction, but his will was stronger, and the other caster was
quickly overpowered. He also noticed his Summonings being terminated before he had planned to
let them go, and assuming that this person was casting Finite to end his spell, he increased his
range of focus and began picking up four or five objects in one go, re-casting the spell the instant
he was forced to drop it. When they switched to casting Sticking Charms on the sandbags, Tom
Summoned away whole piles at once.

For years, Tom had been interested in mastering the ability to cast on multiple subjects
concurrently. In the summer before Third Year, he'd dreamt of being crushed under a tonne of
rubble from a collapsing building, during the period of German airstrikes in London. He saw the
visual evidence of failure, weakness, and incompetence in the boggart story that he'd relayed to
Dumbledore over tea that Christmas, and since then he'd worked hard to refine his control.
Although he didn't like to admit it, Dumbledore's advice on organising his mind through meditation
had helped him achieve the highest levels of precision of which he'd been praised for in The Daily
Prophet's coverage of the Prince of Charming.

There were few others, he presumed, who could perform magic to this level with a borrowed wand.

When the foxhole roof was gone and the path of sandbags completed, he climbed over the
outermost layer of crushed concertina wire, with Lestrange following hesitantly at his heels, wand
readied for the first stroke of a Shield Charm. From the open pit in which the opposing team
members were crouching, Avery's Transfigured cat eyes could perceive the widening of Nott's eyes,
and his sideways glance to Travers and Hermione, who were intent on Transfiguring mud into sand
and casting Duplication Charms on empty sacks for the repairing of their cover.

Nott flicked his wand; light flashed from its tip, and Hermione and Travers fell Stunned to the floor
of the foxhole, cushioned by a pile of leaking sacks in the midst of their fabrication. Nott's hand
rummaged under Hermione's cloak and tore out a golden chain with a sparkling glass bead dangling
from it.

Standing up and hoisting himself out of the hole, Nott said, "Here, Riddle. Catch."

Lestrange dived and snatched up the enchanted necklace before it could hit the dirt. Tom, with a
half-hearted twist of his wand, cancelled the Disillusionment Charm over his original floating body,
and caught Nott's sharp intake of breath.

"Morgana's garter! Riddle, what did you do!? Granger and I took our eyes off you for an hour, and
you went and nicked Avery's body, because of course that was the most reasonable way to get
around having upside-down eyesight. I thought you'd Polyjuiced yourself and made Avery take the
handicap! But no, of course not, that's the actual flesh-and-blood Avery, isn't it!" Nott began tearing
at his hair. "How are we going to cover up Avery having his brain mangled? The fellow's as dull as
they come, but surely his father's going to notice when he's more of a vegetable than usual!"

Nott turned on Lestrange, wand raised and ranting, "You, Lestrange, you dolt! Why didn't you try
to stop Riddle?!"
"Stop Riddle? Never occurred to me," said Lestrange, shrugging. "Besides, if it wasn't Avery, then
Riddle would have tried it on me. Thanks, but I'd rather not."

Nott's only response was to groan and clap a hand over his eyes. There was no countering so astute
an argument.

"I didn't break him, stop fretting," said Tom. "Avery let me in."

"Yes, but if he changed his mind at any time, then a conflict of wills could cause permanent internal
damage... As you well know, from personal experience. A human body isn't meant to have more
than one human consciousness at the helm at any one time."

"I know," said Tom. "That's why Avery and I made a deal. I've been in charge the whole time. Look
at me—er, him. No nosebleeds, sclera clear as glass. Not a broken blood vessel in sight."

Nott pinched his nosebridge and took a deep, steadying breath. "Can you get back to your regular
self, at least?"

"It shouldn't be a problem... theoretically," said Tom. "Here, lay out my other body on top of this
sandbag. I'll be meditating, so don't disturb me. If Travers or Hermione wake up before I'm done,
you know what to do. It's better for everyone that they remain ignorant to these new
developments."

Tom, in Avery's body, leaned against a stack of sandbags and closed his eyes. Delving into the
meditative frame of mind, he vaguely overheard Nott arguing with Lestrange, but he had stopped
paying much attention to their squabbling.

"Have some sense and self-respect, man. You can't let Riddle do whatever he wants!"

"Why not?"

"Because most of the ideas he comes up with are truly awful!"

"But he's so clever, and all the teachers love him. Dumbledore himself taught him Legilimency.
How can his ideas be that bad..."

It took some time to build a mental construct that copied an existing one to the finest detail. The
setting, the atmosphere, and ambience, everything had to be integrated seamlessly within the
greater internal chronology of Avery's memory for it to be accepted and absorbed. The alternative
was Avery's mind rejecting the implanted false memory as a preternatural pantomime of stiff, waxy
automatons. With his limited experience of manipulating his Acromantula's memories of its former
owner, Rubeus Hagrid, Tom couldn't create anything too extravagant, so he confined himself to a
memory within the scope of a single stable stall, placed right next to the existing one. Once he'd
finished with the requisite window dressing, he turned his focus to the pièce de résistance: the
horse and foal.

It was a good thing he'd spent time scrabbling about in the minds of Thomas Riddle's horses. He
didn't think an Orphanage Tom, who'd known very little outside of London, could do this clean of a
job, even with the age and experience of eighteen years on this Earth.

When he'd finished setting up the lovely shortbread tin scene of mother mare nursing her infant
foal, he left the constructed memory and closed the stall door behind him. Ensuring his mind was
calm and well-organised, he entered the next stall over, and saw young Avery was where he'd left
the boy. Cradling the head of his horse on his lap, one hand twined in its feathery white mane,
another blotting off salt tracks dried in white lines from its eyes down to its jowls.

Avery glanced around when the stall door opened. "Oh. Riddle. You're back."

"I am," said Tom.

"Did you finish what you wanted to do?"

"Yes. We won the game."

"That's good."

After a momentary silence, Tom nodded his head at the horse. "What happened to it? You know...
afterwards."

"She died with the foal inside her," said young Avery, gazing down at the trembling horse half-
buried in the straw. "A young Granian with an intact pedigreed foal is worth at least a thousand
Galleons on the potions market. Father and I hauled her up in the courtyard and portioned the body
out for the apothecary factors. Wings for the potion of Dreamless Sleep, flesh for bruise pastes and
scar lotions, tail and mane for clothing enchantments, blood for enchanting ink, bones and hide for
bookbinder's glue. When I was done with the messy business, our estate's thestral pair found me
and licked her blood from my hands. It was the first time I'd ever seen them."

Tom frowned. "Your pet's death—how is that a peaceful memory? I asked for one of peace and
restful thoughts."

"I think," said Avery, "it's the day I accepted that some are born strong, some are born weak, and
others are born not at all. That's just how this cycle of the wheel turns. When it next turns, maybe
I'll be strong enough to find her again."

"I find fatalism to be so tediously trite," remarked Tom blandly. At Avery's blank look, Tom sniffed
and said, "Come, boy. Follow me."

When Avery saw the new memory with his horse, hale and living, he rushed over and threw his
arms around its neck. "You did it!"

"You doubted my abilities?"

"I didn't know if it was possible for anyone," admitted Avery. "How does it work? I have two sets
of memories. I can remember both of them happening, but only one is true..."
"You can choose which one to revisit. Both, if you prefer," said Tom. "But the new memory only
exists in this space. If you leave the stall, the memory version of yourself or anyone else won't have
any knowledge of this." He gestured at the little white foal happily butting at its mother's teats,
damp wings splayed wide to dry off in the warm stable. "I do wonder, however, if this constructed
memory is substantial enough to extract for Pensieve viewing. If so, there's more potential to be
explored..." He cleared his throat. "I'll be leaving now."

"W-wait, Riddle," said Avery. "How do I find my way back?"

"With a magically imbued visualisation," Tom replied. "You have to picture yourself waking up
from a vivid dream. Pay attention to your physical senses; they're entwined with your physical self.
Can you feel the cloth of your robes on your skin, hear the lap of wavelets on the lake shore, or the
tickle of your hair falling over your brows? Every minute sensation you take for granted in the
waking world must be grasped with readiness. Seize the feelings, and don't let them leave you."

When Tom opened his eyes, he was grateful to see his vision returned to normal.

He was surprised to see Hermione sleeping against his chest, her face buried in the crook of his
shoulder, her curly hair pressed against his cheek. Nott and Lestrange were standing over him, still
squabbling with each other, wands jabbing the air wildly in their exuberance.

"So what if he's stuck in Avery's body? Riddle'll figure something out, you have to trust him."

"That's the thing, you twit. I don't trust Riddle."

"But that's your problem, Nott, not his. If you trusted him, you wouldn't be worried."

"As if it was that easy to just... just put my faith in Tom-bloody-Riddle!"

"It's not even that difficult to get there. Stop thinking too hard, that does the trick for me."

Nott groaned. Lestrange guffawed at the other boy's obvious exasperation.

"Can someone tell me," said Tom, "why Hermione is on top of me like this?"

Nott's ranting halted mid-word. His gaze darted first to Tom, to Avery's sleeping body next to him,
then Travers lying face-down a few feet further on, then back to Tom. "I... I, uh, thought it would
be good to have a physical sensory anchor to guide you back from the internal sphere. You have, to
put it delicately, the oddest obsession with Granger and her hair. Don't pretend you weren't playing
with her hairclip before bed the other night. No pureblood girl in our House uses plain steel clips
like that."

"It worked," Tom conceded. That was the only acknowledgement of gratitude Nott was going to
get. "Mulciber, Rosier, and Black are still somewhere out there. After they were Stunned, the fog
started lifting. You and Lestrange should go and fetch them." He reached for his wand, which had
been tucked down his sleeve. "Rennervate. Here, take Travers with you."

"And Avery?" asked Lestrange.

"He'll be down with a splitting headache when he wakes, I imagine," said Tom. "Let him rest."

"What about Granger?" said Nott. "Aren't you going to wake her up?"

"Let's go, Nott," said Lestrange. "Riddle needs a moment of privacy."

"For what?"

Lestrange dropped a huge wink. "Oh, you know..."

"No, Lestrange, I do not, in fact, know."

"I'll tell you on the way," said Lestrange. He hefted the confused and now awake Travers by the
scruff of his cloak and set the boy on his feet. In a whispered voice, he continued, "Come now,
haven't you noticed that Riddle is always in a better mood after he's done with Granger?"

"Oh," said Nott with a grimace. "Oh. Eurgh. Yes, yes, I see what you mean. We'll just... leave them
to it, then."

When they'd left, Tom spent a few minutes reclining against a pile of sandbags, holding Hermione
in his arms and stroking her hair. Her robes were caked in mud and sand, and there was a smudge
of dirt on her nose. He wiped it off with his sleeve.

He was back in his own body. After being inside Avery's mind and directing his body around like
puppeteer, Tom was glad to return to his normal self, if such a phrase as "Tom Riddle's normal self"
could exist without the universe imploding from its sheer impossibility. His limbs were the correct
length, his flesh no longer hung heavy on his frame like an overlarge coat, and his hands were back
to their elegant shape, and not crude, thick sausages rough with callus. He dragged his fingers
through Hermione's hair, pulling gently at one curl. It bounced back the moment he let go. The tip
of his finger descended from her hair to the back of her neck, lightly dragging over the vertebral
ridge of her spine.

Bodies were so weak, so fragile. It was obvious to him now: the potential of being able to swap to a
fresh body for every occasion, like having a suit for dinner, dances, calling, and funerals. Still, there
was nothing as bespoke as having his own body, the Earthly vessel that was made for him, to
contain his magic, his and his alone...

Not just mine alone, the idle thought came to him as he held Hermione in his arms. The same way
Hermione's body isn't for her and her alone.

She's mine.

One of the many things he'd hated about inhabiting Avery's body was the look of indifference
Hermione gave it.

Rennervate, he incanted. Hermione nestled closer to him, as if instinctively seeking his warmth, her
hands scrunching at his lapels. He chuckled, and her eyes fluttered open.
"Tom?"

"Good morning, Hermione."

"What happened?" She craned her head around the sandbags, saw the wreck of her entrenchments,
the battlefield of crushed concertina wire and leaking sandbags, and winced. "Where is everyone?"

"Avery's out." Tom indicated where the unconscious Avery lay propped on a sandbag a yard away.
"Lestrange went to revive the others from where we'd Stunned them."

"Oh. So your team won."

"Naturally."

She sighed. "We couldn't even beat you, six against three."

More like six against two.

"Perhaps next time you'll make it eight against one," said Tom casually.

Hermione groaned and pressed her forehead against his chest. Idly, he kept stroking her hair. "This
entire time at our meetings for the past three years, you must have been holding yourself back."

"Yes," said Tom. "Does that surprise you?"

"No, not really. I just..." She blew out an irritated breath. "I wish we'd been working on applied
practical Defence tactics years earlier. Instead, we're trying to start new, building our practical and
teamwork skills from the ground up, when we should be up to the stage of tempering them with
real experience."

"If it helps, I can hold myself back... a little bit less," Tom offered.

"I'd like that," said Hermione, looking up at him.

"Really?" Tom asked. "Is that what you want?"

With her hair frizzy from a natural morning mist that rose with the sun, her shirt collar open and
askew from where Nott had torn away the necklace around her throat, and a red flush on her cheeks
from exertion, Hermione's dishevelment should have repulsed him. It should have. Three years ago,
her untidiness would have bothered him, and he'd have cast a few cleaning and pressing charms and
sent her on her merry way without a second thought. But now? He was still bothered, extremely
bothered, in a completely different manner than before. This incomprehensible state of botherment
made him want to push Hermione down into the dirt and dishevel her further. Make it so when she
was finally allowed to pick herself back up, weak-kneed and wobbling, her appearance could not be
mistaken as having been the result of an accident, but recognised as an intentional state of disorder.

Hermione's eyes widened, and he saw himself reflected in them, haloed by the golden sunrise.

"Do you want me to hold back?" said Tom.

"N-no."

He grinned. "Good."
Tom's first kiss—his first real one outside other people's memories—was a tentative and cautious
nudge of his lips on hers. A perfunctory motion deliberately calculated not to frighten Hermione
away, while also convincing her that it was a genuine demonstration to the strength of his
sentiments toward her. He pulled back to observe her reaction, and saw that she was pink all over,
down to her exposed throat where her pulse flitted like pixie wings.

His second kiss was slow and exploratory and greedy, taking his time to learn the contours of her
mouth and lips; he could feel the curve of her shy, giddy smile against his own mouth, and the
brush of her eyelashes against his cheekbones. Her hair fell down like a curtain around them both,
and his fingers tangled in the soft, fluffy curls to keep her from pulling away further than what was
needed for a gasping breath of air. Certainly not to leave him alone and abandoned on the ground,
hungry and thirsty and wanting.

The third kiss he conceded to her. He submitted patiently for his inspection and hoped he presented
to advantage. Hermione's little hands patted on his shoulders and traced along the bristled line of
his jaw—he hadn't shaved since yesterday morning, and the shadow of his whiskers was showing
through—then rumpled his hair in the way that he knew the legion of admiring Third Years had
always aspired to do. He felt her quiet titter of laughter as much as he heard it, and tightened his
arms around her.

When Hermione was done with her rather meticulous investigation, which included the "sticking a
hand up the jumper" exercise that they'd briefly discussed in September of last year, Tom had but a
moment to gather his senses from where he'd abandoned them in favour of physical distraction. He
spoke the first words that came to his mind.

"As it's my inclination to continue with this quite often in the near future—"

"What does that—"

"—It appears that the obvious course of action should be our marital arrangements."

"T-Tom!" Hermione gaped. "You're being impulsive and thoughtless. You need to think things
through—"

"Hermione," said Tom urgently, holding a finger over her reddened mouth. "You know that I've
thought it through. It was years ago when I once said that a marriage between us should be a
transactional arrangement of rationality, convenience, and practicality. That was hardly a fleeting
notion from a reckless mind back then, and it's not now. And I've... evolved my opinions since.
Even if it was irrational, inconvenient, and impractical to have you as my wife, I'd still want it. I'd
still want you."

"I don't know how you've convinced yourself to change your mind, but I suppose if anyone can do
it, it's you yourself. It's obvious to me that something has done it." Hermione drew in a slow breath
and rested her head against his shoulder. "So. How does this not change everything between us,
Tom?"

"I don't see why it should," said Tom. "You know as well as I do that there's no one in this world
quite like us. Whatever we want or don't want, we'll find a way to make it so. And," he continued,
his voice quiet but firm with conviction, "there is no one like you in this world for me. You, with
your gentle soul and incurable altruism, could find yourself a Muggle Roger or a hapless Clarence
loitering around in any bookshop or college library in England. For me, Hermione, there is no one
else. I would have no one else... Only you."
"Tom," whispered Hermione. Her starry eyes dimmed and clouded, dripping hot tears on his cheek.

Tom scrubbed the tears off his skin and held Hermione close, letting her tears soak into his collar
and disappear from sight. He hated to see her cry; he would have despised the sight and sound of it
from anyone, but it was worse, somehow, when the tears came from his own Hermione. He
wouldn't mind the tears as much if it meant he could find the person responsible, and bring that
person's belated apologies to Hermione at the point of his wand. But it was never that simple.
Sometimes there was no responsible party against which to wage a war, no Carthage to be
obliterated to the last brick, and the only thing he could do was grant her the paltry, impotent
excuses of a spoken consolation.

"You're thinking in circles, Hermione. I can feel it," said Tom, bewildered by her reaction. Why did
saying he would have her or no one make her sad? It was the truth. It had always been the truth.
Years ago, when she'd proposed running away in a tent to dodge a Muggle conscription, he'd told
her, promised her, that he would not run away with anyone else. Without her, he'd go alone. At the
midnight chime of thirteen years old, he had known it without a flicker of doubt.

"Tell me honestly," he asked. "Do you want me?"

"I... I do care for you, Tom. And maybe enough t-to, um, want you. But what I want is far from the
only consideration to be made about such decisions."

"No, that's all there is to it," Tom said forcefully. "It's the rule of magic: if you want it strongly
enough, then it becomes real. This," he said, kissing her and tasting the salt of her tears, "is real.
You know it's real. With you, it's always real. No one else is as real to me as you are."

He didn't understand why these words made her so sad, which he felt in the same way he sensed
truth from lie. He was determined to keep holding her tightly and kissing her flushed cheeks, her
sniffling nose, her wet eyelids, her quivering mouth until those melancholy feelings were driven
away and replaced by something better.

They were only just withdrawing from the fifth kiss when Tom heard footsteps squishing on muddy
grass.

"Nott, when we get back to the dormitory, you had better cough up those fifteen Galleons you owe
me," came Rosier's voice.

"That doesn't mean anything!" Nott whined. "They do this sort of thing all the time!"

"What's this about?" asked Mulciber, scratching his head. "I thought everyone knew that Riddle had
paired up with Granger. She sits at our House table next to him. Fiancées of other Houses are
allowed to eat with Slytherin House, that's the rule."

"We are paired up," said Tom, pushing himself to his feet. He held up a hand for Hermione, and
was relieved to see that she took it with no more than a brief note of hesitation. "Hermione will be
making a respectable man of me. Not that I wasn't one already. But you know me; I'm not one to
turn away a second helping of respect if it's offered."

"We'll talk about this later, Tom," Hermione said quietly, brushing off her muddy robe and swiping
at her damp cheeks. She cleared her throat and switched to her academic lecturer's mode of address,
though her voice came soft and warbling, and her eyes were swollen and pink. The boys shot sharp
looks at her, then at Tom, and did not look at her again, pointedly pretending not to notice that she
had been crying and they weren't curious about what he'd done to her to summon those tears.

"Now that we're all here, our next collaborative task is to reverse the Transfigurations of the battle
theatre I created," said Hermione, "I did most of the work to cast them originally, so I think
everyone should take this opportunity to practise with large-scale Transfigurations. It mightn't be a
classroom exercise, but you can see with your own eyes how powerful and useful Transfiguration is
in a real situation."

She drew her wand and flicked it at the nearest fencepost, which returned to its bendy, sedge bush
shape. The concertina wire, freed of its anchor, collapsed inwards with its sharp edges bouncing
dangerously. Hermione snapped up a fast non-verbal Shield Charm. "Oof! Watch for the wire; if
you get cut, come to me for the vial of Dittany."

The next hour and a half was spent cleaning up the mess they had—well, "Avery" had—made of
Hermione's battlefield. Black and Mulciber were tasked with Vanishing sandbags. Hermione
demonstrated how she'd performed a sequential Transfiguration for turning grass into flaxen thread,
and then the thread into barbed wire. Nott was relatively fast at reversing the spell; he had been a
contributor to building them in the first place.

"You've probably never seen anything like this," Hermione explained, showing the boys a length of
her razor spiked wire. "But I chose it specifically because I knew I needed an anti-personnel
defensive strategy. If the other team had come on broomsticks, the fences and trenches would be
next to useless. It would've been more effective a strategy to build a rune cannon to shoot them out
of the sky, then—ah, non-lethally, of course! A cannon is a metal tube that propels a projectile—"

"We know what cannons are, Granger," put in Rosier. "There's a Quidditch team named after
them."

"How d'you shoot someone out of the sky without killing him?" Lestrange asked. "A wizard won't
die if he splats at less than fifty feet, but if he stays higher than that on a broomstick, he could
always drop a dungbomb on you from above and escape without facing penalty."

Hermione gave him a weak smile at being invited into a discussion on hypothetical magical battle
tactics, and soon engaged the Slytherins in a lively debate on what exactly it meant to take "non-
lethal" precautions. Wizards had a loose definition of the term; a wizard's idea of "non-lethal" was
farther from "harmless" than someone like Hermione assumed it was.

Avery was revived and given a pain reliever potion, and set to performing Switching spells to fill
the trenches in. Tom accompanied him, giving him a few bits of advice with a chary glance or two.
It wasn't easy to tell for certain, but it didn't appear that Avery's brain had been permanently
damaged by the possession.

"I won't tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about, Riddle," said Avery in a low voice,
glancing back at Tom.

"I wasn't worried," said Tom in a pleasant voice. "If you tried to accuse me of anything, I'd simply
deny it."

"If you don't tell anyone about what you saw in there, then we're even."
"It was a pleasure doing business with you, then." With not a flicker of his expression to indicate
the intensity of his concentration, Tom Levitated a large, murky globe of water out of Avery's
trench and tossed it back into the lake.

They finished their Transfigurations, Hermione picking up the last enchanted stake marking the
boundary of their practical exercise. The boys were eager to get to breakfast. Although Tom had
gone around casting Scouring Charms with a generous hand on their robes and faces, waterless
spells still left their clothes feeling oddly crusty. (He noted that he was the most presentable of the
group, his body having been kept safe and away from the action.) Tom predicted a mad rush to the
showers after breakfast, and a pile of smelly clothing left on the dorm room floor. He sighed. When
he was out of Hogwarts and living with Hermione, he'd only have to share his bathroom with her,
and her pink-cheeked sweatiness amused him more than anything. She certainly didn't smell like a
boy during the times he'd witnessed it.

They started on the path back to the castle, but to their bad luck, they had almost reached the
Entrance Hall courtyard when their journey was rudely interrupted by an Auror. It was the same
one who'd managed the queue at Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, and he was accompanied by
his partner.

"Students caught wandering outside their living quarters!" he exclaimed. "We saw you throwing up
sparklers at the break of dawn. How can you, the Head Boy, set a good example for student safety
when you saunter about the grounds at your own leisure? This is poor conduct; have your teachers
not taught you any better? And I see you've been allowing your fellow students to stray, too!" He
took in the Slytherin boys on the path behind Tom and Hermione, in dragonhide doublets, duelling
gauntlets, and black cloaks looking the worse for wear from catching bursts of spellfire.

"Pardon me, sir," said Hermione, grabbing Tom's hand and giving it a squeeze, a tacit reminder to
prevent him from speaking his mind as he'd done back in January. "But there is no explicit rule in
the Hogwarts Prefect Handbook that bans students from being outside their dormitories before
breakfast. Astronomy would not be offered as a class subject if that were the case."

"Hogwarts rules are different from Ministry rules," said the Auror. "There are extenuating
circumstances right now, Miss, and ought to be taken seriously."

"Well, we have extenuating necessities," argued Hermione, "which we take with the utmost gravity:
our upcoming exams. Surely you can see we've broken no rules and done no wrong. We cast a few
spells safely out of doors, out of consideration for others who share our dormitories, and set
everything to rights when we were finished..."

"It's the principle of the thing. Student safety matters, or it doesn't," the Auror replied. "We'll have
to make an example of you. Dangerous student duels without proper supervision; this should
scarcely be tolerated, let alone put up as a matter of open debate!"

"Probert," said the other Auror, tapping his partner on the shoulder. "Trombley and Wilkes have
brought the teachers."

Dumbledore and Slughorn, belly wobbling as he made it down the stepped slab path, were being
escorted by two more Aurors, a witch and a wizard. The same ones who'd greeted Travers on the
train, Tom realised; the witch gave a small salute to Travers and winked.

"Professor Slughorn," said Auror Probert, nodding his head. His gaze grew a notch colder when he
got to Dumbledore. "Deputy Headmaster. These students were out of bed and casting spells at each
other. Wands at dawn, obviously. Your cherished Head Boy, Horace, was participating in honour
duels!"

"I wasn't," said Tom, unable to bite his tongue. "You can check my wand, if it pleases you. We were
practising for the Transfiguration N.E.W.T. Look at Lestrange's eyes, look at Avery's!"

"Tom," said Professor Dumbledore, gazing at him solemnly, "is this true?"

"Yes, sir," said Tom, meeting Dumbledore's eyes without a shred of reservation. "I haven't cast a
single curse. Here, sir."

And Tom offered his yew wand to Dumbledore, who took it in careful hands and cast the
incantation, Prior Incantato.

Out from the tip of Tom's wand came a series of glowing symbols: an opalescent soap bubble, a
drifting feather, the wavering image of a weighing scale tipping from side to side.

"Scouring Charm, Levitation Charm, Switching spells—and quite a number of them, I might add,"
Dumbledore observed. "I should very much like to see an honour duel performed with such a
creative repository of spells. I think it would be wonderfully educational."

"Check my wand, too, sir!" said Avery, offering his wand to Slughorn, his yellow cat eyes blinking
guilelessly at the professor.

Avery's wand was inspected: Switching and Summoning spells, and then an endless line of
Transfigurations of water to cloth. Slughorn chortled at the glowing silk handkerchiefs, knotted
together in a row, indicating the successful application of an abbreviated conjoined casting.

"Five points to Slytherin, Mr. Avery," said Slughorn. "I'd award you more, but we do want to stay
on happy terms with Mr. Probert, don't we? But were it any other day, oho!"

Hermione offered her wand to the witch, Trombley, and Travers to Wilkes, the wizard who'd
brought the teachers. Again, a string of harmless charms and N.E.W.T.-level Transfigurations
appeared from the tip of their wands. As the wands were checked, the Auror Probert's expression
grew darker and darker.

"You're the Transfiguration teacher here, aren't you, Deputy Headmaster?" said Probert accusingly.

Dumbledore nodded. "These students are enrolled in my Sixth and Seventh Year N.E.W.T.-level
Transfiguration classes."

"Then, Mr. Dumbledore, did you put them up to this? Did you give them permission to traipse
about the grounds as they like?"

"Would anything come of it if I had, Mr. Probert?" said Dumbledore amiably. "If the Hogwarts
grounds are not for the enjoyment of Hogwarts students, what purpose do they serve? Besides, I
have been given no reason to distrust Mr. Riddle's judgement. Tom has always been an
exceptionally motivated student, and I'm glad to have been of use as his mentor since his first year
at Hogwarts."

"Thank you, sir," said Tom, with a bashful duck of his head. "I'll always be grateful for what
Professor Dumbledore has taught me about magic, from the day he delivered my letter. And of
 course, I can't forget Professor Slughorn; he's put an equal investment in helping me achieve my
potential."

Slughorn and Dumbledore walked them back to the castle, Slughorn chattering to the boys in his
usual convivial manner. Dumbledore, to Tom's annoyance, kept at his side, hands tucked in his
pockets while ambling along without a care.

"Prior Incantato reveals more information about a wand's usage than what spell was cast,"
Dumbledore remarked. "The precision, control, and power with which you perform a spell affects
the clarity of the magical iconogram produced for each spell symbol. What were you Levitating
that required such a combination of power and accuracy?"

"A globe of water, sir," said Tom. "The textbooks said that Levitation can be applied to any
physical mass, not just solids. I'd wondered how it could be done. If I can lift two hundred and fifty
pounds of solid matter, then I should be able to Levitate thirty gallons of liquid matter. But if I was
wrong, Professor, better that I had spilled the water outside in the grass than in my four-poster bed."

"Indeed," Dumbledore agreed. "But is that not a Charms experiment? If I'm not mistaken, you told
Mr. Probert that you were studying for the Transfiguration N.E.W.T."

"It's true, Professor," said Tom in his friendliest Good Boy voice. "I was studying for
Transfiguration, because I don't need to study for the Charms exam. I'd get an Outstanding mark
either way; the extra-curricular experimentation was for nothing more than my... personal
satisfaction. But while Charms may be my best subject at Hogwarts, I don't think I could say it was
my favourite."

Dumbledore's response to the flattery was to pat him on the shoulder and send him off to the
Slytherin House breakfast table. The other boys had already found their seats and begun their
meals, and he hadn't even had to order them to move down the bench to make space for Hermione.
When they returned to their dormitories, Tom made Nott pay out the fifteen Galleons he owed to
Rosier.

If the Ministry of Magic was in dire shortage of proper justice, the least Tom could do was to
ensure that there was some speck of it left in the world.

Chapter End Notes

— Tom gets his fighting spirit from his father, and his obsessiveness from his mother. Merope
saw Tom Sr. riding his horse one time and decided this man was going to be her husband and
baby daddy. Tom Jr. has one proper kiss and decides, "Welp, that's it, looks like we have to
start sending out wedding invitations!".

— I always liked it when random off-hand details come back like a boomerang.
Callback to Chapter 6 - Tom and Hermione talk about "foils".
"...But labels of this sort don't apply to real life. Real people are more complex than that."
"I wouldn't know," Tom said. "You're the only other real person I know."
— Another callback to Chapter 6: Avery's family is in the animal breeding business.
"Tom, this is your future! You have to be careful, you have more to lose than him! Even if
Avery fails his N.E.W.T.s the second go around, he'll be fine when his father finds him a place
breeding mail owls on the family estate..."
 Hammer and Sickle
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

Sneaking out during Hogsmeade weekends became too fraught with complications after the Aurors
had instituted a policy that students were to sign in and out in dormitory groups, and any member
who wandered off would incur a collective punishment for the entire group. "Remind them to keep
an eye on their friends," the Prefects were told—the implication being that students were expected
to report each other for misbehaviour.

Tom heartily disliked it. It encouraged those of a supercilious, God-bothering temperament to

accept their true callings as righteous scolds. From his First Year at Hogwarts, he had never liked
other students who saw it as their responsibility to report their fellows to the teacher. He even less
liked the ones who saw it as an unassailable moral duty. Hermione, had he not resolved their
quarrel within their first few weeks of school, could have become that sort of person without his
intervention. It was lucky she had him, then.

The next best thing to slipping away from Hogsmeade was leaving during a Quidditch match. They
were held on the grounds, so the Prefects were not obliged to take the roll. Nor did everyone have
an interest in Quidditch or attend every match, especially not the N.E.W.T. or O.W.L. students who
weren't Quidditch players and weren't interested in pursuing professional sports as a future career.

Half an hour before dawn, he and Nott dressed in plain black cloaks, scarves, and duelling doublets
within the confines of their four-poster curtains. Nott had borrowed Orion Black's dragonhide
doublet, and Tom had talked his way into Travers' silver-studded vest. When he was done tying off
the laces—which fit him better than the original owner—Tom slid out of his bed, Nott cautiously
peeking his head out of his own curtains before stepping into his boots, which laced themselves up
without a sound. Their caution was fruitless; before they could get to the dormitory door, they saw
that Lestrange was already up and dressed in his Quidditch jumper and breeches, polishing his
broomstick with unusual vigour.

(It was the literal definition of the phrase, to Tom's relief. There had been an incident last year
when Travers had sleepily shuffled out of bed and woken everyone up with a piercing scream. The
boy had stepped on a wet sock abandoned on the floor, and that sock had adhered itself to his bare
foot. The adhesive, Tom had learned very much against his will, was another boy's emission. No
one would confess as to whom the sock had belonged, since they all of them wore plain black
woollen socks from the uniform shop. Having no interest in delving through their minds to find the
true transgressor, Tom had declared that any figurative "broomstick polishing" must occur in the
bathroom, with the door locked, and the mess should be cleared out of the drain grate immediately
afterwards with a Vanishing spell.)

Lestrange saw them too, and his polishing cloth slipped off his broom handle and left a greasy
streak on his white breeches. "Where are you two going?" he asked.

"Out," said Tom.

"Nowhere," said Nott at the same time.

They exchanged a leery look with each other.

"I'm helping Riddle choose a ring for Granger," said Nott. "If he's going to use traditional vows, he
might as well do everything properly." He shot a meaningful glance at Tom.

"Yes," said Tom. "It doesn't look well on me to simply say that I want to marry her and leave it at
that. Nor does it do anything for her reputation. We're Head Boy and Head Girl; we don't just
represent our respective Houses, we represent Hogwarts."

"Don't look for us at the Common Room party after the match," Nott added. "But we might as well
congratulate you in advance. It's Hufflepuff versus Slytherin, and Rosier reported that their Seeker
can't dive and one of the Beaters can't aim."

"Oh," said Lestrange. "Well, let me know if you need someone to say you were seen in the
changing room wishing the team good luck. I'm Captain this year, so they'll agree with whatever I
say."

"Good man," Tom said, Summoning his potion case from his nightstand drawer and turning to
leave. "If you could foul the Seeker to stretch the match as long as you can, you'd have no
complaints from me." He took out a jar of his Confusion Concoction and tossed it to Lestrange.
"This paste is absorbed through the skin and leaves one, ah, easily distracted. If it was somehow
spilled in the broomstick shed before the match... Well, even Slughorn should admit that no one on
the Slytherin team has much of an aptitude for Potions."

"Understood, Riddle," Lestrange said with a wink.

Tom Disillusioned himself and left the Slytherin dormitory, Nott following at his heels and
whispering, "That's the most blatant sycophancy I've ever seen. How can you stand it?"

"By knowing where he stands at all times," Tom replied. "I do Lestrange a favour; he does me one
in return. It's a simple arrangement, and we both benefit. We don't have to waste time pretending
we're friends. I'd rather that than the kind of inscrutable arrangement I've got going on with
Dumbledore. Everything's a hidden test of character with the old man."

"I still don't know what that's about," said Nott. "Dumbledore calling you by your given name. The
familiarity, ugh, it gives me the chills, and I'm not even the one he's talking to. Too uncanny for me.
The only person who calls me by my given name is my mother."

"What, not even your father?"

"Especially not my father. He calls me 'boy'."

"Could be worse," said Tom with a shrug. "Mine addresses me as 'you' or 'him'."

Tom and Nott exchanged another look, of uncomfortable and unpleasant fellowship. Without any
prompting, it was wordlessly agreed that they would never speak on the subject again.

They slipped out of the castle without incident, detouring past the boatshed, which had new wards
placed on it that Tom wasn't interested in cracking and repairing after every use. The Aurors had
gotten wind of what the Astronomy Tower was used for and placed it out of bounds after hours for
non-class activities. The Hogwarts students, with the persistence and tenacity of cockroaches, had
scattered to converge on another location: the boatshed. Tom was thus beholden on Nott's flying
carpet to take them out of Hogwarts grounds.

That was the loophole he had found: the Lake. The protective enchantments of the Hogwarts
grounds were anchored in earth and stone, and concentrated on the road to the village, being the
most obvious entry point through which an invader might attack the castle. The front gates had the
winged boar guardian protectors, but everyone—except possibly Salazar Slytherin—had
overlooked the possibility of the castle being infiltrated from the water side. There were no
enchantments once one stepped foot off the earth and entered the vast demesne of the Black Lake
and the highland tributaries that fed it.

No protective enchantments—but there was the Giant Squid, the mermaids and grindylows, and
one protective beast that Tom was glad to be on friendly terms with.

Speaker, I hear you speak too fitfully, said the Basilisk, forked tongue flicking out in a gesture of
reproval. Have you been too busy with your mate to spare some time for me?

Tom, who was busy refreshing the warming charms on the Basilisk's basking rock, choked in the
middle of his incantation. "How do you know about my mate?"

I smelled you, not to long ago, by the shores where men sow weeds under stone the colour of sky.
Tom understood this to mean the Herbology greenhouses. How could a thousand-year-old animal,
despite its sentience, know what a greenhouse was? She smelled of earth and herbs and powerful
magic. She will bear you a healthy brood, I think. You have chosen well. The previous Speakers
were not very well at choosing mates; they favoured the ones with a fine scale-pattern but a
weakness of the humours. I have told them, though they scarce listened, that the weak ones never
brood well. They only throw one good egg in the clutch, and the rest are thin-shelled and never
hatch... I told them...

Tom stroked the Basilisk's snout, and its rambling trailed off into a happy low rumble, its head
lowering so Tom could better access the rough scales over its nose pits. Tom scraped his fingers
over the horned ridges, feeling the coiled muscle under the hide quiescent beneath his palm.

"This is my last year here. When the next frost comes, I'll be gone, and you must return to sleep,"
Tom ordered. "But until then, keep watch over the Lake. If you notice any adult wizards who aren't
students wandering about here, you have my permission to Petrify them from under the waterline—
don't reveal yourself!—and leave the bodies on the lake shore. Don't eat them!"

The Basilisk sighed with a thick, gusty breath that made Tom wrinkle his nose. As you will it, it
shall be done, Speaker.

"Good," said Tom. "One last thing: can I have some more venom?"

Nott watched him pat the sinuous green loops of the Basilisk's body piled around up to the height
of Tom's shoulder, remarking, "Did you know the language you speak is called Parseltongue? It's a
very rare ability to have a natural language fluency like that."

"Rare in Europe, but not elsewhere," said Tom. "According to the Ministry's Department of
International Magical Trading, the Basilisk venom they import for Potions Masters is sold by
Persian apothecaries. I looked it up—it's eighty Galleons per vial, with an additional ten Galleon
fee for the Ministry's safety inspection of dangerous goods. Even though every vial is tamper-
jinxed, and it should be obvious when the seal's been mishandled. It's pure theft. Disgusting."

"Do you think, perhaps, this means you're of Persian ancestry?" Nott asked with some hesitation.

Tom laughed. "Do you think I look it? Could I carry it off? If other English wizards might mistake
me for a Persian, then I could be the one earning that eighty Galleons per vial. Tax-free, too. What
the Ministry doesn't need to know won't hurt them."

Nott let out a nervous laugh. "You look too English to me, Riddle. Maybe if you wore a turban,
people would be more inclined to believe it."

"A turban wouldn't favour me," said Tom. "I'm too tall, don't have enough of a beard, and I'm not
partial to growing one in, regardless of how wizardly it's supposed to be. Now, do you have the
address?"

Tom had commandeered detention supervision from the Fifth Year Slytherin Prefects. Instead of
scrubbing cauldrons, which the little miscreants had expected to be their evening assignment, Tom
had cleaned them himself by charming the dish brushes and made them write lines instead. He'd
read aloud the Undesirable address list and instructed the students to copy his words down on a
parchment. At the end of the session, he collected the parchments, noted which addresses had been
registered as an indecipherable squiggle, and adjusted the students' memories so they remembered
nothing more than writing dictations from a Potions textbook. The most pleasant part was the
Prefects and the detention-goers having come away feeling like they owed Tom a favour.

Nott had done the research on locating the suspicious addresses and planning their travel itinerary.
That was the task of an assistant, Tom had reminded him, and perfectly suitable for a minion like
Nott. Nott wasn't pleased to be thought of as a minion, but Tom also reminded him it was just as
easy for him not to think of the other boy at all.

Their plan was to Apparate in relays. From the lakeside gravel beach in Scotland, to Tom's
bedroom in Yorkshire, then Side-Along with Nott to the standing stone outside the Avery family's
farmhouse in Cornwall. Then their destination, the Tinworth Village Foundry, located in the
Cornish township of Tinworth, which was a mixed-designation village insofar as it meant that the
Muggle spouses of Squibs and wizards were legally permitted to buy and lease property within the
protective wards.

The standing stone, carved with spidery Ogham runes, stood as a proud landmark on a bleak stretch
of grassy moorland. Nott's hand drifted across the markings, carefully avoiding the dark brown
streaks that stretched, stark and vertical, to the base of the stone. Beyond the stone, in the distance,
Tom saw a broad circle of drystack fences, and in the centre, a well-to-do farmhouse of three
storeys, connected to a number of newer-looking outbuildings. A puff of smoke drifted from a
chimney, and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed black bat-like creatures perched on the roof,
but when he turned his gaze directly to them, his vision blurred and they disappeared from view.

"That's Avery's house," said Nott, pointing to the farmhouse. "His family earns their gold from
beast keeping. The stone here is their Apparition point, enchanted with a privacy ward to ensure the
punters who come here to inspect the wares or bid for questionable merchandise can't be tracked or
blocked by any other magic, including that of the Ministry's Beast Division officers. A fair number
of West Country wizards who like to journey unmolested use this spot as a relay when travelling
elsewhere—all the Averies ask in return is a gift of magical essence, human or beast, to maintain
the strength of the wards."
"I didn't know Avery lived on a farm," said Tom. "I knew he was rich, but for all his family's
money, the best they can do is a farmhouse?"

"From personal experience, it's grander on the inside," said Nott. "Not all prominent wizarding
families live on sprawling estates. The Malfoys of Wiltshire are the exception, not the rule. Like
Granger noted, royal titles are a Muggle affectation, and so are ostentatious residences. Why live in
a palace when you can cast a Permanent Extension Charm and make a simple country cottage into
any size you want? That's much more impressive. There's also an issue of safety when, before the
Statute of Secrecy, we lived amongst Muggles who knew we were better than they were, and hated
to be reminded of it. Anyway, if you don't want to make an offering, we ought to move on."

Tom fumbled out a vial each of Basilisk and Acromantula venom, tossing them over the standing
stone. The stone hissed, and the weathered brown blood streaks on its surface blackened, leaving
behind a residue of chalky soot markings; he felt a low hum rising from his feet and up to his
throat, warm and heady magic that made his eardrums pop and his vision shimmer with its force.
Then as soon as it had come, the vibration faded away, while the tall, flowering grass at the foot at
the stone bowed into limp straggles of black sludge.

"That's powerful stuff," Tom breathed, clenching his hands as the last of the magic retreated to the
earth.

"It's ancient magic," said Nott. "Some might call it primitive, since it's meant to be cast without
wands or elaborate calculations. There's a good reason why Hogwarts' Ancient Runes class focuses
on the Norse syllabary instead of the old Celtic rituals. A young child could perform a feat as
formidable as a trained adult wizard, if he offered his own flesh and blood for it. The Board of
Governors, three hundred years ago, thought it was best for children not to know about it."

"I'm pleasantly surprised you didn't use the term 'Dark Magic'," said Tom. "The people who do use
it say it with such a tone of antipathy and hysteria that I can't help but find it tiresome. The Board
of Governors: they do more to retard the spirit of academic inquiry at Hogwarts than they do to
foster it. Has there been any group of wizards as incompetent at their jobs, excepting, of course, the
Ministry of Magic? Whatever they're getting paid, it's far too much!"

"If I recall correctly," said Nott, "governorship is a strictly voluntary position. They aren't paid a
salary."

"Well, then," said Tom, "at least they know their worth."

Nott sighed and took Tom's arm, then Side-Alonged him to the Apparition point in the centre of the
village green, a circle of paved bricks embedded with coloured cobbles marking out the cardinal
directions. Tinworth was a small seaside town of a dozen interconnected streets hemmed in with
small limewashed cottages, their damp slate roofs limned in slick moss. The door lintels were
uncomfortably low, and Tom supposed these were the type of houses a city man might consider
charming until he had to live in one. At which point he was compelled to acknowledge the good
fortune in being able to depart for good at the end of his seaside holiday, unlike the poor village
locals.

From where Tom stood, he could hear the shush of waves crashing on a beach, a stiff salt breeze
ruffling the hood of his cloak; he smelled the savoury scent of meat pasties cooling in the baker's
window, which made his stomach rumble for leaving Hogwarts before breakfast; he heard the
jingle and clatter of metal struck on metal—
Nott tugged on Tom's sleeve, before drawing his wand and Disillusioning himself. Tom cast his
own spell.

"Where is it?" Tom asked in a low voice.

"At the end of the street," Nott replied, his voice equally low. "I looked up the address of particular
interest in the Tinworth village directory, and it matches the one of the shop flat above the foundry.
The second-floor flat is under Fidelius, but the first-floor workshop and shopfront are not. They're
open to the public. The only entrance to the flat is through the shop. The workshop is in the garden
plot, accesses through the side alley to the street. We'll have to be careful, if we don't want to make
a public scene."

"Yes, I understand," said Tom. "Kick the customers out before we start blasting Unforgivables. But
it's a good job that we left so early in the morning—who would be shopping for a new set of
potions knives before breakfast?"

They stopped in front of a bay window, one of a matching pair, the merchandise displayed to its full
glory on either side of the door. The left-side window had a set of professional-grade knives laid
out on a soft cloth, from the tiniest pin-boning pen-blade to the heaviest cleaver that could crack the
rigid shell of the Sopophorous bean with a single blow. The knife handles were embossed with the
maker's mark, AS, which Tom learned was the shop owner's name, written on the plaque bolted to
the door.

Tinworth Village Foundry

Established 1497
Proprietor Ansgar Schmitz
Master of Magical Metallurgy, 1922
Brukspatronkollegiet, Göteborg.

The right-side window contained a magical portrait of a coal-black stallion with glossy crow's
wings, rearing in challenge. The inscription on the portrait frame read:

Bodmin Moor National Stakes 1944 Champion

Mithras
Owner: Mr. Taran Avery

And below that, laid out on a swathe of velvet cloth was a set of four horseshoes, stamped with the
AS maker's mark.

"Odd," Tom remarked. "Why does a flying horse need shoes? It flies!"

"They don't fly all the time," whispered Nott. "They sleep and feed on the ground. In the wild, they
rarely leave the ground—only to get away from predators. Most people, if they need to fly, prefer
broomsticks for being less temperamental."

"I think I prefer Apparition," said Tom. He cocked his head, listening to the clank of metal coming
around from the back of the shop. He peered in through the window, in between the gap made by
the window-frame and the painted horse. "The owner must be in the workshop. The shop is empty
of customers. Let's go in and take a look around."

Without waiting for Nott, Tom pushed open the door and entered the shop.

A metal bell jingled over the door; Tom whipped out his wand and cast a non-verbal Silencing
Charm, but the spell caught the tail end of the peal, and Nott let out an annoyed grumble.

"Wait a moment, please, I shall be right out!" called a voice from behind the empty counter.

Nott pulled at his sleeve; Tom ignored it, taking a few seconds to inspect the arrangement of the
shop, which had been placed under an Expansion Charm to fit more merchandise than could be
seen from the outside. To his complete lack of astonishment, it was a shop that sold enchanted
metalware of all manner of description, a more exotic range of wares than he'd seen in the cauldron
and cookware shops of Diagon Alley. From the ceiling beams hung cages and traps for keeping
pets or snaring vermin; sturdy racks sported small knife blades for brewing, medium sickle blades
for harvesting, and large hunting blades for butchery; tamper-proofed locks and hooks and latches;
propped against the walls were Muggle-repelling garden gates of lacy fretwork that glowed a
dangerous vivid blue from inscribed runic phrases.

Tom stopped at a display of "Instant Heat, Rustler Deterrent" livestock branding irons dangling
around a large Floo fireplace. The display bore a sign advertising designs to-order, imbued with a
personalised magical signature. "Your Cows Will Come Home!"

What would happen if you pressed that on human skin? Tom wondered.

"Hello, sorry, sorry to keep you waiting!" A slim, dark-haired young man entered from the door
behind the counter marked Staff Only. He had finely-drawn features and milky-translucent skin, and
wore a shirt of crisp linen with bloused sleeves under a damask waistcoat and ascot, looking very
much like the dapper frontispiece portrait of Hermione's beloved Mr. Darcy. Or, thought Tom,
observing the man's paleness, his soft white hands, and his first-class tailoring out-of-place in a
farmer's emporium, he resembled the title character of the book he'd once found in the Hogwarts
library, The Mysterious Mister Maximillian. When Tom had researched the Chamber of Secrets,
he'd ended up in the wizarding fiction section, and had discovered that female students, and witches
in general, had a certain inexplicable fascination for...

Vampires.

Nott tugged even more urgently at his sleeve.

"Hello? Where did you go? The bell only rang once..." said the vampire, looking around the
cluttered—though empty—shop floor. Tom and Nott had Disillusioned themselves, but the vampire
wasn't certain they had left. He pushed through the swinging saloon door that separated the counter
from the shop floor, peeking around the aisles formed by shelves of metal products, stopping here
and there to neaten a rack of fireplace pokers, brush the dust off a faded Price Upon Request sign.
The vampire's nostrils flared. "Please, sirs, do not be shy. I have been informed of the laws of this
country, and by these laws, I have been officially certified of my humanity, partial as it may be."

Tom felt Nott slithering behind him, backing toward the door; he snatched the boy's wrist and felt it
shivering.

"It can smell our blood," breathed Nott.

The vampire's pale, angular face turned to them with an almost audible snap, a glint of red in his
eyes. Nott jerked at his arm in Tom's grip. A hip flask of polished steel fell off a display table and
hit the flagged floor with a loud clatter.

The vampire leaped at them.

Tom's wand was already in his hand.

The cages hooked from the ceiling fell down and were arrested in mid-air, the bars unwinding and
unfurling like a lotus in bloom. Strips of braided metal latched onto the vampire's wrists, dragging
them back as sharp fingers clawed for Tom's face. They collared the creature round the throat, and
tangled in a sailor's knot around his legs, pinning them together ankle to ankle. Tom felt the cool
breath from the vampire's mouth against his cheek, smelled the iron tang and saw the ruby-wet
tongue behind distended fangs. Behind him, Nott yelped, drew his wand and with a limp flourish,
locked the door and floated up the velvet display cloths to cover the windows.

Tom walked forward, Levitating the bound vampire in front of him at the point of his yew wand,
until they'd reached the wooden counter. Then Tom placed the vampire, crooked ascot and all, face-
up on the counter's surface and drove the ends of the metal cuffs deep into the wood. Vampires
were magical creatures. Like most magical creatures, their inherent magical nature meant a certain
level of resistance to external magic, and often had a magic of their own of a different variety to
human wizards. Tom remembered when he'd been knocked down and bled by a mermaid he'd
caught in the Black Lake. He'd cast a Stunner on it, but the spell had lasted less than ten minutes. It
was better to rely on physical restraints.

"This is a grave misunderstanding," said the vampire, tugging at the metal bands on his wrists. He
was strong; the wood creaked with his pulling. "I assumed you were thieves come to the plunder. If
you unhand me, I shall agree to put this indignity behind us and allow us to part as strangers into
the rosy blush of morn."

Tom cast a Sticking Charm on the cuffs, performed a bit of complicated Transfiguration to merge
the metal to the wood, the wooden counter to the stone floor, and completed his wand movements
with a Bodybind to prevent the vampire from shuffling about.

"At least un-Disillusion yourself," the vampire complained. "I know there are two wizards in here.
Yes, wizards. A witch would not treat me so unjustly. They, the sweet nymphets born under the
tender auspices of Venus, know better than to think me a foul creature of the night. I," he crooned,
"am a maestro of the human body. Every touch of mine brings bliss, every kiss is ecstasy—"

"—Until you suck them dry, you filthy lamprey," snapped Nott, reversing his Disillusionment. "You
like witches in the same way I like trifle: without it trying to run away screaming in horror. Ugh,
the thing is drooling. Hurry up and question it before the smith knows something's wrong."

Tom terminated his Disillusionment, wand raised for another spell. Imperio.

The vampire's eyes bulged, and his will resisted Tom's, more powerful than any human he'd ever
tested himself against. Save Dumbledore, perhaps, but Tom had never gone mind against mind with
the old man. Only whispered on the edges of the Professor's consciousness like a darting butterfly,
to retreat when Dumbledore called an end to the demonstration of applied Occlumency performed
by a master of the art. Vampires were forbidden wands, so could not cast wizard spells; they had a
natural Legilimentic talent instead, much like Tom's. They possessed the ability to sense and
mesmerise prey into a complacent stupor. A simple trick, a powerful but blunt-edged instrument,
without the precision and honed acuity of Tom's mental magic.

Instead of forcing himself through like he'd done with Vajkard Kozel, the wizard behind the
Montrose sabotage, Tom wended a circuitous path, diffusing his focus into one, then two, and
finally three probing branches that stole through the vampire's surface resistance. The vampire's
mind tried to block him at one point of entry, and the probe retreated in response, but the other two
tunnelled deeper, dragging the glittering chartreuse strands of the Imperius Curse's spell boundary
through the rills and runnels of the creature's memory.

Lightly goes it. Control without damage. Remember how you took Avery. Not to destroy his mind,
but to make it yours, he reminded himself.

Tom breathed slowly, composing himself and quietening the thunder of his heartbeat. He could feel
his control settling over the alien consciousness. And it was that: utterly alien. Beneath the
organised thought and memory, typical of a sentient being of higher intelligence, lay the mind of a
beast in hibernation. It was unsettling for Tom to explore a human-shaped beast from the inside,
without the distracting welter of purely animal sensory instincts as he'd found in the Acromantula's
mind. Tom had always considered the "base urges" he occasionally felt to be a weakness of lesser
men to be repressed whenever he liked. The vampire saw its own urges not as an enemy, but as
inseparable from itself. It and the beast were one, and together they were the physical manifestation
of bloodlust.

Their eyes opened.

"What is your name?" he asked the vampire, whose hungry eyes shone like sundae cherries.

"Václav Janošík."

"The Secret Keeper was a vampire. That explains a lot," said Nott. "Wandless, but capable of
physical feats and intelligent thought. Resistant to magical and Legilimency attacks. Well, most
Legilimency."

"What's upstairs?" Tom continued.

"My masterwork project," said the vampire. "For I am but a humble journeyman."

"What," said Tom, drawing the strands of his will tighter around the vampire's mind, "exactly is
your project?"

"A portway."

"Elaborate."

"A magical port of ingress, fabricated of enchanted metal in the Schlossgarten baroque style."

"You mean... a gate."

"If you must call it that," sighed the vampire. "You Englishmen have no taste."

"Why do you support the Dark Lord?"

"I do not support the man. He thinks with too much of a mortal's near-sightedness—too impatient,
always rushing when he should be biding. But I support his principles. One, after all, must have
some taste."

"But why?" asked Nott. "What does he have that you want?"

"Since you are so insistent about it, I suppose I have no choice but to answer," said the vampire in a
resigned voice. "It is forbidden by the International Statute of Secrecy to ravish the female
Muggles, no matter how eagerly they ask for it. It would upset the Muggles severely, and set them
on a witch hunt that would cause even more upset amongst wizards. So, I must turn to the witches,
but they are not so easily led astray, and again and again, invite me in for their satisfaction. Until it
comes to my own, to which they spurn me as keenly as Eros' arrow pierces my breast." He sighed
despondently. "It is beyond degrading. The husbands, however, are none too sympathetic about my
wretched plight.

"But if one day there were no more International Statute, there would be no more Muggle
protections... On that day, I could finally slake this eternal curse laid upon me, quieten the thirst that
rises in me whenever I hear the churning valves that churn within you. Oh, how loud it roars in my
ears, how terrible the temptation to my poor bedamned soul. But know that I hold no grievance
against you and your kind, wizardling. This is the truth, and you know it to be true."

"Can't you 'lead astray' a wizard?" asked Tom. "Why are you so obsessed with witches?"

"Would you be partial to licking a wizard's bearded throat? To feeling his proclamation of rapture
spurt hot against your thigh? No? I thought not."

Nott made a retching noise. Tom ignored him. "How do I get upstairs?"

"You must know the Secret, which somehow, you already do. And..."

"Yes?"

"The enchanted trigger-lock on the staff door, modelled from the goblin-smiths' masterworks."

"What's the trigger?"

The vampire bit his lip. Tom pushed harder, but Nott interrupted him, saying, "Touch. It's a touch,
isn't it? A finger brush around the seal is what cracks open my family's high-security vault."

"Yes," said the vampire reluctantly. "A handprint. If you unbind me, I will open the lock for you.
You already know the Secret, what harm would it do? I shall promise to keep my seductions to
myself. As a simple burgher of civilised mien, I am quite open to negotiation."

Despite the vampire's promise against seduction, he lay languidly on the wooden shop counter as if
he'd been pinned for a spot of exotic bedsport rather than an interrogation. He licked his pale lips,
his fangs still extended, and traced the line of a milk-white, glistening tooth with the tip of his wet
tongue. Tom glanced at the thing's hands, then at the door, then back to the restrained vampire. He
kept his wand raised and ready.

"Does this shop sell rings?"

"Many sorts," said the vampire. "Barrel rings for coopers' casks. Ear and nose tags for stock
identification. Lid rings for apothecary jars. Cauldron hooks—"

"Wedding rings."

"Under the counter, third drawer from the bottom. Tap your wand to the handle and speak the
password, 'Nibelungen'."

"Thank you," said Tom.

"You are most welcome."

"Having been most co-operative so far, I almost feel sorry about doing this," said Tom. He cast a
Silencing Charm over the vampire's face, and with a flick of his wand, sliced open a pearl-buttoned
linen cuff, peeling back the shirtsleeve to reveal a slender white wrist. He squared his shoulders
and, pointing his wandtip to the creature's hand, began sawing it off at the wrist, feeling his way
through to the bone. Black blood, thick as tar, beaded on the flagstones.

"Fuck," Nott muttered to no one in particular. He cringed at the rubbery snap of ulnal ligaments.

Tom gestured with his wand, tightening the metal cuffs to clamp over the wrist-stump and stem the
flow of blood, a makeshift tourniquet. It was more than the vampire needed. Since he was an
unliving creature, there was no chance of death from Tom's amateur surgical skills. Not from blood
loss, at least.

Then he floated the severed hand to the back door, pressing it to a carved panel under the Staff Only
plaque. Glistening blood dribbled down the iron-bound wood. A latch on the other side clicked.
Silently, the door slid open. Tom made to go through, but Nott's voice stopped him.

"Aren't you going to clean up outside before you go in?" Nott pointed to the covered window. The
clank of struck metal was audible within the shop.

"I would rather not fight a Master Metallurge if I don't have to," said Tom. "Since 'careful' is my
middle name, however..."

He piled merchandise around the door to block the way in, upending display tables and Banishing
knives through the wood so the points punched through to face the entrance. It made a precarious
mess; anyone who managed to push open the door by force would have to deal with a towering
stack of sharp-edged metal. As a finishing touch, he detached a number of spring-jawed traps from
the ceiling beams and laid them in a half-circle around the barricade.

"What sort of traps are these?" Tom asked curiously, flicking his wand to spread the jaws open. The
traps were well-designed gadgets, able to be manipulated from a distance. A useful safety feature.
"The brown bear is extinct in Britain."

"They're wolf traps," said Nott. "Anyone with a wand can get them to open up. It won't immobilise
a wizard for long."

"But the jaws still hurt when they snap shut on his leg, won't they?"

"Er... yes."

"Good enough."
Satisfied with his work, Tom turned to the back door. Nott, giving a rueful look to the manacled
vampire, hurried after Tom, hesitating for a moment to Summon a branding iron from the rack near
the fireplace, shoving it into the door jamb to keep it from swinging shut after them. It wouldn't
close; Tom had ensured it. He'd adhered the vampire hand to the opening sequence with a very firm
Sticking Charm.

The staff door led to a rickety wooden staircase, the banisters on each side crowded with a flat, dis-
assembled delivery cartons of various sizes. It led up to the second storey, the shop flat, whose
plain wooden door unlocked with an Alohomora.

I suppose the Germanics are famous organisers for good reason, Tom thought to himself, when he
took in the state of the upstairs flat. The last two houses he'd rummaged through were much the
same: the covered windows, the maps on the walls, the shelves full of scrolls containing the
dastardly plans. This flat had a scarred wooden carpenter's trestle, on which sat the components of a
complicated metalworking project, along with a series of tiny miniatures. Tom could see what the
final design was meant to be: a baroque gate with a curlicued overthrow. It looked harmless at first
glance. Harmful to the account ledgers, possibly, but innocent in every other way.

He inspected the living quarters. Compared to the quarters he'd seen previously, the vampire's was
different in that it had a coffin in the corner instead of a bed. The lid was off, the coffin's interior
lined with luxurious red velvet. It even had a dolly of a bat, sewn with soft brown chamois wings,
sitting on the pillow.

Nott headed directly for the scrolls, which he unrolled with an emphatic exhalation after each one.
"The gate is not just a gate. It never is that simple with these people, is it? A masterwork that isn't
an original invention will be a work that improves upon an existing idea. The lamprey pinned to the
table downstairs was designing a modern security gate using existing runic enchantment structures
instead of a more politically contentious blood confirmation. The Ministry granted him a research
pass to documents detailing the construction of Britain's most prominent public portways. Which
includes the golden gate behind the wand-weighing station at the Ministry of Magic's Atrium, and
Hogwarts' boar gate.

"It's unconventional for a British government to grant Mastery status to non-wizard partial-humans,
and a non-British citizen to boot," Nott continued. "The Master-supervisor, Ansgar Schmitz,
negotiated on behalf of his journeyman, Mr. Václav Janošík, that on the masterwork's completion
and assessment by a panel of Master Enchanters, the designs and patent for technical improvement
would be surrendered to the Ministry of Magic. The panel would not be obligated to grant Mr.
Janošík Master status; they just had to give him one fair assessment. Either way, Master
certification or not, the Ministry would come out the owner of the patent, able to use it themselves
or lease it for royalties from local artificers."

"Devious," said Tom. "Do you think the Ministry would really have recognised a vampire as a
Master of any magical discipline, obscure or otherwise? I can't see a way for them to make it look
good. The Ministry can deny sentient non-humans the use of a wand, but even wandless, one has
the intelligence and competence to prove his mastery of an art that the majority of regular wizards
could scarcely comprehend. How many students are in our N.E.W.T. Ancient Runes class? Eight.
How many of them will become Masters of Enchanting? None. Most of them enrolled because
Runes is prestigious for how demanding a subject it is. They'll graduate with a 'Top Ten cohort
ranking' with no effort at all due to the size of the class. A vampire proving he's better than the best
that Hogwarts has to offer... It flies in the face of proper wizarding pride."
Nott shook his head, a contemplative frown on his face. "Spencer-Moon is more liberal than
previous Ministers, but his sympathy leans more toward Muggle welfare than creature rights. The
agreement between Master Schmitz and the Department of Magical Education grants Mr. Janošík
fair evaluation, but there's no clause saying that the assessors must be randomly chosen from an
anonymous pool. If the Department stacks the panel with notoriously harsh assessors, from the old
families in particular, it would mean no chance of a successful certification."

"I don't think he'd care," said Tom, "if a Mastery isn't his goal. Academic qualification doesn't
motivate him. He's not human. What's the purpose of an official government certificate to an
immortal being? He's seen governments come and go. He knows they're cheap and petty and
preoccupied by shallow pursuits like budgets and profit."

"How do you know that?" asked Nott. "Did you get it from his mind?"

"No," said Tom. "I didn't need to. It's obvious to me. It's how I'd think if I were immortal. It's also
obvious to me that the vampire and the Ministry were playing each other. The Ministry, useless and
greedy as they are, wanted a patent, because how often does a competent Master come along in
Britain willing to give a good one away for free? The families who own the broomstick
manufactories have been rolling in gold from sitting on good patents for centuries. So they took the
Trojan Horse and thought themselves all the cleverer for it."

"Will you turn him in, then, like you did the last time? If it's a Ministry fumble that started it,
they're going to like admitting it even less."

"It would be the better choice," Tom admitted. "As with last time, neither of us are professional
wardmasters or cursebreakers, and if the plan is to crack the Hogwarts gates, you and I will be
personally affected by it. It would be easier to stomach the incompetence if it wasn't framed
entirely as a 'Ministry oversight' issue. Frame it as the fault of one Department, Magical Education,
and let the inter-Departmental politics from the DMLE and Minister's office devour them. The
Minister's office is already unstable from Montrose. Spencer-Moon and his cronies will keep their
fingers pointed as far away from themselves as they can. It's the one thing protecting the Minister
from being called up in front of the Wizengamot to tender a resignation."

"As much as you must revel in chaos," said Nott, "I hope you realise that destabilising the
government doesn't do the people of Britain any favours."

"I do realise that, actually," Tom replied.

"And?"

"And what?" said Tom. "I've nothing further to add to my statement."

"I see," said Nott. "Well, without your handiness with wandwork, I'd wonder whether or not the
'Charming' portion of your title was as fictional as the 'Prince' part."

"The criticism is unwarranted," Tom said. He nodded at Nott's black hooded cloak and the black
woollen scarf covering his face. "You're the Green Knight who dresses head-to-toe in black."

"Yes, but if you're going to be a Prince, out of symbolism if not legal recognition," Nott insisted, "it
has to be symbolic of something. If the British people aren't your subjects, then what are they?"

"My coinpurses," said Tom.

They were in the middle of collecting papers and books to take from the room—bickering all the
while—when they heard a clash of falling metal from downstairs. Nott paused in the task of
shoving scrolls into his bag to twitch a curtain open and snatch a peek of the street below.

"The smith is at the front door, trying to push it open. He knows he's been locked out," Nott
reported. "He must have gotten the door unlocked, but realised that it's been blocked by the rubbish
you stacked on the inside."

Crack! Crack! Crack!

"Looks like he called for reinforcements," Nott narrated. "Can't tell how many Apparated in; at
least three, more if they've got Side-Along passengers—"

The whine and thunderclap of metal jaws snapping shut was soon followed by loud bellows.

"Oh, that's got to hurt," said Nott with a wince. "That'll be the wolf traps. You'd better have a plan
for us to fight our way out. They'll be coming upstairs soon enough."

"Schau dir die Hand an! Die Hand an der Tür!"

"I don't speak German, but I can guess when Franz and Heinrich are shouting about 'die Hand', it
means they know what you did to the vampire..."

Tom had stopped paying attention. With a furious scowl, he began tearing posters off the wall and
slicing the covers off runic syllabaries he'd taken from a shelf. Paper, paper, he needed paper
shredded into as large a pile as he could gather. He didn't harbour any fondness for defacing books,
but the ones left to put away were only common references, and easily replaceable. One thing
mattered above the preservation of precious knowledge: the preservation of Tom's precious life.

He Transfigured the shredded paper into glass. Clear shards of sparkling lead crystal, transparent as
spring water, edges so sharp they could cut with nothing more than a look. When the mass
Transfiguration was complete, Tom drew out a vial of Basilisk venom and drizzled it over the glass
pile, then gave the requisite swish-and-flick to Levitate the whole clinking jumble into the air.

"Are you going to help me or stand there with your mouth open?" snapped Tom, too focused to
care for nicety. He remembered when he'd washed dishes in the Hog's Head the summer before
Fifth Year. This was more of the same sort of simple charmwork... except messier.

"What do you need?" asked Nott, drawing his wand.

"Kneel on the side of the door, where they can't see you from the stairs. I'll be on the opposite side.
As soon as I Levitate the glass past the door, you need to cast a Shield Charm and hold it. Hold it
firm, don't let it go. No matter what cries for mercy you hear from outside."

Gingerly, Tom guided the glass pile, like a glittering crystal cloud, up into the air to ceiling height.
It couldn't be allowed to waver, else the Basilisk venom would drip down, and the sound of
chiming glass would draw notice. This would be most effective if it came without warning;
forewarning would ruin the surprise. In complete silence, the glass drifted out the door and into the
dark shadows of the roof beams above the rickety staircase.

The wizards had gotten the wolf traps off, and he heard them questioning the familiar voice of the
vampire.
"Wer hat dir das angetan, Vašek?"

"Zwei Herren, mächtige Herren... Ich glaube es ist der Prinz aus der Zeitung..."

The first of the wizards began to climb up the stairs to the second level.

Tom motioned Nott to get into position, and the boy obeyed, mouthing the incantation for the
Shield Charm and directing the half-dome to cover the open entryway of the door. Tom's forehead
wrinkled; it took firm concentration to keep the mass of glass shards suspended in the air without
rattling. From the view of the wizards on the first floor, they should see only an open doorway, no
moving figures visible within, and no sounds of movement. He and Nott were hunched on either
side of the door, out of sight.

Nott, listening intently to the creak and groan of footsteps on the stairs, signalled with his fingers.
One, two, three. Up to six fingers, before he stopped counting. Six wizards, then.

Modulating his breathing to remain quiet and calm, Tom heard the creaking louden, the whispers in
guttural German, the murmur of a spell, Homenum Revelio.

One of the wizards cried out in pain, "Etwas hat mich gebissen!"

There came a scuffling from the stairs, then a shout, "Schau hinauf!"

Tom terminated the Levitation spell, jabbing his wand in the movement for Oppugno. The glass
shards fell from above like silent rain.

Thus began an orchestral interlude of pure chaos. Nott was correct for pointing out that Tom
revelled in it, although truthfully, Tom revelled more in seeing his plans come to fruition. Chaos for
the sake of chaos was not his usual penchant. For his part, Nott, whey-faced and huddled as close to
the floor as possible, doggedly held the Shield Charm, deflecting sparks of light that the panicked
wizards shot in all directions.

Tom had always wondered what the difference was between being bitten by a Basilisk on a limb,
the typical injection site, versus having the venom shot straight into the brain. He supposed it came
down to the nature of magical snake venom, about which the Care of Magical Creatures textbooks
gave very little information. Different breeds of snakes had different types of venom, each with its
own physical mechanics. Some venoms attacked the heart, others the nerves, still others degraded
the organic matter it was exposed to. He supposed the Basilisk's venom was of the last category; it
needed to be able to digest the prey Petrified by its lethal gaze.

Eventually the sparks stopped, and the groaning of the stairs fell silent. Tom stood up and brushed
off his robes.

"The stairs are made of wood. They'll be weakened; I wouldn't trust our weight on them. We'll have
to Levitate ourselves down, and cast a Cushioning Charm at the bottom," he said.

At the bottom of the stairs, Tom Levitated the body of a German wizard, face blackened into
recognisability, in front of him as a puppet. He floated it out through the open door leading to the
shop floor, pointedly ignoring the vampire hand still stuck on the rune lock, and made it waggle a
limp arm. Nothing happened. No answer of spellfire that he'd been expecting.
He entered the shop, the wizard still held in front of him, robes dragging damp streaks on the
flagstones, and examined the wreck of the once-neat product displays. There was a good reason,
then, why it was recommended to Apparate via established Apparition points, instead of straight
into a building. You never knew if someone had re-arranged the furniture since your last visit.

The vampire, Václav Janošík, had been released of his arm restraints. A large wizard, intent on
reverse Transfiguring the metal band on one ankle, bent over the counter with wand in hand. The
wizard was an older man, a broad-shouldered greying blond with hairy bare arms scarred shiny
from layers of healed burns. He wore a traditional-style smocked shirt with wide sleeves and a
laced throat, the lacings undone to show the blond pelt of his chest, and over that was an apron in
slick red leather patterned with oval scales. Dragonhide, Tom guessed, like Travers' dragonhide
duelling vest he'd borrowed to wear under his black robes.

"Will you surrender or fight?" said Tom coldly. He heard Nott following him in, but didn't see the
other boy. Tom assumed he'd Disllusioned himself after recognising the value of a good surprise.
"You can come quietly, or you can come... messily. It's unusual for my quarry to be offered such a
choice, so you should be honoured by the privilege. When you go to trial, I promise to say at least
one thing nice about you at the stand. The Ministry of Magic would not be so lenient towards you."

"Surrender for what?" retorted the blond wizard, the Master Metallurge Ansgar Schmitz. "I have
committed no crime. But you? You trespass on my property. You mutilate my apprentice. You keep
your face covered like you are too frightened to be seen."

"'I have committed no crime'," Tom repeated in a bland voice. "Half-truth at best. Try again."

"You may call yourself Prinz, but you have the easy, untested arrogance of a second-born Junker,"
said Schmitz, pronouncing the last word as 'Yoon-ker'. He waved his wand and the steel band
securing the vampire's left ankle darkened from shiny metal to dull pig iron and then to rusty raw
ore. The vampire tugged at his trapped limb, and the band crumbled into dusty fragments of rock.
"What say you, Vašek?"

"He is an Englishman, devoid of taste and culture. The English are not known as a people of poets
and thinkers," said the vampire. "This kleiner Prinzling has no idea of what you speak. Junker, jung
Herr. A young lord with nothing to his name but an empty title and his lofty pretensions, eager to
advance himself through endeavours most dubious. I know it well; I was one once. And look at
where it took me—" The vampire laughed hollowly, waving his stump of an arm for morbid
emphasis. "Half the man I once was."

Out of the corner of Tom's eye, he saw movement by the fireplace. The lid on the Floo powder urn
lifted under an invisible hand. Silver powder glittered on the floor; a small green fire flickered into
noiseless existence. A footprint smudged the powder-dusted flagstones.

Tom cleared his throat, giving the Levitating wizard a jiggle. A hank of sludge, formerly hair,
dripped off the melting skull and spattered to the floor. "Ahem. I may be English, but I'm of Anglo-
Saxon stock, which means I'm almost as German as you are. I don't know why you can go around
mocking me for my English-ness. I, personally, don't think less of you for being Germans. I have
German friends, in fact." This was an over-generous fact re-interpretation, since his single not-
actually-German "friend" was closer to Hermione and her family than Tom. But everything of
Hermione's was Tom's by right, as her wizard husband, and that fact was true so everything else
followed. Q.E.D., quod erat demonstrandum, as the Arithmancers wrote it.

The vampire and the blacksmith exchanged a glance, then chuckled.

"We do not care that you are English or German by blood," said Schmitz.

"They taste practically the same," the vampire added. "Except in October. All the beer and mustard
gives the blood a certain fizz. Take my word on it, it is quite unpleasant."

"We hold you in contempt for your noble affectations," continued Schmitz. "Let us speak with
candour. If I am an agent of the Revolution, as you suspect I am, why do you think that is?"

"The Ministry says it's because you want to go around killing people. Muggles, preferably," said
Tom. "But I don't believe it."

"Whyever not?"

"It would only make sense as a motivation for the lowest of the low. You two seem like intelligent
chaps. If you'd wanted to get away with killing people willy-nilly, you wouldn't have to join a
Revolution to make it happen," said Tom. "Thus the only reasonable explanation for why you'd
bother is the moral fig leaf it gives you. You want righteousness on your side, because you're
ideologues. Or worse—Socialists."

"What," said the vampire, "is a Socialist?"

"A devotee of Socialism, the re-distributist form of government where private ownership is
abolished," said Tom, remembering the pamphlets he'd found tossed like refuse on the streets of
London. "It exists as a counterweight to systems like mercantilism or feudalism, which promote the
amassing of personal or hereditary fortunes, estates, and aristocracy."

"Oh, yes," the vampire nodded. "I found it rather unfair when my title was stripped from me after
my star-crossed reawakening... Ah, these bygone memories scorch me as the sun's wrath." He
fingered his crooked ascot. "But I see now how it was nothing but an encumbrance. The system
divides us beyond sense and reason; it serves precious few, and not even well at that. You should
sip from this Well of Mímir one day, little Prince, for its waters run nearer and sweeter than you
think. You can never close your eyes once you have seen with truesight."

"You could achieve your heart's desire if you turned away from the feeble whispers of your
Ministry," said Schmitz. "In this new world to be ushered forth, there are no titles, no princes, no
patronage, no blood status, no pedigrees. Your worth will be recognised from the fruits of your own
labour and scholarship. From magic. Magic and might. And you, I declare, are not lacking in
either."

"Tempting," said Tom, watching the flicker and dart of the blacksmith's gaze. "Very tempting. But
there is no amount of Socialism that could ever grant me my heart's desire."

"I was afraid you might say that," said Schmitz, and flicked his wand. The last manacle holding the
vampire to the wooden counter snapped like taffy under the monstrous strength.

The vampire flung himself at Tom, fangs bared, its one whole hand ready to clasp him by the throat
in a not-so-tender caress. Tom cast a Knockback Jinx, shoving the vampire back a few skidded
paces. His spell was forceful, but the vampire was stronger than a human wizard, and its unliving
body was resistant to magic cast directly upon it.

Tom had guessed this would happen. They had been playing for time, and Tom couldn't blame
them, for he'd done just the same thing. With a silent spell, the floating, bloated corpse of the dead
wizard was Switched with the upended table by the front door, the one with potion-preparation
blades shoved from beneath the splintered top.

The table shot through the air and smashed into the vampire as its legs tensed for another leap at
Tom. With a feline yowl, the vampire slammed into the wall behind the counter, Never-Dull knives
spearing through its body and into the mortared stone below. It was fixed into place with the
precision of a specimen butterfly, sad shreds of its fine shirt dangling to the floor in white ribbons
slowly consumed by the creeping stain of tar-black blood.

His momentary distraction with the most pressing threat lent the Master Metallurge an opening.
Schmitz blasted him back into a display rack of sickle blades, and he felt the unpleasant sensation
of the sharp points scoring deep lines into Travers' borrowed duelling vest, bruising the flesh below.
The blades didn't puncture the silver-studded hide—dragonhide was resilient against physical
damage as well as magical—but his breath was driven out of him, and he was dazed at the force of
the blow—

Schmitz pointed his wand at Tom's forehead. "Imperio. Remain as you are. Drop your wand."

If Dumbledore's Legilimency was the soft brush of a fly's wings against his mind, Schmitz's force
of will thrust at his consciousness with the grace and subtlety of a sledgehammer. It was supposed
to feel good; this curse was meant to make its victim amenable to persuasion by seizing on
impressions of warmth and solace and familiarity. It skittered through Tom's mind trying to latch
onto those feelings and memories that were his alone, but it couldn't find them, couldn't close its
scrabbling yellow pincers on anything but slippery shadow. Tom weathered the pain, feeling his
awareness falter and stumble through a field of hazy images interspersed with the black flicker of
celluloid frames, and he could little discern if they came from his eyes, a memory his eyes had once
seen, or someone else's borrowed recollections...

The scarf over his face grew warm and close as the knitted wool soaked with the blood from his
nose and the tears from his eyes; he had not cried, not in over a decade, yet his eyes shed tears
without his permission, and he could do nothing about it. Couldn't control his own body—

Except for his hand.

His wand pulsed with heat under his stiffened fingers.

Let it go, repeated the voice in his mind, battering him with its insistence. No more persuasion, only
a single harsh demand that ripped through his echoing skull.

Tom opened his fingers.

The wand dropped.

Half a foot before it clattered to the floor, he Summoned it back and unleashed the suppressed
torrent of his fury into a single silent spell.

Expelliarmus!

Master Metallurge Ansgar Schmitz was hurled backwards, just like he'd done to Tom, straight into
the arms of a squad of Aurors exiting the fireplace.
The Aurors at the front yelped as they were hit by two hundred and fifty pounds of angry
blacksmith, but the ones in the back, still disembarking from the Floo connection, pushed them
forward and onto their feet, wordless Immobilisation charms readied at the tips of their drawn
wands.

Nott came last, ducking his head around both masoned side panels of the fireplace's frame, before
reluctantly getting out. His eyes widened when he took in the mess of the shop floor: the steel-
bladed sickles shining on the flagstones, the dripping, disintegrating wizard leaving a bloody
puddle by the front door, and finally, the vampire spiked to the wall like the dartboard of a rowdy
bar room.

"That's the Secret Keeper you've been looking for the past few weeks," said Nott when he'd got
around to gathering up his scattered wits, pointing to the vampire on the wall behind the counter.
"The one involved in the Montrose affair. He's Secret Keeper to the room upstairs, where I found
the papers I showed you."

After Schmitz was bound and Disarmed, it was natural for the Aurors to turn their eyes to Tom.

One Auror, badge of gold shining on his robes, stared at Tom in his torn black robes and sodden
black scarf over his face. It was to his good fortune that blood didn't show too well on black; it
would have been a miserable first impression otherwise.

With some hesitation, the Auror approached Tom and offered his hand. Tom took it; the man shook
it with a firm grip. "Evelyn McClure, Head Auror. You must be the infamous Prince of Charming.
Your Knight companion reported six bodies upstairs—" He glanced around at the Auror underlings
rolling the body by the door into a black bag. "Or five. That's two hundred Galleons' bounty per
head for the flunkeys, five hundred for the collaborator, and one thousand for the prime
Undesirable, Mr. Václav Janošík. Total of two thousand seven hundred Galleons. To which account
should we make out the reward, sir? Or is it 'Your Highness'?"

"I'm not doing this for money, if that's what you think. I'm not a mercenary," said Tom harshly,
sensing some of the intention behind the Head Auror's words. "Hold the funds in trust. Is this not an
insignificant favour for Britain's own hero to ask? When the war is over, I'll dedicate it to the re-
building committee. I'm not sorry about the Atrium, but public works are the duty of a Prince. I aim
to be magnanimous."

Auror McClure's lips thinned, and his eyes swept over Tom's form, his ragged robes and the tip of
the white wand hanging out of his sleeve. Drawn but not brandished. "You speak like a young man.
How old are you, exactly? I'd be more fair-minded to your hostility if it was explained as youthful
fervour."

"Old enough to know that I shouldn't have to do your job for you," Tom replied.

"And young enough not to know that your dragonhide doublet is standard Auror issue," said
McClure, pushing aside a fold of Tom's cloak to reveal his vest beneath. "Or was. Discontinued
thirty years ago, and the surplus was never released to the commercial market. Did it belong to your
father? Was he killed by the Dark Lord? And is that why you've taken up wands against him?
Vengeance, and I warn you from personal experience, is a dangerous and consuming path to walk
—"

"Sir," interrupted an Auror, proffering Ansgar Schmitz's wand. "We tested it. Imperius was its last
spell, properly cast with strong intent. We have reasonable suspicion enough to send him straight to
Azkaban to await trial."

McClure studied Tom, the slickened wool over his nose. "Your nose is bleeding, but your eyes are
clear. You broke the Imperius. And you've resisted the Cruciatus before. Who are you? You can't be
a concerned private citizen; I refuse to believe it."

"Princeps civitatis," said Tom. "The first amongst citizens. I'm not a citizen, I'm the most
concerned citizen."

"Then I should be grateful to request your citizen's testimony when the trial is held," said McClure.
"How may I write you, Prince?"

"Place an announcement in The Daily Prophet," Tom answered. "That is, if you're not too abashed
to admit in public that, once again, this citizen performed a citizen's arrest that should have been
yours. If your Aurors would escort me through the Atrium, bypassing the wand identification desk,
I'd find some time in my busy schedule to attend."

Auror McClure was soon called over in a discussion on how to peel the complaining vampire off
the wall, and how to reattach his hand, if it should be done at all. While they were distracted, Tom
popped open the drawer under the counter to browse the selection of wedding rings arranged inside
a ridged velvet tray. Most of them were silver, a handful were gold, and all were simple bands with
little ornament or gemwork.

He heard Nott's presence before he saw it; no one could say so much with a quiet sniff like he
could.

"What do you want?"

"These are rings for village hedge witches and working wives. If you want a proper heirloom ring,
you need to find a jeweller."

"But they are proper rings." Tom held one ring up to inspect the paper tag tied on with string.
"'Enchantments: size-to-fit; durability; neverlost.' Look, the maker's mark. A Master made this."
He put the ring down, spotting another one, silver with a leafy design raised in relief around the
band. "I want this one. Sixteen Galleons. I only have twelve and eight Sickles. Spot me the rest,
won't you."

"No one would notice if you took it without paying. The Aurors would happily turn a blind eye for
the honour of helping the Prince," Nott remarked. "And it's the least the Schmitz fellow could do,
to compensate for cursing you. Weregild—it's still legal. Technically."

"It's for my wife," Tom insisted. "It has to be proper."

Nott sighed and dug in his robes for a coinpurse. He tossed four Galleons into Tom's lap, and Tom
poured the coins into the drawer, taking the leafy ring and shutting the cabinet drawer.

"You do know that her wand is vinewood, don't you?" Nott pointed out. "That's laurel."

"Laurel would look just as good on her."

Nott sighed again, scratching his belly under Orion Black's dragon vest. "I'm too hungry to argue
with you. Let's get pasties."
When they returned to Hogwarts, the Quidditch match between Slytherin and Hufflepuff was still
ongoing.

The Slytherin boys were in the stands, watching the Slytherin Chasers weave intricate circles
around the dazed Hufflepuff team. It had been going on for the whole morning and into the
afternoon, and even Quaffle-brained individuals like Rosier had to let their arms down from the
pennant-waving. They made room when they saw Nott and Tom enter the seating section, and Tom
sat down gratefully, feeling the ache in his back from the exertions of his earlier duel.

"Where have you been all morning?" asked Travers. "We missed you at breakfast."

"What's the score?" Nott said, ignoring him. He took the big carton of pasties out of his bag. The
smell of lamb and gravy filled the stands. Avery reached over Tom's lap to snatch one up, but Nott
slapped his hand away. "Riddle, you should pick first. If you let these savages have their way, you'll
be left with nothing but crumbs."

Tom took a pasty. It was warm, and when he broke it open, the filling of turnip cubes and stewed
mutton rose with curls of steam.

"The score's 470 to 60," said Rosier. "Lestrange has been rotating in the reserves to allow the team
a rest. Quidditch rules allow substitutions for food and sleep, but not injury—that's the only way to
keep a match going on through an entire week. Though I expect Lestrange will end it when the
dinner bell rings, as Slytherin is already guaranteed this year's Quidditch Cup. House Cup, too. Oh,
thank you, don't mind if I do."

The next few minutes were occupied with loud chewing.

"Lestrange said you left early this morning, looking for something," said Avery, wiping buttery
shortcrust flecks off his lips. "He didn't say what it was. Did you find it? Or was it these pasties?
Really good stuff. They taste exactly like the ones from the village bakery near my house."

"Yes," said Tom. "I bought a wedding ring."

The boys offered their sincere congratulations, even Nott, who did it half-heartedly.

Slytherin won the match, 640 to 70. The Gryffindors declaimed to the referee, most passionately,
that the game must have been fixed; there was no way that such a score disparity could be
legitimate. There must have been cheating involved.

But no proof could be found, and the Slytherin team was cleared as winner. The party in the
Common Room carried on past midnight. Tom went to bed early, despite Captain Lestrange's
urging him to give a rousing speech and toast the enthusiastic crowd with a goblet of whisky. He
tossed Travers' battered vest on the boy's bed and flopped onto his own, turning the silver ring over
and over between his fingers.

He could fabricate a Head Boy's speech on the spot, every sentence a performance of creative
dissembling, with nary a glimmer of effort. Why, then, was a speech about his true sentiments so
difficult to vocalise? Why was it so easy to chatter on about the dearest desires of his heart with a
pair of prison-bound ruffians, but an exhausting task do it in the presence of someone whose
opinion on the subject held significant weight? He had no fear in the face of the Cruciatus, but he
dreaded the prospect of articulating his desires to the cold and uncomprehending outside world.

Some of his desires were agreeable enough, but the more honest he was in the privacy of his
thoughts, the more his ideas appeared, in charitable terms, mad.

1. I want to travel the world, see the palm huts of Tonga and be the uncommon Englishman in
Hong Kong, sleeping in travellers' inns and collecting souvenirs in every street market,
knowing that my journey ends with a well-kept home and an empty space in the bed beside
my wife.
2. I want Hermione to know that, just like I knew I was different—Special—compared to other
children from the very start, I knew she was just like me. She recognised it too, the first time
we met. That special quality we have and others lack wasn't a choice. It never was.
3. Our being together for perpetuity isn't a choice either.
4. I want her to fully appreciate what it means for us to be together.
5. I haven't forgotten that strange urge I had to push Hermione into the dirt to watch her squirm
and flush and blink at me with her big shiny eyes. I want her to ask me in her prim little First-
Row-In-Front-Of-The-Blackboard voice, "Tom, what is the meaning of all this?", as if she
had no clue whatsoever why Tom Riddle would laugh his head off at having Hermione
Granger pinned down and helpless under him.

It sounded quite mad, didn't it? It wasn't mad, because Tom judged himself to be a pillar of rational
forethought, but other people, lesser thinkers, might get the wrong idea...

Nevertheless, he decided, Hermione, as the subject of such desires, ought to know about them. He
also decided that he didn't need to say such words. Anyone could say words like, "Oh, my dear one,
my darling, the sun rises in your eyes and sets in my heart". Poets and vampires earned their way
through the world by using these empty words, hollow admissions within meaningless
relationships. No resemblance whatsoever to his own, of course. He was different; his connection
to Hermione was different. Words could not hope to describe the depth of their connection.

There was no need for pithy speeches, not when it was better to show Hermione what he meant.

When she finally saw and understood, there would be no choice for her but to agree with it.
Hermione was an intelligent witch. She knew better than to deny a most self-evident and natural
truth.
Chapter End Notes

Translations:
"Schau dir die Hand an! Die Hand an der Tür!" = Look at the hand, the hand on the door!
"Wer hat dir das angetan, Vašek?" = What have they done to you, Vašek? ["Vašek" is an
informal nickname.]
"Zwei Herren, mächtige Herren... Ich glaube es ist der Prinz aus der Zeitung..." = Two men,
powerful men. I think it's the Prince from the newspaper.
"Etwas hat mich gebissen!" = Something bit me! [Tom kept the glass from rattling, but a drop
of venom fell off too early. Oopsies.]
"Schau hinauf!" = Look above!

In this story, Grindelwald's motivation isn't just "KILL THE MUGGLES". That would defeat
the purpose of building him up as a writer and orator that 14-year-old BoaF Tom wanted to
emulate at one point. Grindelwald isn't a hardliner blood purist either, or else he would never
have seen young half-blood Albus Dumbledore as an equal worthy of confiding his Hallows
quest with or being boyfriend material.

Grindelwald's policy is "Magic First". All wizards are superior to Muggles. Wizards who
contribute their magic to wizarding society should be respected, and leisure class layabouts
with no day job like Canon Lucius Malfoy are lessers, with a social hierarchy based on
contribution and effort and not on blood status. Grindelwald's original followers were regular
commoner working wizards, many ethnic Slavs, with greater exposure to the Muggle world
and the rise of independence movements. They don't like how wizarding politics in Czech,
Slovene, Polish, Hungarian, etc territories is ruled by Pro-Status Quo German elitists who
maintain "old boy networks" based on pre-Statute Holy Roman Empire aristocracy.

Hence Grindelwald's solution: violent revolution for the greater good.

At age 14, Tom might have been sympathetic to the struggle of workers against nobles. But
he's rich now, so he hates the idea of re-distribution. Inheritance = instant cure for
communism.
 The Long Game
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

Tom gave her a ring at breakfast.

He'd saved her a place at the Slytherin table, right next to his, of course. He'd put a napkin over her
empty place setting, and the ring sat on top. Neither too delicate nor cumbersomely large, it was a
simple and sturdy band of cast silver, tiny rune engravings encircling the inner band, above a
prominent maker's mark, AS.

Tom watched her inspect the ring with a blank expression. "Well? Aren't you going to put it on?"

"I was just looking at the engravings. What sort of enchantments does it have, do you know?"
Hermione held out the ring, letting the light catch the runic phrases.

"As a helpful reminder," Tom prompted her, "the ring goes on your left hand."

"Alright, Tom," said Hermione. She slid the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. It looked like
it might be too tight, but then it slid on smoothly. "Oh, look, it's a perfect fit. That's odd. It almost
feels... warm."

"Those must be the enchantments," said Tom. "The tag said, what was it... Durability. You can wear
it in Potions and Herbology, and you won't have to worry about it getting scratched. Size-to-fit. It
must be warming to expand around the circumference of your finger; that's useful for when a witch
is expecting and her fingers swell up. And last, Neverlost. If you take it off and misplace it, it'll find
its way back to you. Clever work, isn't it? I knew this kind of ring was better than the heirloom
jewels the others kept trying to turn me to. This ring can't be passed down to daughters-in-law and
relatives, because it's meant for one wearer, and one wearer only. A lifetime ring, not an heirloom.
You're meant to wear it for the rest of your life."

"Tom," said Hermione, "you make it sound so ominous."

"Do I?" said Tom. "I'm pleased by it. You're going to be my wife, why would I be anything but
satisfied about it?" He patted her hand reassuringly. "Don't worry, Hermione, you can take the ring
off if you want to. It's not going to meld itself to your flesh or anything. Another good thing about
not buying an heirloom ring—this one is guaranteed brand new and without weird curses laid on by
the previous owner. I wouldn't give you a hand-me-down from someone else's failed marriage.
That'd be a terrible omen for the start of our blessed union."

"So, Riddle and Ante-Riddle," said Nott, "have you set a date yet? Traditionally, wizards use a
celestial calendar for the joining of two astrological houses. But the most fortuitous time of the
year, in general, is in spring and summer. Sometimes early autumn if one wants to draw on a bit of
the, ah, ritualistic fertility magic."
"It would have to be after we finish school," said Tom. "The sooner the better, I think. I've been
thinking about December, to mark the day of our tenth anniversary together—that way we'll never
forget the first time we met. Being half a year away, it gives us time to write our families and
announce the glad news. Hermione, you should tell your mother as soon as you can. She needs as
much time as possible to acculturate herself to the theoretical idea of it before she has to face the
reality. As for me, my family already knows my intentions, so I shouldn't need to explain my
decision any further than, 'Yes, I asked; yes, she said yes; and no, we don't need the nursery yet'."

"December!" Hermione exclaimed. "Surely that's too soon? There's no reason to rush things. It's
1945, not the Middle Ages. We don't have to go as fast as possible because the only alternative to a
quick wedding at a young age is being left on the shelf forever. Wizards can live for centuries. Why
must you be in such a hurry to be married, Tom? You're only eighteen!"

"Because I know I can live for centuries," said Tom. "And I've already decided that I want to spend
those centuries with you by my side. I simply don't see the purpose in delaying the inevitable. We
were going to spend that time together, marriage or not, and I'd rather we do it married." He gave
her a pointed look.

Nott coughed, and tea dribbled down his chin to his plate of eggs. He snatched up a napkin to cover
his face.

Travers cleared his throat politely.

"What?" said Avery, through a mouthful of bacon. "What did I miss?"

Lestrange waggled his eyebrows, glancing at Hermione, then at Tom.

"Oh," said Avery. "Well. That's right and proper, intercourse within the marital bower. What's the
scandal there?"

Hermione's face reddened; she could feel the burn up to her ears. "The breakfast table is neither the
time nor place for such a discussion."

"Why not?" asked Tom, his smile sweet and guileless. "I wasn't saying anything inappropriate—did
you assume I was? How unkind of you, Hermione. I'd have expected better of the Head Girl. From
Avery, however, I couldn't hope to expect anything at all." He gave a consoling pat to her knee,
under the table. "There, there. I don't mind a bit of sauciness, I'm sure it will make our marriage
very exciting in the future, won't it? Let's discuss something slightly more appropriate for
mealtime, then. How about a Lavatory Freshening Charm?"

Hermione was grateful that he'd changed the topic, so she clung to the life buoy he'd thrown her.
"Why use a charm?" she asked. "What benefit does it have over a simple vegetable essential oil, or
a condensed scent-removing potion dispersed through the mechanism of a perfume atomiser?
These potion recipes already exist for woodcraft and sport hunting, when you want to prevent
animals you're tracking from smelling humans in their habitats."

"Spontaneity, naturally," said Tom. "You never know when the urge to use the WC overcomes you
while you're out calling on a friend. It would be embarrassing to leave a souvenir even when the
rest of the business has been flushed away. You can Vanish the mess, of course, so what about
Vanishing the smell? Isn't it just tiny particles floating in the air? The solution, I believe, must be
some sort of selective, filtered Vanishing charm that removes minute amounts of disagreeable
substances from the air, without removing the air itself."
"Yes, I see what you're getting at," Hermione nodded. "If you remove the air entirely, you create a
vacuum, and that produces a loud noise that you wouldn't want a host to hear. Not to mention
accidentally suffocating yourself in a closed room. The standard Vanishing spell has a discrete
subject boundary directed at a solid object, so you want an area-affecting Vanisher that can remove
many thousands of object particles on a molecular level. Vanishing, like most Transfiguration-
adjacent charms, is reliant on mass-power ratios, so the mass itself should make it feasible for a
single caster..."

"Exactly," Tom said approvingly. "The issue is creating a spell with both variable boundaries and
reasonable energy requirements. It wouldn't be a particularly good spell if it couldn't adapt for
bathrooms of various sizes and ambient temperatures, or even outdoors. Woodcraft, picnics, or
even outhouses—there's plenty of country houses that still have those."

The eyes of the Slytherin boys had glazed over by now.

Nott, however, had not become distracted by the technical discussion. He just shook his head,
muttered, "Insufferable" under his breath, and continued eating his breakfast. And when the mail
owls arrived, he retreated to the safety of his newspaper, which featured yet another headline article
about the mysterious Prince of Charming.

After breakfast, Hermione was stopped in the corridor outside the Great Hall by a pack of Slytherin
girls, a few years younger than herself.

A dark-haired girl separated herself from the rest of her group. "Good morning, Granger," she said.
"So, he asked you? May I see the ring?"

"How do you know?" Hermione asked suspiciously. She didn't have much contact with students of
other Houses beyond the Slytherin boys of Tom's group, and partner assignments or other school-
related work. "I'm afraid I don't recall your name."

"Druella, Druella Rosier," said the girl. "You know my brother."

"Oh," said Hermione. "You must be Sebastian's sister. I don't believe he's ever introduced us,
formally or informally."

"Yes, I know, he's so lazy and annoying, isn't he? His manners need more work," agreed Druella.
"So? Can I see it?"

With some reluctance, Hermione held out her left hand, which was eagerly grasped by Druella,
then turned this way and that. "Oh. Simple but tasteful. Everyone can look at Riddle and see the
man's got taste. He knows the meaning of subtle. Laurel, that's a choice. Has it any personal
significance, if you're willing to divulge?"

Hermione accession to having her ring inspected was the cue to permit Druella Rosier's friends to
flock around her. They hummed and murmured in their quiet, polite Slytherin way, and Hermione
couldn't tell what they made of the ring, or even her engagement to their Head Boy, Tom Riddle.

"Laurel symbolises honour, glory, and triumph. Achievements in academics or athletics, thus the
term 'laureate'," Hermione explained. "In wandlore, laurel wands choose owners of diligent
character and strength of purpose. But my wand is vinewood, so perhaps Tom simply liked the
design." She reached into her pocket and showed the girls the handle of her wand, with a carved
leafy design. "Triumph and glory are odd choices of blessing to invoke for a marriage, don't you
think?"

Another girl piped up, "Odd for an average marriage with an average wizard or witch. It would be
seen as arrogant. But Riddle is better than average."

Druella nodded. "And he chose a simple design, with no gems, so he understands the limits of
what's acceptable to say aloud, and what is best whispered. See, I told you he was subtle. Glory,
without ostentation. Not like Walburga, the cow!"

The girls tittered.

"Do you mean..." Hermione ventured, "Walburga Black? I heard she was engaged to Orion Black."

"Yes, Walburga's father asked Orion's father, so they're pledged in troth," said Druella. "It's
permissable for me to call her a cow because she's my future sister-by-marriage and cousin-by-
marriage in one go. Walburga's ring is an ugly old thing, a family heirloom because of course it
was; she made such a crass to-do about taking it from the vault before Lucretia could claim it for
herself, as is her right as the oldest daughter of the main line. Not that Lucretia wanted it; she has a
sense of style, and she knew that a ring of jet stones to match the Black heraldry is ill-starred for a
wedding. Jet is for mourning!"

The other girls nodded along with their little ringleader. "Lucretia chose Hortensia Selwyn, the
1943 Head Girl, as bride's witness and bonder. Such a cut to Walburga, who's in the same school
year, and Lucretia's own eldest female cousin."

Another girl added, "Lucretia's wedding is first since Orion won't graduate until next year. When
Walburga is married, everyone will be comparing her wedding to Lucretia's."

"Have you chosen a witness and bonder, Granger?" asked Druella.

Hermione frowned. "It has to be a witch or wizard of magical majority. If you're making yourself
available for such a position, I'm afraid I'll have to refuse."

"No, no," said Druella quickly. "I was going to offer Sebastian for your bonder. You're friends,
aren't you? I know it's traditional to choose a witch for the bride and a wizard for the groom, and
you've probably picked one of the girls from your own House and year. But the Rosier name means
something. And if my brother's part of the ceremony, my papa won't be able to say that it's proper
for him to attend and not me."

"I haven't chosen anyone," said Hermione. "Good golly, Tom only gave me the ring this morning!
You sound as eager to rush to the altar as Tom is."

"Marriage is a blessing, especially one to a husband as devoted as Riddle!" said Druella. "And just
think of how funny it would be if we had a Head Boy Riddle and Head Girl Riddle in the same
year. If you married as students, maybe the staff would allocate you a room together in the
Slytherin dorms. Then you could invite us in and we could show you how to dress your hair in the
proper way!"

"Yes, funniness and proper hair, the best reason to marry," Hermione said in a neutral voice. "Thank
you, Druella. If I'm in need of wedding advice, I suppose I know whom to ask."
"Ooh, first names," Druella said with excitement. "Write me if you like. Or you might send a letter
through my brother, if you need to speak privately, witch-to-witch. I know all sorts of things." She
gave Hermione a sweet smile. "If you jinx the parchment, Sebastian's usually too lazy to figure out
how to crack it."

After that brief exchange, Hermione went to class, and to her relief, no one else accosted her for a
peek at the ring. In fact, no other students noticed it other than the older Slytherins. And the
Slytherins refrained from commenting on it; they just looked at it and said nothing. Hermione was
glad about that, even though she was old enough to know that Slytherins saying nothing in public
didn't mean they thought nothing about it in private. That was Tom's problem to sort out, not hers.

The only non-Slytherin who detected the one non-standard feature of Hermione's rule-perfect
uniform was Professor Dumbledore, when he'd returned her essay on energy-optimised
Transfiguration, based on her experiments with Transfiguring sedge grass to flax thread, and flax
thread to wire. If the first step involved a minor alteration to the thread produced, wherein the
thread was not made of multiple strands of spun fibers twisted together, but one single continuous
length like a strand of nylon, then it would cost less energy to Transfigure it to metal wire—another
chemically continuous structure. A small but creative change in visualisation requiring a
knowledge of material properties, it resulted in a stronger, more permanent, and less effort-
intensive final product.

Dumbledore explained his comments and listed a few textbooks Hermione might find useful for her
upcoming N.E.W.T. theory exam. Tom, in the next seat, gritted his teeth for Dumbledore's remarks
on his own essay on partial human-animal Transfiguration. He had his attentive schoolboy smile
fixed on his face, but she could tell he was tense by the way his foot jiggled and fidgeted under the
table, and his knee pressed insistently against hers. Tom was too distracted to notice Dumbledore's
eyes lingering on Hermione's left hand, which Hermione quickly hid under the table after she'd
taken back her marked essay scroll.

But just like the Slytherins, their Transfiguration professor didn't comment on it—nor was it his
place to do so!—and Hermione continued on with the rest of her day, until the afternoon. Then it
was time for her appointment with Travers to go have tea with the friendly Auror duo, Trombley
and Wilkes.

Hermione had ordered a box of tea samplers as her calling gift, small tins of different varieties of
exotic tea leaves: black tea, green tea, white tea, red tea, and purple tea, which she didn't know
existed and had never seen in any Muggle shop. She also observed that Travers had not bothered to
bring a gift. They were setting out from the East Courtyard when Rosier came haring out between
the colonnades at great speed, his cloak flapping behind him, panting and shouting, "Wait, wait!"

She and Travers turned around.

"What is it?" Hermione asked. "Did you forget to copy down the Transfiguration homework
questions from the blackboard?"

"Travers—" he gasped, "—mentioned—" another gasp, "—going to see the—" a deep sigh for
breath, "—Aurors for tea."

"Yes," said Hermione. "And we oughtn't to be late! It sets a bad impression if we can't keep to an
agreed time."
"I want to come," Rosier puffed. He reached under his cloak and proudly held up an enormous wine
bottle, a dark green glass Jeroboam sealed with a cork and wire clasp. "I brought a gift!"

"Put that back in your cloak," hissed Hermione. "Alcohol outside dormitory rooms is technically
contraband, even if you're of-age."

"Gallon perry," observed Travers. "I thought you said you were never touching that stuff again after
what happened last New Year's Eve."

Rosier shoved the bottle back under his cloak. It was not much of an improvement. "It's not for me;
it's for them. The Aurors. You can introduce me, can't you, Travers? You did it for Granger."

"It was a favour," said Hermione.

"So I'll owe him a favour," said Rosier, making an odd, fish-like pouting face. "I thought we were
friends, Quentin."

"We're not friends," grunted Travers.

"Why do you want to join?" Hermione asked.

"I thought I'd try for the Auror training programme," answered Rosier. "Pater says the outlook's
poor for the Department of Magical Games and Sports. The British League's dead until next year at
the very least, and I've no interest in officiating permits for local lawn bowls tournaments. Nor do I
want to moulder in the house all day after graduation, else Mater will see it as a cue to invite a
whole chorus line for every meal and try to make me pick one for keeps." He shuddered. "And I
can't tell her that I'm busy if I haven't a job. If I'm already at the Ministry, I can transfer with
commendations when old friend Grindy gets sorted."

"Um," said Hermione, "are you implying that your alternative to working is marriage?"

"Of course it is," said Rosier with a nod. "If I don't have a job, I won't be out on the streets and
begging for bread or anything. I'd be sentenced to an even worse indignity: nuptial bliss."

"You sound like Nott when you say things like that," said Hermione. "He's expressed similar
thoughts about marriage in the past."

"Well, he's got a point, hasn't he?" Rosier replied. "That's his special talent, to make you hate him
but agree with him at the same time. No idea how he does it, it's like he's a reverse court jester or
something."

"Travers, it's up to you," said Hermione. "Rosier scores Outstandings for Defence, Exceeds
Expectations for Arithmancy, and can probably pull three more Exceeds Expectations from his
N.E.W.T. subjects. If you don't help him now, you may end up having to see him around the office
next year regardless."

Travers scowled, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I don't like this. An Auror position isn't a step
in another direction, it's a solemn duty we take up for Britain. That's what it means to join the civil
service. If you don't want to serve, then don't."

Rosier sent a speculative glance at Hermione. "Granger, you've been out calling with Travers. Does
this mean you're planning to tough out the three years as the lowest order of servant—oh, sorry, I
meant to say trainee, in the Auror Office?"

Hermione was put on the spot, and she hesitated, trying to find the most suitable explanation. She
hadn't initiated the arrangement with Travers because she truly wished to be an Auror. It was a
favour exchange. She hadn't known him that well, and he the same for her, so his true thoughts
about the responsibilities of a civil servant came as somewhat of a surprise. It was unexpectedly...
principled. Then she felt a touch guilty for the unflattering thought. She had gotten to know them
after two years, and learned that it wasn't true that Slytherins were un-principled—they just had
different principles than hers. She didn't agree with them most of the time, but they weren't non-
existent. That was a far sight better than Tom, at least.

Another touch of guilt came from the ambiguous assumptions she'd cultivated through her Auror
association. Hermione hadn't explicitly told Travers that she didn't want to be an Auror, but he
appeared convinced she was leaning that way. The terms of their original agreement had been for
information on the Aurors, and to a practical-minded wizard like Travers, one wouldn't care for
collecting such information unless she cared about Aurors.

And to be honest, the more she learned of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement from her
own research and speaking to Travers, the more interesting it seemed. There were few Ministry
departments as prestigious as the DMLE, or as meritocratic as the Auror Corps when it came to
entry positions. The son of a former Head had to work to get in; that spoke something of its culture
of egality that she hadn't seen from any other employment situation in Wizarding Britain.

Rosier's questions continued: "What does Riddle think of it? Is this why he wants to race through
the banns before graduation? It's not usual for unmarried witches to join the Auror trainee
programme; the applicants are eight out of ten men, so the odds are you'll be assigned a young,
unmarried wizard as a training partner for most of those three years. Close quarters, long hours,
overnight shifts. One can see why a formal attachment would be useful and necessary."

"That's between Tom and myself," said Hermione firmly. "And I'm aware that marriage makes a
witch or wizard respectable in certain lines of work. I would like to work at the Ministry. Tom
knows this, is supportive of my choices, but understands that such a serious decision means more to
me than... than convenience and practicality!"

"You'd best keep your nose out of Riddle's business, Rosier. It's for your own good," agreed
Travers. "You can join us, but you owe me a favour. Make that two favours, actually. And the rule
is that you don't embarrass me. These are Father's professional associates. Finally: whatever you
do, don't mention the book."

"What book?" said Rosier innocently. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Out of curiosity," said Hermione, "did Tom ever read 'the book'?"

Travers and Rosier exchanged a glance. Rosier jabbed at Travers with his elbow. Travers dodged it
and kicked Rosier in the shin.

"Hypothetically..." said Rosier, trailing off evasively, "if ever a book existed, and if Riddle did
indeed drop a peek at it, then no, he glanced at it but didn't read it. He might have described it as...
'a tawdry entertainment befitting the crude and boorish appetites of peasants'. But since this is all
speculative, we may never know."
"Don't worry, Granger," Travers reassured her. "I doubt he'd describe his appetite for you as crude
or boorish."

"Oh," said Hermione, blushing hotly. "Haha. Well, I certainly hope he wouldn't."

They reached the door of the teachers' staff room with four minutes to spare, according to Travers'
pocket watch. Travers knocked. Hermione and Rosier got their gifts ready, Rosier tapping his wand
to his wine bottle and muttering a Cooling Charm. The one thing worse than having wine served
tepid was the wine's tepidness attributed to being clamped under a young man's questionably
hygienic armpit.

The door opened soundlessly, with no one on the other side. When Hermione peeked inside the
staff room, she noticed Madam Trombley sitting in a squashy armchair with her feet propped up on
an ottoman; she had her wand drawn and pointed to the door. Mr. Wilkes was arranging a tea tray,
and turned over his shoulder to murmur a curt greeting to the guests.

"Young Travers, Miss Granger—good day to you two. And who's this last fellow? I'm afraid you've
caught us at a disadvantage."

"Rosier," the boy introduced himself. "Sebastian Rosier, Seventh Year Slytherin. I should hope to
put myself forward for next year's Auror trainee intake."

"You must be Jocelin Rosier's oldest," said Madam Trombley, returning her wand to her robe
pocket. "Outgrown the Quidditch dream already, have you? Happens to the best of us, I'm rather
sorry to say."

"Unfortunately, my original career plans have somewhat... fallen astray," said Rosier. He offered
her the bottle of wine. "I have an O in Defence, and thought it a good idea not to let my marks go to
waste. If you could spare any advice for a candidate hopeful, I quite graciously see myself in your
debt."

"With manners as pretty as that," said Mr. Wilkes gruffly, bringing around a tea tray loaded with
cups, saucers, and a steaming pot emblazoned with the Hogwarts crest. "You would be more suited
to the Department of International Magical Co-operation."

"He's got a point," said Madam Trombley. With a loud pop, she uncorked the wine bottle and
poured a dollop into a tea cup that Mr. Wilkes had handed to her. "You know how to behave as a
guest; your father taught you that properly. Excellent perry, is this last year's reserve? Mmm, you
honour us. There is only one family in England whose orchards produce an English perry pear that
rivals the French estates. Simply effervescent. Do tell me, Rosier, did your father ensure your
gentle education also included French instruction?"

"Oui," said Rosier, throwing a sly wink in Hermione's direction, "je suis connu pour avoir bon goût
en littérature française."

Hermione understood the gist of his statement. He claims to have good taste in French literature.

She bit back a groan. Was this about Le Jardin Parfumé, that book Lestrange had mentioned during
the Homework Club meeting, wasn't it? Someday, she was going to find herself a copy of that book
and discover what all the fuss had been about. Glancing around, she saw that Travers was blank-
faced and clueless. He had no idea that Rosier had evaded his promise not to mention the
"forbidden" book.
Madam Trombley smiled approvingly, and answered, "C'est bon de voir que le sang normand coule
pur dans ce pays étranger."

The Auror spoke too quickly, and Hermione tried to puzzle it out—something good, a compliment
perhaps, about Norman blood, but was interrupted by Mr. Wilkes speaking.

"If we're done with the formal introductions, we ought to focus on what our guests are here for. The
job requirements of professional magical law enforcement." Mr. Wilkes waved them over to a
settee by a low table, on which was arranged the tea accoutrements. He offered them tea cups and
poured the tea, giving them a minute to delegate the milk jug and the sugar bowl. Hermione took
the opportunity hand him her gift sampler, which he accepted with a nod of acknowledgement.
"You've seen this morning's newspaper, I hope?"

"Yes," said Hermione. "The Ministry has maintained the stance that they have the Montrose
situation under control. But it's more than the Montrose situation now. I don't think the Ministry can
claim, not in good faith, that Britain is uninvolved with the wizarding war that has overtaken
Europe for the last six years. They could try, certainly, but would people believe them? The Daily
Prophet has changed its tune."

She picked up the day's newspaper, laid out next to the tea tray. The Aurors must have been reading
it before their arrival.

Trouble in Tinworth: Unlikely Heroes' Daring Discovery

Undesirables Apprehended, Aided by Aurors!

Goodness, did they really have to write headlines that, more than not, resembled installments of
cheap serials passed around in her Muggle primary school? Sensationalised diction, a number of
shocking twists at every turn, a photograph that only barely scraped by as company-appropriate,
and the reminder that the reader had to buy the next edition to ascertain the uncertain fate of the
brave protagonists.

The animated cover photograph depicted a squad of burly Aurors, shoulders squared and hands
behind their backs, posing behind a row of rectangular black sacks lined up on a cobbled street. Six
sacks in total, around the length of a human body. Hermione realised, with a stab of horror, that
they were human bodies. The two Aurors on the far left and right sides held the arms of two
standing figures, smaller black sacks over their heads, trussed up with the thin black cords typically
manifested by the Incarcerous spell.

Tinworth Village, Cornwall, 11AM.

The sleepy seaside village of Tinworth was rocked by the news that one of their own was not
what he seemed. The proprietor of the well-known Tinworth Village Foundry, Master of
Magical Metallurgy Ansgar Schmitz, 46, was arrested early this Saturday morning in a
DMLE-sanctioned raid led by Head Auror Evelyn McClure. Master Schmitz, the sole licensed
 magical farrier in the West Country, was a German-born British citizen of good standing and
solid repute, whose certificate of naturalisation was granted by village poll in 1939.

Tinworth's mayor, Mr. Telemachus Dentlin, 78, told The Prophet, "The previous forgemaster,
old Master Turnstall, retired in 1934. His apprentice daughter took over the shop, but soon left
it to marry into a woodwork enchanting family, the Ollertons of Cheshire, owners of the
Cleansweep Broomstick Company. She couldn't work for them and Tinworth both. The village,
the nearest way station for the famous Bodmin Stakes, needed the forge fires burning full-time.
We had no choice but to accept the application of Master Schmitz; there was no other as
qualified as he. In fact, he was overqualified for the position, but due to a fortuitous state of
wizarding bylaw in relation to his non-British birth, could not attain the status of sole owner-
operator of a historical British business. Schmitz consented to a lease contract, an excellent
deal for the village, wherein he provided the sales stock, but Tinworth retained the building
with a reasonable consideration. This would help the village, we thought. I suppose we were
wrong."

Master Schmitz was none other than an Undesirable, the leader of a secret cell with clear
connection to the Montrose affair of last month. It was revealed to us, through a keen and
first-hand insight to which we were made privy, that the conspiracy goes deeper than a single
rogue agent. Through the tireless efforts of the Prince of Charming and the Green Knight, six
culprits were dispatched forthwith, and an additional two suspects formally apprehended by
members of the Auror Office summoned to the scene, and impelled to attend a full Wizengamot
trial scheduled for the second week of June. The criminal charges, we are given to understand,
are...

Travers leaned over her shoulder to read the article. Hermione passed the newspaper over to
Travers and sipped from her teacup.

"Finished already?" asked Mr. Wilkes, who had been watching her intently. "Fast reader. Here's a
challenge for you, Miss Tactician: what deductions can you make from this information?"

"The lead article had two angles," said Hermione. "Who caused the problem, and who solved it? It's
clear that someone has decided the village leadership are the ones to blame for... well, if not an
express case of dereliction of duty, a careless minor oversight from turning a blind eye where they
shouldn't have. I noticed that they didn't place any responsibility on the Ministry's shoulders, the
entity with ultimate approval powers over the registration of foreign-born citizens and public
leases. If the foundry property belonged to the village of Tinworth, and not a private owner, then
that's the Ministry's jurisdiction. By British magical law, public land—including wizarding
townships—is under governance of the public service. The village voted, yes, but the Ministry
could have refused.

"And the second item of note: what exactly was the division of labour between the Prince and
Knight, and the Aurors? The article obfuscates on who did what, and implies that the job was a co-
operative effort between both groups. But this doesn't seem right to me. In pre-Statute English law,
there is precedent for the rôle of the 'thief-taker', an independent agent who captured wanted
housebreakers, fraudsters, and waylayers lurking at popular Apparition relays. This was before the
Ministry of Magic's establishment in 1707, so their payment came from town bounties, and the
thief-takers were eventually replaced by salaried offices in Magical Law Enforcement, post-Statute.
The concept of independent bounty chasing still exists to the present day. What puzzles me is why
the Ministry authorities are openly collaborating with them. That has no precedent, as far as I'm
aware."

Madam Trombley and Mr. Wilkes exchanged a wary glance. Madam Trombley said, "The various
departments have been known to work with independent agents in reconnaissance, intelligence, and
the diplomatic corps. And of course, we work with foreign law enforcement personnel across
jurisdictions, if a crime merits international attention. It's unusual, but not unheard of."

"How unheard of is it for the DMLE to publicly acknowledge the contributions of free agents?"
Hermione asked. "Not bound by the formalised and incontestable legal process undertaken by a
Ministry authority or endorsed contractor, for a public safety situation as dire as this one? The last
thing the Ministry would want to do is admit that the situation was out of their hands, even
partially. It just doesn't seem like something they would willingly sanction."

"It isn't," said Travers. "Father would never have allowed it, when he was Head Auror. And when
he headed the DMLE, his own Head Auror would never have countenanced the possibility."

"McClure's Aurors are different," said Madam Trombley enigmatically. "'Right lives by law, and
law subsists by power'. Your father believed in Right, while Mr. Rawlins, the current head of the
DMLE, trusts in Power. It's a political game he and the Minister play; your father was never fond of
how the game came at the unfortunate expense of efficacy."

Travers nodded in understanding. "The paper implies that the Prince and the Knight were
responsible for the six bags in the photo, and the Auror Office caught the two live ones. Do you
know how close it is to the... what did you call it last time, Granger? The 'unofficial line'? Why
would Rawlins even consider allowing the public implication that a pair of unknown thief-takers
did thrice the work of his own people?"

Mr. Wilkes scrutinised the three students sitting on the settee: Travers, Hermione, and Rosier.
Rosier fidgeted under the Auror's stare. "Can you be trusted to be discreet?"

"Yes, sir," they echoed. "Of course."

"His own people did no work at all," pronounced Mr. Wilkes. "The Prince caught them, all eight of
them, single-handed. The Knight Floo-called the Dispatch Office for reinforcements, but had no
involvement whatsoever in the action—his duelling vest was pristine. The Prince fought the Master
Metallurge and his apprentice. He beat them both, two on one, at great personal risk."

"If the Prince is so extraordinary a wizard, why does he need the Knight at all?" Rosier asked.
"Granger, you mentioned bounty chasing. If they're after bounties, then having two people instead
of one means splitting the prize two ways. Why would the Prince not want to keep the gold to
himself, if he's capable of doing the work by himself?"

"We spoke of the purpose of Auror partners the first time Travers brought Miss Granger to visit,"
said Madam Trombley. "The partnership isn't about who does the most the work, it's about how
each person contributes to the group as a whole. The Prince is the prime spellcaster, but we believe
the Knight is his wardmaster. It's suspected that the Knight subverted the Fidelius Charms the
saboteurs have been using to secrete themselves. It was he who delivered the runic warding
schemes and other documents to be used in building the case against them when they're brought to
trial."
"Are you allowed to share this information, Madam?" Travers asked nervously. "We won't tell
anyone else about it, but surely you ought to protect yourself first from any accusations of
impropriety. You might be asked if you spoke outside the proper chain of command, and your
truthful answer would not flatter."

"Applications open in August," Madam Trombley replied. "If you three intend to apply, you should
know what it means to be an Auror." In a softer voice, she continued, "And your father wouldn't
want you to walk into the Office on the first day, only knowing the job of the Auror from what
you've read in the manual. I also promised him that I would protect you—me and Wilkes both—
and that's how we ended up with the Hogwarts assignment. Good turn that it worked out to be, in
fact. Being on guard duty the whole time, it'll be the active Aurors under McClure who will take
fire from the Minister's office for this affair, not us."

"Either way," added Mr. Wilkes, "the department leaks like a sieve. Doesn't help that the Prince has
been feeding The Daily Prophet directly. Rawlins has no choice but to admit that the Prince is an
essential asset, because the paper has access to prime evidence: the Prince's memories. And the
Prophet's staff is under no legal obligation to keep quiet about an upcoming criminal case. A civil
case might be made to bring them in line, but the suspects are not very likely to sue for their
reputations."

"If there is a direct line of contact, does that mean the Prophet knows who he is?" asked Hermione.

"No," said Mr. Wilkes. "No one knows the identity of this Prince. It's as if he came out of thin air.
But that's fair impossible; first-rate wizards don't pop out of the aether. It takes years of training to
become that good, and such training always involves other first-rate wizards. Yet no one is willing
or able to speak."

"He's self-taught, perhaps," theorised Madam Trombley. "They think he's a Master of Charms, or
equivalent certification. He knows how to manipulate spell boundaries and standard effect
configurations, magical theory related to the advanced discipline of spell-crafting. But there have
only been six successful Charms Mastery certifications in the past twenty-five years, and all six
have divulged under oath that they don't recognise his wand or voice. Legilimency as well—that's
how he's been questioning the suspects. The Mind Arts are a restricted discipline; the only certified
teacher in the country is the elderly Mr. Claudius Prince, the Chief Interrogator for the
Wizengamot, and he knows every student he's ever taken. Most are Mind Healers, bound by vow
not to harm their subjects. This Prince is too aggressive, too unfettered, to be one of them."

"There's a theory floating around the office," said Mr. Wilkes, "that the 'Prince' title comes via the
Prince bloodline. They are the only family in Britain who openly claim that particular natural
aptitude as their birthright. The Prince of Charming—a Charms Master from the Princes' blood."

"It could be an illegitimate son of the line," Rosier suggested. "The Princes would hardly be eager
to make such an admission."

"Mr. Prince denies his own responsibility," said Mr. Wilkes. "He took the traditional vows with his
wife. It is a physical impossibility for him."

"Well, what about before he was married?" said Rosier. He let out a light cough. "Some wizards, er,
do that sort of thing. Or so I have heard."

"He married last century," Madam Trombley said. "This Prince of Charming is not a day past thirty,
if McClure's judgement is to be trusted. 'A beardless boy hiding under a black scarf', he said. 'Calls
himself a Prince because no one would take him for a King, even if Merlin himself handed him the
sword in a rock.'"

"You're making the assumption that this Prince of Charming is British," Hermione pointed out.
"Yes, he claims to be a hero to the British people, but one doesn't have to be British to support
that."

"It's been reported that he speaks with an Englishman's voice," said Mr. Wilkes.

"Anyone can learn English, just like any Englishman can learn German or French or any other
language," said Hermione. "And plenty of Englishmen can have foreign blood. You, Rosier—" She
turned rather suddenly to Rosier, sitting beside her with a biscuit in his mouth.

Rosier jumped. Shortbread crumbs pattered onto his lap. "Me? What did I do?"

"You have Norman blood. Madam Trombley mentioned it earlier."

"So do the Malfoys!" Rosier said. "And the Lestranges. The Trombleys from the village of
Tremblay, in Normandy. The Peverells too, dead in the male line, but filtered down by the female
line into half of the best families in England."

"I'm just venturing the possibility that this Prince may not be as British as assumed, and acquired
his lineage or learned his skills from sources outside of Britain. Britain isn't the only nation in the
magical world where talented teachers reside," Hermione explained. She herself had been taught
extra-curricular magic by a Durmstrang alumnus. "It would be narrow-minded to limit oneself to
such a possibility. Perhaps a foreign origin could explain why he holds such a grudge against the
agents of Grindelwald."

Mr. Wilkes studied Hermione carefully. "Hmm," he grunted.

Madam Trombley glanced at him, then put on a pleasant smile. "Enough of this business talk. Tell
me how your little study group is carrying on, young Travers. Wands at dawn? I'd never have
thought you'd be capable of it; your father was plenty amused when he got the report. He reminds
you to be more careful next time. This time, you were lucky that the Deputy Headmaster thinks so
well of the Head Boy and came to the rescue on his behalf. Probert is no friend of ours, but he
won't take his chances going up against the likes of Albus Dumbledore. Definitely not!"

The rest of the discussion focused on their outdoor training, academics, and the approaching
iceberg in the distance: their career-making exams in June, two months away. Hermione was sure
she would receive full marks for the written portions of exams, and was nervous about the practical
demonstrations, while Rosier felt the opposite. Travers was anxious about both.

"There are secret bonus marks the examiners may award you in the Defence practical," Madam
Trombley told him. "If you can cast a spell while maintaining another spell passively, that's an extra
mark. They usually ask to see the layered shield—a perfect symmetrical Shield Charm cast within
another Shield Charm. Another extra mark is the corporeal Patronus. This one is vital for Aurors,
and taught during the traineeship. Wouldn't be able to take an Azkaban assignment without it."

"I can't do either," said Travers glumly.

"It should theoretically be possible," said Hermione, "if the examiners believe a student wizard
capable of it. I've read about the Patronus Charm. A good part of willing it into existence is the
belief you can do it. The other parts are clarity of visualisation, strength and appropriate choice of
focal memory, and intensity of focus. It's one of the more primordial species of magic, based on
pure intent, similar to certain other specialised disciplines: Animagy, rituals, and divinatory
dreams." She remembered Tom's words. "'If you want it strongly enough, then you can make it
real.'"

It was nearing dinnertime when a pocket watch chimed, notifying the Aurors of a change in shifts.
The students were promptly escorted out the door.

"Come back another day," said Madam Trombley, waving them farewell. "Goodness knows we
won't find better company while on this particular assignment."

"Goodbye," said Mr. Wilkes gruffly, shutting the staff room door in their faces.

While making their way to the Great Hall, they encountered other students guided with urgency, by
their rumbling stomachs if not a respectful nod to punctuality, to the prospect of dinner. The
afternoon classes were letting out, and the corridors were awash with black robes and excited
chatter. Their exams may have been looming for the Fifth and Seventh Years, but the rest of the
school had regular subject exams, which were seen as nothing but a brief inconvenience to
enjoying the freedom of the summer holidays.

A group of Slytherin Fifth Years bumped into them while exiting a classroom; a heavy, swinging
schoolbag, tossed carelessly over a shoulder, smacked Hermione in the arm.

"Ouch!" she gasped.

The Slytherin boy with the bag glanced backwards, took one glimpse at Hermione's blue
Ravenclaw robes and turned away without saying a word in apology. His friend grabbed him by the
elbow and dragged him back, hissing, "It's her!"

Sheepishly, the boy turned around and realised in an instant that he had taken the wrong
impression: he had slighted the Head Girl, who was accompanied by two Slytherin upper-year
escorts: a frowning Travers, and Rosier with his brow raised in wry humour.

"Uh... My apologies, Granger," he said. "I didn't see you there. Congratulations to you and Riddle.
Erm... May your union be greeted in abundance by gentle hours and sublime days. Rosier. Travers."
He gave her a polite incline of the head, followed by nods to Rosier and Travers, then ducked away
into the crowd, disappearing around the next corner. His friends followed him just as quickly.

"That was odd," Hermione remarked. "I've never spoken to him before, and he must know I
wouldn't have taken House points for bumping into me in the hall. An accident isn't against the
rules, even if it hurts." She rubbed her sore arm. "People have been really strange about it all day.
Does everyone in Slytherin know that Tom and I are engaged? Did he announce it in the Common
Room or something?"

"Something like that," muttered Rosier. "My sister... Ugh."

"Oh, Druella!" Hermione exclaimed. "She stopped me after breakfast this morning, with her
friends. They wanted to look at my ring. Another person I've never spoken to before today, yet she
offered to write to me. Slytherins aren't usually this friendly. Not to students of other Houses. And...
not to someone like me." She let out an apologetic laugh, looking at Rosier's unhappy expression
and Travers' dour face. "No offence intended!"
Travers glared at Rosier. Rosier shrugged and lifted a brow. Travers grunted. Rosier made a face.

"Is this some sort of secret Slytherin code?" asked Hermione.

"You tell her," said Travers. "It's your sister."

"No, it's Riddle's job. It's his responsibility to explain how the rules work," Rosier retorted.

"Good luck trying to make Riddle do anything," said Travers with a scoff.

"What's going on?" said Hermione. "You know that I wasn't raised a witch; I haven't any familiarity
with the obscure cultural subtext that you Slytherins speak as your native tongue."

"Right," said Rosier, looking both ways down the corridor, which had thinned of traffic while the
dinner bell beckoned. "The classroom. Should be empty now."

The classroom that the Fifth Year Slytherins had evacuated had one student occupant, a Hufflepuff,
slowly packing his overloaded bag with a stack of textbooks and a large bundle of parchment
scrolls.

"Get lost," snapped Rosier.

The Hufflepuff snatched up his scrolls and held them to his chest protectively, and without a word,
scurried out of the classroom.

"Dear God, I'll miss doing that when we graduate," sighed Rosier. He shut the door and cast the
Locking Charm, then threw himself down on a table, undoing the top button of his collar and
letting his necktie knot hang loose in a debonair manner. "Look, Granger. I'll put it as delicately as I
can, but when Riddle announces his formal intentions to marry you, you can no longer be treated as
yet another irrelevant Muggleborn."

"'Irrelevant Muggleborn'?" Hermione said. "Excuse me!"

"It's not what we think of you. You're clearly a relevant Muggleborn!" said Travers, speaking
quickly. He settled in behind a desk and neatened his robes, choosing his words with care.
"'Irrelevant' is how most of our House thinks of Muggleborns in general. Nothing personal against
you or anything. It's just that... in Slytherin, it's believed witches and wizards need to earn their
standing in our House, if they came to us without name, connection, or advantage. But Riddle did
it. He earned every scrap of good-will the House affords him today. And since he's claimed you,
and you've accepted him, you'll be a Riddle yourself. To slight you is to dishonour his name."

"Ordinarily, small slights can be overlooked," Rosier added. "It didn't matter that no one had kind
words or any words at all for Ignatius Prewett, Lucretia's man and Gryffindor's Head Boy in 1935.
Riddle's a different beast, on the other hand. He takes, um, great pains in ensuring his reputation in
our House is immaculate."

"Oh," said Hermione. "I had thought the apology was simple courtesy. It would've been, in
Ravenclaw."

"No," said Rosier. "Not for Slytherin. For us, it's a matter of self-interest."

"What about your sister?" Hermione asked. "I wouldn't say she 'slighted' me."
"Self-interest, again," Travers grumbled. "Nott had the right of it. Mouthy."

"Can you enlighten me as to what exactly Druella is interested in that would benefit herself? I'm
sure she already has a future husband picked out; I don't see why she's bothering with mine."
Hermione didn't dwell on her thoughts of Tom as My Husband, or why she prickled at the prospect
of other witches planning out his future. "Tom is a half-blood, anyway. Your lot are always so
pernickety over blood status."

"Riddle is a half-blood, but he has uncommon power," said Rosier. "And no one could deny that
you, Granger, have uncommon intelligence. Even stodgy old Wilkes was impressed by your
knowledge and analysis of wizarding law. Any daughter that Riddle sires on you should have
power and intellect both. Decent looks, too. Riddle may be the only man alive who appreciates the
hair, but the rest of us can tell that you don't exactly have the face of a dog."

"Hey!" said Hermione, self-consciously brushing a hand through her curls.

"Take it as a compliment, Granger," whispered Travers. "It'd be improper for him to say it straight
that Riddle's wife cleans up nicely."

Rosier continued, "And here's the substance of the issue: your daughter by Riddle will be highly
eligible, even if she's only a half-blood. Because if she marries into a pureblood house, it doesn't
matter that her surname is Riddle. It's only a maiden name. Any child she bears by a pureblood
husband will be pureblooded by technicality, with all four grandparents of wizarding ancestry. Nott
would demand great-grandparents, but he's a hardliner, and most of the rest of our families will
accept three generations of magic if it's powerful magic. Even Malfoy. He'll never admit it, but it's a
known secret in our circles that Abraxas Malfoy's family will lower themselves to accept brides of
unknown blood if the dowry's good enough. They prize the title of richest family in Britain that
much. And a whopping great pile of gold can convince anyone, even Cantankerus Nott, to keep his
opinions to himself."

Hermione could understand the logic, though she couldn't say she agreed with it. A year ago, she'd
met Tom's uncle, Morfin Gaunt, and Nott had proclaimed the man a result of excessive inbreeding.
This strategy might be a rational response to maintaining the health of a pureblood line as well as
its name, but it was essentially a "laundering" of the pedigree to keep that asinine label of pure. She
tried to keep the discomfort from showing in her expression. "Was your sister trying to convince
me that our children should marry? Is that what all of this is? First of all, Tom and I aren't even
married yet. We're still school students. So why is Druella even thinking about our non-existent
grandchildren!"

"She's a pureblood witch of superior fortune and circumstance," said Travers. "They don't work or
need jobs. Her husband will provide servants to wait on her and keep house, so what else would
she be doing all day? Cygnus is the youngest child on the lesser branch, so she probably thought it
a tenable idea. Alphard is the eldest; the matches of his children would bear the greatest scrutiny.
Walburga, however, certainly wouldn't abide it, not even for a second son."

"If you asked her directly, she'd deny it, naturally," said Rosier. "But it's the long game, and we all
play it. Well, Slytherin House does. Riddle should have explained it to you. Why else would you
marry him, if you didn't know?"

The logic of Druella Rosier was clear now. It was laundering. This hypothetical grandchild would
have "pure" blood, backed by the Black name and fortune. A half-blood Black-by-marriage would
not find herself named a nonpareil hostess in the upper echelons of wizarding high Society, but her
Black-by-birth child was different. That blooded surname was the ticket into marriage within other
wizarding lines, and after that, those lowly origins would disappear into the annals of historical
irrelevance like an unfashionable hat.

"Perhaps it's because we like each other," said Hermione with a sniff.

Rosier and Travers looked at one another.

"I see," said Rosier, but his expression was one of polite bafflement.

"Here's another question, since you're an expert on this long game business," said Hermione. "You
only mentioned what plans there were for a future daughter of mine. What if I didn't have a
daughter, but had a son instead?"

Rosier smirked. "You'd best hope he takes after you and not after his father. Slughorn would like it,
but he'd be the only one. I can't imagine Slytherin would enjoy such a prospect of having another
Riddle in the House, identical to the last one. They'd probably wonder what they'd done to deserve
Salazar's ire and punishment."

On the way to dinner, Hermione thanked Travers and Rosier for their advice. She also confirmed
whether or not this information could be found in a book.

"Not likely," Travers told her. "And not in the Hogwarts library."

Dinner had already begun by the time they'd arrived, but Tom had saved her the seat next to his.
He'd also gone to the effort of putting aside a plate, loaded with a healthy medley of vegetables and
the choicest slices of roast beef. It was kept warm under a Stasis Charm and guarded from the
desirous gaze of Lestrange, who had devoured his first serving of supper and was casting around
the Slytherin table for his second and third.

"How was tea?" asked Tom, watching Hermione spread her napkin over her lap and pick up her
fork. "You were gone for ages."

"It was excellent," said Hermione. "The Aurors are well-informed conversationalists. We talked
about the arrests in Cornwall, and the Prince of Charming. The Aurors seem to be under the
impression that the Prince is British, though no one in Britain knows of any wizard with his
particular set of talents."

"Do they," said Tom, his eyes narrowed. "Why would you not think he's British?"

"'Le Prince Charmant' is a French folk story," said Hermione. "And Madam Trombley heard from
Head Auror McClure that the Prince is a young man; a 'beardless boy', reportedly. Wizards favour
beards more than Muggle men, ever since the air raids meant Muggle city-dwellers had to be fitted
for gas masks; they need a clean-shaven face to fit air-tight. This Prince must be relatively young, if
he's truly beardless. And every young wizard in Britain attended Hogwarts. If the Prince of
Charming went to Hogwarts, then he would have been at Hogwarts during our tenure here." She
sliced up her beef and took a bite. "If someone that good was a student here, I'm sure I would have
noticed. And I'm sure you would have, too, Tom. You wouldn't be able to stand the existence of
another boy swaggering about the halls, calling himself a prince of magic."

"No," Tom agreed. "You're right. I couldn't stand for it. Hogwarts has only room enough for one of
us."
Tom walked her up to the Ravenclaw tower after dinner, casting a silent Conjunctivitis Curse on the
bronze eagle guardian before pressing her up against the door and kissing her as if a hearty three-
course dinner had not done the slightest to relieve his hunger. He regretfully tore himself away
when he heard voices coming up the spiral stairwell, and greeted the group of Third Years bouncing
up the steps with eager cries of, "Good evening, Riddle!"

"Good evening, Miss Sutcliffe, Miss Linney, Miss Brackenburne, and... Miss Redmount. Tell me,
have I got it correct?"

"Yes!"

"He knows our names!"

"Ahhh!" they squealed. "I'll die happy!"

Hermione mumbled the answer to the blinded eagle's puzzle and slipped up to the girls'
dormitories, lest the girls wonder what the Slytherin Head Boy was doing at the entrance to the
Ravenclaw living quarters. She got ready for bed, the first one in her dormitory group to turn in;
her other dorm mates were still at dinner or writing essays in the Common Room library, while
she'd finished hers the previous week. In her nightgown and damp hair, she sat down on her bed
and examined the silver ring on her left hand.

Tom wanted to marry her, because he wanted her, because there was no one else he wanted as much
as her. She believed in romance, and Tom didn't, but how was Tom's explanation that much
removed from 'romantic'? He could Conjure endless bundles of red roses to meet the definition of
'romance' that other people understood, but she understood him too well to know that it would be
an empty gesture devoid of truth. For him to say he wanted her, and only her, for the untrod
centuries of their lives... That was the truest attestation of his regard for her than any number of
flowers. She knew he cared for her, and when she confronted the state of her own heart without the
circular thinking to which she often found herself immured, she admitted to returning his
sentiment.

She cared for him. She... wanted him.

It was scarcely a great leap to join herself one step further to him than she already was.

The next step wasn't nothing, on the other hand. Tom had expressed his intention that their
marriage should entail all that she understood marriage entailed, and despite a broad range of
distinctions between the Muggle and the wizarding world, certain things were identical. Rosier—
major and minor—and Travers expected her to produce Tom's children. And Hermione had learned
enough about both worlds to know that Muggle children were assembled in much the same process
as wizard children.

Marital congress.

Such a subject was beyond her personal experience.

And beyond Tom's as well, she thought. He tolerated others' touch, only barely; she couldn't
imagine him, as he described it, wanting anyone else. Let alone doing that sort of business. But it
was different for Hermione. Tom sought her touch, climbing into her bed at the Riddle House even
when she tried to lock the door to keep him out. Warded locks with a variable moon-phase puzzle
did little to dissuade him. She'd woken up with his arm wrapped around her waist so many
mornings that she'd eventually conceded to him a victory by attrition.

His lack of education in these intimate affairs wouldn't discourage Tom from informing himself on
the details and mechanics. She, therefore, ought not to retreat from the prospect either. When did
Hermione Granger ever admit defeat when faced with a self-study project of such monumental size
and importance? She was personally invested. And somewhat willing to confess that she had
enjoyed the charade of "walking out" with Tom that they'd perpetuated over the course of the
school year. With some resistance, she also confessed not minding the thought of Tom Riddle as
her future husband. (Furthermore, she did mind the thought of Tom Riddle as someone else's
husband, and some selfish corner of heart had thrummed with self-satisfaction to hear that Tom
would rather be alone than belong to anyone else.)

She had wanted a husband one day, and if that day came sooner than she'd expected, it was more of
a solution to her close-approaching post-graduation concerns than a problem. Besides, she could
hardly think of anyone else who could fit that title of husband, other than Tom Riddle. Tom would
be smug about that, but it was true, and Hermione wasn't so dishonest about her character as to
deny it on principle.

She cared about Tom. For most of each other's lives, they were first in each other's thoughts. She
didn't mind the thought of having him as her future husband. Or the thought of... having him.
Perhaps she shouldn't, perhaps it was too forward of her, too unseemly to say aloud. But then again,
what could anyone say about it if they were husband and wife? Nothing.

Lying down on her bed, she dimmed her wandlight and set her vinewood wand on the nightstand
table. Then, after a moment of consideration, she tore the ring off her finger and flung it across the
room. It pinged off the far wall and rolled under the skirts of Twyla's empty four-poster.

In the morning, when Hermione was dressing in the day's clean uniform robe, she saw the silver
ring on the table sitting next to her wand. It had returned to her during the night.

Neverlost, she remembered. Tom wasn't lying about the enchantments. This ring was meant to be
worn for the rest of my life.

A few days later, Hermione visited the Hogwarts library.

She had expected Tom to be browsing the Transfiguration reference section of the library. It was
the most logical choice, with their exams closing in, the Homework Club's application of creative
Transfiguration for self-defence, and Professor Dumbledore's recent remarks on Tom's essay she'd
overheard during their last class session. Tom had given a textbook answer for his essay, entirely
correct, but of course Dumbledore expected more of Tom than the ordinary student. The professor
had gone so far as to say that to Tom's face, quite candidly, as if he knew that Tom could be
motivated to go above and beyond when his work was described as, "Perfect proficiency to the
N.E.W.T. examiner's rubric. A good, satisfying O effort, Tom".

It had made Tom very upset to hear this assessment of his work, although she didn't fully
understand it herself. But she allowed him to hold her left hand with his wand hand under the table
until Professor Dumbledore wandered off to talk to the next row of students sitting behind them
about their essays.

Hermione hadn't expected to find him in the deserted section where wizarding culture met
wizarding literature, reading novels. Novels! What happened to his indifference toward fiction, his
lack of comprehension toward characters and their illogical motivations? Each character's defects
of personality that he claimed made him despise the human condition instead of appreciating its
myriad complexities?

Yet he sat in a dusty corner of the library, brow furrowed, immersed in literature that even
Hermione, lover of all books, might call frivolous light reading: The Mysterious Mister
Maximillian. It was a romance novel, the wizarding version of the classic bodice-ripper, complete
with a handsome portrait on the front cover.

When Tom heard nearby footsteps, he shut the book with a brisk snap and stood up from the desk.
"Hermione?" he called. "I know you're there."

Hermione peeked out from behind the bookshelf. "How did you know it was me?"

"Only girls walk that lightly. It's not chauvinism, it's physics. And you have a distinctive gait. Step,
step, step, pause, 'Oh, that book sounds interesting', and then the following steps become slightly
heavier because you added the book to your reading pile."

She glanced down guiltily at the stack of four, no, five books in her arms. "It seems like you know
me too well."

"Not well enough, I find," said Tom, coming over to her and dropping the book pile on the table.
He had a book in his hand, and flashed her the cover, depicting a man with firm pectorals under a
flouncy poet's shirt. "I've read it cover to cover, twice, and I still don't understand..."

"Understand what, exactly?"

"Witches," said Tom. "What is the explanation for their fascination for vampires? What is it about
those barely-human, mostly-dead creatures that witches believe is so enticing? What do they have
that I don't?"

He began pacing back and forth, opening the book back up and flipping through the pages with
frantic speed, his words pouring out. "Mister Maximillian, or the Ritter von Aldersbach in his past
life. He lives in a big fancy house and has money. I have money. Pale skin, shiny dark hair. Mine
looks about the same. Mind control powers. Same as me. He plays the piano and can live forever. I
don't have that... not yet. Is that what witches like? Pianos and immortality?"

"Tom, you're taking this too seriously," Hermione said, patting him on the shoulder. "It's just
fiction."

"It's not just fiction," Tom insisted. "I looked it up in the creature manuals. A vampire's intelligence
combined with their mental abilities places them in a similar category to Veelas. The skills and
abilities they learned as humans carries over to their undead un-lives. That part of their nature may
be stylised for creative purposes, but it's based on something objectively real."

"Assuming it is true," said Hermione, trying to humour him with what she assumed was the latest
of one of his odd obsessions, "every witch is different and has different preferences."

"Not too different," said Tom. He flipped to the back cover of the book and showed her the library
borrowing card tucked in the back, filled with a long row of red numerical stamps marking the
return dates. There were eight borrows for the school year of 1944–1945. For a library the size of
Hogwarts', that was a fair number for a non-reference or supplementary text. "A lot of witches like
vampires."

"When did you start caring about what strangers thought? You never cared before, unless you knew
you could use it in some way," Hermione mused. "You must feel that the preferences of witches is
somehow relevant to your personal quality of life."

"Something in that vein," Tom said. "I thought that it was in the interest of a wizard to know best
how to seduce his wife. If he was clueless at it, then some other wizard—or not even a wizard—
could swoop in, literally even, and take his job. That would never do. A husband ought to know
what makes his wife's heart flutter and swoon, what she desires, what keeps her satisfied in every
facet of her life. The logical course of action was to research the subject. I went to look for books
that explained how it worked, what exact trait or character made a man so irresistable that a witch
couldn't help but want to spend eternity with him."

He turned his head to look down at the hand Hermione had laid on his shoulder. Nervously,
Hermione tried to draw it away, but Tom put his hand over it, the one not holding the book, and
kept it where it was. His hand slid down to her wrist and gripped it firmly. Not painfully, but with
no indication that he wanted to let go of her soon.

Tom leaned close, his eyes glittering. "I want to know what makes a witch feel want. I want to
know what makes her gasp and tremble and ignore the quiet, sensible voice of her foremothers
echoing in her mind, telling her she shouldn't want someone so formidable, so dangerous. So
wicked."

Each sentence of his was punctuated with a step forward, which pressed Hermione to take a step
backward, until there were no more steps left and Tom had backed her into a bookshelf. Hermione
could feel book spines digging into the back of her jumper, Tom's hold around her wrist, and his
attention fixed solely on her.

"I had my theories on what Mister Maximillian possessed that made him so desirable. But they
were only that, empty theories without practice or substance," Tom continued. "It didn't seem
reasonable to me that all Maximillian had to do was sneak up on Heloise in the rose garden to make
her tingle with his very presence. How is that possible? It sounded far too unrealistic. An indulgent
pinch of narrative conceit. But no, there is something to it, isn't there?

"There is something about me that has such a visceral effect on you. What is it? Is it my presence?
Is it my voice, my magic, the power that resonates with each word and each touch?" Tom leaned in
close, forehead brushing against hers, that tidy little front curl of his dangling over her brow.
Hermione's eyes widened; this was abnormal. Tom often forgot himself and his manners when he
was caught in the grips of his latest madness. But his eyes didn't have the telltale distance of gears
whirling several fathoms beneath the surface. They were fixed on hers, and looked... mostly lucid.
"It's difficult to believe that my wife could be seduced by something as unintelligible as what was
described in the book as 'raw masculine sensuality'. How fanciful a notion."

He was too near. Their chests brushed, their robes so closely overlapped that blue facings met green
linings, and Tom's lips traced a journey from her cheekbone down her jaw and finally to his goal,
her mouth. He chuckled, and the rumble of his quiet laugh kindled that coy tingle that she didn't
like admitting she got when Tom embraced impulsivity and disregarded every rule she'd learned
and been taught about public propriety. Then his mouth caught hers and any seedling of complaint
she could muster withered on the vine.

His teeth grazed her lip. The hand that held the book pressed against her side, the corner of the
cover nudging her ribs. Tom took his time exploring, eyes half-lidded, enjoying the rare private
moment of holding Hermione without the constraints of his flawless reputation holding him back.
His mouth swept back to her cheek, her earlobe, down to her throat...

Then he bit her, right on the neck.

Hermione let out a muffled squeal, unable to keep the giggles from bursting free. "Tom, that
tickles! What on Earth are you doing?"

Tom pulled back and gave her a reproachful look. "I'm doing what Maximillian did in the book,
when trying to explain to Heloise why he's a disgusting monster who would ruin her life. Heloise is
supposed to like it; her internal monologue goes on and on saying that she wanted him to throw her
down and have his way."

"I can't believe you're following the advice of a romance novel, Tom!" Hermione said, laughing.
"This is ridiculous!"

"It's worked so far," said Tom grumpily, not pleased at her quiet peals of laughter. "You're not
supposed to laugh at this. You're supposed to feel what the narrator describes as, ah, 'a dark,
throbbing want'."

"It's fiction," she told him. "I'm sure the author made it all up."

"There's one way to test it..."

"What is it?"

"Try it on me," said Tom. "You can't form a significant conclusion with a sample population of
one."

"Tom..."

"Please?"

"Ugh." Hermione huffed out a breath and tugged her wrist out of Tom's grip. She loosened the knot
of his necktie, unbuttoned the first button on his uniform shirt, and peeled down the starched collar.
"If this makes you laugh, then it's no harm done, I suppose."

She placed her hands on his shoulders, pulling him down to an accessible height. Then she ran her
lips from his jaw down to his throat and the side of his neck. Tom was silent, but she could feel the
jerk and thrum of his pulse under her mouth, the short puffs of controlled breath. He was agitated
but trying his best to hide it.

"Here it goes," she murmured, opening her mouth and biting him gently, barely discernably. When
he didn't react, not even to laugh, she gripped the flesh of his throat firmer between her teeth, and
left him a pink ring of a dental imprint.

"H-Hermione," Tom stuttered, his voice hoarse. It came out more like Hnng-mione.

Hermione let go and attempted to push herself away. "Sorry, Tom, I didn't mean to hurt you—"

"No," said Tom, "you didn't hurt me. I liked it."

It was Hermione's time to gasp in surprise. "Oh!"

"That was dangerous," said Tom. Then his eyes flashed. "Do it again!"

He bent down again, baring his throat to her. "Sample size of two, sample population of two. You
know that such a result can't be counted as meaningful evidence of anything."

"Tom..."

"I permit you to use me as the subject of this vital research," said Tom. "No, not permit. I beseech
you."

With a sigh, Hermione leaned over and sank her teeth into his flesh. The muscle of his shoulders
tensed under her hands, and he crushed her against the bookshelf, the press of his weight over hers
somehow becoming less stifling and more... tantalising.

"Ah," he breathed. "Now I understand it. Why Heloise refused to leave no matter how many times
Maximillian tried to order her away." His voice dropped, and almost inaudibly, he said, "It became
addiction."

Ruefully, he removed his weight from her and took a step back, smoothing down his rumpled
collar. "One can't rely on books directly, I see. I thought it would be so easy to follow the steps and
seduce my wife. But it's not that easy, is it, Hermione?"

Hermione wiped the wetness from her lips with her robe sleeve. "Need I inform you that I'm not
your wife, and you haven't seduced me?"

"Not yet."

"To the wife part, or the seduction?"

Tom laughed. "They're the same thing. But if you're so concerned about it, then you should refute
my efforts with countermeasures of your own. There's one way to do it, if you haven't figured it out
yet."

"What way is that?"

"Seduce me first. You've a natural talent and a good head start. I could hardly hope to compete."
"This, whatever this was, wasn't seduction. I wasn't doing it with the intention of seducing you, and
you know it."

"But if I was seduced in the end, does that matter?" Tom said innocently. "Perhaps you're so skilled
a temptress you could do it without effort. An innate superiority, as I've always admired—"

Soft footsteps drew nearer; Tom took a few paces away from the bookshelf, retreating to the table
and Hermione's stack of reading material. He sat down and pulled the edge of his robe over his lap,
then set his book, The Mysterious Mister Maximillian atop the pile. Hermione cleared her throat,
turning around to face the books on the shelf and pretend she was browsing.

A girl with round, high-prescription eyeglasses and braided pigtails entered the section and began
hunting through the shelf of wizarding fiction. She poked around at a gap between the books, and
after a minute or two of furious rummaging, whirled around and studied the stack on Tom's library
table. The top book's cover bore a distinctive animated portrait.

"You have The Mysterious Mister Maximillian," she said. Hermione noticed she had a rather
prominent pimple on her chin, almost glowing with its imminent eruption.

"I do," said Tom absently. His expression was the pleasant mask he usually wore in public, though
it seemed less forced than usual.

"Are you done reading it? I want to borrow it," said the girl. She had a Ravenclaw tie, and her robes
were lined in blue crêped wool.

"You can have it."

"Thanks," she said brightly, taking it from the stack. "Did you know the sequel's coming out in
December? In the next book, there's supposed to be a werewolf who moves into the village of
Aldersbach." She let out a little squeak of excitement. "He's apparently Maximillian's half-brother.
And he thinks Heloise is his mate."

"Fascinating," said Tom.

She turned to leave. "Oh, and good luck on your N.E.W.T.s, Riddle and Granger. They're only
weeks away!"

"Thank you, Warren," said Hermione. "Good luck on your O.W.L.s."

When Myrtle Warren was gone, Tom and Hermione exchanged a glance.

"Do you think she suspected anything?" Hermione asked.

"No," said Tom. "Utterly clueless. She believes that Heloise would consider throwing over
Maximillian and taking on a werewolf. If that's not a sign of her complete obliviousness about
romance, then I don't know what is."
Chapter End Notes

Translations:
"Oui, je suis connu pour avoir bon goût en littérature française." = I am known to have good
taste in French literature.
"C'est bon de voir que le sang normand coule pur dans ce pays étranger." = It's good to see
the Norman blood flows pure in this foreign land.

— In Black family history, girls were kicked off the tapestry for marrying low, but this didn't
happen to boys. Pottermore confirms the Malfoy family married talented and connected half-
bloods, but they deny it.
— Druella's long game never plays out. She and Cygnus have three daughters and no sons.
— Tom is an emotionally stunted boy with no idea how human motivations work; this is why
Voldemort is betrayed over and over in canon by Snape, Regulus, and Narcissa. Dumb,
overconfident Tom needed to get ego-checked by reality, and reminded that he is not the
effortless Seduction God that he thinks he is. If he wants to sell it, the boy's gotta work for it!
 The Prince and the Protagonist
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

True to his word, in the month of May, Head Auror Evelyn McClure posted an announcement in
The Daily Prophet. The Prince of Charming was informed of the upcoming trial of the century, set
for the second week of June, and invited to provide a witness testimony. The Green Knight was
also invited to choose between providing testimony, or joining the panel of expert witnesses; it was
felt that the Knight could not be properly impartial if he took on both duties. The Wizengamot,
keen on convicting foreign-born undesirables under a British court of law, did want to maintain an
appearance of fairness even if it couldn't manage the reality.

Tom discovered this news by the way of Nott, who delivered the newspaper over Tom's breakfast
plate, right in the middle of some urgent wedding planning discussion with Hermione.

"I wrote to my grandmother; she's already decided on a Church of England ceremony down in the
village. All village tenants to receive a half-month concession on rent for the happy celebration,"
Tom told Hermione. "Have you heard from your mother? If she hasn't heard from you, then she
would've heard from Mary. If your parents haven't made their travel arrangements yet, I'm sure my
grandmother can ring up the station master and have a couple of seats set aside. The Christmas
season is always dreadfully busy."

"I must be the last one to know about these decisions," said a frowning Hermione. "No one's asked
me a thing. And a Muggle ceremony, Tom? I didn't think such a thing would appeal to you in any
way."

"It doesn't, not really," admitted Tom. "But I accept the necessity of it in filing for a Muggle
registration. After getting a wizarding registration, we'll be married on both sides of the Statute—
isn't that exciting? It'll be a Muggle marriage registration, a religious service, a Ministry civil
certificate, and a traditional magical vow. Quadruple married!" he crowed. "I'd like to see you try
getting out of that, Hermione. Not that you'd want to, but you could certainly try."

"It's very much like you, even now after you've 'evolved your opinions', to think of marriage as
some sort of snare meant to trap people forever," said Hermione dryly. "That's not very evolved at
all, in my opinion. It feels like only yesterday when you were going around condemning the double
marriage of Lieutenant Pinkerton from Madame Butterfly as extreme lunacy."

"Oh, I haven't forgotten about that," said Tom in a soft voice, leaning in closer to murmur in
Hermione's ear. "Not at all. But being married twice to two different Muggles is different to
marriage four times over to the same witch. I'd like to think you have intelligence enough to
appreciate the distinction."

SMACK!
Nott slapped the newspaper down, rattling the saucers and silverware on the Slytherin House dining
table.

"If you're done with your inappropriate and excessively lovesick confessions—emphasis on the
'sick'—then you really ought to read this notice, Riddle," said Nott.

To the Prince of Charming and the Green Knight,

On behalf of the DMLE, you are cordially invited to attend the trial of A. Schmitz and V.
Janošík on Thursday, June 14, 1945. The venue allocation is Courtroom 2, Level 10, British
Ministry of Magic, London.

Official escort will be provided in the Atrium from 9 o'clock.

I remain, as always, servant to the British public,

Head Auror E. McClure.

Tom picked up the newspaper and scanned the relevant information. "Second week of June. We
knew it was coming. What of it?"

"Have you checked your N.E.W.T. exam calendar yet?" asked Nott pointedly.

Hermione leaned over to read the court date announcements. "That's the same time and date as our
Transfiguration N.E.W.T. practical demonstration. I don't know why it matters, though. I
understand it's one's civil responsibility to keep abreast of current events and political
developments in the news, but there's nothing in there particularly relevant to us. What we should
be doing is to keep our focus on the N.E.W.T.s. The exams are the most important factors for how
our futures should be determined, and we mustn't let ourselves become distracted by what is most
likely to be the Ministry of Magic's interpretation of a kangaroo court show trial."

"Of course," said Nott, and he sat back down on his side of the table and watched Tom glare at The
Daily Prophet for the rest of the meal.

Tom sat and stewed over the news. The practical demonstration, from his past experience with the
O.W.L.s, was separate from the written portion of the exam. At nine o'clock, students queued up by
last name and were called into a closed room in front of a panel of examiners, who requested
specific performances of relevant spellwork, ticking off boxes on a list marking levels of
competency. Could the Transfigured cat purr and meow? Extra points awarded. Were the
Transfigured cat's paws solid, blocky lumps with its toes melded together? Points deducted. Basic
textbook business dependent on rote memory. The subject of Transfiguration didn't get interesting
until the student reached the end of his session and showed he could add a unicorn's horn and
downy white wings to the cat, without turning it into an anatomical abomination with shrivelled
lungs that breathed through its anus.

With his surname of 'Riddle', he would be in the second half of the enrollment list. The student
numbers in a popular core subject were relatively high, so his name wouldn't be called until the
early- to mid-afternoon, some time after the lunch break.
The trial's start was nine o'clock in the morning, on that same day.

Could he sneak out of the castle grounds, attend the trial, then sneak back in and complete his
Transfiguration demonstration? He wasn't sure. Could he miss his Transfiguration demonstration
altogether? If he did, he would attain a null mark of non-participation, one level lower than the
dreaded Troll mark. Even if he scored a full points Outstanding on the written portion of the exam,
held several days earlier, it was understood that practical wandwork was vital to mastery of the
subject competencies, and his mark of perfect O and an empty 0 would probably result in a
composite 'Poor'. He would graduate without a N.E.W.T. for Transfiguration, although he'd have
ten more subjects to make up for it.

Was it worth it?

The examiners wouldn't particularly care. They worked for the Ministry and would be testing
dozens of students for their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s that week. They didn't know him, and it would
be no skin off their nose if he didn't appear at his designated time.

But Dumbledore would.

He would see the missing name in the attendance roll and know at once what had happened.

He would call Tom Riddle to his office afterwards, and Tom would have to sit under the doleful
blue eyes of his Transfiguration Professor, and hear the old man say in his affectionate Old-Man-
Who-Knows-Better-Than-You voice, "I didn't know you were struggling in this subject, Tom.
You'd always seemed so very confident with your understanding of Transfigurative principles. If
you had personal difficulties during the exam period, no matter how busy I may be, I would always
make time for you to speak privately with me. Tell me, Tom, what has been troubling you so much
that you would behave in this manner so unlike yourself? I've always known you to be such a high
achiever. I am, quite frankly, disappointed in your choices..."

They would play out their long-established routine of tea and lemon shortbread, steepled fingers
and mild reprovals, passive-aggressive Legilimency and verbal ripostes that never landed, but
drifted vaguely past each other in the same direction like two broken branches floating down a
stream. Dumbledore would know when Tom was lying through his teeth, and Tom would know he
knew, and Dumbledore would know Tom knew he knew, and then they would stare at each other
over the teacher's desk until one of them broke eye contact first.

It was horrible.

Tom had heard of the saying, "Better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission", and thought the
most prudent advice would be to refrain from caring about permission or forgiveness. But in this
situation where he was a schoolboy under the devious thumb of a school authority, he knew that
even if he didn't care, other people did. He wasn't a free man until graduation. He analysed his
possible choices, and the least damaging path he saw was by asking for permission on false
premises, so he wouldn't risk being forced to reveal the truth in exchange for forgiveness.

The truth required the sacrifice of his bishop to preserve his queen. He had to put his lower value
player in a vulnerable position on the board as a necessary distraction.

This meant, he decided with great reluctance, that it was finally time for Thomas Bertram to tread
the stage.
Preparations were required. Tom needed evidence. A compelling narrative. An undeniable truth
which rang with the sincerity of painfully earnest emotion, of the type that would make the tender
sores in Dumbledore's memory-scarred heart lurch toward compassion. It would have to come at
the cost of Tom's pride and haughty self-reliance in order to swing the arm of Dumbledore's moral
compass in Tom's direction. And, most importantly, Tom himself had to believe in it strongly
enough to convince another it was believable.

He skipped his History of Magic class and spent the hour in the library furiously scribbling out a
draft to the Ministry of Magic's Wizengamot Administration Services sub-department. The revised
draft was copied out onto a sheet of his good parchment, which he folded into an envelope; it also
enclosed a Duplicated copy of his Press Identification Certificate. The name and number of which
should match with that of a member in good standing in the Wizarding Britain Society of
Journalists.

Having kept his original acceptance letter from Witch Weekly, he recalled that his Press Badge
allowed him special privileges above the public. "Wizengamot sessions, including hearings and
trials" had been one such entitlement, which he'd never used in the years since he'd attained the
qualification. This was an appropriate occasion to put it to use, as he needed that veneer of
legitimacy to prove that his deception was harmless, and therefore forgivable.

After attending his last class of the day, he headed straight for the Owlery, not slowing his stride to
allow Nott to catch up. He took the steps up to the owl roosts two at a time, Nott panting after him,
and when he got to the top, he grabbed the hardiest-looking school owl and began tying his letter to
its leg.

"Take this to the Ministry of Magic, London," he ordered the owl, then stalked over to the nearest
window and tossed it over the sill. The owl gave him an offended hoot but flew off obediently.

"You came up with a plan," said Nott, out of breath, his hands on his knees. "Are we skipping
Transfiguration or not?"

"We're going to have our names moved up to the top of the list, so we take the demonstrations
first," said Tom.

"How?" asked Nott. "The examiners are in charge of the demonstration. Is that who you've written
to, at the Ministry?"

"The examiners test the attendees, but the attendance roll they're given comes from the student list.
The student list is in the care of the Hogwarts teachers, not the Ministry. That's how Slughorn was
able to add my name to the Muggle Studies exam roll, despite not having signed up for the class,"
said Tom.

"Are you going to talk Slughorn into putting our names first on the Transfiguration roll, then?" Nott
asked thoughtfully. "That might work... If you give him a good enough incentive, he'll usually do
what you want. But it has to be a really good incentive; that's not his own Potions class he's
interfering with—it's the Deputy Headmaster's pet subject. Old Sluggy doesn't like doing anything
that puts him in the way of a confrontation."

"Transfiguration isn't a useless make-work subject that no one cares about, like Muggle Studies,"
said Tom. "Slughorn won't do it for a price I'm willing to pay. But Dumbledore... he'll be cheaper.
I'll be talking to Dumbledore to have our names moved up."
For Dumbledore's price, he was willing to reveal his Bertram pseudonym, the mysterious
eudaemon of the magical household. Thomas Bertram, the wizard who'd placated a goodly number
of harridan mothers-in-law across Britain by making sure their precious sons were in competent
hands. If those hands weren't exactly the same as Mummy's, they still knew their way around a
kitchen and the neighbours had nothing to scoff at, which was enough to earn the grudging seal of
maternal approval.

Slughorn's price, he'd calculated, would have been the Prince's identity. Bertram might have had
fame, but he lacked the real influence of the Prince, who had both. Tom wasn't going to offer that to
someone whose well-known master key was a fifth top-up of elf wine.

"You can't tell Dumbledore," said Nott. "You can't! He may be on too familiar of terms with you,
but he's not on your side. You can't trust him with such sensitive matters. And this one, not at all! I
read up on the Godric's Hollow duel of 1899, the one they mentioned in the papers, and—"

"I know," Tom said sharply. "I know. His own history proves himself to be personally
compromised. Trust me, I have a plan, and I won't be confessing any cloak-and-dagger business
with him. You need to play your own part: pretend to be my 'friend' and back what I say. Don't look
surprised if you find that I'm not acting like my usual self. And whatever you do, don't look
Dumbledore in the eyes—he's a powerful Legilimens, and he'll know when you're lying." He took a
breath, and added, "If all goes to plan, then Dumbledore will give me what I want, but I'll come out
looking like the lovesick fool you claim that I am. Emphasis on the 'sick'. Good God, I don't think I
shall ever recover from this."

"Now you're intriguing me, Riddle," said Nott.

"Keep any intriguing you do to yourself," Tom warned him. "Anything you hear, I can make you
forget, and Dumbledore will never find out. As my minion, your loyalty is owed, first and
foremost, to me."

Tom swept out of the Owlery, a scowl on his face. He didn't look forward to playing an advanced
rendition of the old classic "Good Boy Tom", but it was necessary to make the best of a bad
situation. Necessary, because the trial was the Prince's first legitimate public foray, attending at the
behest of Britain's elected government. The Aurors weren't elected, and the head of the DMLE was
a political appointment, but the department itself acted under the authority of the Minister for
Magic. If the Aurors made themselves a visible ally of the Prince, then that was the Minister
himself silently acknowledging his noble contributions.

The Minister had better be grateful for Tom's sacrifices. If there was one deficit of character he
loathed more than stupidity, it was ungratefulness. A stupid person was resigned to accept his
rightful place from a young age, whether he liked it or not. An ungrateful person believed himself
exempt from his rightful place, and the most notable mark of difference between the ungrateful and
the stupid was that the ungrateful man lacked the awareness of his own stupidity.
Two days later, Tom girded his loins and approached Dumbledore's office during his N.E.W.T.
student consultation hours. He had his bundle of letters in his schoolbag and the appropriate
memories perched on the edge of his consciousness, their emotional poignancy buoyed up by the
electric delight of having stolen a brief kiss from Hermione for good luck. Nott followed him, pale-
faced and wary, not liking the gleam in Tom's eyes or the idle way he twirled his wand while
waiting for the clocktower to chime the new hour.

"It's against the rules to use magic in the corridors," Nott reminded him. "Just so you know."

"It's not against the rules to walk around, wand in hand," Tom replied. "And the penalty for
spellcasting is only two House points per spell—that's if they catch you. I earned nineteen points
for Slytherin this week, so I doubt the House would hold it against me if lost a few. The Quidditch
Cup points from the last Hufflepuff match will surely tide us over."

"I still can't believe no one's realised that you fixed the match," said Nott disgustedly. "Everyone
looks at you and sees the perfect Head Boy Riddle who can do no wrong. Even the Ravenclaws,
and they're the ones who usually gang up on the student who gets top marks without staying in the
library until closing every single evening. Because that student, according to their irrefutable logic,
must be a cheat. But you don't even get that."

"That must be because I am the perfect Head Boy." The clocktower rang the hour, and the internal
mechanisms set within the lock on Dumbledore's office door began to click and whine. "And," Tom
pronounced, "I can show you how it's done."

The door swung open.

Dumbledore glanced up from the parchment scroll in which he was writing; he dotted the last full-
stop and set his quill on the inkstand, wandlessly drying the scroll, rolling it up, and Banishing it to
a shelf behind the desk. The drowsy phoenix on the stand behind him croaked and cawed as a cool
draught entered from the hallway, then settled back to sleep, tucking its head beneath its wing. Nott
hurriedly shut the door after he and Tom entered the office.

"Good afternoon," said Dumbledore, already beginning with the inscrutable smile and finger-
steepling routine. "Help at Hogwarts will always be given to those who ask for it. What nature of
assistance do you require, Tom? Or is it for you, Mr. Nott?"

Tom sat down on the chair in front of the professor's desk, and with a sharp look at Nott, the other
boy pulled up a spare chair by the side and sat down too, dropping his loaded schoolbag on the
floor with a prominent thump.

"I have a small request to make of you, sir," said Tom politely, slipping his wand up his sleeve and
out of sight, then looking up at Professor Dumbledore's twinkling, bespectacled eyes across the
cluttered desk. Enchanted trinkets twirled around in delicate silver frames, flashing distracting
glimpses of celestial bodies and mechanical cuckoo birds. "A trifling request, but of heavy
importance to me and my future career prospects. Of course, if it's not any trouble, Professor. I'm
given to understand that you keep rather busy hours these days."

"You wrote the note to me yesterday, alluding that this request was related to the N.E.W.T.s," said
Dumbledore. "Forgive me, Tom, but you appear to have outwitted me on this one. I haven't yet
puzzled out the connection."
"Oh," Tom said quietly, his eyes dropping down to his lap in self-conscious embarrassment. "I
suppose I ought to have been clearer. I should much appreciate it if you'd move my name and Nott's
to first on the list for the Transfiguration N.E.W.T. demonstration. I know that the list is in the
teacher's charge, not the Ministry, so I thought it best to come to you first, sir. That day is... well,
inconvenient to me. It happens to be that I have another appointment on that same day, on the hour
of the exam's commencement."

Tom reached into his bag and drew out an envelope sealed in tamper-proof wax, with the Ministry
of Magic's M insignia pressed in. The seal was already broken, but that was irrelevant. From the
envelope, he slid out a parchment sheet with a matching Ministry insignia letterhead. This, he
pushed over the desk to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore, one auburn brow raised in curiosity, picked the parchment up and quickly read its
contents.

"Tom, you said that you had another appointment," Dumbledore pointed out. "But this invitation
letter is addressed to a Mr. Thomas Bertram. Have you changed your name? I must say, I have
always been partial to the name 'Tom Riddle'. It possesses a certain enigmatic flair. Far more
succinct and soft-spoken than my name—my five names. Traditional names are always such a
mouthful, aren't they, Mr. Nott? Unnecessary grandiloquence," Dumbledore chuckled. "I would
have been quite happy as a plain old Brian."

"This is where I must make my reluctant confession, Professor," said Tom. "I am Thomas Bertram.
At least, the Ministry people think I am."

From his pocket, he took out his silver press badge and set it gently on Albus Dumbledore's desk.

"It has been quite a long time since I've seen one of these," said Dumbledore. He picked up the
badge and turned it over. It had a number engraved on the back, which matched the number written
on the Ministry's letter, a formal notice of acceptance to Mr. Thomas Bertram's request for a
reserved seat in the Wizengamot courtroom for the trial of Messrs. Schmitz and Janošík. "The
metal is imbued with a flesh memory enchantment. If it's authentic and given willingly by the hand
of the true owner, it should glow."

With his wand, Dumbledore tapped the back of the badge. It glowed a faint blue-white which
pulsed stronger and brighter, illuminating Thomas Bertram's unique registration number. "And
there we have it!"

"Ah, so that's how it works," breathed Tom. "I'd always wondered why they were so fussy about us
losing it. I was told it cost fifteen Galleons for a replacement badge, which seemed terribly steep
for a flimsy bit of stamped metal. It's the enchantments, it's got to be. Linked to the number, which
is coupled to some sort of master record book, I'm betting. If they can't copy a new badge for an
existing number, then each badge has to be enchanted individually. The price isn't in the raw
materials, it's in the labour hours."

"Exactly," said Dumbledore nodding. "I think I can see the nature of your quandary here, Tom. Mr.
Riddle needs to attend his exams so Mr. Bertram can attend the trial. But why is it in Mr. Bertram's
interest to attend such a trial? He is not a journalist who frequently, if ever, covers affairs of
jurisprudence or politics. I admit to not having followed his exploits recently, but I do recall reading
a novel explanation of iterative charmwork in mending stocking runs last October. Found it in the
teachers' staffroom and took it back to my rooms, and to my everlasting delight, it proved a
successful technique when I tested it on my woollen sock project. I had to alter the pattern diagram
myself to adjust for the tension, but the concept itself was magically sound."

"It's a charm for stockings, not socks," said Tom stiffly, who had made sure his editor put
STOCKINGS in the title so his London post box wouldn't be inundated the next week by illiterate
incompetents complaining he was useless and his spell didn't work. Burned once, twice shy. "If you
go past the laceweight yarns, it becomes too heavy a mass for an iterative charm whose intent is
centered on the focused manipulation of elements in a specific low-tolerance pattern. If you throw
off the tolerances, it throws off the pattern. You might try enchanting a pair of knitting needles if
you want heavier socks. That may be beyond the abilities of the regular readers, but not you, sir, I
hope."

"Wait a minute here," said Nott, looking bewildered in his attempt to follow the conversation. "If
your stocking has a hole in it, why wouldn't you just use Reparo? And can someone tell me who
Thomas Bertram is?"

"Reparo on woven fabric fuses the yarns together, but it doesn't re-weave the gap. If you snapped
your quill, there'd be no issue. On delicate silk stockings, you'd get an obvious, cheap-looking seam
line. It's the magical equivalent of mending a hole in your jumper with glue. A shortcut that not
only looks bad, but feels crispy. You might as well darn it by hand at that point," said Tom. "And
Thomas Bertram is my alter ego. I heard they're all the rage right now."

"Oh, yes, Riddle. Thank you for that," said Nott, sniffing. "You've explained everything."

"Well, as I was attempting to explain," Tom began in a snide tone, but then he caught himself and
cleared his throat politely. He fixed a pleasant smile on his face and continued, "What I meant to
say, of course, was that I am fully aware that Mr. Thomas Bertram's sphere of interest is far from
national affairs, because he's not considered a serious journalist by the standards of wizarding
society. It was, I'm afraid to admit, the best I could do when I first started writing."

Tom sighed mournfully and looked Dumbledore in the eyes. "You know me, sir. You know where I
was born. You've seen what it was like. I wrote my first article when I was fourteen years old, not
even thinking it could become a career, that it might be something serious one day. I wrote it
because I wanted a spare bit of pocket money—we both know that the Board of Governors is not
terribly generous with the Student Relief Fund every year. And to be honest, sir, I heard you'd
published in Transfiguration Today as a Seventh Year, so I saw no reason why a Hogwarts student
shouldn't be an author."

"'Thomas Bertram' is an interesting name," said Dumbledore, stroking his beard thoughtfully.
"Wherever did you come by it?"

"Hermione named him," Tom admitted. "From a Muggle novel, Mansfield Park. I never read it, but
seemed suitably generic for an anonymous persona. She's been an invaluable asset from the start;
she has a good grasp on magical theory and the Arithmantic calculations behind technical
spellcrafting. That's what writing as Thomas Bertram was, at first. Pocket money, a diverting hobby
for myself and my... friend. Eventually it became about the creative exploration of magic: the
precise degree of twist in each wand movement, the rhythm of syllables of an incantation, that
swinging pendulum between pushing out with too much power or too little. That was magic in its
purest form, constrained by no more than the limits of imagination and creativity.

"It changed when Fifth Year came and went, and we had those career advisory sessions with our
Heads of Houses. Nothing Professor Slughorn offered especially appealed to me, compared to what
I already had. I began considering my writing as a viable career path, when it was time to leave
Hogwarts and start out on my own. But then came the problem: no one knows who he is. For the
years since his début, Thomas Bertram is a man without a face. I could give him one, I thought, if I
joined Britain's most prominent journalists in the press section at the so-called 'trial of the century'.
I'd have the chance to introduce myself, to begin a serious career in journalism with more meaning
than the anonymous post box dispatches I've been using so far." Tom's eyes lowered to the table. "I
came to you, sir, because you understand where I come from. I lack the family connections of the
other students of my House. Good careers aren't that easy to find for someone of my origins—and I
knew writing was one of the few vocations in this world to which I could become successful,
purely on the basis of skill and merit."

You know exactly what that's like, thought Tom. Perfect exam scores and teachers' accolades mean
nothing in this world, if society ranks your family connections as less than dirt. My father may be a
Muggle, but yours was a Muggle-murdering madman. A convict. You had to run all the way to
France to find a Master to take you on for your Alchemy apprenticeship, because no one in Britain
would give you the time of day, not if his cousin's sister-by-marriage's stepson needed the position
more.

Dumbledore gazed at Tom. Tom met the old man's eyes, his mind focused and organised just as
he'd been taught. "You claim a lack of connections, Tom, but what about Mr. Nott sitting beside
you? Is he not your friend, willing to help you when you find yourself in need?"

"That's a separate but connected issue," said Tom. "I plan to marry after graduation. Being
unfamiliar with the various departments in the Ministry, Nott offered to help me acquire the various
marriage registration forms, so I can have them witnessed, signed, and owled in as soon as
possible. But you know about the little idiosyncrasies of my House, sir. Nott wanted to attend the
trial himself as my assistant, which isn't against the rules—journalists are allowed to bring an extra,
though usually it's a photographer or sketch artist."

"Big trials are popular entertainments. I've always wanted to attend one," Nott added. "We used to
have public executions before Minister Rowle commissioned Azkaban as the official wizarding
prison in the 1700's. To commemorate its opening, Rowle had a public Dementor execution, but it
got loose in all the excitement and attacked the crowd, and that was the end of it. Now the only way
wizards can enjoy their morbid jollies are at sentencings, and there's never enough seats for
everyone who wants to go."

"Thank you for that wonderful anecdote," said Tom, kicking Nott while keeping his smile fixed.
"The essence of it is, sir, that I didn't want to ask you for this favour solely for my own benefit. It
will help my future career prospects, I admit. But my future, I am pleased to say, is tied to that of
my wife. Hermione. I... I had thought I might support my wife once we'd both graduated school,
and she wants to work at the Ministry. It wouldn't be proper for her, a departmental junior following
her own career path, to be known as the wife of a layabout wizard, whose reputation amounts to
nothing more significant than fripperies and trifles. Literally so—I write about trifle every summer
at the editor's bequest because it's assumed there's some objectively correct way to put fruit and
cake in a bowl, and we just haven't found it yet."

"Oh, that's rather simple, Tom," said Dumbledore pleasantly. "The cake goes at the bottom to soak
up the custard."

"No, you have to set the whole fruits in jelly at the bottom, so it won't turn into a soggy mess,"
corrected Nott. "Then goes the cake, custard, and cream. Chopped fruits and meringue stars on top
for the look."

"It's a pudding! It doesn't matter!" interrupted Tom. "See, sir? This is what my career, what small
taste I've had of it so far, has been about. Things of little value and negligible significance. I want to
do something more serious, more meaningful, with my life after Hogwarts. I want my wife to
achieve what she aims to do in our shared future, without the facile triviality of my work reflecting
on her own. If Thomas Bertram is taken as a laughingstock, then so be it. But it matters to me if my
wife is maltreated because of it.

"I couldn't bear it if she was made a fool because of me. It's the sworn duty of a husband to protect
and care for his witch wife. At least, it ought to be. I want to ensure Hermione is properly provided
for, sir. That's all I want, all I'm asking for with this simple request." Tom glared into Dumbledore's
placid blue eyes. "No one ever bothered to do that for my mother."

At Tom's words, the dozing phoenix behind the desk croaked and ruffled its feathers, letting out a
soft crooning note that resonated through him like the lowest rumbles of the Basilisk's whisper.
Nott breathed sharply and sat up in his chair, craning his neck to look past Dumbledore's pile of
desk doodads, at the large orange bird swaying on its perch.

"It appears," pronounced Dumbledore quietly, as the last note died away, "that you truly do care for
Miss Granger."

"Of course I do," said Tom, who didn't like that unspoken insinuation hidden in Dumbledore's
statement. "Did you think I would get married on a whim? It's not a petty, transient whim for me.
It's no foolish flight of fancy. It's forever."

The old man studied him. Tom cleared his throat and sat back in the chair, clenching and
unclenching his fists and modulating his breathing, keeping his mind clear and his thoughts
focused.

"I will write you a note so you won't be stopped by the Aurors while coming and going,"
Dumbledore finally said, picking up his quill from the inkstand. "Will you prefer to Apparate
outside the gates, or use the Floo connection from my office? Although the Ministry officials are
organising the exams for Fifth and Seventh Years, the regular end-of-term exams for the other years
are under my supervision. My week will be busier than usual, but I can set aside time to unlock my
office so you can leave and return, as long as you pre-arrange the exact times of arrival."

"Thank you, sir. Apparition is suitable," said Tom. "What about Nott?"

"Mr. Nott has not been so forthcoming as you have been," said Dumbledore, turning to look at the
boy sitting next to Tom. "The case he's made is not as strong as yours."

"Er... um..." stuttered Nott. "Alright, here's the truth: in future, I intend to pursue a Mastery of
Magical History and see myself a published author one day. Through merit, not by means of a
private vanity press. Riddle's connections, though not considered the 'right sort' in my circles, are
still connections. He and I have a certain... understanding. As the man Riddle trusts most with
affairs close to the heart, I've been asked to be his witness when he's married. His grandmother
expects a marriage both legitimate and legal, signed and sealed and notarised properly. I was
invited to his house for lunch, several times last summer, and it was made clear to me that the
Riddles don't want a scandal going on in their house." He coughed pointedly. "Scandals are awfully
inconvenient, aren't they? I didn't want to say anything because it'd be scandalous were it known
that I'd dined with Muggles in a Muggle house. My family is not very... ah, approving of such
things."

"I shall guarantee you that every word within these walls remains that way," said Dumbledore.
"Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Nott."

"Sir, will you move us to the top of the list, then?" asked Tom.

"I will," Dumbledore agreed. "The rules allow Heads of Houses to write notes for Seventh Years
who may need to leave the school grounds to attend apprenticeship interviews. To allow you this
particular opportunity is a slight bending of them, but your intent is true and firmly within the
bounds of the rules' spirit. Hogwarts was always meant to cultivate young minds into great ones. It
serves no one to hamper what I should predict to be, in plainspoken terms, an extraordinary career."

"Thank you, sir," said Tom. "I'm very grateful for your help."

"You need only ask," said Dumbledore, scribbling out a short letter on a Hogwarts-crested scroll.
"When you have finished your schooling, I can sincerely say that I will miss having you stop in for
tea. Perhaps you might arrange a call now and then when you've become a famous name in
publishing, and apprise me on the details of your career progression."

Dumbledore wiped off the nib of his quill, drying off the scroll with a wave of his hand. Wandless,
wordless Hot-Air Charm, Tom guessed. An uncommon spell for a wizard's wandless répertoire, as
most adults used Summoning and Levitation so often in their daily lives that those two were the
spells they learned by heart. This level of familiarity with a Hot-Air Charm was an indication that
the caster was a scholar, the same way wandless disarming indicated a seasoned duellist, and the
Cushioning Charm a hallmark of a veteran Quidditch player.

"Yes, a teatime visit every now and again," mumbled Dumbledore, holding out the scroll. "I think I
could look forward to such a prospect, Tom."

"I think so too, sir," Tom replied, taking the scroll from Dumbledore. Ugh. The old man was trying
to make a trade, with the permission slip hanging in the balance. Favour exchanges being a purely
Slytherin idiosyncrasy was an inaccurate assumption—this Gryffindor goat was clearly a deft hand
at it. "Well, thank you again, Professor. I'll see you at dinner. Come along, Nott."

They stood from their seats and vacated themselves of the office, and only once the door had closed
and the locks had whirred back into place did Nott let out a slow exhale of breath and sag against
the wall. "You're right, Riddle. He was a Legilimens. And using it on students—that's disgusting."

"You can't do anything about it," said Tom, peeking down either end of the hallway and herding
Nott into a corner. With a flick of his wand, he extinguished one of the ever-burning sconces and
cast a Silencing Charm. "No proof."

"I see," said Nott. "You learned from the best."

Tom scoffed. "I am the best."

"Yes, look at me, I'm prostrating myself at your overweening superiority. It's too powerful, I simply
can't help myself," Nott sneered. "Tell me, how much of that was true in there, Riddle? 'Thomas
Bertram'? I still don't know who Thomas Bertram is. Bertram is not a name of particular
significance, historic or cultural."
Digging through his schoolbag, Tom found what he was searching for and tossed Nott a magazine.
"That's Thomas Bertram. Spell tips extraordinaire."

Nott sputtered, flicking through the glossy, colourful pages filled with fashion plates, society
gossip, and horoscope predictions. "Witch Weekly? You're this fellow my mother says has been
consulted for Lucretia Black's event wedding?" He cackled loudly. "Wait until the others find out
—"

A discreet Stinging Jinx halted the all-too-gleeful cackling.

"Stop gloating," ordered Tom. "It ingratiates you to no one if you've done nothing to earn it.
Besides, you must be observant enough to realise that I traded this 'secret' to Dumbledore because I
wasn't giving him the real thing, since it still holds currency as a piece of uncommon knowledge.
You'd deprive me of this currency if you spilled it to all and sundry, and if that's done, then I'd have
no choice but to ask you for fair compensation."

Nott sighed in disappointment, shoving the magazine back into Tom's hands. "Alright, that's fair.
But I still can't believe it. You've been this mysterious Mr. Bertram for years, and never spoke a
word? Normally, you like gloating about the things you've done—because it's fine to do if you've
earned it, of course. But..." Nott trailed off. "Last Christmas, you got tetchy with my mother when
she called the Christmas edition a 'sorry showing'. Merlin, it's obvious in retrospect. You only get
tetchy like that when your sensitive feelings catch an injury."

"My feelings," said Tom, "are not sensitive!"

"Granger seems to think they are," remarked Nott. "She gets all sad-eyed and bushy-tailed when
someone says mean things about you within earshot."

"'Sad-eyed'?" said Tom. "Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I'm quite certain the saying is 'bright-eyed
and bushy-tailed'."

"Oh, she does that too," said Nott blithely. "But she saves it for dinnertime when you two do the
under-the-table fondling everyone's agreed not to mention in her presence."

Nott's commentary was dignified with another flurry of Stinging Jinxes that left him braced against
the stone wall, swearing and and red-faced and muttering, "Worth it."

"Don't forget," Tom called over his shoulder, leaving Nott to pick himself up and dust off his
tangled robes. "The fourteenth of June, nine o'clock sharp. Save the date!"

If the wandless Hot-Air Charm was the mark of a scholar, what did it say about him that he felt he
was close to casting the Stinging Jinx without a wand? He spoke no incantation, and didn't even
perform the full wand movement to cast it; he need only to point his wand in the direction of his
target and briefly summon the intent—a sharp and necessary reminder of his authority—and the
magic would go as he willed it.

If it says anything about me, he thought, then it is the sign of my excellent, albeit unorthodox,
leadership skills.
In the hour before dinner, Tom returned to the wizarding literature section, assuming it to be as
deserted as it usually was, this late in the year. To his annoyance, the section's study table was
presently occupied by a Ravenclaw Fifth Year with her nose buried in a book, a novel boasting a
cover portrait of a man with gleaming bronze skin and a thick golden mane of hair, out of which
peeked a pair of round fluffy golden ears.

"Back again so soon, Riddle?" asked the girl, peering at him over the rims of her circular glasses.

Miss Myrtle Warren, the girl from last time who'd borrowed the book he was in the middle of
reading. This time, her book was entitled My Lion of Al-Hambra. Tom stalked over to the
bookshelf, saw that The Mysterious Mister Maximillian had been returned to the literature section,
and took it. He sat down at the study table opposite Warren and cracked it open to the chapter he'd
been interrupted reading.

"Don't you have exams to revise for, Warren?" Tom replied. "Your O.W.L.s are only a few weeks
away."

"I am revising." Warren held up her book. "Rafael is a lion Animagus. That's technically
Transfiguration, isn't it? Say, Riddle, you're known as something of a Clever Dick around here—"

"Don't say that," Tom said sharply. "That's a Muggle idiom. If people hear it, they'll know you're
Muggleborn."

"People already know," said Warren, turning a page in her book. She sighed morosely. "I don't see
the purpose of hiding it. It wouldn't earn me any more friends than I already have."

"But it would make you more respectable," said Tom. "You were born a witch, not a Muggle. You
ought to act like one."

"Oh, alright, since it's you who insists," Warren replied. "Since you're known as someone weaned
on Wit-Sharpening Potion—there, is that better?—is it possible for an Animagus to partially
transform into his animal form? Rafael in the book has a half-human form where he has the head,
paws, and tail of a lion but stands bipedally. I like the tail the most. The tail is exciting."

"Impossible," said Tom. "Animagy is characterised as a wandless complete human self-

Transfiguration into an animal, not a partial Transfiguration. When undertaking an Animagus
transformation, there are only two possible outcomes: success or failure. There are many variations
of potential failure, but success has only one form—the complete animal. Never part of an animal,
and never part-human creatures like centaurs. The only way a 'lion-man' form might be feasible
was if Rafael had botched his original Animagus transformation ritual and been trapped in the in-
between state on his failed attempt. He wouldn't be able to shift to either the lion or his original
man form, and the magical fluctuations of the destabilised ritual would have driven him completely
mad."

"I guessed the story was too good to be true," sighed Warren. "Though if these are all nonsensical
lies, why are you reading them?" She nodded at Tom's novel. "Mister Maximillian is unrealistic;
even I could see it. If Heloise was intended to be Maximillian's only blood source, she would need
to remain human for the rest of her mortal lifespan. Then she'd get old and die and Maximillian
would be sad and hungry again. How is that a happy ending?!"

"I'm not reading it for the endings," Tom answered. "I don't care about them. It's... personal
research."

For several quiet minutes, they continued reading, with Warren occasionally sneaking a glance at
him over her book. Tom pretended he didn't notice; at Hogwarts, he was used to being looked at
and judged by others curious to discern what exactly this quiet young scholar had that made him a
better wizard than the rest of his peers. When they saw it wasn't his name or his blood, they
struggled to come up with any more explanations, and simply put it down to luck. If it wasn't his
interest in maintaining the appearance of the humble scholar, he would have proved to them, quite
emphatically, that it wasn't due to luck at all.

He supposed that, in her own way, Myrtle Warren was just as mistakenly assumed to be a quiet
young scholar as he was. She sat alone at the Ravenclaw table, always immersed in a book. Outside
of Ravenclaw Tower, she was to be found in the library, and when she wasn't, she was haunting the
bathroom on the same floor. She had a disquieting resemblance to Hermione, another Ravenclaw
Muggleborn girl, who had more books than friends and a clear logical mind often overlooked by
the likes of the wizard-born.

Hermione was better, however. In the Hogwarts library, she went straight for the heavy magical
tomes she could find nowhere else, because she understood the value of their short-lived Hogwarts
educations. Hermione wouldn't waste her limited time in a wizarding library on wizarding fiction,
and when she read fiction, it was during the holidays and usually a Muggle novel. (Tom's reading
wizarding fiction wasn't "wasting time", because this was invaluable research. If he needed access
to a wizarding library after graduation, he could request his "friends" take out a book from their
home collections and lend it to him.)

"It's research for your own amourous adventures, isn't it? Boys don't read these types of books. The
only reason why a boy would read them is because he wants to understand how girls work and
what they like," Warren whispered. "I overheard some Slytherin girls in the bathroom saying that
you'd asked Hermione Granger to marry you."

"So what if I did?"

"Then she's very lucky; those Slytherins sounded awfully close to coveting thy neighbour's
husband," said Warren. "And I'd recommend other books than that one—Maximillian and Heloise
carry on and on, but they never deliver! I expect the author must be saving it for the sequel. If
you're truly invested in your research, you'll want the ones with good wedding night scenes. That'll
be Bride of Skye, The Infallible Heart Ward, The Witch Maiden of Westerford, and Two Scoops of
Moonstone. The series with Seeker of Her Hand, Chaser of Her Love, and Keeper of Her Heart are
good, but they're sports romances and you don't seem like a Quidditch person."

"Who chose those titles?" Tom whispered back. "Don't tell me there's another one called Beater of
Her Eggs."

"It's a trilogy, they stop at three," Warren answered in an airy voice. "And I don't believe wizards
know what eggs are. They're still at the stage of marvelling over the existence of animalcules."

"Wizards do know what eggs are. You can buy them at the Hogsmeade grocer, ten Knuts a dozen
—" said Tom. "Oh. You're speaking of egg cells?"
"Oooh," said Warren. "Weren't you? Is there another type of egg that witches have?"

She put her book down and propped her chin on her hands, looking at him with a speculative smile.
She was no Occlumens, and was thus much too open about her emotions; even from across the
table, he could feel the sticky brush of her sly curiosity. It was similar but not nearly as welcome as
what he felt when Hermione looked at him, her gaze unwittingly drawn to that secret tooth-etched
half circle, dawning blush pink over the pale flesh and white horizon of his uniform collar.

She hummed, that smile on Warren's face an unsubtle hint of prurient imaginings beyond the
degenerate fascination of any of the boys in his dormitory. "Hmmm. 'Cells'. Who's the one using
Muggle words now? People might mistake you for a Muggleborn if you say things like that,
Riddle."

"I'm a half-blood. My mother was a witch," Tom shot back.

"You may have more wizarding blood than me, which is none at all," said Warren, "but you act
more like the Witch Maiden than I could ever do. Every time Wizard Spickernall came around with
a plucked goose or a basket of currant rolls, she hid in her attic and watched him through the
scrying-basin. Hard to believe, isn't it, that a soon-to-be married man is frightened by the thought of
whisking a witch's eggs."

"I'm not frightened," Tom said, and against his will, he felt his cheeks flushing with anger. "I'm
offended by your lack of decency. This conversation is indecent. Furthermore, I don't see any
reason why such personal business of mine is any business of yours."

"Romance is my business," said Warren, and in her eyes, he could sense a deep longing, a secret yet
passionate yearning for the mercurial forces of Fate to take her in hand and sign the barren pages of
her dance card. She blinked, and he had to look away; he'd learned to transcend such petty
sensations as that of "loneliness" by the age of six or seven. But other people still felt it, and in
Warren the intensity was especially potent, even to someone like Tom who was so numb to it as to
have made himself immune.

"If anyone should deserve a handsome prince's happy ending, it's Hermione Granger," Warren
continued, giving him that look of wistfulness he'd learned to despise. "She's the quintessential
novel protagonist—a plain and awkward but clever young witch who catches the eye of a powerful
wizard. If she can do it, then maybe there truly is some soul of realism behind the daydreams and
vicarious wishing."

"Hermione isn't plain," Tom said in a cold voice.

"You're the protagonist's paramour, of course you wouldn't think so," said Warren. "So unfair,
hmph. In any case, as the happy ending provider, it's your responsibility to, you know, provide the
happy ending."

"I'm marrying Hermione, isn't that a happy enough ending?" Tom asked. What an oddball of a girl,
this Myrtle Warren. If Tom had ever thought of life as a theatrical performance, then to Warren, it
was a sweeping romantic narrative. Utterly bizarre; she was so obviously and obliviously incorrect.

"Only in the boring books that quit the scene with the closing door, when they've only just got to
the exciting bits," said Warren. She Summoned a book from the nearest shelf and opened it up to
the final pages near the back cover. "The Witch Maiden of Westerford is a good one that doesn't do
it. That's why it's worth reading. Here, read Chapter Thirty-One—and sorry if I spoiled the ending,
but these are romances, so it's obvious what's going to happen in the end."

Tom scanned the open text.

"At long last, I can call you Madam Spickernall," said the Wizard Spickernall, taking her by
the hand and leading her into the darkened bedchamber. With a silent flourish of his wand, the
drapes fell over the moon-silvered windowpanes; a dozen candles came guttering to life in the
scalding reflection of her husband's eyes. "And you, my dearest heart, may call me 'Silas'. I
hope to hear my name from your tender lips many times before the morning is upon us." He
tore at the knot at his collar, and his wedding cloak pooled in heavy velvet folds over the
floorboards. "Let us begin, my love."

He slammed the book closed. "This," he sputtered, "is what you meant by a 'happy ending'? This is
what you understand to be the culmination of human happiness—carnal activities?"

"Oh no, a pure and virtuous mind. You can hardly find one of them these days," said Warren,
sounding syrupy sweet and breathless. "Don't you see that it's symbolic?"

"No," Tom replied disdainfully.

"Hmmm," Warren mused. "Riddle, you say you're a half-blood with a witch mother—your father
must be a Muggleborn or a Muggle."

"What's the relevance of this?"

"It means your father would've raised you in a Christian house," said Warren, glowing with the
triumph of her brilliant reasoning. "You know all about Muggle sayings, so you must've been raised
in the Muggle world by your father's choice. If you were baptised Christian, then you'd have heard
the story of Tobias and Sarah—it's the same symbolism as these novels use.

"'Thou madest Adam, and gavest him Eve his wife for a helpmate; And now, O Lord, I take not this
my sister for lust but uprightly: therefore mercifully ordain that we may become aged together',"
she recited. "Don't you see it? It's not about lust, it's about sincerity and devotion. When the
husband and wife pledge to each other in flesh, it's symbolic of their pledge in spirit. They're
honouring the spousal covenant."

Tom fidgeted in his seat. It was the queerest thing, for the tremulous, abstract half-thoughts that
lingered in his mind to be verbalised that succinctly by someone as clueless about life as Warren
was. He didn't like it. Because she was wrong, of course. He hadn't been raised by his father in a
Christian house. If her initial assumptions were wrong, then so must be her conclusion.

"Marriage is a sacrament, I know," he snapped, and holding firmly to his patience, adjusted his
tone. "I appreciate the effort, Warren, but the reminder is somewhat unnecessary. I had my eleven
years of fire and brimstone and that was more than enough for me."

"But you still believe it, don't you?" Warren forged on, the gleam in her eyes far too visible behind
the thick lenses of her spectacles. "You and Granger both, since you've decided to marry instead of
having each other once and moving on. It's not exclusively a Muggle thing, it can't be, if the people
born here are acting like it's perfectly ordinary for two seventeen-year-olds to up and marry as
students in a public boarding school. That would almost never happen in the... the outside—"

"We're eighteen." And we're not ordinary.

"—Which means she's chosen you for her ending, so you have to make it happy for her. She's the
protagonist, you have to!" Warren said fiercely. "And you're required to do the things husbands
must do, even if you're the starched pants, virtuous type who's never had an unclean thought in his
life, which Granger prefers. Yes, it's very easy to tell, just from looking at you, what she prefers.
Granger likes the stiff-necked Fitzwilliam Darcy types, righteous to the bone. They're too uptight
for my preference, and no good for... personal research. Too much of a gentleman, when all the
lady is in the mood for is a rakehell."

"I see," said Tom. He got up from the table stiffly, gathering his belongings. "I'm going to dinner
now. Goodbye."

"Don't forget the book!" Warren called. "You'll thank me later!"

When he had withdrawn himself of the library, it was with The Witch Maiden of Westerford in his
schoolbag, hidden beneath his Transfiguration textbooks.

He headed straight to the Great Hall and had a quiet dinner of steak-and-kidney pudding, the scrape
of silverware on china overridden by the chatter of his Housemates complaining about their
homework, followed by the soothing familiarity of Hermione's voice deliberating about their
N.E.W.T. final project for Ancient Runes. They'd been assigned an enchantment task requiring
several weeks to complete, before it would be demonstrated, along with the accompanying design
documents, to the Ministry's expert panel during their exam sessions.

Hermione had gone back and forth over what project would display her skills most favourably, and
settled on adapting her enchanted wooden stakes into a surveyor's tool. When placed in a circle, the
area within the stakes would be reproduced on a piece of charmed parchment, presenting a line-
drawn topographical contour map with directions, elevations, and magical features of interest. This
included wizards, who would be shown on the page as fuzzy red blobs, and any spells cast as tiny
pinprick dots that whizzed away in straight lines.

Nott, the only other student in their group who took Ancient Runes, had settled his project on a
miniature harp that could play by itself. He planned to enchant it so when he played his real harp in
front of the miniature, it would record each note and play the tune back to him, only he'd done
something wrong, and all the recordings played in the reverse of what it should have been. Tom
thought it unoriginal of a concept; there already were opera glasses for watching Quidditch matches
that recorded and replayed small segments of the viewed scene, and they managed to show the
images in the right order.

"It's not the same thing," Nott insisted. "It's not the sound being recorded, it's the physical
mechanism through which the sound is produced: the plucking of the string, replicated in the exact
amount of pressure and resonance as the original. When you play—correction, when I play, since
neither of you two can—I have to damp the end of the previous note before going on to the next, or
they all slur together when playing presto. So a proper facsimile must time the note correct with the
correct force, then physically stop the note correctly on tempo as well. But there's no use explaining
it to you musical neophytes, ugh. What are you doing for yours, Riddle?"
"A protective cloak made with twenty-one enchanted metal tokens sewn into the lining," said Tom.
"Each token is imbued with a defensive charm—to shield, nullify, reflect, repulse, or absorb. The
total effect is a light, flexible, and portable ward built of multiple redundant nodes. Though the
tricky part is ensuring that none of the individual nodes conflict with each other. If hit by an
atypical spell in the wrong place, I wouldn't want it to explode. That would be... unpleasant."

"If you got it to work, you could actually sell it for a fair bit of money," Rosier pointed out. "It
would compete with lower-end dragonhide gear, which costs a mint. Sold by the square inch, that
is. The broader the scale pattern, the older the dragon at harvest, and the more expensive it costs.
My pair of bespoke duelling gauntlets cost close to one hundred Galleons. I bet Black's full doublet
was priced over five hundred."

"Mind you, no enchantment could ever compete with dragonhide's élite status," retorted Nott. "You
can pass dragonhide down the family line. Cloth is nowhere near as stable a substrate as stone or
metal, or even wood, when it comes to enchanting. You're lucky if a bewitched garment lasts ten
years to the day. Just look at invisibility cloaks—proper waste of money, you might as well learn to
Disillusion yourself better."

"I don't see why you're so critical of fabric enchantments," said Hermione. "You have a flying
carpet."

"Not for its value for money," said Nott. "But for comfort and convenience. I could ride a broom,
but I don't like having a stick riding up my unmentionables. You, of all people, should understand
it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're a girl," said Nott patiently. "Unless you have the skill of sitting a broomstick side-saddle,
you'd have to straddle the thing and show the world what you've got up your skirt. I question your
interest in indulging anyone but Riddle with such an exposition."

Hermione gave an audible gasp at Nott's boldness. The Slytherins, to a man, turned to Tom to catch
his response.

Tom smiled and said, "I believe Hermione and I to be equally ungenerous with such an indulgence.
Lately, I find myself very selfish indeed when it comes to the subject of what manner of
Hermione's business occurs above skirt-height."

Hermione blushed and covered her face with her hands and reminded Tom that his non-answer did
not refute Nott's at all. Tom did not think Nott's judgement needed a refutation, because it wasn't
wrong, and he could overlook personal bias to recognise the truth. With that, Tom ate his supper
and kept to his own thoughts as the conversation around him blustered on to the next course.

After seven years in Slytherin, he still found it absurd that wizarding parents would buy their
children the equivalent of a Rolls Royce for nothing more than schoolboy amusements. It was even
more absurd that Cygnus Black had his own duelling vest for a club he hadn't joined, cut for a boy's
figure, and even with the adjustable laces, he would outgrow it by graduation. The ridiculous price
was one reason that persuaded him of the good sense in learning how to make and repair protective
clothing. He had also "acquired" number of rare new books on metal enchantment from the second-
floor shop flat in Tinworth, what was left after he'd cannibalised the commonplace books for their
pages, and he thought it best not to waste an opportunity for experimentation.
Another reason, which pained him to recall, was the memory of sickle blades digging into his back
when he'd fought the Master Metallurge of Tinworth village. The sharp points would have
punctured him through the lungs had he not been wearing Travers' borrowed dragon vest. Tom had
to curse his poor luck at yet again facing down a lethal opponent. Why were there so many people
out there trying to kill him?

"Still, a cloak isn't a bad idea," Hermione remarked. "But for a garment the size of a cloak to fit
you, Tom, wouldn't the number of metal tokens be too heavy? In bespoke tailoring, hem weights
are sewn in for the sole purpose of keeping overcoats and dresses from flying up in a breeze.
Dozens of them would drag down a wizard who needs to get away quickly."

"Feather-weight charms," said Tom. "It need only weigh as much I want it to."

"But without any weight at all, the cloak would fly up and leave your legs unprotected!"

"Partial weightless charms," Tom replied.

"How do you cast a partial weightless charm?" asked Lestrange. "I read about them in a broomstick
guide, and it said they're closely related to Hover Charms and Levitation Charms. It's impossible to
have half of a levitation. A broom is either on the ground or it's in the air. There's nothing in
between."

"Do you want the long answer or the short answer?"

"Oh, I'll have the short answer, thanks."

"Easy," said Tom. "It's magic."

Lestrange nodded in understanding. Everyone else at the table, however, sniffed disbelievingly or
shook their heads in disdain and started on the pudding course, a creamy butterscotch syllabub
powdered over with nutmeg and spice. The evening wore on, the pace of life at Hogwarts as sedate
as it ever was, with the stresses imposed on the students both artificial and predictable: the night's
curfew hour, the next week's assignment deadline, the next month's exam schedule. He understood
more than ever why the Ministry of Magic liked to encourage the perception that nothing was out
of the ordinary. Wizards, in their quiet and self-imposed isolation, had had generations to devolve
into the placid herd-beasts he observed at the feeding trough that was the Hogwarts Great Hall.

Deep in his own thoughts, his wand hand by instinct reached under the table and grasped
Hermione's hand. His fingers entwined with hers, felt the hard curve of her silver ring, the laurel
wreath bumpy under the pad of his thumb. He spun it around on her finger, the imbued magical
enchantments warming in sympathy at the caress of another's magic.

Hermione looked up at him questioningly.

"Our time here is winding down to its end," Tom murmured. "But here I am wishing it to go faster.
Our separation is intolerable."

She sighed and rested her head against his shoulder, tickling his face with her hair. "What
separation, Tom? We have most of our classes together and share every meal. You see me every
single day."

"That's not enough. The days are too short," said Tom in a petulant voice. "I want your nights, too."
"Tom..."

"Hermione." Tom squeezed her hand. "Do you think you'd ever describe me as 'uptight'?"

"No," said Hermione. "Definitely not. What an odd question."

"Good," said Tom happily. "I knew it."

Chapter End Notes

Lol, welcome to Tom and Myrtle's Sunday School sex ed class.

 Mannerly Devotion
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

While Hermione was made anxious by the prospect of upcoming exams, she agonised over the
letter she sent to her mother regarding her unexpected engagement to Tom Riddle. Because it was,
well, rather unexpected. One moment he was kissing her, the next moment she was kissing him
back to "let lips do what hands do", for they had been holding hands for so many years, and she'd
been reading Shakespeare for even longer than that, and as a little girl had wondered—Complete
First Folio open on her lap—what it must feel like to taste the mannerly devotion of the good
pilgrim's prayer.

It tasted... good. Tom was gentle, unexpectedly patient, and unlike other boys she knew, brushed his
teeth without needing to be reminded of it, so there were no mossy teeth and furry tongues
intruding into the memory of her perfect first kiss. For it was perfect, that brief moment of
voiceless dialogue, a communication of lips and hands devoid of the untidy ambiguity of spoken
English. Then the moment after the moment had happened, and Tom had decided they must be
married at once, and Hermione, confronting him afterwards, and the day after, and the day after the
day, had been returned again and again to the same patient argument Tom had used from the first:

"I would have no one else... Only you."

Tom had appended a second question to that.

"If not me, would you have another?"

Her response of "No" sent Tom into wild paroxysms of unsuppressed triumph, because if she
agreed with him on this count, then she must agree with him on the next one: marriage. It was only
logical. Hermione was logical. Therefore, Hermione must concur.

It wasn't even that she disagreed with the idea of being married to Tom Riddle; she simply found it
most peculiar that no one else at Hogwarts saw the oddity that was two eighteen-year-olds getting
married of their own volition, without even a long-standing betrothal contract or threat of National
Service hanging over their heads to expedite such a consequential decision. Tom had dismissed it as
her middle class sensibilities, for it was a known historical fact that upper class youths, both
Muggle and wizard, married young when their station allowed them the security of income to keep
their own homes. Tom's mother had married at eighteen, his grandmother was engaged at nineteen
—and still happily married, at that—so he felt certain, being genetically predisposed to knowing
what he wanted and how to have it, that there was no use in putting it off.

To deny him his rightful place at her side was equivalent to denying a bird the joyful expression of
the open air. They were both seeking what was in their nature to be and do. Melodramatic as
always, was Tom. And persuasive as ever.
"When you're a Riddle, you won't be middle class anymore," Tom reminded her. "So it doesn't
matter what the middle class milieu of Crawley think of it, if they assume you're in a family way or
dodging your citizen's duty. That includes your parents, by the by. You're a witch, they're not. That
middle class society is theirs, not yours."

Dear Mum, wrote Hermione.

Is there ever a wrong or a right reason for marriage? How do I know if my reasons are wrong
or right?

With Tom, I can't say I have ever experienced passions so potent to make me feel like I could
split the Earth's crust asunder with the bursting weight of my heart. Nor have I felt as if I
could glide on moonlight from an unfathomable lightness of being, borne aloft by the soft
wings of love's bliss. But I accepted Tom's proposition anyway, because he is as close an entity
as someone could be without being part of my own self, and though I tried to imagine it, I
couldn't begin to envision a future where he is not somewhere within my reach. He is a
constant in my life, my constant companion, and fortune willing, a companion for life.

I don't think Tom understands love the way I understand it. He calls our mutual connection an
"inevitability" instead, and believes I am his pre-destined counterpart, the most precious of
gifts bestowed into his arms by fortune's favour. If it isn't love, what is it? Is this the sweet-
smelling rose by another name? As a husband, I know that Tom will be as steadfast as any
other, possibly more, and I fear that my protests, outside of the realm of rational grounds, may
be grounded on factors irrational and insensible. One finds herself asking: Doth the lady
protest too much?

She received a reply delivered by her owl several days later.

Dearest Hermione,

Wrongness and rightness, as you should know, are lines drawn by the standards of your own
integrity. I could not make such a significant judgement in your stead; you must look to your
own soul and decide where it stands, and what could or could not be borne by the weight of
conscience by which all of life's decisions must be balanced. As your mother, I can only advise
you to trust your own judgement, and define what it means for you to be happy and content in
your envisioned future.

Not all happiness is coloured in the same shade, and likewise, not all love is scented of the
same bloom. If you trust in your judgement, and in Tom's, well enough to put faith that he will
guard your happiness and secure your contentment into the murky and unknown years of your
future, then that is as firm a reason to marry as any bride's. Sometimes, however, a decision is
not simply based on rational or irrational grounds of the present, but a willingness to shoulder
the seen and unforeseen outcomes of the decision as they arrive in the coming days.

Life, I have learned from experience, is defined by choice, and moreover, consequence.
 From the Bard's lips: "The course of true love never did run smooth".

Hermione had to smile while reading the letter; no one else appreciated Shakespeare as much as
Mum did. Tom, chin resting on her shoulder to read her mother's message, could only volunteer a
quiet, "Hmm."

She shrugged him off and folded the letter paper, hiding Mum's advice from his perusal. "Does the
phrase 'private correspondence' mean anything to you?"

"No," said Tom. "Not really. 'Private', from Latin 'privus'—meaning singular or individual. I don't
really see us as two separate individuals. In body, perhaps, for now we are separate. But in mind
and spirit, we are one."

"Ugh," groaned Nott, making an unpleasant face from the opposite side of the breakfast table. He
shooed Hermione's owl away from his black pudding, but Gilles wasn't discouraged by Nott's
flapping hands; Nott ended up Levitating a round of the blood sausage a way down the House
table, to the dismay of the Fifth Year girls' graceful show of mealtime deportment. "We know you
studied Classical Latin—not that it's much of an achievement when half the boys in our House
were set to translating Marcus Aurelius as soon as we'd learned to hold a quill properly. You show
it off at every turn, and one does begin to wonder why the showing off is always in the form of
such brazen overtures. Don't you think they're rather brazen, Granger?"

"How could it be brazen?" Hermione asked sweetly. "Tom is a master of subtlety. I know this
because he told me himself."

"She's right," Tom said, nodding in agreement. "If there was a Mastery of Subtlety, I'd have an
official certification."

Nott shook his head in disgust. "The two of you are perfectly deserving of each other."

"That's what I've been saying this entire time," said Tom, and brought Hermione's be-ringed hand to
his lips. For reasons unknown, he had his eyes fixed on the High Table at the front of the Great
Hall, a soft and knowing smile pasted on his face.

After breakfast, Hermione headed straight to the library, the location she was most often to be
found on weekends when not supervising a gathering of the Homework Club. The Hogwarts library
was her favourite place in the castle, and the Ravenclaw Common Room, with its own library,
came a close second. Travers trudged along at her heels, arms full of duplicated scrolls containing
past exam practice questions for their N.E.W.T. written exams. It was a duty of Seventh Year
Slytherins to write down the questions in the evenings after their N.E.W.T. exams, while it was still
fresh in their memories, to pass onto the oncoming cohort of Sixth Years below them.

This was what constituted the "Slytherin Common Room library", which Hermione judged to be
only barely passing her standards of proper moral conduct through the fact that it couldn't be
cheating if the examiners changed their questions each year. Except for the History of Magic exam,
which she found rotated the same question bank on a fifteen year cycle. This, apparently, was how
Tom justified skipping their History classes without taking a blow to his marks; Professor Binns
always assigned the same essay topics, and Tom, having known the questions beforehand, had
finished his work weeks before the submission date.
The subject for today, however, was Defence. Without Madam Trombley's words of advice, she
wouldn't have known about the bonus marks given for the Defence practical demonstration, and
was eager to learn more about these advanced skills that the examiners regarded as an "Exceeds
Outstanding" level of magical competency.

She'd read of the subject of Patronuses—or Patroni, for the grammatical zealots—as supplementary
reading for Defence Against the Dark Arts. The Seventh Year textbooks stopped at the more
dangerous Dark creatures (XXXX ratings and higher), with the spellwork component focused on
advanced curses and theoretical scenarios requiring proper precautions and responses to
encountering an unknown cursed object. DADA was a generalist subject. The amount of material
covered was broad and intended to be practical for the average adult wizard; the Ministry exam
standards did not expect to turn out students ready to fight for their lives. Why should they be,
living in a calm and peaceful Britain?

Hermione and Travers consulted the library's card catalogue, Hermione flicking through the
expandable little shelves for the book cards, duplicating them whenever she found a relevant book.
Or an interesting book, which was many of them, and led to Travers fumbling with a thick stack of
reference cards that took two hands to hold on to... poorly. Travers' hand slipped, trying to hold
onto the stack while attempting to secure the new cards Hermione had floated over to him, her head
buried in one of the card drawers that shot out four feet when she'd tugged open the shiny brass
handle.

"Ah," Hermione breathed, flipping through the rack of cards, "it appears the theoretical information
on Patronuses is in the Defence reference section. That'll be the information on the educational and
historical details behind the spell—when it was invented, precedents of its use, famous feats
performed with the spell and who did them, and so on. The practical information on how to actually
cast it is in the wizarding law and justice section, in one of the many volumes of Auror training
manuals. It's a charm, not a curse, so it shouldn't be in the Restricted Section. That's where they put
the training manuals on how to recognise and counter dark curses, like the ones that get you sent to
Azkaban."

"Oh, good," said Travers, tying his robe ends together into an apron pouch. The cards were dumped
into the pouch space. "Now where is that section, exactly?"

"You've never looked into the wizarding law section?" asked Hermione incredulously. "Didn't you
want to work in wizarding law after Hogwarts?"

"Er... yes," said Travers.

"How do you expect to enforce the law if you don't know what it is?" she asked.

"Well," said Travers, "I'd only be expected to enforce the law, wouldn't I? The rest isn't part of the
job description of the Auror Office. That's the job of the Wizengamot division: to charge, sentence,
and convict."

"To enforce the law, one must be able to interpret the law," said Hermione. "And to interpret the
law, one must know the law—its original intent, its historical context, and its relevance to current
administrative policy."

"Oh... does one?" Travers blinked at her. "Yes, I suppose so. I never thought of it that way, but I
think you're right."
"I am right," muttered Hermione, and realising that she sounded eerily reminiscent of Tom, caught
herself and cleared her throat. "Come on, let's go. The wizarding law section is down the end there,
next to the literature and culture section. The tables down there should be empty; legal studies,
unfortunately, isn't a Hogwarts class subject so few students have reason to look into it during the
peak exam periods."

The wizarding law section was not, in fact, empty.

It was occupied by Nott, whom Hermione assumed knew that this would be the quietest spot in the
library for private exam study and had taken advantage of this knowledge, until she looked at the
stack of books Nott had gathered at his table and realised that he was using the wizarding law
section... for wizarding law. He had one hundred and fifty years' of Wizengamot proceedings open
on the desk, crackling leather covers and yellowed pages spotted with mildew and the powdery,
decaying dust of worn-out preservation charms. Nott's left sleeve, which held open one hefty tome,
was grey with the dust of eroding parchment, and the other hand, scribbling furiously on a
weighted-down scroll, was black with spattered ink.

And to top off it all off, Nott had on his book pile the Auror instruction manual she'd wanted to
read, the one about casting Patronuses. She could tell because it had an illustration of an owl
erupting from a wandpoint, silver foiled with wriggling, animated lines to suggest a halo of radiant
light, stamped on the front cover.

Hermione, grabbing hold of Travers' elbow, marched them both over to the study table and sat
down. Travers sat quietly down next to her, stacking his armful of reference cards on the desktop.

Nott, without comment, continued with his writing. He yawned, turned a page, and scratched his
nose. His quill flicked back and forth on its impertinent journey across the unrolled parchment.

"Excuse me," demanded Hermione... politely.

Travers coughed.

Nott sighed heavily, still writing. "Let's see if we can deliver the lines in double-time. 'What are you
doing here, Nott?'. What does it look like I'm doing? Here I am, in the library, with books and
parchment. I must be studying, Granger. What else would it be?" He spoke alternating lines in a
high and girly falsetto voice. "'Oooh nooo, but this isn't on the exam, why would you study
something that won't be tested?' Only an idiot allows Ministry functionaries to determine for him
what is or isn't worth learning. 'But I'm not an idiot, Nott! Riddle thinks I'm terribly clever!' Then
you should understand what I'm doing and leave me alone, thanks.

"There," said Nott, "how good a job of it was that, Travers? I couldn't get the pitch high enough,
but I'm pretty sure I had the rhythm and character spot on."

"It was closely done," Travers answered. "I liked the 'Oh no!'. That was a good touch, but you drew
it out a titch too long. If you have one for Riddle, show me when we're in the dormitory alone. Not
in front of Lestrange or Avery; you know they'll go running for the badge whenever they catch a
crime going unpunished."

Hermione glared at him. "I thought you were friends with Tom. How can you speak about him like
that?"

Travers and Nott exchanged a meaningful look with one another.

"He's a great wizard," said Travers. "Of course I respect him. I admire him, too. Who wouldn't? But
in an effort to be polite about it, I'll admit to looking forward to sleeping in my own room next year,
instead of sharing with him and the rest of you nasty louts."

"Lèse-majesté died after the Statute, but Riddle's of the sort who would single-handedly try to bring
it back," said Nott. "He has the one redeeming quality, at least, of not being the individual
responsible for The Sock." Nott shuddered. "I'm very sure it wasn't Riddle."

"Couldn't be," agreed Travers. "Wouldn't waste it on a measly sock, I think."

"What's 'The Sock'?" asked Hermione. "No, no, that's not important right now; I'm sure it's an
irresponsible secret Slytherin initiation ritual or something. What's so important about the
Wizengamot that you'd waste valuable exam revision time for it?" She flipped back the cover of the
book Nott was reading, quickly snatching her hand back before Nott could slam the cover flat.
"You're looking at sentencing precedents for successful criminal convictions. On another day, I
might have assumed you were going to file a civil suit against someone, or someone was filing
against you, because that realistically is the most serious legal business a school student might be
involved in, even if he's an adult. But these are actual criminal proceedings... Oh no," she gasped,
and winced a little, internally, because Nott's satirical impression honestly hadn't been that far off.
"You've done something, haven't you?"

"I've done nothing worth getting myself arrested, else I wouldn't be sitting here right now," said
Nott mysteriously. "But if I had done anything, I wouldn't hesitate to say that Riddle's done worse.
Let's just say that I'm taking sensible precautions. With the duelling practice we've had, I know you
believe that precautions are sensible to take. This is simply my personal variant on them."

"What is there to take precautions for? Doesn't the fact that the Ministry's been rounding up
dangerous wizards mean that the necessary precautions have already been taken?" said Hermione.
"If anything, that means you might look to post-cautions."

"Unless you think wizarding justice is inept," Travers observed. "Might this have anything to do
with the trial next month? I noticed you had the trial announcement from The Prophet laying on
your bedside table."

"I think wizarding justice lacks a unanimous voice, even if public favour swings in a certain
direction," said Nott. "If you look at the way the Wizengamot has voted in the past, what they hold
as 'Britain's best interests' doesn't always align with what the British public actually want. They're
nominally an independent body, but functionally, they walk hand-in-hand with the Ministry.
Without the Ministry's power of execution and enforcement, the Wizengamot's laws and
convictions would be nothing more than ineffectual pages floating in the wind."

"'Right lives by law, and law subsists by power; disarm the shepherd, wolves the flock devour',"
quoted Hermione. "Madam Trombley, one of Aurors we had tea with the other day, mentioned that
line, and I looked it up as soon as I could, naturally."

"Naturally," scoffed Nott.

"It's from the poet John Dryden, written three hundred years ago, before the passing of the Statute,"
said Hermione, graciously overlooking Nott's interruption. "If the Wizengamot is the law, then the
Ministry is the power. Your theory about a corrupt government is tepid news, if a Muggle thought
of the idea and wrote it down three centuries past. I'm afraid you've wasted your time if that was the
shocking revelation you'd discovered after all your studying. You might as well move onto exam
revision and let us have those books." She nodded at the Auror manual sitting on Nott's book pile.
"Travers and I were actually planning on studying, you know!"

"Ministry corruption conspiracies weren't the subject of my study," said Nott. "Nevermind that
they're not a conspiracy—they're true. I was simply thinking about how far they'd go before it
would actually begin affecting me, as a member of the British populace." He turned to Travers.
"You know your way about the Ministry, don't you, Travers? As I understand it, your father has the
honour of the plum robe."

"I might know," said Travers. "And yes, Father was given his seat as a consolatory award for
resigning his post quietly and not making a fuss afterwards. For a lifetime's service to the Ministry,
that was the official explanation. Though it's rather vague as explanations go; I happen to know for
a fact that Orion's father, Arcturus Black, got a seat as well last decade for 'Ministry services'.
Which, in his case, meant a few generous donations in the right pockets."

"Oh," said Hermione eagerly, "a few years ago, Tom was interested in the Order of Merlin, so we
looked into how they were awarded. I read that Arcturus Black earned one in 1937, First Class
honours. That's how he got the Wizengamot seat; just like with retired careerists of distinction, a
life appointment goes to First Class awardees, for demonstrating a contribution of great
significance to wizarding society."

"A great 'contribution'," Nott said disdainfully. "The Ministry took it literally. Do you know how
much it cost to buy the award committee, Travers?"

"When it happened, I heard that a number of people had an unexplained windfall land in their laps.
Charitable bequests in their family's name, a research endowment for their son's apprenticeship
project, a business investment for a dear old uncle's shop. That whole year was dosed with Liquid
Luck," said Travers. "I'd hazard it cost ten-thousand Galleons passing through the Minister's office
to catch the nomination, and a further twenty-five thousand to win over the committee majority."

"It's frighteningly common how many wizards lack self-respect these days," sniffed Nott. "A
thousand Galleons for a nod is a pittance. Personally, I wouldn't even entertain an argument for
anything less than fifteen thousand." With audible indignation, he continued, "But that's most
people for you, these days—terribly mercenary. Chasing after the next Galleon as if it's the last one
they'll ever see. Does wizarding blood count for nothing these days? If you're going to sell yourself
in the name of cheap materialism like that, you might as well give up your wand and call yourself a
goblin. Absolutely disgraceful."

"Not everyone has as much of an inheritance as you do," said Hermione reasonably. "Some people
need money for purposes beyond greed and materialism."

"Are you scraping up a moral justification for government corruption, Granger?" asked Nott,
raising his brows. "Perhaps I've been a bit too hasty in judging what Riddle sees in you.
Nonetheless, the problem I currently have with the Ministry is their tenuous custody over a
dangerous criminal who may be let loose on the public sooner than I'd prefer. They've caught
themselves a Master Metallurge, an uncommon species these days when most wizards who undergo
the certifications for professional enchanting do so as generalist warders. Granger, as the brains of
our little club, why do you think that is?"

"Is it money?" said Hermione. "A generalist enchanter can complete all sorts of jobs around a
wizarding home, indoor and outdoor. People are always needing to have their home wards
maintained or else they'll get nifflers digging in through the cellar floors. But what does a
Metallurge do, other than enchant metal? It would be more useful in the olden days when wizards
—and Muggles—carried swords around, but the closest most people get to that these days is
preparing ingredients for a potion. What do modern wizards need, exactly, that requires enchanted
metal in lieu of regular metal? The newspaper article on the arrest mentioned that the enchanter was
a farrier for racehorses, and other than that, the only example that comes to mind is the Hogwarts
Express, and it's used only a handful of times per year."

"It's a rare specialty," said Nott. "The skills aren't particularly high in demand on a daily basis, but
when it is demanded, it's irreplaceable. Few wizards would suffer the inconvenience of going years
between major contracts, when the same amount of effort could earn them a more consistent job
enchanting trunks or broomsticks or even chocolate frogs."

Hermione recalled a dinner conversation she'd had with Mr. Pacek, the previous summer. He'd
mentioned his fascination for magical academics, but conceded the importance of practical magic.
Theory was well and good to learn, but there were limitations to what magic could do, and it could
not create food or gold. She understood that few people wanted to be a disciple of Diogenes,
content to live a beggar's life in a wine jar on the street, philosophising on the nature of true
happiness beyond property and possessions. Some wizards were content to be ascetic cave hermits,
Seers and Astronomers and the like. But not the type of wizard who studied physical enchantment,
a discipline that required not only skill, but expensive magical ingredients and materials.

"I know a Master Enchanter," said Hermione. "He specialised in enchanting glass, like the glass art
in the Prefects' Bathroom. When my family had him do up a few windows in our house a few years
ago, he told me that most of his regular work was standard household warding. It must be awfully
disappointing after so many extra years of studying, sort of like assigning a Mediwitch to changing
bedcovers and cleaning chamber pots instead of anything more useful or important."

"And that's the essence of my suspicions," Nott pronounced. "Would the Ministry shove a Master
Metallurge into the pit that is Azkaban Prison and leave him there to rot until he expires? Given
that Britain only produces a handful of enchanters in that specialty per century, because not only is
there a dearth of relevant high-profile projects for such skills, anyone who is good enough to
qualify would have to compete with the goblin-smiths."

"According to Father, there actually is a big project at the Ministry for Master Enchanters," Travers
put in. "They're re-doing the Atrium after that whole affair with the Prince. They had those metal
grilles installed for the Floo connections a few months ago, but the enchantments were broken
within ten minutes by a two-man team. Now they need to have the designs revised for more
security, an additional cost to the thousands they already spent on them the first go around. It's an
expensive undertaking, and they've already had to turn out their pockets after cutting this year's
Quidditch concessions."

"Hm, yes, I heard about that Atrium affair. An unfortunate business, wasn't it," said Nott vaguely. "I
went and looked up what the Ministry would be most liable to do with a villain of serviceable
talents. In any ordinary scenario, they'd take advantage of it by ensuring that such an individual
never makes it to a public trial. A quiet confession, a promise against recidivism, a reparative
indentureship, a tiny footnote on the bottom of an incident report and everything else swept under
the rug. Can't be accused of letting a criminal off the hook, if there was never a hook and he was
never deemed a 'criminal' in the first place. The issue with this particular criminal, however, is that
he was caught too publicly for this manoeuvre."
"That's good, then," said Travers. "Your paranoia is baseless and now you can move on to fretting
about something else."

"My paranoia is as baseless as the Ministry is trustworthy," Nott said in a sharp voice. "No, I
predict that they'll wait a year or so before calling for a 're-evaluation in cooler spirits'. Too long
simmering in the brig and he'll be crazed and permanently tremoring. Won't do if your craftsman
can't write in a straight line. And public memory is only so persistent; they expect people to forget
about one headliner criminal when the papers need a headline every single day. But Ansgar
Schmitz won't forget who caught him. I wouldn't." Nott breathed heavily, rubbing a tired hand over
his eyes. "When the Ministry finds out too late that a man good at crafting harnesses is just as good
at cracking them, it'll be bad news for the rest of us. For a national manhunt, no one covers ground
like Dementors."

"So," said Travers, his frown deeper than ever, "that's why you're studying the Patronus Charm.
You've come up with some outlandish theory that Britain will be overrun by Dementors in a year's
time, due to an unlikely chain of events that hinges on Ministry incompetence. Which I don't
disagree with, on a general level—Minister Spencer-Moon is not as brilliant as his backers claim he
is—but the ground-level Ministry employees don't change with the reins, and many of them have
been keeping the ship floating for decades."

"That, and the fact it's one of the extension questions in the Defence N.E.W.T. practical," admitted
Nott. "That's two birds with one spell."

"Don't you mean 'one stone'?" asked Hermione. "I'm certain that's how the saying goes."

"No, it's not," said Nott. "Whyever would you throw a stone at a bird? It would just fly away."

"It would fly off anyway if you shot a spell at it and your aim was poor," Hermione retorted. "It's
not that hard for a small animal to dodge a jet of light. Third Year Transfiguration, some students
spent half the lesson on their hands and knees chasing around beetles that fell off their desks." She
couldn't hold in the officious sniff. "It's beetles into buttons, not Care of non-Magical Creatures!
Goodness."

"Have a little imagination, Granger," said Nott. "For a witch, you're sorely lacking in it. Not all
spells are jets of light. If you Conjured a large net, you could catch two birds in one swoop. And it'd
count as a single spell."

"I'm beginning to think that you have too much imagination," Hermione said. "The Ministry
wouldn't allow a prison escape. It's never happened before! Not in the entire history of Azkaban
Prison, which was opened in 1718 at the behest of Minister for Magic Damocles Rowle, elected on
a platform for judicial reform, a necessary position post-Statute. Previously, wizards who defrauded
or harmed Muggles could be penalised under the King's law, which created issues with enforcing
arrests, and the codified punishments too, which were wildly inconsistent between England,
Scotland, Wales, and pre-Union Ireland... Are you two even listening to me?"

"Um..." said Travers awkwardly, "I thought we were studying Defence, not History of Magic."

"I thought," said Nott, "there was no 'we' involved in the Defence studying. I was doing pretty well
on my own."

"Oh," said Hermione grumpily, "well, if you're doing extension Defence spellwork 'pretty well' on
your own, then let's see it."
"Yes, let's," Travers agreed. "If you can defend yourself against alleged Dementors, then you'd be
qualified to give us some pointers. Come on, Nott, show us your Patronus. Or alleged Patronus."

"Alright," Nott said, sounding reluctant. "If you have the restraint to manage a few moments of
silence, then I'll show you how it's done."

Nott drew his wand from his robe pocket, cleared his throat, and squeezed his eyes shut. Nothing
happened for almost a minute.

"The incantation is 'Expecto Patronum'," said Hermione helpfully. "In case you forgot."

"Thank you, Granger. I haven't," Nott spoke through gritted teeth. "Expecto Patronum!"

A thin silver strand issued from his wandpoint, growing thread by thread like the winding bobbin of
a treadle sewing machine. Its form coalesced into a shining blob that floated a few inches above the
table's surface, shimmering with iridescence, outlines wavering like an image reflected in flowing
water. Once it had reached the size of a bread loaf, it grew no larger, and pulsed with blue-ish light
that warmed her skin like a finger of sunlight breaking through the grey blanket of the Scottish sky.
And as she stared at it, trying to discern its shape, the itching, burr-like grudge she held against
Nott's ungracious manners began to soften, and in her wonder at this novel demonstration of
unfamiliar magic, she felt uncertain as to why he'd made her so tetchy in the first place.

"What is it?" asked Travers, eyes wide with awe. "I can see a head. And a tail, I think, at the back.
Is it a cat?"

"I don't know," said Nott, his voice hoarse. The silver blob pulsed fainter, and its image dissipated.
He had lost concentration, or casting conviction, or his hold on the focal intention, and the blobby
Patronus faded into the soft yellow glow of the library's lamp lights. "I've never seen it truly
corporeal. But I should earn at least half a mark extra for this in the exam. It may not be a
distinguishable animal, but it's not the shield-mist that the book describes as a preliminary Patronus
form. Either one is capable of repelling a Dementor."

"Father worked the Auror Office years ago," said Travers. "He did his stint in the Azkaban patrol,
like all new blood Aurors are required to do. He mentioned that one trick to summoning the
Patronus at short notice is having a good image of what it's supposed to be. Your intent is clearer
that way. For first time summoning, you can concentrate on an animal that has personal affinity
with your family. That's why Patronus forms tend to run in families—the Shafiqs, for instance, call
tigers."

"The Defence books I read," said Hermione, "theorised that Patronus forms run in families because
members of families share core values and principles, and the animal representation is a
manifestation of personality. The values being inherited is what creates a 'family Patronus', not
anything to do with genetics or blood."

"That makes sense," Travers said, nodding thoughtfully. "Nott's personality is a blob. I can see it."

"My Patronus is not a blob," snapped Nott. "It's just not fully corporeal at this moment, but it's most
of the way there. It's... parbaking."

"Parbaked core values," agreed Travers. "I think your book was right, Granger. That perfectly suits
someone who switched sides at the last minute during that duelling challenge the other week."
"If you're going to have your fun at my expense, at least acknowledge that I have a Patronus," said
Nott. "I haven't seen yours, either of you. Have you even tried casting the charm, Travers? If you
don't even have a blob, then don't sneer at mine!"

Under Hermione and Nott's expectant gaze, Travers drew his own wand and cast the incantation. A
dull dustball, without the brilliance of the silver glow of Nott's blob Patronus, swum reluctantly out
of the end of Travers' wand. Barely the size of an orange, it faded away with a faint sigh within
moments of its appearance.

"Your memory visualisation is too weak," said Nott. He grabbed the book, the one with the
animated owl on the cover, and flicked to a page he'd marked at the beginning, then shoved it under
Travers' nose. "Here, this is the advice they give about the most common visualisations beginner
wizards use for their 'happy thoughts' casting intent, and the common pitfalls encountered. You
can't just choose any pleasant memory. If it's your personality manifested by magic, it has to be
personal."

Hermione peered over Travers' shoulder to read the text.

Most wizards begin their search for a positive sentiment by selecting a simple, uncomplicated,
unambiguous memory: the arrival of the Hogwarts letter; the ceremony of being chosen by a
wand at the age of eleven; walking toward the House table of their Sorting to join one's new
brothers and sisters of the next seven years. These are fine memories, but their simplicity and
generality results in a dearth of power needed for such a powerful spell as the Patronus
Charm. They are too often associated with less happy memories, which muddles the clarity of
intent necessary for casting. Namely, the happiness of a Hogwarts letter is inextricably linked
to a feeling of relief that one no longer need fear the prospect of Squibhood; the fatigue and
trepidation of trying a hundred wands and never finding the right match; the dread of being
Sorted into a House away from one's blooded relations.

The talisman sentiment must be a pure concentration of joy and hope, untainted by any other
feeling. It must be a defining evocation of the caster's soul. Not merely a moment of happiness
that pleases the wizard or witch in retrospect, but one that defines him by the fundament of his
character, the anima of his psyche. Although academic textbooks rarely concur on a single
method of devising the "perfect memory", in practise, Aurors have reported that this perfect
memory is not an absolute requirement. An unfulfilled vision may suffice in place of a true
memory, if the caster's will and imagination are strong enough to visualise "hope" in the
abstract. The Patronus Charm only requires of a wizard his pure intent, not an agreeable walk
of life...

"Dash it," muttered Travers. "The book's examples were exactly the ones I used for my
visualisation. No wonder it didn't work. Nott, what did you use for yours?"

"It's personal," said Nott sharply. "Mine wouldn't work for you. If it were so easy as copying
someone else directly, there'd be no such thing as unique Patronus forms—everyone would have
the same creature. And there'd be no purpose in bothering with vague Aristotelian theories about
the nature of 'psyche'. Which, by the way, are cited in the appendix of this manual but are utterly
unhelpful, if you wanted to waste your time on them. 'The soul is analogous to the hand; for as the
hand is a tool of tools, so the mind is the form of forms'. Useless! What are you laughing at,
Granger?"

Hermione couldn't keep herself from giggling. "You chide me for being the knower of irrelevant
esoteric knowledge, but you're the one quoting 'useless' theories from Aristotle."

"At least I don't labour under the pretense that reading a bunch of useless Muggle books makes me
intelligent," said Nott. "Nevermind that. If esoteric knowledge is irrelevant to summoning a
Patronus, and what matters is a mental state of 'purity', then surely you should be able to cast the
spell. You ought to have a go at it. Show us mucky Slytherins how it's done properly."

Hermione hesitated. She'd researched the spell after learning of its value in the exam, even
experimented for hours in her dormitory bed, with the canopy curtains drawn. But she'd only used
the theoretical description to guide her, not the practical guide written by and for Aurors, which
warned that common visualisations did not work for typical reasons. And it appeared to be correct:
she had used the memory of seeing the brick wall open for her behind the Leaky Cauldron, on her
first visit for Hogwarts school supplies, her eyes bright with wonder at the world she'd never known
existed. Just as the book had reported, it didn't work, because the memory was tainted.

Her childish wonder was darkened by the logical intrusion that crept unbidden in the days and
weeks after discovery. This magical world she'd discovered had been deliberately hidden from her,
unlike every other little witch girl and wizard boy across Britain, due to the circumstances of her
parentage. Mum had to rely on the charity of other travellers passing through the Leaky Cauldron
to open the gateway to buy things throughout the school year when Hermione was away, like the
blue Ravenclaw scarf Hermione had received by owl mail not long after her Sorting. (Tom had
received a green Slytherin scarf that Christmas from her parents. Without their generosity, he would
never have had one at all.)

What was her happy memory, then? The first time she met Tom? That eight-year-old boy was a
churlish orphan with cold mocking eyes. No, that wouldn't work. The first time she saw the castle
aglow, looming magnificent above the rickety boats bobbing silently through the Black Lake?
She'd wanted to share that with Tom, but he was off having his little temper tantrum for the first
month and a half of First Year. Her first Outstanding exam score, Christmas at Hogwarts, Christmas
with her parents, making Prefect and Head Girl, waking up in the morning sprawled over Tom
Riddle's chest... None of these were unalloyed memories of pure happiness, and in the latter-most
example, definitely not "pure" of intent.

She tried them anyway, and this sufficed to produce a pale wisp. Running through all them as
quickly as possible to congeal the emotions into one large burst of happy feelings served to produce
the shapeless dull ball that Travers had demonstrated. This strategy wasn't working. Perhaps she
ought to try a new one.

Tom had always said that magic was a matter of wanting to make it real.

She chose not to dwell on the fact that she had no purely happy memory robust enough to empower
a Patronus. The years of her short adult life had so far been prioritised for everything but personal
enjoyment; her learning and studying had always been directed toward a higher goal. Until now,
comprehension, textbook-guided rote repetition, and sheer conviction had raised her to the top
strata of students in her year. Transfiguration came intuitively to her because she understood the
principles of materiality in a way that her wizard-raised classmates struggled to grasp. There were
few, if any, spells requiring emotion as the guiding intent, and of that few, the ones she knew most
about were the Unforgivable Curses.

If she lacked a strong enough memory of happiness, could it be created from the imagination,
instead? If not a true memory, but a strong visualisation, something meaningful enough to speak to
the true essence of Hermione Granger? It should be feasible, in theory. Memory and imagination
originated from the same source: the mind.

"As the hand is a tool of tools, so the mind is the form of forms."

Muggle philosophy from Aristotle may not be as useless as Nott had decried.

What was 'hope' to her, in the far-off abstract sense, uncontaminated by the harsh weight of
logistics, historical inertia, and the faulty natural state of human instinct that prized self-benefit
over common good? What was Hermione's image of an idyllic future, which had never before
existed in her or anyone's memory, living or dead? What was the shape of her Platonic utopia?

It came to her with very little effort, once she'd set her mind to the task.

Hermione's idyll was an organised, tidy, efficient wizarding world where merit was rewarded, and
those who broke the social contract were sanctioned and reformed. A clean, safe, and orderly life
afforded to every magical child, no matter who his parents were, whether or not he had parents at
all. A strong and incorruptible left hand on the scales of justice, a strong and merciful right hand on
the gavel of judgment. An infallible leadership who peered into errant hearts and guided them to
rise above their nature, like the crawling ape who walked forth into the shining reign of man.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Brilliant light burst forth from her wand, silver mist roiling in the air like a droplet of ink dispersing
into a glass of water. The dazzling silvery cloud resolved into a vague shape the size of a dog, with
a head and a tail and little blobby paws. Hermione stared at it, trying to identify the shape of the
thing, and her concentration on her "perfect utopia" was broken. The creature dissolved back into
the formless cloud, which dimmed in its light and, soon after, faded away.

"You appear to be on the right path," said Nott, not particularly happy to give her even this small
semblance of praise. "You should revisit your Occlumency skills, if you're so easily distracted from
your visualisation. Chapter Twelve in the book has a guide on meditation exercises for memory
sorting that you may find helpful. No philosophy, just practice."

"Is your Patronus a dog?" asked Travers. "It looked like a dog. From the shape of its body, it looked
like one of those badger hunting hounds. Do you not like Hufflepuffs?"

"I don't like or dislike Hufflepuffs," said Hermione.

"If you secretly hate them, I'm not going to tell anyone," said Travers. "I think my own Patronus
might also be a dog, since Father's is an Alsatian hound. He can even call two at the same time!
When you learn how to do it, I wouldn't mind a hint."

"Give me a chance to cast a corporeal Patronus first!" Hermione said. She flipped through the
Auror manual to the table of contents, then at the appendix of references. She had only weeks left
before graduation and the subsequent loss of the Hogwarts library, but if the cited books were as
common as Greek philosophy, then they could be found in Muggle shops. Borrowing a piece of
parchment from the stack of blanks piled in the centre of the table, Hermione began scribbling
notes, ignoring the quiet conversation going on between Nott and Travers.

Organising her thoughts on paper helped her organise them in her mind. She felt as if she was
standing at the cusp of a great revelation, following the thread of her idea. An abstract conception
of the "paragon of happiness" that existed for someone of her attributes and disposition. It needn't
be realistic in every sense. But it had to be, without question, exceptionally potent.

Were she to flesh out this "paragon", what else would it look like? It was incomplete, so her
Patronus reflected it. She needed to find the missing a vital piece before she could finally see it
become corporeal.

"...So you're taking eight N.E.W.T. subjects, six cores and two electives, average marks ranging
from EE to O? That would put you on the Auror track," she heard Travers whispering to Nott.
"Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, take it or leave it. But if you're getting O's in the core spellcasting
classes, that more than qualifies you for candidacy!"

"You're assuming I want to apply," Nott replied.

"If not the Aurors, you could apply for the Law Enforcement Patrol. They only have two years of
traineeship instead of three."

"I prefer to have as little to do with law enforcement as possible."

"Come on, man! Rosier's thinking of applying for this year's intake, after they cancelled his
Quidditch career plans. Granger, too. If we have four people, we have an even number to partner up
with someone we already know."

"Don't 'Come on' me, man. I have nothing to gain from working at the Ministry, and plenty to lose.
My patience, for one."

"What else are you going to do, then? Record other people's family trees for the rest of your life?
Even if you're not wanting for money, there's less and less prestige in it, you know," Travers' voice
lowered. "They're not as popular as they were last century. Actually quite depressing to see how
many lines have struggled to throw more than two children per generation. My Mum thinks the
tradition of commissioning them as wedding or christening gifts rather gauche these days, and so
do plenty of other quality families who've always found the 'sacred' list insulting. The Diggories—
centuries of civil service to their name, even a former Minister!—the Smiths, the Fawcetts, the
Blishwicks, the McLaggens, the Urquarts, the Belbies. Eugene Slughorn, old boy Sluggy's father,
once remarked to mine on the importance of 'quiet dignity'. To boast is to wear the insecurity of the
nouveau riche."

"I have plans after Hogwarts. You'll find out when you find out."

"Great and mysterious plans, I hope?" said Travers sceptically. "Riddle spouts the same lines, but
unlike you, he's brilliant enough to be believed."

"Trust me on this one, Travers: Riddle's not as brilliant as he believes," Nott said, scowling fiercely.
"Not an ounce of 'quiet dignity' to be had from him. Riddle is..." Nott trailed off. "Riddle is on the
other side of the bookshelf. Talking to a girl."

This was enough to halt Hermione's frantic note-taking. "Do you know who it is?"
She, Nott, and Travers occupied a lesser-frequented area of the Hogwarts library, the wizarding
justice section. The next section over, with its own study table, was the wizarding culture section. It
included books about wedding traditions she'd noticed Tom reading at mealtimes, and also
contained a selection of wizarding literature, which Hermione remembered had instigated Tom into
behaving in an unusually salacious way, pressing her into a bookshelf and demanding that she bite
him on the neck. The thought still made her blush.

"I don't recognise the voice," whispered Nott. "Which means she's not a Slytherin. But perhaps you
might."

Quietly, he pushed his chair back and stood up from the table, flicking his wand in a complicated
sequence of movements. He walked up to the shelf separating the two sections, and prodded his
wand in the gap between two books, silently casting spells. Then he wandered back to the table, his
wand held carefully in front of him like the participant in an egg-and-spoon race, a thin blue thread
connecting the bookshelf to his wandpoint. Nott raised his wand above their study table with the
grace of an orchestra conductor, murmuring the incantation, "Sonorus proiectum", and the thread
detached from his wand, dancing in the air with the lightness and delicacy of a spiderweb in the
breeze.

Tom's voice, reedy and warbling, was conveyed over the thread, which oscillated to and fro in a
steady pattern... like an acoustic wave.

"I've been researching obscure aural-based spells for my Runes project," explained Nott. "Let me
see if I can adjust the quality a bit." He pointed his wand at the wriggling thread, turning the handle
of his wand in his hand ever so slightly, as if he was adjusting the dial of a wireless set. "There,
that's better."

Now the sound of Tom speaking was clearer. Travers leaned in close to listen, his brow furrowed.
Hermione set down her quill, curiosity piqued. Nott held his wand in a tight grip, concentrating on
maintaining what had to be a tricky spell.

"—They always do those, 'activities', shall we call them, in the same order in the books which don't
close the final scene at the chapel. Is it a convention of the genre, or is it what the readers expect to
happen in realistic scenario? I can't say it seems all that appealing, frankly. Some of it is truly
horrendous. Why would anyone put his mouth... there?"

"You're a boy," replied a high and girlish female voice. "Don't most boys fantasise about doing
things like that? Or having those things done to them."

"I'm not most boys," Tom replied in a sharp tone. "I find entertaining even the thought of doing...
that... extraordinarily repellent. Unhygienic. If I don't see the appeal of touching that area on
myself, why would allowing anyone else to touch it be appealing? And we're talking about touching
with hands here. The books go further than that!"

"You don't have to do it if you don't want to," said the girl. "The authors use it show how physical
intimacy is a symbolic extension of emotional intimacy."

"Couldn't the authors have written the emotional intimacy without having... that?"

"Well, I suppose they could, but where's the fun in that?" The girl tittered.
Hermione knew who it was in that moment. "Myrtle Warren, Fifth Year Ravenclaw. Why is Tom
discussing this with her?"

"Shh!" Nott flapped a hand at her. "I'm trying to listen!"

"Besides," continued Myrtle, "have you tried thinking about it the other way around? Have you
ever considered the idea that girls might have thought about doing things like that, or having those
things done to them?"

"No," said Tom. "Why would I consider that idea? For that matter, why would they?"

"Because physical and emotional intimacy is expected of the covenant of marriage. Not to mention,
your wife would enjoy it. Good heavens, Riddle, you'd score Outstandings across the board on
schoolwork, but on being a human being, you're way low in the Trolls."

Travers nodded. "That girl has a point."

"Do you think she would enjoy it? But why, exactly? She's a logical and intelligent witch. Would
she not find the idea of being inspected in such an intimate fashion offensive?

"Let me ask you this: do you think you might enjoy participating? You said you'd liked the kissing
and so on. This is more like... kissing with bonus marks. It's not about what the authors decide is
right for the characters and story, it's about what feels right for the two of you. Any determination
of wrongness is between you, her, and God."

For several long moments, Tom fell silent. When he spoke, he sounded thoughtful. "I think... I
wouldn't mind it terribly much, since it is Hermione, and she would be—she is—my wife. She's not
just anyone, and I've never found any part of her to be in any way repulsive. In fact, I've always
found Hermione's hair to be one of her most pleasant features. It's so soft and curly, and if it's that
way there then I'd not expect any objection to it, on my part at least—"

"Alright, that's enough eavesdropping. Finite incantatem!" said Hermione, pointing her wand at the
oscillating thread. "Stop listening!" she ordered Nott and Travers.

"Aww," Travers complained, "Riddle was just getting to the interesting bits."

"Granger doesn't want anyone hearing about her interesting bits," remarked Nott. "Quite
understandable, really."

"How would you feel about someone talking about your interesting bits?" said Hermione, giving
him a withering look.

"I share a dormitory with five other, oh, what did you call them, Travers? 'Nasty louts'? Rather apt,
that," said Nott blandly. "If I were to hear commentary on that subject from your mouth, it would
be nothing I hadn't heard before, and heard worse besides. Honestly, I imagine that Riddle would
object to it more than I would. The only bits he likely wants you interested in are his own."

"Putting aside the subject of interesting bits for later. Or never," said Hermione. "Eavesdropping on
such a personal conversation is wrong, but it's also wrong for Tom for to be discussing it with
strangers." The careful, meditative mood enlivening she'd experienced while organising her
thoughts for Patronus casting was crashing down, leaving her jittering and unbalanced. "He was
using my name directly. It wasn't ambiguous in the least!"
Nott stared at her as if they'd only just met for the first time. "Oh, by Merlin's staff, you're not
offended, Granger. You're jealous!" He stifled a hearty cackle. "If you had a moral proscription
against eavesdropping, you'd have stopped me at the start. But you only stopped me when you
heard something you didn't like. No wonder you associate yourself with our group, and not some
self-righteous troupe of Gryffindors. You're just like us, aren't you? You don't believe in rigid
morals; you follow your own code of what we in Slytherin like to call 'situationally-negotiable
morality'. Ahahah!"

"I'm not jealous," huffed Hermione. She got up from the table and gathered her parchments. "If I
was jealous, I would angrily confront Tom for his indiscretions. But as I'm not jealous, instead I'm
going to politely remind him to be mindful of his reputation and mine, in the interest of sensibility
and decorum. In fact, I'm going to do that right now."

"No, don't do it, there's no worthwhile benefit to upbraiding Riddle in public—"

"If Tom has the temerity to speak in public, then he can defend himself in public," said Hermione
firmly. If she waited until later, she wouldn't get a forthright answer from Tom. An answer, he could
give her, but it would be massaged into the implication that he'd committed no transgression; it was
merely a friendly misunderstanding, which could happen to anyone who had stumbled across
knowledge without context. She knew his motivation was kind: he didn't like seeing her unhappy,
which he'd admitted to her before. But Hermione had examined the state of her own mind earlier,
and understood clearly that equivocal consolations, no matter how well-intended, gained her little
happiness.

She slung her bag over her shoulder and stalked around the bookcases, feeling the gazes of Nott
and Travers burning into her back. They didn't want to be implicated when the gauntlet was thrown
down.

On the other side of the wizarding justice section was a small study nook created between the
shared shelf and the next one over, beneath the towering stacks that rose twelve feet tall. The long
rows of books sat on gleaming hardwood shelves, interrupted by an occasional rolling ladder. Iron
sconces from the ceiling above glowed with candlelight from morning to evening, and the study
tables were lit by glass-shaded lamps that adjusted by simple wand commands. Tom Riddle and
Myrtle Warren sat on opposite sides of the table in the wizarding literature section, a pile of books
gathered between them, and from the look of the covers, it wasn't anything to do with textbooks
and studying.

"—And I noticed this bit about her drinking that potion afterwards," said Tom, flipping idly
through his book. "Is it true that the prophylactic potion is best dosed according to the stage in the
witch's menses cycle? The N.E.W.T. Potions textbook never explained in so much detail. Should I
ask Slughorn about it, do you think? I suppose I ought to keep a closer watch on Hermione from
now on; exam stress sets her off her regular schedule so it's never the same days from month to
month—"

"Tom," said Hermione. "This is a most unusual form of exam revision."

"Oh, hello, Hermione," replied Tom, smiling at her in greeting. He set his book down in such a
fashion as to conceal the cover, but Hermione had already seen it. "I'm not actually doing revision,
because that would mean I'm revisiting information I already know. At the moment, in fact, I'm
learning new things."
"The Infallible Heart Ward?" Hermione remarked. "What is there to learn from that book? It's got
nothing to do with school—it's a novel."

"Plenty of things. The spirit of academic inquiry burns hot, you know," said Tom airily. "It's been
quite an education, I must confess."

"On that topic, why does that education involve Miss Warren?" Hermione sent Myrtle Warren a
sharp look, which the girl didn't seem to have noticed, immersed in her own novel. "What exactly
have you been saying to her? You're the Head Boy. She's underage. And you're in a library, not a
tea salon. This is completely inappropriate, in so many ways!"

Tom turned his full attention to her. He pushed himself up from the table, which caused Myrtle
Warren to drop her book and stop pretending she wasn't avidly observing the interactions between
Hogwarts' two Heads. Tom neatened the hang of his uniform robe before he approached Hermione,
taking her hand in his and stroking her knuckles with the warm pad of his thumb.

"Don't be upset at me, Hermione. Trust that I'm doing this for the welfare of the both of us," said
Tom quietly, peering down at her, lamplight reflecting vividly bright in his dark eyes. "As your
husband, it's my duty to take care of you. I only want to please my wife, ensure the fulfillment of
every need... and every desire. Wouldn't you do the same thing for me?"

"If I was seeking knowledge, I'd be reading textbooks, not fiction!" said Hermione. "And if I
wanted to ensure your welfare, I'd consult you about it privately, not harry some random lower-year
students who happen to be nearby."

"Do you want to discuss this with me in private, then?" Tom asked, arching an eyebrow. "I have a
number of questions about how best to please my wife, and it would certainly please me to hear
them answered. I'd hate to be found inadequate." He lowered his voice, bending down to murmur in
her ear. "I know you want something of me. Why else would you have come to find me with so
much urgency? Let me help you, Hermione."

"You can start by not telling other people about my menses! It's embarrassing!" said Hermione,
aware that she sounded hysterical while Tom came across as even-minded and reasonable. A calm
presentation didn't grant an argument additional moral substance, even if it convinced other people
it was. "And... I know you've studied mind magic with Professor Dumbledore. I know that it's
possible to review older memories while stripping the emotional weight from them. So is there a
specific technique to enhancing the emotional significance of a memory?"

"I didn't think that having your cycle was a secret. Don't all witches go through it?" said Tom, who
hadn't offered anything approaching an apology. "As for altering aspects of memory, if one has
enough willpower, anything is possible with the Mind Arts. The difficulty depends on the emotion
in question. Why do you ask?"

"I'm trying to cast my Patronus for the Defence bonus demonstration," explained Hermione. "I
created a memory-like simulation to evoke the appropriate emotions, which is stronger than any of
my natural memories, but not strong enough to produce a corporeal Patronus. Theoretically, it
should be possible, were I to refine my simulation... but I don't know how to do it, exactly. Is there
any advice you could give me to refine my thinking?"

"I would have to see it," said Tom. "If you bring that visualisation to the forefront while preparing
to cast, and allow me to enter your mind, then I could refine it for you. If you trust me, of course.
And grant me permission." He squeezed her hand, finger tracing the band of her silver ring. "I
remember, back in First Year, you asked me to promise not to use my 'mind control magic' on
others without their permission. Have you not accepted me as a man worthy of your trust? I would
like to believe that you have."

Hermione hesitated. "Only the surface, and nothing more..."

"Nothing more than what you're willing to give me," said Tom, smiling indulgently.

"A-alright," Hermione stuttered. She felt Tom's hand lift up her chin, his fingers gliding up her jaw
to cup the soft curve of her cheek. Concentrating on her artificial memory, she readied her wand to
form out the correct movement.

"Look at me," whispered Tom, leaning over her and brushing his nose against hers.

She blinked, her vision blurring as she toppled into the Wizarding Britain she'd created within her
imagination.

Her mythical Avalon of ivory towers, her green and pleasant homeland, it consisted of prosperous
freeholds, an industrious society of crofters and craftsmen and mage-intellectuals, led and served
by a competent corps of governance buried under the quiet gleaming London streets. 'A place for
everything, and everything in its place' were the watchwords of her created nation; it was a
structured community heeding to the dictum of order, because they knew and respected that it was
for their own good...

Too abstract, came the hollow voice of Tom Riddle, ringing through the streets and steeples of her
mind like an echo in a cave. Make it concrete, make it personal, make it real. It has to feel real to
be real.

She felt the butterfly-brush of Tom easing his way into her visualisation, heard the drum of his
footsteps on the timeworn cobbles, the tap of his white wand on the brickwork barricade that
opened for him and welcomed him into her secret world of perfect order. He ushered her
underground, several layers deep, into a burrow of dark-tiled floors, glittering glass office windows
stacked one over another to a dizzying height, through throngs of uniformed officials who bowed to
her when she greeted them and eyed her enviously, admiringly, deferentially as she passed.

He showed her a windowless, tiered amphitheatre occupied by learned witches and lettered wizards
who rose to their feet in one dignified rustle of plum-coloured robes. And he led her to the front
lectern where she spoke, whereupon those grave dignitaries nodded in unanimous agreement, and
passed her a scroll upon which she placed her binding signature and her seal of office, thick gold
wax imprinted with the authoritative M insignia. The wizards and witches in plum robes applauded
as the seal stamp lifted away from the premium vellum, and in the roped-away journalists' box near
the entrance, a tall and handsome wizard inclined his proud head in her direction, with that sly yet
familiar quirk of his lips. A silver press badge shone on his chest, matching the silver shine of her
laurel ring.

In the heady exultation of unequivocal success, slender, elegant hands popped a champagne cork
and dropped the velvet window curtains of a luxurious executive office. A triumphant voice spoke
words of congratulations, sparkling bubbles burst on her tongue, and she found herself lowered
onto the Minister's desk, her own plum robe sliding down her bare shoulders, and the
congratulatory voice turned from triumph to heat, as it whispered in her ear a single echoing
command: "Cast the spell!"
 "Expecto Patronum!" cried Hermione, swirling her wand through the air.

A dazzling silver otter burst from the wand's end, swimming languorously around the tightly
pressed bodies of Tom Riddle and Hermione Granger, spiralling around their heads with a flip of its
tail and a cheerful bob of its glowing little face. Tom held out a tentative hand, and the otter butted
its head against his fingers; Tom laughed in wild delight at the brush of its whiskers and gripped
Hermione even tighter, looking possessively upon the radiant silvery creature as if he had cast it
himself.

The otter swam away from them, through a gap in the bookcases; Nott yelped in alarm as it flew
into his face where he'd been spying on them from the next section over, and a wooden chair
clattered to the ground. It was soon followed by Travers' awed cry of, "Whoa, that's not a dog!"

Then the otter glided back around, curled about Hermione's shoulders and shook itself off, flinging
sparkling beads of illusory water that dissolved into the air. With a breath and a sigh, her otter's
light faded, returning to mist and then to the un-being space where it waited patiently to hear her
next call.

"I did it!" said Hermione excitedly. "I have a Patronus."

Tom rested his chin on its usual spot, atop Hermione's head. "And a fascinating focal visualisation.
Not a true memory, but I'm certain we could make it one. I should look forward to that day. Hmm.
Hermione Riddle, Minister for Magic. If there was an office in Britain that allowed you to do
anything you wanted, it would surely be the Minister's."

Chapter End Notes

— "The Sock": a past incident in the Slytherin boys' dorm where Travers stepped in a
masturbated in sock, but no one knew who did it.
— Lèse-majesté: translation - "hurt or violated majesty". Historical law making it a crime to
offend the ruling sovereign, monarch, or "Prince". Nott knows exactly what he's implying.
— "it looked like one of those badger hunting hounds": AKA, a dachshund. An otter is around
the same shape and size.
— Aristotle: wrote "On the Soul" in 350 B.C. In the setting of this story, art and culture
created before the Statute of Secrecy (1692) is shared history between between wizards and
Muggles. Post-Statute, the two worlds diverged down their own paths, but anything before that
is acceptable for hardliner purebloods like Nott to know about. Eg, learning Classical Latin,
Greek philosophy, Roman emperors, early modern English poetry.
 The Phoenix and the Pheasant
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

An elderly witch examined Tom Riddle for his Transfiguration N.E.W.T., speaking in that slow,
creaky way of ancient wizards that drove Tom near the brink of madness. At least Muggle elders
had the dignity to drop off the twig at around sixty or seventy; these withered crones and codgers
kept kicking past one-hundred and fifty. (Tom was convinced that when he reached such a ripe age,
he would have much more grace about it.) They went about as if they had all the time in the world
to spend at their leisure, when they had even less of it than Tom, and it made him want to toss their
table over and scream at them. Being the conscientious Head Boy that he was, he kept the frantic
screaming to the privacy of his own mind, and kept his gentle smile secured on the brittle carapace
he presented to the world.

"Animate to animate, tick. And that's the last. Very well done, Mr. Riddle, very smooth; I can see
why Professor Dumbledore recommended you for that job interview you'll be rushing off to attend
after this. Did he tell you that I marked him for Charms and Transfiguration, N.E.W.T.s and
O.W.L.s both? He did things with a wand I haven't seen until last week, when your cohort had the
Charms exams," nattered Madam Marchbanks. "Oh, well, if you are too much of a rush, I suppose
you won't have time for the extension demonstration..."

She gestured to a plate of dry-looking arrowroot biscuits by a tea set, placed on a side table. Tom
assumed it was refreshments for the examiners, who were to be testing students for the entire day,
and was surprised when Madam Marchbanks wandlessly Summoned a flimsy cloth napkin and a
single biscuit. She handed it to Tom.

"The bonus task was meant to be the transformation of good food to better food, but if you're too
busy, you might as well take it for the road." Madam Marchbanks' veiny hand patted his cheek
fondly. "You're much too thin, young man. Studying night and day like you have is no good for the
health. This time of year, I see more than a few Ravenclaws studying themselves straight into the
Hospital Wing, but I'd expected more practical sense coming from a Slytherin."

"I can do it," said Tom, taking the biscuit. He twirled his wand and began the spell.

Gamp's Principal Exceptions informed him that it was impossible to create edible food from
nothing, but it was possible to create food from other food. In the past few weeks, Tom had done a
lot of reading on Transfiguration, at the insistence of Professor Dumbledore, who had developed a
habit of slipping reading lists of obscure Transfiguration reference books in his returned homework.
Sometimes those were rare tomes named on a Restricted Section permission slip, and Tom had no
other choice but to use them; one couldn't simply turn down a visit to the Restricted Section! It was
his combined reward-punishment for claiming to Dumbledore's face that Transfiguration was his
"favourite".

He had learned that transformed food satisfied hunger and provided as much nutrition as the
original food, unlike replicated existing food, where each created unit was just as nourishing as the
original. One could take advantage of this property of transformation by turning basic, healthy
foods into delicious sweets and not gain a pound. For the obligatory "Annual Trifle" issue, Tom had
written about the peculiar phenomenon of edible Transfigurations for his article submission, but the
editor had written him back saying it was too advanced a magical skill; if everyone could make
trifle from turnips, everyone would be doing it, instead of using appetite suppressing potions to fit
into their expensive dress robes.

These types of consumable Transfigurations required a wizard's understanding of the nature of

change, his knowledge of a subject's path from beginning to end; once he had the full grasp of it,
only then he could refashion it. Re-order fate. The flour in the biscuit could have traversed a
different path in life and ended up in a sponge cake. The wheat of its origin extended itself from a
tiny germ planted in the sustaining cradle of the earth, burgeoning under a hundred radiant sunrises.
Could it not extend itself, grow into another form under the sustenance of Tom's magic and the
trellis of his indomitable will?

The biscuit on a napkin became an elegant cut-crystal pudding bowl filled with multiple layers of a
scrumptious summer trifle, matching the cover illustration from Witch Weekly's as yet unpublished
1945 summer entertaining special edition. Sponge fingers with a kiss of sherry, peeled white-
fleshed peaches, rich egg custard with an artistic swirl of macerated blackberries, vanilla bean-
infused whipped cream, topped with toasted almond slivers and firm, dewy blueberries. It was a
good job; Tom hadn't even "cheated" in the typical ways, engorging the biscuit or duplicating the
single biscuit into a stacked dozen before starting the Transfiguration.

"I know I did it correctly, so each component should have the proper flavour and texture," Tom
said, shoving the bowl into Madam Marchbanks' arms. He Conjured a handful of long-stemmed
dessert spoons with a wave of his wand and stuck them into the bowl, finishing it off with a
Cooling Charm to keep the fruits fresh to the end of the day. "I'm off now; give Professor
Dumbledore my best regards when you next see him. Have a good day, Madam."

He departed the exam room at a good clip, leaving Madam Marchbanks holding the pudding bowl.
The old witch brought a spoonful of cream and custard to her lips, and what she tasted of Tom's
trifle must have pleased her, for when the door closed, it was on her thoughtful smile.

Nott sat in the hallway, keeping guard over his and Tom's school bags. He stood when he saw Tom,
tossing Tom his bag and saying, "That was faster going than mine. How was it?"

"The old hag thought I was brilliant and charming, as expected," said Tom. "Come on, we'll
Apparate outside the gates. How about yours?"

"Dull but routine," Nott answered, breathing heavily while trying to keep up with Tom's long-
legged stride. "You won't have noticed it since you lack a wizarding surname, but old biddy
examiners like her always find some means to comment on how you weigh up compared to your
parents' marks. Good thing she never examined my father; it would've taken twice as long to get
through if she'd had to gossip about both my parents. That Ollivander fellow, on the other hand, is
leagues worse. Who cares if the elm tree chose my father, I'm here for my wand!"

"Why wouldn't she have marked your father?" asked Tom. "I heard Marchbanks has been working
the exam circuit for generations."

"Father would've been at Hogwarts around the same time as Old Grizzy Marchbanks," said Nott. "I
don't think they overlapped, though. She would've left Hogwarts as a Ravenclaw Head Girl in the
summer, and Father would've started First Year that autumn. By the time he graduated, she was a
junior in the Department of Magical Education, with a job marking O.W.L. elective subject papers.
N.E.W.T. practicals is a job they'd only trust to higher seniority—"

"Doesn't that mean your father is in his seventies?" That made him older than Tom's grandfather.

"Congratulations, Riddle," said Nott, "you can do arithmetic in your head. No wonder old witches
think you're so brilliant."

"But your mother is young. At least I assume she is, under all that face powder," Tom remarked. He
made a face, remembering that Christmas tea invitation where he'd unwittingly browsed through
the records of Madam Annis Nott's mind. "Urgh. My own parents may have been loathsome
individuals on their own merits, but they had the dual blessing of being unrelated to each other and
born in the same generation."

"Wizards, understanding that divorce is a business of Muggles and commoners, are rightfully
particular about whom they marry," said Nott pompously, following Tom through the quiet castle
corridors and down the steps to the main path out of the grounds. "Especially if they've discerning
tastes and don't want to settle for the first thing they can get. Father preferred a witch who was
well-read, decent looking, magically talented, properly mannered, acceptably non-consanguinous
—"

"I'll have you know that Hermione is all of those things!" Tom interrupted.

"—Tolerable of personality and pureblooded," finished Nott. "Which disqualifies Granger,

unfortunately. The latter can't be helped, but the former is a choice. I'll have you know that her
manners are poorer than you think. She struck me once—in the face!"

"Oh, that's nice," said a distracted Tom, digging through his bag to find Dumbledore's signed note.
They were within sight of the pillared boar statues. "What did you do?"

"What did I do?! I was struck in the face!"

"She probably had a good reason," said Tom. "And I'm sure you deserved it." He unrolled the scroll
and stood at the foot of the gates, which stood shut in front of him. Nothing happened when he
climbed up on the granite plinth and brandished the open scroll under the nose of the left-side boar
statue.

Nott sighed. "Press the signature to the centre-seam. That's usually how these modern gate
enchantments work, a magically imbued signature as a substitute for the traditional blood
confirmation. Well, according to those books we borrowed after that Cornish fiasco. I saw an
interesting theory from one of them: if you found a way to strip Dumbledore's magic from a robe
he'd charmed and transferred it to a parchment, theoretically, it might be usable in place of his
signature. Compared to a drop of willing blood used in a blood ward, it's not that hard to steal a
robe from the laundry."

The gate opened silently, the near-indiscernible hum of the enchantments lifting the fine hair at the
nape of his neck when he passed through the boundary and exited the grounds. Nott followed him,
glaring up at the twin boars, who snuffled on their pedestals and bared their sharp tusks in his
direction.

From the the wheel-rutted path to the village, they Apparated to Tom's bedroom at the Riddle
House, and began their usual routine of shedding their school robes and neckties, swapping them
out for plain black robes, black cloaks, and the black face-covering scarves that had become the
most distinctive feature of the Prince and the Knight. It wasn't particularly impressive a disguise for
a so-called Charms Master, when something like an animated Greek theatre mask would be more
appropriate an indication of his skill. But the scarves were easily washed—an underestimated value
in the Prince's line of work.

It suited the mystery of the Prince, the noble yet humble hero of the people. He looked plain, but
that didn't matter as his actions and prowess spoke to the true nobility of his character.

When they arrived at the Ministry of Magic Atrium, it was to Aurors in their formal scarlet robes
worn over duelling vests, pacing impatiently by the golden gates.

"You're late," said one Auror disapprovingly, putting away his pocket watch. "Twenty-five past the
hour. The trial started at nine on the dot. We've been waiting almost an hour for you two."

"Have they called the witnesses yet?" asked Tom.

"Not yet," said the Auror. "They're still going over charges."

"Then my lateness only counts as fashionably late," said Tom. "Which is hardly late at all."

"Let's hurry it up before we go from hardly late to unfashionably late," said Nott in an impatient
voice. "The courtrooms are at the lower levels, and these lifts are finicky."

They bypassed the wand weighing station without stopping to collect a visitor's badge, and entered
the elevators, to which they were warned as the grille slid shut, "Hold on, or you'll go flying."

The lower levels put Tom in mind of the Slytherin dungeons: dark walls, stone floors, torches
guttering on the walls, and a pervasive chill that settled over his bones, despite the bright summer
of a June morning they'd left above. Outside Tom's window, the Riddle House grounds had been
green with life, butterflies in the air and glossy horses grazing the lawns. Here, in the sunless
darkness of Level Ten, Tom's flesh prickled and he sought the familiar warmth of his wand as the
Aurors hurried him and Nott along to the weathered wooden door at the end of the corridor. Tom
was passed a token on a string to wear about his neck, emblazoned with the Wizengamot seal, then
the Aurors tapped the great crusty iron lock and the door swung open.

Courtroom Two was a deep terraced stone amphitheatre, seven layers of benches, seven high rows
packed with a susurration of wizards and witches, who whispered and shifted their bums on the
hard stone seats and crinkled sweet wrappers like a criminal trial was no more of a day's
entertainment than a visit to the penny theatre. The bottom ring, closest to the pair of chained
chairs, was occupied by a selection of Ministerial notables, including the Minister himself. The
second and third rings contained the fifty-odd members of the full Wizengamot, a solid mass of
plum robes amid the extravagant wizarding fashions worn by the serried ranks of sundry spectators,
who had ostrich plumes tucked into their hatbands, shawls glittering with iridescent sequins, and
thick, warm fox fur stoles with the animal's head still attached and charmed into animation.

Tom and Nott were escorted to the third ring, between a number of what Tom privately regarded as
"crones and codgers", holding vellum scrolls and dusty reference books on their laps. Expert
witnesses, he guessed. Presumably learned Enchanters who'd analysed the schematics Nott had
retrieved from the shop flat above the Tinworth Village Foundry. As he passed them to find his
reserved seat, stepping on the toes of anyone who didn't pull their feet in fast enough, he caught
people staring at his covered face and realising who he was. There weren't many wizards who
dressed in unembellished head-to-toe black and masked their faces with no fear of the Aurors who
walked on either side.

The seat was freezing; Tom winced, even with his cloak and robe to muffle the chill, and cast a
Warming Charm. Nott, settling in beside him with a wince of his own, flicked his gaze to the stone
ceiling arching high above the heads of the seventh ring, his breath huffing out of his nostrils in
white puffs of annoyance. "Proper show, isn't it. They even brought in Dementors for the final act
resolution. Hmm. Has the Minister already decided what the conviction's going to be?"

In the darkness beyond the feeble reach of the wall torches was a darkness beyond dark:
Dementors.

Tattered robes drifted by as if floating on water, black cloth much like Tom's own black clothing,
but theirs was thin and eerily insubstantial, swirling in the still air with the heavy inevitability of an
encroaching thunderhead. The cold emanated from them, and the longer Tom sat, listening to the
reading of charges and the recording of pleas, the colder he grew, and even the Warming Charms he
cast on his seat and body did little to counter the chill. It wasn't a natural, physical cold, but one that
came from within—from his very soul. The cold that was in the nature of the beast, the so-called
wizard-killers who technically didn't kill their prey, since the victims were left living in the end.
Living, though less alive than Avery had been, when Tom had commandeered the boy's body.

The Dementors, he observed, were kept away from the audience by a vigilant circle of Patronus
creatures, cast by an Auror patrol placed at strategic intervals in the seventh ring. A serval cat
bounded past with glowing white eyes; an enormous polar bear paddled back and forth in the air; a
falcon swept its rounds in irritable loops. A wolf pricked its ears and thrashed its tail; a firefly
flashed its dazzling lantern-light in staccato bursts; a large lizard with a long silver tongue hovered
atop one red-robed head. The Dementors huddled as a single black mass, with only an occasional
glimpse of clawed, grasping hands to distinguish one from another.

At the first ring, in front of the chained criminals, another Patronus creature guarded the notables—
a snarling Alsatian hound with its hackles up.

Nott's eyes caught the direction of Tom's gaze. "Torquil Travers' Patronus," he whispered to Tom,
nodding at a stony-faced man with short, iron-grey hair and a stiff grimace. "That's him in the
second row, with the rest of the Wizengamot. DMLE, retired. Next to him, Hector Fawley, ex-
Minister. Eugene Slughorn, International Magical Co-operation, retired. Archer Evermonde, ex-
Minister. Radalphus Lestrange, our Lestrange's grandfather, also an ex-Minister. Uriel Gamp,
artificer grandmaster, my grandfather. Arcturus Black, Order of Merlin. Genevieve Dagworth,
standing in for her father, potioneer grandmaster. Wigbert Stump, Quidditch Commissioner..."

Nott rattled off the names of the geriatric cadre that made up the Wizengamot, Wizarding Britain's
legislative body, most of them nearing a hundred years old or succeeding that milestone by a
comfortable distance. The youngest of the group was Arcturus Black, whom Tom had heard bought
the award that gained him admission to the rank that most others had to earn through Ministry
careerism or life scholarship.

When I get my own Order of Merlin, I'll be the youngest, thought Tom. Holding on to that pleasant
daydream chased the chill away from his limbs until long past the ten o'clock hour mark. The
legalese droned on, the cameras flashed, Head Auror Evelyn McClure clutched his wand in white-
knuckled hands, while his salamander Patronus draped itself languidly over his knee. Then Tom's
red-robed Auror tapped him on the shoulder to walk him down to the amphitheatre stage, and
answer questions about his interaction with foreign Undesirables.

The bottom of the bowl was a long way down. The Minister, his aides, and various department
seniors were seated high above Tom's eye-level, and he had to crane his neck to meet their eyes.
The stage contained two chairs at its centre, bolted to the floor, with clinking chains to securely
contain Ansgar Schmitz and Václav Janošík, looking rather worse for wear since the last time he'd
seen them. Schmitz's blond beard had grown out scruffy, while his formerly muscular physique had
shrunken in on itself within the loose tunic of the prison uniform; Janošík's dark hair hung ragged
over his blood-red eyes, and his skin had gone from an aristocratic milk-like paleness to an
unhealthy ashen grey. When Tom's shoes tapped on the stone flagstones, white fists clenched on the
arms of a chained chair. The vampire's right wrist was adorned with a rough, ropy circular scar
where his hand had been re-attached.

Tom's Auror escort motioned him to stand in front of the lectern, within the bounds of a worn runic
inscription carved in the shape of a heptagon. Tom had only a few seconds to analyse its meaning—
truth, clarity, memory, justice, and most worryingly, mastery and containment—before an old
wizard, white-haired and with a walking stick, was toddled to the speaker's lectern, supported under
the elbow by a younger man wearing a Wizengamot token around his neck. The wizard cleared his
throat, announced his name as Mr. Claudius Prince, and that "This should not take long so long as
you speak honestly and to the best of your current knowledge". Then Tom found the attention of
the courtroom fixed entirely on him.

"Are you the individual known as 'The Prince of Charming'?" asked the wizard, Mr. Prince, leaning
heavily on the lectern and staring at Tom. The man's face was lined with age, his back hunched, his
brittle hair the yellow-white of antique ivory and tied back with a ribbon. But his eyes were keen
and bright with energy, black irises that settled on Tom and seized him forcefully with a painless
albeit unyielding grip that whispered of long experience. It felt like the slide of a hook into the back
of his skull, the grip of a terrier's jaws around the neck of a rat, ready to shake it to death at the
kennelmaster's whistle.

"Yes," said Tom, gritting his teeth at the sense of another mind looming ominous over his own. He
expected that a regular wizard would only notice a spontaneous itch on the neck, a chill that might
be attributed to the Dementors and nothing else; to a trained Occlumens, it was like a shadow over
the doorstep or a creak on the stairs below the bedroom.

"What is your name?"

Tom glared at his interrogator, throwing out his own explorative tendrils to form a scaffold against
the weight dragging upon his mind and body. "Not relevant."

"Very well," conceded Mr. Prince. "Next question—"

"No, no, Prince—ah, Claudius, that is—don't move on so quickly," the Minister interrupted. "Ask
him again. With emphasis. This is a rare opportunity, don't waste it!"

"What is your name?" asked Mr. Prince again. The wizard took a deep breath and Tom felt the
pressure again, a leaden blanket weighing him down and making him feel as if the air was being
crushed out of his lungs, and the only escape was to fall onto his knees before the other man.

His answer was a retreat to his quiet sky, the black velvet night devoid of stars, in a restful silence
where intrusions—the distracting rustle of robes, the Minister murmuring to his secretary, the
clatter of prisoners' chains—were swiftly immured in soap bubbles that floated away, leaving him
alone in the tranquility of his own mind.

"Prince," said Tom, watching how Mr. Prince stiffened at the word. "Prince Charming."

"Your mother named you 'Prince Charming'?" asked the Minister incredulously.

"Of course she didn't," said Tom. "I named myself."

"Is that allowed?" the Minister asked. He turned to his secretary, hissing in a low voice. "Well, is it?
Go look it up! No, I don't mean right this moment, write it down and check during lunch. Yes, I
know I told you to put in the lunch order for the peppercorn veal terrine en croute earlier... Can't
you do both?"

"Just a normal day at the office, isn't it, Mr. Prince," Tom remarked. "Shall we get on with it, then?"

"Yes, let's," said Mr. Prince, sounding rather weary. "Describe the events that led to your first
encounter with Mr. Janošík."

"My companion and I, my loyal Knight, set out on an adventure that morning," said Tom, choosing
his words carefully. "He suggested that we might find what we were looking for at the Tinworth
Village Foundry. I happened to be in urgent need of a small token of my affections to present to my
lovely Maiden Fair. Such is the life of a Prince, you see." He laughed, noticing how the witches in
the audience nodded with approval at his words. Mr. Prince stared grimly down at him.

"When we arrived to the shop, within minutes we had been physically accosted by Mr. Janošík with
little provocation, and we had no choice but to defend ourselves," continued Tom. "It is ingrained
within my character to seek truth and prevent injustice, so naturally I questioned Mr. Janošík as to
the nature of his motivations. I learned that he thought us petty thieves—perhaps because we had
covered our faces—and also discovered, upon further questioning him, he supported the principles
of the Dark Lord. He admitted to it, and we knew we had to bring it to the attention of the legal
authorities."

"What did Mr. Janošík admit to?"

"His dissatisfaction with the state of the Statute of Secrecy. He confessed that the enforcement of
separation prevented him from 'quietening the thirst' cursed upon him, and that he anticipated a day
when there were no more Muggle protections."

"How were you introduced to Mr. Schmitz?"

"He entered the shop and took offence to my questioning of Mr. Janošík. He claimed that I had no
reasonable justification for my actions toward his apprentice, because he had committed no crimes.
This was the source of our conflict, because of course I knew he was lying."

Mr. Prince paused. His assistant, placing notecards on the lectern to prompt the interrogator's line
of questioning, coughed pointedly. "How did you know he was lying?"

"The same way you'd know if I was lying," said Tom. "Magic."

And as he spoke that last word, he stared into Mr. Prince's eyes and projected another: Legilimency.

"I accept this explanation," said Mr. Prince, while to Tom's mind, he whispered, Where did you
learn such an art?

"Hold on, now," said the Minister. "That's not a satisfactory answer!"

It wasn't learned. I was born with it, Tom replied.

"By my authority, I say it is satisfactory," Mr. Prince spoke coldly. "Who is the interrogator—you
or I? Continue, Prince." His gaze didn't waver from Tom's. Who is your family? Who is your
father?

No one you'd know, replied Tom, guarding his thoughts for any stray hint of leaking emotion.

My son is thirty-nine this year; you are of an age to be his, Mr. Prince sent to him. You resemble my
family's looks: dark eyes, pale skin, and dark hair, judging by what I can see of your eyebrows. He
has only one daughter, nine years old, who shows little natural aptitude for the Mind Arts. I could
claim you, young Prince; good wizarding blood as runs in your veins should not be let go to waste.

My blood is mine to do with as I wish, retorted Tom, understanding in an instant that Mr. Prince
wished to use him as a stud. He hoped that such designs didn't involve the man's granddaughter, but
with traditionalist wizarding families so proprietorial of their social status derived from
inheritances in gold and blood, who knew? But he knew with certainty that Mr. Prince would
consider Tom's marriage to Hermione a "waste" of good blood, which rendered the man's opinion
worthless, as far as Tom was concerned.

"Mr. Schmitz attempted to proselytise to me on the benefits of his ideology," said Tom. Only a few
seconds had passed since Mr. Prince had commanded him to continue; no one had noticed that he
and and the interrogator had engaged in a private conversation between minds. "He offered a new
world away from the feeble whispers of the Ministry of Magic. A new social order divorced from
the feudalistic superstitions of the past, which included the value placed on old names and
pedigrees. He said I would find worth and recognition in such a world, if I was willing to sacrifice
my pretentious pretender title. I took it as an affront to my dignity, so we inevitably came to blows.
And that was when the Aurors arrived to settle our disagreement."

Foolish boy. You bear your pretender's title and cover your face, when you could openly bear the
signet of a true Prince, scoffed Mr. Prince. "Did Mr. Schmitz cast the Imperius Curse on you?"

I'm no fool, Tom sent. I am a born Legilimens, with or without a title. Your judgement of my
worth came through nothing but the strength of my magic. Even with my false title and covered
face and ringless hand, you recognised power.

"Yes, he tried to force me to disarm myself using the Imperius," said Tom. "I refused him. Then I
disarmed him."
Hearing Tom's admission, quiet murmurs broke out amongst the plum-robed audience in the second
and third tiers of the amphitheatre. Mr. Prince turned around and called for silence, but was
ignored. A red-robed Auror shuffled across a long row of venerable knees to deposit a slip of
parchment on the lectern. Mr. Prince and his assistant conferred for a minute or two, while the
whispers continued, then the assistant popped a sparkler from his wand over the heads of the crowd
and they settled back down, somewhat grumpily.

"The next series of questions comes at the behest of Mr. Rawlins, head of the Department of
Magical Law Enforcement," intoned Mr. Prince. "The Auror Office has established that the
Imperius Curse was cast from Mr. Schmitz's wand, but the only evidence that you were its target is
your word. The current laws specify that the maximum sentence may only be given for the
intentional and unauthorised use of the Imperius on an unconsenting human wizard; if Mr. Schmitz
had cast the curse on Mr. Janošík, the only other sentient being in that room at the time, then he
would not qualify for that sentence. Therefore, I must ask you to describe the experience of being
under the curse."

"It felt like a parasitic spider crawling around the inside of my head, digging into every nook and
cranny of my brain for the slightest weakness of will, to infect me with its foulness," said Tom.
"According to Gamp's Principal Exceptions, magic can't create information from nothing. The
Imperius Curse can't induce a personalised replication of happiness and pleasure from nothing, in
the same fashion that a boggart can't create fear from nothing, or Amortentia can't replicate desire
from nothing. Their power is in drawing on what already exists, and twisting it to manipulate the
minds of the subject.

"The Curse cast on me sought for echoes of past impressions of joy and delight, but I refused to
give it an inch of leeway. Being a spell that connects the mind of the subject to the intent of the
caster, the caster would have been alerted of my resistance. He turned to brute force to try and
break my will, causing a rather messy nosebleed. I continued to resist, which bought me time to
analyse the compulsion placed on me and subvert its intention. I was ordered to remain in place—
silent and still, that is—and drop my wand; I broke through the compulsion by allowing it the
temporary illusion of success. By dropping my wand, then silently Summoning back to my hand."

Auror McClure stood up. His salamander Patronus fell off his knee, and instead of hitting the floor,
it floated into the air, thrashing its tail at its wizard disapprovingly. "That's wandless and non-verbal
magic!"

"Thank you, Mr. McClure, for speaking in turn," said Mr. Prince. "I propose that a quick
demonstration should be appropriate."

Tom sighed internally, drawing his wand. It was just his luck to go from performing magic tricks
for the amusement of coffin-dodgers in his N.E.W.T. exam to... performing magic tricks for the
whole coffin-dodging Greek chorus. "Will you Silence me or do you trust me not to whisper the
incantation under my breath?"

"Mr. McClure?" prompted Mr. Prince. "I shall leave it up to you."

Auror McClure, Patronus floating over his head, drew his own wand and pointed it at Tom. Tom
felt the tingle of the Silencing Charm, then McClure moved into the stroke-and-twist of the wand
movement, calling, "Expelliarmus!" for the benefit of the audience.

Tom, who knew the spell was coming, loosened his grip on his wand and let it fly out of his hand.
But before McClure could grasp it, his hand open to receive the yew wand like a Seeker on the
dive, Tom silently cast a Levitation Charm. He poured raw power into the spell to compensate for
the lack of fine control his wand afforded him, the same technique he used to float books in mid-air
while reading in the boys' dormitory.

The wand jerked to a stop halfway to its destination, McClure's outstretched fingers closing
impotently on air. With a flash of pique, Tom snorted and flicked his fingers, tossing the weak blue
burst of a Stinging Jinx at McClure's face. It was slower and wobblier than what he could cast with
a wand, but he was pleased his repetitive use of the spell had paid off. Spotting the spell-flare,
McClure instinctively cast a Shield Charm, while Tom Summoned his wand back with a silent
Accio.

He ended the Silencing Charm and said, "Is that enough of a demonstration for you, Mr. Prince?"

Mr. Prince glanced over to the Auror, who nodded. "It seems that the Prince of Charming is indeed
a prodigious hand at Charms."

"Of course I am," said Tom. "If I was no good at magic, I wouldn't be here today. I'd be sitting at
home being the Plebeian of Mediocrity."

"Thank you, Prince. You are dismissed," said Mr. Prince.

The ominous lurking presence retreated from Tom's senses, but before it dissipated, it spoke in a
soft whisper, The Princes reside in Bretby, Derbyshire. You have eight years before my son's
legitimate daughter is recognised as heir.

Tom was shown back to his seat, Mr. Prince following him with those canny black eyes, until he'd
reached the place where Nott had placed his bag to keep the wizard in the next seat from stealing
Tom's spot for the extra leg-room. Nott had taken his wand out, fiddling with it in a nervous habit,
while his gaze kept slipping up to the whirling dark void on the ceiling. If one paid close attention,
the slow, rattling breaths of the Dementors were audible. With even closer attention, one could
notice when their breaths grew shorter, more animated when one of their number, enlivened by the
mood of the audience, drifted too close to the worst seats in the house, the seventh ring up, and was
driven upwards again by a vigilant Patronus creature.

Nott shuddered. "Unnatural creatures, aren't they. Antithetical to the natural laws of man and
magic, though the Ministry thinks its own authority can compel them. It'd be a cheaper and cleaner
job to execute criminals, like we do for rogue beasts and rabid half-breeds. But no, because the
Ministry decided it's immoral to end a human life, the superior alternative is feeding those
abominations on human souls."

"Isn't the result of Dementors and execution the same thing?" asked Tom. "An end to recidivism.
Different means, same ends."

"Different means and different ends," Nott replied. "The real result of using Dementors is a
Dementor with an indiscriminate penchant for wizard souls. No one sees the hyposcrisy of it all: for
any other magical creature, if it ever tasted human flesh, it would be put down at once for the
suspicion that one taste is never enough. But flesh is flesh; a soul is a wizard's magic,
consciousness, and sentience rolled into one. Moral arguments aside, the safety aspect is
overlooked; there's been more than one occasion when some poor bystander got his soul sucked out
of him purely by accident—"

"Shush!" said the wizard to Nott's left. "I'm trying to listen!"

They had summoned the Auror witnesses down to speak, and to Tom's disgust, weren't made to
stand in the enchanted line right under the lectern, forced to twist to their necks to catch a glimpse
of the speaker's hairy nostrils. First it was Auror McClure, then a deputy who had taken custody of
Ansgar Schmitz's wand and investigated its most recent spells—he cast Prior Incantato to display
the floating image of a skull and manacles, the visual representation of the Imperius Curse. Then
another Auror who had bagged the bodies. Then afterwards came a group of Unspeakables in
nondescript grey robes, who described the results of their investigation on the deaths of the six
"flunkeys" who met their end through a sudden and very lethal injection of Basilisk venom.

Tom was interested to learn that the Unspeakables hadn't discovered how he'd done it. They'd tested
the bodies of the dead wizards and found no lingering traces of Dark Magic, or any evidence of
magical residue from spells cast directly on the body. It was concluded that Tom hadn't performed
any Dark curses, no Unforgivables, only a few basic charms and Transfigurations, perhaps
combined with imbued magic from an unknown potion. Potions, one Unspeakable droned on in his
intentionally nondescript monotone voice, incorporated the organic magic of plants and creatures,
which for the most part went undetected by spells targeted for inimical wizard magic. This included
Dark Detectors, Sneakoscopes, the underage magic Trace, and generalist wards, household and
commercial.

The explanation went on for a good long while. Tom, who knew the secret, paid rapt attention to
the closest wizarding equivalent to Muggle scientists. Really, if he wasn't fundamentally opposed to
placing himself under the thumb of a bureaucratic hierarchy, he might have seen the value of
pursuing a career as an Unspeakable. The disadvantage, he recognised, was assignments
determined by nothing more than political expedience, instead of his own choice and interest. And
no freedom to share his research under his own name and prerogative—Ministry funding meant
Ministry ownership.

Oh, and the worst part of Ministry drudgery: a strict schedule of working hours.

Not only would someone who called himself "the management" decide what a hypothetical
Unspeakable Riddle might study, he could also command when Tom could eat lunch, visit the
men's room, or return to his home and wife. This couldn't be tolerated. In that instant, Tom's idle
fancy of exploring the Department of Mysteries shrivelled into nothing.

Around him, wizards and witches wilted in their seats, their eyes glazing over with the same empty
look he was familiar with from Professor Binns' History of Magic classes. He found the technical
discussion fascinating, and observing the slumped shoulders, the fidgeting with crinkly sweet
wrappers, and the vacant yawning, he suddenly understood how Hermione felt when she was the
only student who'd noticed that the teacher had just written something on the blackboard.

The hands on Tom's wristwatch crept to noon, then passed it without fanfare.
The excitement of a rare public trial—whose tickets had been allocated by a raffle system due to
the outrageous demand—began to lose its shine. The audience members who had rushed in for the
chance of witnessing what might be a public Dementor feeding had started to realise that this
wasn't going to be a replacement for the thrill of the cancelled Quidditch League Cup. The Ministry
was bent on ensuring its i's were dotted and t's crossed, as it would be infinitely embarrassing to
convict wrong and be too late to repair the damage. Mr. Prince's cross-examinations were thorough
to the point of fastidious, which made Tom grateful that his own time under the lectern had been
relatively short. They must have already been certain they could stick Schmitz for the Imperius, so
there was no point in spending too much time on it.

At a quarter to one o'clock, a recess was called. The crotchety plum-robed Wizengamot, despite
their status as desiccated antiquities, managed to elbow their way out the door before the rest of the
crowd, eager to get to the bathroom without waiting in a miles-long queue. Costermongers waited
outside the courtroom doors, filling the corridor with the scent of hot roasted peanuts, sausage rolls,
and savoury pies. One entrepreneurial vendor, who wore a menu board looped around his neck, had
an Expanded box of pies and was doing good business with the hungry lunchtime crowd, which
included more than a few Ministry officials. According to the menu, the pies were offered in two
varieties: meat (14 Knuts) and named meat (18 Knuts).

(Tom thought it was odd at first, then realised he was no longer in Scotland—he was in London.
The Street Rules of London, which he'd learned from childhood, stated that if a "meat" pie was
cheap, filling, and tasty, one knew better than to ask questions.)

In anticipation of a change in shifts, the Auror guards on the seventh ring recalled their Patronuses
from where they floated high above the amphitheatre stage. A few—the firefly, the serval cat, and
the polar bear—were dismissed entirely.

Nott eyed them attentively, and after looking around to make sure no one nearby was listening,
asked, "Do you know what form your Patronus takes?"

"No," Tom replied curtly.

"So..." said Nott, "you didn't it cast it for the... ah, demonstration?"

"No."

"Heheh." Nott looked very pleased with himself at hearing that. Tom flipped a Stinging Jinx at his
ankle. "Hsss! That was unnecessary. I didn't say anything!"

"You were thinking it."

"Not fair," said Nott. "I kept my mouth shut, that has to count for something!"

"Your thoughts were too loud, and that's what counts."

Nott groaned. "How is it that I never see you reprimanding your 'lovely Maiden Fair'? Since you
spend as much time with her as you do, you must have noticed that she doesn't think endless
pleasant thoughts about you."

"The way she does it is endearing. The way you do it is annoying," said Tom.

"Endearing? Her?" said Nott, aghast. "You don't find her the least bit shrill?"
"No, that's what I think of you," said Tom. "But you're still an adequate minion, all things
considered. Just goes to show there's no accounting for taste, is there?"

"Right," said Nott, rolling his eyes. "Let's see if you change your mind about the value of
'endearing' five years from now."

"I won't."

"And you're so sure about it that you'd stake your life on it?"

"When you know, you know," Tom replied breezily.

"Yes, I can see why the housewives love you," Nott said with disgust. "And it's not because of the
trifle."

Recess drew to its close, and the tide of humanity that had ebbed out of the door in a disorderly
trickle came roaring back with re-energised fury. There were arguments over stolen seats,
commentary on the limited range of "intermission" offerings, and the low-rated accommodations of
the Ministry bathrooms.

"I'm not looking for the hot hand towel elf service that the W.A.D.A theatre has in the Carkitt
district," said one elderly witch. "But one surely expects better of the place that Britain's best and
brightest choose for employment. What are they spending all our money on? Last year, they went
and fined me ten Galleons for each crup of mine whose tail I hadn't docked. Everyone knows you
can't dock show crups—the whole point of showing them is for their breed conformation! Ten
Galleons per head, they said, and ten Galleons next year if they came around and saw I hadn't fixed
them. 'Twas nothing but a bout of legalised extortion—oh!"

The witch had been knocked over by an over-eager jostling elbow, and Tom snickered. The wizard
in front of her had his goblet of hot butterbeer spilled over the back of the man in front of him. That
man shrieked at the burning drink dripping down the back of his robes, and trampling on the hem
of the young lady beside him, sent her crashing to the floor. The courtroom door choked to a
standstill as the chaos spread, from a small knot to a whole chunk of the crowd milling around the
entryway and stairs ascending the concentric rings of benches.

Aurors scattered throughout the seating ranks descended to ground-level, trying to restore order.
Once they had joined the crowd, however, they couldn't get through the crush of bodies, and went
unheard in the loud shouted demands to make room and turn back around against the surging
current. Tom craned his head to look, noticing sparks of light from enterprising wizards trying to
forcefully prod their way out of the crush. It did nothing to improve the situation, only serving to
fuel the bedlam and drive it to greater heights.

Glass shattered in the crowd, the shouting rose to a higher pitch, drawing Nott's attention away
from scrutinising the circling pool of Dementors above their heads.

"What are they doing?" Nott said, scowling. More shouting arose from the heaving crowd, and
instead of the squawking of inconvenience, the voices Tom heard echoed with the strident tones of
true panic. Glass tinkled on the stone floor. Nott stood up to peer at the goings-on below. "Do you
smell that? Did someone down there drop a cauldron of potion or something? It stinks of rot."

Silently, Tom drew his wand and got to his feet. The entryway had become a congested morass of
writhing bodies, frightened pale faces, and grappling hands. Sparklers of spell-fire flickered in the
crowd, lost in an eddying darkness that drifted from the level of trampling feet, to waist-height, and
finally to the level of frantic eyes and faces. The shouts were replaced by gasps, hoarse rasping
sighs, and the rattle of phlegm-thickened coughs, issuing from a dozen throats at once, too closely
resembling the patients on the floor of a condemned plague ward.

He smelled it too, the stench of fumes from an over-boiled cauldron. Sour, stinging vinegar bite
overlaying an oily cloying putrescence, it burned in his nostrils like a winter's chill, burned all the
way down to his lungs and kept burning with the heat of feverish inflammation, unlike any Scottish
blizzard he'd ever known. It stung at his eyes too, which watered with irritation, and blurred the
seething crowd below into an amorphous shadow of dark robes and darker smoke.

Enbublio, he incanted, and covered his face with the Bubble-Head Charm. The air cleared. He
breathed deep and the heat in his lungs receded, although he noticed a tenderness in his throat still
remained. With a sidelong glance, he cast the charm on Nott's face for good measure.

"Something's gone wrong," said Tom.

"Is this your intuition speaking?" asked Nott, drawing his own wand from his breast pocket.

"Common sense, actually," Tom replied, observing the smoke billow from the ground-level of the
amphitheatre bowl and up to the first ring of seats. Mr. Prince at the lectern was gesticulating with
agitation to his assistant, but the stairway between the lower-level seats and the door was
impassable, choked with milling bodies and the dense black fog issuing from shattered bottles
skittering over the floor, knocked about from the wildly kicking feet of smoke-blinded wizards. "I
wonder why they're fighting to get up the stairs, rather than down and through the door and out."

A wizard heaved himself up to their row of seats through pure upper-body strength, his wand
clamped between his teeth, a sensible choice given the crowd fighting in two directions on the
stairs. The skin on his hands was a hot, chafed red, weeping from dozens of tiny blisters, and along
each patch of exposed flesh, he bore the same odd sunburnt look—on his forehead and cheeks
where it wasn't protected by his beard, the sides of his throat above his collar.

"Oh," said Tom. "I see why. It is a potion. Hard to guess what it is, though. There aren't many
ingredients that are so caustic and volatile at room temperature. Typically, ingredients are stable
until you have them on high heat, then mixing them with other reactive ingredients in the wrong
order sets them off. If I had to wager, I'd say... hmm, perhaps essence of Ashwinder. Likely not Fire
Crab; it's volatile, but lacks that hint of corrosiveness you'd find in a venomous beast."

"Well, I'd say that fellow has plenty of thoughts about 'corrosiveness'," said Nott. "Do you think we
should stay here, or go higher? It won't be too long before that smoke starts climbing up to our
level."

"I suppose we should." Tom gazed down at a clump of people clambering over each other's hands
and shoulders to boost themselves up to the next level. Then up at the seventh ring, four levels
above his head. "Why aren't they using magic to Conjure a ladder? Or even Vanish the smoke?
They do have magic, don't they?"

"They breathed it in," said Nott thoughtfully. "If their vocal cords are physically damaged as an
effect, then they're limited to casting non-verbal spells only. And judging by the reaction to your
little wandwork demonstration, most wizards haven't kept up with non-verbal spellcasting practise
past their school years. For simple household tasks, yes, but complex Transfigurations like
Conjuration or the silent Vanishment of a non-solid? Impossible for the type who hasn't opened a
textbook since the age of eighteen."

"If you can Vanish matter in liquid state, you can do it for a vapour," said Tom with exasperation.
"It's not that much of a difference."

He pointed his wand at a rising patch of the corrosive smoke in the seating level below him, tracing
out the jagged lines of the proper movement. "Evanesco."

The smoke doubled in thickness, from a wispy cloud to a dense floating smudge as dark as coal
soot.

"Oh." Tom lowered his wand. "Well. I suppose it's good to see that some wizards out there are
competent. Shame it's not the ones in here, though. Well, let's get up, then." He flicked the
Levitation Charm at his robes and felt his feet bob off the floor.

Nott cast the Levitation Charm on his own clothes, and his lack of fine control relative to Tom's
resulted in an unpleasant time maintaining his orientation. The spell rotated him on his back and
then spun him in gentle circles, like a spitted goose cooking over a hearth fire.

They had reached the sixth level when the wall torches guttered and went out, plunging the entire
amphitheatre into pitch darkness. Muffled shrieks echoed from the bottom of the bowl-shaped
courtroom, rebounding off the excellent acoustic design of the stone walls and through the
insulation of Tom's Bubble-Head Charm. Tom ended the Levitation, his feet thumping back to the
floor two feet down with a grunt, and cast a light off the end of his wand. Nott, who had been
dropped on his stomach with a pained moan, joined him a second later with his own bulb of light,
its blue-white glow reflecting eerily off the glassy, transparent dome of his own Bubbled face.
Below them, flashes burst forth from dozens of wands, though the glare of what should have been a
powerful torch was muted in the churning eddies of poisonous black smoke.

"Battlefield control," Tom murmured. "Forced silence. Minimal visibility. Fog of war. This isn't an
accident—it's strategic."

"What else could it be," said Nott. "To extinguish all the lights at once, instead of one at a time,
requires a blanket nullification of the courtroom's enchantments." He fell silent, and his eyes darted
to the inky blackness of the ceiling above, beyond the bounds of the soft glow from their
wandlights. The ceiling was a deep abyss of nothingness without the wall-mounted torches to
illuminate its upper dimensions. When Nott spoke next, he shivered from cold, and the inside of his
face bubble clouded with steam. Up at the top, far from the courtroom floor, the cold was truly
worthy of a Hibernian winter. "A wardbreaker. That's what the fog was a distraction for. Someone
to crack the wards, all of them at once, if they got the lights as well."

Tom reached the blindingly obvious conclusion: "The prisoners!"

"Yes," agreed Nott. "I'd be surprised, when this mess is over, to see them sitting in their chains, as
neat as you please. Likely they've already been spirited out of here."

The time and effort spent on delivering the prisoners into the welcoming arms of the Ministry, gone
to waste. It was infuriating, the futile rage that stole over him thinking about the repercussions of
the events occurring down below. The equivalent of working on his Potions N.E.W.T., and fifty
minutes into the allocated hour, some careless classmate had wandered past and turned Tom's
burner all the way up, walking off with a sheepish grin and an, "Apologies, I thought that was
mine!" when the cauldron exploded. The cheerful negligence of those who treated Tom's time as
gratuitous galled him like nothing else could.

But what else could he do? Sit in the distant heights of the top seats to watch the unfolding chaos,
as removed from the action as the spectator in the Quidditch stands, or plunge into the maelstrom
of skin-searing fog and jabbing elbows and indiscriminate spellcasting by panicked wizards who
didn't let their clouded sight stop them from "doing something"?

Io giudico ben questo, che sia meglio essere impetuoso che rispettivo...

The advice for a Prince: It was better to be impetuous than cautious. Fortune favoured the bold.

"We ought to do something," said Tom. "Do you remember a few weeks ago, when Her... my
Maiden Fair, I mean, had a lovely conversation on the potential of a Lavatory Freshening Spell?
She looked into the Arithmancy calculations for non-solid matter displacement using a mechanism
of tri-part successive Switching." It had gotten colder, his voice growing rougher as he spoke, and
Tom felt the undignified drip of something leaking from his nostrils—luckily into the scarf he'd
charmed to stick over his face. "It may well work on the smoke down there, if existing spells have
been accounted for and made ineffectual. I think it's worth the attempt, at least..."

Nott mumbled something in response, and his voice had gone hoarse as well. "'Specto... Expect..."

The boy's words sounded muted, as if spoken into a blanket from yards away, and not right beside
him. And it wasn't just sound that had grown dim and soft and weak, but the light from Tom's wand
tip had faded too, and Nott's wand-light was but a pale silvery wisp; even the Bubble-Head Charm
that Tom had cast to cover his entire face had retreated, with the slow march of a glacier, to cover
only the small area of his lower nose and mouth, leaving the rest of his skin exposed. And that skin
smarted with an Arctic frost that had descended over him, heavier than the pressure of Claudius
Prince's mind, which hadn't prickled against his own mind the way he felt it now, wriggling inside
him like a maggot crawling through the dimpled stem-pit of a ripe apple. The calm detachment that
his Occlumency granted him began to falter...

White fog surrounded him, and his wand-light dimmed further, its brief circle of illumination
sinking down to waist-level, then knee-height, as the strength of his limbs waned. He felt more
tired than he had ever been in his life, even more than the time he'd found himself bleeding in
Hermione's arms, and had a pain-reliever forced down his throat that sank him into a muddle of
narcotic stupor. Pain, no matter how brutal, was endurable. That state of mindless oblivion?
Intolerable.

Quiet breaths rattled out behind him, and a thin, withered hand laid itself on Tom's shoulder. Tom
turned around, and came face-to-face with a empty, toothless mouth under a lowering hood.

"Expecto Patronum," whispered Nott, and the skeletal grey hand jerked away from him at a
nebulous silver-blue shield that sheared through the icy fog.

But where that one Dementor withdrew, another came, and yet another. The two of them, cloaked
and hooded, were soon surrounded by black hooded figures, pressing closer, hungrily, all breathing
in a slow, measured manner punctuated with an unnatural pneumonic rasp that set Tom's teeth on
edge.

"Expecto... Expecto Patronum," Nott repeated. The shield pulsed bright; the Dementors hissed and
retreated a few steps, but then they came on again, undeterred.
"Incendio!" cried Tom, and a whip of flame burst from his wand, fire and heat and light and rage
rising around him and, for a few precious instants, they pushed away the cold fog that had numbed
his mind and settled like an impossible ballast upon his heart and soul. In the scarlet fury of his
spell, he thought he saw a phoenix dying in the wavering pyre of magic, and thought he heard the
musical chirp of fledglings luring him into a memory of summer, Elysian gardens of butterflies and
tender grass and glossy grazing horses...

"Expecto Patronum," Nott incanted, this time with renewed confidence.

A ghostly bird flew before Nott, a beautiful silver creature the size and shape of a duck, with
flamboyant tail plumes of striated icy-blue on white. It fluttered its dazzling wings, pecking and
harrying the Dementors with the fervour of an angry chicken. It should have looked ungainly, a bird
flapping wildly within the confines of a closed room, as if it had the clipped wings of a hobby
aviarist's pet. But it was magic, and it possessed the ethereal grace of spell-flesh, the soul-deep
lightness of radiant joy that warmed him from within even as Tom's charmed flame burned without,
a fierce red barricade of fire pressing outward from his outstretched wand hand, while the ghost
bird darted and danced at his back.

Then the Dementors were gone, and the bird returned to perch on Nott's shoulder and tap him on
the nose with its beak, before fading away into a glimmering mist.

"The wards," Nott said finally, when the two of them lowered their wands. "When the wards
dropped, the Dementors were let out. The Aurors at the top row weren't there to keep the
Dementors in, they were for reducing the fog effect of too many Dementors confined in a small
space. After all, can't give the public a good show with a big white fog in the way. With no Aurors
and no wards, they escaped. This trial, I knew it! I called it weeks ago. It was—is—a total farce."

"Your Patronus is a pheasant," Tom replied.

"It represents self-preservation, a defining characteristic of Slytherin House," said Nott primly. "My
pheasant preserved your ungrateful self, so be thankful for it!"

"I didn't say anything," said Tom.

"You were thinking it!"

At that, Tom let out a genuine laugh, and Nott followed soon after. Not out of humour, but for a
release in tension. For the sheer, sweet relief of looking into the face of one's Eternal Departure and
seeing it surrender under the combined force of will and magic. He had seen into the great sucking
black pit of a Dementor's mouth, seen the scabbed patches of flesh over its empty eye-sockets, had
it place its decayed claw on his shoulder, and turned it away. As the cold retreated, his mood rose
and with it came the warm elation of successful action.

The Ministry had, yet again, proved its incompetence. The Prince was in the perfect position to
demonstrate what competence looked like, to a not-yet-adoring audience. Even if he only managed
to be halfway successful, he would have done something to help. And that was better than the
absolute nothing that was going on at the ground floor of mayhem.

"Come on, Knight," said Tom, raising his wand to Conjure a pair of gloves to cover the exposed
skin of his hands. He summoned the rearing whip of flame once more. "We have damsels to rescue.
If we've chased the Dementors away, they'll go after easier prey. You said it yourself: best not to let
these mindless beasts earn themselves a taste for wizard souls."
"If I call my Patronus, you'll have to Levitate me down," said Nott. "I haven't got the hang of
holding more than one mentally-demanding spells at once, not when one of them is a Patronus.
You'll have to clear the smoke on your own."

"Not a problem," said Tom. "It'll be the Atrium all over again. Ah, good memories."

"Ugh. Don't remind me," said Nott, lifting his wand. "Expecto Patronum!"

The silver pheasant erupted into joyful existence, plumes swirling as it winged a jaunty loop above
them before alighting soundlessly on the top of Nott's hooded head. When Nott turned around to
look for it, the pheasant swayed with the movement and flicked its feathered tail teasingly at Nott's
scarf-covered nose.

"Hmm," said Tom. "Even your Patronus is annoying. No wonder they call these things
'manifestations of the inner self'."

"Anything's better than 'endearing'," said Nott. "I'm glad that I'll never be named as 'my lovely
Maiden Fair' on an official Wizengamot transcript—wahh!"

Tom had Levitated Nott by his robes and dropped him to the bottom of the amphitheatre, yanking
him up just before the boy hit the floor. The pheasant Patronus flapped down after its owner. Tom
followed with his own Levitation a moment later, stepping elegantly from the grip of the spell with
a tasteful flutter of his robes. He assured himself of the strength of their Bubble-Head Charms
before casting several lighting charms, sending a dozen floating bulbs of light to hover about the
rounded perimeter of the courtroom, bright enough to pierce through the dreary grey shroud that
had risen to the third tier of seats.

The smoke lay thick, drifting in patches on the courtroom floor; he had to wade through it like the
frigid, slushing shallows of the Black Lake in early spring—something the Care of Magical
Creatures class did to observe grindylows spawning in their natural habitat. Tom couldn't see more
than two yards through it. A hand gripped tightly to his shoulder, and he went to shake it off until
he heard Nott's voice hiss, "It's me, you ninny!"

"Stay close. Best keep your bird from wandering off," Tom ordered Nott, observing the marsh-light
twinkle of the Patronus pheasant wheel around them at head-height. He raised his wand and began
performing a complicated series of movements, zigzagging lines based on the original Vanishing
charm, but rotated around a central axis and embellished with additional flicks along the turns.
Switch a designated mass of dispersed particles with a vacuum, then Switch that vacuum with the
same clean and breathable air that was Conjured into existence in a Bubble-Head Charm.
Performed in a tight succession, there was no time to create the rush of air that gave Apparition its
distinctive sound; it was only the separation of an infinitesimal instant between the states of being,
non-being, and being again.

"Respiresco," Tom incanted, and his spell cleared a globe of smoke, the size of a pumpkin, from the
courtroom. This was going to take a while.

Tom worked at dispersing the smoke, pouring raw power into the spell with whole-arm wand
movements. Meanwhile, Nott's wand directed his Patronus into ensuring that any Dementors in
their path were herded away from posing a potential distraction to Tom. He and Nott walked in an
ever-widening circle, and came across a red-robed Auror standing guard over a huddled pile of
creaky elders, holding a flickering silver Patronus shield over their group, the best effort one could
do when casting such a difficult spell non-verbally—for they had breathed in the potion-laced
smoke, and it had ravaged the internal tissues of their throat and lungs.

Nott tapped at Tom's shoulder, the boy delving into his bag for several vials of all-purpose pain-
reliever and one brown glass bottle of Premium Dittany Essence, With Natural Stem Pulp. Nott
waited for the Auror to nullify his Bubble-Head Charm before handing him the bottle, then
snatched it away after a single sip.

"This is the expensive stuff," said Nott. "And I only have the one bottle. You don't need to be
healed all the way, just good enough to protect yourself and get everyone to St. Mungo's for a
proper check later on."

"What about the others?" the Auror asked in a weak, crackling voice. "Mr. Ponders is a deputy
department head!"

"Can he cast a corporeal Patronus?" asked Nott.

He and the Auror glanced at an old wizard, Mr. Ponders, with rumpled robes and wet sores on his
face. The wizard shook his head. His eyes were closed, eyelids swollen and bruised, and the
wrinkles on his cheeks were runnelled with tears.

"Can any one of you cast a corporeal Patronus?" Nott asked the others under the Auror's protection,
three wizards and two witches, hats askew and hair fallen out of their roller curls. "No? Sorry, but
the medicine has to be saved for those who can. You're lucky to get pain-relievers. I don't even have
enough of those for everybody."

As their circular walk took them near the courtroom door, the bodies underfoot increased. Nott
stopped more and more often, passing out pain-reliever potions, ensuring the best duellists were
healed and revived, and when the potions ran out, he was reduced to pulling bandage rolls from his
healing kit and soaking them in Conjured water and cooling charms to ease the pain. The pheasant
Patronus lingered on the arms and shoulders of bedraggled-looking Aurors, heartening them with
the warmth of its inner light, until their eyes and throats were healed and their resolve fortified to
call forth their own Patronus creatures. Thus it was for the owners of the firefly Patronus, the wolf,
and the falcon, whose immediate response to being called into existence was to swipe aggressively
at Nott's pheasant, which went to ground under the boy's cloak.

Not long afterwards, the two of them had a most peculiar introduction with Mr. Torquil Travers,
who had performed and held his corporeal Patronus non-verbally, though his hands shook with
effort by the time Tom found him crouched in the first ring of seats. The Alsatian hound hunched
with flattened ears over the unconscious body of Hector Fawley, the former Minister, and came to
heel at Mr. Travers' whistle—so that was how the man had done it. Fawley had fallen from the fog
created by the escaped Dementors, and his fingers were blue with chilblains.

"Don't bother wasting your time searching for Spencer-Moon," Mr. Travers told Tom. "They will
have gotten him out at the first sign of trouble, and damn the rest of us. They locked the doors, did
you know that? Locked us all in, once they noticed the poison getting into the corridor outside."

"Perhaps the Minister worried the fog might spread into the rest of London, built atop the
Ministry," said Tom reasonably. "Since it wouldn't respond to standard Vanishing spells, they
assumed it was purposefully designed as a weapon. Better that a hundred people caught the effects
than the whole city."
"If that were so, then I should be proud to have died for my Minister." Mr. Travers let out a rattling
laugh. "But he is not that sort of wizard, nor does he have that sort of forethought. Certainly not the
sort of acuity to solve his problems with an original counter-spell." He gave a shallow bow to Tom.
"Go, Prince. I shall help you ward off the Dementors. Clear this poison from the air and be assured
that the Committee for Experimental Charms will not be demanding your registration papers."

Patronus animals, working together, herded the Dementors back up to the ceiling; Nott was no
longer required to take the job alone. But without the wards keeping them locked in, the Dementors
were liable to come creeping out as soon as any one Patronus wavered in its form or its wizard
owner was distracted. As more wizards were healed and revived, they took up the job of
maintaining rudimentary Patronus shields to disperse the chilly fog, leaving the ones who could
summon corporeal Patronuses to devote their energies to rounding up the Dementors.

A veritable menagerie of spirit creatures swam near the ceiling, illuminated by the glowing balls
that Tom had cast around the perimeter. The majestic glide of a sea turtle, the acrobatic fluidity of a
mongoose, the stately tread of a stalking heron, the spectacular brutality of a lunging shark, which
tumbled a flock of Dementors onto their robed backsides. He watched the Patronus animals co-
operate, and on the courtroom floor, wizards Conjured bandages and cups of water and rummaged
in pockets for loose sweets and leftover biscuits to chase away the harsh cold of the Dementors'
presence, everyone doing his best to aid someone else, with no care about blood status or politics or
bureaucratic titles...

It left an odd impression in Tom's mind.

Was this what people like Gellert Grindelwald and Hermione Granger had envisioned with their
romantic notions of a Society of Magic? A community of wizards and witches who were guided by
a purpose greater than self and selfish legacy? A shared legacy for all, a communal purpose, the
advancement toward a magical Renaissance.

Tom cleared the fog, proving without a doubt that the prisoner chairs were empty, the golden chains
molten slag on the stone floor, and the prisoners nowhere to be seen. By the time the last drift,
hidden in the shadows under the lectern, was expunged from existence, the wizards had gotten into
some semblance of organisation. Nott had used the last drop of his bottle of Dittany, and out of
bandages as well, joined a group Transfiguring blankets from pocket handkerchiefs for those badly
affected by Dementor exposure. There were three or four white shrouds covering bodies; those
wizards couldn't be saved, but the rest could be assessed by severity of injury—

The locked door shattered into a wave of thin wooden shavings. Those closest to the door coughed
and sneezed, as the shavings whispered down into a mound of powdery sawdust.

Through the shadow of wood dust strode the tall and imposing figure of a furious Albus
Dumbledore, a phoenix soaring into the room at either side of him: the silent gleaming moonsilver
of a Patronus phoenix on his left, and the blazing scarlet of his phoenix familiar on the right,
screeching in triumph as it swept past awed faces and craning necks...

...And spotting Tom Riddle in the hubbub, squawked happily and dove straight for him.

Nott meandered over to Tom's side. "Well, then. I suppose that's us copped."

Tom cringed.
 He knew what was coming next. Another codger, another examination. His one consolation lay in
having truth on his side, because Tom had confessed the identity of his secret alter ego to
Dumbledore. If he had used a different one today, that was an understandable mistake to make
when one had multiple names.

Dumbledore should understand it, since the man had three middle names himself.

Chapter End Notes

Tom can't cast a Patronus. His happy memories are tainted by other emotions—vengeance,
self-satisfaction, schadenfreude, domination, entitlement. However, he isn't affected by
Dementor depression like Harry, who passes out with flashbacks. Because Tom doesn't get
depressed, he gets angry. I imagine that's how Lord Voldemort is immune to Dementors in
canon.

Nott figured out his Patronus! The pheasant is one of 150 possible results in the Pottermore
quiz, but after looking up different explanations, here is the list of traits I'm using.

Pheasant: Self-preservation, adaptation, social awareness, opportunism. Pride, discernment,

creative thinking. Appreciation for beauty and refinement.
 The Scholar Prince
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

The long-awaited Denouement of Revelation arrived, but to Tom's disappointment, it resembled

little of the lovely imaginings devised within his mind. He had dreamt of applause and acclaim;
what he received was displeasure and silence.

Wizards scurried out of Albus Dumbledore's way. The man's expression was dark and forbidding,
an intimidating presence despite today's eccentric robe design of Oriental lions with big goggling
eyes. It was the angriest Tom had ever seen his professor. Dumbledore had his wand out, the tip
sparking with an un-cast spell, and Tom shuddered at the palpable waves of power that rippled
outward, thumping in his eardrums like his own heartbeat.

Riding the surge of magic like leaves in a typhoon were the two phoenixes, blue-white and red-
gold, which swept through the bowl of the amphitheatre with the agile co-ordination of winter
skaters on Regent's Canal. They spiralled high and plummeted low, each bird mirroring the other in
speed and grace. The red bird trilled its song as it flew while the white bird remained silent,
scouring through the arching height of the courtroom for potential enemies. But the Dementors had
been corralled up to the top of the ceiling by the Aurors' Patronuses, and there were no enemies to
attack, and slowly, the birds' searching spirals tightened and the red phoenix crooned in
disappointment.

With one last despondent swirl, the white phoenix faded away, but the red phoenix cocked its head
and dove for an old and familiar face.

"Get off me," Tom hissed at Dumbledore's pet phoenix, shrugging his shoulder to get those sharp
claws from digging through his robes. The bird tumbled off, croaking irritably, and flew back to
Dumbledore, who held out an arm as a landing perch.

"Should we run for it?" asked Nott, pressing his wand to his scarf-covered face and re-applying the
Sticking Charm.

"He's got nothing on us," Tom replied, watching how the milling crowd reacted to Dumbledore's
silent display of power, conversations stuttering into dead silence and mouths snapping shut.
"We've one week left before we're gone for good. What's he going to do, put us in detention? We
had a note; he can't pin us for leaving against school rules. Trying it will only make himself look
bad, since he was the one who signed it."

Even with the bird gone from Tom's shoulder, Dumbledore recognised the two of them instantly.
Tom and Nott wore Conjured gloves, black hooded cloaks, and concealed faces, the only skin
visible being a narrow band between the brows and the cheekbones. But the pair of them were
distinctive in that they were given a respectful bubble of space where they stood on the busy
courtroom floor, and even the Aurors seemed hesitant to approach.
But not Dumbledore, of course.

Tom ventured no hint of remorse, though judging by his professor's mood, Dumbledore didn't
expect any from Tom.

"This plan of yours was foolish from the start," said Dumbledore, who at least had the grace not to
scream Tom's name out in front of the statesmen and women of Magical Britain. "But there is no
one I am more disappointed in than myself."

"I saved the lives of good witches and wizards today," retorted Tom, looking around the room and
gesturing with a hand at the Aurors rolling ex-Minister Hector Fawley onto a stretcher, a group of
industrious house-elves setting up a cauldron of hot cocoa, and blanket-clad elders holding
poultice-soaked gauze over their inflamed skin.

"Your intervention condemned them to this fate." Dumbledore stepped closer, speaking softly. "And
what else have you condemned, with your unthinking recklessness? No one as young as you are
should have to bear such a weight on the soul."

"It's too late for scoldings," said Tom. "The deed's been done."

"No," said Dumbledore, the last breath of anger fading from Tom's perception. His shoulders
sagged. "It's not been done at all—and that is the heart of the problem. As the rash Pandora, you
have irreversibly opened the vessel; you have done that task quite thoroughly indeed. But all the
curses and troubles contained within are still escaped into the world."

"I did tell him it was a bad idea from the start," Nott added. "But you know the way he is. I was
barely involved, by the way. Just someone to keep the time and mind the lunch basket, as it were."

"If we're to go on mythological tangents, then expecting a vessel to contain all the troubles of the
world—forever—is the height of hubris," said Tom, with a fierce glare at Dumbledore. "Only an
arrogant romantic could think it a feasible solution."

Dumbledore sighed. "Perhaps you are right."

"Yes, of course, I'm usually right—" Tom stopped short. "Hold on, you're agreeing with me!?"

"It's not the deed that I am particularly averse to," said Dumbledore. "I admire the courage to stand
up for rectitude and integrity, even if it skews to the lee of lawful. But the execution raises
questions... Ah, I may be an old man in your eyes, but I was a young man once upon a time. When
I was your age, I felt too clearly the chill in my talent being squandered into a staid life of
parchment and chalk dust, as everyone expected of a magical prodigy. That restlessness is the
Gryffindor in me, and the Slytherin in you, I think. We were never Rowena's for a reason."

The reaction from Professor Dumbledore was nothing like Tom's imaginings at all. The fury
seemed to have all but disappeared; only a tired resignation, a sombre acceptance, remained. He
had expected... A hundred points off Slytherin's hourglass for him and Nott each. The fiery
castigation of an unrepentant sinner under the holy pulpit. One of those double-ended formal
rebukes which involved much smiling over a tea tray, presenting their best impressions of a
harmless schoolmaster and a polite schoolboy, reciting lines off a script they'd rehearsed a dozen
times over.
In a state of numb incomprehension, Tom, Dumbledore, and Nott left the courtroom and were
barraged by the searing flare of photographers' bulbs in the corridor outside. The Minister
scrambled forward to speak to Dumbledore, but Dumbledore ignored the man, sweeping past the
breathless crowd with that remarkable aura of rippling power and grave dignity. Tom followed,
squeezing the handle of his wand and letting his own power well up within him, as he did when he
practised Legilimecy, drawing on the force and will without the targeted intent. Nott winced; the
wizards and witches filling the corridor shuffled out of their way and slunk out of an open elevator,
murmuring, "I'll take the next one, thanks."

In the Atrium, the Magical Law Enforcement patrol had set up velvet ropes in front of the Floo
fireplaces, and everyone who wanted to leave was forced to stop and be searched for their
identification documents and visitor passes. Tom and Nott handed off their Wizengamot tokens to
one Hit Wizard with a gaping mouth, and Dumbledore, eyeing the long departure queue and the
anxious wizards still undecided on whether to pat them down or let them go, took hold of the two
students by their shoulders and Apparated them straight into his office in a roaring red ball of
phoenix fire.

Stacks of unmarked exam papers cluttered the desk; Tom knocked against one pile and sent it
swaying to the floor, and a silent Immobilisation Charm froze it in place before the papers could
cascade all over the place. Another charm returned them, neat and squared away, to the corner of
the desk, just as Dumbledore waved a hand and sent them flurrying to a shelf in the corner.

The phoenix fluttered to its perch, preening smugly.

Nott peeled the scarf off his face and said, "Well, I suppose we'll get out of your way now,
Professor. See you at dinner—"

"Sit," Dumbledore said, lowering himself heavily into the large wingback chair behind the desk.
"Please."

Tom glanced at Nott, who looked longingly at the office door. With an ominous click, the door's
locking mechanisms activated, and runes inscribed in the panelling high up on the walls glowed
with yellow light, bright but brief.

He sat in the chintzy armchair in front of the desk. Nott gingerly took another seat, fiddling with
the sleeve of his robe.

"I didn't lie to you, sir," Tom began. "I'm a half-blood of no significant family—"

Nott wheezed. "Sorry. Throat's still raw from breathing in that smoke."

Tom sent Nott a withering look, and continued, "—In this world. And you know that significant
family in this world is what matters to its inhabitants. My wife is a Muggleborn with the same stain
to her heritage, and the name of 'Mrs. Riddle' will grant her nothing noteworthy amongst the people
who care about such things. When I acted as I did, I did so with an eye to the future."

"I know," said Dumbledore. "And that is why I'm not nearly as angry at you as I should be, as two
students—for this last week of school, even without formal classes, you are my students—in the
care of a teacher and a Deputy Headmaster."

"You might not be angry," said Tom, "but I can sense that you're not pleased about it either."
"Because you acted out of concern for one narrow facet of the future," Dumbledore said. "And now
you have set everyone else's future into jeopardy. Mr. Nott, perhaps you can explain it better than I,
for having a broader view than Tom's. A Patronus like yours signifies the vision and clarity of a
bird's eye. And the pheasant, as I understand it, is more astute than most—even more than my dear
old phoenix."

"Er..." Nott mumbled. "Sorry, Riddle, but no matter what noble reasons you have for calling
yourself a Prince, anyone at the other side of your wand is going to see it as a casus belli. When
you saved thousands of wizards from the death-trap of Montrose's stadium, you toppled a villainous
plan a long time in the making. Villains don't like upstart heroes showing them up."

"I already knew that people wouldn't like me or what I was doing," said Tom. "That's why I got
ahead of the game and made sure everyone knew that I was the hero of the story."

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "You did make very sure that everyone knew of your personal
involvement. Was this part of your plan, Tom? To impress Gellert Grindelwald with the face of the
British resistance? Because you have made yourself his next prime target."

"I did consider it a possibility, sir," said Tom.

Nott groaned and closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair. "Did your considerations involve a plan
to address this possibility, Riddle?"

"Yes..."

"So what is the secret plan you've been keeping under your cloak, then? A rune cannon, as
suggested by Granger?"

"Well, I can't just tell you," said Tom. "It's a secret."

"Professor, Riddle doesn't have a plan," Nott complained. "I'm too young to die. The last time we
were here, you said, 'Help at Hogwarts will always be given to those who ask for it'. Please, sir, I'm
asking for your help. On Riddle's behalf, too, since he's got nothing."

"Tom," said Dumbledore, gazing at him over the rim of his spectacles, "I would like to hear it from
your mouth. Do you believe you need assistance?"

"I..." Tom began reluctantly. "I, maybe, perhaps don't not need some assistance. Theoretically, of
course. Professor Slughorn mentioned once that Grindelwald was a friend to you a long time ago.
You must have speculated on what strategy could be used against him. If you could share some
first-hand insight on how he duels, I should be much obliged."

"Oh, wonderful," Dumbledore said, beaming. "I would be pleased to help you, since you asked so
nicely, Tom."

"That's good to hear," replied Tom. "So what do you know about Grindelwald?"

"We shall begin tomorrow morning, straight after breakfast," said Dumbledore, whom Tom had
noticed had evaded the question. "We have tomorrow and the weekend, then the final week off
class, before the Hogwarts Express leaves on Sunday morning of the twenty-fourth. You had that
scenic little spot by the lake—how about we meet there at a quarter past eight?"
"Yes, it seems like a suitable place to me," said Tom. He made to stand up from his seat, but
Dumbledore held his finger up as if a stray thought had suddenly occurred to him.

"I would usually spend the last week on marking exams and advising elective selections for Second
and Fourth Year Gryffindors, but if I'm to dedicate the remaining days of the term to you two,
Messrs. Riddle and Nott, you wouldn't see it as too much of a favour to help an old man out, would
you?"

"No, sir..." said Tom hesitantly, put on edge by the word favour. In Slytherin House, it never meant
anything enjoyable, at least when he wasn't the one collecting.

"Good, good!"

Dumbledore drew his wand and Conjured a pair of heavy wooden lap desks for Tom and Nott,
pinning them to their armchairs. He Levitated an ink bottle—bright purple—and a pair of
extravagant writing quills—red plumes with golden nibs—to each of them. This followed with a
hefty stack of paper that thunked on their Conjured desks with the weight of an Atlean burden.

Tom gingerly lifted the top page from the stack to read its contents.

Transfiguration is a magical discipline for altering the form of things, but sometimes you can
use it to make things from nothing instead of changing things you already have. You can un-
make things too, because apparently "a lack of form" counts as a form state you are changing
things to and from, which is why it falls under Transfiguration. But when I say "a lack of
homework" counts as a form of homework, the professor said it is not a valid excuse, for some
reason...

"First, Second, and Third Year Transfiguration term papers," said Dumbledore. "You're both
N.E.W.T. Outstanding-level students, so it shouldn't be too difficult a job to mark them. Shall we
see how many we can get through before dinner?"

"Sir," said Nott, "I'm not a Prefect. Traditionally, marking student work is a duty entrusted to
Prefects only. Riddle should help, of course, being this year's Head Boy and all, but I'm just a
regular student."

"Nonsense," Dumbledore said. "You're Britain's upstanding Green Knight; that outranks the Prefect
badge by far. I believe you can be trusted to maintain a proper balance between fairness and charity.
But as a rank of great importance, one doesn't earn it or deserve it through idleness, would you not
agree, Mr. Nott?"

Nott glared at Tom, turning over the first leaf of paper on his desk and grinding his teeth at what
was discovered therein.

Tom suppressed his feelings by slashing a line of purple ink through a Hufflepuff's fumbling
explanation on the Theory of Affinity.

By the time the dinner hour approached, Tom's irritation with the tedious task of marking had
somewhat abated. He had to concede the therapeutic benefits of venting his spleen on twelve-year-
olds who made their lack of studying too obvious. These were wizards; they'd been invited to the
premier magic school in the Isles, and their exam answers were written like notes passed under the
desks in class. It was infuriating. No wonder the teachers loved him and Hermione from their first
week of lessons. It made the teachers feel as if their hard-earned knowledge had entered some
young minds over the course of the year, instead of being wasted on a hollow block of wood that,
for all intents and purposes, passed as the typical Hogwarts student.

The next morning, Tom was the first one out of bed. He was lacing on Travers' duelling vest over
his uniform shirt and jumper when Nott peeled himself out of his blankets and stomped off to the
bathroom. At the High Table, the lone staff member was the caretaker, Mr. Pringle; the Slytherin
table was completely bare. This was the last day of the exam period, and since Seventh Years were
given highest priority on the assessment rota, he'd finished every practical and written exam he
needed for his eleven N.E.W.T.s, most of them by the end of the first week. (Including Muggle
Studies, which Slughorn had signed him up for in exchange for a box of sugary pineapples and a
few sly winks.)

Nott slouched into the seat opposite Tom's and said, "It's got to be duelling, Dumbledore's
'assistance'. There's no other reason why he would want to meet us outside instead of in his office,
if he wasn't afraid of showing us something that would wreck his precious enchanted doodads."

"I suspected that," Tom replied, eating his porridge. It was in the plain Scottish style, oats cooked
with water and salt. He topped his with a pat of butter. "Makes you wonder what kind of 'friendship'
he had with Grindelwald, if he's thought up strategies to defeat the man."

"It's not like you haven't thought up a plan to subdue any one of us who shares the dormitory with
you," remarked Nott, snagging toast from the rack and spreading on marmalade. "Pass the kippers,
won't you? You can be on the same side as someone and still have private thoughts about how you
might go about killing him. It's more common than you think, actually."

"Hmm," Tom said, as he Levitated the kippers across the table with a flick of his fingers. "I've
never thought it that uncommon of a habit. Doesn't everyone do it?"

"Not Granger, I think." Nott paused. "Have you invented a list of ways to subdue Granger, then?
Since you are 'friends'. Of a sort, anyway."

"Subdue? That depends on how you define the word." Tom smiled. "But conquer? Certainly."

"Urgh." Nott gagged. "I don't want to know about that."

"You did ask," said Tom. "I was only being honest. Isn't that what friendship is about?"

They arrived to the pre-arranged spot ten minutes early. In the north, the sun rose at five o'clock on
summer mornings, and this far past dawn the light had cleared the treeline to reach the appropriate
angle to strike Tom and Nott inconveniently in the eyes. It was a brisk morning, as usual in
Scotland, clouds scudding overhead with the imminent threat of clumping together at any moment
into a spontaneous burst of rain. Tom was grateful he'd finished his charmed cloak, which he wore
over the dragonhide vest; it had enchantments to maintain a comfortable temperature and resist
being flung open by the wind.

Dumbledore was already there to meet them, and gave them a brief nod of welcome, flourishing his
wand through the air to dredge up lumps of mud from the lake bed, dripping with intact stalks of
pond grass. It was near effortless, the way the professor brandished a wand like a conductor's baton,
moulding the formless mud into the shape of human figures. A dozen clay men, each one a
different flavour of soldier, craggy details carved out of the earth and lovingly fashioned into
recognisable images he had only seen in his collection of military histories. Tom watched, wide-
eyed, as a Roman legionary tore himself into a semblance of life, bearing a shield and spear; a
crusader knelt in prayer before the benevolent Madonna cast into the crosspiece of his sword; a
janissary's segmented armour clattered as he drew his long, curved sabre; a hussar levelled his
lance while feathered fronds of pond weed draped over his shoulder in a pelt pelisse.

"One thing you must understand about Gellert Grindelwald," spoke Dumbledore quietly, his gaze
lingering on the clay men whose limbs grew ever more proportional and realistic, to the extent that
even their hands were traced by veins and wrinkles. "Is his belief that power is derived from those
who follow his cause. His followers and foot-soldiers, his lieutenants and field marshals... his
magical constructs. For this reason, he rarely shows his face on a battlefield, but for one unusual
exception: when he sees a chance to recruit someone of great promise to his side. Even when it is
an unlikely prospect to form an allegiance, that truly rare combination of uncommon power and
intelligence captivates him."

Dumbledore's slow, misting breath was torn away by the morning breeze. "It always has. For it is as
rare in this world as it is in the world we separated ourselves from, two hundred and fifty years ago.
The legendary warrior-poet."

"The scholar-prince," said Tom. "That's how I've heard it referred to."

"It goes under a lot of names in history," Nott volunteered. "The polymath-mage. The mage-
statesman. The rather droll 'warlock'."

"Quite so," said Dumbledore. "When you leave the protection of these halls of learning in little
more than a week's time, you will be on your own. You'll be his target of interest... But that first
time he seeks you out, it will not be to destroy you, but to assess you. That will be your one chance
to speak with him, wizard to wizard. You can't let it go to waste. But to earn that chance, you need
to prove your mettle. Shall we begin?"

Without a word of incantation, Dumbledore flicked his wand and the soldiers began marching
forward, three ranks of four men, with the shields of the legionary, the crusader, a hoplite, and a
Norse berserker locked together in the front to protect the back. Tom hissed as a pebble struck his
cloak; the Shield Charms sewn into the lining flared white over the black wool cloth and diffused
the force, but he still felt the passing pressure of the cloak's ripple, like an elbow to the gut. He eyed
the mud-construct soldiers, spotting a flintlock pistol protruding over the rim of a shield, from a
man in the second rank.

Tom cast a Shield Charm over Nott as another volley of pebbles flew out of the shielded mass.
"They've ranged fire, polearms, and swords. Don't rely on them needing half a minute to reload. It's
magic."

With a sweep of his own wand, Tom Banished a spray of pebbles back at the constructs, and saw
with disappointment that they clattered off the shields and helmets; one lucky shot hit a soldier in
the face, but as he was made of mud and clay, the pebble pushed itself out and his face re-formed
with no sign of damage. Regeneration was cheating!

Nott cycled through the list of traditional duel opening moves: the Knockback Jinx, the Impediment
Jinx, the Conjunctivitis Curse, the Disarmer, which slowed the constructs but didn't stop them in
their tracks. It was a weak result and in some cases ineffectual, as if the spells had been cast on an
inanimate statue. Which made sense; such a selection was meant for taking on human wizard
opponents. The Disarming Spell, for instance, snatched the swords and pistols from the soldiers'
clay hands, but even as Nott built a pile of them on his side of the battle field, the soldiers extruded
clay from their hands that formed into fresh weapons, and went to war once again.

Tom reverted to more advanced offensive spells, blasting and cutting and peeling away at their clay
flesh and armour; he froze their limbs with spell-ice and Conjured water, shattering them to bits,
but again and again he was thwarted by their powerful regeneration. He tried a Confundus Charm
and a spelled fog to coax the soldiers into attacking each other in the darkness, but when they
continued marching toward him in step, he realised that it wouldn't work because they had no
minds to subvert or compel.

The only mind was their creator's: Albus Dumbledore.

As the clay soldiers marched in their direction, Tom and Nott retreated and circled in an arc that
gave Tom a gap at which to strike at Dumbledore. He Conjured a hail of stones and sent a volley at
the soldiers, nudging Nott to keep it going, while Tom summoned a long finger of flame and
lengthened it until it resembled a whip. Then he cast it at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore responded with a gout of chill wind, dispersing the whip into a pale, flickering sheet,
like a candle flame guttering by a draughty window. Tom re-formed it and snapped it again at
Dumbledore, whose eyebrows lifted in amusement at Tom's antics, and Summoned a globe of lake
water that he fashioned into a hemispherical shield which he pushed against the whip, shortening
its length and driving the end of it closer to Tom with each careful swish of his wand.

Tom dismissed his fire whip; it seemed Dumbledore knew to counter elemental magic with the
opposing element.

He and Nott swerved from side to side, moving constantly and changing directions to force the
soldiers to follow them, which they did without a hint of independent thought. It took some time to
re-arrange the shields and bring the spears about to face them, so each lull gave Tom a bit of
reprieve to cast spells without having to account for aiming on the go. For the moment, Tom had
given up on destroying the constructs, and concentrated on keeping out of range of their spears and
Shielded from their pebble munitions. The central target was Dumbledore—the mind that moved
the pawns.

Tom flung charms at Dumbledore. The custard brûlée sugar-crusting charm, the laundry wringing
charm, the ironing charm on Dumbledore's robes and hat, hot-pressing and hair-rolling charms on
his beard and exposed skin, scouring and cheese-grating and ice carving charms flurrying out with
so much power that the jets of light blazed like tiny stars. The spells became a quivering distortion
on Dumbledore's perfect layered Shield, and when three spells landed within a palm's breadth of
each other and shattered the top shield, Dumbledore lost his genial smile at Tom's discovering the
weakness and having the magical strength to exploit it.

The old man replaced his shield spell with the reliability of the physical water barrier. This time,
when the burning stars and miniature fireballs landed, they sizzled and steamed but didn't plough
through the water shield as fresh water rushed to fill in the gaps, steadily renewed from a
Conjuration charm. Tom was sure it took an onerous mental effort to maintain at the same time as
the dozen clay soldiers, but if it came down to Dumbledore's "well-organised mind" versus Tom's
magical stamina, he wasn't certain the cleverest strategy was to pit them against each other in such
a direct manner. It wasn't particularly strategic of a maneouvre.

Time to try another trick, Tom thought.

When he and Nott swung by a stand of marsh grass, he discreetly cut down a patch of stalks with a
lawn-mowing charm and assembled them, with the aid of Transfiguration and animation charms,
into five large green spiders, four feet across from side to side. The spiders had bodies of mud
clumped together with root clusters, scuttling on braided legs of spiky, saw-edged sedge stalks. He
Disillusioned them and sent them sneaking around to attack Dumbledore from behind, all the while
maintaining his Shield Charm against flying projectiles and rotating through his list of offensive
spells at the clay constructs. It was difficult work, keeping control of this many spells at once while
having to physically move around; sweat yellowed on his collar and gathered down the line of his
spine, under his heavy duelling vest. Nott, to his satisfaction, looked much worse off despite having
done less work.

The spiders slipped nearer to Dumbledore, Tom keeping hold of them with his mind and his intent,
once again slanting across the battlefield of smashed grass and churned mud to keep the construct
soldiers changing directions. When the hussar, who had gotten his spurred riding boots trapped in
the soft mud of the lake bank, jumbled the formation's turning on its implacable march, Tom
snatched the opportunity.

He Switched the soldier with an equal volume of water from the lake, and the tall column of water,
as soon as he completed the spell, collapsed with a great splash that further mired the remaining
soldiers in the muddy ground. He did it with another, and a third, then Nott had picked up on Tom's
trick and sent three soldiers into the lake in quick succession.

The loss of half of the little army distracted Dumbledore, and at that moment, the spiders leapt for
the professor's back, unprotected by the rippling half-dome of the water shield.

They shivered and drove their sharp, pointed claws into Dumbledore's robes, tangling with his hair
in trying to get their pincers around the man's throat. Dumbledore turned one into a large dandelion
seed that wafted away in the wind; another shrivelled into a brief sparkle of falling ash. Yet another
drowned as the water shield swung around, and the fourth was transformed into an octopus which
fell limp to the ground, flailing around uselessly. The fifth and last, which had hidden in the grass,
sprung out at Dumbledore's wand hand—

The pile of disarmed, discarded weapons, which had returned to their original form of earthen
clumps, propelled itself straight into Tom's face. Freezing cold clods of wet mud smacked into his
eyes and open mouth. Heavy mud drove into his shoulders, chest, and stomach, each strike feeling
like a tap of a stevedore's fist. With the dense mask moulded over his face, he couldn't breathe,
couldn't see, couldn't hear; his ears were clogged and he lost his sense of balance, tumbling
backwards to the ground, his limbs too thick to lift, pinned together by the sticky, clinging mud that
slipped under his protective cloak and dragonhide vest both. He couldn't catch his breath, his
nostrils and mouth were choked with the bitter, mineral taste of rotted verdure and grainy silt. His
last thought was of destruction; if he couldn't win, then no one else deserved to.

Flames blossomed and expanded in a wide ring, enveloping Tom with a heat so potent he felt the
gloriously vibrant warmth through the foot-thick wet mud blanket that pressed him to the ground.
The mud crackled and popped around him, and he no longer felt the cold anymore. It was such an
effective insulator of warmth that he felt his skin blister; he was baking in his shell, crisping like a
wrapped potato buried in the embers of a hearth fire.

His last thought was of his pet rat, Peanut, who had been set alight on the Black Lake years ago.
Funny that they should go out the same way, at Hogwarts, the place that they were glad to have
called home...

"Hey, Riddle," said Nott, poking him on the cheek. "Wake up. How much does it hurt?"

Tom opened his eyes. He lay on a blanket, surrounded by gently waving blades of marsh grass. The
sun shone above him in a flawless summer day, over a sky brushed with frothy mare's tail clouds.
Dumbledore and Nott knelt on either side of him, watching him with concerned expressions.
Dumbledore's phoenix sat on Tom's chest, and a shimmering tear dripped off its beak to land on
Tom's chin.

"Diffindo," whispered Tom.

The spark shot out of Tom's hand. Dumbledore reared back in alarm, but he was caught by surprise
and the spell sheared off a strip of the man's greying auburn beard, catching an inch of his cheek
with a shallow cut that welled with blood.

"I believe I deserved some of that," said Dumbledore. He turned his head, lifting his hair to show
Tom his throat. It bore numerous thin, striped lines of swelling scratches. "You almost had me with
the last Transfigured spider you kept in reserve—anatomically accurate to a juvenile Malayan
Acromantula, if you wanted to know. Fifteen points to Slytherin. That was well done, Tom."

"I think I was well done," Tom muttered. "What do you think, Nott? Was I more of a medium well,
or perhaps a medium rare?"

"What," said Nott, furrowing his brow. "Are you talking about beefsteaks? Oh! Huh. That was
meant to be witty."

"Yes, thank you," said Tom. "If you can appreciate wit, you're good for one thing, at least. Can't say
the same about your martial capabilities, unfortunately."
"I'm good at three things, I'll have you know," retorted Nott. "Appreciating wit, recognising
subtlety, and valuing self-preservation. That last one is in dire deficit in certain people. I won't say
who, though, because I am subtle."

Tom ignored him. "Sir, whom would you say won? I can't have lost, can I? I was that close to
beating you!"

"When you fell unconscious, you lost direct control over your spider construct," said Dumbledore.
"I shouldn't have buried you in the mud; that was a little overzealous of me. Let's call it a draw,
shall we?"

"You don't have to pity me," said Tom. "I'm not a sore loser. Let's try it again, from the start."

"Are you sure, Tom? It may be best to take the rest of the day to convalesce, then resume tomorrow
morning."

"No," said Tom. "I see the lessons you're trying to impart with this challenge, sir: Don't accept
weakness. Never surrender. Find another way to defeat your enemy, because if you can't think of
one, you're not trying hard enough. I want to learn more. I want to... No, I need to become more
powerful."

Dumbledore frowned. "Tom, this is not the lesson I'm trying to teach you."

"Sir," said Tom firmly. "You're teaching me how to become a better wizard. As a professor, I
understand that you can't go around admitting to having favourites. But that's the truth, isn't it?
You're helping me with individual instruction instead of teaching the whole class how to get better."
He pushed himself upright, dislodging the phoenix squatting on his chest with a squawk of
dissatisfaction. "Because you recognised my potential. Well, I'm not going to lay down and
squander it. That, Professor, is the Slytherin in me and the Gryffindor in you."

They returned to the lakeside, which had been reshaped from how he remembered it. There was a
large bowl-shaped depression, thirty feet wide, completely bare of grass and rocks and any
distinguishing terrain feature. The dry, powdery earth sloped gently, a smooth pane of a surface that
shattered beneath his weight like sugar-glass. In the centre lay a cracked brown chrysalis, baked to
the hardness of pottery, and Tom approached it with a queer discomfort in his stomach. He flipped
a shard of it over with the toe of his boot and saw an imprint of his own face on the other side,
every pore of his skin impressed with the perfect detail of a Roman wax death mask. He Vanished it
out of pique.

"It was a non-verbal Confringo, if I had to guess," said Nott, coming up to stand beside him.
"Fawkes had to fly through the fire and Apparate you out of it."

"Who's Fawkes?"

"That's the name Dumbledore gave his phoenix."

Tom made a face. "If the mighty basilisk is the emperor of beasts, then the noble phoenix is the
empress. But he named his after a Muggle and a Catholic. Oh, and a criminal rabble-rouser on top.
You can fault my taste, but that man has worse. He certainly likes his rabble-rousers, doesn't he."

"The thing saved your life," said Nott.

Tom opened his cloak to show Nott the rows of heptagonal metal charms sewn into the lining. "I
wouldn't have died. I enchanted my cloak to protect against heat." He pointed to a section of the
cloak's interior, where three of the disc-like metal charms were tarnished and blackened. "If they
didn't work, they wouldn't have corroded like that."

"They're corroded because you overpowered the array," Nott replied.

"Ah," said Tom. "But I accounted for that. The rest of the charms would've taken up the load, due
to the linked redundancy arrangement. All twenty-one must be consumed before the cloak itself can
be damaged."

"Alright, perhaps you wouldn't have died," admitted Nott. "But your face would've melted off at the
least. You'd have a dickens of a time sitting for your wedding portrait after that, hah."

"Hmmm," was Tom's response. "We'll never know."

The clay soldiers were re-created by Dumbledore, and Tom watched the process with his eyes
narrowed in calculation. In Transfiguration lessons, they worked with various trinkets and
household items at their tables, and many of his classmates had to tap their wands to the objects—
or animals—they Transfigured. This led to some amusing anecdotes of ravens flying out of
students' hands and up to the roofbeams, which could have been solved by an Immobilising Charm
and a weak Knockback Jinx.

Or, as Tom reckoned, observing Dumbledore's fluid wand movements, one didn't need to catch the
raven to turn it into a writing desk. It was possible to Transfigure at a distance. He wouldn't have
been able to send large swathes of the potion-laced smoke into non-being, back in the Ministry of
Magic courtroom, if it was necessary to maintain contact between his wand and each molecule of
matter.

"Here's the new strategy," said Tom to Nott. "I discovered the secret lesson Dumbledore's trying to
teach us. It's so obvious in retrospect: Transfiguration."

"Secret lesson?" Nott scoffed. "How is that a secret? He's the Transfiguration teacher.
Transfiguration is the most un-secret lesson he's ever taught."

"The lesson is about how you approach defence. Don't waste your time with Defence Against the
Dark Arts hexes and jinxes, because someone like Dumbledore can't be brought down with a Jelly-
Legs or a Boil Jinx. Not even by a Torsion Hex, though the books make it sound as bad as a
localised Cruciatus. Transfiguration—that's the key."

Tom pointed to the ranks of clay constructs. "To deal with those, you don't need to fight them. You
need to contain them and render them useless, so that the caster himself will declare it a misuse of
energy and abandon them. Containment, like the wolf traps from our earlier adventures, but more
permanent. Softening Charm on the top surface of the ground, and a pit trap underneath. Peat bog,
tar pool, quicksand." Tom pointed his wand to the ground and began Transfiguring a pit trap two
yards wide, extending it in a half-circle around him and Nott. "The trick is to treat it like a partial
Transfiguration, because you want the result to be double-layered, each with its own physical
properties."

Nott picked up the idea. "They'll walk into it and we won't have to run about and have them chase
us. But what about when Dumbledore abandons them? Are you going to set spiders on him again?"
"I don't think he's the sort of wizard who will let the same trick work twice on him. Once he's
learned his lesson, he's not falling again," Tom mused. "I suppose I'll have to take care of him
myself. You take care of the constructs. Transfigure yourself a physical shield if you need it; that
way you won't have to devote your attention to maintaining a Shield Charm. In a true battle, it'd be
a good idea, since they block Unforgivables." Tom's words rushed out at a frenzied pace. "That's it.
That was the trick all along. If wizards can alter the properties of matter, they can alter the
substance of reality. The most powerful of magical spells are manipulations of state, substance,
energy, and essence."

Tom let out a high, unconstrained laugh, buoyed up from the wild joy of reaching that final point of
resolution. Triumphant satisfaction burned in him, reminiscent of the finality of completing an
Arithmancy calculation, the last stir of a simmering cauldron; despite hundreds of wizards deriving
the same function or brewing the same potion, it was the individual revelation that held
significance.

Nott looked askance at him. "It's not a secret or a trick, Riddle. Wizards have known for hundreds
of years that Alchemy, true transmutation, is the most powerful of magical disciplines. Through it
lies the rare exceptions to Gamp's rules of magic."

"That may be so," said Tom, refusing to give up an inch. "But what I'll show you now, you've never
seen before."

When Dumbledore called to start, Tom was ready.

He left Nott to deal with the constructs. That was the reason one kept minions in the first place—
for the care and management of other minions. Tom himself went for the main event, siphoning
water from the lake in long glistening swathes and freezing them in the air. They made undulating
waves of ice, refracting rainbow prisms, the brilliance of the northern aurora unfurled in the mid-
morning sun. He summoned an icy white fog too, the magic pouring easily from his wand, which
shivered in acknowledgement at the familiar guiding intent of spells he'd cast time and time again,
anticipating his will so he was left to concentrate on steadily funneling his power. Tom's wand was
more responsive than usual, humming with the same resonance that pulsed at the boiling headwater
inside him whence came his magic, as if this was the type of spell it was meant to perform for him,
the push-and-pull settling of true affinity he had noticed most distinctly with Avery's dragon
heartstring wand.

The temperature dropped by degrees. Hoarfrost coated the grass; snow dusted the parched earth and
collected in drifts on his cloaked shoulders. Dumbledore was but a dim shadow through the mist.

With a pulse of power, the ice sheets shattered; Tom moulded the falling pieces into the shapes of
animals: squirrel, beaver, vole, marmot. Quail, pheasant, grouse, and partridge. Ordinarily, he
would have relied on spiders and rats, the animals whose anatomy with which he was beyond
familiar, but he knew that most found them unappealing, and would have no hesitation with
blasting them. But sweet woodland creatures? People didn't think of them as vermin, and they were
suitable companions for charming princes who wooed fair maidens in the woods. Better to devote
his knowledge on rodent and avian physiology to a different group of animals. He had certainly
carved enough game fowl at the Riddles' table to replicate their delicate skeletons, encased in the
transparent ice-flesh of a spell construct. (Tom had to wonder how many dissections Dumbledore
must have attended to create human-shaped constructs with such efficiency.)
The ravening howl of a charmed wind, drumming hail, and knife-like spears of ice accompanied his
animal constructs in their attack on Dumbledore. The little creatures were of clear ice, invisible in
the white fog of war, flowing in a tide over the snowy ground, borne on a polar gale, until they
crashed into a dazzling flare of fire—

Dumbledore had Conjured fire, the natural elemental counter.

Tom continued to bombard the man from all directions, his spells almost entirely based on
conversions of matter and energy. The destroyed animals melted into a floor of ice beneath
Dumbledore's feet, a slick hazard to walk on with the soft tasselled slippers that matched the man's
velvet robes. Beneath the ice crust, Tom performed a Transfiguration to transmute dirt to water,
chilling it so it wouldn't disturb the frozen layer above. He sent a spiralling galaxy of snowballs to
orbit Dumbledore, darting in and flying away at the flare of the professor's fire shield, melting and
re-freezing so many times in the heat and wind to become as dense as miniature icebergs.

He and Dumbledore kept testing each other's defences for five minutes, ten minutes, until they had
run the clock out to twenty minutes, and perspiration had dripped from Tom's nose in tickling
icicles. He herded Dumbledore, not that the man could tell with the fog obscuring sight and
landmarks, into a square of land no wider than ten feet, and expanded the aquifer he'd grown
steadily under the ice crust.

When he was ready, the snowballs, several dozen of them, came rushing in at once from every side,
followed by what remained of his birds and beasts, and Dumbledore responded just as Tom had
predicted he would.

A booming heat-wave, a dry blast of heat the likes of which had never naturally occurred in damp
green Britain. Tom felt the pure magic of it in the goose-flesh on the nape of his neck, the bright
seltzer-y effervescence on the back of his tongue, the visualisation Dumbledore used so precise in
detail that it was more than simply energy; it impressed upon all his physical senses. It was a
moment in time captured and released in an instant: fragrant incense in casks of Levantine cedar,
silk shawls and Turkmen rugs, tea and spice carried on caravan trains through the great yellow
waste of an endless desert...

Every scrap of ice in the air melted instantly. The air grew thick and heavy with vapour.

Tom cast his final Transfiguration, and the cloud of water vapour became coal dust. He followed it
with a few minor spells: the Self-Deafening Hex, a layered Shield, and a sparkler charm to set off
his trap.

Tom's explosion was several orders of magnitude greater than Dumbledore's, a combination of heat,
light, force, and sound so potent his cheeks rippled and and his hair blew backwards, overwhelming
the neat Hair-Setting Charm he'd applied as his usual morning routine. His cloak tightened around
his body, protecting him from the blastwave, and the metal tokens sewn within burned against his
dragonhide vest as the enchantments were overcome and, one by one, failed.

The fragile ice crust under Dumbledore's slippers melted, dumping the old man into the deep
sinkhole with a splash and a swiftly muffled cry of surprise. It wasn't meant to be a lethal duel, so
Tom didn't want to kill him—just scare him a bit. Or a lot; Tom wasn't too fussy with the
particulars. The water should protect him from serious damage, and wasn't that an equivalent
consideration to what Dumbledore had offered when rescuing Tom from the mud suffocation trick?
The coal dust explosion disintegrated the marsh grass in a circle twenty feet beyond the edges of
the crater that Tom had produced earlier. The sound wave rippled outward and shattered the glass in
Herbology Greenhouse Seven; Tom observed, rather distantly, the glass falling into trays of ripe
Bouncing Bulbs, and the big purple roots, stabbed with sharp glass, jumped out of their pots and
began smashing around the inside of the greenhouse, disturbing the other plants. Orange dirigible
plums, severed from their trees, floated out through the open greenhouse ceiling.

With a flash of flame, Dumbledore appeared a yard away from Tom. He stumbled to his feet,
dripping wet and clutching his phoenix's tail plumes. The old man's velvet robes clung to his body,
outlining knobbly-looking knees and a glimpse of one hairy ankle. His half-moon spectacles were
missing.

"So, sir," said Tom casually, casting a non-verbal Hot-Air Charm to dry Dumbledore off, "is this
how a warlock duels?"

"Yes, Tom. Now you see what magic is capable of in the hands of a wizard who knows how wield
it," said Dumbledore in a tired voice, rubbing blearily at his eyes. "This is why we are so rare, and
those of us with sense reject it, to turn our lives to more productive pursuits. There are few things
as destructive as a duel between masters of martial magic. I think now is the perfect time to end our
lessons for today. We had best have the greenhouses repaired by the start of dinner, or I shall never
hear the end of it from Professor Beery this evening."

"Riddle!" shouted Nott, from some distance away. "Warn a fellow when you're going to level the
Earth! Fratricide is not an acceptable duelling stratagem! Even if it works!"

Over the next few days, Tom was given the magical equivalent of a military syllabus. He was
comforted by the thought he wasn't alone in his suffering; he was certain the Muggle boys he'd
lived amongst at Wool's were at this moment being forced to enjoy life as a conscript too. And
there was no private comfort as powerful as the knowledge that he was a wizard. Even if he found
wizarding to be a tiring business, when with all his unimaginable power, he was unavoidably
obliged to listen to someone else's instructions.

Dumbledore tasked him to Transfigure more animate creatures. Multiple in one spell, moving to
animals Conjured wholesale instead of transmuted from a starting material, then animals Conjured
true to life, without the "cheat" of using ice or clay spell-flesh; such a technique made allowances
for shoddy anatomy in a manner that couldn't be replicated in successful flesh and blood creations.
Nott, meanwhile, joined him in outdoor Transfiguration practise and had difficulty Transfiguring
animals larger than a market-weight hog, around four hundred pounds. Nott couldn't Conjure one
of that size at all, while Dumbledore expected Tom to Transfigure larger animals, and more than
one at a time.

"You limit yourself to small constructs if you can't animate greater masses," said Dumbledore,
demonstrating how he turned a lump of mud to a squirming piglet and then to an adult male boar.
For an additional taste of whimsy, Dumbledore added a pair of golden wings, brass points over the
tusks, and a collar to which he affixed a Hogwarts crest pendant. "A common technique for
workaday spellcasting—Mr. Nott, I do hope you are paying attention to this—is to apply a
sequential Transfiguration, using affinities and associations to retain that marvellous metaphysical
essence of being shared by creations of magic. Pincushions to hedgehogs in Fourth Year is a
practical example of the fundamentals. With this technique, a N.E.W.T. graduate can perform
adequately. But Transfiguration masters hold ourselves to a higher level."

He waved his wand and Conjured a female boar from nothing, this time with leathery dragon wings
and a Gryffindor scarf tied in a bow around its neck. He Vanished both boars at once, and said,
"Functionally, the process and results are identical. The difference is in efficiency. When you meet
another for a traditional wizard's duel—distinct from the stylistic version promoted by the
International Duelling Confederation—the resource of greatest limitation will not be men,
weapons, or power. It's time."

"Father says it's creativity," Nott interjected. "A creative mind is the most valuable trait of a
duellist."

"Ah," said Dumbledore with a lift of his brows. "Only for a specific type of duellist. One who
performs in thirty duels over the course of the competition season, and is watched by an audience
of thousands. That type of wizard must always mind his stances, footwork, wand movements, and
spell flash for any hint of a predictable pattern that his opponent might use against him. And he
works under the artificial limitation of protocol and stage boundaries. In a true wizard's duel, there
are no such rules. It becomes a battle of might against might, and at that level, we don't use
standard Shield Charms. Hence no need to devise the perfect angle to ricochet a Piercing Hex to
shatter a Shield at its weakest point."

"You can still be well-prepared," said Tom, peeling open his enchanted cloak to reveal the tarnished
charms inside. "But total reliance on preparations narrows one to holding a defensive position
against an assault of pure power. Personally, I should prefer to return what I receive. It's only
polite."

"In the highest levels of duelling, a powerful wizard is also a creative one," said Dumbledore. "And
a technically proficient one, too. You do have to improve on that front, Tom. You do have plenty of
power to spare—I've known since that unfortunate incident with that wardrobe in Third Year—but
you should look to refining your casting." He gestured to the hundred feet of flattened ground, a
bare patch in what would otherwise have been a grassy slope down rolling hillside. "You are far too
destructive for someone who is known as one of a pair." He nodded at Nott. "And you have the
Aurors on your side, for now. Learn to restrain yourself for their sake, even if you find that it
restricts your preferred style."

Another exercise that Dumbledore taught them was the "Switching Game", which involved two
dozen Conjured barrels divided on either side of a line drawn in the earth. One dozen was marked
by red lids, and the other by green lids. Tom and Nott had to Switch the red barrels on
Dumbledore's side with the green ones on theirs, and whoever had all twelve barrels of the reverse
colour on their side won the game. The difficulty was compounded by the fact that the barrels,
uniform in size, were of a different weight and had different contents, which Tom could hear
rattling or sloshing inside them. Dumbledore wouldn't let them open the lids, reminding them that it
was part of the challenge.
They were engaged in this exercise, with the occasional pause to Conjure a fresh barrel when a lack
of accounting for disparate mass left them Switching half of a barrel instead of the whole. One
broken barrel spilled a mountain of salt over the ground, and Dumbledore called a recess, to Nott's
relief. But then he assigned them to remove every single bit of salt before they were allowed to
return to the game.

"I will know if you've left a grain," said Dumbledore, "by casting a Summoning Charm and seeing
how much you've left. But I don't advise you to try that charm yourself, unless you are entirely
confident in defining your spell subject. It's a pleasant sunny day, and I'm told it's an uncomfortable
process to separate salt from sweat while still on the skin, even with magic."

"At times like this, I'd prefer marking First Year exams over Vanishing salt grains," Nott grumbled,
clearing a patch of ground to sit on. He tapped his wand into a mound of salt and slowly, it began to
disappear. "At least I'd be indoors and sitting on a proper chair."

Nott shot a sideways look at Dumbledore, who had Conjured an armchair, a beach umbrella, and a
punkah fan that hovered in the air and bathed him in a cool, charmed breeze. The professor had
pulled a bag of sweets and a Transfiguration journal out of his robe pocket, perusing it with an
irritatingly serene smile. Every now and again, he glanced up from his reading and twinkled at
them.

"There must be a more efficient way to do this," Tom remarked, glaring at his own salt pile, which
he'd reduced to a white sprinkle on the ground. "In the solid state, we're manipulating piles of salt
grains as a grouping of objects. But in a different state, the group becomes one object. Aguamenti."

Water flooded from his wand, causing Nott to yelp as his trousers were soaked. The boy jumped to
his feet, holding his robes out of the puddle Tom had created.

"Tergeo," said Tom. "I can't believe it was this simple. Salt water, a suspension of however many
thousands of grains of salt, counts as one spill to a simple cleaning charm. 'Defining your spell
subject'. The old man thinks his hints are clever."

Nott dried off his trousers with a spell of his own. "That old man is teaching you his old tricks.
Though I'd recommend you do be careful with how you apply them in the future, Riddle. A
catalogue of tricks characterises each wizard's unique spellcasting style. Yours, or the Prince's,
leans toward elemental charmwork. Dumbledore relies on Transfiguration and animation. If you
borrow too much of his style, anyone familiar with it will see it reflected in yours."

"Is that such a terrible thing?" asked Tom. "Dumbledore's never been beaten. His style is powerful."

"Only if you don't mind being thought of as Dumbledore's successor in spirit," Nott remarked.
"Like Rembrandt to Titian."

"I didn't think wizards knew about Muggle artists."

"Before the Statute, we didn't just know Muggle artists, we hired them," said Nott. "It was a short-
lived fashion in the seventeenth century. Static portraits were used to decorate private studies and
bedrooms and such, if you didn't want charmed portraits spying on sensitive matters. Better to have
a quaint fixed portrait, because you can't have your walls left bare. People might think you were
poor!"
"I'm beginning to think that your so-called 'pureblood cultural customs' are nothing more than the
affectations of the leisure class preserved from several centuries ago," Tom observed.

"You wouldn't be wrong about it," replied Nott. "That's why I don't mind your Muggles as much as
I ought to, despite their being Muggles. They espouse the correct values—blood, breeding,
tradition, heredity, propriety, and hierarchy—and we simply disagree on the finer details. I have
more in common with them than I'll ever share with someone like, oh, what's his name? That
Hagrid fellow." Nott shuddered.

Shortly afterwards, they resumed the Switching Game, in which Dumbledore participated with a
relaxed ease, to Tom's annoyance. He would wait until they had ten of his barrels, and it looked as
if they were one move away from winning, and then the professor would flick his wand almost
casually, following no standard wand movement for any spell, and all of a sudden, it was
Dumbledore who was one move away from the finish. Tom struggled to discern what the trick was;
Dumbledore always had a trick hidden up his gaudy, sequinned sleeve. Then a barrel broke, and
barley grains scattered over their feet, causing Nott to groan very loudly and throw his arms in the
air and shout at the top of his lungs.

"Noooooo! Damn it, Riddle! Not again!"

It was Nott's shouting and the geese that Tom Conjured to eat the barley, then the dogs he Conjured
to round the geese up so he could Vanish them back into non-being, and the hawks he Conjured to
catch the geese that flew away from the dogs, which attracted the attention of Hermione and the
Slytherin boys. They had not seen Tom over the whole weekend, and without his certitude and
approval, wrung their hands over the planning for the Slytherin Common Room leaving party,
unable to agree on anything except for a liberal provision of strong drink. In Hermione's case, she
wanted his help rehearsing her Heads' speech in the Prefect compartment on the Hogwarts Express.

Quite at a loss for words, the group stumbled into the flat bowl of denuded earth, seventy feet
across, swarming with an assortment of small animals, honking and barking in a raucous din. Tom
and Nott waded through the mess, Vanishing animals left and right, while Dumbledore watched
from the comfortable distance of his armchair, Transfigured into a reclining lounge, as if he was
completely immune to second-hand embarrassment.

"Tom!" cried Hermione. "Where have you been? I didn't see you at the Transfiguration practical
exam on Thursday. You've been skipping breakfast and lunch. And I when I checked the library,
you weren't there, not in that section, reading those books!"

"I've been busy. As you can likely tell," said Tom, kicking away a goose that had waddled too
close. The goose fluttered into the air, honking in affront, and when it turned around to peck him in
the shin, Tom Vanished it. Good riddance.

"Doing what, exactly?" Hermione asked.

"Extra training," Nott said pompously. "If Britain descends into madness, I'm going to do my best
to keep my own head afloat."

"Well," said Hermione, putting her hands on her hips. "I don't think it's very fair at all that you two
get extra instruction when the rest of us don't."

"I think it's plenty fair," Avery offered. "I don't mind being left out."
Tom brushed feathers off his robes and applied a cleaning and freshening charm before
approaching Hermione. "I only want to ensure that you and other people are kept safe. Do you not
trust that I can properly protect you?" He leaned in close and whispered, "I've read that it's a
wizard's duty to defend his household, but in this, know that I don't feel motivated by duty and
obligation. When it comes to anything to do with you, Hermione, rest assured that I do things
because I want to."

Hermione shivered when Tom pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. Hermione's fist scrunched at the
folds of his cloak, but then her hand flattened and pushed him back a step, and she drew in a deep
breath.

"Tom, you're being evasive," she said.

Tom sighed. "We're playing a bit of a game. Dumbledore calls it the 'Switching Game'. We Switch
barrels across a line to practice Transfiguration with the Transfiguration professor—hardly
noteworthy news. It's all practical magic, nothing you can't find described in a textbook."

"Show me how this game works," Hermione demanded, drawing her wand and turning to face the
crooked line of green barrels on Tom's side of the line.

Tom Switched a green barrel for one of Dumbledore's red barrels to demonstrate. The red barrel
was significantly heavier than the green one, and Switching threw off the balance of its contents;
when the red barrel arrived on his side of the line, it wobbled around a bit but, thankfully, didn't tip
over and spill whatever was inside it. Hermione strode over to the barrel, pushing it this way and
that to listen for a swish of sand or the clatter of stones coming from the inside.

Her hands ran over the painted lid, but before she could lift it, Tom told her, "You aren't allowed to
open it."

"Hmm," she responded. "I see. That's the challenge aspect of it. And why you're outside, instead of
in the Transfiguration classroom. If you're applying Transfigurations blind, this could get messy
rather quickly." Hermione called out over her shoulder, "Avery, could you please come here?"

Avery looked tentatively in Tom's direction. Tom returned his look, his face expressionless. Avery
did as he was told.

"Oh, good," said Hermione, when Avery had come to stand before her. "Can you try and lift this
barrel? It's too heavy for me, and if I tried to Levitate it, I wouldn't be able to gauge the weight
beyond a very rough estimate."

Avery shoved the barrel, which rocked slightly, but returned to its position. He bent down and
slipped his fingers under the bottom rim of the barrel, and attempted to pick it up, and with a grunt,
hefted it up about a foot before dropping it back to the ground. "It's over a hundred pounds. Not
more than a hundred and fifty," Avery pronounced.

Hermione asked Avery to test the weight of the other barrels; after the eighth, the boy was sweating
and had shed his robe. When he went to lift the ninth, Hermione waved him off and instructed him
to stand back, saying, "They're all different weights because the contents are each something
different. That's part of the puzzle, isn't it, Professor?" She glanced over at Professor Dumbledore,
who had observed the goings-on with friendly curiosity. "This isn't a Transfiguration practical
exercise so much as it is a magical puzzle."
She flicked her wand and Switched the first pair of barrels, green for red. The green was 150
pounds, the red around 70 pounds, according to Avery. Hermione spent some time running through
the mental calculations to account for the uneven mass, though it nevertheless resulted in an uneven
transfer, the red barrel swaying dangerously before Hermione hit it with an Immobilisation Charm.
"That's the result of a conventional Switch. What happens if I try it a different way..."

The next handful of Switches were instantaneous, green flipping to red without the usual rocking
barrels and the dangerous creak of wood under great pressure, until Hermione had a full line of red
barrels on her side of the line. "Professor, I think I've solved it!"

"Have you, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore set aside his magazine and got to his feet, idly brushing
off a few fragments of goose down from his robes. "Would you like to test your theory?"

When Hermione faced down Dumbledore in the Switching Game, they arrived at a stiff draw,
twelve flickering barrels on either side of the line. Hermione flourished her wand, furiously
Switching, her hair puffed up into frizzy curls and sweat trickling down her cheek. But she held her
own against Dumbledore, who was looking as calm as you please while twirling his own wand in
silent casting. It wasn't much of a spectacle, consisting as it was of a witch and a wizard staring
intently at a line of barrels, but Tom could feel the hum of magic, and the slightest shadow of
blurred edges when he studied the barrels closely.

"Congratulations," Dumbledore said, lowering his wand. "It seems you have found the trick of it.
Ten points to Ravenclaw!"

"I suspected it," said Hermione happily, bouncing over to Tom's side. "Now it's confirmed. You've
been going about it the wrong way this entire time, Tom."

"So what's the solution, then?" asked Tom.

"It's a logic puzzle," Hermione replied. "You have to solve it for yourself! It's like the Ravenclaw
door knocker question. Even if you know the answer, you have to allow people a chance to come
up with their own answer, else they'll never learn anything from it."

"But Hermione," said Tom, sliding a hand into her robes to rest on her waist. "Don't you see that
I'm not an ordinary student who needs incentives to venture into the dark and unexplored
wilderness of independent thinking? This situation of mine is completely different. And don't forget
that I can be very persuasive when the situation demands it."

"When the situation demands it," said Hermione, "I can be very stubborn."

"I find a contest between you and me to be more compelling than any challenge concocted by
Dumbledore," Tom murmured. "You can be very competitive when you want to be, Hermione. It
must gall you that in the game of... persuasion... I'm the superior." His nose brushed against the
sticky, flushed curve of her cheek, sliding downwards to let out a hot breath puff against her throat,
before drawing back with a mischievous smile. To his disappointment, Hermione didn't look
properly enticed by his efforts.

"You may be superior in some forms of persuasion," said Hermione. "But not all of them."

This time, she took charge and dragged her lips against his neck. Her teeth pinched his flesh; he felt
the brief but exquisite sting of a shallow bite, and then she placed a soft kiss right on the pulsing
red point of contact. When she turned away, he hadn't a choice but to chase her retreating mouth,
wanting more from her, demanding to further the exchange, but she laughed and patted him
affectionately on the shoulder.

"You're being unfair," Tom complained. "This treatment is cruel and uncalled for, Hermione."

"I'm as honest as you are," said Hermione. "If you tell me why Professor Dumbledore is giving you
special training, then perhaps I might decide that you deserve to be rewarded."

"Rewarding me isn't an elective, it's an essential. It's never a matter of if I should receive
appreciation, but when and how much." Tom scowled. "That's why Dumbledore has been helping
me. Because I'm special, and he knows it."

"Not good enough, Tom," Hermione said, poking his shoulder. "I need more."

"He found out about my future goals," said Tom quietly. "My journalistic aspirations... among
others. Do you remember when I told you about the Order of Merlin?"

"Too vividly for comfort, to my dismay."

"When I'm out of here next week, he has no authority over me, and he is very aware of it," said
Tom. "But he thinks acts of patriotic duty are dangerous enough that I shouldn't jump into it blindly.
That's what the training is for. To polish up on subjects one can't learn from book theory."

Hermione pursed her lips. "And he's right. Thank you for being forthcoming. For someone who
hates liars, you've made such a habit of being evasive yourself."

Tom's hand, lingering on her waist, squeezed tightly. "And what of my reward?"

When he returned to the Switching Game, Tom's cheeks were warm, his mouth reddened from the
glistening indents of Hermione's front teeth. He thought it would bother him that other people saw
him in that state, but when he considered it, he judged their opinions irrelevant. If they drew any
assumptions from the scene, it would be, "Tom Riddle favours Hermione Granger", which was not
information Tom found especially deserving of secrecy and discretion. Wizards are the superior
race; Hermione Granger is the wife to a superior wizard; Tom Riddle is a superior wizard. These
were not idle teatime speculations, but indisputable facts of life.

Dumbledore arched an eyebrow at Tom's state of disarrangement but tossed back his voluminous
sleeves and began Switching the barrels again without saying a word. Tom managed to hold back
the row of red lids without spilling a barrel, and Nott, drawing up beside him, eyed Tom's fluid
spellcasting with a question in his gaze.

"What's the trick in it, then?"

"Switching the containers, not the contents," said Tom. "The barrels are identical in size, volume,
and weight, so no need to account for the mass discrepancy if you consider the barrel and its insides
as two distinct spell subjects. This isn't a test of power, but a test of casting with precision and
speed."

"I'm sure you worked that out without any help," Nott said snidely.

"I applied my natural strengths to secure the solution," said Tom. "I can't help it; it's the Slytherin in
me."
Chapter End Notes

"This plan of yours was foolish..." = Order of the Phoenix reference remixed for this timeline.
Original line was: "It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom," said Dumbledore calmly. "The
Aurors are on their way..."

said Dumbledore calmly, lol. Book Dumbledore is different from DIDJA PUT YA NAME IN
DA GOBLET A FAYAH, HARRY! movie version of Dumbledore.

"Height of hubris" = reference to Icarus' flight.

"Casus belli" = justification for the start of a war.
"Fratricide" = historical term for friendly fire. Nott doesn't think of Tom as a blood brother...
or does he?
 Recruitment
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

At dinner, on the evening of her Transfiguration N.E.W.T. demonstration, the summer sky in the
ceiling of the Great Hall was aflush with violet and gold, and the glittering specks of Draco, Ursa
Major and a rising Sagittarius. Twyla Ellerby read the stars and announced their meaning as one of
formidable challenges, an impending threat approaching from the northern horizon, and a journey
into the unknown—which required trusting in animal instinct to chart her way back. At Hermione's
frown, Twyla advised her to trust her reading, because out of the two of them, who had the
Outstanding N.E.W.T. in Divination?

Reaching over the table to commandeer a jug of lemon-and-cucumber-garnished gillywater, Twyla

said, "Even if you don't trust Divination to foretell your future, readings help you understand
yourself in the present. You can't be a great witch unless you know your strengths and weaknesses,
your antipathies and affinities."

"I think Hermione has already found her affinity," Siobhan said, her gaze darting down to
Hermione's silver ring.

"Hm, I wonder what it could be," Twyla teased. "My inner eye is opening... I think I see it!"

"Oooh!" gasped a rapturous Siobhan. "What are you seeing? Describe it!"

"Hmm, yes," Twyla hummed. "Mmhmm. The fog is clearing... It's becoming clearer now..."

"Tell me, o oracle divine!"

"A figure approaches..."

Hermione held her breath.

"He is..."

Siobhan covered her mouth, bouncing in sheer delighted agony.

"He's tall, dark, and handsome!" pronounced Twyla. "And he says he'll be yours forever. Aww!
Congratulations, Hermione, you lucky dog."

"Twyla," said Siobhan, "tell your inner eye it's my turn next time."

"I can't control these things," said Twyla apologetically. "Hermione was born under the blessing of
Virgo. Virgos always get the best romantic fortunes."

"You do know that Tom doesn't just like me simply for the fact that I'm a Virgo, don't you?" said
Hermione.
"No, of course not," Twyla assured her. "He also likes you because he's a Capricorn."

"He happens to be staring at you from the other table," said Siobhan, nudging Hermione. "Go on,
you should go to him. When a Capricorn has decided he wants something, he's relentless. It's the
goat aspect in him, that stubbornness and drive. Oh, and you know what other kind of drive
motivates the goat-hearted—"

"I'm sure I don't want to know," Hermione said quickly, standing up from her seat. "I'll see you in
the dorms. Have a good dinner."

Hermione crossed to the Slytherin side, where Tom and his lackeys, with their Seventh Year
seniority, monopolised one end of the House table. Tom, looking rather bored, leafed through a
Transfiguration textbook, while his Housemates picked over the first course selection: baskets of
sliced loaves and rolls, butter and relish, vegetable soups. Tom had a slice of bread on his plate,
lightly nibbled, and when Hermione settled down next to him, he pressed a desultory kiss to her
cheek and returned to his book, his mouth turning down in an irritable frown.

"Did the examiners ask you anything unusual today?" Hermione asked, nodding at the book.
"Enchanting Transfigured objects and Transfiguration of enchantments isn't on the standard
curriculum. Were you asked about it for the extension points?"

"No," said Tom, "I had a food Transfiguration. This is for personal study. Transfiguration is one of
the more useful magical disciplines. It'd be a shame to leave Hogwarts without learning as much as
I can in the time we have left. It's not like it will distract from my other classes, since we won't be
assigned summer homework anymore."

"Where did you get that book?" said Hermione, peering over Tom's shoulder to read. "I don't recall
seeing that title in the library."

"Only you could recall the titles of books you've never read," Tom said fondly. "However
admirable, too much library time is bad for the vitals. We'll have to find a way to wean you off it;
when you're out of school, you'll need to learn how to ration your valuable time for more important
matters. For example, me."

"I'm not that single-minded about the library!" Hermione retorted. "I'm only fully familiar with the
subject reference section. And on top of that, I don't see what exactly there is about you that I have
to allocate extra time for, which I'm not doing with the time I already have."

"Oh, Hermione." Tom gave her an indulgent look. "Never fear, I'll make sure you'll learn it soon
enough. Why are you looking at me like that? Don't you trust that I wouldn't bother wasting your
time—and mine too? Time with me is time well-spent. You can hold me to that promise."

"You're putting me off my supper," said Nott, pushing aside his half-eaten bowl of Scotch broth.
"Why must you bring your personal nonsense to the table, Riddle? Are you not aware that what
whets your appetite injures everyone else's?"

"I am aware," said Tom. "But awareness is not the same as sympathy."

"What about it being terribly unseemly?" asked Nott. "Your actions reflect poorly on your family
and your upbringing. A gentle and cultured wizard would not abide shame falling onto his family, if
he could help it."
"My family would find nothing to criticise after assessing the situation," Tom replied. "They're
more likely to clap me on the back and tell me to get on with it. Sons won't sire themselves, after
all."

The dinner dishes arrived in the middle of their argument: rolled pork loin with peppercorn gravy.
It was accompanied by triangular slices of steaming Scottish bannock, hot from the hearth, and
colourful slices of roasted marrow and carrot. Avery leapt out of his seat to snatch the platter of
meat—set out on the long tables with one per year group—before the Seventh Year girls could grab
it, offering it to Tom to claim his rightful tithe for himself and Hermione. Then Avery and
Lestrange fell upon the platter with a vengeance, passing it to the other boys sadly stripped of the
tastiest portions of golden crackling. When the girls, sitting further down the table, finally had the
roast sent their way, there was only a quarter left.

Sidonie Hipworth, receiving the platter, wrinkled her nose. "You boys always make such a mess of
the food. It's appalling. Why don't you ever let us have it first? It's not like we'd be gobbling up the
whole thing, anyway. Whatever happened to chivalry?" she told Avery.

"It's over by the Gryffindor table if you want some," Avery answered, his mouth full.

"B-but what about being a gentleman!" said Hipworth.

Avery shrugged. "What about being hungry?"

Hermione snorted softly. From the safe distance of a tourist on safari, the intricacies of inter-
Slytherin rivalries were always entertaining to her. This was an alien domain where respectability
battled callousness at every remove, but as a migrating Ravenclaw who came and went as she
wanted, she wasn't part of the natural trophic order. And then there was, of course, her connection
to Tom Riddle. Who, if he was part of the whole Byzantine organisation of Slytherin House, was so
far above it that in terms of trophic diagrams, he might as well have been the Sun.

The rosy flush of latent sentimentality spilled over her during dinner. She'd be gone in a week's
time, and there would be no more casual dinnertime hubbub with the nearest thing to friends she'd
made over the course of her seven years at Hogwarts. Each of the Slytherin boys in Tom's club had
a different perspective on wizarding politics, culture, and society, and Hermione found it
fascinating, having been impressed with the notion that Slytherin was a House united around their
core values of fraternity and nepotism. But that was the impression they—Professor Slughorn most
visibly—presented to outsiders; inside showed a different picture.

Nott thought little of magical creatures and plants beyond what utility they served to wizardkind.
Avery vehemently disagreed, seeing the care and keeping of magical life as an honourable duty on
its own merits, unglamourous but worthy work. Why shouldn't the strength and versatility of
wanded magic be turned to the stewardship of other forms of magic? Lestrange agreed with this,
and appended the opinion that stewardship of those with superior magic should encompass the
"proper management" of a rather broad category of magical-adjacent lessers, which included
Squibs, Muggleborn parents, and underage Muggleborns...

Tom turned his cool gaze to Lestrange, who coughed over his mouthful of steamed fig pudding.

"Er, I meant the Mud—Muggleborns under eleven, naturally," said Lestrange, wiping his mouth
with the back of his hand. "I heard from Grandfather that the Improper Use of Magic Office was
always having to send out Obliviators to their homes for accidental underage magic. The older they
get, the more it happens because they get stronger, but with no control. You sometimes get
Obliviators sent six, seven times in the year before the letters arrive. Waste of time and money,
when the parents will be told in a matter of months."

"I had a toy broomstick as a child," Rosier added. "Couldn't get more than ten feet above the
ground, but it worked like a regular broom. You had to command it to rise by saying 'Up', and that's
as basic an incantation as they get. It's still an incantation, and teaches intent and control to those
too young to bear a wand. They say pureblood children are too well-bred for accidental magic, but
it's not breeding, really. It's rearing."

"Are you going to suggest that Muggleborn children be separated from their parents and given over
to 'proper rearing'?" asked Hermione.

"They used to do that before the Statute, three or four centuries ago," Nott remarked. "Wizarding
families swapping Squibs for a neighbouring Muggleborn baby, then Obliviating away the
evidence."

"Well, something must have happened, if they're not doing it that way anymore," said Tom.

"The children grew up," replied Rosier. "They went to Hogwarts and when they got to the upper-
level subjects, they realised that charting the stars by their natural alignments produced a different
set than what their parents had always told them. Anyone with a semblance of the Gift will feel
the... the wrongness of reading as a Neptune when you're an ascendant Mercury."

"It caused all sorts of theatrics," Nott said. "Children feeling betrayed, parents feeling dejected,
prospective suitors calling foul left and right. Child-swapping doesn't work unless you have fresh
newborns on each side. Magical children have ways to examine their own memories from the age
of one or two years old. Squibs can see through Muggle-repelling wards, so you can't tell which
child is a Squib until four or five, when the accidental magic makes itself obvious. The
practicalities of the situation make it... impractical."

"I'm surprised you didn't say immoral," said Hermione. "Stealing children is a dire business, and so
is separating mothers from their children."

"I thought it was so glaringly obvious that it needn't be said."

"Good, we agree on that!"

"It is immoral," said Nott blithely, "to deceive a scion of a proper wizarding family into marrying a
Muggleborn."

"What if they mutually liked each other before finding out?" Hermione asked.

"Irrelevant."

"No, it's totally relevant..."

She was still arguing with Nott when the evening owl delivery began. It was a trickle compared to
the breakfast rush, a dozen owls sweeping down from the ceiling to deliver holiday invitations,
summer apprenticeship arrangements, and in Travers' case, private correspondence rush-delivered
from the south of England. His letter arrived in the form of a long sheet of parchment folded into an
envelope, sealed by a wax blob stamped with his family crest, a drawbridge over the wiggly line of
a river. With growing trepidation, Travers opened the seal, which dropped two thin pages onto his
lap. The message itself was written on the inside of the envelope parchment, and as he read it, lines
deepened on Travers' forehead.

"What's the news?" Rosier asked. Sitting next to Travers, he tried to peer over the boy's shoulder to
see the message, but when he drew too close, the seal sparked and set the letter aflame.

Travers yelped and dropped the burning parchment on his half-eaten plate of pudding. The ashes
hissed into a thick, furry coat of grey over the caramel cream sauce.

"Haha," said Rosier. "Sorry about that..."

"It's nothing important," said Travers, brushing the ash off his school robes. He tucked the enclosed
pages into his pocket, while the others were distracted by smoking ash falling on their own
desserts. "My parents planned a celebratory dinner at Flume's for the day we get back to London,
but now they want to change it to another evening."

"Good luck to them reserving another table; Flume's is busiest during the summers, lunch and
dinner both."

Bored with the frivolous smalltalk comparing the dining offerings in London to the bistros of
Wizarding Paris, Tom returned to his Transfiguration textbook. But not before his perceptive gaze
flicked over to Travers, and then catching Hermione's attention, mouthed, "Liar", with the faintest
upturn of his insincere Good Boy smile.

After dinner, Tom offered to walk Hermione back to Ravenclaw Tower, but she refused him. She
glanced at the Slytherin boys heading down to their Common Room in the dungeons, and at
Travers, who peeled off the group and walked in the opposite direction.

At Hermione's concerned expression, Tom said, "You don't have to go after him. He's not one of
your helpless, homesick First Years who wants hugs and condolences from the next best thing to
dear old Mummy. He's a man. Men like to despair in silence and solitude."

"Since you're a man," said Hermione. "What do you have to despair about?"

"Oh, plenty of things," Tom replied, ushering Hermione behind a suit of armour and casting a
Silencing Charm. "I despair about you wanting to chase after another, when you have a man of
your own right here. What about my feelings, Hermione?"

"It's not like that! I would never betray you like that!"

"Then what is it, if not that?" asked Tom, his eyes flashing in the guttering torchlight.

"I suspect, from the seal on the letter, that it was Travers' father who wrote to him," said Hermione.
"He has a difficult relationship with his father—something a lot of boys in your House have in
common, for some reason. I think it would be a good thing if Travers and his father resolved their
differences amicably. Because family is worth making the effort for, as I've told you before." When
Tom made to voice his protest, probably some complaint about his Riddle relatives, Hermione
added, "I still hold firm to that belief. And I do believe that... that the Travers family makes a useful
connection, if I'm to realise my future career ambitions."

She didn't explain what these career ambitions were, but Tom understood. The smile he gave her
was genuine and approving, revealing the sharp gleam of his teeth. Tom bent close to her, trailing
his mouth over her ear, his breath hot and echoing and far too close. She shivered, but not from
discomfort.

"Hmm, Hermione, robbing me of my own minions now, are you?"

"I wasn't—"

"If you wanted minions of your own, I'd be the last person to stop you," Tom murmured. He was so
close that when he spoke, she felt the brush of his tongue against her earlobe. "Travers is a prickly
one to manage. He puts stock in proper manners—rather punctilious about it, in fact. Don't try to
hug him; he'll reject physical affection, especially from a witch intended for another man. Don't
take it personally—unlike Nott, he doesn't do it because he fears the taint of lowly blood. If you
want to coax him from the emotional front, start by offering to address him by his given name. It
shows that you're choosing to differentiate him from the shadow cast over him by his family's
name. In Slytherin House, this is considered an exchange of significance."

"Which I've noticed you've never done with your own minions," Hermione pointed out. "Everyone
calls you 'Riddle'."

"Of course," said Tom. "We're not equals. They're not my friends. And I don't want them to be."

"But you can tolerate Travers calling me by my first name?"

"If you go through with it, he won't call you 'Hermione' in public, and never in front of me. He
remembers his place and his manners, which is acceptable, if only barely." Tom sniffed, then went
on, "If you are certain about keeping him, you need to secure his loyalty. He needs to see evidence
of your personal investment—a visible demonstration of strength or aptitude to prove yourself
worthy of his time, else you have nothing but the same sort of baseless boasting that clogs up the
Common Room every evening after curfew. And this is important: don't frame it as a favour to be
repaid at some unspecified date. That puts you on the level of equals, and you're not his equal.
You're his superior, and you need to prove it."

"Are you sure this strategy will work?"

"It works, trust me."

"And what if it doesn't?"

"Tell me as soon as you can. I'll Obliviate him and you can have a second go," said Tom. He
chuckled and brushed a kiss to Hermione's forehead, smiling to himself. "Just joking. A word of
advice: men don't sit and brood forever; they search for direction, and you'd best be there to point
him the right way. Go on, then. Catch him before it's too late."
Hermione left the castle through the same door Travers had used, her shoes tapping on the stone
risers that descended from the Entrance Hall to the colonnaded courtyard beyond, which in turn
connected to the Viaduct Bridge. The true sky of the outdoors wore an evening cloak of the deepest
blue, sprinkled with the same constellations as the Great Hall, and the enormous bulk of the castle
behind her glowed from dozens of leaded windows piercing through the thick stone. She could see
her feet well enough not to trip over a crack in the flagstones, and her hand held in front of her face
reflected light like a pale moon, but she couldn't see Travers.

How was she to "catch him", as Tom had advised her to do? In the dark, she could have amplified
her voice to call his name, but she didn't think a typical Slytherin would respond appreciatively to
being beckoned like a dog. She could cast a wandlight and search like a Prefect on her nightly
rounds, but that was for student rulebreakers of unknown identity. She knew Travers, his name and
face, and that was enough to fuel magical intent.

Closing her eyes, she returned to the warmth of Tom's arms, his hand on her lower back, stroking
the soft velvet pile of a formal robe, secured by a badge in the shape of an M over a set of scales. In
the darkness behind her eyelids, the illusion was as clear and vivid as her mind would allow: the
broad expanse of a bureaucrat's desk, an overflowing Out tray and empty In tray, an attentive
husband with pillow-tousled hair bearing a tea tray and a scathing opinion about the designs
submitted for a new Atrium fountain...

"Expecto Patronum," Hermione incanted, holding the fragile quivering emotions close, lest they be
extinguished like a matchstick in the wind. A silver ball of light coalesced into her delightful little
otter, floating on its back on an invisible current.

Patronuses, unlike real animals, were always silent, but the Auror manual she'd read mentioned
they were used as signals between patrol teams and partners. The animals were the soul manifest by
magic, and possessing human reason, could be given intelligent direction. They couldn't speak, but
could be directed to twirl in place, point like gun dogs, or find specific people. During the meeting
of the Homework Club at Hogsmeade, interrupted by Aurors, she'd seen Patronus animals drifting
through walls like silver ghosts, informing the Hogwarts guards of an emergency from the London
headquarters.

"Find me Quentin Travers," she told the otter, who wavered, as if her instruction had been unclear.
Hermione repeated herself, and holding her wand in the starting stroke of the Patronus movement,
fixed on her impression of Travers' character: a solemn young man whose aloof public demeanour
faltered in the wake of heavy expectations, in dark corners and quiet alcoves where no one else
could witness him screaming.

The otter bounded ahead with a liquid, loping grace, turning its head back every now and then to
see if Hermione was following, the radiance from its glowing silver body enough to light her way.
It ducked through one of the arches lining the covered gallery on each side of the courtyard, and
Hermione climbed through a few steps behind, concentrating on the warmth of a future that had not
yet come to pass. When she turned the corner, trailing her Patronus, she heard the swish of robes
and the squeak of leather shoes on stone flooring.

"Granger? Is that you?" came Travers' voice. He lit his wand, and she saw him standing in front of
one vaulted archway, where it rose from the ground and narrowed overhead, forming a waist-high
partition that students sat on in good weather and free periods. The otter drifted to him and draped
itself over his shoulder like a limp washcloth. Travers poked at the otter, but he couldn't dislodge it
and his finger passed straight through.
"I don't mind if you call me 'Hermione'," she said. "If you don't mind me calling you 'Quentin' in
return. We've known each other long enough for that, I'd like to think. Out of long fellowship, I
noticed that you made the unusual choice of wandering off after dinner. Is your family alright?"

"I..." Travers began, and one nervous hand pressed over his pocket, which gave off the soft rustle of
folded paper. "Riddle wouldn't approve of anyone but him being that familiar with you."

"I don't need Tom's approval for everything," said Hermione. "When we're married, we'll be Riddle
and Riddle. I imagine it would be awfully confusing if my friends could no longer tell me apart
from my husband. If you feel the familiarity's unearned, then you have my permission to call me by
name—for clarity's sake, if nothing else."

"Very well... Hermione," conceded Travers, and the act of stringing together those unfamiliar
syllables seemed to unnerve him, for he glanced around to assure himself he wasn't overheard by
anyone nearby. He cleared his throat. "I question its necessity. There's little chance we'll share the
same circles after we graduate."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Hermione, frowning. She brushed the dust from low stone wall
and sat down on it. Her Patronus otter wriggled off Travers' shoulder and came to rest on her lap, its
furred white belly facing upwards. "Tom isn't going to stop me from having friends, husband or not.
That's too presumptuous an action, even by his standards."

Travers rubbed the back of his neck as he sat down also, rolling his wand between his palms in an
anxious tic, which struck off red sparks from the tip. "Here's how it is: Riddle doesn't need any of
us. He tolerates us because it's convenient, and as a Slytherin, he understands there's no sense in
being uncivil with those who share the same living quarters. Even he has to sleep, and he knows it.
Outside Hogwarts, what have we to offer him that he can't get more of, and better, from someone
else? Slughorn can land him an apprenticeship in any magical discipline Riddle chooses, and he's
even got Dumbledore teaching him personally. I don't see a future where Riddle bothers to maintain
his school connections. What is the purpose of our Homework Club when there's no more
homework? That's why Lestrange has been slimier than usual—he's grown too used to dodging
detention and ruling the dungeons, riding on Riddle's name. Without Riddle and Hogwarts, he's an
elf with no home and master. It drives him mad."

"Do you..." Hermione began hesitantly. "Does everyone assume me and Tom are together for the
utility of the match? That he doesn't really want me, he just thinks it's convenient?"

The expression on Travers' face was one of sudden panic, that odd sort of masculine terror
Hermione encountered in Ravenclaw Head meetings when male Prefects reported being asked
about sanitary towels from the Second and Third Years under their care. (Tom, to his credit, had no
self-consciousness about dispensing sanitary towels. At the Little Hangleton village shop, he asked
the clerk if this or that brand was better, with the casual air of buying a tin of beans or having butter
weighed by the ounce. Of the two of them, Hermione was the more embarrassed. This was one
instance where Tom's complete lack of shame about anything to do with Hermione's bodily
processes came in handy.)

"Uh... Well, no, that's different. Riddle's association with you is different from his association with
me or Lestrange."

"How?"

He coughed, muttering, "You're a witch."

"I still don't understand," said Hermione.

"Let's just say that if you were a wizard and not a witch, Lestrange would have found a way to
corner you in the dungeons or bump you off a staircase," said Travers. "You would've been...
replaceable, in a way that you aren't now. A witch wife is not in the same league of rival that a
wizard can possibly compete against. Lestrange is aware of this."

"I don't think your analysis is entirely wrong," Hermione admitted. "When it comes to Tom and his
character eccentricities, that is. Tom is of an independent spirit, and doesn't take well to being
beholden to anyone or anything. Favours beyond the scope of student life are serious, and he
recognises that associates within Slytherin aren't retained without the mutual understanding of
transactionality, even close associations."

"Yes, and those who want to retain Riddle's consideration have no worthy token of exchange," said
Travers. "Riddle doesn't have the usual vices to exploit. He doesn't drink or gamble, has no known
relatives or debts, and the less spoken about dalliances, the better. For all intents, he's self-
sufficient. To which I can only conclude that the one person whom he'll keep when we're done with
school is you. When we part in London a week from now, that will be the end of our club and our
continued association."

On Hermione's lap, her Patronus otter sat up on its hind legs and laid its little front paws on her
breast. It had no mass, but she could feel the weight and warmth of its presence, an aura that leaked
from it in trails of white smoke, and it gladdened her heart with an unexpected confidence. The
otter gazed up at her, then turned its head to Travers.

"Then... After Hogwarts, do you want to be friends? Not a friend of Tom's, but a friend of mine,"
said Hermione. She winced, mindful of how awkward it sounded. The only other time she'd asked
someone to be her friend, it was Tom Riddle, and in the aftermath, she'd questioned the decision
and had been forced to explain to her parents why she'd given an orphanage boy a half year's worth
of saved pocket money. To ask outright was no Slytherin strategy; to them, it spoke of desperation,
and there was nothing Slytherins avoided by instinct quite like the distinctive miasma of the
desperate.

Her otter dropped off her lap and crossed over the stone floor to Travers. It bumped its whiskered
nose at Travers' knee. And although Patronuses were made of no stuff more substantial than will
and magic, Travers' trembling hand extended in a closed fist, as if he was being scented by a living
dog, and the otter sniffled it, whiskers passing through the boy's knuckles. He let out a faint sigh,
fist uncurling, and let his fingers brush through the glowing halo of light that surrounded the otter's
body. The trails of radiance wisped away into the air like the fumes of a cauldron, to be replenished
by Hermione's magic beating within the otter's silver heart.

"Your Patronus light is just as strong as Father's, but yours feels warmer, somehow. Life and
warmth in the lance of sunlight through a forest canopy. I didn't know there could be a difference..."
Travers murmured. "Slytherin House deplores the notion of friendship without caveats, which is
why Slytherins have so few true friends. I know I'm hardly deserving of such an honour. But I
would be honoured to have it..."

"Good," said Hermione. "Then it's settled! You can be my training partner in the Auror Office this
August."

This statement caught Travers' full attention. "You—you're going to be an Auror?"

"I have the marks, don't I?" she said. "Do you remember that quote, 'Right lives by law'? If I want
to do right, make the right changes, then it must be through law. The most effective way to enter the
ranks of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is through the Auror Corps. I accept that
other positions in the Ministry are far less meritocratic, and as unfair as it is, there's naught to be
done about it today. I'm well enough at practical magic—and I'm still improving—but I know the
rules back to front, so by the listed requirements of such a situation, I'm perfectly suited."

Travers fell silent for a half-minute in careful consideration. "You do know that you're not
guaranteed a desk position... Lawbreakers who don't care much for the rules also don't care much
for consequences. They have to be brought in by force. The Aurors are that force."

"I do know," said Hermione. "I know enough that I won't enjoy it, but it's not meant to be
enjoyable, is it? It's not easy or pleasant either, but at the end of the day, it's a necessary job for a
functioning society."

"It's also uncommonly dangerous. They hold open applications for good reason: they need to fill
the empty positions—and they always have empty positions," said Travers, and speaking low and
fast, his voice cracked on the last word. "My father wrote to me saying that Grindelwald himself
has turned his eye to Britain. The accused were broken out of their chains in the middle of the trial,
right under the full Wizengamot and the Minister's nose, and with a dearth of wizards of the power
and wit to accomplish this, the fault is laid upon the most obvious suspects. If you seek to serve the
Ministry, they'll expect you to do so as a soldier."

"The traineeship is three years long," said Hermione. "They'll not throw trainees straight into the
battlefield on the first day."

"Three years in normal circumstances," Travers said.

"My father was a medic in wartime. He had to watch soldiers die, unable to do a thing but offer
them the chaplain's blessing and a tincture of laudanum—that's similar to an all-purpose pain
reliever, but powerfully addictive. But we're wizards; we have magical achievements in medicine
beyond the most modern advancements of Muggle science," said Hermione, who'd read that the
new anti-infective, penicillin, was the odds-on recipient for this year's Nobel award. "By the time
three—or even two years—has passed, I'm sure the need for soldiers will not be quite so very
urgent. The war's already reaching a close on the Muggle side. If Grindelwald has been relying on
Muggle supply lines as I've suspected he has, then he'll last no longer than another year."

"Is that how you've come to your decision? You're counting on the prospect of not having to face a
real wizarding war?" asked Travers.

"One never knows how things will turn out," said Hermione. "I'm only being realistic about the
possibilities. From Tom's perspective, I agree with his advice of not worrying overmuch—better to
concentrate on the changes you can make in this world than the ones you can't. And what better
way is there but to enact change by going where changes are made? After all, law lives by power. I
aim to be the best witch I can be, and by the measure of sense and conscience, there is no more I
can ask of myself."

Travers' eyes dropped to his hands and his sparking wand. He rubbed at a groove in the handle, the
slick varnish worn away in that one spot, and for a few minutes he said nothing. Hermione closed
her eyes and took the opportunity to organise her mind and practise directing her Patronus through
silent orders. She felt the warmth of its soul-heartening light, bright and pulsing through her
eyelids, as the otter floated out of her lap and bobbled around her head, suspended within a cloud of
silver mist.

Paper crinkled and rustled.

Hermione opened her eyes. By the light of his wand, Travers' head bowed over a few sheets of
parchment, studying the printed words with a lowered gaze.

"Do you have an exam tomorrow?" asked Hermione curiously.

"It's not study notes," said Travers. He let out a rattling breath and showed her the papers. Ministry
of Magic letterhead, the sunburst insignia of the DMLE, the heavy serifed text reading, AUROR
OFFICE: APPLICATION FOR TRAINEE CANDIDACY. "Father sent it with his letter at dinner.
He ended the salutation with the advice, and I quote, 'You know what to do'." Travers laughed
humourlessly. "He even filled out the form for me."

And Hermione saw what he meant—the name and birthdate sections had already been completed in
a precise copperplate hand. It wasn't the same handwriting with which she was familiar from
reading his essays upside-down in the library.

NAME: QVENTIN MENANDER TRAVERS

DATE-OF-BIRTH: IV - ♅ - MCMXXVII

She didn't know what to say in response. Hermione had always found the strictures of pureblood
society rather perplexing relative to the indulgence of her own Muggle childhood, where she had
been given all that she needed, and anything more than that was only granted after proving to her
parents that what went wanting was wanted for good reason. Her discomfort was compounded by
the fact that she was a witch becoming audience to a wizard's dissent against his father; as with
Tom staring down his own father at the Riddles' dining table, it was her natural instinct to slide
down out of sight and let them have at it, then creep back quietly when it was finished. Emotional
confrontation, even when she wasn't directly involved, had the troublesome tendency of making her
cry—it happened every time she attended the opera!—and she had spent enough time at the
Slytherin table to understand that a girl's tears didn't make unhappy boys any happier.

"Oh," said Hermione, somewhat awkwardly. "I noticed that you have a Greek middle name. When I
was little, I used to think my Greek name was the odd one out. The other girls at the Muggle school
I went to before Hogwarts had nice normal names everyone knew how to spell and pronounce.
Who doesn't like a fine, patriotic 'Georgia' or a sweet and fashionable 'Shirley'? I was a 'Hermione',
and that was another strange thing about me atop the strange accidents that followed me in my
darkest moods..."

At Travers' uncomfortable expression, she cleared her throat, and said, "Receiving my Hogwarts
letter altered my future irrevocably. I learned I was a witch, a citizen of magic, and my odd Greek
name was least odd thing about me. When I heard from you that civil service was a solemn duty, it
was a sentiment to which I truly concurred. This wizarding world of yours and mine had set aside a
place for me, a lost daughter come home. Not that parents and children always get along without
strife, but the magic of my witch's soul surely flows as thick as the blood of the covenant. For an
outsider to be tasked with the maintenance of an institution of law and democracy—on the basis of
merit, no less—is a great privilege. My citizen's privilege."
"Your name comes from Hermes, messenger of the gods, god of travellers," said Travers, after a
few quiet moments of considering her rather inane speech. "He who walks between two realms."

"Yes, surprisingly fitting, isn't it?" Hermione replied. "I only know Menander as a poet, likely
Athenian—the most famous ones were. Tom studied Ancient Greek; he'd be more familiar with the
Athenians than I."

"If you don't know Menander by name, you may have heard his most famous quotation before,"
said Travers. "'Anerríphthō kýbos', originally. But in Latin, 'Alea iacta est'. Let the die—"

"—Be cast," Hermione finished.

"Were I only as decisive as Menander," said Travers regretfully, tucking the papers back into his
trouser pocket.

"Being circumspect is no great offence, not in my books," Hermione told him, standing up and
brushing off her robes. "If you must excuse yourself to any singular entity above all others, then let
it be your own conscience. Come on, the clocktower is soon to ring the curfew peal. I'll walk you
back to the dungeons. No Prefect can slap you with a detention when the Head Girl stands at your
side."

The clocktower rang the quarter-hour when they'd returned to the castle. Fifteen minutes until nine
o'clock. On the walk down to the lower levels, they passed a Hufflepuff holding a large crock
containing a whole braised chicken, coming out of the kitchens.

"What?" he said, when he noticed Hermione and Travers staring at him. "I'm hungry."

In the dungeons, they encountered a Slytherin boy with a handle of whisky in each fist, hurriedly
hiding the bottles under his robes when he saw them come around a corner. "It's for the party. Over
seventeens only, so that's not against the rules," he explained. "And it's not curfew yet."

When they passed the door to the Homework Club's meeting room, with a lock enchanted to
recognise members, Travers paused. "How did you manage to cast your corporeal Patronus?" he
asked. "For the Defence demonstration, I could only cast the shield-mist for half an extra mark."

"I constructed my own version of a memory—a detailed visualisation with strong emotional
significance," said Hermione. "I took notes from the Auror manual on guided meditations, if you
want to borrow them. They're tips to help command your thoughts and emotions, similar to the
exercises in basic Occlumency."

"Can you teach me how you did it?" said Travers. "The Patronus Charm is an essential spell for
Aurors."

"Oh," said Hermione. "Well, yes. Of course I can. Most wizards can find great utility in a Patronus,
Auror or not. Shall we meet here tomorrow, after breakfast?"

"Alright," Travers agreed. A muffled chime came from his watch, secreted in an inner pocket of his
robes. "I should return to my Common Room now. Goodnight... Hermione."

"Goodnight, Quentin," Hermione returned, and somehow speaking his name didn't sound as
awkward as she had expected it would. She watched him retreat deeper into the cool, draughty
depths of the dungeons, until he turned around the next bend to disappear from sight. She wondered
if this new development to their previous state of rapport meant that she had "caught" Travers as
her minion, as Tom had described it, with the dispassionate veracity to which he approached all
other relationships but the one he shared with Hermione.

If she had only made a friend tonight, not a minion, then that was a success on its own merits. She
wasn't Tom Riddle, and she didn't look for docility as the prime trait for those she might choose to
share her company. A dependable disposition, of the nature to deliberate thoroughly before forming
a decision: that was a prime trait in Hermione's eyes. There were too few wizards with this valuable
quality, although Tom would disagree with her on its value. He had little use for independent
thinking when it came to good minions. But then again, Tom was not one to be fully relied upon for
any deep insight on human fellowship.

Were Tom to be asked how many friends he had, the answer he gave would be clear as to how
much wisdom he truly possessed on the nature of "friendship". A harsh summary, perhaps, but Tom
had no grounds to take offence given how often he applied such harshness to other people.

Hermione met Travers in the Homework Club classroom the next day, to steer him through a range
of mental exercises to test his focus and control. She'd Transfigured a desk and chair into a simple
rope-strung bed frame, complete with a thin mattress, explaining to Travers that if it was
comfortable enough to fall asleep, then he was missing the purpose of the exercise. He needed to
sort through his own thoughts until calmness became second nature, and only from there could he
induce happiness through intention rather than accident.

"Try it one more time."

"I still can't get more than a blob, why should this time be any different?"

"Because I gave you fifteen minutes to choose a new memory!"

"New or not, none of my memories are strong enough to fuel the spell."

"Then invent one from whole cloth. That's what I did."

"What invented happy image could ever hope to be happier than a happiness you've already
known?"

"An image that reflects what truly matters to you," was Hermione's succinct answer. She
contemplated her own visualisation for casting her Patronus. Happiness for her wasn't simply about
achievement, the mark of a legacy she wished to leave behind in the world of her naturalisation.
She'd tried that approach, but it didn't work until Tom had stepped in with an assisting hand. The
precipice of achievement alone wasn't enough to fuel her intent. The foundation of her psyche was
built from the bricks of unswayable resolve, a hunger for answers, friendship and true companions.
"When I asked you and the rest of the Slytherins to forgo your day at Hogsmeade to attend my
meeting at the Hog's Head, I was ever so thrilled that people came." said Hermione. "I've never
been popular, affable, or even likeable. Between me and Tom, he's always been the superior when it
came to charms and graces. Tom makes friends so easily; all of you were his friends before you
knew who I was. But on a day when Tom was absent, everyone still chose to spare me their hours
and listen to what I had to say. The memory of that day, of speaking well despite my own
nervousness, of being heard without instant dismissal, that unity of purpose... That's the feeling I
amplify into the vision of my future. If you don't have a memory, then to create its equivalent
which resonates in heart and spirit, in truth and ego."

While Travers laboured over his visualisation, Hermione read over the The Daily Prophet's
interview with the Minister for Magic. The Prince of Charming, a mysterious figure of the past few
months, had appeared in public and, once again, saved innocent lives that did not so much put him
in a heroic light than make the Ministry of Magic appear clumsy and ineffectual. The Minister had
a few words to say on the subject:

Ministry of Magic, 1PM

After the events of Thursday afternoon, Minister Spencer-Moon re-iterated that faulting the
Ministry for its response to the emergency was too hasty a conclusion to draw. "I was advised
to evacuate the courtroom by my personal Auror detail. Was I to question their professional
judgement of the situation? That the doors were locked was nothing more than a minor
oversight; the locking mechanism automatically engages when the courtroom enchantments
are damaged or tampered with. If you want to know who's responsible for that, ask former
Minister Spavin—I'm told by my secretary that he's the one who approved their construction in
1872, not me. I had nothing to do with it!"

When informed that the late Mr. Faris Spavin was an unfortunate victim of extended Dementor
exposure, whose funeral is planned for July 1 (Page 18), Minister Spencer-Moon, added,
"Well, I have here the forms he signed with his own name, and you have nothing on me.
Presumed innocent until proven guilty, that's the way the law is read in Britain under my
watch. I should know, I'm the Minister!"

On being curtly rebuffed by both the Prince and Professor Albus Dumbledore, Deputy
Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Spencer-Moon said, "They came
at once to the aid of the Ministry, so of course we're on friendly terms, no matter how it looks
on the surface. The Prince of Charming, as I understand it, is a stalwart ally of the Ministry of
Magic. Always has been, without a doubt. He's refused to collect the bounty prizes to which
he's legally entitled, and only a noble soul would gladly turn away from thousands of Galleons
like that. Wizengamot Interrogator Claudius Prince assures me that the Prince of Charming is
'too honest for his own good', and Mr. Prince is a better judge of character than most wizards.
As for Dumbledore... He's an intractable personality, but it seems the Prince has finally
convinced him to get his priorities in order. Charm really does win the day, doesn't it!"

It took until the third day for Travers to finally cast a corporeal Patronus, from where he lay on his
back on the creaky Transfigured cot, staring with sullen determination at the soot-blackened
wooden beams of the ceiling. Hermione glanced up from her newspaper when Travers whispered
the incantation under his breath, and the amorphous blob that poured grudgingly out of his wand
took on finer details—a tail, nubby legs, a discernable face—as the boy frowned up at it, brows
knitted and lips pressed together in concentration.

Hermione didn't dare to utter a word, silently folding the newspaper and setting it aside. A large
English sheepdog, whose fluffy white coat glowed with its own inner light, stared down at Travers
from where it had planted itself on his chest. Travers raised his fist, and the dog lowered its great
hairy head imperiously to nose at it, and when it was finished, it lay down and flopped its
weightless paws over Travers' shoulders. When Travers tried to push himself up to a sitting
position, his concentration wavered, and the silver radiance dimmed, the delicate tracery of each
feathery white hair losing its crisp detail... Then the dog faded away, and Travers was left behind on
the swaying ropes reeling from the sudden and aching loss, clutching his wand between white
knuckles.

"It feels like that before you get used to it," said Hermione in consolation. "But if you know the
trick of casting a Patronus, it'll always come back to you."

On that same day, the door to the classroom was slammed open by Avery, who called over his
shoulder, "He's not here!"

Hermione lowered her wand from where she was Levitating a desk over Travers' head, an exercise
to incentivise quick casting of his Patronus, because it wasn't likely that any time someone needed
to use the Patronus Charm, he would be granted ample time to Transfigure a bed and meditate on a
suitable visualisation. While distracted, the desk dropped, Travers scrambled out from under it
before it struck him, and Hermione sheepishly lowered it to the floor with a embarrassed apology.

"Who's not here?" asked Hermione.

"Riddle," said Lestrange, entering the room on Avery's heels. "We've been looking for him for days.
He hasn't showed himself at breakfast and when he's at dinner, he's got that face on, y'know, that
one he has when he's in the mood to flip some brains inside out."

"He's not in the mood for answering nosy questions when he's like that," said Rosier, sidling into
the room after Lestrange and Avery. "More like he's in the mood to see what colour brainfluid is
when it squirts out of your nose." At Hermione's expression, he added, "In a manner of speaking, of
course. Riddle wouldn't actually do that, hah. Oh, Travers. Having fun with Granger, are you?"

"We thought Riddle would've been off doing things with you," said Lestrange, elbowing Rosier in
the side. "He's been excited about it for the past few weeks, if his private bathroom time is any
indication of it. If he's not with you, where could he be?"

"Why are you looking for him, anyway?" asked Hermione. "Haven't you any hobbies of your
own?"

"I wanted to discuss holiday plans," said Lestrange. "If he gets those eleven Outstanding N.E.W.T.s
like he's been expecting, then they'll put his name in the paper. Important men will take notice of
the highest marks of the century, so I'd planned to introduce Riddle to my father. All the important
men in this country know each other; that's how they stay important."

"And the rest of you?" asked Travers, dabbing sweat off his brow with a pocket kerchief. "Who else
is out in the corridor? Mulciber? Black? Haven't you better things to do than chasing rogue geese?"
"Chasing down the Head Boy is important," said Black. He tapped his Prefect pin. "I got the nod
from Slughorn that I've been nominated for next year's Head Boy. If my term marks are good
enough, I should be ahead of the competition when the letters are owled out in late July. That
means I'll be needing the duty schedule Riddle used this year. You won't be seeing me on holiday
decorating duty next year; the other students can take charge of the tinsel and pumpkins, thanks."

"Four Slytherin Heads in a row. Selwyn, Black, Riddle, and now Black again." Hermione frowned.
"That seems a bit irregular, to make three other Houses jostle over the one available Head spot,
year after year."

"If the others wanted it that much, then they should have put some effort into stacking the Board of
Governors," said Black indifferently. "Father's been wining and dining Chairman Brutus Malfoy
since September in preparation for my last year. Mother had to send out for Madam Rosier's house-
elf to bake the broyé poitevin, Malfoy's pudding course favourite. If a Black gets another Head
badge, then it was earned on Black toil."

"You do realise that Tom never had to do any of that for his Head Boy badge, don't you?" remarked
Hermione. "Neither did I."

"Well, I'm not the same as Riddle, am I?" answered Black. "If I was, Riddle would probably have ki
—er, not taken very kindly to that. Say, Granger, has he told you where he'd gone off to?"

"No, he hasn't," said Hermione. "Now that you've confirmed he's not in here, shouldn't you look
somewhere else?"

"You have a way to find him, Granger," Travers spoke up unexpectedly. "The Patronus notes you
took said that they could be used to find specific individuals, if you knew them well enough. If
there's anyone who knows Riddle, it's you."

"Oh, you can cast a Patronus, then?" Black said, eyes narrowing. "I suppose you found out about
the bonus mark in the Defence exam for it. Why don't you cast it for us, and then we'll get out of
your hair?"

At Travers' subtle nod, Hermione swirled her wand in the proper movement of the Patronus Charm
and summoned her silvery otter, impressing upon it the desire to find Tom Riddle, anchored by
thought and memory: the constancy of Tom's unwavering affection, his lovely dark eyes engrossed
by a textbook when they weren't fixed on her, the sardonic lilt he gave to his most candid thoughts.
The otter dashed away, soaring straight up through the ceiling, and then it returned a minute later,
shaking its sleek fur out and climbing onto Hermione's shoulder.

"Is Tom in the castle?" Hermione asked.

The otter shook its head.

"Is he outside on the grounds?"

The otter preened.

"Is it somewhere I've been before?"

The otter gave a little shimmy of its body that Hermione struggled to interpret. She took its
meaning to be, Somewhat true, but not fully.
"Can't you make it lead us to him?" asked Avery. "If speaking isn't within the capabilities of a
Patronus, you should allow it to do something that is."

"I'm rather busy at the moment, actually," Hermione began, but Travers nudged her and hissed in a
low voice:

"Being a leader means taking charge even when you don't want to."

She sighed. "Alright. We'll try to do this as quickly as possible." She nodded to her Patronus otter,
which pulsed with light from where it hovered by her head. "Lead us to Tom, then."

They found Tom—and Nott—on the lakeshore practising Transfiguration, with Professor
Dumbledore of all people. The sun above their heads shone like a yellow coin in a brilliant summer
sky; the distant forest, in full growth and a light breeze, creaked and groaned out its primordial
whispers; the windy highlands were clothed in long grasses, bowing under the weight of flowering
seed-heads. But on such a wonderful day, Tom was not enjoying the ripe bounty of nature; he paced
irascible circles in a bleak patch of packed dirt, glaring across a line of barrels at an amused
professor sitting under a beach umbrella.

This was the "Switching Game", and it took some time for Hermione to understand the trick of it
after seeing it demonstrated, and taking the opportunity to test it herself. Before she knew she was a
witch, she'd read speculative theories of the preternatural, which most rational authors concluded to
be no more than exceptionally ingenious legerdemain, sleight-of-hand to which Muggles were just
as capable of as executing as wizards. Or more, since physical finesse was somewhat lacking in
wizards who didn't like walking if they could Apparate, or picking up an unwieldy weight if they
could Levitate it. It required an excellent dexterity of co-ordination to swap a rubber ball between
three cups without anyone in the vicinity being any the wiser.

When Tom had gotten around to the solution at long last, Dumbledore approached Hermione and
the rest of the boys, his greying eyebrows raised in curiosity, and remarked, "I seem to have
overlooked Mr. Riddle's informing me that he had seen fit to invite his friends today. Are you
accompanying us for an impromptu class of extension Transfiguration?"

Hermione replied, "Yes!" immediately, which Travers echoed, slightly slower. The other boys
followed in a ragged chorus, with Avery at the end, after taking the lay of the land, heaving a deep
breath of quiet suffering before gamely putting his wand in with the rest of them.

Professor Dumbledore demonstrated to them the theory of the elemental shield: "The traditional
Shield Charm, as you've studied with Professor Merrythought, is a transparent half-dome that
protects against both standard spells and physical assault. Miss Granger, a Disarming Charm, if you
please?"
Hermione cast a silent Expelliarmus at Dumbledore, who held a Shield Charm at the tip of his
wand. When her spell hit his, the Shield juddered, red sparks crackling over its hemispherical
surface, outlining its shape and dimensions. Dumbledore had cast it very well indeed, the Shield's
bottom edge extending to protect his feet, and the top curve the silk tassel dangling from his
wizardly hat. A lot of wizards were careless about their edges, since the Shield Charm was
transparent and most opponents aimed for the chest anyway. She was intrigued to observe that even
in a perfect casting, the Shield's edges faded out of existence, not as a hard outline of border.

"Now, it's your turn to cast the Shield Charm, Miss Granger," Professor Dumbledore instructed her.
With his wand, he carved out a great scoop of soil, and pouring it over with Conjured water,
moulded it into a floating ball of thick brown clay. It churned and kneaded itself, floating in the air
under Dumbledore's manipulation, the sticky wet slurry of a potter's slip. Then, with a shallow flick
of his wand, Dumbledore flung it at Hermione.

Her Shield took the blow with a sizzle and a thump, splattering right in front of her face, the bowl-
like curve around her body fully defined under a layer of dripping clay. From where she stood in
safety within its bounds, she maintained the spell, although she could feel the twenty-five pounds
of clay weighing down the tip of her wand, even if her physical muscles were unaffected.

"Can you see through the Shield?" asked Dumbledore.

"No, sir," said Hermione. "You've robbed me of my visibility. If I dismissed the Shield, the mud
would fall to the ground, wouldn't it? Then I'd have to cast it again if I wanted the protection of a
Shield. But during that small gap, you could hit me with a Disarming Charm if you were fast
enough."

"Ah, so you have seen the problem there," said Dumbledore, pleased by her quick analysis. "The
Transfiguration of true matter is a powerful skill, when applied with proper discrimination. Even
had you dismissed the Shield, the mud would collect on the ground at your feet, an unpleasant
obstacle for anyone to cross, including yourself. And this is where an alternative to pure spell-based
Shields comes in useful. Tom?"

Tom came forward, his yew wand hanging at his side. His robe hems bore salt-streaks in white, his
pale cheeks were flushed pink from several hours under the sun, and the soft waves in his black
hair had lost some of their usual cherubic spirit. "Sir?"

"How would you shield yourself against a mud projectile?" Professor Dumbledore asked in his
mild classroom voice, and with shocking speed, he'd gathered up another enormous clay lump and
hurled it at Tom.

With snarl and a sharp slash of his wand, Tom summoned a vicious, shrieking gale that swept the
mud around in a vast circle and back again to Dumbledore, who wordlessly bounced it away from
himself with the unceremonious manner of serving a shuttlecock. Tom split the mud ball into
quarters when it turned to him, and the four smaller balls Duplicated into eight, then sixteen,
aiming themselves in Dumbledore's direction. But Dumbledore smiled and the mud bullets flipped
around, sixty-four of them buzzing through the air like angry wasps, straight for Tom's face,
whereupon a wide-eyed Tom cast a roaring wall of fire that he frantically shoved outwards.

When the fire extinguished itself, there was nothing of the mud but a faint, fine dust that lofted to
the ground. And there was Tom, brushing the dirt off his robe sleeves and shoulders, nose
wrinkling at the smudges on his white starched cuffs.
"Whoa," breathed Lestrange from behind Hermione.

When she turned around, the boys were gaping at Tom in awe, for he'd cast all his spells silently
and with nary a pause to strategise on what spell to use and where to aim it. He'd drawn with
Dumbledore, as near as Hermione could tell with her limited experience with wizarding duels, and
he hadn't cast any of the standard duelling spells they'd been taught in Defence over the past seven
years. Tom wasn't just fast and clever, but he moved on instinct, as if he had an internal sense of
how much time he was allotted between the rhythm of each volley. He worked within it with a
ruthless grace, attempting to constrain the professor to nothing more than reacting and defending
against Tom. The only boy who showed anything but open admiration was Nott, who had joined
the others; he appeared bored, but the tightness of his brows suggested something nearer to intent
calculation.

Tom was bombarded with questions.

"Is that what you've been doing all day?"

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"I've never seen you duel like that before!"

And finally, "You have to teach us how you do it!" from the ever-obsequious crony, Lestrange.

To Tom's displeasure at losing what he must have assumed were private magic lessons,
Dumbledore permitted them to stay and observe some of the advanced exercises he'd been teaching
Tom. And Nott, for some reason. Judging by Tom's expression, he was torn between the
satisfaction in modelling sophisticated elemental Transfigurations and Conjurations that the other
boys couldn't hope to match, and annoyed that indulging those of lesser ability produced no result
but a waste of his time. Not Hermione, however, whom Tom treated with a fond sort of clemency
which she assumed was due to her being such a quick study of Transfiguration concepts.

Once one understood the laws that governed the nature of materiality, momentum and diffusivity
and thermodynamics, the logical counter-response became predictable, and the real trouble came
from getting it out fast enough before the other side went and disarmed you. It was a good job that
wizards were familiar with the simpler physical laws, as Hermione had only the learning of a
secondary school Muggle textbook; disappointingly, she lacked the sheer power to manipulate huge
masses as Tom and Dumbledore managed. But she knew it well enough to explain it to the boys,
despite Tom's grumbling that for practical purposes, anyone without the brains and creativity for
Transfiguration would be more effective with rote-learned curses of the duelling orthodoxy.

"There'd be no use in having special lessons if Dumbledore could teach them to the whole year,"
Tom complained. "Not that there's any point in having them now, anyway. Might as well teach
potatoes to sum."

Hermione harrumphed. "It's not nice to compare your friends to potatoes."

"I'm not impugning the noble potato," said Tom. "The Irish consider them a bulwark against
starvation. That is what they're most suited for, and where their capabilities should best be
reserved."

He charmed a cool breeze to dry the stickiness of the summer heat. "You once lightened your trunk
for the benefit of my servant, Mr. Bryce. I don't see it as any different than that."
"It is different!" said Hermione.

Tom cocked his head, and spoke quietly, "You could lend your wand to your mother, but no amount
of tutoring would ever make it anything more than a wooden stick in her hands. Perhaps it's tactless
to say it, but saying it nicely doesn't change what can't be changed. It should only serve to remind
us that those with ability should use it to properly care for the ones who lack it, don't you think? We
didn't choose to be better, but we are, and there's nothing to be done about it. What is the
alternative, after all? Let those without our wit and skill and benevolent intent do it instead, as the
blind man leads the blind?" He took her hands in his and held them against his chest. "You'll
understand it better when you collect more minions. Ah, I'm too glad to see you taking my advice. I
should ever be willing to advise you further, Hermione. Do know that where you're concerned, I
shall hold nothing back."

Laughing at Hermione's pink flush, Tom said, "There's no shame in wanting my, hmm, assistance. I
would be quite despondent if you didn't, to be honest."

And so, for the last week of their final term, Hermione and the Slytherin boys joined Tom and
Professor Dumbledore every morning to practice Transfiguration. She had known, of course, that
Professor Dumbledore was a certified Master of the discipline, along with two others, Defence and
Alchemy. To observe how exactly Transfiguration could be applied to Defence was marvellous, as
she had known from researching battlefield magic that this was how wizards controlled a theatre of
war. Where Muggle militaries used entrenchments and landmines, wizards eschewed physical
labour and factory materiel for something far more aesthetic, but no less formidable.

In the afternoons, they returned to their dormitories tired and sweaty and all over with mud, cleaned
up for dinner, and reviewed their day's accomplishments at the dinner table. Tom was always the
top duelliest and did not let it go forgotten, but the others had also made good strides in their
magical skills. Avery was decent at animal Transfigurations and Conjurations, to Hermione's
surprise but not Tom's, slow but very meticulous in his technique, which the boy explained as
having grown up among animals at his family estate.

"He harvests their organs for potions ingredients," Tom whispered into her ear. "His knowledge of
anatomy is better than most."

Lestrange was better at pure Defence spells than Transfiguration, and had a remarkable pain
tolerance. Hermione replicated a smaller version of Tom's flame shield to keep him at a safe
distance, but Lestrange would douse himself with water and walk through, though it burned his
robes and charred his flesh with hot blisters, and still have the strength to buffet at her with his
heavy fists until he had her wand snatched away. The first time it happened, Hermione was dazed at
the intensity of a physical disarming, which was against the rules of competitive duelling. But Tom
didn't disapprove of it; he only reminded Lestrange not to leave marks and let him duel Hermione
for another round.

"He was cursed back in First Year with leg pains," explained Tom. "No one knew where it came
from, so he just had to endure it until his family could take him to a private Healer during the
summer holidays. Good to see that at least he got something out of it."

She discovered that apart from Travers and herself, Nott was the other member of their group who
had discovered how to cast his Patronus. Contrary to his usual habit of smug superiority, Nott was
reluctant to admit his Patronus-casting abilities, only volunteering, under the pressure of
Dumbledore's insistent stare, that he could do it, and it was fully corporeal. Hermione thought it
strange, given Nott's bragging in the library not long ago, when he had been able to cast a half-
corporeal Patronus and held it over Hermione and Travers' heads as proof of his magical prowess.

Dumbledore was pleased by this news, and directed them in a handful of exercises in finding and
communication, a skill to which Hermione was becoming proficient; her Patronus could find Tom
every time, even when he hid himself through Transfigurations and Disillusionment. Nott's
Patronus, she was interested to see, was a proud but erratic male ring-necked pheasant that didn't
perch on its wizard's shoulder as Professor Dumbledore's phoenix Patronus was fond of doing.
Instead, it preferred hiding under Nott's robes so no one could get a proper look at it. Particularly
Travers, whose eyes narrowed with suspicion when he first saw Nott summon it, after Dumbledore
had firmly requested Nott's participation in their exercise for the sake of his own education.

"Not many wizards have a pheasant Patronus," Travers had remarked.

"And too many wizards have dog Patronuses," Nott had coolly replied. "There is no more
significance to it than what you make of it."

"As you say, Nott," said Travers, and did not comment further.

Hermione had asked Travers what that meant later, but Travers shrugged and mumbled about
something his father had mentioned. She let it be, and was distracted when Travers handed her a set
of Auror candidacy application papers, explaining how exactly she was to fill out the form in the
proper fashion so it wouldn't end up in the bin before the August call-out.

"You'll have to explain to your Auror mentor later that you plan to change your name after your
marriage," Travers informed her. "The Auror Office doesn't like irregularities in the paperwork,
especially for trainees so early on in their careers, but a witch marrying is one of the few
exceptions. But you mustn't let Riddle get a child on you before the three-year training period is
finished. If they find out you're, uh, gravid, they'll drum you out of the programme and make you
re-apply later on. Even if you're two-and-a-half years in, you'll have to start fresh from the first day
if you go through again. It's one of the reasons why the applicants will mostly be wizards."

"Oh," said Hermione, a bit awkwardly. "Thank you for telling me."

"Um. Of course," said Travers, sounding just as awkward. "There's a potion for that, in case you
didn't know. Married witches usually want as many children as they can bear, so it's uncommonly
brewed, at least among certain families. But I'm sure I could find a receipt for it—"

"No need," Hermioned hurriedly interrupted him. "I know about it."

"Alright," said Travers. "If I can be of service, please do ask."

"Please, Quentin," said Hermione, intending to lay her hand on his forearm. But she stopped herself
in time, and tucked her hands behind her back, twisting her silver ring with nervous, pale fingers. "I
don't expect to be owed favours for any help I offer to you, and I hope that goes vice versa. I'm not
like Tom."

"I know." Travers' mouth tightened, and his shoe scuffed against the stone steps leading up to the
Owlery.

"Good," Hermione said brightly. "Now let's mail these forms. Which of these owls can get to
London the fastest?"
 On the last afternoon of the Hogwarts school year, Hermione and Travers attached their Auror
application forms to the legs of a pair of owls, and watched them sail off into the southern horizon.
She would look fondly back to her time as a Hogwarts student, but as the orange glare of sunlight
glittered over the Lake, she considered sending the letters off as the opening of a new chapter in her
life, just like the fateful delivery of her Hogwarts invitation so many years ago. When she was
eleven years old, she had only Tom Riddle as a familiar face. She was eighteen now, and while she
still had Tom, she had a lot more besides.

Tomorrow, she would be on the train back to London, and then she was to begin her new life as an
adult witch. Despite the low flutter of nerves from possibilities for which she hadn't accounted, the
assurance of having allies and friends and, yes, even a fiancé at her side, buoyed her assurance into
the too-nebulous future.

She didn't need star readings and Divination to feel secure in her faith. Some things were more
powerful than chance and fortune.

Chapter End Notes

Broyé poitevin — regional French dessert of buttery shortbread.

"DATE-OF-BIRTH: IV - ♅ - MCMXXVII" — In numerology, planets (depicted by symbols)

are associated with months and star signs, and were mentioned in a previous chapter as a
cultural difference between Magical and Muggle worlds. In history, it took until 1752 for
Britain to officially accept the modern Gregorian calendar (after the 1692 Statute of Secrecy).
As good Protestants, it was seen as untrustworthy popery. Inspired by Ministry documents
from the HP film series.

"Let the die be cast" — famous Julius Caesar quote, as reported by Plutarch, often translated
as "The die is cast" from Suetonius' accounts. The original line came from Menander, and
Caesar himself spoke it in Greek. Original form: "Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος".

This story is now available in Russian, courtesy of translator byepenguin.

 Schooler's Seven
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

Somewhat belatedly, it was through Albus Dumbledore, of all people, that Tom learned of the end
of the war. He had not paid much attention to Muggle news, as there was nothing in it that
pertained to his personal interests, unlike the breathless reports and avid dissections of the Prince of
Charming that featured in the front pages of The Daily Prophet. "The Prince and the Professor", the
headlines had blared, on the day after Dumbledore had "rescued" him and Nott from the Ministry
courtroom. He had a vague impression that Hermione might have mentioned the newspaper
headlines of Muggle London, but for the most part, when he spent time with Hermione, they
weren't discussing Muggle current affairs.

It was still strange to be informed that the state of the world to which he had, quite grudgingly,
come to accept as "normal" had shifted once more. And even stranger to understand that although
the news might have gladdened him several years ago, he was now too much assimilated into a
wizarding existence for it to have any greater an impact than that of a storm on a foreign shore. The
world of his birth, with not much in the way of fanfare, had become foreign to him, and he did not
know what to think of it. Perhaps it was better not to.

"Britain may have secured her victory on the Eighth of May, but that is on the other side of the
Statute. Britons on this side, however, must not rest on our laurels—not until we have confronted
our opponents to the last and taken their paroles of honour."

"Paroles of honour?" said Tom sceptically. He understood this to mean that once the day was won,
the enemy would be made to promise not to do bad things anymore. "Isn't that a bit too optimistic
to expect honour from people like that?"

"For all that they are our opponents now, do not forget that they are your fellow wizards, Tom,"
said Dumbledore. "If the Muggles can accept terms of surrender from a defeated nation, then
wizards can surely conduct ourselves in a manner befitting a civilised society. War is not simply a
war. It is a lesson in humanity and ethics, and one too harshly taught. Now," he nodded at Tom, and
drew his wand. "Show me what you have learned."

Their training was one of the most hellish weeks of Tom's life. His Hogwarts classes were a child's
game in comparison; in those, he read through the textbook, paid attention during the lesson, and
completed his work so quickly that it was simply assumed he would sit with the slower students to
help them escape the shackles of their own mediocrity. The classes were designed to shuffle as
many students of Acceptable-quality through as possible, while Tom very humbly described his
own level as "beyond Outstanding". During the last week of term, Dumbledore taught a different
type of class. There was no resting on laurels to be had. Rest became a delightful memory of the
past.

Every time Tom passed a challenge, Dumbledore would smile and immediately set him to a new
one, demonstrating how it was done with infuriating ease, before standing back and having Tom
take a go at it. Tom understood that this education was not given out of the good of the old man's
scar-worn heart, but was a deliberate exchange. Dumbledore didn't want to subdue a close friend,
Dark Lord or not, so the obvious alternative to the problem was sending a schoolboy in his stead.

Tom's education wasn't an act of generosity. It was a balm to soothe his conscience, because even
with Professor Dumbledore's expedience, his tender little conscience quailed at the thought of
sending an untrained boy to do a man's job. (Not that Tom was a "boy" or Dumbledore's errand boy,
at that. But that was how Dumbledore thought of the situation, and if Tom was to receive Mastery-
tier magical instruction out of Dumbledore's misplaced sentimentality, then there was no purpose in
protesting too loudly.)

It was just too bad that the training had to be so painful. Tom was tossed about by cyclones and
clay constructs and pelted with dirigible plums; he fought with a whip of fire and a shield of ice,
and each time he walked through an inferno and drowned on dry land, he heaved himself to his feet
and started again. When he reflected on it, immured in the pain-dulling detachment of Occlumency,
he didn't care that the boys or Dumbledore—or even Hermione—saw him bloodied and bruised.
They never saw him yield, not to Dumbledore or his personal discomfort, and that was of highest
importance in establishing his status of a superior wizard.

In return for mending the greenhouses, Professor Beery had lent Dumbledore a handful of
immature mandrakes, and Tom earned himself a migraine after Dumbledore instructed him to duel
with the added complication of their screaming. An interesting lesson came out of that: the
Transfiguration of magical living organisms. It was a subset of animate Transfigurations, more
advanced than the N.E.W.T. student curriculum, and Tom had learned a great deal. Beery might
have been saddened by the loss of a few specimens, but even immature mandrakes had their uses in
potion brewing, so it wasn't too much of a sacrifice. Tom's education was more important. Through
guided experimentation, Tom found a suitable technique for immobilising a creature that didn't
want to be Transfigured to stone, attempted anything within its powers to evade that fate, and
whose magical abilities granted it a certain level of natural resistance against it.

This had led him, on his last evening as a student, to a solution for transporting his Acromantula.
Tom, having Disillusioned himself, entered the Acromantula's lair, the dungeon classroom he had
stored it in for the past two-and-a-half years. From the size of a dog, the Acromantula had grown to
the size of a pit pony, those small but sure-footed horses used by Muggle miners to haul coal
wagons underground. It no longer fit inside the trunk, though Tom had expanded it once or twice,
hampered by the poor quality craftsmanship even extensive mending charms could little improve.

He had wondered how to remove the Acromantula from Hogwarts, with Aurors on the prowl. He'd
considered disposing of the thing for good, dismantling it for parts, and selling the evidence in
Knockturn Alley. He had even thought about letting it go free into the Forest and washing his hands
clean of the beast, but really, that was a waste of a valuable creature he'd raised with years of his
sweat and labour. After much experimenting, he found he could stably Transfigure the creature
without destroying its most valuable quality: its sentient mind. He made sure to be careful about it;
magical creatures weren't that thick on the ground outside wizarding pet shops. Who knew when
Tom could acquire another experimental specimen this well-trained into obedience. (Admittedly,
the Basilisk did most of the work teaching the Acromantula about consequences, but that creature
was also his!)

Now he had it, a brass disc engraved on both sides like a coin. Heads showed the prickly eight-eyed
face with dripping mandibles, while the tails side depicted spinnerets weaving pearly strings of
silken thread. Still alive in the same manner of the Draught of the Living Death, the fragile essence
of its life captured in a cocoon of magical stasis. Tom tucked it into his pocket, cleaned up the
classroom to the last black pellet of spider waste, blasting the web strings high up in each corner of
the room with charmed flames. He Vanished the battered trunk, not deeming it worth taking back to
London to sell third-hand, and left the classroom, whistling.

He returned to the more trafficked parts of the dungeons without being waylaid, students scurrying
out of his path when they saw the glint of the enamel badge on his lapel. On the path back to the
Slytherin dormitories, he came across Hermione at the open door of the classroom he had chosen
for Homework Club weekly meetings. The torches inside the classroom blazed white and hot,
sending a broad swathe of illumination onto the the damp flagstones of the typically gloomy
dungeon corridors. Hermione's shadow casting a gap in the light caught Tom's attention at once; he
saw that her robe sleeves were rolled back, in either hand she held a diary full of handwritten notes
and a beeswax pencil, which she used to mark lines on the door frame. A length of knotted rope
dangled around her neck, a tool for guiding inscription spacing in Ancient Runes.

"Interesting project to start on this late in the year. What enchantments are you using?" Tom
approached her from behind. Hermione jumped when he rested his hands on her hips and bent over
her shoulder to read her notes, written in the ancient Saxon runic alphabet and annotated in English.
He spoke in a low voice, his chest pressed against her back, and the soft rumble of lungs and breath
and diaphragm made her shiver. "Some manner of trap to keep away the busybodies when you're
gone from the castle?"

Hermione didn't push him away, to his satisfaction. He'd come to a gradual acceptance of the fact
that he liked touching her, holding her, soft and warm, in his arms. Nothing else, not even magic,
quite compared.

"I'm altering the locking enchantment on the door," Hermione replied. "Black and Mulciber will be
here when we're gone, so they ought to have the option of using this as a study room for their
N.E.W.T.s. They can invite new students to use the room too, or they can remove all the
enchantments at the end of next year. I like the idea of an inter-House study group, but it takes a lot
of work to keep it running, so if they end things for good, the room will be available to anyone after
that."

Tom read the translated lines written out in her notebook. "'Let the hosting hand bestow guest-right
to this hold. Let each guest be known by heart-felt pledge of troth. Let iron and stone, inside and
out, be braced by sturdiest cunning...'. I'm intrigued by the 'pledge of troth' part. It's a rare bit of
magic, to pin the spell to the fickle tides of the heart, but a powerful enforcement when used well.
Is it a sign you've decided to continue with your campaign of collecting minions?

"It's only a promise to take care of the room and clean up any messes," said Hermione. "No other
enforcement stronger than that. If other people want to use our club meeting room, I should like
them to be respectful about it."

"Oh, I agree that this is the most elegant solution to the problem," said Tom. "But I'm surprised you
aren't concerned that it counts as a form of mental compulsion."

"There's no mental compulsion if people clean up after themselves of their own free will," huffed
Hermione. "And the punishment is the retraction of guest-right. It barely counts!"

"I wasn't criticising you," said Tom. "I was going to compliment your logic, in finding the most
efficient means to magically impose your will on others. An enchantment drawing upon the castle's
ambient magic, using the non-specific 'hosting hand' to channel that magic, and relying on the state
of the individual heart to judge any case of infringement. All based on your will and intent, but no
one would even notice your involvement at all. It's very well done indeed."

"It's for a good purpose," said Hermione firmly. "That's what matters."

"Ah, so it is," said Tom, smiling. He squeezed her around the waist and rubbed his cheek against
Hermione's fluffy curls of hair. "Will you be going into wizarding law when you receive your
marks? You're quite a convincing arbiter of rule and precedent."

"I am, actually," said Hermione, turning around so she could face him. "I sent my application to the
DMLE today. You're looking at a future Auror!"

Tom stiffened. "Oh. An Auror? Hmm."

"You don't sound pleased about it."

"I had expected you to apply for a Ministry position," said Tom. "Perhaps even for a position at the
DMLE. But I hadn't expected you to go straight for the Auror programme. There are other
occupations in wizarding law that don't involve fighting people and tossing them into cells if they
try to resist."

"Do you not think I'm capable of doing that?" asked Hermione, her mouth turning down into a
frown. "The week of training from Professor Dumbledore was given for exactly that purpose:
fighting people."

Tom decided to choose his words carefully. "It's not that you're incapable. You're used to enforcing
rules, but only Hogwarts rules. Students obey them because the threat of deducting House points is
incentive enough to keep them in line. It isn't like that in the real world."

"I think I'm capable of surviving in the 'real world', as you call it," said Hermione coolly.

"And I agree," said Tom. "But I would not like to see you simply survive. I'd see you live well, and
live happily. How can you be happy when you take a job that requires your deliberate exposure to
the worst wizardkind has to offer? The people who end up in Azkaban are the worst of the worst."

"Oh, Tom," sighed Hermione, the light of indignation fading from her eyes. "Yes, I understand your
worries, but I do have to make the most realistic decision given that the 'real world' will be the only
world for me beyond Hogwarts. I don't think there is anything for me in the Muggle world, not
anymore. With the war's end, the soldiers will soon return home, and all the jobs given to women
during the wartime will be handed over to them. Who would refuse a position of employment to a
hungry soldier? No one. I can already tell that the women who aren't replaced immediately will see
little advancement in their careers, unless they have an education in telegraphy or electrics, and I
have neither.

"But here, in this world," she continued, "I see a worthy future. I don't expect it to be pleasant, but I
do expect to make a tangible difference. That is real enough for me."

"I'd assumed you would play to your strengths as an administrator," said Tom. "I do admit that your
choice of... policing, well, surprised me. Bureaucrats are often overlooked, but completely
indispensable to a working administrative service. It was my assumption that you would recognise
that importance. Haven't you forgotten, Hermione, that you were to be the logistician to my
dictator? The Eumenes to my Alexander."
"Eumenes was a general in his own right," said Hermione, with a rueful shake of her head. "But
you do make a good point. Not about your fantastical dictatorship, but about my strengths. I know
it's where I'm suited, but desk work lacks the prestige and advancement opportunities of the Auror
Corps. And they don't have assigned partners. I may take a bureaucratic position later, but I think
it's more important for me to start as an Auror first, to make the most of a Ministry career."

"If this is part of your minion recruitment plan," said Tom, "one need not go that far."

"No," said Hermione. "It's for me. For our future. The wizarding world is a lot smaller than Muggle
Britain, which has both its advantages and its flaws. With such a small population, there are fewer
layers to reach the top, where real change is affected. But a witch who reaches prominence has to
be a known value, not an anonymous individual, no matter how important her work. It's the logic
behind the Prince of Charming. He wrote to The Daily Prophet to reveal the author of his heroic
deeds. He wasn't acting for the sake of conscience alone—he wanted to leverage his fame. Or
infamy, rather."

"Do you know what reason he might have for doing so?" Tom asked.

"For legitimacy, of course," said Hermione. "The Prince of Charming is looking for the magical
equivalent of a post-notarised Letter of Marque. It's the official stamp that restyles the questionable
actions of a private citizen into an act of patriotism. He has the unofficial approval from the press
and the populace, but the legal recognition makes him untouchable. With it, he can justify taking
legal 'prizes'," said Hermione. "The papers wrote that the documents from the arrests at Tinworth
referenced specific textbooks which weren't found among the confiscated materials. Powerful
wizards hoard rare spellbooks. It's part of what makes them so powerful. And the Prince would
know this."

Tom had taken possession of those "missing" books, not that Hermione knew. "Interesting. And are
the DMLE not going to raise a fuss about rare, old books being unaccounted for?"

"They only mentioned they were going to respect 'the privacy of concerned citizens'," said
Hermione. "They weren't specific on what that meant."

"You'll make a good detective one day, I imagine," remarked Tom. "Not as glamourous a job as
duelling Dark wizards to a standstill, but then again, the current stable of Aurors have showed
themselves to be not nearly as effective as the Prince. A collaboration, however... That has great
potential by anyone's measure."

A twitch of his wand had Tom Banishing the notebook and pencil from Hermione's hands to the
row of scuffed and many-times-repaired desks at the back of the classroom. With a hot palm at the
back of her neck, he guided his mouth over Hermione's and placed a soft kiss to her pink petal lips.
"Though I expect the greatest potential comes from the collaboration of you and me."

He kissed her again, longer and harder, and feeling the slump of her body adjusting from shock to
pleased acceptance of his overtures, he held her tighter, his other hand drawing soothing circles
over her clothed hip. Hermione's hand slipped under his robe, beneath his jumper, fingers tracing
lightly over the row of mother-of-pearl buttons of his uniform shirt. One finger slipped through the
gap between two buttons and touched the bare flesh of his belly. Tom hissed, and in reflex ground
himself against Hermione, holding her tighter than ever; her touch created an epicentre of
uncontrollable spasms that came over him and left him disoriented. He was a sailor tossed
overboard in a cresting tide, clinging to the nearest remnant of stability in the churning waters of
his ruptured sanity.
He heard Hermione gasp, and she made to snatch away her devious exploring fingers. But Tom
held her too tightly to escape; he pressed bodily against her, feeling as if his clothes were so tight
around as to resemble the skin of a shedding snake, as if relief would only be granted to him once
he was free of their constrictions. Hermione wriggled against him, and he felt every scrape of
movement translated to his own skin. He remembered the Basilisk's words of advice; Tom at once
wanted to hold Hermione, bite her, bare his throat for her bite, cage her against the cold stone wall
and amuse himself with her feeble attempts at resistance, touch her through the gaps between her
buttonholes to see if the flesh of her belly had those light little sun-freckles of her burning-hot
cheeks, all accompanied by such a desperate, visceral sense of urgency as he had never felt before...

"Tom!" Hermione gasped.

"Hermione," Tom replied, though his voice was somewhat muffled.

"Someone could see us—the door over there is open!"

"I don't care."

"Well, I do!"

Tom sighed, and loosened his grip on her. "Alright. This time tomorrow, we'll be in London. No
more Hogwarts, no more student rules. No supervision. It would be so very simple to hire a room in
a first-rate Hyde Park hotel. The concierges of the Royal Aspen keep an open account for the North
Riding Riddles."

"No," said Hermione, mouth tightening. Her indomitable conviction—he admired her
determination as the counterpart to his own, but it was frustrating when it was turned against him,
despite the ruffled curls and the wet shine of her lips speaking to an enthusiastic endorsement of
Tom's argument. "I don't want it to be like that, Tom. We're sensible adults of reason and dignity.
We ought not to undignify our attachment, as if it's a secret liaison, because that's what you imply
by taking a room at the Aspen instead of staying the night at my house or the train to Yorkshire.
Maybe it doesn't matter what our families think—because they will think it's odd when no one
shows up at either doorstep tomorrow evening, and everyone has a telephone connection—but what
I think does matter. And I think I've made it obvious what that is."

"That you should be honoured as a wife," said Tom, very smoothly. "I would happy to honour you,
of course. If you insist it must be nowhere else but your own bedroom—well, ours—that should be
put to its proper use, then I'll defer to your will."

"See?" said Hermione. "Isn't it so easy to be reasonable about things when we take the time to talk?
Though I wish it was that easy for you to defer to my will every time."

"Well, you can have the first time, at least. In that instance, I shall defer to you quite willingly,"
Tom volunteered. "But second and third and fourth? Hmm, I think we can negotiate, as long as you
promise to be reasonable."

"Tom!"

Tom laughed. "Surely it's of no surprise to you that the honour of the wife is equalled by the duty of
the husband. And let me confess, Hermione, that I do wish to be a most dutiful husband. For
tonight, let me demonstrate it by helping you finish enchanting this door. For the password
dormancy, you need to establish the two conditions, then define them there and here, before you
explicate the nature of the condition triggers, be it spoken word or magical signature. Each one has
different security specifications; Greatrakes' Notitia has a set of tables for determining the strength
of a magical password—I'm sure you've read it..."

For the next two hours, he and Hermione carved tiny runes in the iron banding of the door and
along with the age-worn masonry on either side. They were light carvings, barely deeper than
scratches, because Hermione didn't want them to be noticed by passersby. Those who knew they
were there could adjust them, but no one else would think to look. It was nonetheless a pleasant
passing of an evening, as they rarely collaborated on projects—as opposed to simply reading over
each other's work and leaving commentary. Tom found mild amusement in Hermione's insistence
on avoiding the more obscure denotations. It was better for consistent maintenance, she claimed.

"It's not a private grimoire; it's a public utility. It doesn't make sense for you or I to be the only ones
who can read it!"

"It should only be comprehensible by those who are appropriately dedicated to their magical
studies," Tom retorted. "You're using an O.W.L.-level syllabary. A child could decipher it!"

"Ease and clarity are virtues of public enchanting," said Hermione, sniffing. "If you didn't know
this, then the average citizen would live an abysmal life in your imaginary dictatorship. You'd never
get the trains to run on time!"

The next morning, at eleven o'clock, the Hogwarts Express departed Hogsmeade Station. Tom
inaugurated his final journey on the train with his Head Boy speech, which he was personally
apathetic about; he didn't care if he never saw the faces of his schoolmates again in his life beyond
Hogwarts. Tom noticed that he, unlike his Housemates, had not imbibed Firewhisky to the extent
that the morning sunlight pained him too much to read his speech notes in the Heads' compartment.
Black suffered the symptoms of a hangover, and despite his underage status, so was Gowdie, the
Fifth Year Slytherin male Prefect; Tom was interested to see that the Gryffindor Prefects weren't
faring any better.

When he and Hermione returned to the crowded compartment reserved for them by the Slytherin
boys, Tom found them discussing plans for more drunken mischief, as if the previous night's
overindulgence had not taught them any useful lessons on moderation. He slumped into his seat
with a snort of disdain and with a firm arm around her shoulder, tugged Hermione into the spot next
to him.

"We'll start at the Leaky in London—that's traditional—but why don't we stop at The Kelpie's
Grave in Pembroke? The best taverns outside London are in the West Country, but it's not much of
a challenge if we only hop fifty miles per turn," said Rosier, marking towns on a wizarding
travellers' almanac on his lap.
"We don't all have to crowd into The Three Broomsticks, but there are other taverns known to have
beer on tap instead of horse piss," replied Avery. "The laver draught they serve at The Kelpie is
drunk for novelty, not for taste."

"It'll still put hair on your chest," Rosier said. "Come now, it doesn't count as a real national tour
unless we savour the fruits of Britain, and not just one tiny corner of it. A man can drink only so
many variants of plain old malted ale before he's bored of it."

"What's this?" asked Hermione. "Are you planning on a Grand Tour of Britain?"

"It's the Schooler's Seven, a so-called tradition for graduating wizards in Slytherin," explained Nott.
"Not so much of a Grand Tour as a Drunken Lurch. The objective is to start one's journey on the
evening of graduation by quaffing a pint in London, then Apparating or Flooing to the next tavern
for another pint—or two ounces of spirits—then repeating the process until seven drinks have been
drunk in seven different pubs. The first one to return to London conscious and under his own power
is the winner."

"That sounds unpleasant," said Hermione. "Don't drinking and Apparition pose a serious safety
risk? The instructors during our Apparition lessons last year warned us it was an unwise thing to
do. You could get splinched!"

"Yes, that's the point," said Travers. "If you splinch yourself and can't put yourself together to visit
the next leg in the tour or return to London, then you're disqualified."

"And people put themselves through this... for what, fun?"

"To win," Nott said. "Obviously."

"There's a good reason why it's a wizards' tradition," spoke Tom, addressing the look of outrage
forming on Hermione's face. "Not because witches are banned from participating, but because
witches don't understand it."

"And you, Tom?" asked Hermione. "Are you planning to participate?"

"Of course not," said Tom. "I've better things to do with my evening than wade through other
people's vomit."

"Then you must agree with the witches that it's a completely baffling thing to do!" said Hermione
triumphantly.

"No, I don't," said Tom. "I'm not confused by it. I fully comprehend why wizards are invested in
such a tradition. I just think it's asinine."

"Riddle," said Lestrange, "you're invited to join us tonight. Half-past seven at The Leaky Cauldron,
then The Siren's Shanty in Plymouth. The Sign of the Lion in Somerset, The Kelpie's Grave in
Pembroke, The Coventry Cellar, The Golden Apples in Cumbria, and the Occamy's Roost in
Newcastle. First one back to London gets to pick three favours from the others."

"Tempting, but I'm not interested," answered Tom indifferently. "I have plans for Hermione this
evening."

"Tom, don't you mean plans with me?" corrected Hermione.

"No," said Tom. "I mean to continue quite an important conversation that was sadly abandoned
before its natural conclusion."

"Can't you finish your conversation on the train, then come with us to The Leaky Cauldron
afterwards?" asked Avery.

"It's not that sort of conversation," said Nott in a snide tone.

Avery looked confused. "What do you mean—are there other sorts of conversations?"

"There are," said Nott, "and that one in particular is a closed-door conversation."

"Well, I'm sure we can find them an empty compartment, or kick some lower-years out if we have
to..."

"Ugh," Nott groaned. "Let me put it to you as plainly as one can in mixed company: Riddle has
become impassioned. With the old meaning of the word 'passion', an experience of terrible
suffering. As with a bitch in the springtime, you don't give men like that an empty train
compartment for appeasement's sake. You lash him to the train roof until he's ready to return to
polite society."

Travers made a face. "People would do that sort of business on the train? Pets have to be kept in
baskets or cages on the Express, but students let their owls and cats sit on the seats anyway. I once
saw someone's cat throw up half of a mouse mixed in a pool of melted chocolate, right on the
upholstery. Turns out that cats like chasing chocolate frogs, but eating them is a different matter."

"Responsible adults like me or Tom wouldn't even consider the idea," said Hermione primly. "I
don't know why you keep making such unworthy insinuations, Nott, and I don't like it."

"I'm not the one making insinuations here," complained Nott. "I'm telling you loud and clear how I
feel about the situation."

Tom decided to ignore the conversation to finish reading a Transfiguration textbook he'd been lent
by Dumbledore, which he'd been advised he could return by owl mail when he was finished with it.
The miles raced past the window, curtains lowered so as not to let the harsh sunlight interrupt the
inebriation recovery process, green furlongs winding down the slopes and valleys of the Scottish
highlands. Hairy red cows grazed at pasture, silver lochs glistened like mirrors to the sky,
accompanied by an ambient chorus of Hermione verbally squabbling with the rest of the boys on
the value of the Schooler's Seven.

"Why must you rely on such carousing as a means to reaffirm your friendships? Can't you find a
nice salon and have tea and, oh, I don't know, complete a jigsaw puzzle?"

"Don't tell me that all you and Riddle do is drink tea and assemble jigsaw puzzles!"

"Well, no, but—"

"I thought not!"

"We read books and talk about magic! It's nearly the same thing."

"It's not the same thing; you two like reading!"

Tom sighed.

The time whiled away, until they were two hours out of Hogsmeade, and the card-shuffling and
loud chewing was interrupted by the metallic screech of the brakes. The train slowed; Hermione
slid forward in her seat and almost to the floor before Tom dragged her up by the elbow. On the
luggage rack, the trunks shifted, and a hand valise squeezed over the edge of the railing and was
inches from hitting Rosier on the head before Tom swished his wand and arrested its fall. He stood
from his seat and flicked the curtains open; the view beyond was of lush rolling hills laced with the
purple fronds of native thistle. A ridgeline stood stark in the distance, spanned by the stone arches
of a viaduct. They had not yet left Scotland.

Travers slid the compartment door open and peered into the aisle, which was filled with other
peeking heads and the chatter of murmuring voices. The voices fell silent when the train juddered
and resumed movement; Travers returned to his seat, and remarked, "Sometimes a flock of sheep
gets on the tracks, and there are too many to run them over—"

The first indication of something being off was the playing cards flurrying to the floor in a rain of
white laminated paper, followed by Travers' Daily Prophet, and the book Tom had left where he'd
been sitting. Then the trunks on the overhead rack shifted again, the heavy brass latches scraping
against the inside of the train wall, and suddenly everyone was squeezed against the walls,
plastered flat against the cushioned seats by a heavy weight that made it a labour to lift hand and
wand, to turn one's head to the window, where the hills smeared together into a kaleidoscope of
indistinguishable colour, hills and sky a whirling blur of grey noise.

Tom was squashed against Hermione, and Hermione was squashed into the corner seat, clinging to
his robes with white knuckles. Her breath was hot against his throat; he held her close and with his
wand turned to himself, he silently cast a Levitation Charm on his robes. It lightened the weight
that pressed so heavily against him that his eardrums popped and his joints ached; the spell was
completed just in time, for as soon as the spinning had ceased, the weight lifted, and everyone who
had been smashed against the walls was suddenly flung to floor, followed by the trunks. Tom and
Hermione, whom he had also lightened with the charm, bobbed in the air, the toes of their shoes
barely grazing the compartment floor.

In the adjoining compartments, bags and cages clattered as they struck floor and passenger alike; he
heard the screech of an owl, the cries from students hit by their own luggage. Hermione had sent
her owl home that morning, and slipped the empty cage, shrunken small, into her trunk. The
Slytherin boys, having also picked an owl as the most useful of approved pets, had done the same
thing, so there were no pets loose in their compartment. Tom stepped over to door, his shoe
grinding into the face of the Knave of Hearts—who shook an illustrated fist at him for the offence
—opened the compartment door.

The aisles were awash with chaos.

Open trunks lay in the corridor from students who had left their compartment doors for the journey,
spilling pyjamas and textbooks and the parchment detritus from a year's worth of homework over
the floor. A pillow leaked down feathers from one open door, and a bleary-eyed student in
Hufflepuff robes blinked at Tom from the doorway of her compartment, her peaceful sleep
interrupted by the jerk and rattle of the halting carriage. All around Tom, questions arose with
growing shrill edge, first directed at seat-mates and friends, then at whomever seemed to be in
charge. And given the lack of Hogwarts professors, it was Tom Riddle they turned to.
"Riddle, has the Express broken down?"

"Father always said no proper wizard should put his trust in rickety Muggle contraptions!"

"Are you going to send someone to speak with the driver?"

"We'll be late getting back to London if we don't start moving again..."

Orion Black popped his head out of his compartment, full of Sixth and Fifth Year boys over whom
he held court. "You're going to investigate this, Riddle? I'm coming with you."

"Did you take your Apparition exam?" asked Tom. "I'm going outside to see what's happened. If
the train starts up while we're out, anyone who can't Apparate will be left stranded in the
countryside."

"Yes, of course," said Black. Turning to the boys in his compartment, all Slytherins, he gave the
order. "You lot, stay here and make sure the lemmings don't panic."

With Black at his heels, Tom unlocked the carriage door with a tap of his wand and jumped the four
feet down to the grass. Without the height of a train station platform, it was a steep drop, but the
grass below was thick and lush—untouched by grazing beasts and the machinery of Muggle
civilisation. Black came down after him with an "oof" and a thud, turning around in circles to take
in the scenery: a summery valley on a sunny day, high ridgelines all around them capped with snow
on the lee sides, far too grand a view for a train hours into its descent from the Scottish highlands.
Though the sun shone bright and harsh, the air was cooler than he expected, and the brisk breeze
cut through the summer-weight woollen jumper he wore under his unclasped uniform robe.

"The sun's in the wrong direction," called Nott's voice. He had popped his head out through the
open window of their compartment. "Heading south for London, it should be setting on the right-
hand side." Then his head went back in, and Tom heard muttering, "Rosier, does your Divination
textbook have an up-to-date solstice calendar? The summer solstice was only a week past; let me
borrow it, I need to check the figures..."

"We should go and speak to the driver," said Black, and together, he and Tom strode over the long
grass up to the locomotive, whose boiler had gone quiet and the steam emitting from the chimney
nothing but a faint smudge of white.

The locomotive had a long, tube-like snout in a smart red and black livery, the small windowed
driver's compartment behind it, and after that, a coal tender which had been converted for student
luggage. As Tom approached, the driver climbed down the cast iron steps to the ground, drawing
his wand as he peered up at the silent chimney and then down the row of carriages with curious
students pressing sticky paws and grubby noses against the windows. Six carriages and a
locomotive—for a seven part whole.

"This isn't a prank, is it?" said the driver, flipping open his watch face to look at the time, and what
he saw didn't please him, for his face went a mottled shade of magenta. "It's not funny! When the
Ministry gets wind of this, the last thing whoever did this should be worried about is several
hundreds of Galleons in fines."

"You there, you two, get back inside," spoke the voice of Tom's least favourite Auror. Probert and
his partner, whose name Tom had learned was Kneller, stalked up to him and Black from the first
carriage, robes flapping and badges aglitter. "You haven't any professor to speak for you here.
When you're outside of Hogwarts, the Ministry is in charge."

"Oh, but which Ministry?" Nott interjected, panting a little as he stumbled up to their little
rendezvous, followed by Hermione and Rosier and the other Slytherin boys. "Your authority starts
and ends on British soil. I daresay we aren't in Britain any longer."

"How do you know that?" Probert asked sharply. "Are you responsible for this?"

"I know how to use a sextant," said Nott, and from Rosier's hands, he snatched a textbook and
shoved it under the Auror's nose. "Here, these are the noontime calculations for a Scottish late June.
It's a quarter past one o'clock now, so you sum this, subtract here, then account for the coordinates
here—Hogwarts is Unplottable, but we use the rough measure. And it doesn't add up. We ought to
be in the same latitude as Montrose Village or Loch Laggan this many hours in, but the latitude's
higher than when we started."

"Lend me your instrument," the train driver said, taking the device, of fine polished brass marked
with Roman numbers along its lower curve. "Yes, I see what you're talking about," he murmured
after gazing through the sights and shuffling around to get a good view of the sun. "How curious."

"What's more curious is that the train tracks stop a few yards in front of the train," said Hermione.
"And there's no ballast under the sleepers. The sleepers are laid directly on the grass. That's not the
proper way to grade a railway, especially one that goes down a hillside. It's just begging for an
accident!"

"So what do we do?" asked Rosier, taking his textbook back from Nott and smoothing the creases
off the page. "Some of us have plans in London for this evening!"

"You wait in the train while we solve the problem," said Probert. "I'm going to Apparate to the
Ministry and have them send the Department of Magical Maintenance to look into the issue."

Raising his wand, the Auror turned neatly on his heel... and stumbled.

Tom coughed, exchanging a look with Nott, who smirked in return.

The Auror tried again, but again he could not produce the clap of Apparition, no matter how many
circles he turned. Auror Kneller tried, but met the same results. Then the driver attempted to
Apparate, and they found out that no one could Apparate from where they stood. Even when Tom
tried it, pushing as much force into it as he could, he produced no more than a weak little puff and a
jolt, with not even a grass blade crumpled out of place from where he started.

"Apparition ward," pronounced Nott. "That's a sign of foul play, if anything."

An owl was commandeered from a Second Year student who hadn't managed the cage-shrinking
charm, and in trying to deliver a message to the Ministry, it flew out and got only so far past the
nose of the locomotive before it was made to turn around. Tom watched the bird make circle after
confused circle around the train, heading southwards, and after reaching some arbitary limit, curled
back around in a wide swoop to turn south again. He judged the size of whatever ward enclosed
them to be less than a half-mile in diameter, and looking more and more like a planned interruption
rather than a fortuitous misadventure. A log might, by chance, halt a train by falling over the tracks,
but Anti-Apparition wards didn't enchant themselves into existence.
The other Aurors piled out of the train, to a total of eight, and with the driver and the trolley witch,
made ten adult staff to approximately four hundred students. Who were growing unhappier by the
minute from the unexpected delay, with no explanation forthcoming from the adults ostensibly in
charge. Tom didn't envy them; if they wanted to swing their authority about, then they had the
responsibility to go with it. While the Aurors were distracted in maintaining order, Nott gestured at
Tom to meet at the front of the locomotive, out of sight of staff and passengers.

"The tracks were cut cleanly and enchanted," whispered Nott, kneeling by the grass and lighting his
wand to illuminate the sides of the metal rails. "Do you remember when I warned you about
pressure alarms that day we visited... ah, a 'friend' in Montrose? Stay off the doorstep, because you
never know if someone put that enchantment to deter callers. Well, this is a runic sequence based
on that logic—stillness and interrupted movement, measurement of force, capture and constraint.
So. A prepared spell to catch the train and halt it on its journey, followed by a second layer of
spellwork: a Portkey to transport anything in contact with the rail when the trigger is activated."

"Why not a single layer of enchantment for the Portkey?" asked Tom. "I suppose they had to put it
on the rails rather than the train itself because the Express is either at Hogsmeade or London.
Hardly the best place to fix enchantments without being bothered by prying onlookers."

"Perhaps whoever did it was afraid that only half the train would be taken in between the Portkey
trigger and the actual translocation. That could be messy. You might end up with the Portkey
equivalent of splinching, if you're trying to transport a passenger touching the train that is touching
the rails, while simultaneously moving away from it," mused Nott. "Enchanting follows an orderly
sequence of steps—when it's properly done, of course. It's effective and powerful, but not as
intuitive and fast as wand spells. There can be a bit of delay in complex enchantments. A tiny
delay, but when working with great masses and velocities, it amplifies the effects of some very
interesting anomalies. Good Mastery project right there, honestly."

"Back to 'whoever did it'," said Tom, "do you think this level of workmanship is the province of
professional enchanters, or can anyone with a reasonable intelligence copy it off a textbook?" He
bent down and lit his own wand to inspect the fine, scraped lines scrawled on the inside of the rails,
invisible to anyone walking along the tracks or sitting at the height of the carriage seats. They were
straight and consistently placed, resembling Persian cuneiform in their neatness, from the use of
expensive magical inscribing tools that cut through steel as if it was soap. Far neater than the
wobbly examples on Muggle henges illustrated in Tom's Ancient Runes textbooks.

"Oh, it has to be professionals, no doubt. It takes real artistry to imbue poesy into enchantments,
instead of writing out the commands in plain language. There's power in melding art and magic;
throughout recorded history and other cultures to the present day, wizards cast spells through chants
and rituals. And even with wanded magic, there's a reason why our spell incantations tend to follow
a certain iambic rhythm," Nott replied, his eyes scanning the runic stanzas and translating them as
he read:

'"Seize by this bidding a huge-weighing burden;

Wrought under bellows from mountain's scathed bosom;
Now pluck this great burden by orders be given;
Far goes thy roving, stayed once then be hastened.'

"I'm certain that we can both deduce who's responsible for this," Nott continued. "The real question
is why. What have the innocent students of Hogwarts ever done to deserve this treatment? As far as
anyone knows, we've never done anything wrong!"
"As far as anyone knows," muttered Tom. "Do you think... Would Dumbledore have gone and told
—"

"Would Dumbledore what?" Hermione's question interrupted their conversation, her trampling over
the knee-high grass. Travers wandered over in her wake, looking apologetic at having stepped into
what was clearly a private conference. "Oh, hello, Tom. Fancy seeing you here. What are you two
doing?"

"Would Dumbledore know where we are? Considering that I am his favourite student, and out of all
the staff members at Hogwarts, he's the one most qualified to do something about our current
situation," said Tom smoothly. "It's not as if Dippet's liable to do anything more than wring his
hands at the Governors and complain that it wasn't his fault."

"We were inspecting the enchantments," said Nott. He pointed to the metal rails. "What do you
think of it?"

"Travers and I were talking to the Aurors just now," Hermione replied. "We're trapped within an
enchanted barrier. No Apparition, no owls. Lestrange got his Comet 180 un-Shrunk and tried to fly
out, but smashed against the wall. He tried to fly as high as he could to hop over the barrier, but it
looks like the enchanters thought about that loophole—he would fall unconscious from the
atmospheric conditions before he found the barrier border." She dropped to her knees and peeked
under rails, casting a silent Severing Charm to crop the grass. Hermione's lips pursed. "I can see
that from the inscriptions here that the barrier enchantment isn't anchored on the rails. These are
meant to stop the train, then move everyone here... Wherever here is."

"We're above the sixtieth parallel, Madam Trombley says," reported Travers. "Still in the Northern
Hemisphere, but most likely not Britain—the only place in the Isles that far north are the Orkneys
or the Shetlands, and if this was the Shetlands, Lestrange would've been able to spot the sea from
his broomstick."

"I think we're somewhere in Scandinavia," Hermione added. "There's only so far you can move a
weight the size of the Hogwarts Express, even with the amplification effect of the summer solstice.
Hogwarts, A History had that the locomotive weighs seventy-five tons! And that's not even
counting the six passenger cars. That's some truly impressive magic, isn't it! A Masterwork-level of
skill and verve—it would have been so easy to have mis-calculated the load balance and dropped
the entire Hogwarts student population into the middle of the North Sea." At Nott's frown,
Hermione let out a little cough. "Oh, well, you're probably not interested in the details. But it does
mean that getting everyone back to Britain may mean having to leave the Express behind. Students
take priority."

"Yes, that'd be a shame. The Express has a hundred years of Hogwarts tradition behind it," said
Travers. "But the good news is that we're so far north, and so close to the solstice, that sundown
won't be until almost eleven o'clock. Then the sun rises again at half-past three in the morning. No
one will freeze to death!"

"Delightful," said Tom. "Speaking of death, have you thought about how to get back to Britain
before that happens? We have, what, four hundred students and enough food to fit in a trolley. That
is, if you count Cockroach Clusters as food. I certainly don't."

"The food situation is concerning," said Hermione. "We ought to do something about it. What if we
run out of food?!"
"We won't," Tom assured her. "Not you and I, at least. We can't run out with four hundred bodies.
I'd say that I'm fairly decent at making edible Transfigurations that taste good."

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. "Of course, magic! If you use Tranfiguration to duplicate the
food, we'll have enough for all four hundred of us."

"Hmm," said Tom. "Yes, that's what I meant."

Hermione shepherded Tom back over to the mass of Aurors and Prefects, who had ventured out of
the train to take instructions. To his eternal satisfaction, the Prefects looked to the Head Boy and
Girl as the first voice of authority. The Aurors boasted their badges and official training, but they
weren't Hogwarts staff members, and couldn't write recommendations to next year's Heads list
based on demonstrating exceptional leadership qualities. Through a hushed conference, it was
decided that the sweets trolley would not take its usual sales route, but be commandeered as mutual
property for the rest of their Scandinavian adventure.

For it was in Scandinavia that the Hogwarts Express had found itself, Tom learned while tasked to
duplicating pumpkin pasties by the half-dozen—they were the most nutritious food sold on the
train. There was a broad admission that no one else in any year or House was as good as Tom
Riddle at food Transfigurations, a flattering compliment to Tom's sense of self-esteem, but then it
remained to Tom to take on the task. Instead of contributing to organisational decisions, he was
stuck as the glorified trolley witch, forced to reassure the more charitably-minded lower-year
students who had come forward with their lunch sandwiches and apples stolen from the breakfast
table. In the aid of diversifying the dining offerings, in a manner of speaking.

One Hufflepuff Fourth Year came to Tom with a basket of donated foods for magical duplication,
obtained by turning out all the pockets in Hufflepuff House. She hummed to herself, waiting for
Tom to acknowledge her presence, which Tom refrained from doing
for as long as he could.

"Isn't it a shame that Britain will never see Northern Lapwings flock as thick as they do in
Norway?" remarked the girl. She wore a straw hat with charm-preserved flowers tucked into the
band, vivid blooms and raw green stems winding about her head like a nymph's crown. "The
freshwater tributaries in England have been quite taken over by mills and manufactories over the
past decades, reducing the Lapwings' nesting habitats. They migrate here instead." She pointed at
the sky, and raised a pair of opera glasses from a lanyard around her neck. "The males have such a
distinctive iridescence to their feathers. Wow!"

"Norway?" said Tom. "Are you sure we're in Norway?"

"According to The Birders' Field Manual of Northern Europe, this must be north-central Norway,"
said the girl. "The gannets, plovers, loons, and lapwings fledge here and leave by October. If we
were past the Arctic Circle, then there would be auks, but I haven't spotted any. If we were in
Sweden or Finland, there'd be more marsh and wood birds—ducks and snipes and harriers—than
diving birds. And there's too much ground cover for this to be Iceland."

Tom sorted through the items in the donation basket, clucking his tongue at the squashed muffins
and butty sandwiches sodden with cold bacon fat. A quick Transfiguration fixed the aesthetic flaws.
Inwardly, he sighed. He supposed it was possible to survive off a diet of mostly bread and water for
several weeks in the wilderness, but it wasn't going to be a pleasant time of it. If this international
holiday extended for too long, it looked like the British people would be unwillingly re-introduced
to scurvy.
"Does it not bother you that Norway is not on the Hogwarts Express' typical travel route?" he
asked. "The Express in the name implies that the train limits its stops between both ends."

"My Mum and Dad said that if you work hard and do the right thing, everything will turn out well,"
the Hufflepuff girl answered with the confidence of a child. "You're the Head Boy, so you work
hard. And you're making sure everyone has food to eat. That's doing good things. Don't worry,
Riddle, we'll be rescued before long. They'll know something has gone wrong when there's no train
at King's Cross by seven o'clock. Magical children are society's most precious treasures."

She wandered off, humming to herself, opera glasses glued to her face. The hat flowers bobbed
away into the distance, leaving behind the gentle fragrance of dewy leaves and honeysuckle.

Tom organised the food, Conjured cartons to hold it all, and cast Stasis Charms with a grim
dedication, finding that the circumstances of his current predicament pleased him less and less the
more he thought about it. No one but Dumbledore knew Tom was the Prince of Charming, but
everyone in Britain knew Dumbledore. And in the past week, they had found out that the Prince of
Charming was an associate of Dumbledore, close enough that the old man would shed his
timeworn cloak of neutral non-interventionism. For which the Ministry had, for setting his
sympathies in the wrong places, had previously confirmed Dumbledore to the status of
Undesirable.

He wondered if the Ministry would endanger the children of its voting constituency, from the
youngest and barely weaned Firsties to the adult heirs of Sacred family names, to force
Dumbledore into "doing the right thing". But after a few seconds of consideration, he dismissed the
notion. If the Ministry could collaboratively produce such powerful enchantments as the ones on
the train rails and the warded prison that kept them trapped in this lonely Norwegian valley, they
wouldn't need to rely on wizards of singular talent and ability, like himself. That was the difference
between the magical and Muggle worlds, wasn't it? A self-reliant and sufficiently-motivated
individual posed a serious challenge to the might of legitimate governance. In the Muggle world,
outlaws like Ned Kelly were hanged by the state. In the wizarding world, outlaws were rescued
from their executioners... and went on their merry old way to kidnap schoolchildren.

It was the European saboteurs; it had to be. He knew the day would come where they would
confront him on their terms, not his, but he had expected to have several months of preparation.
This was sooner than he'd predicted, and if he was honest, sooner than he wanted. But there was
another aspect to consider: the lack of preparation was as much of an encumbrance to him as it was
to the other side. The loyal armies to which Grindelwald boasted could not be summoned in the
blink of an eye, and not in less than a fortnight either, with or without magic. Such an army, his
revolutionary militia, was Grindelwald's greatest advantage on the field.

As Tom worked on preparing food, other students in Sixth and Seventh Year contributed their
enchanting skills to the creation of a drinking fountain, and all the while, birds chirped in the sun-
drenched valley and the tall summer grasses rustled in a fresh breeze. The trees here were wild
scraggly things, firs with twisted trunks and evergreen needles, and silver birches whose long pale
branches would glow like ghosts when the night descended, their black markings rising out of the
gloom like staring eyes. Rocky outcrops jutted out of patches where the grass was thinnest, ridden
with a thick spongy moss that sank under his feet. He had never travelled outside the British Isles
before now, and even when he'd ventured into the wilder places of Britain, they were not untouched
by the hand of civilisation. The Forbidden Forest of the Hogwarts grounds was a cultivated
wandwood grove, a thousand years old, but nonetheless tamed by human hands into a magical
resource for wizards of the proper canniness.
He breathed in a crisp lungful of mountain air, different to the wet highland "dreich" of Scotland,
the everpresent damp which grew a creeping layer of mould on any surfaces left unattended for
more than a day. It would be a fine thing to come again to Norway one day, he thought. By his own
power, and on his own terms. This was a land of skalds and sagas, of seafaring reiver kings whose
rule over England's northern counties had lent the villagers of Yorkshire their charming rural
dialect. Tom had grown fond of it in the passing years; there was something quaint and honest in
the Yorkshireman's language, which never itched him behind the eyes as happened when he
overhead a falsehood. He favoured it more than the thieves' cant he'd learned in London, which was
associated with the lowest class of ne'er-do-wells.

Hermione wandered back around by the Tom had finished casting vermin-repelling charms on the
dozen or so boxes of duplicated pasties and sandwiches. "We've put together a group of N.E.W.T.-
level Ancient Runes students to decipher the enchantment on the rails. And to search for the anchor
stone for the barrier ward. For any enchantment whose spell-effect is contained within a discrete
boundary area, there must be a boundary marker of some sort. It's only a matter of finding it!"

Then she took a pasty from the top of the stack and bit into it. "That's odd. I didn't know the
Hogwarts Express had blueberry pasties."

"They don't," said Tom. "It's Transfigured. I may have accepted magic and wizardliness, but I think
it shall be a long while yet before I might accept the notion of having pumpkin for every meal. Do
they never get sick of it?"

"I thought the same thing about eating food that's still moving, but no, it doesn't look like wizards
will ever be tired of Ice Mice and jumping frogs either," Hermione replied. She took his hand and
drew him away from the food supply. "Come and join us in looking for the anchor stone. The more
eyes we have, the faster it'll go."

"You don't seem terribly distraught about being dragged out of Britain at short notice," remarked
Tom.

"I was very distraught. I still am, if you want to know the truth," admitted Hermione. "But then I
realised that the people who are looking to us as their leaders would be very discouraged if they
knew how I felt. I really would like to be a good leader, and I don't suppose there is anything to test
the character of one's leadership quite like a trial by fire." She sighed, turning to him with her soft
starry eyes. "And you, Tom—how have you been getting on? Someone once told me that men don't
like to talk about their feelings with other men, but you've no need to hold that stiff upper lip
around me."

Tom gave her a dubious look. "No need to use minion management strategies around me,
Hermione. I was swimming in these waters before you were born."

"Excuse me!" said Hermione in a voice of mock outrage. "I'm your senior by date of birth!"

"And my junior in handling the peons," Tom announced. "It's in my blood, you see. A skill some
are born with and some aren't, in the nature of princes and royalty, really—"

"Wuff! Wuff!" cried a pack of dogs, lunging from their leashes.

Nott yanked the dogs back, three small terriers under knee-height, while other dogs and dog-like
abominations, with four eyes and five legs attached backwards, bayed around them. "Come to join
the fun then, Riddle? We're Transfiguring rocks into dogs to look for recently turned earth. Only it
looks like a lot of people barely know what a dog is, let alone what breeds are best for what tasks."
He jabbed a thumb at an upper-year Ravenclaw student coaxing a vague four-legged shape out of a
clod of soil and grass. "Ratting terriers are the best for earthworks. But you'd never know that if
you stay inside all day. Bah! Townsfolk." Nott sniffed. "Did you know, before I came to Hogwarts,
I'd never met a wizard who hadn't gone on a hunt? But I've got a dozen in a day so far, that must be
a record!"

"Yes, and you're a top sportsman in comparison," said Tom. "Your family flies falcons. You send
them out and they bring you rabbits while you stand around and watch, but I'm sure that makes you
a real hunter."

"I said 'gone on a hunt'," Nott retorted. "The wording was intentional! And it still counts!"

"Tom, you always pick fights with Nott, and it's very unbecoming," said Hermione. "Can we argue
about this later? We have a mystery to solve."

"Yes, I really want to get back to London," said Tom. He raised his wand to Conjure his own dog,
and not having much experience with dog breeding, envisioned the first one that came to mind. His
dog plopped at his feet on elegant limbs, white with brown spots and an intelligent pointed muzzle.
It gazed up at Tom with large, pleading eyes, and when it caught sight of his wand, licked its chops
with a slobbery pink tongue.

"A whippet," said Nott, brows lifting in mild interest. "A coursing dog? Hm. Well, they have been
trained as sighthounds, so I wouldn't dare question your judgement. Come on, then, we'll take the
left circuit while the other Ravenclaws finish their debate on how exactly a magically-constructed
brain receives physical sensory cues." He clicked his tongue at his string of three little terriers, and
glancing around surreptitiously, cast a spell. "Imperio. Find me earth furrowed by the hand or wand
of a wizard, within the last two weeks."

"Nott!" Hermione said in a low voice. "Really, did you have to use that spell?"

"It's not a human, it's an animal. And it's not even a real animal. I'm perfectly in the right, in terms
of legality—by British law, might I add. Enforcement's a bit more lax in the Continent, anyway—
one of the benefits of Dark Lords, surprisingly enough."

The dogs, heads low to the ground, led them to the perimeter of the circle that bounded them to this
grassy stretch of hillside. As the hours passed, clouds came scudding in from the north and across
the bowl of the sky with the speed of a racing river. Though the sun still shone brightly, it heralded
the unreliable weather common to the nations of Northern Europe, where a season passed in the
course of a day. Meanwhile, Tom wondered how they would return to Britain. He knew the
distance between Scotland and Norway was around the same distance between Hogsmeade and
London, feasible for a prepared Portkey, but too far for Apparition. He'd always relayed when
travelling that distance himself.

He also knew that a Portkey could make a direct transfer of the five-hundred miles between
Hogsmeade and London, because Dumbledore had given him one for that very purpose, several
years ago. The wooden button on a string, leading to the doorstep of the Hog's Head Tavern, lay
buried under Tom's extra-curricular reading at the bottom of his school trunk. If they could remove
the barrier ward, then Tom could get home, alert Dumbledore, and the two of them together could
present the Ministry with the glorious repercussions of their own incompetence.

Then the Prince of Charming would rise, once more, to the challenge...
Dog barks spoiled Tom's pleasant daydreams. The Conjured leashes jingled, while Tom's magical
construct of a dog sniffed along the ground and did a remarkably realistic facsimile of a piddle. It
lifted its hind leg and everything. Goodness, he truly had improved in his Transfiguration skills
under Dumbledore's week of tutelage. Nott's dogs, however, had found something of interest on the
ground, some distance away from the train, which lay draped like a wet towel down the side of a
gently sloping hillock. Nott unclasped the leash hooks and let the dogs have their way, yipping to
each other and pawing at the dirt, then digging in with their tails furiously wagging.

It looked like yet another large mossy rock that was scattered around like giants' gobstones, but the
dogs dug around it and Nott got on his knees, heedless of the big damp patches of mud soaking into
his iron-pressed uniform trousers. The boy Conjured a pair of trowels, tossed the spare to
Hermione, and the two of them began digging into the wet soil with the eagerness of seaside
holiday-makers.

"Oh, look!" cried Hermione. "The lichen has been disturbed. See how it's scraped off on this side,
and the gap hasn't filled in? This was recent."

"The clay undersoil is odd," observed Nott, rubbing a lump of dirt between his fingers; it stained
his skin a dark rusty red. "Ferrous soils aren't usual in glacial plains."

"It's not ferrous soil," said Hermione, "it's blood!" She threw aside her trowel and raised her wand
to Levitate the rock. Like an iceberg, it had a lot of bulk hiding under the surface level, and the near
one-ton weight did not rise to Hermione's bidding even as sweat gathered on her brow. Hermione
let out a huff of breath, and her fringe stuck to her forehead in sticky straggles. "Tom, can you help?
We need all of us together to lift it!"

With a put-upon sigh, Tom dismissed his Conjured dog and swished his wand in a silent spell. Nott
contributed his own Levitation Charm, and the three of them wobbled the muddy boulder out the
socket in the earth in which it was buried. With a flick, Tom turned it to its side, then they lowered
it to the ground and ran a stream of water over it. Hermione Transfigured her trowel into a large
dish brush to scrub away the chunks of dirt held together by root clusters and clotted blood. The
water pooled over the grass, streaked with brownish-red.

Eyes bright and expectant, Hermione crouched by the upturned boulder to read the inscription
written on its base, carved into an unnaturally even stretch of smooth stone. That flat foundation
had been hidden face-down in the earth, out of sight, with the weathered boulder-top left in the
open to give no indication that it been worked by sentient hands. The runes were clean and deeply
carved, and as Hermione ran her fingers over the lines, she shared her commentary on its meaning:

"This is what the textbooks call a 'repudiative ward'. It specifically names objects that aren't
allowed to cross the border, instead of applying a blanket enchantment against 'all life' or 'all
matter'," she said.

"Which would require too much power for the size of the ward boundary they used, and even then,
it appears they had to draw on the magic of physical essence, a sacrifice of magical blood," Nott
remarked. "Hogwarts' ward configuration is not even that general; the four Founders working
together weren't powerful enough for that."

"Let's see... Looks like a specific prohibition against messengers. See here, this line is commonly
used for things like Howlers, but they've reversed its meaning here—"
Nott nudged Hermione out of the way and squinted at the runes himself. "You're reading it wrong.
It's a prohibition against message-bearers. There is a difference. If the Aurors had sent an owl
without a letter, it would theoretically be able to leave the boundary. But only if the intent of the
sender was not to alarm the recipient with a delivery owl arriving empty-handed. Empty-clawed,
taloned, or whatever." He coughed. "A wizard's intent is a magical force, be it conscious or
otherwise. An owl hunting, that's fine. An owl seeking another wizard is acting as a bearer of
knowledge."

"No, you're wrong, actually," said Hermione. "Read that second line here—it's a logical procession
of the first. 'Beasts of burden and tamed hearth-beasts'. That's commonly translated as owned
creatures and magical familiars. So a wild owl could pass through, but not a pet owl."

"And not a house-elf," muttered Nott. He snapped his fingers. "Amity, I require your assistance.
Attend to me."

Nothing happened.

Nott scowled. "It was a faint hope to expect a successful Apparition across five-hundred miles of
open ocean, but it was worth a try. At least we're assured our captors have staged their wicked plans
with some level of care. If they plan to hurt us, it won't be through misadventure or incompetence. I
don't think I could bear it if I was killed through incompetence."

"The next line is the most important," said Hermione, ignoring Nott's morbid commentary.
"Humans can enter the barrier, but they can't leave."

"Oh, Granger, but you're wrong, actually," said Nott. "The word isn't 'human'. It translates literally
to 'man'."

"But I can't pass through the barrier, and I'm not a man," Hermione replied.

"The effect encompasses 'human' as a group, but a proper translator should appreciate both the
artistry and the technicality," said Nott peevishly. "I find that you always veer too close to a modern
reading of the text. Not only is it odious, it's woefully anachronistic. I bet you read Chaucer without
the thorn and yogh, too. Eurgh, I could never."

"Enough," snapped Tom. "From what I understand so far, the enchantment prevents certain
categories of beings and creatures from traversing the spell-boundary. To make efficient use of
power, the enchantment has focused on clearly defining which beings and what creatures can cross.
That leaves loopholes open for anyone creative enough to weave through them." He paused, as a
thought struck him. "Physical crossings are limited, but what about magical crossings? Nott, cast
your Patronus and make it fly over to the ridge over there. A Patronus is neither man nor beast,
neither slave nor servant."

"Because it's magic and soul," breathed Hermione. "It's not a message-bearer, because the magical
intent, at its core, is the manifestation of a benign protector. 'I await the protector'. Expecto
Patronum!"

Her otter flowed out of her wand and up above Hermione's head, launched aloft by silvery spout of
a phantasmic geyser, before it leaped forward and away from them. A ghostly pheasant joined it,
blue-white wings spreading open for a joyous flight into the blue-and-white sky, and with a brief
fizzle, both passed through the barrier that circumscribed the stolen Hogwarts Express. They
hovered briefly for a few moments, then darted away, side by side, in a westerly direction.
 Ten minutes later, three Patronus creatures returned: the silver otter, the blue-white pheasant, and a
glorious phoenix whose train and plumage burned with searing light. The otter went to drape itself
about Hermione's shoulders, the pheasant fluttered to Nott's feet, and the phoenix alighted on Tom's
right hand, where his yew wand was held in a relaxed duellist's grip. It gazed at him with its beady
bird eyes, an opalescent sheen swirling through its colourless irises, cocking its head in an
unsettling yet knowing way.

"That's that, then," said Hermione, letting out a sigh of relief. "Professor Dumbledore knows about
the problem."

"And now the only thing left to do is to go about solving it," said Tom. "A simple business, without
a doubt."

Chapter End Notes

— "Eumenes to my Alexander": General, loyal friend, and secretary to Alexander.

Quote about Eumenes from a rival general: "He had borne the shield and spear of that
monarch, while Eumenes had only followed with his stylus and tablet." — Plutarch, Life of
Eumenes

— "Schooler's Seven": Not canon, but based on real world graduation "traditions".

— "Thorn and yogh": þ and ȝ. Letters in Middle English for syllables influenced by Anglo-
Saxon language and rune alphabet. Phased out after the rise of the printing press and
standardised spelling. Thorn represents the sound "th", while yogh represents the "ch" sound,
which still exists in Scottish dialects.
 Northern Horizons
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

"The trick to it," said Hermione, "is to summon your Patronus and direct it out of the ward. Then
once it's outside, you can send it to find someone. Expecto Patronum!"

The ghostly otter leapt into being, tail thrashing, borne by a rushing silver current up and through
the warded barrier that lay one foot to Hermione's left. It was a curious barrier, the circular ward
she suspected could only have been designed by a pair of professional enchanters whose faces were
plastered over the papers, with an enormous bounty of five thousand Galleons on their heads, if
taken alive. It was a precise and selective obstacle defined by the creator's guiding intent. She could
place her hand flat on its surface, a stretch of thin air indistinguishable from any other, and press
with all her might, but it would move no farther a distance than if she had tried to shove the globe
of the Earth by pressing it too. But through it, she could feel a light breeze tangling through her
hair, and grass on the ground right on the border swayed back and forth as if there was nothing in
between.

"Expecto Patronum!" incanted Travers, and her otter was followed by a white sheepdog with a
lolling tongue and thick, shaggy hair that covered its eyes and floppy ears.

The otter and the dog were followed by a crowd of silvery beasts, called into existence by the
Aurors, all eight of them, and three other Hogwarts students who had managed to produce a
corporeal Patronus in time for the Defence practical demonstration. These were a Gryffindor and a
Hufflepuff whose parents worked for the Ministry, and another Hufflepuff who lived near Dundee
where it happened, once per decade or so, that a Dementor was marooned after being swept off
Azkaban Island in a winter storm. (Hermione was the only Ravenclaw with a Patronus, which
pleased her knowing that many of her Housemates had spent fruitless weeks ruminating on the best
memory for their Defence Against the Dark Arts exams.)

Aurors Wilkes and Trombley produced their own Patronuses: a squat, muscular bulldog and a
prancing rooster with silver spurs and a high, arching tail. Hermione thought it was strange for a
witch's soul manifestation to be a male animal, but Travers demurred.

"The symbolism matters more than the sex," said Travers. "A rooster is a fighter, a dueller, a
guardian of the flock. I know there's a wizard in the Auror Office whose Patronus is a female
peregrine falcon, larger and more competitive than the males of the species. Which are technically
called 'tiercels'."

"Oh," said Hermione. "So my otter is not too unusual for an Auror, then?"

"I don't know if there is any such a thing as an 'usual' or 'unusual' Patronus." Travers nodded his
head at the rest of the Aurors, who'd produced a bloodhound, a curled-up hedgehog, and a sleek
seal with glowing white spots on its silvery-grey hide. Aurors Probert and Kneller, she noticed,
summoned an ass with long velvet ears and a sprightly little finch, respectively. "Even when two
wizards share the same species of Patronus, like a dog, they never look quite the same."

Their Patronuses flew out of the ward boundary in constellation of gleaming figures, and twenty
minutes later, returned with a retinue of animal companions. Patronuses fluttered around the edges
of the ward, swimming around its circumference in irascible circles like a newly-acquired goldfish
plopped into the round bowl of its aquarium home. They lingered on shoulders and arms, and a
firefly Patronus in particular acquired an attentive audience of Aurors. Patronuses were unable to
speak, but they could perform a simple game of charades to communicate as much as any animal
could. The Patronus firefly was unique in being able to answer "Yes" and "No" questions with
flashes of its tail light.

"Has the Department been informed that the Hogwarts Express has been snatched in the midst of its
journey?"

Flash.

"Is the Minister's Office convening on a solution for retrieving the students?"

Flash.

"...Is there a solution yet?"

Flash-flash.

And so it went, the Aurors bearing joint expressions of displeasure, much of it directed at the tiny
firefly, which could do nothing more than hover as apologetically as an insect could, and brush
against hands and faces in tepid reassurance.

Travers' sheepdog had returned with an Alsatian hound nipping at its heels. It was a large dog
whose coat shone with an inner luminescence, proud pricked ears, and shining white eyes that
blazed like distant suns, with the detached hauteur of a thousand light-years of distance. Hermione
remembered Travers having described his father's Patronus as "cold", and she understood what it
meant now: the Alsatian hound possessed an aura of protectiveness that all Patronuses bore, but not
the enlivening radiance she felt from her own otter, or from Travers' fluffy shepherd dog, which had
rolled meekly onto its back under the Alsatian's cool stare.

The otter Patronus also rejoined from where she had sent it, hoping but not expecting for her plan
to work. It came to her eagerly, propelled by powerful lashes of its tail, in a silvery ripple of light,
twining about her head and shoulders. Darting behind it was an oversized dragonfly whose
scintillating wingspan surpassed a foot from side to side, each tiny clear pane gleaming with the
prismic iridescence of oil on water. For a brief moment, it landed on the otter's head, waggling its
stubby antennae, but then it flew off and away from Hermione with purposeful little flaps of its
wings.

She followed it, wand raised. Travers stumbled after her, the leather soles of his polished Oxonian
shoes, better suited for the comfortable indoor environment of classrooms and corridors, slipping
over the grassy tussocks. The dragonfly—Mr. Pacek's Patronus, for who else could summon a
creature that fashioned the vivid finery of art glass into a magical semblance of life?—led them to
the ton-sized boulder anchoring the wards, where it was being barraged by destructive spells in a
vain effort to achieve its destruction.
"Bombarda!" Tom called, and the force of his spell threw the boulder ten feet into the air.

It thumped back into the dirt, fully intact, throwing out a spray of torn grass and dirt crumbs. A
chorus of groans filled the air.

"Confringo!" someone else shouted, a classmate from Hermione's Ancient Runes N.E.W.T. class of
eight students. His spell blasted what remained of the grass around the boulder down to the roots,
filling the air with smoke and floating specks of half-decomposed vegetable matter.

Hermione cast a Shield Charm, then on second thought, cancelled it and replaced it with a Bubble
Head Charm.

"What are you doing, Tom?" she asked, joining the circle of Runes students in their unsupervised
chaos.

Tom glanced over his shoulder. "Cutting Gordian's Knot." As the dirt settled, he winced and added.
"Or trying to. Instead of trying to counter the enchantment by addressing each phrase with an equal
amount of magical force of an opposing intention, we'll destroy the medium. Break the stone, and
you break the enchantment. A bit more violent than countering it, but it saves time and effort."

"'Time and effort'," Hermione echoed disbelievingly. "Really."

"Really," said Tom, unperturbed. "The only hindrance is the protections placed against forceful
destruction. But that's a very minor obstacle, and I'm sure we can overcome it given a proper
application of derring-do."

"Reducto!" another student cried, and the resulting explosion made Hermione cover her face with
her sleeve.

Glimpsing the whole and unblemished boulder sitting in a hollow in the dirt, a muscle in Tom's jaw
ticked. "Would you like a turn at it? If you can replicate Alexander's feat, I'll do my best to ensure
you get the proper credit for it when this—" he waved a hand at the sloping valley and de-railed
train, "—is over and dealt with."

"Rather optimistic to assume this situation can just be 'dealt with', isn't it?" Hermione remarked.

"I happen to think it's a realistic conclusion," replied Tom. "One might admire the Germans for
their tenacity—no one starts wars quite like they do—but there's nothing to admire in their
tendency of spontaneous combustion. You'd think they'd learn a lesson or two from the
Carolingians to the Hohenzollerns, but they never do."

"But those were Muggle royal dynasties, Tom..."

"Magic or not, they were Germans," Tom insisted. "Just like we're all wizards, but British too."

"Ooh," said Nott, sidling over after having grown bored of watching Hogwarts students trying to
blast a rock into submission. "One ought to be careful with how broadly he applies the B-word
around here. Some of the Channel Islanders take it as an insult."

"If they're not British, then what are they?" asked Hermione. "Why do they come to Hogwarts,
Britain's premier school of magic?"
"They call themselves the last 'real Normans'," said Nott, with a snort of amusement. "And of
course they study at Hogwarts. Where else would they go? Beauxbatons? Not a chance."

"By right of geography, governance, and reason, they're as British as any Irishman," said Travers,
putting the last word to the argument. "What's that dragonfly gotten up to? Is it trying to deliver a
message?"

The dragonfly hovered over the upturned face of the rune-carved boulder, and began crawling over
the letters, fragile shining wings trembling in a soot-laden breeze. It pulsed with light, not near as
bright as it had been when it had first arrived with Hermione's otter, its segmented tail dipping and
curling as it moved over the carven inscriptions, like a finger tracing over a line of Braille code.
When the next student in line to take a turn at blasting the boulder lifted her wand, Hermione held
up a hand to call a pause to the excitement, then stooped low, brushing off the dirt. She read the
neat lines of runework chiselled into the flat stone face:

"'Yield not against the malice which seeks thy sundering;

Not by strength of thew or witch-worked steel be ravaged.
Unstricken by skill-plied alchemy and Transfiguring;
To thus remain by Nature's changesome pace be weathered.'"

"Your translation leaves much to be desired, Granger," said Nott sulkily. "'Changesome pace'?
Pssh, what is that supposed to mean? Where's the flavour, where's the texture? You're serving me
plain potatoes without salt and butter. I'd give you a six out of ten at best, if I was marking your
work. Barely acceptable."

"Well, I had to make some effort in preserving the rhyme scheme," said Hermione. "And it captures
the meaning—the inevitability of change, as it relates to the natural cycle. How would you have
translated it?"

"'Forfaren fate'," said Nott. "Or maybe 'Fated forworth'. I find that to be a more thematically
precise wording, particularly the latter, as 'Forworth' is a linguistic cognate of the phrase 'For
Wyrd'."

"But what does that mean in English?" asked Travers, who had been watching the dragonfly
Patronus crawl on the rune stone, and when it reached that line of letters Hermione and Nott had
been arguing over, moved to the next word and went no further.

"That is in English! It's not my fault you're illiterate," sniped Nott. "It means that the author of such
a warding scheme has accounted for the most common means of destruction. You can't break the
anchor stone by casting a Blasting Curse at it, by stabbing it in the right place with an ensorcelled
weapon, or a powerful material manipulation using Alchemy and Transfiguration. Is it a
coincidence those are the two fields of Dumbledore's specialty? The key point is that the
wardstone's fate is ultimately within the prerogative of nature."

"Which implies that Tom's technique of blasting it with total abandon would lead nowhere," said
Hermione. "And you were standing around watching him!"

"I certainly wasn't going to stand in his way," said Nott with a shrug. "I assumed that once he had a
few goes at it, he'd eventually realise what I'd already realised, and then be more amenable to
listening to someone else's ideas. And it is a legitimate strategy in specific cases, where you can
overpower the internal magic of a warding scheme by hitting it with enough external magic. That,
however, only happens with amateur wards... And is highly discouraged because, while it can blow
through a physical ward anchor, it blows through everything else around it."

"Speaking of someone else's ideas," interrupted Travers, "I know I'd said earlier that there was no
strict rule for what was 'usual' or 'unusual' for a Patronus, but does that not seem sort of unusual?"
He pointed to the dragonfly Patronus, waggling its wings at them from where it crept back and
forth over one particular line in the warding enchantment—"Do you think it's trying to talk to us?
Where did it come from?"

"From a trusted friend," Hermione answered, brows puckering in thought.

"The Auror manual explains that the purpose of using Patronus messages is to prevent interception
by Dark Wizards, as no one truly fallen to the Dark can cast a Patronus," said Travers. "But while
you can trust the source, can you trust the message?" He trailed off thoughtfully. "If there is a
message..."

"I trust the source," said Hermione. "As for the message..."

She narrowed her eyes at the dragonfly, its wings laying limp against the flattened face on the
granite boulder, the silver pulses that glowed in the facets of its bulging compound eyes like a slow
heartbeat. Growing ever fainter as the minutes had passed, because the Patronus Charm was a
demanding spell, especially when it had been sent across the sea by someone who didn't practice
the skill as often as a professional Auror was trained to do. Hermione knelt down next to the stone
and inspected the lettering across which the dragonfly had laid its long, iridescent tail.

She knew enough about runic enchanting to recognise that the last phrase was the linchpin of the
spell condition: And thus remain by Nature's changesome pace be weathered.

A wizard's spell couldn't accommodate every single potential exception. There simply wasn't
enough power for it, so an enchanter-by-trade accounted for the most common usages, out of
simple expedience. The protections built into the Hogwarts castle foundations prevented weather
damage, for no stone structure as large and elaborate as Hogwarts could withstand a thousand
Scottish winters without extensive seasonal maintenance. She knew that the Muggle Scottish peers
who owned castles suffered from perpetual leaking roofs, because as soon as they fixed one leak,
another side of the roof had sprung one too. But Hogwarts' wards didn't extend to protecting against
magical damage. Hermione recalled the undersides of staircase banisters were marked by multiple
generations of students' initials, scuffs in the walls had been left in the aftermath of corridor duels,
and deep in the Slytherin dungeons, a doorframe had been carved by her own hand. Such a feature
was necessary for allowing various renovations over the years, from the bathrooms to the
dormitories.

"'By Nature's changesome pace be weathered'," she murmured, tracing over that specific line in the
warding scheme. "That's the key, isn't it? The one exception. It's a logic puzzle like what
Dumbledore showed Tom, the one with the barrels. I don't have to break the rules—I have to find a
way around them."

The dragonfly crawled over her hand. It had no weight, not that she expected it to, but she could
nevertheless feel its presence, like a tiny fire cupped in her palm, the glowing warmth of a cigarette
lit in the recess of a doorway while braced against an icy wind.

"Are you trying to tell me that I'm close to the answer?" she asked the dragonfly. It twitched its
little antennae and weakly fluttered its wings. "Not long ago, I was given a Divination reading to
trust in animal instinct for finding my way in an unanticipated journey. That's what Sagittarius
rising means, according to Twyla. I don't usually trust Divination, but the learned wisdom from a
dedicated scholar? I find that more credible than someone who cites The Daily Prophet horoscope
in an essay."

"Granger?" said Travers. "Are you alright?"

"I was thinking," said Hermione, picking herself back up and brushing off her knees. She glanced
around at the circle of impatient Runes students, and Tom Riddle with his brows raised and an
expression of polite curiosity. "It's an unintentional puzzle with an unconventional solution. But it
requires a certain type of magic cast with the correct intent, and a lot of magic at that. We'll have to
work together, I'm afraid; I couldn't supply enough power on my own to break through the
enchantment—"

"Wait, you've found the solution?" said Nott. "What is it, then?"

"Oh, haha," Hermione laughed nervously. "Well, I think you were correct about the translation. The
two terms you used for your interpretation of the phrase, 'Forworth' or 'For wyrd'—"

"Not surprising, but go on, I'm intrigued."

"But I'm right, too," continued Hermione, glaring at Nott for his unnecessary interruption. "'Nature'
and 'wyrd', the path of natural destiny. When those two concepts are combined, what you get is
'entropy'."

"Uhh... Are we still speaking English here?" asked Travers.

"It's Greek," said Tom. "But it seems perfectly clear to me."

The Aurors disagreed with Hermione's conclusions, not out of any intellectual rigour, but on
principle.

"The Ministry has been informed of our travel delay," Auror Probert told her, in the bouts of rest
between sending out his silver donkey Patronus in a twenty-minute relay schedule. "We've been
instructed to stay here until the Ministry sends a specialist team to safely break the enchantments
from the outside, and get everyone home. You're only a student, so I doubt that your solution would
work anyway. Leave the professional tasks to those who are properly qualified for it. You have no
guarantee you won't make things worse. Or even cause further retaliation from—" He stopped short
and glared at Hermione.

"Further retaliation from... what?" asked Hermione.

"Never you mind. Run along now, aren't there bathroom queues to manage?"
"The ward's containment function is a boon," noted Auror Kneller, Probert's partner. "We can take
roll for the students without worrying one of them might wander off and fall down a ravine.
Children falling down holes happens all the time, and constitutes the sixth-most common reason for
Floo-calling the Auror Dispatch Office during summer holidays. And the fifth-most common
reason is losing a pet up a tree." He shook his head. "Sorry, Miss Head Girl, but these are our
official instructions."

Even Aurors Wilkes and Trombley would not condescend to help them. "There'll be heads to roll
when this is over and done with," remarked Madam Trombley with a deep sigh. "Even if no harm
comes to the children in the end, every thinking man and woman in Britain can see how easily it
could have. Four hundred students is an entire generation of wizards! The Auror Office will no
doubt be raked over the coals by the Minister, if he's still Minister by the time we're back, and it's
best to be seen following the book to the letter."

"'Be seen' following the book?" Hermione pointed out. "That sounds ambiguous."

"We won't be allowed to help you," said Mr. Wilkes. "She said exactly what she meant."

"But we won't get in your way, either," said Madam Trombley, sending Hermione a meaningful
look. "You've struck me as a perspicacious thinker, Miss Granger—more than Probert, at least. If
one recognises the value of not having to rely on Ministry efficiency in a sensitive situation, then
she understands we're sitting targets out here, and the only group with our direct location is the
group that brought us to this place."

"Keep your wand in hand," advised Mr. Wilkes. "That goes for you too, young Travers. Best hope
you've trained your reflexes to cast a Shield Charm at a moment's notice, and that your partner is
fast enough to cover for you if you're too slow at the draw."

Travers swallowed. "Yes, sir."

"We'll just be on this side of the train, then," said Madam Trombley. "If you're on the other side,
perhaps we won't see you."

The Aurors turned away to continue their patrol, leaving Hermione and Travers to their own
devices.

"Tom would take that as permission," said Hermione, glancing at Travers.

"And you?"

"I would agree with Nott—as painful as it is—that permission is debatable when jurisdiction is
contested. Norway is an independent nation by Muggle politics, but in the magical world, it's in
some form of administrative union with Denmark, as Wizarding Sweden is with Finland," said
Hermione. "The enforcement of British Ministerial authority may be in violation of territorial
autonomy, and I'm not sure the Aurors can apply official penalties, because we're not the ones who
have committed any crimes, here or in Scotland. The constraint on our actions is not in any formal
lawbook. It's a social contract." She hesitated, and added, "But we mustn't be blatant about flouting
the rules, naturally. Best 'be seen' following the book, and setting examples for good conduct for
others. We're Britons, not anarchists!"

On the other side of the train to the Aurors, Nott and the Runes students had excavated a deep pit
and filled it with Conjured water. Hermione had insisted that anyone who participated in her plan
should be over seventeen, and willingly volunteered. Tom had gone to round up the rest of the
Homework Club, because there was no reason why they shouldn't "volunteer" when asked to do
their duty, and when Tom had put particular emphasis on that word, Lestrange went away to collect
the members of the Slytherin Quidditch team who were past their majorities. And it was through
wizarding word-of-mouth that Hermione Granger's academic speculation somehow became a great
contrivance of derring-do.

"How certain are you that this will work?" muttered Nott, sliding in beside Hermione in the manner
of an incorrigible busybody. The news of Tom's announcement of his participation had drawn in a
great crowd of Slytherins, who resented the prospect of one of their number hoarding all the glory
to himself, which had in turn summoned Gryffindors like the ringing of a dinner bell. "It'll be a
blow to Riddle's standing in the House if you get it wrong. And his name will be your name, so it's
worth being careful."

"I trust in my understanding of the books I've read," replied Hermione. "'Yield not against malice' is
the basis of the protection placed on the anchor stone. 'Malice' is specific about intent, and when it's
used in spells, it encompasses magical intent. That's basic magical theory, and it implies that other
types of magical intent, directed to subjects that aren't the anchor itself, won't trigger the protective
enchantments. We won't have to cast our spells on the anchor stone. We'll cast our spells on its
environment."

"Replicating the power of Mother Nature," said Nott. "Hmm. In some ways, you and Riddle are
identical in arrogance."

"I'm not that arrogant," said Hermione, prickling. "I, unlike Tom, know that there's a chance it
might not work. If that's the case, then we'll have to think of something else or be forced to wait
however long for the Ministry to act."

"How large a chance?"

"Well... Not that large..."

"Right," said Nott, with a smug look. "When I'm asked later, I'll be sure to tell them it was all your
idea."

Hermione didn't think she was arrogant. Was it arrogant to place her trust in the laws of natural
philosophy, to believe that she could predict where a thrown object would land, not because she
knew better than Nature, but because she comprehended the rules of Nature? Magic wasn't
independent of rules, despite Tom's fondness for claiming rules were nothing but a construction of
the mind. There were rules of magic, and Hermione had studied their limits in spellcasting and
enchantment; she had spent years of her life pondering the various shortcomings of the Ministry's
Trace on underage magic.

And when she was a little girl, she'd owned a book called On the Tectonic Formation of the British
Isles which explained the processes of weathering on geological masses. Wizards born in the
magical world understood natural forces as semi-divine abstruse personifications, similar to the
fairytale figure of "Death". To someone like Hermione, who might as well have been born in a
modern library, Nature was a series of broad-scale elemental forces that could be reproduced... If
one had the wherewithal to harness the elements for her own designs.

The pit was completed on the other side of the train, out of view from the Aurors. A handful of
Gryffindors ran off to plant a string of contraband fireworks when the advantage of a good
distraction was proposed, which lessened the arduous task of managing the worst of the
troublemakers. After the water had risen almost to the edge of the pit, muddy with silt, the boulder
was tumbled into its centre like a coin in a wishing well. Students jostled for space around the pit,
packed shoulder-to-shoulder, while the younger students were ordered back into the train carriages
to watch, with the windows closed for safety.

"Aim your wands at the water, not at each other!" Hermione instructed. "This isn't a duel, and
you're not meant to posture at an opponent. Nor is this is a competition of House rivalry. This is a
co-operative effort for all of us, in service of each other's protection, by the witches and wizards of
Hogwarts!"

"That was a decent speech," Tom whispered. "Sounded a lot like the drafts of your Head Girl
address."

"I might have borrowed a few lines here and there," said Hermione. "But it's no academic offence,
since I wrote them myself."

They cast one spell together: Glacius.

During the week of training with Dumbledore and the Slytherin boys, they had cast spells together,
swarms of Stunners or Disarmers, which the Muggle military textbooks defined as in enfilade—a
feat Tom had reproduced on his own with his duplicated volley of mud pellets. But although they
cast in concert, seven wands spat out seven discrete bursts of sparkling red spellfire, not one spell
amplified in power by seven times its original force. Even when they cast Shield Charms together,
the result was a double- or triple-layered Shield, not a spell whose boundary expanded from the
standard half-dome shape into a full dome.

When it came to elemental spells, however, the effect multiplied. The temperature dropped by the
second as each student cast the spell with unmitigated enthusiasm, at the deep pool of water
containing the sunken anchor stone. The silted water frosted over with white, and hoary ice
gathered on the green summer grass, weighing down the seeded heads until they shattered over two
dozen pairs of leather shoes. The air misted with spirals of white steam, panting out from the
mouths of students who had never practised sustained spellcasting over the course of their
Hogwarts careers, and never had a reason to—for the Hogwarts education was meant to impart fine
control and self-discipline in day-to-day practical magic, not exercises of pure power as this was.

Some students coughed in the aching chill that seeped through the summer-weight robes and drove
icicles into the brittle sacs of the lungs. The cold hurt, and Tom, who had cast his own spell with
the resolute confidence of a magical prodigy, laid his left hand on Hermione's back, atop her robes,
and sent a silent Warming Charm even as he held firm to the main spell meant to imitate a natural
freezing cycle of a Scandinavian winter.

Hermione called for a stop after the water in the pit had frozen into a solid block. Then students
who felt too fatigued stepped away in favour of their better-rested compatriots, and the next phase
of the spell commenced: fire to melt the ice, to force an expansion of minuscule fissures within the
structure of the stone. It was not a spell cast directly upon the stone, but elementary
thermodynamics cast around it; this was the natural process by which glaciers had riven the
mountains of Norway and created this valley, along with the millions of fjords that gave the country
its picturesque reputation.

The combined fire they created was white hot, and when it touched the frozen pit, it hissed and
crackled like the fireworks exploding above their heads, sending a geyser of steam reaching for the
sky. The wall of heat hit them with the strength of a physical blow, and the circle of students
stumbled back in one disorganised mass, cheeks pink in the sauna-sweltering heat, brows dripping
with a mixture of condensed steam and sweat. The fallen grass on the edge of the pit charred and
smouldered, as the pit boiled dry, leaving the anchor stone in a mire of drying mud.

"Again!" called Hermione, and then they filled up the pit and froze it solid once more.

The fourth cycle of freezing and thawing took its toll of a third of the student participants, and
Hermione cast her gaze around, counting which of the over-enthusiastic students who'd joined in
the beginning could be coaxed into pouring their magic into another round. The fifth cycle had
them incorporate the Gryffindors who'd returned from distracting the Aurors with their collection
of smuggled fireworks, and she noticed that each time took slightly longer than the last turn
previous. On the sixth cycle, the circle of volunteers was half of what they'd had at the start. She
was gratified to see that not one of the Slytherins of the Homework Club had succumbed to
exhaustion; it appeared Tom's uncompromising attitude toward their magical educations had given
them greater stamina than the general Hogwarts population.

Her hair puffed out like a dandelion tuft, even as strands, wet with sweat, plastered to the back of
her neck. The tops of Tom's cheeks were in a high colour, but his hair was as neat as usual, with
only the cowlick curl at the front draping roguishly over his forehead.

Tom glanced at her. Licking a bead of sweat off the bow-curve of his upper lip, he said with a coy
smile, "Shall we go once more?"

Hermione couldn't stop the blush that darkened her cheeks. "Seven turns should do it, I think."

She lifted her wand, though her arm ached with fatigue. "One last time. Ready? Three, two, one,
go!"

And once more, the winter frost descended upon the tireless solstice sun of the northern climes, a
dry chill that drifted around their feet in a localised bank of white fog, from which fell a soft
powdering of summer snow. It dusted the shoulders of black uniform robes, soaked into her scalp,
and amplified the cold that burned her down to her bones. The water in the pit groaned in the
freeze, pale fractal fingers dancing across the surface in eerie fern-like patterns and clawing down
to the very bottom.

Then it was time for the heat, which blew back her wet hair like the roaring maw of a restive
dragon, chapped her lips and dried the moisture in her eye sockets, so each blink stung as if a
handful of sand had been flung into her face. It was so hot she could scarcely draw breath, and each
breath burned going down; she tried not to imagine her innards being gently poached like a soft-
coddled egg.

Tom's fire was a tight blue channel of concentrated power to her right side, and on her left, Travers'
fire charm was a fierce spear of glowing electrum that popped and sputtered from a dozen
flickering tongues. A spectrum of searing light circled the pit, which shrieked and howled with the
anger of a dying creature, as the water boiled to nothing and the top of the carved boulder was
exposed to the air. The rock itself took on an ominous cherry-red glow, and the runes impressed
wavering after-images of violet in the back of her retinas, as more and more of it was revealed.

The red glow grew brighter—too bright to look at—and Hermione turned her watering eyes away,
gasping at the heat and pain and the sizzling tears that left crusty streaks of salt on her flushed
cheeks. Tom's hand steadied her at the small of her back; she welcomed his support, and then the
fine cloth of his robes covered her face and head when, with one final, deafening, and inhuman
shriek, the runestone exploded into shards that pummelled into the silent Shield Charm that Tom
threw around the both of them.

Her ears rang. Booms of thunder reverberated off the hills, followed by splintering echoes
reminiscent of an onrushing avalanche. Jagged scrawls of lightning shot across the sky, encircling
the forlorn Hogwarts Express in towering streaks several miles high, as the wards burst asunder
with the chemical stink of ozone. Hot sparks drifted down in a glittering snowfall, pinpricks of heat
that burned tiny holes through the stuff of her robes and skirt.

"You did it," said Tom triumphantly, holding her close while falling gravel pelted his shield and
scattered over the crisped, smoking grass. "With minimal loss of life, too. We had better get to
dispensing the Essence of Dittany, then. Wouldn't want the Ministry functionaries to find some
reason to fault your heroic act of patriotism." He sighed. "They really don't like it when people take
problem-solving into their own hands. I have no idea why."

True to Tom's prediction, the Aurors weren't happy that Hermione had acted without their
permission. She'd finished school, and the "Head Girl" title was more symbolic than official, so it
couldn't be claimed that she'd overstepped the authority of the badge. Besides, the volunteers had
been Sixth and Seventh years above the age of seventeen, so the alternate claim that she'd risked
the safety of children in a dangerous conjecture fell just as weak. If students had been risked, they
had been full adults, and they had risked themselves, not Hermione.

Just to be circumspect, Hermione quickly charmed a parchment for truth-telling, and went around
to have the volunteers sign the statement acknowledging the consequences of their participation.
While Clarence Fitzpatrick fetched the medicine basket out from under the seat in the Heads'
compartment, so anyone who'd been scraped up by flying debris could have their wounds closed up
and patched with gauze.

"In the event it's asked later which students put themselves forward as a hero of Hogwarts,"
Hermione explained, offering the quill to a group of Sixth Year Slytherin girls. "We'll have a
verified list to send out to the papers. Maybe Hogwarts will put up a plaque later in recognition;
they have a 'Special Services to the School' award just for occasions like this. Wouldn't it be nice to
have your name on it for everyone to look at!"

Nott, who had made a point of being vocally dismissive of her plan, didn't seem very pleased about
her success, either. He had an unhappy look on his face as Tom drew him away for a sharp word
handed down in whatever dignity might be afforded by discretion. Nott glanced over his shoulder
with a frantic look of quiet desperation in his eyes, but Hermione wasn't feeling particularly
inclined toward staging an intercession on his behalf. Travers, who'd observed the silent interaction
with a bemused look, made no comment on it, and helped her cut the gauze and roll bandages,
which they soaked with Dittany to heal burns and simple flesh wounds.
After that, they "borrowed" owls from any students who had them, and had them carry reports of
the incident as well as transcriptions of the runes written on the railroad tracks—however much of
it that wasn't covered by the heavy bulk of the stranded locomotive and carriages. The train driver
sent his own report, addressed to the Ministry's Department of Transportation, while students
milled around nervously, hoping that their own owls would not be Shanghaied into service.

"We'll send a packet to the Board of Governors," said Auror Probert, addressing the students who
were eager to write their parents word of their health. "They'll distribute the information to the
Ministry and the major wizarding settlements, so your parents, who are surely waiting by their
fireplaces for the Floo-call, will find out as soon as it's sent away."

"But my parents don't have a Floo fireplace," said one lower-year girl. "I'm a Muggleborn."

"Erm..." Auror Probert trailed off awkwardly. "I suppose someone will get around to telling them...
eventually. There's a high likelihood you'll be safe and returned to them before they even find out
something has happened to the train. Always look on the bright side, one can't go wrong with that!"

"What do you think is going on at the Ministry right now?" Hermione asked Travers in a quiet
voice

Travers took a moment to consider the question. "The DMLE will call up the full Auror
complement, everyone from on-leave to half-shifts to the retired reserves. If they've managed to
glean any information on potential associates from the two Undesirables before the escape, the
Wizengamot have no choice but to approve every warrant sent up by the DMLE; the threshold for
reasonable grounds of searches will be as low as it's ever been. I shouldn't like to be on the other
side of those doors they're knocking down right now."

"It seems odd to me that they'd wait so long to take action," Hermione remarked. "Couldn't they
have begun the process earlier?"

"The Wizengamot is notoriously risk-shy," said Travers. "They don't like the idea of causing
unnecessary offence, which interrogations tend to do. Father says they abhor the entire notion of
'change'—see it as a Muggle conceit—and even worse abhor the idea of a wizarding war. Wizards
fighting goblins is one thing; wizards reminding Muggles of their place is another. But wizards
fighting wizards? They don't see a reason why everyone can't get along and bring their disputes to a
proper civil court to be solved."

"Their idealism is admirable, but not their refusal to acknowledge a wizarding war before it's
already begun," said Hermione. "I don't understand how the abduction of several hundred children
can be seen as anything but a rejection the truce agreement. You and Rosier explained how
important magical lineages are, and are magical children not the fruit of a family lineage?"

Travers shrugged uncomfortably. "To wage a war risks the lives of adult wizards—the mature
branches, not just the fruits. I'm certain the the more pragmatic half of the Wizengamot has
approved emergency powers, so the Ministry can take charge when the courts are caught in an
impasse," said Travers. "When we get back to Britain, Father shall expect me to work at the Auror
Dispatch Office once more. With the regulars out, they still need wizards to answer the Floos and
book disorderlies." He made a face. "It's best to acclimate ourselves to the fact that a war may be
inevitable."

"I think I already have," declared Hermione. "Stealing away children from their parents has never
sat well with me, whomever happens to be doing it. It should not be tolerated in Britain, or in any
country whose good citizens place value in an organised society over one that succumbs to tactics
of tyranny and intimidation. I admit to having criticised Tom over-harshly in the past for his
questionable judgement, but when he spoke about the necessity of acts of patriotism, that's the one
count for which I can't disagree with him. Someone should do something about the situation." She
frowned, and continued, "Speaking of doing something, where is Tom? He and Nott went off
together some time ago, and haven't come back. Where did they go?"

She craned her head around, and saw the clusters of Aurors arguing within a bubble of silence;
Prefects herded younger students back onto the train, using Sticking Charms to keep them aboard if
they had to; the line at the food and water stations wound around in neat switchbacks, if not by
intentional design, but by the power of native British queuing instinct. Pets ran wild after being let
out onto the grass to relieve themselves... But Hermione didn't see Tom lingering around, when she
was sure he'd enjoy inserting himself into the heart of the action. His was the disposition that liked
being seen being important, and few things bestowed the preening authority he relished more than
chaos in the sheepfold.

Elbowing her way up to the head of the food queue, she caught Lestrange and Avery in an
argument with the Hufflepuff Prefect in charge.

"How do you mean, we have the choice of the pasty or the sandwich?" Avery said incredulously.
"My choice is the pasty and the sandwich! Do I look like a man who can live off a single
sandwich!?"

"You're not going to die if you skip a meal. And it's not even skipping a meal at that..."

"But I'll feel like I'm dying," retorted Avery. "Look, how about I give you a Galleon, and you give
me five of the sandwiches. They came from this morning's breakfast table anyway, so it's pure
profit for your pocket."

"That wouldn't be fair to the people in line behind you!"

"There are ways to make sure no one ever finds out," offered Lestrange, jingling his own coinpurse
in the manner of teasing a pet Kneazle. "'Mislay' a box and forget where you last saw it. Some
helpful volunteers might stumble across it, but by that time the queue's already gone through.
Nothing but a convenient accident, happens all the time."

"You Slytherins are terrible," the Prefect complained. "If there wasn't another Dark Lord at large
right now, I swear you lot would be fighting amongst yourselves to claim the title."

"I won't speak for everyone else, but I'm not terrible!" Avery grumbled. "I wasn't planning to cheat
you on the deal; there's no reason for it. 'Morphews' is a proper wizarding surname, after all."

"Avery, Lestrange," Hermione interrupted. "Have you seen Tom?"

"I thought he'd be off with you," said Lestrange. "Why? Has he gone and scarpered off this rock,
now that the wards are down?"

"He wouldn't leave without us..." Hermione frowned. "Maybe he's just gone to use the lavatory in
the train. As a wizard, it would be faster to go in the bushes instead of waiting for a stall with the
witches, but it'd be too much barbarism for him to stand."
"I have to fetch something out of my trunk," said Travers. "We can stop by the compartment on the
way to the lavatory."

"Good idea," Hermione said approvingly, as she and Travers left for the train, followed by Avery
and Lestrange. Travers' mention that his mother had owled him a lunch bundle that morning, which
he'd left in his trunk, prompted Lestrange to abandon the food queue, and out of the corner of her
eye, she thought she saw the glint of gold as it moved from hand to hand. "My pointy witch hat is
in my trunk. If sunset's at eleven, then I'd rather not get a sunburn." She raised a hand to her cheeks,
chapped by ice and grimy with dried sweat. "My washcloth and a change of robes would do
wonders, I think. You too—" she nodded at Avery's uniform, which had seen better days. "You
could do with a change as well. Your sleeves are singed! Did someone beside you during the ward-
breaking effort hit you with his flame? Goodness, I did tell everyone to watch their fire, didn't I..."

Along the way, they met Rosier, who was sitting on the grass with his sister and a group of her
friends, huddled together around a basin. The broad, shallow bowl carved with runes around its rim
looked almost like a Pensieve, but it contained nothing but plain water, which lapped over the edge
and onto the grass to loud shrieks of complaint.

"Stop pulling it over to your side!" ordered Druella Rosier, glowering at a girl on the opposite side
of the bowl.

"But I can't see anything with Clarisse's big fat head in the way!"

"It doesn't matter if you can't see anything with your regular eyes. You're only meant to use your
third eye!"

Rosier saw them and pushed himself all too eagerly at his feet, too more groans of unhappiness.
"Sorry, girls, looks like I can't help with your scrying today. It appears my third eye's caught a stye.
Granger, Travers—what are you up to?"

"We're looking for Tom. Have you seen him?"

"He came this way with Nott a while ago," replied Rosier. "I didn't think it was worth the effort to
stop him and ask his business. I value my continued health too much."

Rosier joined their little group, heading toward the open carriage door, and was a better help than
the others at Transfiguring a simple stepladder to climb the five foot height up from the ground, a
chore avoided in normal commutes by the modern conveniences of a railway platform. The aisle
inside the train carriage was littered with rubbish, from where luggage had smashed open and
spilled during the Hogwarts Express' unexpected Portkey transfer. Hermione Vanished a chocolate
frog carton that squished unpleasantly beneath her foot, and made her way to their original
compartment. To her surprise, the compartment door was open and occupied.

Two cloaked figures stood inside, rummaging through trunks splayed open on the seats. They wore
plain black cloaks over plain black robes, and one of them, his back to the door, let out a
triumphant noise as he hauled something out of the bottom of a trunk, buried under a pile of folded
clothing and battered textbooks. Loose parchment and knobs of sealing wax pattered down, adding
another layer to the mess of the formerly pristine train.

"Hey, that's my duelling vest!" exclaimed Travers. "And that's my trunk..."

Displaced by the ransacking, a pair of men's combinations floated to the floor of the compartment,
the centre buttons of the upper portion undone to reveal the embroidered initials, QMT, sewn on the
interior neckband. Travers quickly snatched it up and stuffed it under his robes. "Why are you
going through my unmentionables?" he demanded, drawing his wand.

Hermione grabbed Travers' elbow before he could cast a Bodybinding spell on the cloaked wizard
who had broken the brass hinges off his school trunk. There weren't many wizards at Hogwarts of
that distinctive height and elegant bearing, or those slim, graceful hands that wielded a wand as
easily as it could pen a genteel salutation.

With a sinking feeling in the hollow pit of her stomach, Hermione addressed the mysterious figure:
"Tom? What are you doing?"

The cloaked wizard turned around, and revealed to her what she had been silently dreading. Tom
Riddle's face under the deep cloak hood, his eyes gazing imploringly at her, as if this was nothing
more than a simple misunderstanding between young lovers. A black scarf draped loosely around
his throat, a match to the fine woollen knit of Nott's black scarf, which dangled over the side of the
boy's Hogwarts trunk.

Tom cleared his throat. "This isn't what it looks like."

"Before you start screeching, Granger," said Nott, who was somehow involved in this strange
business, "let it be known that this wasn't my idea."

Hermione took a deep breath and closed her eyes, seeking the quiet reprieve of meditative calm she
had practised in her past studies of Occlumency, and most recently, in preparation for the Patronus
Charm. Due to recent events, she was becoming quite deft in managing the internal state of her
emotions. "What 'idea' do you think I'm mis-interpreting? There is a very obvious conclusion one
can draw from this scene, and if there is indeed some conclusion more obvious which has gone
overlooked, then by all means, I should like to be the first to know!"

"Well, it may look like Riddle's pilfering something that doesn't belong to him," spoke Nott. "But I
can swear on my sacred blood that he's no common thief. If you're going to moralise at him, let it
be for his actual wrongdoings."

"Thank you, Nott," said Tom. "I'm partial to being reminded, every now and then, of your value."

"Good," said Nott pleasantly. "Now we have the mis-interpretations interpreted correctly, would
you excuse us for a moment?"

He made to slide the compartment door shut on their faces, but Lestrange stuck his foot in the
threshold, and no matter how hard Nott jiggled at the handle or tried to close the door, Lestrange
resisted. The door shoved open, slamming into its pocket in the wall, and Lestrange bullied his way
into the crowded confines of the compartment with an unhappy scowl.

"You're him, aren't you?" he said accusingly, jabbing Nott in the chest. "The one from the papers."

"Him?" asked Nott, blinking innocently. "Who?"

"The Green Knight! Out of all the names in the world, only a dusty bookworm like you would
come up with such a name for himself!"
"Oh?" said Nott. "Fascinating theory, Lestrange. When the real Green Knight hears about it, no
doubt he'll find your speculations terribly amusing. How could someone like him have been
mistaken for me? I'm just an irrelevant schoolboy of no great importance, haha. Do I look like
someone who goes on adventures?"

"Aren't we going to discuss the Erumpent in the room?" said Travers, staring pointedly at Tom,
who was in the process of tying his scarf around his face and charming it to stick with a wordless
spell.

"What Erumpent?" said Avery. "I only see Riddle and Nott dressed for pranking Muggles."

"There's no Erumpent," said Tom, pulling something, a necklace of some sort, out of his robe
pocket. A pendant on a bit of string; the light from the bright summer sun caught on the curved lip
of the round pendant, showing tiny lines of runes like the enchantments inscribed on the band of
Hermione's silver ring. "And as for a discussion? No, I don't think we shall. Perhaps later, after the
dust has settled, we'll get around to it. But that's quite far off from now, and I daresay, far away
from here—"

The melodious cadence of his words lulled her senses to a gentle complacency, settling with a soft
languor over her limbs and thoughts, and around the compartment, the hard edge of confrontation
had been dulled in the eyes and expressions of the Slytherin boys. The suspicion faded; their
shoulders slumped.

No, thought Hermione, under the dominion of the calmness produced by her own meditative
efforts, that's not how I feel. I want to have a calm and reasonable discussion, not a unidirectional
placation, no matter how reassuring it sounds.

It isn't real, she repeated to herself, rejecting the strange detachment between her mind and body.
She rummaged through the library within her mind, piling up volumes of memory until she had
formed a great barrier which separated the curious lethargy from what she knew with utter surety
were her own private thoughts.

'Despite being an exceptionally useful and versatile talent when honed to the level of the master,
Legilimency is not indefensible: it may be neutralised by its equal and opposite talent, the art of
Occlumency, a meditation-based approach to achieving complete mental self-discipline...'

The barrier in her mind trembled under Tom's quiet, measured words, and the power of his dark
gaze that flashed like it did when he chased her mouth with the glistening edge of his teeth. A silent
missive passed between them in an instant, a plea to extend her trust the tiniest bit more. Those
sharp white teeth might linger at her pulse, but in each private moment that he sought her intimate
attentions, he had never moved to do anything but please her.

Trust me... The echoing words rattled around her skull like a pea in a whistle.

Tom raised his wand to the pendant in his hand, Nott huddling close, spoke the opening syllables of
an incantation. "Dumble—"

"Stop!" cried Hermione, one hand grabbing for Tom, the other jostling Travers by the shoulder to
knock him out of his stupor. In the cluttered space of the compartment, with open trunks and loose
parchment scattered across the floor, her lunge forward threw her off balance. Her foot slammed
Lestrange, standing directly behind her, in the shins. Lestrange stumbled into Avery and Rosier
crowded in the doorway and aisle, and the preternatural vacancy in their eyes shivered and broke.
"—Dore," came the final syllable from Tom's mouth, squeezed breathlessly out of him by
Hermione's weight falling across his chest.

Her hollow stomach violently churned as it was yanked away from her with the tenacity of a fish
on a reel. Her vision swayed and wobbled as the light shattered into a million spectral shards that
spun around her bleary eyes in an oscillating wave of colour and sound. Around her, she heard the
boys screaming in one hoarse voice—to her, at Tom, for anyone listening—even as her own
piercing cry lost itself in the thundering cyclone that surrounded them all in a whirling battery of
endless noise.

With an "Oof!" her body was thrust back into the static world, followed by her stomach, cut free of
its hook and line, and the sensation of its return was yet another jab in the gut on top of the
battering she'd only just experienced. Underneath her, Tom groaned his indignation, tugging at his
trapped cloak. Travers, whose elbow dug into Hermione's back, coughed and sputtered and spat out
a mouthful of red-tinged gob.

"Bit my tongue," muttered Travers, his voice muffled by Lestrange's armpit smothering him in the
face, and Avery's knee pressing upon his diaphragm. "What happened? What was that?"

Nott's reply was spat out with barely repressed irritation. "That was you being justly rewarded for
interfering with affairs that have nothing to do with you."

"What do you mean, 'nothing to do with you'?" said Hermione, each word rising shriller than the
next. "My future husband has been amusing himself in secret for goodness knows how long!"

"The hypocrisy doesn't flatter you well, Granger," snapped Nott.

"What does that mean?" spoke Tom sharply, and sliding Hermione off to the side, narrowed his
eyes at Nott, and then at Travers.

"Nothing!" Hermione and Nott answered at the same time, and after exchanging an emphatic look
at one another, Hermione said, "Alright. Since this is obviously not the proper time for
interrogations, we ought to deal with the real problem at hand. Where are we, and how did we get
here?"

She stumbled to her feet and looked around. Beneath her feet was smooth cobbles and the green
crêpe lining of Rosier's robe, which she quickly freed and dusted off with a cleaning charm. The
buildings around her were constructed with the distinctive look of Scottish Craigleith sandstone,
darkened by water and pitted by age, the roofs thatched, and the sounds around her were of bleating
and the dull clank of livestock collar bells. She craned her neck, sniffing the air. They were in a
carelessly maintained stable yard of a Hogsmeade business, judging by the smelly refuse bins and a
rusty snow shovel propped against a grimy wall. A covered structure, a few yards away, held a pen
of restless stock beasts, and by the disdainful expression on Tom's face, he was familiar with its
residents.

"We're in Hogsmeade," Tom said, with an irritable flick of his wand. A brownish substance,
smeared on Lestrange's face from their rough landing on the dirty ground, was magically scrubbed
away, causing the boy to hiss in discomfort. "And we got here through a Portkey. If you hadn't
touched me, Hermione, none of you would have been brought along. You would've been safe with
the rest of the students."
"You had a Portkey all along?" Avery asked. "Why didn't you say anything? We could have gotten
everyone in Slytherin back home in one go if you had given warning."

"I had reason to suspect that the state of Britain might be... tenuous," said Tom. "And I assumed I
wasn't the only one with a Portkey. They're such a convenient form of transportation for distances
impossible for flying or Apparition relays. Why wouldn't everyone have one prepared for an
emergency?"

"Because indeterminate Portkeys—a Portkey which retains its dormant state until activation—can't
be bought," said Nott. "Else the Germans would have got one from a shop and never have bothered
with the rigmarole of making their own."

"The only type of Portkey the Ministry approves and sells are time-activated," said Rosier. "They're
prepared for travel to a set place at a set time. Useful for Quidditch World Cup finals where the date
is set in stone, and the cost is offset by the number of travellers using it at one time. But useless for
anyone who needs to travel with a certain measure of flexibility, when one could fly, Floo, or Side-
Along." He shrugged, adding, "And since the Ministry specifications demand that only the most
mundane household items should be used, for purposes of wizarding secrecy, you have no idea how
often a Portkey gets tossed in the bin. Why bother, if your family has a house-elf?"

"Yes," said Lestrange thoughtfully, "so why do you have a Portkey, Riddle? Did you know you
needed one? You could've told me; I wouldn't have given you away. I thought we had an
understanding!"

Nott coughed. "Can you make some effort in not using his name while he's going incognito?"

"What do you mean... Does Riddle want me to call him something else?" Lestrange inquired,
scratching his head.

Nott winced. "He's supposed to be the Prince in this get-up. Not, well, you-know-who. That's the
purpose of this—" he made a sweeping motion to indicate the matching black hooded cloaks he and
Tom wore, "—melodramatic farce."

"Ah!" Lestrange nodded in understanding. "Sorry, Your Highness. I didn't know."

Nott let out a scoff, while Tom spoke: "If I had known about all this, I wouldn't have gotten on the
train this morning. I had the Portkey prepared years ago—"

"You never told me you studied Portkey enchanting!" said Hermione accusingly. "That's highly
advanced Charms, illegal to make without Ministry licensing. They don't like it when unregistered
Portkeys are left lying around and Muggles come out claiming they were snatched by flying
saucers. And the charmwork is so tricky. One tiny mistake and half your body would be splinched
who knows where! I can't believe you'd take such a risk!"

"The risk level hardly stopped you from grabbing Rid, erm, His Royal Princeliness, did it?" snorted
Nott.

"That's plenty from you," said Tom, glaring at Nott. "I didn't study Portkeys. It was made for me by
a qualified wizard whose credentials, even you'd agree, are beyond repute. Dumbledore gave it to
me back in Third Year, as a precaution. I never had a chance to use it."
"Dumbledore? But why would he give you a—" Hermione began. She stopped herself when the she
counted back the years. Third Year, that was the school year between 1941 and 1942. Tom was still
officially living in London, at Wool's Orphanage, until the summer of 1943. "Ahem. Yes, I see why
he'd make a Portkey for you. Never mind."

The Slytherin boys' eyes darted quizzically between Hermione and Tom, the shrewd calculations
running through their minds at some hidden meaning which passed between the two of them.
Hermione didn't expect them to discover the reason; the various theatres of the Muggle war had
passed as barely an inconvenience to the lives of pureblood wizards, and of the aerial strategies of
the Battle of Britain, they were completely ignorant.

Nott frowned. "But why would Dumbledore give him a Portkey—"

"Personal reasons," said Tom. "For now, I agree with Hermione that interrogations should be
delayed for a more suitable time. Instead, we should learn what we can of the situation with the
missing train. There was only so much information to be gleaned from the parlour game antics
acted out by dumb circus creatures."

"No need to be bitter about not having a Patronus," Nott remarked.

"It's not bitterness when it's objective fact," Tom shot back. "Patronuses can't talk. But the barman
at the Hog's Head can."

He smoothed out his black robes and swept his way to the front of the building, to the weathered
doorstep of the Hog's Head tavern beneath the swinging sign of the decapitated boar. The door gave
its usual squeaky greeting when Tom pushed it open, and Hermione followed him into the smoky
dimness of the bar room. Unlike the few other times she'd seen it during the day, the fire in the
fireplace was burning merrily, warm flames tinged at their soft feathery tips with the eerie green
glow of an open Floo Connection.

At the bar, the owner of the tavern stared intently into the eyes of a silvery goat that stood on the
scarred wooden counter, as if he was divining the mysteries of the universe in the Patronus' shining
gaze. The creaking door alerted him of the presence of guests, and he tore his attention away from
the glimmering silver goat, which tossed its ostentatious horned head and bounded nimbly down
from the counter, using the crooked line of bar stools as stepping stones to the floor. It circled Tom
with a wary curiosity, then came close to him, nudging Tom's left hand, which held the odd round
shape of Dumbledore's Portkey. Tom quickly shoved it into his pocket and cleared his throat.

"Good afternoon," said Tom. "What a lovely establishment."

"He deems you familiar," said the barman in a suspicious tone, as the goat returned to his side.
"Which must mean we've met before, Prince."

"Perhaps we have. Or perhaps not. I'm rarely inclined to mingle with the unwashed masses of
society. In fact, I favour a rather quiet and reclusive existence, if you can't tell by looking at me,"
Tom replied as confidently as he could, while surrounded by a group of his minions. "Enlighten me,
sir, what news there is of the Ministry? I've heard tell there was some complication with the
Hogwarts Express, but no word of any official response."

The barman studied Tom for a painful minute, his brows furrowed over pale blue eyes. "The whole
country has been looking for you. Haven't you heard the summons?"
"No. Should I have?"

The man shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe it. The Ministry of Magic is on the verge of
capitulating to the damned Germans, and here you arrive, not the coward in hiding the newspapers
are already preparing to call you in tomorrow's press run, but with the gormless wit of an ignorant
tom-fool!" Nott snickered at this comment, though his amusement was quickly silenced by a
meaningful jab of Hermione's elbow. The barman continued, "Where on Earth have you been
hiding, under a rock? God save Britain, for it's clear that she cannot rely on anyone else for her
saving!"

Tom scowled. "What? Capitulation? What has happened?"

"Grindelwald himself has landed in London," said the man. "He demands to meet the hero of
Britain, the Ministry's champion, for a parley. And he's spirited away the children to sweeten the
negotiation. He has agreed to settle on terms with you in person—or the Ministry as a last resort—
and no one will be allowed to quit the deal without a handshake, unless they're willing to condemn
the students to the mad depravity of Continental savages."

"London," murmured Tom. He squared his shoulders and cleared his throat. "Of course, I'll go at
once. There's no question of it; I am the hero of Britain."

The barman laughed. "Grindelwald's taken over King's Cross Station. It was the first place the
Ministry would look when the train disappeared, so he made sure he was there first. If you see him,
give Albus my regards. With no hero of Britain to be found for hours, he took it upon himself to
initiate the negotiation. Tell him, Prince to Professor, that his habit of dereliction has come back to
punish him. If I am soon to be dead under the tyrant's heel, then let me have my satisfaction at the
last!"

His cackle was loud and disturbing. Tom grimaced and retreated from the tavern. The main street of
Hogsmeade was empty. The shutters over the display windows were fastened tight, and an owl was
the sole sign of life, hooting despondently from the eaves of the quiet post office. Hermione, the
weight of unease heavy on her shoulders, took him by the hand and squeezed his hot palm.

"Are you going?" Hermione whispered. "To London. If you took off the cloak and lowered your
hood, no one would be any the wiser. No more Prince, no need for heroics. You'd be no more
important than any other ordinary wizard."

"I would never be an ordinary wizard." Tom's elegant hand enclosed hers, strong and steady, and
his gaze was calm with resolve. "There's no choice to make. I have to go."

"Then I'm coming with you," said Hermione firmly. Then she turned to look at the group of
Slytherins, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot.

"I'll go," said Travers hesitantly. "Who could bear to see decent Britons under the yoke of a foreign
tyrant? We'd never be treated as well as we deserve, with none of us speaking a lick of German!"

"For Britannia and Glory!" Lestrange agreed, whacking Travers on the back with so much
enthusiasm as to make the boy wheeze. "Good choice, my man."

"I trust Riddle," Avery said, as if there needed no other explanation.

 "Dumbledore's already there," mused Rosier. "No offence, but if it was Riddle alone, I wouldn't
trust his odds, not on my life. This, however, is possibly worth a flutter."

"Argh," Nott groaned, when the attention of the group, quite naturally, fell upon him. "I have no
moral objections against Dark Lords as a concept, I'll have you know. If I'm forced to toss my fine
name into the mix, let it be known that it's not for any such high-minded ideals as patriotism or
honour, but for the inescapable clutches of wyrd. Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel—'Fate goes ever as she
must'. If I don't go, I foresee an unfortunate but fatal accident in my near future. This had better be
worth it."

Chapter End Notes

Anglo-Saxon Old English to modern English translation:

— "Forfaren" - To perish, destroy, go to ruin.
— "Forworth" - To diminish, deteriorate, to become something lesser.
— "Wyrd" - To come to pass. Historically used in poetic contexts to represent Fate or Destiny.
— "Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel" - Nott quotes Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon saga about a hero
fighting the monster named Grendel. From his perspective, you can't be proficient in English
unless you know Anglish (Pre-Norman English).

— Channel Islanders - In real life, the Channel Islands (Jersey and Guernsey) and the
Republic of Ireland are not part of the United Kingdom. But when wizards say "For
Britannia", they mean classic edition GreatER Britain.

— "Combinations" - old-fashioned men's underwear consisting of a shirt portion attached to

drawers or long johns. In the US, known as a "union suit". Image reference.

— "Tom-fool" - "buffoon, clown". A common expression that for some unknown reason
makes Tom upset. We will never know why.
 The King of Swords
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

Tom made sure that everyone Transfigured their school uniforms to plain black robes like his own,
with hooded cloaks and Sticking Charmed scarves over the face. For anyone who couldn't do it, he
Transfigured their robes for them, ignoring the squeals of discomfort as fabric pulled and twitched
and unwove itself between sensitive parts of the body. What was the point of Tom's devising a
signature costume for his heroic activities, when no one wore it? He expected his actions would
earn his place as tomorrow's newspaper feature story, so he could not overlook the advantages of
leaving a good impression. Heroes, after all, did not save Britain every day. And here he was, doing
it single-handedly.

He could already taste the adulation.

Their Apparition did not take Tom and his companions directly into King's Cross Station. Tom cast
the spell, visualised the destination, flung himself into the churning maelstrom of the great in-
between, but found himself bounced out the other end like a rubber ball. He stumbled; his dramatic
swirling robe tangled about his feet. He stepped back as loud cracks of his fellow travellers came
into being as one disorganised black jumble, and together they turned to face their enemy's chosen
battlefield.

The busy thoroughfare in front of the grand arches and stained brick façade of King's Cross Station
should have been busy at this time of the late afternoon, the end of the day shift and the beginning
of the evening. There should have been trams trundling along the streets, harried conductors
punching tickets as fast as they could, and crowds migrating through the thick, stinking industrial
fug that symbolised the scientific advancements of the British nation. But there was no rattling of
passing trains, no grind of metal wheels on steel rails, no universal air of purpose in those on their
way to performing vital duties for King and Country.

Instead, the street in front of the station entrance was occupied by a series of white tents, and down
the cloth panels of each wall were the thick slashing lines marking out the M insignia of the
Ministry of Magic. Wizards in robes of Ministerial black and Auror scarlet ducked in and out of the
tents, buzzing around with the industriousness of a beehive. Occasionally, a wizard in colourful
"civilian" robes and jaunty pointed hat emerged from the magically expanded tents with an armful
of junk. This junk soon revealed itself to be a disassembled bollard, one of a long line of rune-
carved wooden bollards, which were connected from one to the next by ropes. The contraptions
formed a combined perimeter around the station, with the exception of a single unfinished gap that
Tom and his companions had Apparated themselves through.

Tom peered around. That was the strangest thing: the lack of Muggle presence. Beyond the barrier
of ropes and bollard posts, trolleybuses trundled back and forth on their regular commuter routes,
but none of them lingered at the King's Cross Station trolley stop, passing by the empty benches as
if the drivers had forgotten their existence.
It was the least strange thing he had seen today, which only made him assume a sinister magic was
at work.

With an impatient huff, a wizard with another set of bollards waved them out of the way. He set
them down, untangled a length of rope, and with a tap of his wand to knot the lines, closed off the
gap behind them. He brushed off his hands off with a satisfied nod, and turned on his heel to leave,
but when he noticed Tom's group milling not far away, his mouth dropped open and he stuttered,
"Y-you! Oh!"

"Good afternoon," said Tom, offering his gloved hand for a shake. "Pleasure to meet another
admirer."

The wizard backed away from them, and raising his wand to shoot off his Patronus, a tiny Eurasian
martin, scurried off back to the tents without a word.

"Admirer," snorted Nott. "Getting ahead of yourself there, weren't you."

Tom made to stride to the station entrance, but a brief brush of Hermione's hand against his slowed
him down, and her nervous intake of breath stopped him entirely.

"The Ministry knows you've arrived," murmured Travers, eyeing an approaching group of black-
robed wizards, following behind the fluttering form of the silver martin. "If you don't want to be
taken as trespassers intruding upon official business, you need to think fast. I don't want to be
arrested!"

"You there, state your business!" ordered the Auror at the head of the Ministry patrol, a cautious
hand to his wand pocket. He was tall and lean, and a thread of combed-over hair on his balding
scalp swayed with each step. With the flat tone of too many repetitions, he continued: "Until further
notice, non-essential enquiries must be directed to the Ministry. You will receive a queue number
and proceed from there."

"Stand down, Auror Poffley. If I am not mistaken, this is no ordinary traveller. It's the Prince of
Charming, in the flesh," spoke a voice of cool authority from the back of the patrol. Ministry
officials hurriedly got out of his way, to reveal a wizard with iron-grey hair and a dispassionate
gaze, one that lingered for far too long on Tom's scarf-covered face, his black hood pulled low, and
the sliver of dragonhide vest peeking out between the draping folds of his cloak. "You have decided
to come to the defence of Britain, at last. And with reinforcements, no less."

"Mr. Travers." Tom gave a polite nod to the man. "We never meet in the best of circumstances, do
we? Defending Britain was no difficult decision to make, for any man of good moral character. But
there were, to my deepest regret, some inconvenient delays in presenting myself to the task."

"Delays? By what, may I inquire?"

"Investigating the disappearance of the Hogwarts Express, of course," Tom replied smoothly. "I
would not abandon the fair isles of my homeland by my own will. Britain has called for me, and
here I am."

"And what exactly," asked Mr. Torquil Travers, "have you discovered during your investigation?
The nation's greatest families seek to know what has befallen their lost children."
"My Knight has gathered some pertinent information." Tom snapped his fingers. With a weary sigh,
Nott elbowed his way to the front of the group, treading on toes and cloak-hems as he went.
Collecting the parchments from Nott, Tom offered them to Mr. Travers. "This should contain the
coordinates of where the students have been taken, along with transcribed passages from the runic
enchantments used on the Portkey mechanism."

"My notes reference several chapters from the syllabary text Norsk Runealfabet og
Runeinnskriftene," said Nott. "Particularly of interest, the usage of anchored sun runes for
amplified power, laid down on the date on the high solstice. Don't we have that book conveniently
in our possession, my Prince?"

"I suppose we do," grumbled Tom. "You have my permission to hand it over, as a temporary loan.
But I do expect it to be returned, in perfect condition!"

Mr. Travers took the book from Nott, passing it off to a subordinate. However, he kept the
parchments, flipping through the pages of Nott's tidy handwriting. "Where's Cutcheon? The
veracity of this information must be confirmed before we can act. Geminio." He cast the
Duplication Charm to copy the parchments, which made their way into the hands of the Ministry
officials.

"Sir," said Poffley, "He's still organising the Muggle repelling wards. We found a way to muddle
the train schedules, but the Muggles won't stop sending over their police inspectors to look for
missing trains. It's bad enough that the we have to find another station for all those passengers that
would have stopped at King's Cross for transfers—"

"'Veracity'," Tom interrupted. "Have I given you any reason not to trust me?"

"Here, Poffley, the warding team must have a look at this at once. Have you sent a runner for
Cutcheon, or must I summon him myself?" said Mr. Travers distractedly, drawing his wand. At
Tom's question, the man stopped and gave him an inscrutable look. "It took hours for the Auror
train guard to inform us of their unexpected diversion. You claim to have found where they've
gone, and made yourself privy to information—" he brandished the parchment scrolls for emphasis
—"that you would only have if you had seen the train yourself, or taken it directly from the
enchanters themselves.

"We sent a team to Scotland, and found the place where the train had been taken. The rails were
gone, stripped out of the ground as clean as you like. Do you mean to tell me you took a round trip,
here, let me see... North of the sixtieth parallel and into some wilderness near the Arctic Circle,
within the span of a few hours? And you brought nothing back but a bundle of paper to prove it?"
With a weary sigh, he flicked his wand, and with a low whistle, summoned his Patronus. The
Alsatian hound flowed out of his wand-tip and to the paving stones at Mr. Travers' feet, ears perked
and tail swishing back and forth like a silver pennant in the wind. "Fetch the wardmasters. If
Cutcheon is occupied, round up the contractors. It's time for them to earn their keep."

The dog Patronus bounded away, with the silvery figures of three other Patronus creatures keeping
pace.

"The Minister has full faith in my abilities," Tom said, sniffing. "I'm the Prince of Charming. I don't
see why it's impossible to believe that I have the skill and talent to perform improbable feats."

"The Minister cannot vouch for you at this moment, unfortunately," said Mr. Travers. "He sent owl
after owl for you when we first learned of the train's disappearance, claiming that you, as a
steadfast ally of his, would respond at once. With no replies received after several hours, the
Wizengamot took a vote of confidence and dismissed him. Spencer-Moon's barricaded himself in
his office and refuses to leave until the date of the next election is set. For the crime of trusting you,
he has lost his position."

"Did the Wizengamot put you in charge, then?" asked Nott. "What happened to Ogier Rawlins?"

"Director Rawlins is a Spencer-Moon appointee and has been re-assigned to an advisory role at the
DMLE," said Mr. Travers. "I am the acting department head now, invested with emergency powers.
I have been informed that mine is meant to be an objective hand on the reins, an expectation that
the official procedures will be attended to and upheld. Thus you see why I must be cautious toward
your rather extraordinary claims, Prince. It isn't personal. It's simply politics."

"The Prince's claims aren't extraordinary," said a voice behind Tom. "I vouch for him."

Quentin Travers stepped out from the cloaked mass behind Tom, and all the while he could hear a
steady stream of Hermione's low muttering: "Psst! What are you doing? He's going to know who
you are; there is no way he's not going to recognise you in a shot, even with a hood and a scarf and
your clothes Transfigured..."

Mr. Travers stiffened; his hand raised his wand ever-so-slightly, but then he caught himself and
lowered it, although Tom could see his feet were nevertheless positioned in a duellist's stance.

"I've seen with my own eyes where the Hogwarts Express went," continued Travers. "I was there. I
helped dismantle the ward around the train that kept the students penned inside like livestock.
There exists no other explanation for the Prince's testimony other than that he speaks the truth. To
deny it is to impugn my name and honour. It may be that my honour matters little to you, sir, but
my name ought not to be so quickly discarded."

A crease furrowed Mr. Travers' brow. Ignoring the whispers of his subordinates, he strode forward
and shortened the distance between himself and his son. And he was in clear cognisance that the
cloaked young man in front of him was his own son, Quentin, for the old Auror's fingers twitched
as if he was in a mood to grasp the boy by his shoulders and shake him for his insolence. They
stared at each other, two wizards of similar height and demeanour, with a shared disposition Tom
had privately considered that of someone who saw taking lamed horses behind the woodshed and
puppies to the river as an unpleasant—yet unavoidable—duty. No reverence to be found for the
deep mysteries of life and death, only an uninspiring sense of practicality.

"If you are no imposter, then show me your Patronus," ordered Mr. Travers.

Travers glanced over his shoulder, drew his wand, and took a deep breath. "Expecto Patronum."

A large fluffy sheepdog hovered in the air by Travers' shoulder, strands of drool from its lolling
tongue like glistening dew. Mr. Torquil Travers stared at it, his mouth in a stern line, fingers
gripping tightly at his wand.

"Auror McClure called the Prince a 'beardless boy' after their first meeting," spoke Mr. Travers in a
clipped voice, so softly that Tom could barely hear it, and his gaze flicked from his son to Nott,
then to Avery and Rosier in the rank behind. "Are you to tell me that McClure was right? That the
army the Prince has assembled on the field today consists of barely more than a handful of puling
schoolboys?"
"We've finished school, actually," said Nott.

"And I'm not a boy," said Hermione, peeking around Nott's shoulder.

"Even if McClure's suspicions were correct," said Travers quietly, "it was irrelevant against the face
of necessity. He needed the Prince's co-operation."

"And you need it, too," Tom said. "Unless you've got another warlock tucked up your sleeve. No?
Didn't think so. They happen to be thin on the ground even on a good day. Don't forget that as your
authority has only been granted on the basis of an emergency, it can be rescinded at any moment.
My authority as the Prince of Charming, however, comes from no one but myself. Take care in how
you speak to me... Or my royal retinue."

Further criticism was interrupted by the return of Mr. Travers' hound Patronus, along with a flock
of other Patronus animals, sent ahead of the professional warders and enchanters who had come at
the summons. The martin—a tiny bird of a size to fit in a teacup—an orang-utan with a flat round
face that glowed like the moon, a thrashing silver swordfish, and a dragonfly that flittered back and
forth in some erratic yet indiscernible searching pattern.

"Mr. Travers," said a nervous-looking wizard who was now, thankfully, relieved of his bollards,
"you sent for us, sir?"

"Ah, Mr. Martin," replied Mr. Travers. "And the wands-for-hire that your Department sought fit to
engage with the proceeds of my emergency discretionary fund. I need translations for these
documents. See to it that you prepare a poetic translation, a literary translation, and a version in
triplicate summarising the salient points in plain English."

"Where did you come by these papers?" asked one of the enchanters, a man who wore a wizard's
robe over a suit. His waistcoat bore a distinctive design of red embroidered flowers.

"They were delivered to me by the Prince of Charming." Mr. Travers gestured at Tom and his
minions.

And then, beneath the veil of a coal-hazed afternoon, Tom was made to share an exquisitely
awkward moment of eye contact with Mr. Sigismund Pacek. Mr. Pacek's expression was strangely
blank, but his dragonfly Patronus with its shining crystal wings juddered in mid-air, then toppled to
the ground like a stone. At the last second, it caught itself and swooped back aloft, and all Tom
could glean of the man's emotional state was a dull sense of disapproval.

"Mr. P—Mr. Enchanter," Hermione's voice suddenly broke the silence. "May I speak with you?"

"The current state of affairs," said Mr. Travers to Tom, "of which you clearly have not been
informed." He leaned close, and continued, "A team of Aurors was sent in when we first began our
investigation of the station. They've not returned. Neither have we seen what has become of the
Muggles. King's Cross is packed with Muggles as a matter of course, but we have seen neither hide
nor hair of them either. The routes have been diverted away from the St. Pancras-King's Cross rail
interchange, but nonetheless, the several hundred Muggles who were present on the station when it
was taken have not been accounted for."

"You haven't gone in to retrieve the Aurors?"

"It was judged too high a risk. They would have returned by their own initiative... unless they
couldn't," said Mr. Travers ominously. "There are few who can resist the deceptions wrought by the
vilest of Dark Magic."

"Is it true that Dumbledore has gone in to negotiate?"

"Yes," said Mr. Travers. "He sends an occasional Patronus to remind us he is still alive, but we've
heard no word of his progress in the negotiations, if there has been any at all."

Tom frowned. "What is the goal of his negotiation? The students, well, obviously they should be
rescued, but does the Ministry truly want to forge any sort of agreement with as treacherous a
creature as a Dark Lord?"

"The Ministry, as an institution of laws, resents being impelled through levers of transparent
extortion. Instead, as the closest and most powerful independent party whom we could expect
would not be detained on sight, Dumbledore volunteered himself to buy time in which we could
find the missing train and bring the students home—"

"More of a distraction than a real negotiation, then," Tom interrupted. "I see. By your personal
estimation, would it suit you to bargain for peace with a Dark Lord, or remove the problem
entirely? If you could choose the best solution, what would it be?"

"When it comes to such affairs, one rarely has the convenience of choice."

"Let me put it this way, sir: if you had to pick between the lives of hundreds of Muggles, an Auror
team, Albus Dumbledore, and your own son," said Tom, watching Mr. Travers intently for any
trace of a lie. "Or a dead Grindelwald... Which one would you pick?"

Mr. Travers gave him a searching look in return. His gaze darted to the parchment sheaves handed
around to the enchanters, Hermione jabbering away at them in her Lecturing Voice. "What about
the students on the train?"

"Say that you've found and secured them. They're removed from the equation."

"A dead Dark Lord."

Huh, thought Tom. No lie there. The man had been truthful throughout their conversation, but his
latest admission rang with a particularly painful dose of blunt honesty.

"Suppose it came out that the rules of a diplomatic truce were not observed with, ah, appropriate
decorum. Would the Ministry, as an institution of laws, rebuke the actions in spite of reasonable
practical justifications?"

"I suppose," said Mr. Travers slowly, "that some clemency might be afforded, given the situation in
question."

"You suppose," said Tom. "I want the ruling authorities—Ministry and Wizengamot—to promise
it."

"Authority only offers a guarantee to those who offer results."

"I see," said Tom, with a thoughtful nod. "I think you and I can come to a reasonable
understanding. Patronuses can travel freely despite the warding of the station. If you send your
Patronus to signal when you are ready for me to, hmm, conclude the negotiations, I will do my best
to ensure that your faith in me is rewarded."

When Tom turned back around to gather his troops, ready to prove himself of capable of delivering
a spontaneous morale speech, he saw that Hermione was in ardent conversation with Mr. Pacek,
with whom it seemed like she had given up pretending she was unfamiliar.

"Here," said Hermione, taking at a parchment scroll and a handful of carved wooden stakes from an
interior pocket of her robe, "I made this for my final project. Placing the stakes should show you
where I am on the map—I calibrated it against my own magic when devising the rune scheme. If...
If my magical signature disappears, please let my parents know that I'm sorry, but I couldn't excuse
myself as a conscientious objector, not this time. I regret that we had so short a time together. Tell
Mum and Dad..." she took a slow breath, scrubbed at her eyes, and continued in a quiet voice, "Tell
them... it was by how they raised me that I knew at once the only right choice to make, when the
decision presented itself to me."

Mr. Pacek patted her consolingly on the shoulder. "You can still turn back. The Grand Minister
desires to speak with the Prince of Charming. It is the Prince he has requested by name and
reputation."

"I can't let To—um, you-know-who, go in alone!" said Hermione.

"He is an accomplished wizard, not a helpless child."

"Thank you," said Tom, "I'm glad someone here has confidence in my abilities. Are you ready to
go?"

They set off with a mutual sense of grim determination, Travers muttering some Latin incantation
to himself as they walked. Tom, translating it in his head, realised with annoyance that the boy was
not casting a protective spell, but reciting some biographical blather about tossing oneself into the
precipice of the Rubicon River. Which was nonsense, as the Rubicon was no precipice: it was so
shallow a man could cross without getting his tunic damp. And he knew the Romans wore their
tunics short. Even the Scots surpassed them in modesty.

The brick archways at the station entrance, bustling with dozens of travellers every time he'd
passed this way, were deserted. It was an eerie feeling, hearing his feet echo off the paved tile
floors, with no other accompaniment but the heavy tread of footsteps from the other group
members. Hermione ducked around an archway to pick up a newspaper from an abandoned
wheeled cart. With her true Good Girl conscience, she took a coin from her pocket and placed it in
the collecting tin, before she came over to show them the front page.

"They're still selling The Daily Telegraph, and the cart was half-full," said Hermione. "It should be
near empty at this hour of the day, switching to The Evening Standard within the hour or so."

"Seems like the station was taken over not long after the Express was misplaced," said Tom. "That
happened about an hour after noon. The only way it could have happened, in such co-ordination,
was through a secret conspiracy."

"What does a Metallurgist do, other than enchant mental?" Travers muttered to himself. "How often
do wizards require huge amounts of metal in this day and age?"
"They don't, not usually. There was a reason the Tinworth foundry let a German take over the
business," said Nott. "British metal mages, for the most part, work noble metals in negligible
amounts. Trinkets and jewellery and such, not tools for war, else they risk stepping on the toes of
the local goblins. And whilst they have tiny toes, goblins have large tempers."

"But Muggles use metal all the time," said Hermione. "The Hogwarts Express is the rare exception,
and there is no equal to its size and capacity. The Ministry's elevators don't come close. This whole
situation... It was preventable, had we recognised the clues before today!"

"Speak for yourself," said Nott. "I predicted it would happen."

"You guessed it'd be Dementors, and a year off," Travers pointed out.

"I dare you to tell me I was wrong about the Dementors!"

"Makes me wish I'd been a little more generous with the wolf traps," Tom said to himself, then
clearing his throat, announced, "There are twelve platforms inside this station. Thirteen if you count
Nine and Three-Quarters. Grindelwald could be on any one of them. As the leader of this
expedition, I say we keep to a group, instead of splitting into pairs. We don't know what else is in
there—it could be Grindelwald's own minions, vampires, Dementors. Or worse, hysterical
Muggles. Do try to keep the killing to a minimum; the goal here is to make Grindelwald look like
the villain."

Inside the station, the light dwindled and dimmed, despite the extravagant arched windows above
the doors; it was replaced by a deepening gloam that carried an almost-tangible weight. Tom had
never found himself perfectly restful in the Muggle world after having discovered his magical
birthright, but even he knew something was... off. The minutes listed on the departures board had
not been touched from the hour past noon, and the arrivals board listed trains that had never
materialised.

A train station was supposed to be a hubbub of activity. Edifices of steel and concrete were the
physical demonstration of Muggle might, for without the whimsical utilities of magic, man's nature
was to conquer his world through other means. Coal and steam were the superior language of the
British race, who connected isles and continents into an empire on which the sun never set. But
here and now, the rails were cold, the platforms lay bare, and a murky dark liquid dripped down the
mortared crevices of the high brick walls.

And the next step Tom took plunged him into darkness.

He felt a chill wind ruffle his robe and raise the hair at the nape of his neck; he heard the gasp and
squeak of his companions behind him. His wand slipped into his hand, and raising it in front of
him, felt the tip smack against a solid barrier that hadn't been there a moment ago.

A disembodied chuckle echoed in his ear. He strained to find its source, turning his blinded face
this way and that, but it came from all directions at once, like an echo uttered in a circular room.

The laughing stopped. Then a voice spoke, quiet and controlled, enunciation clearer than the typical
drawl of upper-class Received Pronunciation, but with a most unusual lilting rhythm.

"Ah, has Britain's young Prince accepted my invitation at last? Finally, a worthy incentive to seek
the fount of all his labours. Albus did warn me of your obstinacy... I suppose I should have taken
him at his word. He has always had such a striking affinity for recognising a kindred spirit."
The voice laughed again, ringing in Tom's ears with an aching force of will that could only have
come from mental magic.

Tom cleared his throat. "Yes, I am the Prince of Charming, with my retinue. My Green Knight. My
lovely Maiden Fair. And some others of lesser notability. That's the trouble with minions—the good
are few and far between."

"Hmmm," came the disembodied voice. And as if the speaker had placed his hand over a telephone
receiver, Tom heard it whisper, "If you wanted me to favour him, Albus, why did you not tell me he
and his lover were aligned in cause and conviction? You know that young love brings out my
sentimentality. I cannot bear the empty Sehnsucht of der junge Werther when I could have der
Liebste Roland who finds that no obstacle can withstand such constancy in love. Ah, who can resist
it? Not me; no, never me..."

The voice faded into the darkness that surrounded him. It was an all-consuming and indiscriminate
dark which absorbed not only sight and sound, but sensation too. Hermione's fingers tickled against
his palm, then her hand slipped into his, her touch faint and weak and somehow lacking in solidity.
Tom squeezed Hermione's hand anyway, holding onto the one reassuring anchor of reality, trying to
repress the quiet alarm that rose in him as he realised he couldn't feel the usual hum of warmth
from his wand.

"You wanted to speak to me," said Tom. "Now here I am, ready to treat with you. If you have no
need for me, there are bureaucrats aplenty ready to speak on the Ministry's behalf."

"Any wizard worthy of the rank of protégé is not wrought from common stock. The courtesies must
be observed," mused the voice. "And a lord is as a lord does. Very well. Follow the path, and soon
we shall greet each other in the flesh."

The darkness receded, and Tom found himself blinking in the buttery sunlight of high summer, with
a fresh breeze lightening the clamminess he felt dampen the many black layers of his Prince's
costume. The path below his feet was of packed dirt, dry and rutted, so conspicuously rural that
even the villagers of Little Hangleton would have turned their noses up at it. The roads in Tom's
village were no city boulevards, but they were bound in bitumen, for the landlord owned a Rolls
Royce with white tyres he didn't like muddied up. Hermione gazed at her surroundings with wide
eyes, while Avery frowned and kicked the earth with a heavy boot.

The boy jerked his head at the tree-lined path, which led into a small country village of neat
thatched cottages and whitewashed walls. At the village line, the path was paved with smooth,
rounded cobbles. In the distance, the tip of a tall steeple rose above the treeline.

Avery said, "I've walked this road before. It's Godric's Hollow, the mixed village in Somerset. Good
sporting in the local moors if you keep a crup pack, though most people come here as pilgrims, not
as huntsmen. They say the village church has a sepulchre laid over Godric's own bones, marked
with the sign of the lion. That's the name of the village's pub, by the by. If it's open, I wouldn't mind
standing a round."

"In A History of Magic, Bagshot posited that Gryffindor's lion heraldry was derived from his
ancestral origins," said Hermione. "He was a proud Englishman, descended from the Danish tribe
of Angles who settled England after the fall of Rome. The lion shield is a symbol of Denmark."

"Has that anything to do with Grindelwald? As far as I'm aware, the man is German," murmured
Travers.
"He's not exactly German, not really," Hermione corrected.

"His German is well fluent for a non-German. I heard him speaking in my ears!"

"Yes, of course, but that doesn't make him a German-German."

"A German-German?" Travers asked. "Does that make us English-English?"

"He's more like a Swabian-Hungarian," Hermione continued in her lecturing voice. "Politics are
rather more fragmented in the Continent than they are in our united British Isles. I read in a
newspaper that Grindelwald is fluent in six languages. Impressive!"

"Six languages is respectable only if one is Latin," Nott interjected. "One can't be considered fully
literate unless he has his Latin declensions."

"Well, I don't know my declensions and I'll have you know that I'm literate!"

"You did hear me say fully literate, didn't you?"

"There's no one around," said Tom suddenly, stopping short. Hermione, still quarrelling with Nott,
bumped into his back. "It's a Sunday afternoon in the summer. I'm far from an expert in village life,
but surely there ought to be some sort of goings-on... going on. Don't people in these rural
backwaters go to church? Or hit balls around in the village green? I know I'd be inside reading my
spellbooks any time of day or season, but these are ordinary wizards and witches. Why aren't they
doing ordinary things?"

The dirt road was bare of people and vehicles. Sunday was, for ordinary workers, the one day in the
week for which they could reserve their labour for themselves. The Riddle family gave their
servants a half-day off on Sunday, ostensibly for Christian reflection, but in reality it meant
spending their wages in the nearby town, Great Hangleton. But this town was dead silent, with not
even an occasional caw or chirp to break the quiet shush of the breeze through the hedgerows, no
flutter of wings as owls came and went, as would be expected for the typical wizarding homestead
which, without exception, kept one or two birds per household.

"How did we get here?" asked Rosier, bending down to flick a blade of grass that bordered the
road. "I didn't feel a thing. Instantaneous magical transportation is never seamless, not Floo or
Portkey or Elf-Apparition." He flipped his wand into his hand, and began to turn in a circle... and
another circle, then another. "It looks like Grindelwald is the only one who decides who goes in or
out. I can't Apparate out of here, the same as the wards back on the train."

"We have more important concerns at the moment than getting out. For instance, why are we here
in the first place? What is the purpose of this... this theatrical scenery?" said Tom, as they came
across a weather-beaten fence on the outskirts of the village. Within the fence was a graveyard,
containing a haphazard scatter of stone markers, grimy with age; some of them, he noticed, were
carved with the alchemic symbols to denote time and date by the rise of the planets. Others were
inscribed with the slanting runes of the Ogham tree alphabet. He ran his fingers over the faded
letters, trying to sense the magic of ancient grave wards imbued into the stones, but he felt nothing,
only rough surfaces coated with damp black lichen.

It looked real. It felt real. But something about it rang false to him, with that peculiar itch of untruth
that clung to the back of his throat like a burgeoning sneeze.
The centre of his unease lay within the far corner of the graveyard, under the shadowy branches of
a venerable yew. Yew trees were a traditional feature of English graveyards, Tom knew, for their
symbolism of death and rebirth. These hardy trees had poisonous leaves, and sprouted themselves
anew from broken branches. When he had first read of wandlore after discovering the myriad
delights of the Hogwarts library, he'd been pleased to read of the meaning of his own wand. His
was a wand which would never allow itself to be wielded by an heir. It might be reborn one day, but
that was a far off day indeed, as Tom did not intend to see himself familiarly acquainted with his
own grave any time soon.

Beneath the spreading yew was a pair of wooden benches with a wooden table in between them, for
the convenience of visitors in need of space for their quiet contemplation. The graveyard visitors,
sitting on the benches as if it was a casual Sunday afternoon like any other, were the only people
Tom had seen thus far, and their presence did nothing to set him more at ease with his
surroundings.

One was Professor Albus Dumbledore, looking a little worse for wear, his trumpeted sleeves
powdered with white ash and black burns over violet embroidery. The other man, sitting opposite
the professor, was unknown to Tom. He had pale blond hair the colour of lemon ice, draping past
his shoulders with the careless elegance of rich gentleman wizards. His eyes were blue and
sparkling like Professor Dumbledore's, but the light that glinted within them was cold and harsh
and bright, like snow glare on a frosty winter morning. The man dealt out a handful of cards to
Dumbledore and when he picked up his own, the ringing peal laughter he let out upon seeing the
cards was unsettling to Tom's ears.

"Double deuces! Ah, fortune is generous to me today." The grin he gave was lively and vivacious.
When he breathed and moved and spoke, it seemed like Nature herself had shed some fragment of
her grandeur on him. His voice resonated in the still air such that Tom heard each word as clearly as
if the man had been only an arm's length away, and the light dappling through the yew branches set
a halo of golden motes over his head. With his pale hair, sharp roguish features, and long silvery
coat whose hem draped across the grass, he looked like a forest spirit in graceful repose;
Dumbledore could scarcely bring himself to turn away from the sight.

Grindelwald wore a mantle of gravitas so captivating it had an almost palpable energy, drawing
everyone closer and closer.

Tom swallowed, shuttering his emotions behind an empty black sky, keeping himself fixed on the
physical senses entwined with his physical self. His carved wooden wand handle, the too-tight
knotted lacing of the dragonhide vest, the heavy black layers of robes, stifling hot without any of
the moving air currents one should expect of venturing out of doors. Glancing to the side, he saw
Hermione's eyes transfixed on the two men playing a card game, her teeth biting into her lower lip,
while the other boys stared with the blank, placid expressions of grazing cows.

"Hermione," he hissed, snapping his fingers. "This is all a game, a distraction. None of this is real.
Stay focused."

"What? O-oh," stuttered Hermione. "How do you know that?"

"I can always recognise a liar when I see one," said Tom. "Besides, you know that I have a good
grasp on what's real.... and what isn't." His finger brushed the inside of her wrist, tracing the line of
flesh where it met her sleeve, the hot pulse of blood that thrummed at his touch.
He approached the wooden picnic table and took a seat beside Dumbledore, the boys and Hermione
following nervously, eyes widening when they realised whose company they had trespassed upon.
Hermione murmured something to Nott in a voice of quiet trepidation, and Nott replied, "He's right
about the fakery. Half of the old-growth forest around Godric's Hollow was burned down in a big
fire at the turn of the century. It was an irreplaceable loss; prime wandwood doesn't just grow on
trees, hah..."

"Since you so greatly desire my attention, it obliges me to grant it." Tom let out a theatrical sigh,
somewhat muffled by the scarf across his face. It was difficult to look intimidating when one was
dressed up like a common house-burglar. "Grand Minister, Professor, what may I do for you?"

Grindelwald studied him, the sparkles in his eyes glittering with sharp edges of pain, like the
bursting crackle of hot sap in a wood stove. Tom hardened the walls of his resolve, concentrating
on keeping his thoughts blank and impenetrable, while Dumbledore frowned and chided, "Gellert,
this is very unnecessary."

"It is necessary," retorted Grindelwald, and suddenly the pain was gone and the sparkles were just
harmless reflections of clouds in the summer sky. "I wanted to see what he was made of, this Prince
you have fashioned for me and led to my doorstep. He passes the minimum standard, as expected.
For many years, Albus, I have questioned the soundness of your judgement—"

"My morals, you mean. My judgement has vacillated at times, but my morals have never bent in
the way that suited you best."

"Bah, your morals, so be it," said Grindelwald. "But your discernment, which I have always trusted,
has remained impeccable. You have always had an innate sense for those who dance upon the
fulcrum of the epochs." Grindelwald smiled and waved his hand over the face-down cards he had
left lying on the table. "Then again, so do I."

He flipped the cards to reveal their faces, and they were no longer a playing card set of familiar
suits. They were painted figures of the magical tarot: Six of Wands, The Magician, King of Swords,
and for the last card, the Wheel of Fortune.

Rosier hissed when the final card was revealed. "Triumph, talent, authority... and destiny. The first
three are solid personal readings. But that last one is the most dangerous. One wrong step will have
you trip over the cusp of your own success and be crushed under the wheel. Not good, not good.
The wheel of fortune can only move forward by grinding one edge into the dirt."

"Well, I don't believe in silly prophecies anyway, so as flattering as it sounds, it doesn't matter,"
said Tom. "There is only one truth to speak of: power. As I see it, you have lost your throne in
Europe, so all that you bring to the table today, other than your personal influence, is a handful of
hostages."

"A generation of magical youths is more than a handful," said Grindelwald.

"More or less, I suppose," Tom replied. "You've gone to such lengths to tread on my doorstep, so let
us speak plainly, the two of us—from power to power. What is it you want that I may grant?"

Grindelwald smiled. "You."

Dumbledore flinched. "Gellert, you cannot mean—"

"Seven years and seven days sworn in service to me, my prince," said Grindelwald, cutting off
Dumbledore's protests mid-word, "and you will leave me as a king. My star wanes, my wheel turns
away, but yours has yet to rise. If you wish to learn the secrets of magic that lie beyond the realms
of law and custom, if you have questions to which any professor you ask would choose his
squeamishness over his tenure... Then who better to teach you than a wizard who has already
walked the path that you have just begun?"

"And what path is that?" asked Tom.

Grindelwald tapped a tarot card on the table. "The King of Swords."

Tom surmised Grindelwald's Laconic statement of the obvious was intended to convey heavy
implications of some greater meaning. But he had read the Divination textbooks, and been put off
from it years ago after discovering that Hogwarts' "modern education" of the subject meant star
signs and crystals. For anyone born without Seer's blood, it was thus of little more interest than the
Muggle palm-readers found in every other tuppence tinker circus.

Grindelwald and I are hardly walking the same path, he scoffed to himself. He's on the path of
humiliation: from ruler of the Continent to confronted by a schoolmaster and a gaggle of former
pupils. Why should I let him lead me?

When Tom listened to Dumbledore's life advice, it was with the knowledge that the old professor
chose a teaching profession for his own perverse amusements, and could retire at any moment. Tom
considered wage employment to be a humiliation in itself, independently wealthy as he was, but
Dumbledore enjoyed it for whatever inexplicable reason. That was the difference.

"It would not do Britain's own hero, the Prince of Charming, any favours to be seen capitulating to
a foreign warlord," Tom remarked, looking around to see that his minions watched the exchange
with shrewd calculation. "You must understand that I have a reputation to uphold. A true hero
wouldn't be swayed by villainous temptation."

"That is true," agreed Grindelwald. "But a true hero could sway a villainous heart, no? With the
strength of his integrity, der gerechte Prinz redeems a wayward soul and helps him atone for his
offences. Is that not a beautiful story to capture the heart of a nation?"

"It's very much a story," Hermione interjected. "You're more than a little wayward, and you've done
more than a few offences! After all that you've done, what makes you think you can be forgiven,
just like that?"

For the first time, Grindelwald turned the full weight of his gaze on Hermione, who quailed at the
unexpected attention, but squared her shoulders and glared at him in defiance, unfaltering under the
pressure of a foreign mind. With an abrupt burst of laughter, Grindelwald turned away, to the four
tarot cards of Tom's reading still on the table. The man flipped them over to the decorative
scrollwork on the backs, then flipped them over again to reveal the faces.

Four cards: Seven and King of a regular card deck, then Judgement and Ace of Pentacles from the
tarot.

"Fate will judge me," said Grindelwald. "And from there grows the branches of my next path." To
Tom, he said, "It is your presence here and now which steers the fall of Fortune's Wheel at the
crossroads. The people of Britain would not gainsay your will, were their fearless hero to vouch for
my forgiveness. I confess my wrongdoings; I endure the harsh sting of remorse. All I have taken, I
will gladly return."

"The children—" Dumbledore began.

"Were never to be harmed," said Grindelwald. "I could have done worse, and easily so, but I did
not. Take it as a demonstration of conscience; I am not beyond that horizon of irredeemability. But
it is not only one man who must accept my change of heart as genuine, I think. The leaders of the
British people must be convinced, and to them I must prove my penitence—not merely in word, but
in substance.

"I possess the contents of a dozen state treasuries," continued Grindelwald, turning his glittering
eyes to Tom and Dumbledore, and the boys behind them, ready to draw their wands at a quiet word
from their leader. "Gold, ancient artefacts, goblin-wrought treasures that the barrow kings have
tried and failed a dozen times to wrest from wizarding hands over the centuries. With such an
endowment, Albus, you could hire the summer staff to keep Hogwarts in session year-round and
from a younger age, for children of magic who wish to flourish in a world that has disadvantaged
them since birth."

Hermione's breath caught. Grindelwald chuckled.

"A repository of the arcane arts can be yours as well," Grindelwald said. "I had my own
Department of Mysteries, and its secrets will be laid bare for your eyes. Everything I have learned
of the arts of prophecy and fate, the alchemic essence of time and life, the creatures of this plane
and beyond. Including that creature on the other side who beckons one and all, except for those
who gain mastery of his domain. Yes, Death himself." He flourished his wand at Dumbledore with
a wink and a grin. "I have found it, and as I promised you years ago, when I have no need for it
anymore, it shall be yours to do with as you wish."

Tom stiffened at the drawn wand, making to raise his own, but Grindelwald returned it to his
pocket and said, "Still not convinced yet, my Prince? All you have to do is inform your government
that I have been defeated, and as the one person powerful enough to command me, you must take
control of my confinement. Then we will build a prison appropriate for a wizard of my standing,
and thus I will take my retirement from infamy in quiet solitude. No Dementors, no guards, only
runework enchanting and a peaceful sinecure for a tired old man. It is not much to ask for, is it?"

"It'd hardly be a prison without Dementors," said Tom.

"It is the pragmatism of securing a national resource," Grindelwald replied. "Dementors would
negate my utility as a font of magical knowledge. Your government would agree with it, if they had
assurances that I was held securely in your power. Were they not willing to consider sending the
compatriots they arrested to 'rehabilitory custody' instead of executing them in one stroke? There
would not have been a trial if the British Ministry wanted such rare expertise relegated into
oblivion. A collared warlock gives Britain the upper hand in any international negotiation."

"Utter madness!" sputtered Nott. "A collared warlock is a simmering cauldron. The moment you
look away, it explodes in your face."

"I will make an Unbreakable Vow to the Prince, if you doubt me," said Grindelwald. "To him alone,
I will offer my surrender."

"And not to Dumbledore?" asked Tom.

"I am afraid that the Ministry of Magic deems Albus too biased to be trusted," said Grindelwald. "I
was a Grand Minister, after all. If possible, I should like the government's co-operation."

For a moment, Tom hesitated. Wasn't this everything he wanted for his career? Success, acclaim,
conquest, a key to magical resources that he could not otherwise access due to his lack of
connection and reputation. Spellbooks locked up in private libraries, entire fields of magic gated
away by esoteric craftmasters who decreed that a prospective student could be taught only if he
swore to run the shop for the rest of his life. Rare magics like what he learned during his
Legilimency lessons, but delivered straightforwardly, and without the five years of obscure
personality tests that Dumbledore had forced him to endure before Tom had been deemed "worthy"
of private tutelage.

Grindelwald could give him that, without the games of moral scrutiny. No requisite pretense that
Tom was a Good Boy who would never conceive of using his new skills for dastardly ends.

Hermione glanced at him. Tom took a deep breath and re-considered his calculations.

He looked at the cards on the table. Grindelwald had drawn the King of Leaves, a suit of the
German playing deck. In Britain, this would be the King of Spades. Like most face cards, the King
had two heads, mirrored from the centre. One faced up, one faced down.

Grindelwald proposed to crown him a king, because he saw that Tom's wheel of fortune was
destined to rise. Tom concurred with most of it, but recognised the wheel was not a static entity; it
always moved forward. Grindelwald willingly accepted his humiliation today because he
recognised the chance that his own wheel could rise again some future day. Anyone with the
capability to earn a crown carried the firm assurance he could earn another. Any wizard of
Grindelwald's calibre would not put on a collar unless he knew he could take it off.

Was this not what Tom had been warned about a few days ago? That he would be given a
recruitment offer, and ultimately, it was meant to serve Grindelwald's ends, no matter how
advantageous the benefits appeared on the surface. If he accepted Grindelwald's proposition, then it
would appear that all sides won. The Ministry captured their Number One Undesirable. Tom was
proclaimed the hero of the hour. Grindelwald scraped himself out of the consequences of his
Continental warmongering. Dumbledore's star-crossed friendship was returned to him afresh.

The more Tom thought about it, the more it rankled him. It sounded so tempting because
Grindelwald was a guileful manipulator, and Tom didn't even trust the man now, so what would it
be like later, if they had the chance to foster a closer association? He might become as weak-willed
and enfeebled as Dumbledore, who looked as if he was truly considering the offer as a feasible
undertaking. As much as Tom regretted deferring to a minion, Nott was right: a collared warlock
couldn't be trusted.

And what was it that Hermione had once said? "You wouldn't be able to stand the existence of
another boy swaggering about the halls, calling himself a prince of magic."

She was right, too. Another wizard, casually mentioning he could raise kings? Dumbledore, a
powerful wizard in his own right, was tolerable because he didn't go around saying such things. If
the professor was to be believed, everyone was happier with a cosy fireplace and a good, thick pair
of woollen socks. No ambitions, and therefore his motives were not in competition against Tom's
own.
No, thought Tom, and clarity—with a bit of own contrarian nature—cleared his tangled
ruminations, as the ghostly outline of an Alsatian hound shimmered in the speckled light that
speared through the yew boughs above. It was barely visible but for the pale gleam of its eyes and
teeth; no one else but Tom had noticed it. Tom understood its message: Torquil Travers, the
Ministry's representative, was present and observing.

If there is to be a winner in this situation, then there may only be one: me.

"The Ministry wouldn't be so credulous as to believe that an accomplished wizard would go all this
way just to call a forfeit," said Tom. "They'd ask us to submit our memories for reviewing. Even I
have to admit it looks suspicious that this supposedly fraught negotiation has not one spark of
confrontation... Unless it's your intention to provide fodder for the conspiracy-minded out there."

"Yes, I see," said Grindelwald. "We must stage a good duel and all doubts will be eliminated. With
the odds of two against one, Albus would disarm me, and I, with great reluctance, will be forced to
acknowledge the precarity of my position. Then you will Conjure some ropes and bring me in for a
citizen's arrest. A good narrative is an essential foundation for your hero's journey. You would
never have to pay for a drink again!"

"Agreed," said Tom, standing up from his seat and brushing off his robes. "Dumbledore, are you
participating?"

Dumbledore sighed wearily, and to Grindelwald said, "You could have turned yourself in at any
moment. Why wait until today?"

"The right circumstances had to be arranged, Albus," said Grindelwald. He twirled his wand
between elegant fingers. "I did not intend for my wand to be won by any other wizard but you. In
any other time and place, it would have been difficult to contrive such an amicable transfer of
ownership."

"I... see," said Dumbledore, bowing his head and readying his wand for the first cast. "Very well. Is
everyone ready?"

"Certainly," said Grindelwald.

"I am," said Tom. He gestured to Hermione and the Slytherin boys. "You can stay out of this if you
want."

"Are you sure about this?" asked Hermione hesitantly. "It doesn't seem right to go along with him,
given all he's done..."

"Don't worry, I'll personally ensure that justice is dispensed. For now, we'll just toss a few rounds of
Stunners, maybe a Jelly-Legs or two to make it look real," said Tom. He winked. "Then
Dumbledore will finish things off with an Expelliarmus and we can all go to the pub."

"I can do a few Stunners. No problem," said Lestrange. He winked back. "As real as you please."

Nott coughed. "'Stunners', of course. I, too, know a few non-lethal curses. Everything will go as
planned, I'm sure."

"Fate wouldn't have given him the King of Swords for no reason," said Rosier.
Tom glanced up at the floating Patronus dog hidden high among the leaves. "All you have to do is
trust me and follow my lead."

The Patronus lowered its head at him, then faded into the shadows and out of sight.

"Alright, T—um, Prince," said Hermione. "If you say so."

"When have I ever been wrong?" said Tom. With a faint smile on his face, he slipped his wand out
of his sleeve, and took three measured steps. Then he turned and gave the traditional duellist's bow
and salute to Grindelwald.

The first spell he cast was Stupefy, angled deliberately over Grindelwald's shoulder. Waiting for his
cue, the Slytherins tossed their own spells in Grindelwald's direction. All were lazily deflected off
the flickering hemisphere of a Shield Charm cast by Grindelwald. Dumbledore pointed his own
wand, releasing a burst of fiery pellets like a barrage from a Muggle artillery piece. Zip-zip-zip
went the spells, silently cast and with such perfect speed that the spellbursts resembled a
corkscrewing orange spiral that drilled into the magical shield. The Shield Charm juddered again
and again until, methodically weakened, a pinpoint hole expanded from the tip of the corkscrew,
consuming what remained of the shield as it grew.

Tom watched the action closely, surreptitiously casting a set of Bubble-Head Charms on himself
and his followers.

Dumbledore swished his wand; a beam of emerald green shot through the hole and flicked
Grindelwald's gnarled black wand right out of his hand.

The instant the wand left the man's fingers, Tom set the graveyard on fire.

Grass dissolved into black clouds of choking soot. The yew trees roared like thunder as leaf,
branch, and trunk together dissolved into pillars of red flame that clawed at the serene summer sky,
whose sun had not moved an inch since the time Tom and his companions had made their arrival.
Gravestones creaked and toppled. A hot wind rose around his ankles, gathering the heat of the
burning trees as Tom cast his silent incantation. Using natural heat gave the wind its power, and the
wind gave the heat further fuel. It was a dangerous balance. With the mental agility that Tom had
honed from living in two bodies at once, he danced on the fulcrum of two potent spell constructs.

"What are you doing?" Grindelwald snarled at him, tearing amulets from around his throat. He
pressed his thumb to one of them, shaped like a pewter crow with red glass eyes, and its sharp beak
cut into his flesh. Blood dripped down Grindelwald's palm.

"Making it look real," replied Tom.

With a sweep of his arms and a grimace on his face, Grindelwald dragged back the burning grass as
if he were throwing open a pair of heavy curtains. The thick sheet of green and brown sod beneath
his feet split in two, rolling and buckling, and from beneath the rubble of fallen gravestones
churned a great writhing mass of human figures. Muggle figures, by the look of them. They wore
their hair roller-curled and pomaded under hats that were neither pointy nor spangled—a sure sign
of a wizard's taste in fashion. Their suits were darkened with dirty streaks, and the close cutting
along the sleeves and skirts spoke of the concessions made to fabric rationing. No velvet, no cloaks,
no dragonhide shoes; with their plain suitcases and sensible handbags, they were nothing more than
mundane commuters.
They were mundane in every way, except for their faces. Each and every one of them bore an
expression of such ardent bliss, grins of elation rigid on their stiffened faces. They had died in
ecstasy, as if in their last moments of life, they had surrendered themselves body and soul to the
divine arms of some greater power.

Even Tom found it unsettling; he suspected it required a wizard to stretch out the intermediate
"dying" phase between lethal suffering and death, then cast a powerful compulsion right at the
brink. Of course, that was only conjecture; he had never had an opportunity to prove it. Maintaining
mental commands at the throes of death? He had speculated, as a natural Legilimens, he would
likely feel the crossing as it occurred. The closest he had ever gotten with his experimentation was
the minion, Vajkard Kozel, who had been knocked unconscious with a Draught of the Living Death
before the man's actual death. Tom was disappointed to learn the Ministry had later revived Kozel
after the Atrium business and, within a few days, sentenced him to execution by Dementor. What a
waste.

"Reducto—Reducto—Reducto!" From behind Tom came blasts of light; in front of him fell shreds
of burning cloth, singed hair, and the splatter of broken flesh. It would have smelled terribly if not
for his Bubble-Head Charm.

"What are you doing?!" Hermione shouted at Lestrange, turning her wand away from Grindelwald
and at the minions. "You just killed a dozen people!"

Travers threw up a Shield Charm before Hermione could stun Lestrange. "He didn't kill them.
They're already dead."

"Inferi," said Lestrange, nodding at the seething tide of Muggles tearing themselves out of the
crumbling chasm of earth and fallen stones. "I know Dark Magic when I see it. Watch how they
move—they never blink."

"And their heads can twist all the way around without falling off," Avery added. "Reducto!"

"Grindelwald..." said Hermione. "No wonder the station was empty; it shouldn't have been, not at
this time of day. St. Pancras is the central hub of Metropolitan London. I can't believe it! He just...
he killed them all, and he thinks he can be forgiven for it because he asks nicely?!"

Lestrange muttered, "They were only Muggles..."

"Had everyone gone with his original plan," Travers pointed out, "I doubt we'd ever have found out
about it."

"Besides," said Avery, "Muggles are fragile and there are so many of them. No one would have
noticed if he'd knocked off a few."

"They're people!" said Hermione angrily. "People who have no part of this war! No one deserves to
be treated like they're.... like they're disposable!"

"If it's any consolation, Grindelwald didn't kill everyone," said Nott. "It looks like the Auror team
he caught were just Imperiused. Inferi can't cast magic. Ahhh!" He jabbed his wand once, twice,
thrice, and cast a layered Shield Charm over himself, in time to deflect a powerful curse from an
Auror in torn robes and a vacant expression. "Oof. The professionals hit hard. Prince, you need to
end the caster to stop the minions. Inferi won't go down unless you destroy the entire body, but
keeping the Aurors down for good may be slightly... awkward."
 "I'd try to avoid fratricide if possible, but do the best you can," said Tom, jaw clenched in
concentration. "Now lend me your flying carpet. I know you have it in your bag."

"But I was saving it for—"

"There's no use in arguing with me. You won't win," snapped Tom. "I'm taking the carpet. The rest
of you, go deal with the Aurors."

"Where exactly are you going?" Hermione asked. She ducked under a flying spell, and began
rapidly casting a sequence of Transfigurations to shape the dirt into a physical barricade strong
enough to resist the high-level combat magic of Imperiused Aurors. Travers Conjured sandbags and
piled them over the sides. Pulsing red hexes that hit the bags landed with a loud WHUMP and a
spray of sand over the crouching forms of Lestrange and Avery, still intent on blasting any Inferi
that approached.

"I'm going to earn my Order of Merlin," said Tom, taking the rolled carpet that Nott had tossed to
him. "Grindelwald's been disarmed, so this should be quick. I'll be back after I've saved Britain."

Nott warned him, "Be careful about flying the carpet near smoke..."

Tom jumped onto the carpet and flew through a cyclone of roaring flames.

Nott sighed. "...The smell never comes out."

Chapter End Notes

Translation Guide:

— Sehnsucht - German for ardent yearning or longing, usually for something that is out of
one's reach, such as unrequited love.

— Der Junge Werther - From The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774 novel by Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe. Werther loved Charlotte, but Charlotte married Albert and that made Werther a
very sad boy. :(

— Der Liebste Roland - Grimm's Fairy Tale Sweetheart Roland. Due to a magical curse,
Roland and his lady love are separated, and Roland forgets his memories of her. But as soon
as he hears her voice, he comes running back:

But when she began her song, and it reached Roland's ears, he jumped up and shouted, "I
know that voice. That is the true bride. I do not want anyone else." Everything he had
forgotten, and which had vanished from his mind, had suddenly come home again to his heart.

— Der gerechte Prinz - "The Righteous Prince".

— Grindelwald has some Seer talent and a superstitious personality. He's open to supernatural
ideas, like the Deathly Hallows, where the average wizard thinks of it as a children's story.
Tarot card meanings and reverse interpretations:
- Six of Wands — Triumph and glory / failure and punishment
- The Magician — Mastery of manifestation / Mastery of illusion
- King of Swords — Leadership and authority / manipulation and tyranny
- Wheel of Fortune — Change, fate, and destiny / Bad luck and lack of control
- Judgement — Purpose / Doubt
- Ace of Pentacles — Good opportunities / bad investments
 The Lesser Evil
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

1945

Did Tom just run off and leave us here?

...How long has he been running around Britain as its secret hero?

Did he not consider the consequences of meddling in political affairs before he stuck his finger in
the pie?

Of course not. It's Tom. She sighed internally. How ever did we go from a normal school train ride
to fighting a Dark Lord? It was only a few hours ago that I had been looking forward to my future
government career. I suppose Tom's meddling means my government career has been expedited.

Was it possible that Tom had considered this consequence, and seeing its benefits, had decided it
was reason enough to pursue his heroic activities?

...I wouldn't put it past it him, actually.

Hermione had generated long list of questions for Tom, for when they got out of the sticky situation
Tom had shoved them in. If, they got out of it, because it was difficult to be certain of anything in
the midst of the chaotic battlefield of Godric's Hollow, with spells flying back and forth and a
hastily Transfigured siege barricade being dug into the muddy mess of a village cemetery.

"Gah... Fuck!" yelped Lestrange, clapping a hand to his forehead. A red beam scored across the top
of his head, parting his cloak's hood and leaving the pieces fallen open over his shoulders. Lines of
blood seeped down to his brows. "Stings like the dickens. Episkey." He scowled. "If any of us gets
hit by a Dark bleeding curse while wounded by a cutter, we're going to have a problem. They must
know that an opponent will run out of blood faster than they'll run out of spells."

"Which means, if you're the opponent, avoid getting hit," said Rosier helpfully.

"Sink the grave markers in, pile the sandbags in the gaps, then cover everything up with dirt,"
Travers ordered the others. "A physical barrier can take a volley of spells better than the Shield
Charms any one of you could cast."

"The gravestones are too heavy," Avery complained. "I can't lift them."

"Wingardium Leviosa!" said Rosier. "How did your team even win the practice duel?"

"We had Riddle," spoke Lestrange and Avery at the same time.

"He had better finish up quick," Rosier said darkly. "I don't like the look of this. How are we
supposed to subdue an Auror without killing him? The non-lethal curses I know for incapacitating
other wizards are far from competition legal, if you get what I mean. The Spongy Skull curse, the
Intestinal Tentapodes curse, the Malediction of Internal Coagulation. Not anything that would do
my future Ministry job prospects any good!"

"Hmm," said Nott, casting an engorgement charm on a gravestone to form one section of a
crenellated wall. He ran his hand over the enlarged epitaph carved over the stone's surface. "Do you
think this graveyard is a reflection of the real Godric's Hollow, down in Somerset? 'Ignotus Peverell
1292'. Six hundred years old, yet the inscription is still so clear. I should like to see it in person one
day."

"Who cares about 'one day'!" Lestrange yelled, opening fire on the approaching horde. "The only
thing that matters is right now!"

Hermione ignored the senseless bickering and focused on building. It was something she'd studied
for weeks after speaking to the Auror guards at Hogwarts and learning how magical battles were
fought in the real world. She wasn't a professional, nor did she possess the raw power to go toe-to-
toe against a Dark Lord. A trick or a prepared trap she could perhaps muster, but a real duel? That
was more of Tom's line of business, and in the practical duelling exercise she'd held with the
Homework Club, assigned to the other Slytherin boys. Her priority, back then and right now, was
battlefield control.

Her current foes: hundreds of Muggles crawling out of the ground, without magic, but with a
terrifying mass of sheer numbers. They were technically Inferi—a fact she tried not to dwell too
deeply upon—created via an animation enchantment cast on a dying sentient creature. Dying, not
dead. Then they died with the magic imbued into their bodies; when the souls departed, the magic
remained and gave them the illusion of false life. It wasn't real, because Gamp's Principle
Exclusions ruled that magic couldn't create life. One might try to replicate it, albeit poorly. But the
replication was still convincing enough to send a cold shiver down the back of her neck. The
identical frozen grins paired with cold, lifeless eyes made it even worse.

The facts of her situation zipped through her mind as she assessed the situation. Inferi could move,
but they couldn't think; they were essentially mindless. The enchantment ritual, which she knew
little about beyond the cursory bestiary entries she'd studied when researching the Chamber of
Secrets, was no simple charm to be dismissed with a Finite. Grindelwald being disarmed by
Dumbledore did not strip the Inferi of their magic and return them back into inanimate corpses.
They could be given cursory orders during the ritual, but when activated from their torpor, became
autonomous creatures who obeyed no command but their natural instinct to attack the living.

They had no magic. No shields, no charms, no artillery, no air support. No equipment or strategy at
all. Hermione's mind flickered through the logistical summary of her current situation. This front
was one fought against pure cannon fodder, so her familiar and reliable trench warfare tactics—
designed against firearms (and conventional duelling spells)—would do her no good. The opposite
was more appropriate for this type of battlefield. Instead of building down, she would build
upwards.

The shape of it solidified in her mind: battlefield fortifications.

During the training with Tom and Dumbledore, she had spent a lot of time thinking about tricks.
Logical shortcuts a clever witch could take advantage of, if she could combine common knowledge
with the natural laws of magic and matter. Instead of attempting and failing to Conjure a building
from nothing, she Duplicated sandbags, applied Permanent Sticking Charms to their surfaces, and
Transfigured some to stone and steel, and thence to large slabs of reinforced concrete. She seized
enormous scoopfuls of soil, Switched it where it needed to go, and sank long piles like those of a
bridge's foundation into the ground beneath her, forming a concrete platform held up on stilts. Her
temples throbbed as she imbued the loose, crumbling dirt with material structure. Magic poured in
like water in a sponge, until every irreducible unit of matter, to a reluctant symphony of rumbling
and creaking, took on the properties she assigned it.

Her limbs shook with the effort; around her, the Slytherin boys hoarsely cried out their own spells.
Hermione swayed, suddenly unbalanced, feeling the rush of nausea she'd always experienced on
the back of a broomstick, which was as much a result of overextending herself in spellcasting as it
was the sudden increase of height she'd gained above the ground. She had never been one for
heights. As she peered around to inspect her work, she was reminded of her disinterest in school
Quidditch games. At least the viewing stands around the pitch had barriers to keep the audience
from falling off the edges. Her current creation was more like a fishing pier with its land connection
cut off, a flat square platform on stout legs, which lifted it above the mindless mass of Muggle
dead. No safety banisters, only pilings above an empty pit carved out of the dirt, deep enough to act
as a dry moat and keep Hermione and the boys out of reach of anything that tried to physically drag
them off the sides. The missing dirt had been repurposed for her Transfigurations.

"Oh, you came up with a magical deer stand," Nott observed from next to her, holding steady to a
double-layered Shield Charm. With a flick of his wrist, he deflected a fizzing orange curse off its
edge, throwing up an arc of brilliant sparkles into both their faces. "Like deer, Inferi don't know
how to build ladders, so they can't climb up here. But the difference between a hunting stand and a
hunting blind is that with the former, the quarry know where we are. Even if we're out of reach for
the moment, they still know we're up here—"

With a muffled curse, he shouldered her to the side just as the red jet of another curse came sailing
in, shattering through both layers of his Shield at once. It caught the edge of his black cloak and
seared a hole right through the wool, stinking of burnt hair. For a moment, Nott stood stock-still
and looking unexpectedly befuddled, as if his words had gotten lost en route from his brain to his
mouth. His shoulders slumped and, with his wand dangling from limp fingers, he dropped to one
knee, breathing through clenched teeth.

"D-d-damn it," he stuttered, his voice hoarse. Nott swiped at his eyes with the back of a gloved
hand, and after a few seconds to collect himself, said, "Escalation to Unforgivables. And here I was
hoping to postpone my acquaintance with mortal danger..." To Hermione, he said, "Granger, you
have got to do something about those pesky Aurors. They might be drooling puppets right now, but
they've better training and instincts for combat magic than we do. If they've been explicitly ordered
to kill us, we don't know if they have the willpower to resist the command. Perhaps they've enough
to kill us... but slowly and inefficiently." He winced. "But I wouldn't gamble all my Galleons on
that assumption."

"You're asking me to do something?" said Hermione. "What about your plan? You're the hero of the
hour, the famous Green Knight! Don't you have a secret family spellbook for this exact situation?
You seem to have one for everything else!"

"If I told you my plan, I don't think you'd like it," said Nott. "You'd be inclined to thinking it
'morally deficient'. Can't win everything, I suppose."

With a frown in Nott's direction, Hermione began to construct a crenellated border around the
edges of the platform, extruding the concrete and Duplicating the material where needed. She
created hollow bricks of concrete for the border walls, stacked and adhered together, filled with
sand to absorb shock. If they were hit so hard they exploded, anyone nearby would be pelted by
sand. Irritating, but no risk of permanent harm.

"We'll have to disarm the Aurors," Hermione pronounced, between raising the wall on each of the
four sides. "They're the main threat."

"Forgive me, Granger" said Nott, "but I'd presumed Grindelwald was the main threat."

"Tom is taking care of that."

"You have a lot of faith in someone who's been lying to you for quite some time."

"I expect I would react poorly if I was told, and he knew it. Were I in his shoes, I'd keep a secret
from everyone if it would prevent, you know, all of this. I've done it before. And to be fair, I'd do it
again."

"You're being far too soft on him," Nott said, rolling his eyes. "Don't tell me you've been caught up
in You-Know-Who's mysterious Head Boy allure."

"Not everything, my feelings included, are centred on Tom. Despite what he claims," said
Hermione. "In times of war, those with power have to make uncomfortable choices to protect those
who lack it. It's not a nice thing for those people to withhold information from the closest
individuals in their lives, but there are causes greater than the individual, aren't there?"

On another day, Hermione thought she would have been more upset. But ever since Tom had
revealed his secret Portkey to Hogsmeade, the part of her mind that would have spun out a
thousand possible objections had been shoved into a distant corner, and replaced by the fastidious
objectivity of Occlumency. That part reminded her the Muggle government had a Ministry of
Information whose entire purpose was to "stimulate morale" through the control of public
knowledge. Her old friend, Roger Tindall, was in Military Intelligence and certainly knew things he
would never tell her, no matter how much she wanted to know.

One day, Hermione would be in a position to make decisions in high levels of the government. She
would be privy to sensitive information beyond the realms of public access. And she could predict
that on one future day, Tom would beg for her to spare him a sip of that forbidden knowledge,
because he couldn't help himself; he had attached himself to her visit to the Ministry Archives as
soon as he'd heard of her interest. But she knew she would deny him that knowledge. Was that
lying? And was it necessary? With her mind cleared of all distractions, Hermione knew the
answer... For now. Tomorrow, however, the distractions would return.

Hermione continued, "Tom was unusually pedantic about the meaning of his Prince Charming
name, when the papers first printed it. 'He's the Princeps, the first and foremost, in Charms
spellwork. It is quite obvious to anyone who stops and thinks about it!'. Yes, it is quite obvious, in
retrospect."

"I'm surprised at how calm you are about it," said Nott. "When I first found out about his big heroic
plans, I wanted to run away at the first opportunity. And to be truthful, I still maintain that it's a
worthwhile idea."

Hermione took a deep breath and released it. "I'm calm because I've been meditating. The hysteria
can keep for later."
"Good advice," said Nott. "Speaking of advice, how exactly do you want to disarm the Aurors? We
can hide out behind the barricades all day, but we'll not have an enjoyable time sitting so high up
when the smoke rolls in. You've noticed the smoke, I'm sure."

Nott nodded at the burning village in the distance, harsh flickers of lightning lancing within a
roaring firestorm of flames and billowing smoke. Tom had worn his enchanted cloak and a Bubble-
head Charm to refresh his air, but Hermione worried about him nevertheless; Tom relied much too
heavily on the unshakeable certainty that "everything would go as he wished it". The power of his
will made things real, a habit from his childhood that he had never had the desire to outgrow.

"You'd better think up a plan quickly," Nott added. "At some point the Aurors will muster up
enough cognisance to start working together to take us down, instead of shooting curses at the
nearest target. You came up with the big old plan last time, during the duelling practice, and for the
life of me, I've more faith in your strategic thinking than I do for the Crown Prince of Recklessness.
He just runs off and does things. You at least remember that between the lot of us, we have six
wands and nearly the same amount of sentient minds."

"So what's the plan?" Travers spoke up, in between bouts of wall repair and Shielding. "I've met the
Aurors before, so I tried calling them by name, but they won't respond to me. If some fraction of
their minds are awake, then it's buried deep. The spell controlling them is so powerful that I don't
think we should rely on it fading away on its own, even though its caster was disarmed."

"Kill the caster," suggested Avery. "Killing's the answer if the question is how to end a spell you
don't like."

"Unless Grindelwald comes here, we're not going to pick a fight with him," said Hermione. "That's
not part of the plan."

"Kill the Aurors, then," Avery said. "If it's them or us, I'll pick me. I'm sure they'll understand."

"We've already gone over this: the murder should be kept to an absolute minimum," said Travers
quickly. "I'd rather we don't set the precedent of Aurors being disposable."

"But it's not murder unless you want it to be murder," Lestrange interjected. "Death by anything
else is an accident. It's different."

"How do you know?" Travers asked suspiciously.

"I felt it in my soul," said Lestrange. "It's magic, mate. You don't need an essay to know."

"I agree with not killing people, murder or no," Rosier put in. "When we get out of this mess... That
is, if we get out, the Ministry's official inquiry is going to get to the bottom of what happened,
especially if the casualties were well connected. I don't want to be locked in a box with the
courtroom Legilimens and made to admit that a fellow wizard's death was the most convenient way
to remove the obstacle. We all know it's a reasonable decision for a person in dire circumstances to
make. But in the name of maintaining a civilised society, it's understood that such things should
never be admitted in public. We aren't barbarians. We're British—and we do have standards."

"Let's get back on topic," said Hermione. "Non-lethal methods to neutralise the Imperiused."

"I've been casting Stunners so far, but it's risky," said Travers. "If anyone blasts the Inferi near the
Aurors, the explosive force doesn't discriminate. I would rather not set someone on fire who's going
to be my senior at the office a few weeks from now. Their minds are suppressed, but let me assure
you that their bodies can feel pain without an issue."

"What do we do now? The Inferi are sorted, but the Aurors are going to be trouble," said Avery,
listing to one side of the platform, as the surface below their feet let out an ominous rumble. He
looked nervously at Hermione. "All my best spells are the lethal ones!"

"I may have an idea," said Hermione. "But you need to follow my instructions..."

They used the fishing pier platform shape to its greatest advantage.

Working together, they cast charms to pull Aurors out of the fray by their uniform robes, one by
one, under a roiling and groaning tide of Inferi. Once on the platform, the Aurors were disarmed,
Petrified, and patted down for magical artefacts that might be used against their captors. Potions,
boot knives, or enchanted trinkets. Nott pointed out a "last resort" cursed ring on one Auror's finger,
saying, "Good quality craftsmanship, that; looks like an heirloom piece. Don't mind if I do." Which
was then spirited away and into an inner pocket of his bag. Hermione ordered Avery to pin the
Auror down by the shoulders and keep a heavy hand pressed down against his forehead,
apologising quietly, before she peeled open his eyelids and cast the Body-Bind Curse.

"Petrificus Totalus," she incanted over the prone body.

"Are you sure this will work?" asked Travers nervously. "I've never heard of this technique before."

"Er, it's sort of slightly illegal," replied Hermione, who understood perfectly well that receiving
permission for human experimentation went a long way toward clearing away the legal and moral
obstacles. But legally admissible absolution was a luxury that, right now, she could ill afford. "I've
seen it tested on animals, so I know it technically works. Just remember that I wouldn't even be
suggesting this if it weren't a serious emergency, alright?"

"Of course," said Nott. "You're totally forgiven if the end justifies the means."

"You're not helping," Hermione said pointedly to Nott. Preparing her wand for the proper casting
movement, she hesitated. "When you—the Green Knight, I mean—was in the Ministry courtroom
casting Patronus charms in the dark, could the Aurors feel it? I read their interviews in the
newspaper the next day, but goodness knows how much one can take The Daily Prophet at their
word."

"Even a blind man can tell when a Patronus has been cast," said Nott. "The soul's magic treads the
realm beyond the kennings of mere mortal flesh."

"Can an unconscious man tell?" Hermione asked.

Nott pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, Granger, once you learn some Greek, I'll lend you a
copy of Phaedo from my library. For free, no exchange required. Wizards have known for
thousands of years the ancient truths of soul and body. 'When the soul and the body are united, then
nature orders the soul to rule and govern, and the body to obey and serve. The soul resembles the
divine and the body the mortal—there can be no doubt of that,' from the Socratic dialogue of
Cebes. Or rather, the Socratic dialogue of me, the master, to you, the disciple."

"I'm just trying to make sure I don't accidentally hurt someone I'm trying to help!" Hermione
snapped. Turning to Travers, she said, "Please make sure that nothing interrupts me. I won't be able
to talk or hear anything you say while I'm busy with this. Remember what Mr. Wilkes said about
being trusted by your partner—I'm relying on all of you to keep me out of harm's way." Then she
peered into the Auror's vacant, clouded eyes and squared herself, remembering the many past
lessons which had guided her down the path to this unexpected recourse.

The memory of Roger Tindall rose to the surface with a flash of regret... and a flash of assurance.

Language comprehension, decision-making, auditory memory, visual memory, short- and long-term
recollection. Each property was associated with a wand casting pattern to a specific portion of the
human skull. She had cast the pattern to replace a memory with one of her own invention. And she
knew she could do it again.

"You're probably still in there, but you can't say anything," she said, smoothing down the Auror's
sweat-darkened hair. "Know that I am genuinely sorry about doing this. Imperio."

As she cast the spell, another memory jostled itself loose from the lovingly organised library of her
mind.

"I have heard rumours that Minister Grindelwald has put political opponents of his under the
Imperius—those, of course, who are more useful where they are than under what he calls 'house
arrest'..."

"Does that mean," the Hermione of the past had asked, "you could negate one Imperius Curse by
casting a stronger one in its place? You could cure victims who've been controlled, without having
to track down the original caster... and kill him, I suppose. It would be best if nobody had to kill
anyone."

Since then, Hermione had learned more about the magical fundamentals, and observed the narrow
exceptions that appeared to exist in every rule. Wizards were not, as a whole, stupid people; there
were disciplines of magic dedicated to exploiting the exceptions to their limit: the masters of runic
enchantment known as "Cursebreakers", who made a living vandalising ancient tomb wards; and
competition duellists, who were obliged to follow a set spell list, but were permitted to cast them in
any way they pleased. These were niche fields, as the average wizard was more inclined toward
novelty, inventing new configurations of firework products or bizarre confectionery. There was less
prestige to be had in creating an adaptation of an existing work, and Hermione's scholarly side
pointed out that if it was that much of a professional advantage—like a secret duelling technique—
a clever witch or wizard would hardly go around making it public knowledge.

The Hermione of five years ago would have laughed at her present attempts to reason—as
empirically as she could—on the nature of the soul and how to best exploit its properties. But that
was magic, wasn't it? In the Muggle world, the existence of the soul would have been a theological
discussion on the holy pneuma breathed into the world by God. In this world, the soul had
substance; she had beheld its shape, touched it with her hands, and summoned it to her presence
when she had need of its abilities.

Tom had helped her gain control of this aspect of her magic by entering her mind. There was no
powerful spell granting him admission, only the strength of his will and her own willing invitation
that allowed him to mould Hermione's consciousness into the vision he had created. She was not a
Legilimens, but she had studied the books on mind magic and illegal curses provided to her by Nott
and Mr. Pacek.

"Just out of academic interest!" she had been rather quick to explain. Today was a day of
exceptions, it seemed.

Within the Auror's mind, a dense wall of brambles blocked Hermione from passing through. The
twining green branches, limned with hooked thorns, rustled in an imperceptible breeze, and the
berries that grew beneath the jagged leaves pulsed with a noxious yellow-green light. Hermione
plucked one of the berries and it burst in her fingers, turning into a squirt of gummy yellow slime
that clung to her skin. With a hiss of disgust, she wiped it on her cloak, which left a glowing yellow
mark on the black wool.

"Hello?" she called, looking about. There was nothing to be seen but brambles from here to the
horizon. "Mr. Doherty? Quentin Travers told me your name and asked that I try to restore you to
yourself as mercifully as I could. Please, can you open a passage through the brambles?"

There was no reply but the rustle of leaves. Hermione hadn't expected there to be.

She rolled up her sleeves and drew her wand, preparing herself for what she knew to be a draining
spell. "Expecto Patronum!"

The silver otter formed itself from the wisps of magic sluggishly, as if it was reluctant to heed her
summons. First its trembling white whiskers sketched themselves into the air, followed by a pair of
glistening silvery eyes, and then the rest of its head and shoulders, and finally the sinuous length of
its sleek body and tail. It paddled around in the air, looked at Hermione, then at the brambles, and
did not appear particularly enthused with its surroundings.

"You have to go through," Hermione told her Patronus. "I won't be able to get through myself, not
unless Mr. Doherty lets me, and he won't do that when he's under a curse. But souls are special, I
think. Unlike the Imperius, which creates illusory sensations to sway the mind, the soul contains a
reflection of true knowledge. And there is something of the primordial in the casting of a corporeal
Patronus, the distilled essence of magical intent."

After Nott had mentioned Aristotle's theory of souls that day in the library, she'd found the book
herself to confirm if he was actually that good at reciting verbatim, or if he'd made it up to win an
argument. To be honest with herself, Hermione was a titch annoyed by Nott's shameless habit of
flaunting of how well-read he was, throwing out quotations like he was an attendee at a classical
symposium. It was conduct of such exceeding pomposity, and a wonder that he did not even notice
it himself. (Hermione, who appreciated the dry English form of wit on other occasions, did not find
any trace of irony in this objective criticism of Nott.)

"Besides," Hermione said, "even Muggles know that the soul is unique in its ability to travel
between realms. It will go perfectly well, I'm sure. If something bad could come of it, Aristotle
would have said something. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor, did you know that? The great emperor
of the known world trusted his wisdom... Don't look at me like that!"
The otter gave an incredulous flip of its tail at her explanation, as if it knew Hermione was trying
her best to assuage her doubts by sheer dint of will, and wasn't impressed by the efforts. Then it
wriggled under the bramble walls, the crisp contours of its form softening to that of a hazy blob; it
was the bright plume of foam spray that dashed down river channels and burst their banks in its
exuberance, not quite air nor water.

Hermione concentrated on maintaining two spells. The Imperius, which allowed her to impose her
presence upon a foreign mind. And the Patronus, to persuade that mind of her kind intentions.

For she had come to this conclusion: in a contest of wills, she would not choose Gellert
Grindelwald as her direct opponent. That would have been the most straightforward way to
theoretically "overpower" an Imperius cast by another wizard, and perhaps it might have worked if
it was any other wizard she fought. A spontaneous challenge against the Dark Lord of the
Continent was the domain of the Dumbledores and Tom Riddles of the world. So, Hermione had
surmised, if the victim of the curse allowed her to bolster his own will, then she had changed the
terms of the contest. It became two minds, two wills, two souls rebelling against the command of
an invader.

In one part of her mind, she saw herself kneeling over the Petrified body of the Auror.

In another part, short flickering images burst in her mind, in the bright, over-saturated colours
reminiscent of a vivid dream. A frozen tundra that crackled under her little webbed paws, a
mountain of clear crystal ice spearing into the sky, wound about with tangles of thorny brambles.
The vines were laden with more poisonous yellow-green fruit. In a cave under the ice lay a
slumbering blue-white polar bear, its muzzle bloodied, its enormous claws matted with yellow
slime.

In her dream, the otter nudged at the sleeping bear. Placing a paw over the bear's muzzle, it pulsed
its silvery aura, and drew on Hermione Granger's unwavering conviction that she was right.

The Imperius Curse makes you feel happy. But it's pure illusion. Nothing that you feel is real, not
compared to the pure joy of the Patronus.

When she composed her intent, casting the Imperius Curse on an involuntary subject, she focused
on a single instruction. Recognise the difference between the real and the imaginary.

The otter's silver radiance burned like the core of a new star. Fuelled by the weight of righteous
truth, the crystallised anticipation for the days of Hermione's future yet to come—the bedtime
reading stack yet unreduced, the laws for a well-governed society yet unwritten, the boon
companions who awaited her triumphant return—the magical incarnation of her soul blazed with
the fierce light of an exquisite passion. Passion, which encompassed great emotion and an equal
measure of great suffering, as she syphoned every ounce of her mortal energy into the vessel of her
soul.

The ice crackled. The yellow berries burst like Bubotuber pods. The mountain groaned. Glassy
slabs sheared away from its summit, shattering on the groaning tundra below.

The polar bear roared in anger.

Hermione woke to Travers nudging her shoulder and passing her a monogrammed handkerchief.
Her otter Patronus, bobbing in the air above the Auror, bumped its whiskered face against hers.
"You're crying," he said. Travers pointed at his chin. "Your nose is, uh, leaking as well. Better clean
yourself up before You-Know-Who comes back and accuses one of us of doing an inadequate job
keeping you from injury."

"But I was the one who came up with the plan," Hermione said, dabbing at her eyes and nose.
Rosier, Lestrange, and Avery glanced at her, but seeing her hale enough to clean up her own drool,
returned to blasting off any Inferi bold enough to attempt the climb up the platform.

"Unlike the rest of us, you, Granger, can do no wrong," said Nott. "That particular foible of yours
makes itself useful now and again, I confess. It looks like you've saved this Auror from a miserable
fate. We've four others in a pile over there. Oh, and make sure to cast a bunch of boring spells
afterwards if you want to dodge a Prior Incantato."

Hermione sighed and lifted up her wand. "Imperio."

While Hermione worked on rescuing the last captured Auror, Nott and the others planned for a
hasty evacuation.

"We'll each grab an Auror and run for the road," said Nott. "It stands to reason that one should be
able to 'Exeunt Stage' from the same place he entered. Spells for moving from place to place are
usually weak in that manner. Once we ascertain how the theatrical scenery, as the Prince called it,
works, the curtains can be peeled back and we'll instantly pop back to London."

"Why not wait until Grindelwald's dead?" Lestrange complained. "We'll get back to London that
way, too, and no one has to wade through a pile of half-dead Muggles." He grimaced at the pit
beneath the Transfigured platform. "When Grindelwald is offed, they'll go back to being dead
Muggles. Real dead this time, not this grotty sort of 'mostly dead' with enough life left in them to
stab you with an arm stump. And you'd get a disease from it, too!"

"Regular stabs aren't that much better," Rosier reminded him.

"On the subject of painful injuries," said Nott, "you should be aware that the worst place to be
when an extant spell is disrupted... is within its boundary of effect. Remember when we broke the
ward stone by the Hogwarts Express? That explosion came from a single rock the enchantment was
anchored to. If Grindelwald enchanted the whole train station, then we ought to retreat before the
stage goes splat—or we risk going with it." He clapped his hands right in Hermione's face to
emphasise the point. "If this was a real stage, I'd worry about the chandelier dropping onto our
heads. But with magical set dressing, I'm sure things will be a lot more exciting." He pointed into
the distance. "Can't fit a fire like that in a crowded theatre, can you?"

The cyclone of wind and fire Tom had gathered around himself, before flying away on the
borrowed carpet, had devoured the empty village of Godric's Hollow to the last brick. Now it had
swung back around to the graveyard, where charred yews creaked over the churned earth. The sky
bore streaks of black and crimson; Hermione was unpleasantly reminded of the summer bombings
of 1940, where each morning's rising sun revealed the devastation of the night before. The most
eerie feature of these burning ruins, however, was the blare of amplified human voices where the
real England would have echoed with the wordless howl of air-raid sirens.

"LOWER YOUR WAND, TOM!" a voice boomed over the crash and crackle of burning houses. "HE
HAS SURRENDERED HIS WAND AND HIS PAROLE. THIS IS NOT JUSTICE!"

That was Dumbledore speaking, so loud she felt the wave of sound jittering through her bones. The
professor's voice had a curious echo to it, as if a second voice, lower and deeper, was speaking at
the same time, only a half-second slower.

Tom replied, an unsettling edge in his tone barely concealed by his normal amiable manner. "YOU
SPEAK OF JUSTICE TO ME? 'ENGLAND EXPECTS THAT EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS
DUTY'," Tom quoted. "WHERE IS YOUR SENSE OF DUTY, DUMBLEDORE? KILL HIM AND
BE DONE WITH IT! IF YOU HAVEN'T THE NERVE TO DO THE DEED YOURSELF, THEN
STAND ASIDE."

A massive gout of flame burst into the air, spewing broken chunks of masonry which buzzed like a
raging hive of wasps—

"Get down!" shouted Travers, and then Hermione heard various shouted swear words and
"Protego"s; white domes coalesced above their heads as stone fragments dropped out of the sky in
a burning hail.

Hermione, numbly staring at the glowing red sky, cast her own Shield Charm, while Tom's voice
rang out in cold fury.

"STAND ASIDE, OLD MAN! IT'S TIME TO END THIS WAR FOR GOOD."

"THIS WAR CAN END WITHOUT BLOODSHED, TOM!"

"HOW CAN YOU BE SO GULLIBLE? YOU WARNED ME THAT GRINDELWALD WAS

FULL OF TRICKS, BUT YOU'VE FALLEN FOR THEM YOURSELF!"

"I CAST ASIDE HIS TRICKS LONG AGO," thundered Professor Dumbledore.

Hermione's teeth rattled; every word reverberated through her skull. Her ears felt numb. Her eyes
watered. The hazy grey air was suddenly cut in a great broad swathe, as if sheared through by an
invisible scythe.

"THERE—"

Smoke cleared, revealing the rubble of a destroyed village. Smouldering trees around blackened
cobbles, a tilted church steeple.

"—IS—"

Between the crumbled foundations and snapped rafters, sparks of colourful light flashed from one
side of the village square to the other.

"—NO—"
Three figures wove through the wreckage, obscured by piles of smoking thatch. Pockets of fire still
burned on the ground, but the path from the graveyard to the village was clear. Two of the figures
had their wands drawn. The third, who was wandless, had distinctive yellow hair grown puffy in
the heat.

"—GREATER—"

Black wand was raised against white wand.

"—GOOD!"

Both wands cast at the same time. The white wand shot out a jet of harsh red light; the black wand
Conjured a silver shield that deflected the red spell back to its caster, who Summoned a broken
door to absorb the impact. Wood fragments, blasted to a fine powder, wafted to the shattered
cobblestones.

Tom Riddle let out a hoarse, high laugh, and in a more normal-sounding voice, said, "I never
thought the Ministry of Magic was right about things, but they are. You are irreparably biased,
Dumbledore. Your father died in Azkaban for attacking four Muggle children, killing one. And here
you are, pleading mercy for this Undesirable? How many Muggles have died today at his hand?"

Dumbledore sighed wearily. "There is a difference between my father and Gellert Grindelwand."

"Oh?" scoffed Tom. "What is it?"

"Percival Dumbledore was convicted under wizarding law," said Dumbledore. "You have been
taking the law into your own hands for far too long, Tom. You didn't have to do it. You still don't
have to. Not like this."

"I know I didn't have to," Tom admitted. "But I wanted to. I think it worked out rather well. Don't
you think so, Mr. Travers?"

At Tom's side, the pale blue image of an Alsatian hound shimmered into being. Its ears were tipped
forwards, and its glowing white tail swished slowly back and forth. The dog's head turned, silently
observing the three subjects of interest. Tom clad all in black, Dumbledore in the same violet robes
he'd worn to see the departing students off at Hogsmeade Station that morning, and the ragged-
looking Gellert Grindelwald who had ash crusted over his once pristine silver coat.

"Wizarding law, I'm happy to announce," Tom said, with a pleasant smile and one hand tucked
casually in his pocket, "is on my side."

Tom flicked his wand. The powdered wood rose from the ground like snow falling in reverse, an
immense cloud coalescing into larger clumps that glittered red and gold in the smouldering pockets
of burning debris.

Dumbledore Conjured another shield over himself, but Tom hadn't aimed at the professor. A
blizzard of sparkling glass flecks blasted itself at the unarmed Grindelwald, followed by Tom
pointing at the man and shouting, "Catch!"

The glass flecks formed themselves into a salvo of shining knapped arrows. The air whistled with
their passage; the false sky twinkled with golden light, as if the hundreds of candles of Hogwarts'
Great Hall had been transported to London in an instant.
The Patronus dog watched impassively.

Spinning on his heel, Dumbledore rushed over to Grindelwald, sweeping his black wand from side
to side.

With a triumphant cry, Dumbledore's spell was complete. The glass shards that blew over the
hunched figure of Grindelwald had returned to a cloud of sawdust. The man had turned away from
the shining storm and covered his face with his arms, casting a simple Shield Charm to cover his
exposed back. The shield, cast wandlessly, fizzled with white sparks each time a tiny fragment
scoured against its hemispheric surface. And there were a lot of white sparks, so many bits of
detritus flying through the air that the shield was being eaten away from the centre outwards.
Grindelwald, who must have been exhausted from fighting without a wand, his enchanted amulets
expended of their power, didn't notice another shape borne in the roaring flurry of dust, growing
larger and larger, even as the arrows shrank away into harmless powder.

A massive spider, six feet across from one set of clawed, hairy legs to the other, punched through
the hole in the shield and landed on Grindelwald's turned back. It plunged vicious black fangs into
the nape of the man's neck, claws shredding the ragged remains of Grindelwald's silver coat. With a
faint gasp, the Dark Lord sank to his knees on the broken cobbles.

Dumbledore stumbled forward, catching Grindelwald in his arms. He'd dropped the black wand
and, bare-handed, tore the spider's hooked claws out of Grindelwald's back. The silver robes
bloomed with splotches of fresh blood.

"No, no, no!" wheezed Dumbledore. He struck at the giant spider's eyes, face, and thorax, ignoring
its screeches of pain and the rough slashes the spider returned to Dumbledore's hands and forearms.
"Tom, what have you done?"

With a squeal, the spider tore its fangs out of Grindelwald's neck, spattering even more blood over
Dumbledore, and scrabbled over to Tom's side. Tom pointed his wand at it, Transfiguring it into a
flat metal disc, which he shoved into his pocket.

Tom wandered over to Dumbledore, who had Grindelwald's body cradled in his arms. His hands,
raked with bloody lines, tenderly brushed the yellow hair from Grindelwald's damp forehead.

"Albus," whispered Grindelwald, gazing blearily into the distance, "twilight is upon me. The
lonely, winding road at twilight—do you remember how we used to argue over every word of that
story?"

"The wand!" Dumbledore said urgently. "Gellert, I have the wand!"

"It is but one of three, and it is too late," sighed Grindelwald, his voice growing quiet. "Do not
mourn forever, Albus. It is your worst habit. I am only going on an adventure..."

"Fawkes," cried Dumbledore. "Fawkes, to me!"

There was no joyful answer of red-gold phoenix fire. Dumbledore's shoulders slumped.

"Huh," Rosier murmured. "Old friend Grindy tied his own noose there. Never would've guessed it.
Had I known, I'd have given a bookie the worst day of his life."

"What noose?" said Avery. "Grindelwald just got eaten by a spider."

"'Neither flesh, nor fowl, nor tamed hearth-beast'," said Nott. "Dumbledore's phoenix is blocked
from Apparating in by the ward enchantments. The enchantments will last only as long as the
caster... Argh, that was the plan—'Exeunt Stage' is active!" Nott shook Hermione by the shoulder.
"Stop spectating and let's go! Now is our best chance to get out of here. Cast a Feather-light Charm
on the Aurors and run for the road."

"What about Tom?" asked Hermione. "We can't just leave him!"

"Well, I'm not volunteering to jump in and interrupt him," said Nott. "It's too dangerous. He's
monologuing!"

"You can volunteer if you want," said Travers. "But can you lower the platform first so we can get
off? Oh, and move it close to the edge of the pit so we won't have to walk through the Inferi.
They're normal bodies now; they've stopped moving around and moaning. But stepping on one
would be... best avoided."

Hermione pointed her wand at the concrete platform, and began to bend the steel reinforcing beams
to the side, keeping the platform's surface as level as she could. "Hold on if you don't want to fall
off."

"Can we go a bit faster, please?" said Nott. He jabbed his own wand at the floor, expanding the
edge of the platform to hook into earthen rim of the pit, filled with mangled bodies. The various
disassembled body parts lay in limp, slippery piles, like worms in a bait bucket. "Ready, everyone?
Just a helpful reminder—if you get left behind, you get left behind."

The moment the platform had lowered itself firmly enough to take their weight, Hermione and the
boys rushed across, flailing arms and flapping red cloaks of the unconscious Aurors dangling over
their shoulders. The Aurors had been charmed into weightlessness, but they were nevertheless large
and unwieldy, and required both hands to keep them in place. Hermione, not carrying an Auror, had
her hands free to draw her wand, so she took the lead, leaping over gravestones and burning
branches and crispy bodies with starched collars and smart suits. Her mind, which had always
found a meditative calm in arithmetic, tried not to think too deeply about how many trains had
stopped at King's Cross, and how many passengers each train carried. Earlier that year, a train off
Platform Five at King's Cross had derailed and killed two passengers. The papers had called it a
"disaster", of course. Two first-class passengers died. How could the coach lines be so negligent of
the safety of the customers who paid the most? This was more than several magnitudes greater of a
disaster.

"...I only did what you couldn't bear to do, Professor," she heard Tom say. So that was what Nott
had meant by monologuing. "You're an arrogant romantic. You said so yourself. It was inevitable
that someone else had to make the necessary decisions on the behalf of the British public. But look
at the silver lining: you'll never know for sure who did the deed. Was it me, was it you, or was it an
anomalous creature attack? What's certain is that I'll come out of this with clean hands. I knew it
troubled you that someone as young as I am had taken on such a burden to the soul. Now, thanks to
me, you won't have to worry about it."

"I never meant for you to take the Greater Good into your own hands, Tom," replied Dumbledore.

"That was never my intent either," said Tom. "I always thought 'the Greater Good' sounded like a
load of high-minded balderdash. But if necessity demanded my personal intervention, I suppose I
might be persuaded into the rôle of the lesser evil."
"Tom!" shouted Hermione. "You can gloat later. We have to run!"

"Look at the sky," Nott yelled, waving a floppy arm from the Auror on his back. The limp hand
gestured upwards. "The sky is falling!"

Black veins crawled across the smoky red sky. Tendrils shot away from the main mass, a black hole
gaping open just above their heads, spreading out from the centre like the feathery ends of a fern
leaf. Under their feet, the ground rumbled. Individual cobblestones shook themselves loose of the
village path. A piece of paving plinked on the road in front of Hermione's feet. Another lump hit
the ground behind her, accompanied by a crisp tinkle of sound.

Avery yelped in pain, holding a hand to his bleeding forehead. "It's raining glass!"

"The skylight windows at King's Cross Station are made of glass," Tom muttered to himself. He
turned to Dumbledore. "Grindelwald's dead. The illusion is disintegrating. I'd rather not be here
when the roof girders come down, but you can suit yourself."

Tom, not looking back at Dumbledore and the boys with sleeping Aurors slung over their backs,
snatched up Hermione's hand and dragged her up the path. Silently, he cast charm after charm upon
the both of them. A Shield Charm to protect their heads from falling debris. Cooling charms to
draw away the sweat that threatened to obscure their vision, fabric smoothing and laundry folding
charms to keep their legs from tangling in their floor-length robes. Tom drew a complicated pattern
with his wand with the ease of long practice, then tapped his wand against his chest.

"What... is... that... spell?" panted Hermione.

"Vascular dilation," said Tom, not sounding out-of-breath like she was. "Remember how we had to
run for the train at the end of Sixth Year? The Prefects laughed at us when we got in, all red and
sweaty. I decided to do something about it. Now I'll never run out of breath!"

Travers caught up to them, clad in barely more than his combinations, having shed his cloak and
robes for speed. "The ground is sinking. If the tracks and platforms come back, we'll have to climb
our way out!" Then he whipped ahead of them, the Auror over his shoulders flapping around
clumsily.

Tom blinked. "How did he do that?"

"I... think... he... exercises..." said Hermione.

Tom made a disapproving face. "Wizards don't exercise. That's why we have magic."

Hermione stopped abruptly. Tom, who had been holding on to her hand, was jerked to a halt.

"Magic," murmured Hermione. "Magic! We... have... magic!"

"Yes, I know," said Tom. "I'm a wizard. Huzzah—"

"So why are we running?" said Hermione. "Let's Apparate out! The enchantments are failing
because Grindelwald is dead. Nott wanted us to leave through the front door by breaking the
enchantments manually—"

Tom flicked his wand and a brick, falling from above, smashed into Hermione's shoulder with a
soft bump and a burst of downy white feathers. "—Because he didn't want to risk being flattened by
the roof."

Or rather, she thought, Nott wasn't going to wager his life on Grindelwald's death. Dumbledore
wanted to keep him alive.

"Thank you, Tom," said Hermione. "Exactly. But now we have other options than the front door.
The wards controlling the entrance and exit will be broken, along with the wards for everything
else. It occurred to me that Grindelwald tied the wards to himself, because there's power in casting
enchantments of personal significance; there has to be a reason he chose Godric's Hollow over one
of his strongholds in Germany—"

Tom grabbed her around the waist, tucked her head under his chin, and Apparated them straight
into the Ministry blockade by the trolleybus stops. He glanced around for any recognisable faces,
settled on the nearest Healer tent, and shoved her into the arms of a Mediwitch in green robes. Then
he was gone, Apparating away in a swirl of black robes.

Half a minute later, he dumped Travers and the Auror the boy had been carrying to the ground. The
Mediwitch squeaked, taking a bell out of one robe pocket and her wand from another. She rang the
bell, whose clapper made no sound, and shot off a Patronus in the form of a glowing silver dove.
More Patronuses began to flock around her. A silver martin, an orang-utan, a falcon, a salamander,
a delicate dragonfly. They scattered to the winds when a large Alsatian hound Patronus swept in
and surveyed the scene with its pale blue-white eyes.

Pushing himself to a sitting position, Travers stared at the dog, which stared back at him. The dog
nodded once, then faded into a silver mist.

Travers covered his eyes with the back of his hand and whimpered. "Granger," he mumbled,
looking awkwardly at Hermione and then at the poor state of his underclothes, smudged by dirt
across the seat where he had slipped and fallen at one point. "Can you lend me your cloak? I'm
afraid I'm not quite decent."

Hermione unclasped her black cloak and handed it over. She took off the scarf covering her face as
well. There was no use in trying to hide her identity from today. People were going to find out. The
Travers family was well-known by anyone who had been part of the bureaucracy under the
previous Minister, Hector Fawley. In fact, she could see reporters trying to push their way through
the Ministry barricade. The St. Mungos staff in green robes weren't having it, however. It was more
important to get the rescued Aurors to the hospital instead of delivering quotes for tomorrow's front
page.

Tom Apparated in again with a ear-shattering crack, dropping Nott and his Auror, who had been
carried in mid-speech.

"—Borrowing my carpet, implying that it would be returned at some future time. Where is it, then?
Where's my carpet, Riddle?"

"Destroyed," said Tom bluntly, and then popped away three more times, bringing Rosier, Avery,
and Lestrange with their burdens to the now overcrowded first aid station.

"Should I go back for Dumbledore, do you think?" Tom asked, watching the medics roll Aurors
onto gurneys. He brushed off a Healer who tried to shove a tray of tonics at him. "He's still angry at
me. I've no idea why. Grindelwald was scheming him. It was so obvious!"
"I don't know about that," said Hermione quietly, holding out her hands. A Mediwitch dabbed at
her knuckles with a cloth soaked in Dittany. "I think Dumbledore really cared about Grindelwald.
Everyone knows they used to be friends a long time ago."

"Friends with a Dark Lord," said Tom in a voice of scorn. "They were friends, and Dumbledore just
walked away? What a useless friend he is; I would never do such a thing. And he has the nerve to
be upset at me for it, when they weren't even friends anymore. Dumbledore's gone barmy. Always
lecturing me about playing house with Muggles while he leaves because it's just too much effort..."

"Tom—"

"...That's outrageous, is what it is. If I wanted life advice about how good it feels to walk away
from one's connections, I'd talk to my father; the only thing he doesn't turn his back on is a fifteen-
year cognac..."

"Tom!" said Hermione.

"...What?"

"Dumbledore's back!"

In a blaze of orange fire, Dumbledore appeared at the arched entranceway to King's Cross Station,
the bloodied body of Grindelwald clasped in one arm, and the gnarled length of Grindelwald's
infamous wand in the other hand. On his shoulder, a phoenix crooned a song of wrenching sorrow,
crystal tears dripping onto Grindelwald's waxen skin. A hundred yards away, Hermione heard every
single note and felt the intensity of its cry resonate within her very soul. She couldn't help it; her
vision blurred, and even through the tears she saw how everyone's heads had turned to face the
source of such extraordinary passion.

The reporters abandoned the Healer tent and rushed over to Dumbledore, bellowing questions at the
man.

"Professor, Professor! What spell did you use to defeat the Dark Lord?"

"What are you going to do with the wand? Several European governments have expressed interest
in its repatriation."

"When do you plan on running for Minister, Mr. Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak.

King's Cross Station collapsed on itself with a massive WHOOMPH!

Camera bulbs flashed en masse, blinding bystanders in the same instant they were deafened by the
crash of steel and glass falling on top of abandoned locomotive boilers, previously held under
powerful magical enchantments.

"Damn it!" snarled Tom. "Dumbledore stole my headline."

Hermione discovered through judicious eavesdropping that the Other Minister, the title wizards
used for the Prime Minister of the Muggle government, wasn't pleased about the destroyed train
station and the eight-hundred or so missing Muggles trapped therein. There was, reportedly, plenty
of finger-pointing and many angry occurrences of the phrase 'Your people!'. But it was agreed
upon, in the end, that the Germans were to blame for whole affair. Both the Muggle and Magical
governments of Britain were vehemently opposed to them, so why fight each other when everyone
knew that the Germans were the real culprits?

And no one should be asking any questions about where the Hogwarts Express locomotive had
come from and what its route was; that was a totally irrelevant line of questioning. The questions
should be instead focused on Norway, chosen as the site for holding the stolen children. Hermione
learned that Norway was occupied by Germans right up to their surrender in May, not liberated
earlier by the Allies as they had done for more strategically useful countries. Norway was
rumoured to be a last-resort stronghold for German forces, and there must have been some truth in
that, at least when it came to evil wizard Germans.

She'd previously assumed Norway was chosen due to its proximity to Scotland. Geography made it
difficult to Apparate or Portkey travel from Britain to the European continent, so distances mattered
for planning and logistics. The wizard smugglers she'd heard of from Mr. Pacek hopped back and
forth by Calais and Le Havre. And she remembered Rosier telling her that for the average family
with children in tow, the Irish Sea was too far to cross by Apparition. France was crawling with
Muggle soldiers and wizard bootleggers. Germany would have been too far to carry the Hogwarts
Express. But Norway was attainable—if only with the aid of a blood sacrifice at the height of the
summer solstice.

"Durmstrang wizards know Norway like the back of their hands," Hermione heard whispered from
multiple mouths. "Everyone knows you can't graduate from Durmstrang without a N.E.W.T. in
Dark Arts!"

It was ridiculous to Hermione, since Durmstrang didn't even use the British N.E.W.T. exams, and
Grindelwald didn't even graduate from Durmstrang. But to Hermione's annoyance, people kept
repeating it because it made for a good story, and the glamour of a thrilling story sounded better
than the truth.

The five rescued Aurors were revived and proclaimed the owner of the otter Patronus as their
rescuer. It came out during the Aurors' questioning that the otter Patronus had entered their
consciousnesses by way of the Imperius Curse, which made Hermione very nervous and Tom
pleased at himself for some inexplicable reason.

"It was incredible," gushed Lestrange. "I'd never have thought of something like that, but Granger
came up with it right on the spot! Oi, why did you kick me?"

"The spell is illegal," hissed Nott under his breath.

"Oh. Right, I forgot about that bit, didn't I?" said Lestrange. "But that didn't stop her from whipping
out five in a row. Bam, bam, bam! I could never—"

"Shut up, you imbecile."

After that admission, members of the Department of Law Enforcement hustled the group to their
Ministry of Magic headquarters for a more thorough interrogation. To their relief, no one was
tossed into a cell or chained to a chair and force-fed Veritaserum. They were brought in through the
regular Floo entrance, then had their wands weighed and face-concealing scarves and hoods
checked by the Atrium desk staff. Tom argued about having his identifying information put on the
Ministry record, complaining that he'd gotten to skip the process when he'd attended the court trial
as the Prince of Charming. He took off his hood, gaining a wide-eyed look of awed recognition
from the front desk receptionist, a Madam Leonora Gardiner, who pointed at him and whispered to
her colleagues. "By Jove! It's him, it's him! He signed his autograph for me!"

Tom refused to submit his wand, holding up the queue until Head Auror Evelyn McClure arrived to
resolve the delay himself.

"I'm not letting you take my wand," said Tom stubbornly.

"We do return them, you know," said Auror McClure. Hermione distinctly overheard him mutter
the words 'beardless boy' to himself. "Alright, then. Keep your wand, Prince. Madam Gardiner, can
you write down that the Prince of Charming's wand is white yew? Twelve, no, thirteen inches long.
Core material, dragon or phoenix. We'll send someone over to Ollivander later to confirm which
one."

Tom scowled. "That's not fair."

"Thirteen inch wands are distinctive," said McClure. "Can't be helped that people remember it
when they see one being shown off with your flavour of flashy magic. Now, come along. We need
to get the interviews finished before dinnertime, or the families will make a fuss and insist the
lawyers be involved."

"Do we need lawyers?" asked Nott suspiciously. "Actually, I don't think I should say anything until
we have lawyers in here. I wouldn't want there to be any... unfortunate misunderstandings."

The group was escorted to the Auror Office, where they were offered seats at empty desks
belonging to Aurors either recuperating at St. Mungos or organising the evacuation from Norway.
The office had a tall arched ceiling, and desks aligned in rows like an exam hall, each with its own
green glass lamp and quill set. Tom tested the cabinets built on one side of the desk; they were
locked. High along one wall were stacks of bay windows overlooking the Auror desks, which
Hermione knew to be the private offices of department seniors and their understudies. She had seen
the inside of one of those offices in a memory, and she still had no idea if Tom knew what they
looked like, or if he'd made it up from whole cloth.

McClure took their names, ages, and addresses. Tom, again, was the most reluctant to give his
particulars.

"December 31, 1926," said Tom.

"I asked for your name, sir," said McClure.

"Surname 'Charming', first name 'Prince'," said Tom.

"You know we can't award a First Class Order of Merlin to a 'Mr. Prince Charming', don't you?"
asked the Auror.
"Well, why didn't you say so?" said Tom. "My name is..." He winced. "Tom. Tom Marvolo Riddle."

"Just 'Tom'? Not short for 'Thomas'?"

"No," said Tom, his eye twitching.

Hermione grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "Order of Merlin, Tom. Keep repeating it to yourself
and you'll feel better."

Then it was Hermione's turn.

"September 19, 1926. Hermione Jean Granger."

"Riddle," said Tom.

"I beg your pardon?" said McClure, quill nib hovering over his parchment.

"It's Hermione Jean Riddle," Tom repeated.

Hermione frowned. "Tom!"

"I know how this works. You're going to give this information to The Daily Prophet, aren't you? Or
at least allow them to 'confirm the facts' with you," said Tom. "If they print something about
Hermione in the newspaper, then it should be about Hermione Riddle." He held up their clasped
hands to show the Auror Hermione's ring. "We're to be married in a few months."

"Congratulations," said Auror McClure automatically. Then he put his quill down and held up a
finger. "Hold on a moment! All of you were born in Twenty-Six or Twenty-Seven. That's this year's
graduating class! A bunch of students cast Unforgivables, unravelled the curse holding trained
Aurors captive, and assisted in the defeat of a Dark Lord? The Hero of Britain was born in 1926...
No wonder our investigators couldn't turn up any leads as to who you were. There weren't any,
because you're all children!"

"It'd do you good to keep thoughts like that to yourself," said Tom coolly. "Your department's
reputation can only suffer so many blows. Must I remind you how tiring it is for me to do the job
for which you are supposedly qualified, and for none of the compensation? And I do expect the
proper compensation for my troubles. You may begin by ensuring the Ministry is informed on the
extent of my contributions today, and that of my compatriots... Including Professor Dumbledore.
Your investigators might find the nature of Dumbledore's contribution during the negotiations to be
of great interest." Tom plucked from his pocket a glass vial filled with a glistening white liquid. "If
people were to see precisely how the Dark Lord was defeated, perhaps it would help the Order of
Merlin committee decide if anyone merits recognition more than others."

"That's rather petty of you, Tom," Hermione remarked. She could tell that Tom was still upset about
the "stolen headline", so his solution was an attempt to steal away the prospects of Dumbledore's
future medal.

"That's called a long-term investment, Hermione," said Tom. "If Dumbledore gets an Order of
Merlin, First Class, he would vote the opposite of whatever I voted to support. It's not personal. It's
just politics."
With a deep sigh, Hermione considered her options and decided to volunteer her own memories,
asking, "I'm not going to be arrested for a minor technicality, am I?" She ignored Nott's incredulous
snort, and continued, "I've had a spotless record until now, not a single strike for underage magic. I
don't want the record to show that the first magic I did outside of Hogwarts was, um, multiple
counts of Dark curses."

McClure studied Hermione, who bit her lip and looked at Tom, then down at her lap. Tom glared at
the Auror, lifting his brows in silent challenge. He held his glass memory vial in a loose grip,
dangling from the tips of his fingers. Tom's gaze flicked meaningfully from the fragile vial, to the
shiny tiled floor, then back to the Auror.

"Ahem." McClure nervously cleared his throat. "As I understand, Torquil Travers successfully put
through an emergency Wizengamot vote, granting the entity known as the 'Prince of Charming' a
writ of dispensation for actions undertaken at the behest of the Ministry of Magic. Perhaps the word
'entity' can be interpreted as the Prince and his entourage; it's known that the Prince co-operates
with other wizards, such as the Green Knight. As I recall the wording of Mr. Travers' submission, it
specifically used 'entity' rather than 'individual'. Established precedent in wizarding law has
allowed for 'entity' to include plural persons."

Tom nodded in satisfaction and tossed the vial into McClure's lap. "That's what I wanted to hear."

Travers submitted a memory vial. Nott refused to do so without his family's lawyer. Rosier
promised to come back with his answer after speaking to his parents. Lestrange and Avery hadn't
the training and practice to extract their memories intact. Then they were allowed to leave, after
being warned that further official requests might arrive in the coming days by owl mail.

The pubs in Diagon Alley were packed from the door to the counter, full of strangers slapping them
on the back and cheering that the Dark Lord was dead. After one too many drinks slopped over
their shoes in yet another lively toast, they ended up in a Muggle pub in the Charing Cross area of
London. It was a traditional English pub, as far as Hermione knew; she wasn't one to do much of
her socialising over alcohol. Wood panelled walls with framed photographs of local darts
tournament winners. An advertising poster for a meat raffle, featuring ten pounds of tinned pork—
Hermione had forgotten how valuable meat was as a Muggle trading commodity. A price list next
to the wireless behind the bar, which played popular dance hall standards. The publican sorted
glasses on a shelf, and gave them an odd look when Rosier politely requested the wine menu and
Travers asked if he had any small beer.

"Small beer? Wine?" said the publican. "Are you having me on? What sort of place do you think
this is? No, we don't have any of that. We have ale. We have lager. We have bitter and extra-bitter.
You get what I serve, no more or less."

"Oh, I suppose I'll have the lager, then," said Rosier. He, like most Slytherins, spoke with a
conspiciously refined enunciation.

"Toffs," grumbled the publican. He pointed to the price list, which read '1s 5d'. "That'll be one
shilling and five."

"Five... five 'd'?" said Rosier. "What's a 'd'? Do you take gold?"

Hermione stepped in and slapped a one pound banknote on the counter. "Thank you, we'll have
three lagers and three ales. Whoever doesn't like what they got can swap." She carried the pint
glasses over to their booth, everyone squeezed in knee-to-knee, and announced, "If you take a
glass, you'll owe me seven Knuts. Over a shilling a pint! Ridiculous, but that's wartime pricing for
you."

"That's cheap! You can't get a pint for under a Sickle in any pub I know of," said Avery. "But I do
know of an alchemist down in Tintagel who runs his own still out of his barn. They say his brew
makes you dream about the Grim, so I never tried it. Do you think we can do the Schooler's Seven
tonight? I've been looking forward to it for weeks, but the pubs are all packed! Can we hit all seven
with Muggle pubs?"

"No one's Apparating around Muggles!" said Hermione. "Remember the Statute!"

"We've just finished talking to the Aurors and I'm in no rush to go back," Avery replied. "Hey,
bartender, are there six other pubs within walking distance of here?"

The publican paused in counting the money in his till. "Yeah, there's the Coach and Four across the
street, The Ploughman at St. Martin's, the Olde Scotch Inn and the Yeoman's Arms by Whitehall.
Those two are posh ones, the beer's not bad if you're partial to your drinks on the thin and yellow
side. The Sign of the Oak, the Bucket, and the Drumhead across the way at Southwark serve the
good old 'bread in a bottle'. Those are rougher parts; better keep a hand on your wallet or you won't
be seeing it again. That's seven, d'you want more?"

"I'll have another round," said Avery, quaffing the dregs of his first pint and slamming the empty
glass on the counter. "My throat is still dry!"

Hermione and Tom were the only ones with Muggle money, and Hermione refused to pay for the
second round, even when offered a fair exchange in Galleons for pounds sterling. Tom, whose eyes
took on a greedy glint seeing a bag of gold jingled under the table, passed over a handful of crisp
notes his grandparents had probably sent him as pocket money. The gold vanished out of sight.
Avery came back with an armload of drinks. Hermione sighed and sipped her cup of ale. Tom didn't
drink anything.

She hadn't really paid attention to it before, but Tom was not much of a tippler. At the Riddle
House, lunch and dinner were served with wine, but Tom rarely drank more than a sip or two for
the sake of the meal pairing. At Professor Slughorn's club suppers, elf-wine and mead came with
every course, but Tom didn't drink much there either. In fact, drinkers and drunken behaviour
irritated Tom; he categorised it as a filthy Muggle habit, despite wizards' enthusiasm for a
celebratory libation equalling that of any Muggle.

When the drinking songs commenced, Tom quietly excused himself and disappeared.

Some time later, Tom returned and squeezed into the booth next to Hermione.

"I rang my grandparents," he said, "and told them about the train station being blown up by
Germans. They agreed that it's best we stay in London for the next few days while our luggage
situation gets sorted out. Can't let the porters run off with my shirts. They're Savile Row!"

"Oh," said Hermione, eyes widening in surprise. "I'd completely forgotten that I left all my books
on the train. I do hope no one's taken any of them."

"That's why you should always put jinxes on your belongings, like I do," said Tom. "But there's
more important news to tell."
 "What is it?"

"The Royal Aspen has a room open and my grandparents have had it paid up for the week. It's
booked by a Mr. and Mrs. Riddle, so they'll have no suspicions about two people showing up for a
room with one bed," Tom said, smiling ominously. "When you finish your drink, we can head right
over. I don't know about you, but after all this funny business with the Ministry, I find myself quite
ready to retire to bed. A nice, comfortable, and spacious bed."

"Then I wish you a good night's rest," Hermione replied. "I think I'll go home to my parents. My
mother will want to know that I wasn't blown up with the train station. The Hogwarts Express'
arrival time to London would have been around the same time the wards fell at King's Cross."

Tom did not look pleased at her words. "I almost forgot about my mother-in-law."

"Are you having second thoughts about marriage?" Hermione asked.

"Never," said Tom. "If we visit them together and stay the night, do you think she'll insist we sleep
in separate beds?"

"Definitely," said Hermione.

"Even though The Daily Prophet names me the Hero of Britain?"

"You'll find it shocking to know that some people aren't as impressed by your heroic deeds," said
Hermione, "as you are."

"It was too much for any man to expect an Order of Merlin to impress a mother-in-law," Tom
sighed in disappointment. "Shall we go, then? With enough persuasion, perhaps your mother might
be convinced that we don't need a dividing screen between the separate beds. The couples in the
pictures never use dividers."

"Those couples in the pictures were married," Hermione reminded him.

"But so are we," said Tom. "You're Hermione Jean Riddle. The Daily Prophet will have it in print
tomorrow morning, and you know they never lie."

Chapter End Notes

- Phaedo by Plato, 360 B.C. — An example of "Socratic dialogue" where the character
Socrates and a supporting cast present philosophical arguments in the form of a series of
questions and answers. Phaedo's dialogue is about souls and ghosts.

- "Exeunt Stage" — "They go out" (Latin), or leave the stage. Traditional stage directions from
the Shakespearean era. Nott realised in the previous chapter that Godric's Hollow is an
illusion; in the real life village, the trees are burnt down. In the duel of Godric's Hollow in
1899, Grindy and Dumbles destroyed half the village, killing Ariana. Grindelwald recreated
Godric's Hollow from before the duel, to manipulate Dumbledore's nostalgia.
- "England expects that every man will do his duty" — Quote from Lord Nelson, 1805. In the
Battle of Trafalgar, Napoleon's navy planned to invade Britain but were rebuffed by the
victorious British fleet. The quote's popularity was revived during WWII.

- Small beer — Light beer of the middle ages, approximately 2% alcohol.

- Train derailment, February, 1945: "it became derailed and was forced over on its side against
a steel stanchion of the main signal bridge, which cut into the roof and demolished one of the
two first class compartments."

- 1s 5d — 1 shilling, 5 pence. Pence is represented by "d" in pre-decimal UK currency. £1 =

20 shillings. 1 shilling = 12 pence, or 12d. The UK currency system discarded the shilling in
1971.

- Couples in the pictures — Hays Code (1934-1968) mandated on-screen propriety standards,
including sleeping in separate beds for couples. It's one of the odd throwbacks seen in shows
like I Love Lucy, where Lucy and her husband Ricky have separate beds.
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