Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN:
This chapter is a slow one, mainly laying foundations for things that will pop up later.
In the next chapter there will be a time-skip, to get things rolling.
And the last scene in this chapter will be continued on the next one – I'm trying to make the chapters shorter so that they can be more easily digested. I failed with this one, though. It ended up being rather long *grimaces*
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and constructive criticism is always welcomed!
Part I: Chapter 4
As Tom silently strode along one of the dark corridors of the orphanage, hearing the distant sounds of the caregivers bustling about as they finished their nightly duties, his mind swirled with tumultuous thoughts which refused to be abated from everything he had been reading lately.
He mused, most particularly, about the Nazi's ideals. Aryan race, they called themselves, and some journalist said the distinction of this assumed ethnic superiority was based primarily on coloring – blue eyes and blonde hair which denoted pure German ancestry.
Yet Tom thought this was a flimsy notion at best; at least a third of the German population were dark haired or dark eyed - their leader, Hitler, most conspicuously. However, the Nazis declared that not only such coloring indicated who belonged to their master race, but they also gave importance to handsomeness, to symmetric and pleasing facial features and to physical perfection, such as height, and strong and sturdy limbs, which gave way to excellence in sports.
Moreover, and most importantly, they attributed to themselves an unparalleled acuity and sharpness of mind. They even said that their superior intelligence could be evidenced in the shape of their heads.
This too was utter folly in Tom's opinion. Indeed, he knew himself to be a prodigal genius, probably the greatest one in the whole world, and yet the shape of his skull was as normal as could be.
There was nothing particular about it, he mused as he pensively touched his temples and then the back of his head, while he continued with his distracted amblings around the orphanage, taking the flight of stairs to reach the ground floor.
And if intelligence and physical perfection were the parameters on which the Germans based their superiority, then Tom thought that if there was anyone who could be hailed as 'superior', it was only him.
Well, and his brother as well, he supposed - not only because of their breath-taking handsomeness, as it was called by others, but due to their 'special abilities'. As far as he knew, they were the only ones in existence who wielded such strange and unexplainable 'powers' – to call them something. That alone already marked them as unique and vastly superior to everyone else in the world. This idea deeply pleased and satisfied him, since it made sense and seemed logical and rational.
However, not for the first time, he wondered if there could possibly be others like him and his brother. Ever since he had discovered that Harry was special too, he had pondered about it, his feelings warring and clashing, still making him indecisive on whether he wanted them to be the only ones or if it would be best if there were others like them.
Nearly three years had passed since Harry's 'powers' had manifested, and Tom still hadn't reached a conclusion regarding the matter. He remembered the incident clearly, it had happened a few months after he had hurt Dennis and had explained it to Harry.
They had been five years old then, and since it had been summer, all the children had been playing in the orphanage's backyard.
Ever since he had hurt Dennis, the older boy had stayed far away from him. The other children also gave him a wide berth given that they had become even more fearful of him since the 'incident'. Tom had been quite satisfied with this outcome.
That day, Tom had gone back inside the house to pick up one of his books, leaving Harry playing with his friends.
Later, Tom had heard his brother's own account of what had happened.
Harry hadn't paid much attention when Tom had left, since Dennis had so far avoided him. But it seemed that the bully instantly noticed when Tom was missing, because Harry had been cheerfully giggling one second as he played with Eric and Billy, and in the next second, stones started to pelt down on him.
It was Dennis, who had taken the opportunity to start hurling at him the stones he had been playing with. It had hurt a lot, and as much as Harry tried to cover his face and body with his arms, it wasn't enough.
The other children who were also scared of Dennis, as usual, didn't do anything. So little Harry had been forced to run for cover, but that seemed to incite the bully even further, since Dennis started hurling at him even larger stones as he gave chase, shrieking with laughter and spewing mocking insults.
And then, suddenly, as Harry continued running and he cried because his whole body seemed to ache from the hits, as he wished and wished that everything could stop and that he was somewhere safe, then, one second he was there and in the next moment, he landed somewhere else. Harry had gawked when he had abruptly found himself in the middle of his room.
Tom had seen it, of course. With book in hand, he had been going back, taking a step to cross the threshold between house and backyard, when he saw his little brother running away from Dennis, flailing his small arms to attempt shield himself from the hurled stones.
He had felt an instant bout of tremendous fury and was about to unleash it on his brother's tormentor once again -and this time to make Dennis hurt beyond all endurance of pain, so that the bully would be left as nothing but a mindless, empty-eyed shell – when the most extraordinary thing happened.
His little brother simply disappeared, right in front of all the children's eyes. Tom had gaped.
He had wasted no time in swiftly looking around for Harry, his mind spinning with clashing thoughts and emotions. At last, he found his little brother standing in the middle of their room, his shoulders shaking.
When Tom had thought that Harry was crying and trembling with fear, his expression softened and his mind cleared, leaving him simply feeling jubilant that his brother was special, just like him. He had been exceedingly proud then, and even excited.
But soon, he had seen that Harry wasn't fearful.
The moment Harry glanced up and saw him, he jumped up and down as he rambled eagerly and joyously, "I disappeared, Tom! I was running and then I was wishing to be somewhere else, and then I felt as if I was squeezed through a rubber tube, and then I was here!"
And just at that very moment, Tom's emotions had drastically changed. He had felt rage and contempt and envy; he had been unique up until then, only he could do extraordinary things, and now his little brat of a brother had suddenly done something he hadn't.
Tom had never vanished from one spot to another, and it galled him that Harry had accomplished something so amazing first, before it even crossed his mind that such thing could be possible. Harry had bested him in that regard and it was not something he could stand.
And his little brother had kept yapping about it as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and it had only made him feel even more furious.
Tom had shot him his most withering and scornful sneer and had turned around on his heels, slamming the door shut behind him.
For the following three months he had utterly disregarded his little brother, he hadn't even spoken one word to him; he had shoved him away every night when his little brother attempted to get into his cot so that Tom soothed his scar after the nightmares, and he had ignored all his little brother's confused, wounded and pleading glances.
But even though he did all those things, he hadn't stop observing Harry from afar and what he had seen over those three months had made all of his dark emotions increase and mount and pile up and flare.
He had seen Harry doing other things, as if something had opened and burst forth from within Harry, more strange abilities blooming and pouring out.
One day he had awoken and he had seen Harry sitting up on his cot, the boy's hair suddenly reaching his shoulders and with a pair of scissors in hand. The boy had cut locks of his hair and in an instant they grew back, and his little brother giggled and did it again. And then he shortened his hair without the need to do anything and then made it long again, and so forth.
Once he had seen Harry sitting by the row of flowers at the backyard, and the boy had had a closed bud in his hands and it suddenly bloomed magnificently, gorgeous big petals unraveling open, as leaves grew and fluttered along the stem.
Sometimes when Harry had his nightmares, their cot frames would shake and the nightstand rattled and their wardrobe's doors would flap open and shut. Snarling with anger and vexation, Tom had been forced on those occasions to hurl a book at his brother's head, to brutally wake him up. And without uttering a word of comfort, Tom had always shot him a contemptuous sneer before rolling over to give Harry his back and go back to sleep, ignoring his brother's sniffles.
It had gotten worse when the rabbit had been brought to the orphanage. During those three months of estrangement between Tom and Harry, when Harry played with his so-called friends with the animal, the bunny would suddenly jump, flip in the air and land back, or flick its ears as if in synchrony to some tune, or stand on its two hind paws and take steps forward – all things that were clearly abnormal, that his little brother was clearly making happen.
The boy's friends soon realized it, but they didn't look at Harry with fear, but with wonder and fascination. And they quietly whispered among themselves, encouraging Harry to make the rabbit do more funny things when there were no adults around.
To add insult to injury, a couple of times when his little brother was playing with his friends, some toy would simply fly into Harry's hands or disappear from its place and pop right beside him, and his friends clapped and cheered even more.
It had been the last straw for Tom when he had seen his brother playing with that stupid little simpering girl, Amy, who was always around Harry, blushing and staring at him like a love-struck mooncalf.
The girl had been playing with a hair ribbon, and Harry had taken it from her hands, widely smiling at her as the string of cloth suddenly fluttered into the air and started coiling itself, soon forming a pink bow which Harry had then timidly presented to the girl as if he was some sort of gallant knight wooing his demure and abashed princess.
The second Amy had gazed wide-eyed at Harry, entranced and worshipfully, her rosy cheeks flushing and her lips puckering into a beaming, coy smile, Tom had jumped to his feet, taken a few strides to reach them and had grabbed his brother by the scruff of his shirt, forcefully yanking him out of the room.
Without saying a word, as a perplexed and alarmed Harry attempted to fight against his brusque hold, Tom had started dragging him towards the staircase, to reach their room in order to have a private 'chat' with him.
However, his endeavor had been interrupted when Alice had burst through the corridor, running and picking up toys and things littering the hallway, as she beamed and shouted urgently and excitedly, "Children, gather around in the parlor, we have visitors!"
Awestruck and startled, everyone had gaped at first; Harry's friends poking their heads out the door to stare at her, gobsmacked. Then everything had exploded in a flurry of activity, as Alice grabbed Tom's and Harry's hands, pulling them back inside the room, and as Kathy quickly arranged the rest of the children in one neat row.
That had been the first time that St. Jerome's Orphanage had received any prospective adoptive parents and most of the children were too nervous and surprised to do anything but stand in place whilst fretfully attempting to tidy up their ruffled and tattered clothing and their scruffy appearances.
All the while, Alice and Kathy finished tidying up the room, just as Mrs. Sharpe, clearly having had one too many glasses of gin, had entered the room with an unsteady step, a couple following behind her.
Tom had narrowed his eyes at them, scrutinizing them, seeing the expensive clothes, the air about them of elegance and wealth, the pinched expression of mild disgust on the man's stern face as he eyed the peeling wallpaper and the ratty furniture and the expression of reserved expectancy on the woman's delicate features.
Alice soon took command of the situation when it was evident that Mrs. Sharpe wasn't clearheaded enough to do her job, and she quickly chatted with the couple in a hushed and brief conversation before she started introducing them to the first child on the line, in descending order of age.
And then, Tom had glanced at his brother who was standing by his side, both of them the last in the line. Harry's emerald eyes had been wide with awe and excitement, as he cheerfully waved a hand at the visitors, rocking on his feet and widely grinning.
It hadn't come as a surprise for Tom when he saw the couple halting in mid progression along the line of children, their gaze snapping to Harry, the woman's eyes lightening up, a soft smile forming on her painted lips as her expression softened, while the man's eyebrows rose and his gaze turned calculating and then satisfied and pleased by what he saw.
It had been then that Tom had known how to best teach his brother the important point he had wanted to drive through Harry's thick skull that day.
Meanwhile, the couple had reached them and the woman had been already cooing at Harry as the boy answered one of her questions by puffing out his chest, grinning toothily as he stuck out four fingers as he chirped proudly, "I'm five!"
Even the stern-looking man had given a small smile at that, and the couple soon pulled Alice to a side as they started murmuring amongst themselves. By then, Mrs. Sharpe was slumped on a chair at the other side of the room, sleeping off her drunken stupor, while Kathy made sure that none of the children broke the line or misbehaved.
Inevitably, some parts of the conversation between the couple and Alice reached Tom's ears, but none of it fazed him. He impassively stared at them, shooting Alice a calm smirk when their gazes met.
"… yes, Harry is a dear, sweet boy, but you see, they're twins," was saying Alice fretfully, as she shot a perturbed glance at Tom. "It wouldn't be right to separate them… now, if you wanted them both…"
The man's gaze briefly landed on Tom. "… he's handsome, I grant, but we only want one child and my wife is quite set on the small boy-"
"Tom's very studious and astoundingly smart," quickly interjected Alice. "A prodigy, I would say, and he's very… er, well-mannered and polite-"
When it became evident to him that Alice would to go any lengths to ensure that Harry and he would not be split up, Tom decided to act before the caregiver started to outright lie and spout that he was a sweet, good-natured child or some such thing.
After all, he had no intention of being adopted by anyone. The orphanage was a ghastly place which he despised with all his heart but at least he was just one of many children, and thus wasn't too closely supervised. Having adoptive parents, though it certainly entailed having a better lifestyle and could open more doors to a glorious future, also meant having two people butting their noses in his affairs and watching what he did, constantly.
He wasn't about to swap one form of authority for another. It was independence from any adult that he wanted, and of course, where he went, Harry followed. He didn't even consider that he could be robbing Harry from having a better life. His brother's place was with him, always.
Swiftly, Tom pulled Harry towards him, leaning down to whisper into his brother's ear, "Go to them before they change their minds and leave. Tell them you want to speak to them alone, to get to know them. Take them to the backyard -it's sunny outside- and then show them what you can do. Do the flower thing-"
"What?" Harry gaped at him, evidently at first startled that his brother was talking to him after being given the cold shoulder for three months, and then looking nervous as he stared at him with wide eyes, as he mumbled, "You know? You've seen-"
"Of course I know about the things you've been doing, you idiot," hissed out Tom angrily, before he quickly composed himself and rearranged his features to a pleasant and calm expression as he soothingly patted his brother on the head, his voice turning soft, "But we'll talk about that later. Now go and do as I said."
"You want me to show them? With the flower?" whispered Harry, gazing up at him uncertainly as he bit his lower lip fretfully. "Are you sure? Won't they-"
"Yes, I'm sure," snapped Tom with annoyance, then sweetly smiling at him as he continued gently, "They'll see that you're special and they'll like you even more for it."
Little Harry gazed at him dubiously, mulling over it, before he apparently decided that his brother had to be right. After all, Tom was way smarter than him. He beamed, already excited about the prospective of doing something nice for the couple and chirped cheerfully, "Alright."
And with that, Tom merely inwardly smirked with satisfaction as he watched how Harry bounded up to the couple and tugged on the woman's skirt, peering up at the rich lady as he started babbling and pointing a finger in the backyard's direction.
Tom didn't even pay attention to what was being said. In a few minutes, the couple and Harry made their way outdoors, leaving Alice looking a bit perplexed. The caregiver even shot him a concerned and sad glance, as if worrying what would happen to Tom if the couple decided to adopt Harry and take him away right there and then. He simply answered by calmly gazing back at her with an unperturbed expression on his face.
Soon Alice had other things to worry about when the rest of the children finally figured out that Harry had won and that they were indeed not wanted or liked. And as some of them broke into tears and sobs and others sullenly sulked or scowled, Tom slipped away from the room and down the corridor.
Reaching the kitchen, he stood at its farthest end, right in front of the window above the sink, gazing out through the glass panels with an unencumbered view of the whole backyard.
Tom's lips twisted as he gazed at the sickeningly sweet picture the trio made; the stylish and well-to-do couple doting on a poor little orphan boy, happily yapping as they all sat on the old bench amidst the shrubbery, no doubt already making plans about the wonderful life they would give to their little Harry.
By the looks on their faces, the wealthy couple appeared to be already enchanted by Harry. And by the gentle and loving way the woman was gazing down at his brother, it was clear to Tom that they indeed intended to treat Harry well and give him all the boy could ever need or want. Not that it really mattered.
A self-satisfied smirk curled Tom's lips as the events unfolded as he had hoped for. Good little brother that Harry was, the boy was doing exactly what Tom had instructed him to do.
Crouching down, Harry plucked a small flower bud from the nearest plant, presenting it to the woman. The lady beamed, clearly finding it adorable that she was being gifted a flower in such a sweet gesture, but before she could accept it, Harry shook his head as he widely grinned, lifting up his palms to display the nice thing he could do. In an instant, the bud in his hands unraveled in a gorgeous array of colorful petals, as leaves burst from the stem, and the flower floated up into mid air, as it kept growing and blossoming even further.
The woman's horrified shriek interrupted the display, the couple jumping to their feet, the woman staggering backwards and almost toppling over the bench. Her husband soon pulled her upright and then away as the woman's scream continued, their faces pale and terrified. In the next second, they turned tail and ran as if the hounds of hell were after them, the man's booming voice reaching Tom's ears as the couple entered the house.
"… I don't know what kind of twisted joke… what kind of demented circus you're running here... we're never setting foot in here again!"
Wiping the smirk from his face as he calmly strode into the corridor, Tom saw all the children and caregivers huddled near the entrance door, having heard the screams and no doubt perplexed when the man spat those words at Alice before he yanked his pale-faced and stammering and mumbling wife out the front door.
Tom had a second to savor the conclusion of a plan well made, before Harry burst out from the door leading to the backyard, instantly catching sight of him.
Sobbing uncontrollably, looking scared, crushed and miserable, he yelled at Tom, "I did what you said – you knew, you lied – I HATE YOU!"
Wretchedly crying and hiccupping, Harry turned his back on everyone and swiftly scrambled up the staircase, the sound of a bedroom door being slammed shut resounding seconds later.
Alice swiveled around to stare at Tom in confusion, as if asking for some sort of explanation to Harry's strange and incomprehensible accusation, while the rest of the children animatedly burst with questions. Tom didn't even miss the way that Kathy Cole was gazing at him with narrowed eyes, suspicion and condemnation in them.
Looking extremely concerned and troubled, Tom stared back at them with wide eyes as he murmured apprehensively, "I'll see what happened. I'll calm him down."
And with that, he quickly made way towards his bedroom. He found Harry huddled on his cot against the corner, his body curled up in a small ball, with his head bowed and tucked between his knees as he sobbed quietly.
Tom tsked and approached the boy. Staring down at Harry's heaving and trembling shoulders, he drawled in a severe tone of voice, "Have you learned the lesson?"
Harry's sobs stilled and the boy gave one last hiccup, before he lifted up his head to hatefully glare at Tom with a tear-stained face, as he said hoarsely, "What?"
Tom skewered him with an unforgiving gaze as he said curtly, "The lesson, you pea-brained idiot, that you must never show to others the things you can do." He contemptuously sneered at him as he added, "For three months you've being parading around, doing stuff around your friends-"
"No one saw!" yelled Harry as he unfurled from his curled up position to glower at his brother. "I never did anything around the grownups-"
"But your so-called friends can blab about it," snapped Tom angrily, sitting down on the cot by Harry's side. "You cannot trust them-"
"They promised they wouldn't say anything," snapped Harry heatedly as he wiped his eyes with his shirt's cuff. "They like the things I can do-"
"Because they are stupid and don't understand, because they're amused by it, but they will soon realize that what you do is not normal." Tom pierced him with his dark blue eyes as he added sternly, "When they're older, they'll know, and they'll tell on you."
"They won't," gritted out Harry, though he eyed Tom uncertainly as he nibbled anxiously on his lower lip. Then he frowned and glared daggers at him as he said accusingly, "But you made me do the flower thing! You say now I shouldn't do that stuff but you-"
"Because I wanted you to see the consequences of it," interjected Tom impatiently. He shot him a superior look as he demanded curtly, "How did they react?"
Harry's eyes teared up as he mumbled softly, "I think they were afraid..."
"You think?" sneered Tom with condescension. "They were afraid of you, and what's more, they hated you for it."
"Hate me?" echoed Harry in a tiny voice as he stared at him with wide eyes, his expression miserable as his small shoulders hunched.
"Yes, that's how people will react if they know," said Tom sharply with utter conviction, pinning his brother with an unrelenting harsh gaze. "And they would lock us away in a loony bin, too. Do you want that?"
Harry's eyes impossibly widened with fear as he quickly shook his head, and Tom was momentarily pleased by it. Indeed, the latter he had said was no lie - not in its entirety.
He had once overheard Kathy Cole telling Alice that they should call some doctor to check his head. Apparently, Mrs. Cole was quite certain that he suffered from some dangerous psychological problems and that a stint in an asylum was the best remedy for him.
The day when he had overheard that, he had known fear for the first time in his life, imagining what it would be like to be alone, cooped up in a small room without seeing daylight for the rest of his existence.
Granted, Kathy Cole had never said anything about having Harry checked by any doctors, but it was best if his brother was scared of it all the same. It was a miracle that, in the three months that Harry had been 'entertaining' his friends, none of the caregivers had seen anything unusual going on.
It was thus that Tom had extracted from Harry the promise that he would never again do anything 'special' in front of others, and thankfully Harry obeyed and only did things when they were alone in their room.
It was that way, too, how in the subsequent years in which several couples came to the orphanage, Harry never again drew attention to himself, and simply stood in line, with a bowed head and staring at his shoes, without saying a word when the couples attempted to speak to him.
Tom had thoroughly convinced his brother that if any couple liked Harry, then that they would be torn apart and never see each other again, and that the couple would end up carting him off to the loony bin if they ever adopted him. Not that Harry had needed to be further convinced about any of it – for the little boy it became stuff of nightmares to imagine any life away from his brother's side.
Nevertheless, that day after the disastrous affair with the first couple that had visited the orphanage, Harry had still moped around the house, looking dejected and miserable.
It had been that night when Tom had decided to finally introduce his companion to Harry, as a way of cheering up his brother and also because he had been very curious about the outcome of the meeting. For some years he had kept her only to himself, possessive of her and with no wish to share her with his brother, but after Harry had given evidence that he could do special things just like Tom, he had wondered how far their similarities reached.
Just before the caregivers started rounding up the children to force them into their bedrooms for a night of sleep, Tom had slipped to the backyard in search for his companion's nest in the depths of the shrubbery. Carrying her back to the house, coiled around his forearm under his sleeve, he had uncovered her before Harry's gaze.
"What's that?" had gasped out Harry in awe, staring at the small, scaly creature with wide eyes.
"A snake, you idiot," drawled Tom with irritation, unimpressed with his brother's limited wits or deductive abilities. "What else could she be?"
"It's a she?" murmured Harry softly, now staring at the slim creature coiled around his brother's arm, no longer than Tom's arm from wrist to elbow and no thicker than a finger.
His wonder and eager curiosity was plain on his features as he took a step closer to admire the gleaming, tiny green scales which had a bluish or black hue to them.
"Yesss, I'm a girl," hissed the little snake proudly, as she reared forward to flick her tongue out to taste the boy in front of her.
With a yelp of alarm, Harry jumped in the air, tripping and landing on the floor on his bum, panting out a haggard breath as he stared up at the creature with huge eyes.
Pointing a shaky finger at her, he gasped out, still startled out of his wits, "It speaks!"
A thin smile of satisfaction stretched on Tom's face, his gaze fixed on his brother, as he hissed quietly, "You do understand her, then?"
"What? Of course I do – it speaks in English!" sputtered Harry, gawking at the creature as he picked himself up from the floor, his eyes as wide as moons. In the next second, an expression of sudden understanding and fascinated awe crossed his expression, as he chirped happily, "Are you a princess turned into a snake? Like the princess in Alice's story that became a swan because the evil witch cursed her?"
"A princess?" hissed the snake, swaying her head to a side, giving the impression that she was seriously pondering about the matter, though it was evident that she didn't fully understand the notion.
"She's not a princess," snapped Tom with irritation, not for the first time damning Alice and her stories, for filling his brother's head with moronic ideas. "People don't turn into animals, Harry." Then he transferred his glower to the snake and hissed sharply, "And you're not a girl, you're a female. That's the proper term since you're an animal and not a person. How many times do I have to tell you?"
"I understand, Master," hissed the small snake, her tone contrite as she settled her head back on Tom's hand.
"Master?" Harry gaped, his emerald eyes flickering from his brother to the creature and back.
Tom superiorly smirked at him as he slowly trailed his fingers along his companion's length, caressing the small, smooth scales. "Of course I'm her master. It's only proper she addresses me as such. She's mine, after all."
Harry blinked and then stared at him with a dubious expression on his face, finally simply giving a shrug as he wrapped his mind around the fact that his brother had discovered a snake that could speak – and in English to boot!
"It's amazing," he breathed out, his awed gaze fixed on the beautiful snake. A wide grin grew on his face, as he rambled excitedly, "How did she learn how to speak? How did she learn English? And are there others like her-"
"Learn English?" hissed Tom, a low chuckle escaping from his lips as he shot his brother a smirk. "She doesn't speak English. She doesn't 'speak' at all, not in the strict sense of the word. And you haven't been speaking English either, you little twit."
He pierced his brother with his dark blue eyes, his expression turning arrogant and self-satisfied, as he added, his tone turning quiet and slow, "She hisses, just as you have been hissing all this time. Just as I'm hissing right now. Listen carefully to my voice, to my words… what do you hear?"
Little Harry's expression of confusion soon turned into one of startlement as he did as his brother asked, for the first time really concentrating hard out of his own will.
"What are you hearing, Harry?" continued Tom, his smirk widening as he gazed down at his brother's awe-struck face.
"Hissing," mumbled Harry, his small forehead scrunching with a perplexed frown, "but English too… like... the words being on top of it… like hearing both at the same time."
"Exactly," hissed Tom with satisfaction, as he nonchalantly continued petting the snake, gracefully sitting down on his cot.
"But – but, I don't understand," spluttered Harry, as he also took a seat on the cot, yet in sharp contrast to his brother, just plopping himself down on it. He peeled his gaze from the snake to stare at his brother, bewildered, as he said nervously, "What's going on?"
"I thought it would be quite plain to you," said Tom, shooting him a sneer before he continued stoically, "We can speak to snakes – understand their language and speak it as well, when we're looking at a snake or thinking about one." He shot him a wide smirk, as he added gleefully, "No one else can, Harry. I tested it. It's clear, this is just one more special thing we can do."
"Oh!" breathed out Harry, his eyes becoming wide as he gazed back at the snake. In the next instant, a giddy grin broke on his face, as he chuckled happily and comfortably stretched himself on the cot, to peer at the snake closer.
In no time at all, the small snake was oozing contentment and satisfaction under Harry's pampering ministrations, with the boy giggling as he caressed and tickled her scales, and chuckling when the snake's tiny tongue flickered out to taste his fingers.
"What's your name?" hissed Harry as he adoringly scratched the snake under her belly, as she had requested.
"I named her Nagini," said Tom curtly, eyeing their interaction with a reproving expression on his face.
Harry's gaze snapped up to him at that, and he snickered as he declared gleefully, "You took it from that story that Alice read to us – from The Jungle Book, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi! Nag and Nagaina were the two bad snakes-"
"I most certainly did not take the name from that stupid tale for silly little children," snapped Tom in indignation, shooting him a contemptuous sneer before he continued sternly, "I made the name up, from the Greek term Naga, which means snake, and the term-"
"Yeah, sure," interrupted Harry with a snort, "whatever you say."
Tom fulminated him with a poisonous glare, but before he could continue defending his unparalleled intellect, Harry was already yapping happily with the snake, no longer paying any attention to him.
If Tom had known what a bad influence on Nagini that Harry would prove to be, he would have never introduced them to each other. The little snake became a chatterbox, just like Harry, and not a cold night went by when the two of them wouldn't chatter away until the wee hours of morning.
At least Tom managed to forbid Harry from interacting with Nagini during the day – it would garner unwanted attention and raise suspicions if Harry began sitting in front of the shrubbery in the backyard, as Tom did, instead of playing with his so-called friends.
However, during winter nights, with the excuse that it was too cold outside for Nagini's health and comfort, Harry always snuck the snake into their bedroom.
The boy had whined and pleaded and cajoled until Tom had had no other choice but to yield to his brother's wishes if he wanted to spend a night in peace, and he had grudgingly allowed Nagini to coil herself in between their bodies to bask in their warmth.
Such was the enjoyment that they derived from each other, that Nagini even came to display some of Harry's mannerisms, which irritated Tom to no end. At least Tom made sure that the snake retained the proper respect due to him when they interacted with each other. With him, she behaved accordingly, not forgetting who owned her, and acting as the sensible, serious, and cunning snake that Tom had first known.
Nagini was still somewhat of a mystery to Tom. In the years that had passed since then, she had barely grown and he was quite sure that it wasn't normal.
On the other hand, he didn't know much about snakes – she was the only one he had ever seen and he knew that it wasn't usual to find snakes in London. He also knew that her first recollections were of breaking out from a cracked egg, in a pile of rubbish in London's docks.
He could only deduce that she had been shipped in from some distant country, her egg no doubt being one of many inside a crate that must have endured some damage and must have had a crack in its wood boards. He imagined that as the dock workers loaded the crate onto a cart-wagon -most probably destined for the London Zoo- her egg had slipped out from the crack and ended up rolling into a pile of litter.
She had found her way to the orphanage's neighborhood, since it was quite close to the docks, and had soon made it her home, finding bountiful prey, since being as poor as it was, their neighborhood had quite a large population of rats and mice.
Regardless, the thought that swam around his mind as he remembered those events was that something was not right in what was happening in the world.
From everything he had read in newspaper articles, and from what he had found out about from Alice's Communist pamphlets, a vague, foggy thought had been growing at the back of his mind - not fully formed, but tickling him like an itch he couldn't quite reach and scratch to his satisfaction.
As he halted to gaze out the window by the orphanage's entrance door, seeing all those rows of houses with their inhabitants placidly and cozily sleeping with not a care in the world, Tom scoffed snidely.
Everyone out there was carrying on with their lives as if all was well, naively believing whatever the government said. What did they think it meant when the Germans said that their prime goal in foreign policy was to secure living space for their race?
They were all mindless, half-witted sheep, but he had always known that about the masses. It didn't bother him at all. It didn't even concern him that Jews were being persecuted and carted off to labor camps – as Alice's Communist pamphlets speculated. He really couldn't care less about the Jews and those other types of people who were disappearing.
It seemed quite logical to him that the Nazis would employ the strategy of blaming someone for the disastrous circumstances in which their country had been reduced to after losing the Great War. And he fully understood their motives.
They had chosen the Jewish race as their scapegoat, just as plain and simple. It was the oldest tactic in the world, and one that always worked. It was human nature to be so petty, cruel, selfish, and opportunist, and he prided himself to be the one person who saw people in their crude reality.
Thus, he wasn't like every half-brained imbecile out there. He knew what was coming: War.
And it filled him with a blazing feeling of exhilaration and excitement. Wars always caused interesting changes; they shaped nations and caused the rise and fall of empires, they gave rise to fortunes for those who were smart enough to take advantage of it, they stimulated the formation of new ideas and innovations, they rearranged social structures, and they always ended up having the same consequences, the doom of many becoming the prosperity of some.
He wanted to be one of those 'some'. He would need to figure out how to benefit from it, because it was quite clear to him that he couldn't let such a precious opportunity pass him by.
And suddenly, just as that thought contently spun in his mind, it all became sharply clear to him. The revelation that had eluded him for some while and which had kept him sleepless that night, abruptly blossomed in its full glory: everything was staged too perfectly and seamlessly, the timing too precise to be natural or just mere coincidence.
Mussolini and his Fascist government in Italy; just recently, a civil war bursting in Spain, with a General called Franco leading an African Army against the insurgents, a man who clearly supported the Fascist movement as well; and then, the Nazis in Germany. Those three were natural allies given their similar ideologies, and he wouldn't be surprised if their leaders were already secretly negotiating their terms.
And of course, to all that, adding the Communists in Russia, with the Industrialists in Britain and the Capitalists in America fearing that it would spread to their lands, and with a Communist uprising in China as well, if one of Alice's pamphlets were to be believed.
The world seemed to him like a giant chessboard in which all the pertinent pieces were being moved with uncanny precision across the squares, by a great invisible hand which knew exactly how to arrange matters to have it all explode in one blazing war which would be far more encompassing than the last one.
And without a doubt, much more devastating. After all, this war would be carried under banners of ideologies. And when it came to ideologies, religions, and such self-righteous notions, everyone became much more ruthless and vicious. Oh, yes, someone knew precisely what they were doing.
Tom's lips quirked into a wide, gleeful smirk, his expression one of both bemusement and satisfaction. Yes, now he finally understood. There had to be some actors orchestrating things behind the scenes. A group of people, surely, for no one man could plan and execute something so great by himself. Not unless he was a genius, and Tom couldn't conceive the notion that anyone could be such a prodigy as he himself was.
He was intrigued, thrilled and excited, but above all things, he was deeply pleased with his discovery. The whirlwind of his thoughts finally settled itself to become a calm mantle in his mind, thrumming contently. And he exhaled, ready to finally go back to his room for his night of rest.
Tom was about to turn on his heels to take the flight of stairs up to his floor, when something caught his attention out of the corner of his eyes – a shadow moving, a light at the end of the corridor.
His curiosity piqued, Tom instantly moved towards it, careful to make no noise with his footfalls. He soon saw that the 'shadow' was Billy Stubbs clutching his rabbit against his chest – no doubt the creature had escaped from the boy's bedroom and Billy had been roaming the corridor in search of the little beast.
What made Tom frown, however, was that the boy was frozen in place, standing beside the parted door of the kitchen from which a dim light could be seen.
As Tom made his way towards the boy to find out what was going on, the voices from the occupants of the kitchen started reaching his ears.
"… if Harry has asked you to know more about 'their' parents, then this time you must tell him the truth, Alice!" came Kathy Cole's voice, stern and sharp. "It was what we had agreed upon initially. I said nothing when you told the boys that they were non-identical twins, that first time. But now they are old enough to be told the truth."
"It would crush him! Harry is so attached to Tom, he worships him, and he's not mature enough to-"
"It's not Harry you worry about in this case, Alice. You don't fool me," snapped Kathy Cole impatiently, her tone now harsh and relentless. "You don't want Tom to know, because God knows that he won't take it well and that once he knows, Harry won't be able to appease him any longer or to keep him in check. But I think it's worth the trouble, precisely because Harry adores Tom. That can't be allowed to continue. Tom is a bad influence on the boy and Harry deserves to know that they aren't brothers!"
"In a few years I'll tell them, Kathy," said Alice pleadingly, her voice soft. "Listen to me…"
A sort of strangled squeak issued from Billy's throat when he finally saw Tom standing beside him, as still as a statue and with a horrible expression on his face. Billy alarmingly paled, his eyes growing wide with dread and fear as he saw the dark, ominous look on the taller boy's face.
Instincts of survival kicking in, Billy took one more look at Tom, and before he gave a chance for the other boy to realize it or do anything about it, Billy squashed Puffy the Bunny against his chest and turned tail, dashing down the corridor and soon disappearing from sight.
Tom noticed, but for once, he didn't care. Kathy's last three words were still echoing in his mind with stabbing force – 'they aren't brothers!'. He felt such a tempest of clashing emotions, with such intensity as he had never experienced before, that for several seconds he wasn't able to move or even think; burning rage, mingled with a sharp pang of loss and grief and bitter disappointment, meshed with fiery hatred, they were all coiling and raging within him.
Yet, in the next second, all of it was abruptly doused under a chilly mantle of terrifying fear, shaking him to the core.
The very idea of the consequences, of knowing that the bond that had tied them together would be inevitably weakened, that Harry would no longer have reason to always remain by his side, to be always there, loyal, steadfast and needing him, wanting his company and preferring it to all others, yearning for his approval and attention. Imagining how Harry would grow apart from him, how the boy would carry on easily making friends as always and no longer dreading being separated from him…
He couldn't let it happen.
Harry was his brother; they were alike, they were both special and unique. That counted more than any ties of kinship. Harry had always been his, since the beginning of his awareness and as far as he could remember. His brother, his companion, his counterpart - his to teach, to mold, to protect, to ridicule, to hurt, to torment, and even to twist and corrupt and destroy if he wanted to. That was true possession and ownership over someone and he had always had it over Harry. And he wouldn't let anything or anyone pose a threat to it.
The very idea of it instantly prompted him to act.
Tom unceremoniously slammed the door to a side and strode inside the kitchen, the two arguing women freezing as their gazes landed on him.
"You won't tell him – ever," spat Tom, his voice as hard as grating rocks as he skewered them with a dark blue gaze burning with contempt and seething hatred. "But you will tell me, right now."
Kathy Cole was the first to gather back her wits after her startled shock, and with a stern expression on her face, she said curtly, "What are you doing up so late? And you have no business spying on us-"
"I wasn't speaking to you, woman," hissed out Tom, his eyes narrowing to slits as his expression turned darker. "You'll do well to remain silent if you know what's good for you." His gaze flickered back to Alice. "Speak."
Mrs. Cole, not one to allow to be spoken to in such tones, casting to a side all lingering sense of prudence, pulled herself up to her full height, pinning him with a hard gaze of her own. "Look here, child, you'll show proper respect and-"
She choked. Suddenly she was being squeezed and crushed, all air heaving out from her lungs as she gasped for breath, her eyes bulging, her frame shaking so violently that she stumbled backwards and crashed against the table of the kitchen. Frantically clawing at her throat with her fingers, in a state of absolute panic, she tried to scream – it only came out as a gurgle.
"Kathy!" Alice instantly reached her friend and grabbed her by the arms, steadying her. "Kathy, what's happening? Are you ill, are you-"
"It seems she's having a fit of some sort," came Tom's cool, nonchalant voice. "Perhaps she's having a stroke?"
Alice's eyes snapped back to him, wide and bewildered, her gaze then flickering from him to Kathy and back. Nervous, frightened and uncertain, she nevertheless made her friend take a seat and started unbuttoning the first buttons of Kathy's shirt, as she fanned her with a hand.
"You-" gasped out Kathy, her voice raspy, hoarse and still struggling to come out from her throat, as she pointed a weak, shaking finger at Tom, her bulging and watering eyes fixed on him. " I know – this, is your doing-"
Tom arched his eyebrows at her, his expression utterly blank. "Oh?"
"Somehow-" croaked out Kathy, but in the next instant her eyelids fluttered shut and she slumped over the table, her head loudly banging against the hard wood.
Alice cried out in alarm, fretting frenziedly over her, ripping open Kathy's shirt, leaving only the undershirt beneath, checking her pulse with fingers on Kathy's throat and pressing her head against her friend's bosom, searching for the heartbeat, as she muttered, mumbled and rambled without knowing what she was saying.
"It seems that she simply fainted," said Tom impassively. "I'm sure she'll be fine in a few minutes."
Alice shot him a glance with wild eyes, but there, faintly, she suddenly felt Kathy's pulse and she deeply exhaled with relief. Still badly shaken after the experience, she gripped the edge of the table with white knuckles, suddenly feeling very out of her depth.
"What else should we do? I don't think it was a stroke, the symptoms weren't those of a stroke, I don't know what happened, I don't know what it could be, maybe-"
"Nothing, she's fine. As I said, she just fainted," said Tom curtly, cutting short the caregiver's scared ramblings and not even sparing the unconscious woman a glance as he took slow steps to stand right in front of Alice, piercing her with intense, dark eyes. "While she recovers, you can start speaking."
Alice shot him a disconcerted glance and sputtered, "But Kathy-"
"Tell me the truth now!"
Alice felt the boy's voice like a whip lashing against her flesh and shattering her bones, and she unwittingly took a step back, jaw slack, before she came to her senses.
Taking a steadying step forward, her expression crumbled into one of pained compassion, as she said softly, "I will tell you the little we know."
Tom listened to her attentively, his face showing nothing but a composed expression as the words seemed to burn themselves into his mind, as he grew angrier and more furious by the second. What he and Harry had been told was that they had been left at the orphanage's doorstep, wrapped together in blankets, that they were twins, non-identical, and that nothing was known of their parents.
"… 'Tom', after your father, and 'Marvolo' as a middle name, after her father. 'Riddle' as a surname since she said it was your father's family name. Your mother died not much later after that. That's all Kathy knows. Regarding Harry, we know nothing about his parents. There was no letter left with him when he was placed outside our door, only his first name embroidered on his clothes… " Alice trailed off as she finished relating the events in a quiet tone of voice.
"Marvolo," said Tom slowly, a glint shining in his dark blue eyes as he tasted the name on his lips, rolling it on his tongue. But any gleam was soon gone as his gaze flickered back to Alice, his expression turning impenetrable as he said curtly, "So my mother simply died? You didn't mention if she was ill."
"She wasn't. At least none of the caregivers who were present at the moment noticed anything wrong with her health," muttered Alice in a quiet tone of voice. "But it's clear that…" She cleared her throat uncomfortably, before she met Tom's piercing eyes and continued in a mellow tone of voice, "When terrible things happen to people, when they are unable to overcome them, sometimes it happens that they lose the will to live."
She gazed at him with a compassionate and warm-hearted expression on her face, as she continued gently, "There's no doubt in my mind that your mother loved you greatly, Tom, and you shouldn't hold it against her that she died. Some bad experience must have broken her spirits-"
"Save your pity and your paltry platitudes and sentimentalities for yourself," hissed out Tom acidly, piercing her with contemptuous, narrowed eyes, before he stood straight and took one menacing step forward, his voice lowering ominously, "You'll say nothing to Harry about this. I'll tell him my own version of events – where, obviously, he'll be my twin, just as you have made us believe all this time. Do you understand?"
Alice looked uncertain for a moment, feeling warring emotions inside herself – after all, she had always had every intention of telling the boys the truth when they were older. But to keep quiet about it, to never tell Harry…
"Do you understand?" repeated Tom harshly, with such ringing force that it seemed to crash and resound against the walls.
A sudden chill ran down Alice's spine, abruptly making her feel extremely cold. She even had the impression for a second that her breath had come out as a puff of white air. She felt herself inching away from the boy before she became aware of it, and something prompted her, something in the child's ominous expression, just made her nod her head – her promise given.
"And you'll convince her to keep her mouth shut as well," added Tom, disdainfully gesturing at the unconscious Kathy Cole.
Alice nodded jerkily once more, remaining mute, her wide eyes fixed on him.
"Good," said Tom curtly. Then, abruptly, he shot her a thin, satisfied smile.
Alice was only able to blink as the boy strode out of the kitchen.
"Where have you been – what happened?" Harry instantly demanded the moment Tom returned to their room, as he rubbed the scar on his forehead which still throbbed with lingering pain. He shot his brother a miffed scowl, as he added, "Your anger woke me up. So spill the beans, you owe me."
Tom scoffed, though he took his place at his brother's side, snuggling against him to keep warm under the covers, and then started relating his own version of the story in a curt tone of voice.
The moment Tom finished and the room was encompassed in absolute silence, Harry bit down on his lower lip, peering up at his brother as he said in a wobbly, sad little tone of voice, "So mum died after she had me and didn't have time to give me a second name?"
"Yes," said Tom coolly, as he stretched an arm under his head and stared up at the stained ceiling.
He shot a side-glance at his brother, seeing Harry's sorrowful expression- the boy's bright green eyes were even shinning with tears- and he had to bite on his tongue to not lash at the sentimental little fool.
Deciding to derail the conversation, he cleared his throat and shot Harry a smug look. "But since unlike you, I do have a middle name and I rather like it, from now on you'll call me Marvolo."
"Will not!" retorted Harry heatedly, for a moment forgetting all mournful thoughts to shoot his brother a resentful scowl. He huffed as he added, "It's a strange and stupid name and it's not fair that you have a second name and I don't-"
"It's not stupid," hissed out Tom indignantly, darkly glaring at him. His eyes narrowed as he spat out with disgust, "'Tom' is stupid. 'Harry' is stupid. Both are common names. There are thousands of people out there with our names-"
"I don't care," snapped Harry, "I still like our names and I won't call you Marvolo-" his small button nose scrunched with dislike- "ever, so there. Besides…" He trailed a finger over his brother's clothed chest, drawing little circles, as his voice lowered into a soft tone, "… our names are like our mum's gift to us. It was the only thing she could give us before dying…" He peered up at his brother with huge, uncertain eyes, as he added in a small voice, "She must have loved us a lot, right? Since she came here to have us, and she named us and all-"
"If she had loved us, she wouldn't have died," interjected Tom curtly, shooting him a harsh, chiding glance. He narrowed his eyes and hissed out acidly, "She was weak, she was a wretch and she was pathetic-"
"Don't talk about mum like that!" bit out Harry hotly, instantly jumping to roll over Tom and squash him under his weight, pressing his nose against his brother's to glare at him. "Take it back!"
"You deluded little idiot," spat Tom, forcefully shoving Harry off him as he sat up to skewer him with an incensed glower. "You don't even know what type of woman she was. I bet you anything she was something horrible – it wouldn't surprise me if she had been a whore or some such thing. Only whores have babies in orphanages, after all."
He shot him a sneer when he saw Harry's crushed expression at those words, and added with cold relish, "And our father is either dead or he's alive and couldn't care less about us and left us here to rot."
"Not true," mumbled Harry, his expression downcast as he gazed down at his small, fisted hands." I know it's not true." He glanced up at Tom, new hope shining in his emerald eyes as he piped in, "I bet that dad is out there looking for us. Maybe bad people have been stopping him from finding us. And all these years he must have been fighting them and looking all over the country for us. And soon he'll find this orphanage and he'll see us and-"
"You're pathetic," sneered Tom with disdain, rolling to a side to give Harry his back. "Believe whatever idiotic little fantasies you like." His voice turned low and quiet as he added in a curt whisper, "The truth of the matter is that we're alone. We only have each other."
At his brother's hushed statement, Harry's anger faded away and he remained seated at one side of the cot, eyeing Tom's back as he bit down on his lower lip.
He soon stretched himself at his brother's side, pressing his small chest against Tom's back as he threw a short arm over his brother's shoulder, murmuring softly, "Don't be mad."
Tom didn't answer, his shoulders and spine still remaining stiff, and Harry eyed him uncertainly before he gave his brother a brief squeeze as he pressed his forehead against the nape of Tom's neck, the silky locks of black hair brushing and tickling his nose.
Not wanting to argue again about their parents, since it was obviously a touchy subject for both, Harry voiced another hopeful thought that had crossed his mind, "So… I was born minutes after you – are you sure? Maybe I was first, and Kathy doesn't remember well-"
"You're the little brother, Harry, not I," scoffed out Tom, without turning to face him. "Facts are facts. Now go to sleep."
Harry harrumphed, his hopes of being able to rub in Tom's face who was the real big brother among them dashed, but a small grin broke on his face all the same, for Tom had relaxed under his arm and seemed to be pleasantly dozing off.
Nevertheless, no matter what Tom had said, that night Harry vouched that if their dad never appeared at the orphanage, then that one day he would go out in search of him.
That night, his dreams were filled with vague images of a tall man with a joyous expression and a big loving smile on his face as he hugged Harry and Tom and took them away to a small, cozy house. For once, terrible, menacing crimson eyes and flashes of blinding green light didn't spear through the foggy clouds of his dreams.
The following morning, Tom slipped out of their shared cot, taking care of not waking Harry up. He was one of the few early risers in the orphanage and never waited for one of the caregivers to come by, like Harry did, who always lazed about in their bed for as long as he could.
However, that morning, Tom had a specific reason for quickly making his way to the ground floor and the orphanage's playroom, since Billy Stubbs was one of the others who was out and about before the caregivers made their rounds - not willingly, but because that rabbit of his was squirming for freedom and wanting to hop around by sunrise.
As soon as Tom entered the room, he saw what he had expected and hoped for. Billy Stubbs was already there, sitting crossed-legged in the middle of the floor, with Puffy the Bunny on his lap, being petted and worshipped.
Throughout the years, Tom had had a vast number of reasons for wanting to show Billy Stubbs his place, but he had so far refrained from tormenting the boy. He didn't like to admit it, but he had done so for Harry's sake. Now, however, circumstances had changed.
"Hello there, Billy," said Tom placidly, as he took a step to tower over the sitting boy.
Billy's head shot up so suddenly that it seemed as if some bone in the neck must have cracked. The boy's brown eyes were immense as he stared up a Tom, his mouth parted open, the lips now trembling as he stuttered out, "H-hullo T-Tom." An attempt of an ingratiating smile wavered on the boy's face as he paled.
"You must know what this is about, yes?" prompted Tom calmly, though his eyes narrowed as he pinned the boy with his dark blue gaze.
"I didn't hear anything – I swear!" burst out Billy, as he shot up to his feet, tightly gripping his rabbit against his chest, and clearly ready to take flight as far away from Tom as possible. "I won't say anything to anyone – promise!"
Tom's hands immediately shot out, with one grabbing Puffy the Bunny by the ears and ripping her out from Billy's protective embrace, with the other harshly gripping the boy by the neck to keep him in place, as he hissed out ominously, "I know that you won't say anything." He shot him a dark smirk as his eyes narrowed menacingly, "Because if you do, your fate will be the same as Puffy's here."
"What are you going to do with her!" cried out Billy as he attempted to recover her from the other boy's clutch as Tom held her up high in the air. "Leave her alone, she's done nothing to you-"
Billy Stubb's pleads and shrieks went deaf to Tom's ears as his gaze quickly scanned the room. His smirk widened when he caught sight of one of Amy Benson's hair ribbons lying on the nearby table, the piece of cloth unknotted, long and thin – perfect.
A second later, rabbit and cloth shot up in the air, rising fast towards the ceiling. In the bat of an eyelash, the string coiled itself around the bunny's soft, fluffy neck and then its end spun around one of the wooden rafters. Gravity seemed to be restored in the next moment when the rabbit dropped a few inches, the coil of cloth twanging like the release of a tense string of a drawn bow, as a frantic yipping sound came from the bunny as its white limbs jerkily flailed in spasms.
"NO!" wailed Billy as he sobbed wretchedly, but Tom halted any movement by brusquely holding the boy by the jaw, forcing him to watch the rabbit's strangulation.
"That will happen to you if you ever say a word to anyone about what you overheard last night," hissed out Tom, sinking his short fingernails in the boy's sunken cheeks. "Is that clear?"
Billy froze, his eyes wild as he stared up at Tom. Soon, Tom's nose scrunched when a pungent odor reached him, and he glanced down at the boy's pants in disgust, seeing a wet stain spreading over Billy's crotch.
Suddenly, as noises reached his ears of the footfalls of the running children that had awoken and were making their way to the playroom, Tom was forced to violently shake Billy to yank him out of his terror-induced stupor.
"Is it clear!" snapped Tom harshly, skewering the boy with narrowed eyes.
"Y-yes," stuttered Billy simply, his frame now trembling.
Abruptly, the door was yanked open and a chirpy voice said with curiosity, "What are you two up to – PUFFY!"
Harry dashed by Tom's side like a flash of a blur, crying out in dismay as he leapt forward towards the dangling bunny. In the next instant, the piece of cloth snapped and the rabbit dropped into Harry's awaiting arms, unmoving. A second later, children and caregivers poured into the room, no doubt their quickness encouraged by all the yells coming from within, and Tom instantly stepped backwards into a shadowed corner.
"What's all this ruckus about?" demanded Mr. Jenkins gruffly, his small black eyes narrowing as his gaze flickered from Harry and the rabbit, to Billy who still stood petrified in the middle of the room, face pale and tear-streaked, pants stained with urine, and then to Tom, who never escaped the brute's notice no matter where he hid. "What's happened here?"
No one answered. Harry was now eyeing the caregiver with dread, any grief for the bunny's death and anger towards his brother due to it, now at the back of his mind, as his gaze uneasily flickered from Tom to Billy to Mr. Jenkins and back.
"Well, explain yourselves!" bellowed Mr. Jenkins as he towered over Harry, his gaze lowering until it landed on the bunny. His small beady eyes narrowed as vicious glee crossed his ugly features. "The rabbit's dead. Who did it?" He licked his lips as his eager gaze snapped from Tom to Harry, then to land on the petrified Billy. "Who killed your pet, boy?"
Billy remained silent, his shoulders hunched and his head ducked as he stared at his shoes, unmoving.
Anger soon swept over Mr. Jenkins' face as he spun around and approached the mute boy, raising up a meaty hand, clearly with the intention of delivering a backhand to slap the truth out of the boy.
Alice sprung into action that instant, moving forward and planting herself in front of Billy, facing the other caregiver with a hard expression on her face. "You will not hit the boy. He's clearly not at fault here."
Mr. Jenkins eyed her with smoldering contempt as he snarled, "You'll do well to mind your place, lass, or you'll soon find yourself kicked out to the streets, jobless and with not two pennies to your name."
The threat seemed to have no effect on Alice other than keeping her in silence, since she bravely remained standing protectively between child and man.
Sensing that things would soon be spiraling out of control and take a turn for the worse, Harry armed himself with valor. Mr. Jenkins was the one person he truly dreaded and even feared, but he hoped he could find a way out of the mess.
He realized that the piece of cloth that he had somehow snapped, and was still dangling from the rafters, hadn't been noticed by anyone, except Kathy Cole who was eyeing it with a frown on her face, her suspicious gaze flickering from it to the corner where Tom stood.
"It was me," murmured Harry quietly, pressing the dead bunny to his small chest before he raised his head to meet Mr. Jenkins' narrowed eyes, his voice gaining strength as he continued, "I killed Puffy. It was an accident. I tripped and stepped on her, and her neck must have broken-"
"It-t wasn't H-harr-y," came Billy's whispery, stuttering voice.
Harry bit his lower lip in sheer frustration, not at all happy that his friend had decided then to stand up to his defense.
Mr. Jenkins' limited patience was clearly coming to its end, as he spat, "Then who, boy? Speak up!"
However, it seemed that Billy feared someone else much more than he was afraid of the caregiver, and the boy clamped his mouth shut with such force that his lips turned white.
Harry deeply sighed and turned around to gently lay the dead rabbit on the nearby table. Squaring his shoulders, he swiveled around once more to face the man, as he said insistently, "It was me."
Suddenly, a hissed exhalation of displeased annoyance resounded as Tom took several steps from his corner to stand in the middle of the room, his expression blank as he stared up at Mr. Jenkins and said coolly, "Harry's lying to protect me. It was I who accidentally stepped on the rabbit."
Harry's eyes grew large as he stared at his brother in utter astonishment.
Cruel glee and eagerness swamped Mr. Jenkins' face once more as he grunted with relish, "Thought so. It's always you, ain't it?" A meaty hand latched itself to the back of Tom's neck and he started to brusquely yank the boy out of the room, as he added with a satisfied snarl, "You know the drill, boy."
"No!" burst out Harry, spurred into action and rushing to their side, remembering the state in which Tom always came back when Mr. Jenkins punished him. Granted, Harry himself wasn't immune to the man's vicious brand of disciplinary action, and it terribly hurt all the times when the palms of his hands had been canned until they bled, but he at least healed fast. "It was me, I tell you-"
"Enough!" growled out Mr. Jenkins in fury, glancing back at him with a glower. A nasty gleam suddenly shone in his eyes as he bit out, "If you're so set on sparing your brother then at least you'll watch and learn from your brother's mistakes." His small beady eyes then bore into Alice as he spat, "Bring him."
Appalled, Alice's blue eyes widened as her hand automatically grabbed Harry's shoulder as if she could somehow whisk him away to someplace safe. "I don't think this is necessary-"
"Bring him along, girl!" bellowed Mr. Jenkins, before he turned around and harshly gripped Tom by the nape once more.
With her jaw clenched and a look of pained impotence on her face, Alice gently grabbed Harry's hand and proceeded down the corridor, following Mr. Jenkins' steps. She left Kathy behind to take care of the rest of the children, and particularly Billy Stubbs who was still alarmingly pale and didn't seem to be in full possession of his senses or in control of his bodily functions.
Mr. Jenkins reached Mrs. Sharpe's office and yanked the door open without bothering to knock, brusquely shoving Tom inside, like a victorious conqueror who brought amusing prey to torment.
As they all stepped into the room -Harry fully dreading what would happen, Tom looking impassive and indifferent, and Alice praying to God that someday they could all be rid of Mr. Jenkins– it became clear to all that Mrs. Sharpe had spent her night slumped on her desk.
Bottle and glass of gin were knocked over the table, its liquid contents spilled all over a disorderly mess of papers and documents, her hair a disarray of grey curls haphazardly dangling from a bun, and her face plastered on a newspaper on which drool had formed a small puddle.
Mr. Jenkins took one look at her and then proceeded to bang the door shut with a resounding slam. Instantly, Mrs. Sharpe jumped in her seat, eyes foggy and unfocused for a second as her gaze roved over them, disconcerted.
Mr. Jenkins grabbed Tom by the scruff of his shirt and yanked him forward giving him a violent shake, as he announced gleefully, "The boy has killed Billy Stubb's rabbit."
Mrs. Sharpe's eyes sparkled with interest at that, and a small, thin-lipped smile curled her painted lips as she said with a raspy voice, "I see. He must be punished then, of course."
"He certainly must," agreed Mr. Jenkins, sounding as if it was a well rehearsed script between them as a prelude to a mutually enjoyable spectacle. Then he shoved Tom forward, making him nearly bang against the sharp edge of Mrs. Sharpe's desk. "Assume position."
Harry's hands tightly clenched into fists as he saw Mr. Jenkins reach for a birch cane which had its own special perch on top of a chest of drawers. As Tom calmly unbuckled his shabby belt, starting to pull his pants down, Harry took a step forward before he knew it.
He halted on his tracks when Tom snapped his head to a side to shoot him a piercing look of warning, clearly conveying that Harry was not to interfere or else. Harry sank his small teeth on his bottom lip as Alice, who stood by his side, became as tense as a bow-string.
"You're a bad seed, just as Father Patrick says," spat Mr. Jenkins as he returned to stand before Mrs. Sharpe and her desk, cane in hand while he yanked down Tom's pants and undergarment until they hung loosely under the boy's small, taut buttocks.
Tom gripped the edge of the desk without saying a word, and a wide, nasty smile filled with rotten teeth spread on the man's face at the sight, as he continued, "There's the Devil inside you, boy, there is. But we shall beat Him out of you, won't we?"
No reply came and it was clear that Mr. Jenkins didn't need any to motivate him.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Sharpe was sitting straight up on her chair to afford her a direct view, her dark eyes shining with enjoyment, as she waved a hand and declared importantly, "You can proceed."
Mr. Jenkins graced her with one of his twisted smiles as he raised the cane in the air.
"I'm doing this for your own good, boy," he said with vicious relish, as he brought the cane down in a full arch, producing a twang as it sailed through the air and then a horrible noise as it struck smooth flesh.
Harry winced and his teeth sank deeper into his lip as he saw his brother gritting his teeth, but not a word came from Tom. The only evidence of pain was the knuckles of the hands that gripped the desk turning white, and the line of raised, red flesh that now ran along Tom's backside.
A nasty chortle came from Mr. Jenkins as he announced, "This time we will make it twenty and not our standard ten. What do you say?"
Harry gasped and looked at him, aghast, and his expression only turned even more horrified as Mr. Jenkins employed the full strength of his meaty arm to keep delivering blows which became more savage and brutal as the minutes ticked by.
Alice, by his side, had her eyes tightly shut, her own expression one of pain, her lips pressed into a thin, pale line, with her hands clenching and unclenching jerkily.
Grunts were ripped from Tom's lips as his buttocks became a crisscross lattice of bleeding rows of broken skin, and Harry felt his breathing coming out as haggard pants. Not only seeing it happen was much worse that merely seeing the results, but his scar was flaring in pain with all the seething hatred and murderous rage that was blazing in his brother's mind. And suddenly, Harry could only see red and he became strangely dizzy and frenzied.
"Twelve!" declared Mr. Jenkins with a crow of laughter, as Mrs. Sharpe eagerly clapped her hands in approval of a punishment that was being well executed. "Eight more to go, boy – you'll learn your lesson, mark my words!"
"STOP!" yelled Harry frantically, the words tearing out his throat before he knew what he was doing.
"You, clamp your mouth shut or you're next-"
Shards of glass suddenly pelted forth in a blast, and Mr. Jenkins' threat was lost in the exploding sound that reverberated in the room, as Mrs. Sharpe shrieked and dropped for cover under her desk.
Alice had immediately reacted instinctively, not only throwing herself to the floor but pulling Harry with her as she used her arms to cover as much of the boy as she could. Tom, with his ankles entangled in his pants and undergarments, had also leapt to a side and to safe cover. And it was thus that Mr. Jenkins was the only one who received a face-full of volleying shards of glass.
The man bellowed in pain as he rolled to the floor, making a greater mess of his face by attempting to rip out the shards with his meaty fingers.
"Wh- what- wh-" sputtered Mrs. Sharpe, her eyes wild as she took everything in, though not moving an inch to help anyone.
"You fool!" hissed out Tom with livid anger, briskly pulling his drawers and pants up and buckling his belt, before he dug out Harry from under Alice, brusquely pulling his little brother up to his feet.
Alice gawked at the blasted window behind Mrs. Sharpe's desk, which had no glass panels left, and when Tom's hushed, furious words reached her ears, her gaze snapped to Harry, her eyes growing wide.
She didn't quite know what had happened and she couldn't make sense of the crazy thoughts rushing through her mind, or of the way that Harry was looking deeply contrite or how Tom seemed to believe that his brother was to blame, or even of Kathy's belief that last night Tom had somehow attempted to suffocate her to death.
But as Mr. Jenkins kept bellowing in agony and fury, and as Mrs. Sharpe kept shrieking for some sort of explanation and the name of the guilty party, Alice rose to her feet and found herself pointing at the broken window as she said loudly, "A boy in the street hurled a stone, I saw. Then he ran away."
Momentarily shocked with herself, though knowing what had motivated her as her gaze landed on Harry and Tom who were now staring at her in surprise, Alice then gathered back her wits, knowing they had to leave the office as soon as possible.
"Mrs. Sharpe, I think it would be best if you could tend to Mr. Jenkins' wounds, if you will?" she said quickly, as she grabbed both boys by their arms. "And I'll take Tom to the Punishment Room and Harry to his bedroom-"
"Yes, yes, take them away," snapped Mrs. Sharpe with angered annoyance, dismissively waving a hand at them as she crouched to peer out the window, as if expecting to see the urchin who had dared to throw a stone at her window.
Alice didn't waste a second in pulling the boys out of the office, and the three of them remained awkwardly silent as they made their way up the staircase.
It was Harry who broke the tense air surrounding them as he said in a small voice, "Do you have to take Tom to the Punishment Room? He hates it-"
"Shut up," snarled Tom at his brother, making Harry hang down his head like a scolded puppy who was fully aware of all his misdeeds.
"I have to take him there because it's what Mrs. Sharpe and Mr. Jenkins expect," said Alice reasonably, finding strength in the mere act of following procedure. "If I don't, it will only be worse for Tom."
They reached the boys' bedroom and Alice opened the door and gently pushed Harry's back to make him go inside, as she said, "Get in your bed and wait for me. I'll be right back."
"Bed?" Harry gaped at her. He was almost eight years old already – practically a grown-up! Harry fumed. And grown-ups weren't told they had to go to bed, and besides...
He stared up at Alice and then said with a small whine, "But it's morning-"
"A bit of extra rest, given recent events, will do you good, I'm sure," interrupted Alice, then shooting him a stern glance when Harry mutinously pouted at her. "Go."
Harry huffed but obeyed nonetheless, and Alice proceeded to take another flight of stairs with Tom, to reach the attic and the small, lightless cupboard at its end which was known around the orphanage as the Punishment Room - the one place which Tom, in particular, was vastly acquainted with.
Neither of them said one word to each other, and Tom for his part felt relieved. His backside felt like a mass of burning, flayed skin, but not even the feeling of rivulets of blood trickling down his legs prevented him from concentrating all his efforts in walking as if nothing was the matter with him. He would be limping if not. Though, he knew that no great amount of willpower would spare him from being unable to sit for a whole week.
Tom gritted his teeth as he climbed up another step. And for all that, he had his little imbecile of a brother to thank.
Harry was fretfully turning on his cot and already dreading any questions Alice might ask, when the caregiver came back to his bedroom.
Alice seemed to be calm as she took a seat on the cot, eyeing Harry pensively for a moment without saying a word.
Then, she gently caressed the boy's wild mass of hair as she murmured quietly, "What happened in Mrs. Sharpe's office?"
"Nuthin'," muttered Harry, staring up the ceiling, though he couldn't help fluttering his eyelids shut in contentment as Alice kept soothingly carding her fingers through his hair – there was nothing he liked more than that.
"Harry…" she said chidingly, but then she trailed off uncertainly, not entirely sure if she really did want to know.
She deeply sighed and then warmly smiled at the small boy when she saw his expression, like a little kitten being gently petted and purring in pleasure.
"Alright, I will not ask," said Alice at last.
Harry's bright emerald eyes cracked open at that, and he graced her with a beaming smile.
Alice chuckled as she caressed his cheek. "And just for that smile, it's worth keeping my questions to myself and not think about the matter further."
"Thank you," whispered Harry, clutching her caressing fingers and giving them a soft squeeze as his smile turned into a grin.
Alice nodded and then cleared her throat as she inquired dubiously, "Is Tom claustrophobic? Or is he afraid of the dark?"
"Clastro-what?" Harry shook his head and piped in, "He isn't scared. He just doesn't like small places or the dark." He shot her an impish grin, as he added, "He never admits it, but I can tell."
Alice had to repress a wince. It was clear that Tom's stint in the Punishment Room wouldn't be a pleasant one for the boy. Alas, there wasn't much she could do about that.
She shook her head and then pulled the covers up to Harry's chin, as she said softly, "Now try to sleep for a bit."
"But I'm not sleepy," mumbled Harry, his lips pursing stubbornly.
"Shall I sing to you my mother's nursery rhyme?" offered Alice gently. "It's your favorite, and it always works like a charm and makes you sleepy."
"Alright!" chimed Harry, an eager sparkle in his green eyes as he burrowed placidly under the covers, to then peer at her expectantly.
"Once upon a time, there was a good little wolf, mistreated by all the lambs," began to sing Alice softly, her voice slowly raising and then lulling like soothing, cradling waves. "Once upon a time, there was a bad black unicorn, a little ugly fairy, and a shy dragon. There was also once, an evil prince, a beautiful witch, and an honest pirate. There were all these things, once upon a time…"
She trailed off, waiting for Harry to sing the last part of the rhyme, as had became a tradition for them.
"When I dreamed of a world turned upside down," murmured Harry sleepily, as his eyes fluttered shut and a yawn escaped from his lips.
Satisfied, Alice smiled and waited during a few more minutes until soft, peaceful snores could be heard, and then she gently pecked Harry on the forehead before she took her leave.
The instant Alice left the room and Harry heard the sound of her footfalls fading away, he jumped out of the cot.
He grabbed pillow and blanket and then carefully cracked the door open, poking his head out and peering at both sides of the corridor to make sure no one was wandering about.
With a wide grin on his face, Harry scampered up several flights of stairs until he reached a small, short ladder. Haphazardly climbing it with pillow and blanket under one arm, he managed to open the trap door at the end of the ladder and climbed into the attic.
Sneezing once as dust tickled his nose, he made his way through old, broken furniture and all sort of miscellaneous, abandoned items of no value which littered the floor. Finally, he reached a small door no higher than his chest. He placed his pillow and blanket on the dusty floor, quickly making full use of them by lying down, resting his head on the pillow as he attempted to see something through the crack under the door.
He tentatively knocked softly on the small wooden door, as he whispered quietly, "Tom, it's me."
"Go away," snapped Tom's voice acidly.
"No," bit out Harry mutinously, glaring at the door. "I'll stay here all day and night with you."
An aggrieved groan came through; muffled, but the irritation conveyed was unmistakable.
"Alice won't mind when she finds out," continued Harry, ignoring the sound, his tone now cheerful. "So I'll keep you company."
"Hn."
Not at all discouraged by his brother's less than gracious grunt, Harry babbled on eagerly, "So what do you want to do? Maybe we can play some game or tell each other fairy tales or make funny animal noises and guess which animal it is or I can bring Nagini if you want and we can play with her-"
"Don't you ever stop talking?" hissed out Tom's voice with annoyance. He paused for a brief moment before his voice turned hasher and angry, "You realize the idiocy of what you did in Sharpe's office, don't you?"
"I didn't mean to blow up the window – it just happened," piped in Harry defensively. "I couldn't help it!"
"Be glad that Alice covered for you," snapped Tom's voice curtly.
"She was great, wasn't she?" declared Harry proudly. "She will always protect us, no matter what." He started scratching the door with a fingernail as he added in a cajoling tone of voice, "So maybe we could tell her about the things we can do-"
"No," was the immediate, stern response.
"But she loves us, Tom!" insisted Harry stubbornly. "She would never tell-"
"Perhaps," came Tom's reply, his voice soon turning sneering. "She's the type of soft-hearted, sentimental fool who would always make excuses for us and help us out. And you're right, pathetic people like her are meant to be used and exploited by others. And so we should. It's her own fault for being so stupid-"
"I never said that!" interrupted Harry hotly, glowering at the wooden door in front of him, not liking one bit how his brother viewed Alice – apart from Tom, she was his favorite person in the world.
Tom scoffed snidely. "Never mind. My point is that she's useful, and only that. We won't be telling her anything."
"Fine," groused out Harry.
Silence spread between them, Tom perhaps wishing that his brother had relented and left him alone, and Harry for his part fuming before something caught his eye. An idea sprung in his mind as he watched a little spider climbing up a web not three inches away from him.
"I'm sending you a friend to cheer you up," he said excitedly, as he made the spider jump to the floor and scramble towards the crack under the door. When the spider vanished, he said eagerly, "Are you seeing her? I'll make her dance – watch!"
The sound of a shoe sole slamming against floorboards and a squishy noise alerted Harry to what had happened to the nice spider, and he cried out in indignation, "You killed her!"
"Yes, I did," came Tom's relishing voice.
Scowling, Harry huffed as he protested, "You're such a sourpuss. What do we do now, then?"
"Remain silent."
Harry's dissatisfied scowl deepened before he started eyeing the crack under the door with a speculative and assessing look. A grin soon spread on his face and he tested the waters, sticking his fingers through the crack. His grin widened as he easily managed to put his hand through till midway.
Chuckling, he wriggled his fingers, knowing that his brother could see them. "Look – you could grab them. Come on, you know you want to..."
Harry abruptly yelped when his fingers were painfully squeezed and twisted. "Let go!"
"What you did today," came Tom's menacing voice, "promise to never do something like it again. I can take care of myself, is that clear? So promise or I'll hurt you even more."
Vainly attempting to get his fingers back, Harry yielded and mumbled out his promise, but it was a moot point. He knew that he wouldn't be able to control himself if someone tried to truly harm his brother, and it wasn't something he regretted.
As the grip on his fingers relaxed, Harry immediately started withdrawing his hand, only to halt when Tom said quietly, "If I hold your hand, will you stop your nonsensical chattering and remain quiet?"
Harry blinked in surprise, but then a wide, triumphant grin spread on his face. Though, he made sure of not conveying it, as he said shortly, "Sure."
It was thus that, out of sheer boredom in Harry's case and out of a much needed rest to dull his pain in Tom's, both ended up falling asleep, holding hands through the small crack of the cupboard's door and with equally satisfied and placid expressions on their faces.
Countless miles away, amidst a dense forest near the German-Austrian border and hidden under heavy, powerful layers of wards, a dark wizard with curly locks of blonde hair peppered with grey at the sides and with hazel, hawk-like eyes, was pacing in his office in the highest level of his tower.
A tower the wizard had built himself, brick by brick, and enchantment after enchantment; the many hidden passages and chambers and the secrets it held only fully known by its creator. Though the motto etched on the entrance gateway of the tower, 'Für das Größere Wohl', was already widely known throughout the wizarding world; sometimes fully advocated and supported, other times murmured with wariness and dread.
It was an afternoon in which the Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald found himself pacing as he waited for his guards to bring him his latest prisoner and recent acquisition, who had been 'softened' by a one-month stint in Nurmengard's underground dungeons.
In this occasion, the Dark Lord was sporting his best muggle civilian clothes, since it had been one of those days in which he had apparated to muggle Berlin and participated –as he regularly did- in an exclusive meeting in the Reichstag, where the lead members of the Nazi party knew him as one of the country's most prosperous factories owner and as the Führer's personal advisor. Knowledge, of course, which would disappear from the minds of those muggles the day when Gellert Grindelwald had no more use for them.
As he impatiently awaited for his prisoner's arrival, his hazel eyes swept across his vast office; clustered with countless books of any variety of magical and muggle topics, added to his personal library and collection consisting of only the most unique Dark Arts texts, with numerous magical artifacts scattered among shelves, and detailed maps of Europe, the North of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
It was in the maps of Europe, hanging from walls or stretched across tables, in which his plans for the War were revealed: with figurines representing troops, divisions of tanks and artillery, and even squadrons of battle-airplanes; with magically drawn lines representing battle fronts and trenches, and arrows depicting the planned deployment of his muggle forces; even with notations regarding the sequences and timing of the conquests, so that his strategies for the muggle war were executed precisely in time with his tactics for the wizarding war.
For such purpose, sometimes, superimposed on the map of muggle Europe, Grindelwald liked to place his map of wizarding Europe, with the marked locations of all the Ministries of Magic or similar governmental facilities, depending on the country, and with notations of the magic to be used, the negotiations to be held, and the names of leaders to either kill, imprison or persuade.
There was one map, however, which wasn't openly on display but rather hidden in one of the office's many secret compartments. This was the map which represented years of historical and archeological research in the quest of finding the one magical artifact which Grindelwald coveted the most.
An artifact lost millennia ago and believed by most to have been long since destroyed. It was such the ancient age of the legendary artifact that Grindelwald's quest in search of it lacked any progress, in stark contrast with his quest of locating the two companions to the wand he held in his hand.
Nevertheless, that evening, Grindelwald expected his luck to change, for he was certain he would rip the truth from his prisoner and finally obtain some leads regarding the artifact's location. After all, for years he had plotted in detail both the wizarding and the muggle war that were about to come, both of which would avert attention from his true quest. With the benefit along the way of having muggles kill themselves in the millions, if everything went according to plan, and with having the Nazis do the tedious work of storing all valuable Jew belongings in warehouses, so that his followers could covertly go through them in search of clues.
Nevertheless, such matter wasn't the only one which he hoped to be enlightened about.
Gellert Grindelwald's hazel eyes roamed over the immense sphere which occupied a vast corner of the room; the Globe, with a diameter as long as the height between floor and ceiling, was a much cherished magical artifact, created by himself from the instructions in a journal of a Dark Lord long forgotten.
It was Gellert's means of keeping track of all magical beings –humans and creatures- all depicted in the Globe's watery-like surface by flames, of varying sizes, colors and degrees of brightness.
How it had amused him when he had seen that, recently, his old 'friend' had increased the frequency of his trips to the French countryside.
It seemed that when Gellert Grindelwald was on the move, Albus Dumbledore didn't leave anything to chance, even believing that Grindelwald could be interested in something so lackluster as Nicholas Flame's Philosopher's Stone.
Immortality had never particularly appealed to a hedonistic wizard like Gellert, who knew himself well enough to foresee that an eternal existence would only end up making him cry out of tediousness. No, Gellert was all for the 'next, great adventure' as his one and only true lover had called it, and would joyfully embrace Death with a crow of chortles when it came, as long as it didn't take him before he accomplished his aims.
Nevertheless, he had been entertained by the comings and goings of the bright orange flame that represented Albus Dumbledore. It was the one flame in the whole Globe which was as large and which shone as powerfully as Gellert's own.
And a flame which never, not once, had moved across the Globe to appear in Germany, but which had been orbiting around other countries - Albus had certainly been busy lately, attempting to form alliances for the British Ministry of Magic in an unofficial capacity, no doubt, and certainly being the only one who had the foresight and depth of understanding to know some of what Grindelwald had planned.
The most powerful light wizard in the world – as evidenced in the Globe – was clearly making preparations to thwart him. But not to confront him directly, Gellert knew that well.
For the same reason that he would leave England and his quest for the two remaining Deathly Hallows for last, he knew that Albus would never set foot in Germany and confront him face-to-face, not unless it became the wizard's last, desperate measure.
Thus, it wasn't Albus' orange flame which he was concerned about, not even some other flames which Gellert had keep tabs on, since those bright flames represented powerful witches or wizards who could be somewhat of threat to him, or possible allies if he so wished.
Rather, what had piqued his curiosity for some years were two flames right smack in the middle of the docks' neighborhood of muggle London.
One of those flames had just, some minutes ago, flared up brightly. The child had done magic, and with some measure of control over it; quite a feat given the child's young age.
He was most puzzled by this bright blue flame in particular, though the black one vastly intrigued him too. It was the latter which he had seen being 'born', and just a year later, a small blue flame had popped right next to it, as if out of thin air.
Gellert was interested in them not only because of the brightness and intensity of their flames –indicating vast and unprecedented magical potential in children who, by his estimates, hadn't turned eight yet- but due to their flames' characteristics.
The flame of the child which had been born nearly eight years ago was almost pure black, denoting a strong ancestry of a dark pureblood line and a rather staggering potential for the Dark Arts.
Nevertheless, it was the other flame which befuddled him the most; bright blue and yet with a strong core of black from which a tendril flared out and connected with the other flame. It perplexed him. Never had he seen such 'connection' between flames on the Globe, and its meaning utterly eluded him.
His pensive musings were abruptly cut short when the door of his office was opened and two guards stepped inside, dragging a witch by her arms.
Gellert immediately strode forth and soon halted in front of her, his lips quirking upwards into a twisted parody of a charming and courteous smile, as he intoned pleasantly in a faultless Greek, "My esteemed Oracle, I hope your accommodations in my humble abode have been to your satisfaction?"