2. Learning
"Something wrong with you, Tommy? Been looking down and cursing in your breath for a while now! It's because of that girl who came to visit you yesterday, innit? Things didn't go as well as you would've expected, eh? It happens, sometimes... lucky you, Tommy, lucky you! You're young, you can still afford to wrap your head around these things ... the worse is yet to come!"
"Is it?" Tom snarked with his arms crossed, not bothering to turn around in Caracturus' direction.
"'Course it is! I mean, look at yourself: been playing up all day, sat on a chair, doing absolutely nothing, and you still get your paycheck 'cause apparently you bring in customers! Nothing to complain about in my opinion!"
"Well, if you put it that way" Tom hummed, casually skimming the surface of his uncle's ring "I must agree. The worse is yet to come, indeed..."
Sensing silence and confusion building up between the two of them, eventually Tom had to glance back at Burke and 'make up' for his pertness:
"... sadly enough."
At which the shopkeeper, probably convinced he was intentfully going to ruin his business as soon as he had the occasion to, made a very eloquent gesture and then immediately rushed back to the counter after an impatient customer had rung the bell three times.
Most people, being, like himself, in such a favoured position they certainly would've never been fired, would've picked on Caracturus for the mere sake of amusement, but Tom's intentions were different. He flaunted his admirers whenever they came in or peeked into the shop, bragged about the fortune he'd inherited from his father, boasted the greatness of his manor and the extension of his lands, remarked how much of an high opinion everyone had of him and how he would've easily become Minister for Magic in a few years and overall leveraged each chance he had to treat him poorly to feed his envy, because envy was all Caracturus had. He was lustful, yet lonely; greedy, yet hardly self-sustaining; power-hungry, yet subject to almost everyone; ambitious, yet spiteful of those who had power; and this spite, along with the lies it spawned, was what was necessitated his murder, and made Tom's wait less miserable. Unfortunately though, as it had been nerve-wrackingly pointed out, not quite less enough that he didn't feel the need to occasionally look down and curse in his breath; and since he was looking down, he didn't notice the shopkeeper's head again peering through the door, even if more discretly.
"Tom, there are two girls needing you here. I suppose you'll have to leave" Caracturus enunciated, reprimandingly if not menancingly.
Tom got up, his body stiff, without uttering a single word, and marched towards and through the door of the storehouse, carefully so that his employer could feel the air made racy by his passing, finally reaching the two insufferable little brats.
"You arrived in time. Two hours due before sunset" he commented.
"...and that's bad?" Eileen asked, gasping, making Emmeline give her a weak and subtle nudge in rebuke.
Tom blinked twice with a steady jaw, and then replied:
"No, not bad. Not bad at all. Now follow me out, please."
"Merlin's beard, Emmeline! Do not say you're regretting this! Again, nobody's followed us!" Eileen reprimanded her in a whisper, incapable of hiding her excitement.
"I'm not regretting anything" Emmeline whispered back "But you stop squealing! It's not like he's not going to hear you eventually"
"What? Who's squealing?! I didn't squeal!"
"Be quick, please" Tom urged, magically keeping the door open for them.
The two girls immediately rushed out, and as the door purposefully slammed hard behind them, Caracturus raved outraged and Eileen burst out laughing.
Tom walked until he reached the darkest corner of the alley, which was also the one in which Eileen had hidden a day earlier.
"We're going to Disapparate now. As this is probably your first time, I suggest you hold onto my arms very tight, possibly without weighing too much, or else something no less than disastrous might happen: you've already put yourselves in jeopardy by misbehaving, I wouldn't advice you to worsen this all by losing some part of you in an unknown location, as the Ministry of Magic could retrieve it before we do."
"We know how it's done," Emmeline alleged, in her typical haughty, bold tone "We've tried it before and we're not going to vomit."
"It worked," Eileen cheered, smiling "We travelled from the beginning to the end of a forest... yes, it's not much, but-"
"Really? What forest?" Tom asked cautiously, trying to catch a twitch of their eyes to see if they were lying.
"The Epping Forest. It's very near to where I live. We overcame it to get to London!"
His eyes widened. Just the sounding of that claim was preposterous, but it was true: no eyelid batted, no neck bent. Suddenly, he realised how innatural it had become for him to feel surprised and he felt a little uncomfortable, which was even more innatural. As much as he hadn't understated Emmeline the first time he had seen her, there were inner depths to her, and to her friend, that not even his Legilimency skills had been able to decipher: Eileen, though quaint and somewhat craven, had, just like her, potential he would've never hoped to find anywhere. Unconceivable though it was, before him were two concrete expressions of the ideal follower he'd imagined and desired for years: a careful thinker who'd also be ticking with raw magic power and frolicking to receive his commands.
"You don't believe us, do you?" Eileen squawked, clearly disappointed for not having received a praise.
Tom's mouth rested. He was still contemplating the options ensued from the revelation he'd had.
"Yes, I do," he finally answered "Now, come alongside me."
Both obeyed him with no second thoughts. Tom's lips stretched in a smile.
"Hold very tight."
A few seconds after his quiet command, the space around them clenched so much it altered their blood stream and moved bones, but the girls did not dare to complain. When they could loosen their grip, they found themselves in a lea which preceeded an extensive forest. A lukewarm sun shone on their foreheads as they raised to look around, and Emmeline had a bittersweet realisation.
"I've already been here... this is Little Hangleton! Where my uncle- your father lived!"
"Yes, it is. You've just disclosed to me your familiarity with the woods, I chose our destination accordingly. Also, I'm not just specifically knowledgeable about this forest, but I also rightfully own it, which can prevent most sorts of incidents."
"So... you came here after he died?" Emmeline was genuinely confused.
"Yes. I have no testamentary rights that I'm aware of; however, as I am his illegitimate son, I thought I'd be eligible to inherit his possessions nonetheless, assuming I was the only member of the family to still be alive. But I was wrong... wasn't I?"
"My mother bequeathed what your father had because she was his legitimate sister; there are no exceptions to that in Muggle law. These lands are hers, now" Emmeline explained, confidently.
"Yes. I thought it over yesterday and supposed that would've been most likely the case. However, we should still be able to exploit this environment for our own purposes, as long as we do not deal permanent damage" Tom claimed, looking right into her defeated eyes. She was hurt, because she loved her mother and knew he was deliberately disrespecting her. That awareness, that pain, if rightfully conveyed, would've led to his victory. From that moment on, in fact, he would've neglected tact and delicacy in the matter of his family, aiming to shape her mindset: she needed to learn Muggles deserved nothing but sheer hatred, her mother included, and that his bidding was irrefutable. Luckily, no such effort was needed for Eileen, as she already believed in Pure-blood supremacy.
"I suggest we delve into it immediately, before it gets too dark," he suggested, hurrying his steps. He didn't stomp the grass: instead, he gently dabbed it, which made him look like a snake in the desert finally approaching its prey after chasing it for an entire day. Eileen and Emmeline kept up, sharing their opinions about him, which he didn't pay attention to, since he was about to win their loyalty definitively.
After they got into the forest deep enough, Tom stopped offhanded and turned back to face them, at which they flinched. Then, he extracted his wand from his pocket and pointed it to a small log.
"Our first lesson concerns the most obscure, intangible and undeveloped discipline conjoined to the Magic Arts. Nothing in our history has never exceeded it, and yet it's always been far from getting the attention and the recognition it deserves. Even capable Wizards taught at Hogwarts, by far the best school of Witchcraft in our world, manifest a much limited knowledge of its hinges. Of course, each individual has a different learning potential, but this Art especially can be and must be developed until everything's consumed and literally returns to ashes."
Tom stood still and silent for a moment, and then, in the lapse of a second, incinerated the log with the faintest wave of his wand. A flowing stream of red sparks had escaped its tip and winded the branch, some scraping the two girls' noses.
"I'm talking about the Art of conjuring fire."
He'd done nothing they hadn't seen before, but their expression was that of someone who'd just seen the Earth rip apart.
"You felt it, didn't you? Fire... a display of pure magical power, refined by a performing technique. Fire is the only element in which form and substance are one. It's the source of everything we've ever known: it creates, it destroys. Repeated combustion is what allows all living creatures to exist, as sun itself is constantly burning, and the existence of all the other elements - air, earth and water - depends upon it. For which we can say fire is the most important element and the basic component of magic. As such, it is an imperative requisite for a Wizard to master the ability to conjure it. Muggles themselves deem the moment they first produced fire as the beginning of their civilisation. They, however, did not and will never learn how to shape it, forge it, live it through their whole self, before they let it free. We have that chance."
No doubt or distrust could be relieved on Emmeline's and Eileen's astonished faces, ambition throbbing in their cheeks and enthusiasm jumping up and down in their noses.
Tom did not hide being very pleased with their impatient countenances and continued:
"To aspire to grasp the unfathomable, however, one must not neglect Magic in any of its different forms, no matter how distant they may seem to its ever-lasting and ever-changing beauty. Contempt of Magic always leads to failure: there hasn't been a notable Wizard who hasn't proffered respect to even the meanest incantation. Merlin in the forefront, Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Morgan le Fay, Bridget Wenlock, Albus Dumbledore..."
Tom stopped to emphasise the last name. His voice was getting more and more roaring and unstable, the shade of his face more colorful and livid, and his hands had gained a sort of crackling aura.
"The greatest Wizards of all time never dared to belittle and shame it, and yet fools laugh at jinxes and hexes! Swear now you've never ever disdained it, otherwise I cannot help you!"
"Never! We never disdained it" they nodded, a little uneasy, striving not to trying to touch eachothers' hands for comfort.
"I see you did not. That's... remarkable," Tom accepted. Then he channeled all his ire into his clenched left hand and by opening it he let out a fierce, huge tongue of flames. It flew up and up in the air, spinning, rippled by the wind, gaining the shape of an intertwined ring, then that of a regular, dense sphere, and finally that of a gigantic, riveting cobra, whose coils were bound in a riveting twist. Both girls were mesmerized and delighted, until the spires slimmed, split up and expired in a blinding burst. Emmeline's expression after that suggested that her malevolence hadn't behaved any differently: she indeed felt like she was about to make up for her life's unfairness, as he'd said a day earlier, and had never been happier.
"Now show me what you're already capable of."