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Harry Potter and the Mirror, Darkly

Chapter Seven: The Creation of Mister Limerick

Harry, Hermione, Luna, and Tom were sitting at the Hufflepuff breakfast table (because Hufflepuff was the only House loyal enough to accept a Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin). Tom had forgone his invisibility in favor of disguising charms, and was having an animated discussion with Luna about the merits of using a modified Tracking Charm to find Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.

"Luna, my modified Tracking Charm can find just about anything!" Tom said, exasperated.

"Crumple-Horned Snorkacks are quite tricky, though," Luna said with a small smile on her face.

Tom hung his head in his hands. "This is a pointless discussion. There is no such thing as a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. It's just an urban myth."

Luna smiled dreamily. "Can you prove it?"

Tom shook his head and raised his wand. "Circumspicio!" Immediately, his wand twisted his hand to point northwest direction.

Luna's eyes, while already larger than average, widened comically. "It works?"

Tom stopped the spell, looking at Luna with appraising eyes. "How do you know it works? I could have accidentally asked to point at something else."

Luna smiled. "Your wand was pointing at Sweden, which is where the most reports of the Snorkack come from."

Tom shook his head incredulously. "I can't be seriously considering this possibility," he muttered to himself.

Dumbledore calmly strode down the aisle next to the Hufflepuff table until he arrived next to Tom. Over Tom's shoulder, Albus saw Harry's eyes go wide with fear, and he wondered if perhaps he should act a little more 'Grandfatherly'. It would not do to have the students so terrified of their headmaster.

"Hello, young man," Dumbledore addressed Tom with a smile on his face. "I'm terribly sorry, but I don't know your name. Alas," Dumbledore broke off, playacting a bit sad (for the amusement of the little Luna Lovegood staring in shock at their interaction- it worked), "I find my old age occasionally gets the best of me."

Tom turned around and faced Dumbledore, fear thudding in his heart. This was the only man he ever truly feared. "Limerick, sir," Tom said softly. Even as terrified as he was, he couldn't resist practically waving his identity under Dumbledore's long, crooked nose.

Dumbledore smiled again. "Well, Mister Limerick, I find it quite rare that any wizard knows a spell I have never heard of." Tom was starting to sweat; Was Dumbledore suspicious? "Therefore, I find I must ask a slight favor, one wizard to another." Dumbledore hastened to reassure the boy. "By no means are you required to complete this favor, especially if it would make you too uncomfortable, but I would be ever so grateful, and-"

Tom interrupted the Headmaster. "Professor, you haven't told me what the favor is yet."

Despite the (one-sided) tense nature of the conversation, Harry snorted. That broke the floodgates, and all the other Hufflepuffs broke out into laughter. Even Tom chuckled a bit.

Once the roaring noise had passed, Dumbledore smiled serenely at Tom and spoke. "You are quite right, my boy. In my haste to reassure you, it appears that I forgot to tell you what I was asking. What I really wanted to ask you is," here Dumbledore paused, mostly for effect, "Could you please teach me that spell?"

Again, the Hufflepuff table broke out into laughter at the thought of a student teaching the Headmaster magic. Tom smiled in relief, along with the rest of the older boys (for different reasons, of course. The Hufflepuff boys had let their imaginations run away with them).

"Of course, Professor. It's not a secret," Tom said with a grin. "The incantation is Circumspicio, and the wand movement is a basic Nordaic rune of Searching tied by the second tail to a Sayonic rune of Destruction. You have to think very hard about what you are searching for. I find that listing it's characteristics is most useful."

Professor Dumbledore smiled, running through a few Arithmetic calculations in his head. Once he reached the result, he paled. Conjuring a piece of parchment and a self-inking quill, and ran through them again on paper. He then went even deeper, calculating each of the constants he used to make sure that these results were absolutely correct.

Whirling around, Dumbledore stared hard at Tom. "Mister Limerick, I would very much like to know where you learned the most powerful Tracking Charm that I have ever seen."

Tom shrunk back infinitesimally, but it was enough for Dumbledore to see. Dumbledore dropped the slightly hard look in his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Mister Limerick, it's just-" Dumbledore broke off. "That spell is immensely powerful, so powerful in fact that it could go through even the most powerful hiding charm, such as the Fidelius."

Tom nodded, relaxing slightly. "I know, professor. It was designed to break powerful hiding enchantments. I trust you won't use it for nefarious purposes, or teach it to those that would."

Dumbledore nodded. "You're quite right, but I am worried about who you learned it from. Each spellmaker has a distinctive style, and I happen to be very familiar with the creator of this spell, unless I'm horribly mistaken."

Tom feigned confusion, while mentally berating himself. He had only told the Headmaster to avoid suspicion, but it seems to have put him under even more scrutiny than before. "Why would you be worried about this spell creator?"

"Because," intoned Dumbledore gravely, "the creator of that spell is Lord Voldemort." Dumbledore paused when his mention of the greatest Dark Lord in half a century failed to draw startled gasps from the surrounding students.

Seeing Dumbledore's confusion, Tom smiled at him. "As soon as I started telling you the spell, I cast a powerful Notice-Me-Not charm on us. Even if someone extracts their memories and puts them in a pensive, they won't know what we said."

"You have remarkable foresight, Mister Limerick."

"I was merely worried that the students would repeat the spell instructions to someone who would use it for nefarious purposes," Tom said, pointing out an obvious danger. Dumbledore smiled.

"Well," he began with a genuine smile, "It appears great minds really do think alike. I placed a confundus charm on the tables so the students would mix up your instructions with that of a cactus conjuring charm."

Tom smiled before becoming serious. "Well, I don't know what to tell you, but I created that spell, and I am most definitely not Voldemort."

Dumbledore nodded, but then hesitated. Tom saw this and chuckled. "Would you like me to make a Wizard's Oath?"

Dumbledore looked comforted by the offer. "I assure you that isn't necessary. However, it may help me sleep at night," he admitted with a rueful grin.

Tom raised his wand, his arm bent at a comfortable angle, and began a spell. "Certitudo."

"I do solemnly vow that I am the creator of the Circumspicio charm. I further vow that I am not Lord Voldemort (it was true, he was Tom Riddle), nor am I in any way willing to serve him or his boot-licking squad. Should this be a lie, may my magic rend my soul into a thousand pieces and send them all to the center of the earth for all of eternity."

Tom flicked the tip of his wand, and a small, marble-sized pearl floated out of his wand and landed in Dumbledore's outstretched hand. With a grin, Dumbledore pocketed it.

"Ah, the comfort of truth," Dumbledore sighed happily. "But, my boy," he said, frowning, "there was no need for such a high consequence. If you had misspoken, you would have had to endure an eternity of hell."

Tom smiled. "But I did not misspeak, did I. Good day, Professor."

Dumbledore grinned and dropped his confundus charm, and tore apart Tom's Notice-Me-Not. "Good day, Mister Limerick." Dumbledore started to walk away, but then turned back as if remembering an important detail. "Oh, Mister Limerick?" At Tom's inquiring look, Dumbledore smiled. "It would be best if you kept this particular spell to yourself."

Tom nodded, happy to be out of that uncomfortable turned around, sat back down, and began eating before noticing Harry's shocked expression.

He saw Harry drop a letter and put it on top of it's ripped envelope, and put it down. Tom glanced at the bottom of the letter, where the sender had signed his name, and his heart nearly stopped.

Arthur Weasley