Finders, keepers – The unforgettable years
"This way!"
"To the washing machines?"
Sirius Black, twenty-year-old wizard and adopted father of one, cast a rather dubious look at his adoptee. Young Riddle-Black nodded, enthusiastically like every eight-year-old on a mission, and only asked, "Will you teach me every enchantment you put on it?"
"You will know more spells when you enter Hogwarts than most wizards do when they graduate," the parent-figure nodded. For about ten seconds, he was looking very seriously.
"I don't want to be like most wizards," Tom said quietly, to which Black only hissed the Parseltongue expression for "I know." His language skills had improved greatly since fate (and a Responsibility Placement Ritual) had landed young Tom Marvolo Riddle in his path.
"I want to turn it into a Vanishing Cabinet," the kid explained as they were walking the muggle store's aisle. "A real Cabinet is just too obvious, and very prone to fire. In fact, that's how the Fiendfyre in 1666 spread through London, just when the wizards of the time thought they had put it out."
Sirius froze in the spot. "When have you read about the Fiendfyre of 1666, if I may ask?"
Young Tom went examining the washing machines on display, not bothering to answer until his adopter got really riled up. "Tom, I asked you a question!"
"You're shouting," Tom remarked, opening and closing the lid of a top loader. "Regulus was boasting about it on Wednesday. He said it could have been stopped much quicker if the wizarding populace hadn't been forced into hiding at the time."
"So you went to Fleamont and asked for a historically accurate source on the Fiendfyre." Then the older wizard muttered something about the kid getting spoiled.
"I know my way around the library," Tom huffed. He wasn't a small child anymore who couldn't take the book he needed.
Sirius let out an irritated sigh. "I knew we shouldn't have bought the Bagshot House. You just keep wandering back to the Potters."
Tom hissed delightedly, "They insssssisssted we buy the Bagshot Houssssse exsssactly becausssse now we bothssss can wander back to the Pottersssss."
"Tom, we're among muggles. No hissing."
"Okay." Tom gave the top-loader a last look, "What do you think about the lock? Could it be safely charmed so that it can't be opened from the inside?"
Sirius touched his very thin moustache. "That's not a detail I would have considered. But you're right, it's important."
"That's why you have me," Parsel-Child pointed out as a matter of fact. "And I like this rotary switch. Could be used for choosing more than one direction."
"You've already made a decision, I see," Padfoot murmured. "All right, go get a salesman and arrange home delivery."
"Okay."
Sirius stood idle as the child went and handled the muggle shop assistant. Tom had a talent for getting his will through without being prominently pushy or impolite. He just…. simply made the salesman drop everything else, ignore the other inquiring buyers, and rally to the home delivery desk. The more Sirius was watching the scene, the better he understood. Tom had control over that muggle, without either of them being aware of it.
But it wasn't just this muggle. Just two days before, they had met Regulus by chance, and young Riddle-Black talked the Black heir into having ice cream with them. The two brothers hadn't even talked since Sirius finished his NEWTs.
Regulus was doing well, for a pureblood. He had more than enough galleons and several investments Little Cor Leonis didn't even need to find a job, so, consequently, he had far too much free time on his hands. What troubled Sirius was what his younger brother was doing with his time. The Blood Purist Society was anything but a good influence on him.
In stark contrast to his brother, Sirius had his hands full. He hadn't even graduated when he had already developed a knack for customizing muggle inventions into something genially magical, and he also had young Tom to keep him on his toes at all times. Now he was the proud wizard behind Siriusly Enchanted Objects, a one-person business with special Ministry permit to work with muggle-made materials. He had sold maybe a dozen all-locks opening knives, each blade hand crafted by a muggle artisan, and each having a different extra, in accordance with the client's wishes and personality. He had customized the electric guitars for the Weird Sisters, who had paid him in concert tickets, and invited Tom along as well. Remus had requested a muzzle that would wrap on his werewolf form and stay in place exactly as long as the full moon was up, as an extra layer of security. It was disguised as a necklace with a basket medal for the rest of the month.
The Vanishing Cabinet (or, more like, Vanishing Washmachine) was for a very different line of products, however. The Purists carried on Grindelwald's legacy, thrived in terror and destruction, and the Auror Corps were tied by their own Ministry, unable to ever catch them. Sirius had heard James lament long enough about how the other departments were jointly thwarting them whenever a Purist came into view of an investigation. Muggleborns, half-bloods and their families had to fend for themselves against a pack of witches and wizards who stood above the law. Creating escape routes for them was Sirius' contribution to their protection.
"Is there a ward that can disable a Vanishing Cabinet? Or anything that works on the same principle?" Tom had asked when his own adult had first met the problem. And now, here they were, buying washing machines to serve as a muggle family's escape route in case the Purists terrorized them.
Sirius paid for the to-be Vanishing Washmachine, and moved on with Tom to the other electronics store on the far side of the shopping mall, to buy the exact same model. It would be easier to connect them. Yet again, he had to admit Tom's choice was smart. Vanishing Cabinets had to be built at the same time, and the maker had to go a long way to ensure they were similar. The same level of similarity, however, was given for certain with mass produced muggle goods. And why wouldn't he make a trio of them, instead of just a pair? There were enough buttons with which one could choose the destination. Floo was unsafe because the leaving wizard had to clearly pronounce his place of arrival, which was as good as telling the attackers in the face where they could continue.
"Tom, we'll come back here tomorrow with Glamour, and get two more of these."
"May I cast it on you?"
"Absolutely not! I won't walk LONDON with green-blue hair like what you've put on me last time!"
"It looks well on Springscales!"
"There's the point, Parsel-Child, I'm not Springscales! I am male, to start with the most important difference!"
-?-
Something was off, Tom could tell it, something other than the wedding preparations. It felt like half of the population of Godric's Hollow was busy with Lily Evans soon taking the name Lily Potter, but that was a good thing, and whatever was wrong, felt like something bad. Bathilda, who had sold her childhood home to Padfoot several years before, was staying at a muggle neighbor just across the street. Tom had the strange feeling that she somehow wanted her own place back, like a ghost returning to a building, and this really made no sense to the boy, because Bathilda was, beyond any doubt, alive. Tom still didn't want to see her in what was Padfoot's and his home now.
Young Riddle-Black locked his door behind himself, dropped on the bed in his street clothes, and picked up the book from under his pillow. He didn't care it wasn't meant for young children. A year before, Padfoot had picked up a liking to Asimov's science fiction, which Tom had moderately enjoyed, but as soon as he had heard the same author had books of science without fiction, he had started collecting those obsessively. 'The Left Hand of the Electron' explained, for example, through dextrorotatory glucose and levorotatory fructose, why some potions need to be stirred clockwise and some counter-clockwise, without breaching the Statute of Secrecy. But today, not even that book could hold his attention for long.
He looked up from his read and out at the inky sky, and he wondered if he had been forgotten by the adults. Or, if he had cast a repellent charm on his door again without thinking about it.
He really wasn't in control of his own magic, sometimes.
In the living-room, he found Padfoot working on the two identical washing machines, or vanishing machines, or whatever he was going to name the invention.
"Idiot."
The wizard hissed back a greeting.
"Why didn't we have lunch with Fleamont and Euphemia?"
Sirius stood up, and quietly stated, "They've been feeling unwell in the past few days. And they have a lot of difficult things to sort through this week."
"And you are soaked in bubbles," the child observed. "Why are they feeling unwell?"
"If I knew, I would tell you, I swear."
"Are they afraid Son will move out? After the wedding, I mean."
Padfoot only grimaced. "Prongs is training to be an auror, Tom. That means he doesn't get to spend much time at home, be it with them or with Lily."
"He's been training for two years by now," Tom pointed out. "Nothing changes there." And there also wasn't any change in his well-earned disrespect for his superiors, but Tom didn't voice that this time.
Sirius nodded. "Lily herself requested that they get a separate wing in the Potter manor, instead of moving completely out. That's not going to change in the near future. On the long run… No, they won't be moving." Sirius took a deeper breath, and continued. "Both Euphemia and Fleamont are old. We love them, and they will stay with us forever, just…" He scratched his neck with the hilt of his wand. Clearly, he was out of ideas how to explain something.
Tom sat down with a jug of hot cocoa. "We talked about death with Springscales," he started, his face pale, and his voice low tuned. "She says it will be like molting out of the entire body," he shared quietly. "That it will be the opposite of hatching out of an egg. But when I asked, she couldn't tell what comes later. Only, that it does."
Sirius took the seat next to the boy, and took a mug of cocoa for himself. "Thank Merlin for wise snakes," he smiled faintly. "But James's parents are not dying," he clarified. "They are old and they are more prone to a number of illnesses, but at the moment, they are with us and they are going to attend the wedding."
"But they are preparing for a time when it won't be so," Tom pointed out.
"Yes." With relief, Sirius continued. "They're at Gringotts, taking account of everything James will inherit one day. See, if James would die now, his properties would be passed on to distant Potter relatives, but after getting married, everything would fall to Lily. Who is muggle-born, and our Ministry doesn't like muggleborns."
"You mean, Ministry gits would just get their bloody hands on all that should be Lily's."
"Language."
"Minissssstry gitssss want to disssssposssssesssss Lily if her husssssband diesssss."
Sirius rolled his eyes. When he said 'language', he didn't mean switching to Parseltongue. Of which Tom was doubtlessly aware. With a tiny nod, he turned back to his own cocoa, and downed it in one go.
"I still don't like what the Ministry is doing," Tom finally stated.
"You're not alone with that," Sirius agreed. Why did James insist on getting the most dangerous job the wizarding world could offer? Apart from his disability to sit still when there was a hope for adventure…?
-?-
The vanishing machines were yet another hit, and one evening Sirius found himself in Albus Dumbledore's office, writing down the list of spells he was using to create the magical connection between the latest two.
"You are saving lives, my boy," the headmaster reassured him.
"Too bad there's a need for it," Padfoot replied. "I'd much rather be discussing spellfire polarity with Tom."
Albus blinked twice, not quite sure what spellfire polarity might be. So he took the discussion in the other direction. "An exceptional child, or so I've heard."
"You won't like him. Slytherin to the core," Sirius grinned. A Slytherin who had him wrapped around his fingers the night they've met.
"Oh."
Sirius gave a warning look before he continued his work. In three years, his adopted son would start his studies at Hogwarts, and it would be the end of all good terms with the headmaster if just once his well-known dislike of Slytherins would put Tom at any disadvantage.
"At least Horace will be happy," the old wizard managed.
Sirius finished the list he was writing, ran through it again, then handed the scroll over to Albus.
"Here. Make sure to first send an apple through it. If the apple arrives, anything else will also come through. Security spells must be discussed with those who will use it, see, blocking the exit would somewhat miss the entire point."
Dumbledore took the parchment, and read it through. "A modified expansion charm?" he noted. "Makes sense."
"In an emergency, you won't have time to squeeze yourself into the expanded space. Tom tested this one by driving my motorbike into a front-loader at full throttle. I almost had a heart attack!"
"You weren't entertained? My boy, you clearly never had an entire school to watch."
-?-
When James and Lily returned from their honeymoons, it was Sirius and Tom's turn to leave for two weeks on the Continent. They visited a dragon sanctuary, various muggle-made sights, vast plains and forest-covered large mountains, caves that would only let them past if they blocked the exits behind their backs. Tom insisted on seeing Nurmengard, even if they couldn't get close because of the numerous security spells. Somewhere up that cloudy mountain peak, Sirius explained, Gellert Grindelwald was still alive.
"I wonder what he's doing right now," Tom said, nibbling a sandwich on a salient.
"Reading the freshest issue of Transfiguration Today, if I know Albus one bit."
"You mean they're in correspondence?" Tom asked. Suddenly, his esteem of the old headmaster tripled, at least. "Why, is he..?"
"They were friends, great friends once." Sirius glared at his flask of pumpkin juice, but he couldn't take anything more alcoholic when they still had to fly back through weaker layers of the isolation shield.
Tom stared. "Really?"
"Planning to change the world together, or so I remember Albus telling about it. He still couldn't bring himself to destroy Grindelwald in 1945, no matter that they were, by then, mortal enemies."
Tom kept looking up at Nurmengard, chewing his sandwich mechanically. Being ultimately defeated by someone who was as close to him as, say, the Marauders to each other… Those shared the tightest bond he had ever seen. He wondered if Sirius had feared a similar result of their fallout when he had given up Moony's secret just for an ill thought-out prank. Lucky for the adequately named Idiot, Tom had entered his life, stirring it up enough that Padfoot's treason became old news for his friends. Not that he had much recollection of the time of his arrival, but he'd heard the story retold several times. He looked at Sirius (still in a deadly staring match with the innocent flask of juice) then at the fortress in the clouds.
It started raining soon after that, and Sirius decided they'd been here long enough. "Come, Parsel-Child."
"Will we come back?"
"One day, possibly."
So Sirius didn't intend to. Well, Tom though, if any of them would ever turn against the other, this will be the spot where they would discuss the situation. Here, with the never-forgotten fortress above their heads, warning them where a conflict can lead to.
-?-
Tom was maybe closer to nine than to eight by now, without his birth documents it was impossible to tell. He was clearly still underage to buy a wand in the Wizarding Britain, where the Ollivander family had been supplying the entire nation for centuries. On their tour, however, it took Tom one well-timed disappearance with all the pocket money he had saved, and he returned in half an hour with a Gregorovitch wand, 28 cm (11 inch) aspen, with a right-wing pinion of a turul hawk as the core.
-?-
They were scheduled to cross the Great Muggle-Made Barrier in two days, a wall-like apparation block that cut the continent apart. Tom heard it said, the muggle politicians on both sides were so engaged in the idea of splitting their world in half, they convinced their wizarding counterparts to add magical enforcement to the obstacle they had created for themselves. The International Confederation of Wizards concurred, because leaving the opportunity for magical transportation would have encouraged an unwanted amount of wizard-muggle interaction. However, borderlines between magical governments' territories couldn't be expected to follow the muggle-drawn line, and the Transsylvanian vampire population threatened with breaching the borderline in broad daylight if they would have been cut off from their manors in France, so the so-called Muggle-Made Barrier had been, eventually, cast several hundred miles from the Iron Curtain it was supposed to follow.
"That doesn't make sense," Tom noted.
"After four years in the wizarding world, you doubt our capacity for complete idiotism?"
"No, but vampires couldn't have really done ANYTHING in broad daylight," the child pointed out. "If that was the threat they made, they were threatening everyone with their en masse suicide."
Sirius scratched his head. Honestly, he never considered that….
They were just arranging paperwork at the wizarding check-point, when James Potter's owl found them.
Sirius's fingers paled as he took a first glance at the letter. Tom didn't wait for him to read it aloud, he just leaned over his adult's shoulder.
"There's a growing epidemic of dragon pox in Godric's Hollow," the message read without a preamble. "As always, taking its toll on the elderly. We already lost old dear Mary Longbottom, and it's spreading fast. Padfoot, Parsel-kid, you might need to hurry back if you want to say goodbye to Dad and Mom."
The two Blacks wasted no time to travel back to Britain.
-?-
Just a week later, Fleamont succumbed to his sickness. Euphemia only survived her husband by two days. She was smiling on her deathbed, and told James not to let Lily come close to either of them. When she was asked why, her reply was, "It's a boy."