Title: Mythopoesis
Part II ~
To be at Hogwarts was to live in a sort of microcosm, but sometimes, when the moods of muggles and wizards matched, even the school was affected by the increasingly fervent talk of politics, patriotism, and paranoia. When Professor Slughorn did not show up immediately for Potions class, his second-year students fell into discussion about that German crazy man, trading more rumors than they did facts, and while some of them recognized the gruesome truth, others imagined the recent events as something momentous and grand.
"It is revolutionary," Abraxas Malfoy said, distinctly enunciating the newly learned word, "what Grindelwald is doing for wizards everywhere."
"Oh really?" Charlus Potter flung back. "Is that what you Slytherins call heroism? Killing Muggles in the middle of the night?"
"Of course you would disagree, Potter. You, whose filthy House takes in the cockroaches –"
"Mr. Malfoy!" Slughorn had returned and was staring, horrified, at his student. Despite the affection he lavished on those from pureblood pedigrees, Slughorn had made it clear that he valued his talented Muggle-born students as much as the ones from traditional heritage. Clearing his throat, the usually mild-mannered professor said with as much conviction as he could muster, "Ten points from Slytherin, and no more of this nonsense. You children couldn't possibly understand what you're talking about. Well, except for those with parents in the Ministry...Ms. McGonagall , your parents are both in service to our government, anything legitimate you've heard from them?"
At the front of the room, Barty Crouch frowned and objected, "Professor, her father works for the Germans."
"He works in the embassy!" Minerva retorted.
"Yes, he certainly likes the country well enough. My father works in the Ministry too, Department of Law Enforcement, and he's told me that your father is on a list of those who have associated with Grindelwald."
"Are you on a witch-hunt, Barty," Minerva asked icily. "Or is it a wild goose chase?"
Once again, Slughorn stepped in with half-hearted authority. "All right, that's enough. No need to turn on each other. Besides, we have some very difficult brewing to do today…"
But Minerva could barely concentrate on chopping daisy roots after that exchange. It was an outrageous accusation, she thought with each clumsy hack of her knife. Her father was not a traitor, and anyone falsely calling him one insulted her in a way she would not bear. The rest of the day progressed miserably, and Charlus compared her to a thundercloud more than once. It was not until dessert that Minerva remembered about the meeting with the Riddle boy. She scanned the Great Hall for him, but with the boy nowhere in sight, she decided to go to the library to finish her homework. Her plans all changed though when she saw Tom, perched on a stone-carven bench outside the library as if he had been waiting for her all along. Sinuously draped around his shoulders was Nagini.
"Hullo." Tom smiled at her as if he hadn't taken something without asking.
"I didn't figure you for a thief," Minerva said, not returning the smile.
"I wouldn't call it stealing exactly. She came to me."
"Right, well, she's coming back with me. She is mine after all."
As if he hadn't heard her at all, Tom absently caressed the snake. "I can imagine how perplexed the purebloods in this school must have been when they saw this boy of no family, of no reputation enter the most pure house of Slytherin."
Minerva quirked an eyebrow, considered his words, and thought of home where she had seen turbaned healers speak to snakes. She came to me. Snake charming, her mother had told her, was an inherited ability. Was that what he was trying to tell her?
"You're a pureblood then, or you might be a half blood, but the Hat must've sensed a direct link to Salazar Slytherin in you. That's why you could call Nagini to you. You're a Parselmouth."
He looked pleased with her answer. "So I'm not the only reader of A History of Magic in this school. Other children are so ignorant of history these days." He paused and mused aloud, "My father must've been the source of the magic though I can't imagine why he would choose my mother then."
"Why your father?"
"My mother died, succumbed to death at the age of nineteen. A witch would not be so…mortal."
"Everyone dies," Minerva said though she knew that witches and wizards typically lived longer than Muggles.
Tom scowled, and she found it fascinating that a hint of anger could twist that angelic face into such a cruel expression. There was a silence as Minerva climbed onto the bench beside him.
"Well Riddle? Aren't you going to show me why we're here?"
He opened his mouth and spilled out the alien words while she watched, as enthralled as the snake he controlled.
"I don't think I can really call her mine anymore," Minerva murmured after he finished. "You can keep her if you'd like. I trust that you'll take good care of her."
His smile was positively wicked. "I assure you, she'll be my most precious possession."
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November 1938
As a rule, Minerva distrusted rumors, but the one she heard about Tom and Abraxas Malfoy was more than a little unnerving.
"Apparently," Dorea recounted to her, " Malfoy was telling people that Tom's father had abandoned him. Then one day, Tom was his usual polite self and asked Malfoy if he could talk with him privately. My brother Pollux was there. He said he saw them walk down the slope and past the pumpkin patch to the Forbidden Forest. When they came back, Malfoy had these bruises around his neck. He told the nurse that they had encountered a forest troll and that Tom had stunned the creature so that they could get away."
Minerva looked dubiously at her friend. "He didn't explain why they had gone into the forest?"
"He won't say." Dorea glanced at the Slytherin table before whispering to Minerva, "Okay, don't tell anyone that I told you this, but my brother said that when he went to visit Malfoy in the hospital wing, the boy was delirious. When he was hallucinating, he started crying about how he couldn't breathe because the serpent was going to kill him.'"
Later that week, when Tom came to find her in the library, Minerva regarded him warily and asked as casually as she could, "How is Nagini?"
"I'm afraid I've spoiled her," Tom replied pleasantly. "Her meals of mice and sliced rabbit have made her a bit thick in some parts."
"Oh so you've turned my slender girl into a python?"
He shrugged. "I'm working my way up the food chain. By the way, what are you reading? I haven't seen this book before."
"And you've seen all the other books in this library?"
"I plan to," he answered. "It's one of my more innocent ambitions."
"I suppose ruling the world comes second in priority?"
"Naturally. One can live without the stress of leadership, but one cannot survive without books."
They are the last ones in the library that night as well as many other nights, two dark heads engaged in compiling rival databases. She was older than him, and her years abroad had given her the lead, but what would happen, she wondered, when he caught up with her?