1943

.

.

Despite living in a castle for most of the year, Hermione was impressed by the Riddle House.

She supposed it was due to the fact that the sprawling grounds and non-Euclidean architecture of Hogwarts were shared by hundreds of students, and with the ghosts and talking portraits, it wasn't a place in which one could truly find themselves lost. In comparison, the Riddle House, a grand old Georgian-era home built to emulate an older Jacobean style, had three proper residents—or four, now that Tom had been adopted into the family.

The house, she saw as she explored each floor during her stay, had over a dozen bedrooms, a long hallway that doubled as a family portrait gallery, a wine cellar, and multiple single-purpose rooms dedicated to smoking, playing billiards, sewing, reading books, and cleaning boots. There was even a room in the South Wing of the house for storing toys, lined with shelves of soft animals, baskets of painted wooden blocks, and folded quilts in colourful prints.

That was another mark of difference between here and Hogwarts: the rooms and corridors at Hogwarts showed signs of wear from thousands of young witches and wizards over the thousand years since the school's founding; it felt ancient, storied, but never old. In comparison, much of the Riddle House felt dusty and desolate, as if it were a museum exhibit depicting everyday scenes from a bygone era of British history. It might be centuries more recent than Hogwarts, but the anachronistic armour and tapestries and gargoyles of Hogwarts had never felt antiquated to her, while the signs were everywhere in the Riddles' home. The pictures on the walls showing stiff-looking boys in sailor suits were one, and the holes cut in the wallpaper for the installation of electric light switches were another.

Mrs. Riddle came upon her when she was inspecting the black-and-white photographs in the toy room.

"Do you like it? The nursery?" asked Mrs. Riddle, standing at the threshold. "Of course, you'll be able to decorate however you like when you put the room to use."

"I beg your pardon?" Hermione said. "But why would I need this room?"

"When you decide to have children, where do you think they'll be raised?" spoke Mrs. Riddle in a patient voice, as if she was addressing a young child, or the hard-of-hearing. "I should imagine I'd drop dead before I'd permit any great-grandchildren of mine to be brought up in a London flat."

"Great-grandchildren?" Hermione only just kept herself from gaping in the most unseemly fashion. "You think that I would—that Tom and I were going to—"

"Produce children?" she finished for Hermione, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. (It was, well, a natural thing, but that wasn't the most alarming thing about their conversation.) "I'd certainly hope that you'd marry before it happens, but whichever order you choose doesn't matter as much as your doing both of them, and in a timely manner, too. I think this family could do with a little less public gossip, don't you think?"

"I'm sorry," said Hermione, feeling more and more out of her depth, "but Tom and I, we're not like that, not what you think we are. We're just friends, Mrs. Riddle."

"'Friends'." Mrs. Riddle cast her a calculating look. "And yet, you know that he reads in bed all night, and he knows that you talk in your sleep. When I was a girl, this would have been considered the furthest thing from mere friendship."

"It's not what it sounds like," Hermione said quickly, "and it wasn't anything improper, I promise!" She was uncomfortably aware that generations of young men and women had said these same words to their elders, but perhaps just this once, she would be taken as truthful. "Anyways, these are modern times; standards have changed in the last generation. I'm not against the idea of marriage or children, but I've worked hard in school and would like to do something with my education when I'm finished. Having a certificate to hang on the wall isn't enough for me."

Mum's education hadn't just been a decoration for the wall, either. She'd married Hermione's Dad in the middle of completing her nursing training, but that was because of external factors to do with housing and living expenses: it was cheaper to rent a flat together instead of two separate boarding houses, but landlords did not like letting properties to unmarried couples. Mum and Dad hadn't had Hermione until her Dad had finished his stint as a house medical resident and they'd started their own practice. As a result, her parents were older than many of the parents of her primary school classmates. Not that it was a bad thing, as it meant Mum and Dad had established careers and a spacious family home in Crawley for Hermione to crawl around in as a baby.

(She wondered if Mum and Dad's late start was why Hermione had been an only child, as it wouldn't have been easy for an older couple to keep up with multiple young children. But Hermione still liked the example they set, and appreciated the emphasis they put on educational diligence and good career choices. If it meant not having the three to five children that was the average for the British woman, then she'd accept it without complaint. She worried over the Ravenclaw First Years enough that the addition of any other children—her own children—to the mix was positively overwhelming.)

"You're interested in going into... trade?" asked Mrs. Riddle, using the word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.

Trade was an old word, outdated. The more acceptable modern terms were employment or vocation, when these days earning one's living from things other than collecting rents was no longer held in social contempt. But Mrs. Riddle's face went sour and her lips still pursed up as though Hermione had confessed to wanting to join the circus.

"If I'm capable and qualified to earn my own income, why shouldn't I?" said Hermione. "It isn't about the money—my mother works and volunteers, even though we'd still be well enough off if she didn't. But she wants to, and she makes a difference in the world because she does."

"How very modern." It was curious how the most innocuous of words from Mrs. Riddle's mouth could sound so vaguely insulting. "I suppose that your mother's idea of taking a proper interest in your education was in keeping to her position; far be it from me to tell another woman how to raise her own child."

Mrs. Riddle sniffed, then went on with, "You may find that a woman of means can just as easily 'make a difference', but only rarely does it necessitate common labour. You see, when one is born or raised to a lifestyle of gentility, such privilege does not come without its obligations. Social rank entails social responsibilities: we are expected to lead by moral example; be pious, virtuous, charitable, and honourable, and through it set an example to our lessers. 'Noblesse oblige', as they call it, is the mark of true nobility—in both one's station and one's character."

Hermione couldn't stop herself from staring blankly at Mrs. Riddle, unable to articulate a satisfactory response. She understood the concepts of virtue and the moral imperative, but she wasn't expecting these sentiments to come from Mrs. Riddle, of all people. The Riddles were... not exactly wicked people, but from what she'd observed of them, they were hardly virtuous. They lived comfortable, sheltered lives—lives of leisure—and there was nothing inherently wrong with doing so. But the most charitable thing she'd seen them do, outside of being courteous hosts to herself and Tom, was to put money in the collection plate, and treat their servants with basic politeness.

Remembering the names of the household staff, employment "perks" like allowing them to take dinner leftovers home to their families, first pick of unwanted clothes and old linens before they went into the charity bin, and a half-day off on Sundays for church attendance—that was what the Riddles called kindness, which smacked of demeaning condescension to Hermione's liberal eyes. She hadn't seen Mrs. Riddle knitting socks and rolling bandages, or Mr. Riddle opening his home to convalescing soldiers, nor had she seen Tom's father take it upon himself to lend a hand to the maids who kept up the house and estate. He was an able-bodied man who, for some reason, hadn't been taken into the army, and yet it was left to Mr. Bryce, a man who lurched around on a crutch, to do the yardwork and clean the stables.

Tom's father—the similarity of their names was getting to be a bother—did nothing but slam doors in a petulant manner, then go out for rides when Mr. and Mrs. Riddle ignored him. They paid more attention to Tom, asking how he was settling into his room and if he needed extra blankets, or if he wanted the maid to leave hot water bottles in his bed after dinner so it would be warm and toasty by the time he went up for the night.

"I think there are more important things than trying to look noble," said Hermione. She didn't have Tom's silver tongue for charming adults; she was much too straightforward in discourse to match Tom's sheer persuasiveness, and while Tom found it endearing, it didn't help in the rare instances when she wanted other people to not only find her arguments valid, but find her person likeable. "It's an admirable goal—privilege isn't something one should take for granted, of course—but I've always wanted to make a more active contribution to society. Public affairs, civics, or perhaps even governance."

"Oh, Hermione, my dear," said Mrs. Riddle, sounding immensely relieved. She patted Hermione on the shoulder and continued, "If that's what you wanted, why didn't you say? I'm certain I can arrange a position at the North Riding municipal office when you've finished with school. It's just north of the vale from here, and close enough that you'll be able to live here instead of boarding up in Allerton—a rather dull little parish if I'm to be the judge of it."

"A position? In municipal government?"

"In the aldermen's offices. They're always in need of competent secretaries."

Once again, Hermione was sent floundering for a response. While she tended towards frankness in conversation, she managed to retain enough self-control to steer clear of unsalvageable rudeness.

"Oh," she said, "well, that's generous of you to offer, Mrs. Riddle."

"Noble is as noble does, dear," said Mrs. Riddle magnanimously. "I do want you to feel welcome while living here."

"Oh," she repeated, a little lamely. "If that's the case, do you mind very much if I use your motor? I know petrol is rationed now, but I promise I won't use much of it. I... I've wanted to see the village up close, and I shouldn't like to walk up and down the hill in the snow, especially if the weather changes while I'm on the way back."

She had magic to refill the tanks; they wouldn't miss any, even if she borrowed the Riddles' motorcar and drove to York and back. But she wasn't interested in going that far—the far edge of Little Hangleton was the farthest she was planning on exploring. There was information she was looking for, important information that would answer questions she'd been wondering about for weeks, and the village was the best place she knew to go searching.

"You may take the Sunbeam out," Mrs. Riddle replied. "That's the older one of the two—Bryce will know which one if you ask him; do let him give you a proper driving tour when you visit the village. Thomas doesn't like having mud on his Rolls when the weather gets as dirty as it does during the winter. And my Tom—" she sighed, "—prefers his horses, and never likes going past the property lines these days, so he wouldn't be put out for it either."

The Riddles had two motorcars? Somehow, Hermione wasn't surprised at that; by what she'd seen of their lifestyle, they were obscenely wealthy by the standards of the average family back in Crawley. And Mr. Riddle had a Rolls-Royce! She'd read several automobile manuals during her driver training that summer, and while she didn't have a preference for one make over another—the Muggle equivalent of how young wizards obsessed over the newest racing broomsticks—she knew that some firms produced more luxurious models than others.

It was a car that cost in the thousands of pounds. Hermione's parents had paid one-hundred and fifty pounds sterling to have the rest of their house warded after Nott's solicitor had the registration papers approved by the Ministry. On top of the fees for lodging the application and having two fireplaces in their house renovated and connected to the Floo, the total cost, in the hundreds of pounds, was dear enough that Mum and Dad had to have several serious discussions on the household budget. In the end, they'd decided that it was worth it, as Mr. Pacek was giving them a good rate on account of their friendship, and it wasn't as if they could shop around for a cheaper alternative to having their home secured against bombs, gassing, fires, and mortar strikes.

These thoughts lingered in the back of her mind the next morning, when she checked her study planner one last time. Reading the message that had appeared in the night, she stuffed it into her bag and headed down to the Riddles' garage, which was situated behind the house and invisible from the front drive.

The back of the house was less grand than the front, lacking the Gothic ostentation of the balustrades on either side of the front steps, or the rooftop's sculpted parapets. A flagstoned courtyard was the centre of the space, iced over in the winter, with the occasional black lump visible in the hard-packed snow where a horse had evacuated itself and it had frozen into a solid rock before anyone could shovel it away. It was surrounded by the functional buildings necessary for running a great house like the Riddles' home: the garage, the stables, the dairy, the kitchen gardens, and a glass-walled conservatory for the keeping of fresh herbs and hothouse flowers for the Riddles' table.

The nicker of horses was audible over the scouring wind, and Hermione tucked her scarf in tighter around her throat, cast a Warming Charm over her Muggle coat, and ducked into the garage, which she knew had the largest doors out of any of the house's auxiliary buildings.

Inside, she found a room that smelled of petrol and metal—over the pervading smell of horse manure, which wafted in when the wind blew in the right direction—and contained a small carriage, and what appeared to be a drover's wagon, tipped on its side to make room for the main occupants of the garage, the two motorcars.

One motor was black and rectangular, a commercial model that didn't look much different than the one her parents had—although the one the Grangers' owned was blue. It had a spare tyre strapped to the runningboards, and she remembered seeing that tyre when Mr. Bryce had gone to Great Hangleton to pick her and Tom up from the station. This must be their daily-use car, and indeed the wear was noticeable, in the dings in the body and the dirty streaks of mud splashed across the whitewall tyres; it must have been put to use quite recently.

The other motorcar was silver-grey, with a spotless chromed grille, slimmer runningboards, and a longer front bonnet, which was topped with a shiny metal figurine—the manufacturer's mark.

Hermione was slightly unsettled upon realising that this motor was worth twice the fees of putting a student through a first-rate education at Oxford or Cambridge. And in terms of performance, there wasn't much that separated it from the Riddles' affordable motorcar, the Sunbeam. It was close enough in dimensions to the Grangers' that Hermione knew she could enchant it with the same rune sets, and therefore make it better than the Rolls-Royce.

For now, she'd use her wand to cast a few Cushioning and Warming Charms for comfort. The spells would last a few days at most before the effects faded, but it was a quick job that only a took a few minutes. That'd do, for now. She wasn't sure that the Riddles, even if they allowed her to drive their motorcar, would extend that courtesy to letting her carve mysterious symbols under various panels. Her suspicions lay with an abject refusal; the Riddles might have been relatively carefree with how they spent their money, but they were not uncaring about the state of their belongings.

(When the Grangers had been invited to dinner in one of London's more exclusive restaurants, Mrs. Riddle had ordered lobster bisque for their starters, and had made a fuss about sending everyone's plates back to the kitchen after Hermione pointed out a bit of shell she'd gotten in hers. Hermione had picked it out and laid it on the side of her bowl, but once Mrs. Riddle had seen it, she'd all but dragged the maître d'hôtel to their table by his ear.)

Once settled into the driver's side of the front bench, the engine turned on and the carburetor warming up, Hermione opened her bag and laid out a pair of books. The first was a surveyor's handbook on the area of Hangleton and the surrounding valleys, which she'd found digging through the Riddles' extensive private library. It was published in 1889, when the North Riding was established as a separate civil district from the South, East, and West Ridings of Yorkshire. The maps inside the book depicted the main roads and village boundaries of Little and Great Hangleton, which should allow her to find her way around without having to stop every few minutes to ask a local for directions. The second book was her enchanted study planner, which had, in the last week or so, been very useful in keeping her informed of Nott's convoluted plan to discover the whereabouts of the Gaunt family.

The Gaunts.

They were the mystery at the centre of all this.

A wizarding family, the Gaunts had isolated themselves from the rest of British society for the last century. Nott had gone through the historical records and family trees kept in his father's study, and found that before their self-imposed seclusion, the Gaunts had owned properties in Ireland. The trail had stopped there: their lands had all been sold off before the birth of Marvolo Gaunt, the man who'd given Tom his middle name. Marvolo, according to one old tapestry whose recording enchantments had worn off a few decades ago, was Tom's maternal grandfather, and the last recorded Gaunt in Cantankerous Nott's Pureblood Directory.

In many enchanted tapestries, woven by experts in the magical arts, the names and likenesses of witches weren't recorded in as much detail as the wizards. The magical world had a far superior record of granting witches basic economic and civil rights—owning businesses or property, or participating in politics or diplomacy, in contrast to the official status, or lack of it, accorded to Muggle women. However, just like in Muggle society, it was traditional for a witch to take her husband's name after marriage, and therefore "lose" her own. From what Nott had written, some witches of the "best" families took hyphenated names if their mother's maiden name was superior in status to their father's, or if their own status was greater than their husband's. However, most creators of magical family trees left the witches out past the first generation if they married out, tracing the main male line instead, which resulted in maternal bloodlines becoming a convoluted trail of dead ends and unresolved questions.

She'd resigned herself to putting up with Nott as her co-collaborator if she wanted to solve the puzzle.

The growing list of reservations drifted into her thoughts, as she steered the Riddles' motorcar out of the garage, down the hill, and to the main road that passed through the centre of the village. There weren't many other vehicles on the road. A few horse-drawn drays, oil cloth tamped down to protect the cargo, a bicycle or two, but no motors. The wagon drivers tipped their caps to Hermione as she overtook them, going slowly over the slick bitumen. Yorkshire in winter was not much to look at: the land was coated in a layer of snow, dry stone walls and hedge fences separating one tenant farm from the next. They made a grid of dark borders, rising above the square-cut shapes of wintry pasture; it gave the North Riding countryside the overall appearance of a big white quilt.

The meeting spot was a patch of road outside the village proper, out of view from the Muggles...

There!

A wooden signpost rose out of the packed snow on one side of the road, its two arms pointing in opposite directions.

Great Hangleton, 5 miles.

Little Hangleton, 1 mile.

She eased down on the brake pedal; the motorcar coasted to a stop over the icy road. Stepping out of the magically warmed interior and out into the wind was painful, but she managed it, and trotted over to the signpost, shoes sinking into the frozen crust of now.

"Nott?" She peeked behind the sign. "Hello? Where are you?"

A rectangular section of air shimmered and Nott appeared, dressed in black robes under a thick winter cloak with a fur collar, a gold clasp at his throat in the shape of an oak branch sprouting with acorns. His wand pointed at the ground, where a series of runes had been melted into the snow. Hermione eyed the rune sequence, translating each letter in her head, placing their meanings into context with one another.

"Hey!" said Hermione, looking up from the ground to glare at Nott. "That's my rune pattern! You even took the idea of writing it in the snow!"

"Does it even matter where I got it?" Nott shrugged. "No one will ever believe you."

He blasted the marks off with an Incendio, and when he was done, he shook the slush off his boots. "Do you know where to go?"

"Yes," said Hermione. She hesitated, then added, "Well, I have a map and a general idea of where to search. But it'll be faster if we go by motorcar."

Nott narrowed his eyes as the motor. "That thing? Is that what Muggles use for carriages? It smells strange—and where are the horses?"

"There aren't any. The smell is from the petrol."

"Petrol?"

Hermione sought her memory for an alchemical term that wizards would understand. The textbooks on the subject she'd read always used Salt of This and Oil of That to describe what modern Muggle chemists called Sulfates and Nitrites. It wasn't as if the wizarding alchemists of the past—or present—were ignorant or stupid, but they were hidebound to old conventions, and one of those was the use of traditional ingredient names. She expected it was partly due to how long wizards lived, and alchemists in particular tended to live even longer than the average.

"Um," she said, "distilled and refined naphtha? It's used as the fuel."

"How barbaric," said Nott. "How fast can it go?"

"Forty-five miles an hour, I suppose," Hermione said. "Maybe sixty on a good road going downhill."

Nott gave a snort of derision. "The new Cleansweeps can go up to eighty miles an hour."

"But you can't fit two people on one and eat lunch while in the air," Hermione pointed out. "And I have a basket of chicken sandwiches under the seat; I'm sure if you tried to eat them at eighty miles an hour, you'd have a pleasant task of picking frozen mayonnaise out of your nostrils."

"Ugh, Granger, do you really have to make everything into an argument?"

Hermione scoffed, but resisted her impulse to take Nott at his word. And she kept her mouth shut while Nott got into the passenger's seat on the left side, wrinkling his nose at the Muggle-ish interior, which had not been placed with a minor Expansion Charm like the Hogwarts horseless carriages. At least her charmwork had ensured the inside was comfortably warm.

She got the motor moving again, and they rolled up and down one of the many low hills that made up the valley. At the bottom of the valley was nestled the village of Little Hangleton, and on the opposite ridge, at one of the highest points, was the Riddle House. On the opposite side of the village was another ridge, dark and wooded where the Riddles' hill was a clear and well-maintained patch of lawn blanketed in snow, bordered with ornamental shade trees.

This wooded ridge was the outer boundary of the village—and, according to the surveyors' maps, where the Riddles' ownership ended.

There was a minor road that led off the main road, a pounded dirt track instead of smooth asphalt layered over macadam that was the standard for public motorist roads across England. This was an indication of where the private property began, and with a yank of the gearshift, Hermione steered the motorcar down the track and into the copse of dark trees. Instantly, the watery sunlight of late December dropped away behind a canopy of snow-laden branches, as if twilight had come upon them in the blink of an eye.

Nott drew out his wand and cast a Lumos. Hermione, rolling her eyes at him, flipped on the headlamps to light the path.

They turned a corner, the motor set in the lowest gear. Nott didn't put his wand away, but held it between his fingers in a duellist's grip.

"This is the place," Nott breathed. "Stop the carriage, Granger."

Hermione pulled the gearshift down to neutral. Nott hopped out of the front seat, took a few steps off the track and up to the edge of the woods, where he began digging under a leafless tree. A minute later he came back, and in his gloved hand was a thorny stem topped with a handful of tiny, bell-shaped grey-ish violet flowers, brittle and damaged from winter frost. It looked well past its harvesting season.

"Bettony," he explained, peeling open the flowers to inspect the stalk-like filaments within. "Wizarding bettony. We grow this year-round in our solarium at home."

"Also called 'Vettonica' or 'English hedge nettle'. Commonly used in healing potions and antidotes," Hermione recited from memory. She'd read the entry years ago in their Herbology textbook, One Thousand and One Magical Herbs and Fungi. "Best picked in late September when the petals are fully developed and have taken on a deep violet hue. The dried and powdered leaves are often steeped and used in hangover potions. The anthers can be plucked and crushed into a poultice to cure—"

"—Snake bites," Nott finished. "Keep going. If their herbs have escaped their garden and grown in so close to the Muggle road, then it means they haven't maintained their wards. They won't know that other wizards have crossed into their property."

"It's illegal for a property owner not to keep their wards maintained when living so close to a Muggle settlement!" said Hermione, scandalised. "Especially when there are magical plants or animals involved. They made a big fuss in The Prophet a few years ago when someone's flesh-eating shrub took the leg off a Muggle postman."

"You can report them later," Nott said, looking unconcerned about having found evidence of flagrant lawbreaking. "After we've got our information. Not that it'll do much, of course—Muggle welfare is well low on the list of things the Wizengamot cares about these days. The Aurors have more important things to do than write out minor fines." He cut himself short as the motorcar turned the next corner. "Not that these people could afford to pay them, I'm sure."

In between the scraggly, bare trees was a modest little cottage, its low roof sagging under a thick crust of snow. Thick icicles dangled off the eaves, inches from scraping the snow that had built up around the walls of the house, which had been cleared from around a rough door constructed of splintery planks. A thin thread of smoke wisped out of the cottage's crooked chimney. All in all, it looked... uninviting.

Weren't the Gaunts a pureblood family? Hermione thought, looking the little house over. That's what Nott's book said they were.

She supposed a witch could live in there; it was the classic fairytale depiction of a witch's house, a place where disobedient children became plucky heroes over the course of a bedtime story. That had been her idea of magic before Hogwarts, and after learning that she was the witch, she knew better these days. These days, she understood that pureblooded witches and wizards had manors and servants and family libraries full of books that she'd never find on a shelf at Flourish and Blott's.

The mystery deepened.

"I have to stop here," said Hermione. "If I keep going, there won't be enough room to bring the motor around. If I can't turn it around, I'll have to drive it in reverse up to the main road—and I haven't got the hang of that yet."

Nott muttered something about Muggle contraptions, but gathered his cloak and straightened his robes before he pushed open the door. Hermione buttoned up her coat and made sure her wand was in the right-side pocket before she turned the engine off and got out from her side.

It took them a few minutes to walk up from the dirt path to the front door, and in that time, she'd made a few observations of the area: the snow had settled in regular oblong shapes by the side of the house, and out of those poked a few hardy weeds. There had once been garden beds here, a wizarding apothecary or herb garden, but it had gone to seed over several years of neglect. The property wasn't surrounded by any sort of potent ward; she couldn't feel any compulsion effects to turn around and walk back to the road, nor could she feel the tingling that meant her presence had been detected and set off a linked alarm inside the house, the magical world's equivalent of a door bell.

And once they'd reached the house, she and Nott observed the most disturbing sight: there was a desiccated, frozen body of a snake nailed to the door. Its scaly skin was flaking off in long strips, like some sort of ugly mummified banana, and in the gaps between the skin and shrivelled grey flesh were dozens of thin stripes—rib bones—connected to a knotted line of vertebrae.

They exchanged a wary glance.

"You knock," said Hermione quickly. "I'm faster at casting the Shield Charm."

Nott grimaced, raising his gloved fist to the door, looking for the cleanest place to touch. He settled for a spot a few inches above the snake, but he had to awkwardly raise his arm over his head to do it.

Knock, knock!

They waited for a minute. Nothing happened. Nott raised his hand to knock again.

The door was torn open, and out of the dingy depths of the house lurched a strange creature with bedraggled hair and matching beard of indeterminate colour, dressed in mismatched layers of sack-like clothing that gave him the appearance of a vagrant. The most curious thing about him were his eyes, quick and dark and with a peculiar searching quality that came from, as Hermione registered with startlement, being pointed in two directions simultaneously.

The creature—an oddly deformed man—opened his mouth, full of broken teeth in varying shades of yellow and brown, and in reflex, Hermione cast a silent Protego.

He bounced off the shield, stumbling a few steps back. And then he hissed, spittle flying out at her, while a hand rummaged through his rags for his wand.

Hermione kept her own wand out, her concentration directed on holding the shield. Out of the homework study club's members, Hermione was one of the better spellcasters, and next to Tom, the best in terms of focus and consistency.

Nott stepped in front of her, keeping himself within the protection of the shield. "You there—do you know of a family by the name of Gaunt?"

The man cocked his head.

"Ministry man, are ye?" he said. The way the man spoke was like someone who'd learned English as a second language; his consonants were warped and inconsistent, as if his palate was unformed, unused to shaping such precise sounds; in contrast, certain syllables came out oddly sibilant.

"No—"

"I don' want your sort here," muttered the man. "Who do they think they are..."

"I'm not—"

"...Them filthy mudbloods, goin' 'round and tellin' me what to do... me!"

"Will you shut up and let me speak?" snapped Nott. "You really don't know who you're talking to, do you, you stupid brute?"

He tore off the glove from his right hand and flashed his signet ring in front of the man's nose.

"I'm Theodore Erasmus Nott, son and heir to Cantankerous Nott and Annis Celyn-Gamp of Broxtowe, pure of magical blood to the last eighteen generations. I'm not from the Ministry, and—most importantly—I'm not," Nott's lip curled up in a truly contemptuous sneer, "a mudblood. I'm looking and willing to pay for any information on the Gaunt family. Information on the late Marvolo Gaunt and any heirs of his name or body, particularly the whereabouts of a Merope Gaunt, presumed daughter of Marvolo. Are you their tenant? Do you know where they are?"

The man, who had been eyeing Hermione's drawn wand, turned his full attention to Nott, whose youth and fur-trimmed cloak rendered his identity an uncertainty. The robes he wore beneath his cloak were clearly of wizarding make; from out of his flowing sleeves peeped linen cuffs adorned with pearl buttons and fine blackwork embroidery. Nott had made no effort at all in blending in like Hermione had, with her driving coat and Muggle-made jumper and skirt. In Hermione's forays into magical law, she'd read that it was recommended for wizards to don Muggle garments and blend in when conducting business outside wizarding settlements, and for Ministry employees, those recommendations became official policy.

The man's lopsided gaze lingered on Nott's ring, a thick gold band on his middle finger with his family's coat of arms cast in reverse.

"What's it to you, then? What're you after Merope for?" said the man angrily, stepping back from them, but not removing his hand from his wand.

"Do you know her?" Nott dug around into the satchel bag he wore beneath his cloak and drew out a small velvet pouch that gave off a metallic jingle when he pulled at the drawstrings.

"She's a little thief, she is," the man spat, his eyes taking on a greedy shine. "A thief, a liar, a slut, my sister." His expression sharpened, and his unkempt beard undulated. It took Hermione a second or two to realise he was scowling. "What're you askin' all these questions for?"

"I'm a genealogist studying pureblood bloodlines." Nott pulled a book out of his bag and opened it to a pre-marked page, flipping it around to face the man. The marked page showed an animated illustration of a family coat of arms: a green shield with an engrailed border that rippled like waves at sea, and on top of it was a serpent in silver coiled in the shape of a circle. "The House of Gaunt. According to the records and tapestries kept by other families, the most recent scion of the house was a Mr. Marvolo Gaunt, son of Morganus Gaunt, born in 1877 and died in 1927."

Nott turned to the next page, which had a branching family tree with little pictures of heads by the names of the male entries. "If there are no other family members left, then the next edition will have to reflect the extinct status of the name and blood. But... you say Merope Gaunt is your sister? Then you are a Gaunt yourself?"

"I am!" said the man fiercely, "Morfin Gaunt, son of Marvolo." He thumped himself on the chest, and continued, "Centuries of pure blood in these veins, I have—and not a single drop of filth!"

Nott coughed and tried to hide his look of mocking amusement at the man's words.

"What's that?" said the man, Morfin Gaunt, his eyes dark flashing with ire. "You think I'm jokin', do you, then? You may have your fancy books, but my blood's better'n yours."

Morfin raised one grubby hand up to Nott's face, just as Nott had done, and on his finger was a golden ring set with a black stone. Where Nott's ring had an elegant design, the oak motif of his family cast into its face, Morfin's ring looked to be nothing more than a simple carved stone.

"I've got one of 'em too, just like you; don't think you're better'n me," Morfin said. "I'm the last living descendant of Salazar Slytherin, I am! I wager that's more'n you can say for yourself, hah!"

Out of the corner of Hermione's eye, she noticed how Nott's expression shifted, then smoothed itself over. Where he had been disgusted and bored, he'd regained interest in the conversation with the thoroughly unwelcoming Morfin Gaunt. Nott looked intrigued.

"Is that so, Mr. Gaunt?" asked Nott. "That's a remarkable claim to make. A unique claim, if true. One worth recording with your name in the next edition. But there's one thing I need, though I don't expect it should be much trouble to provide..."

"Of course it's true!"

"Prove it," Nott said. "Speak to a snake."

"They've all gone to sleep for the winter, haven't they?"

Nott took a deep breath, composing himself. Then he raised his wand and incanted, "Serpensortia!"

A small, foot-long grass snake fell from the tip of his wand and onto the snow at their feet.

Without a trace of fear, Morfin bent over and picked it up, stroking its sinuous body and crooning at in a strange, hissing voice. The snake hissed back, twining around Morfin's fist, and for a good half-minute, they appeared to have an avid conversation.

Nott's eyes widened, and for a moment, his air of disdain dissolved away into undisguised awe.

"Parseltongue," he murmured. "No one's heard it spoken in Britain in centuries."

"Now, how's this, then?" Morfin prompted, untangling the snake from his fingers and then—carelessly—tossed it over his shoulder.

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but Nott shot her a warning look.

"I never thought I'd see it," Nott remarked. "An authentic claim. Pardon me, Mr. Gaunt, but did your sister possess this ability, too?"

"Aye, she did."

"Do you..." Nott began tentatively, "do you know what became of her?"

"She run off with a Muggle boy years ago." Morfin shrugged. "Saw him, fancied him, took off with 'im, never came back. He come back, though, he did—went back to his big house over the dale, that way—" Morfin jerked his head in the direction of the dirt track, "—but I never see him come 'round on his horse since then." He broke off into a cackle, fingering his wand in sinister glee. "If he does come back, he'll get what's comin' to 'im. Serve 'im right—who does he think he is? Muggle rubbish! Filth like him, defiling the blood of Salazar..."

"Thank you, Mr. Gaunt," said Nott, cutting Morfin off in the midst of a tirade. He graced Morfin with a short bow, then tossed the man the pouch of coins; Morfin snatched it from the air and tipped it out, pouring out a stack of bright golden galleons into his dirty palm.

Morfin shoved one between his stained teeth, while Nott winced and tried to maintain his polite demeanour.

"I'll be going now. Have a good day, Mr. Gaunt." Nott backed away from Morfin, who was counting his coins and rubbing them between his fingers. "By the by, Mr. Gaunt? You ought to clean up your garden and put your wards back up in case any Ministry inspectors ever see this... place."

Morfin wasn't listening, so Nott just rolled his eyes and turned back to the track, gesturing for Hermione to lower her wand and follow. In a low voice, he whispered to Hermione, "You can report him at your leisure now, Granger. What an utter travesty."

They stomped their way back to the motorcar, which was as warm inside as when they'd left it. Hermione, who'd kept her wand out the whole time, siphoned off the mud and dried the melted snow off her coat and stockings.

She was still struggling to comprehend what she'd seen. The man had talked to a snake. She hadn't known what they were talking about, but she was certain snakes didn't behave like that normally—they didn't listen and wait for a response like that little grass snake had, when it and Morfin had hissed back and forth in front of them.

That man was Tom's uncle.

"So..." said Hermione, grasping for conversation. "Is that what pureblood inbreeding looks like?"

"That's what the worst sort of pureblood looks like," Nott answered through gritted teeth. "We trace our bloodlines for a reason, and it's not just for vanity—it's so we can avoid things like that. Did you see his eyes?"

"I tried not to; staring's impolite."

"He had some rudimentary skill at Legilimency. Weak and untrained—nothing as sophisticated as what Riddle can do—but Gaunt knew right away when I was making light of his boasts."

"Are you really going to put him in the next edition of the book?"

Nott's jaw clenched. He glared out through the passenger side window. "He's a pureblood, and the Heir of Slytherin, a true descendant of Salazar Slytherin. He's disgusting in every way, but the title is rightfully his."

"Couldn't..." Hermione ventured hesitantly, "couldn't it be Tom's title, too? You said you were looking for Marvolo Gaunt's heirs in name and body. Tom doesn't have the Gaunt name, but he has the blood. Doesn't that mean something?"

"I didn't think you were one to put stock in our 'meaningless' courtesy titles."

"I..." said Hermione, who had scoffed at Nott's Pureblood Directory and the 'Ancient and Noble Houses' with their pretentious Latin mottos, "I don't like the idea of Morfin Gaunt having them, having any official recognition for something he did nothing to earn, which goes to vindicate his wretched opinions even further. And even you think he's gone too far down the deep end."

Her hands squeezed the wheel, leather driving gloves creaking. "He's perfectly rotten—did you hear the names he called his own sister?" In the few minutes of conversation in which he'd spoken about Merope Gaunt, Morfin had used language worse than she'd ever heard from the Riddles, who held no fondness for the woman. "And what he did to that snake! He just threw it away, like it was nothing! It might be an animal—but it's one he can speak to! And he had one nailed up to his door!"

"Calm down, Granger," said Nott, holding onto his seat, "you're swerving all over the road!"

"Sorry." Hermione drew in a deep breath, straightening the motorcar out and loosening her grip on the steering wheel. "What do we do now?"

"We?"

"Well, of course, we can't tell Tom about it! He doesn't know his mother was a witch, or his uncle is a nasty old blood purist." Hermione let out a tired sigh. "If Morfin Gaunt can talk about Tom's father like that, just because he's a Muggle—and if he'd go so far as to insult another pureblood—then he wouldn't hold back if he ever met Tom. Tom doesn't like being insulted; his feelings are very sensitive, you know—"

"—Sensitive," Nott repeated in disbelief.

Hermione ignored him, and continued, "—And I just know Tom would be tempted into doing something stupid, and get himself into trouble. So, obviously, we have to keep this between us, for his own good."

By this, she meant Morfin Gaunt, who would hate Tom for merely existing, and whose existence would offend Tom in return. Some people were so far at odds in ideology and disposition that they were best kept apart, keeping the peace for the greater good. It was common sense. She'd learned back in primary school that if two parties couldn't get along, then it was easier to separate them until they could shake hands and reconcile. It was to everyone's benefit: one could look to the example set by the Partition of Ireland two decades ago, which split the island into a sovereign Republic in the south and a British-governed section in the north.

(She had been called naïve for thinking that such a separation could cool tempers, but she earnestly believed it could. It was the rational solution when the other option had been war.)

The rest of it—the inherited legacies—didn't have to remain a secret... but she didn't anticipate the prospect of bringing Morfin Gaunt or Merope Gaunt Riddle into the light. His family and the lack of it in his childhood and youth were sensitive subjects to Tom, who had felt he'd been unfairly wronged by the world from birth; just now the Riddles were giving him a taste of what he was properly entitled to, and it would be devastating to discover that both sides of his family were, to the core of their beings, ridden with carelessness and selfishness, having possessed the ability to help but had instead forsaken one of their own for so long. It troubled Hermione to imagine it, for what were magic and money but the means to enact change in the world?

And it would undo the recent strides Tom had made in learning to become a great wizard and great person in his own right. Hermione worried about Tom; she knew he was capable of great selfishness himself—the idea of the Unforgivable Curses had not fazed him back in First Year—and on top of that, he was never one to let injustices stand unanswered for. This would have been similar to Hermione's personal stance on injustice, if Tom was not so singularly focused on only those injustices directed toward his own person.

(Having to keep her hand on his under the table during meals at the Riddle House was fast becoming a routine.)

It was best to be circumspect about how the news was broken, at least for now.

Nott fell into a thoughtful silence. "You wouldn't be opposed to a 'pretentious fictional style' associated with Riddle's name, if the alternative was Morfin Gaunt having it?"

"They're harmless, aren't they?" Hermione asked. "Like clan memberships in Scotland. They don't do much these days, as most modern Scots speak English and make their livings in cities—they don't even wear tartans day-to-day. I don't know what an 'Heir of Slytherin' does, but if purebloods think it's important, then I'm sure Tom can put it in with his references if he wants to apply for jobs after Hogwarts. Maybe it will stop him from thinking that people will only take him seriously if he has an Order of Merlin."

It was Hermione's opinion that the ranks of peerages and nobility were a hallmark of the past. They had historical value, contributed to the formation of the modern Union, and had some influence in Parliament's House of Lords, but in this age, that was more a nod to tradition than an assignation of political power. She didn't mind if those who had titles used them; it was a link to one's heritage, and for the most part, it was no different than tracing her own heritage to the tribes of ancient Britons, or the Anglo-Saxon lords that followed. If she wanted to claim that she was descended from Iceni warrior queens, what harm could it do? If she didn't put on prideful airs like Mrs. Riddle, or behave as abominably as Morfin did in his self-assured superiority, then she found it somewhat acceptable, if not whole-heartedly encouraged.

(But she also wasn't encouraging anyone to throw out their guillotines anytime soon. They were worth keeping; it was only fair that historical value go tit-for-tat.)

"The 'Heir of Slytherin' isn't a title to be claimed," said Nott. "One can't just put it on a piece of paper and have other people believe it—it has to be proven."

"Like what you asked of Morfin?" Hermione frowned. "Tom has to talk to a snake, and then he can add it to his qualifications? Well, if that's it, then it's not that hard, is it?"

"It's something like that," said Nott, scratching his chin thoughtfully. He didn't elaborate on what that meant.

Hermione parked the car at the top of a hill that gave them a scenic view of Hangleton, then unpacked the lunch that the Riddles' cook had packed for her that morning: curried chicken sandwiches, a crock of potato salad with crisp pickles and quail eggs, and a pair of small, tart apples harvested from the estate orchards. She pointed out the local landmarks to Nott, who was lukewarm to the tour, unimpressed by the size of the town—which had fewer than a thousand residents—or by the Riddles' estate at one end of the valley, which looked much less grand when it was so far away it couldn't loom as it did up close.

"My family's estate is around the same size," said Nott dispassionately. "Greater, if you count the area added by Extension Charms on the house and grounds. My ancestors put them up before the Statute was passed—the Ministry later banned them from personal use, to protect the fragile minds of wandering Muggles, because Merlin forbid they see something that's bigger on the inside than on the out."

"Extension Charms weren't banned by the Ministry," Hermione corrected him. She liked accuracy when it came to referencing laws; in that same fashion, she couldn't stand it when she heard famous quotes mangled in public rhetoric. "Their use was only restricted to certain licensed registrants and specific applications. Trunk-makers and enchanters can still use them for magical luggage, and anyone who had them before they tightened the rules weren't expected to take them down."

Other people, including Tom, thought her pedantic because of this tendency—although she couldn't tell if it was because she knew the rules better than they did, or if it was because she made sure they knew she knew. Either way, wasn't it a citizen's duty to know the laws of their nation? The Wizengamot's pretentious Latin motto, after all, was Ignorantia juris neminem excusat, or Ignorance of the Rules is No Excuse.

"You know, Granger, I used to wonder what you saw in Riddle," remarked Nott in a bland voice. "Or what he saw in you. Then I realised that the two of you were equally insufferable, and the effect is only magnified when you're together."

"If I'm so insufferable, then why are you here?"

"Because I seem to enjoy tormenting myself," Nott said. With his wand, he poked a parcel of greaseproof paper tied up with string, which gave off a small puff of steam. Inside was a sandwich cut into triangular halves, containing spiced chicken and fresh greens from the herb garden.

"Besides," he continued, "You're plenty insufferable, but when the pair of you are being insufferable in public, you've somehow gained the ability to make other people do as they're told. It's remarkable, really—and rather useful. And I also happen to know which side my bread is buttered. For now, it may be good enough—but it's even better to keep it buttered on both sides."

"That's an elaborate way of justifying your self-interest."

"If you were a Slytherin, a justification wouldn't be necessary."

After lunch, Hermione drove Nott back to the Hangleton signpost, their original meeting point.

"I suppose I'll see you next term," said Hermione, in lieu of a farewell.

"Unless you've found more information," Nott said, brushing the last of the crumbs off his cloak. "Now that I've got the lie of the land, it should be easier for me to come back later through Apparition."

"How did you get here, if you didn't Apparate?" Hermione asked. "We only start our Apparition lessons in the spring."

"Magic, what else?"

With that, Nott snapped his fingers, and with a small pop! of displaced air, a scrawny, goblin-like creature appeared before them. It had large amber-coloured eyes that bulged out of its thin face, as disproportionately sized as the apple in the mouth of a suckling pig. Enormous, membranous ears stuck out from the side of its head, the skin so fine that it was translucent in the noon sunlight. It appeared to be dressed in an embroidered towel knotted over each shoulder, though its most distinctive article of dress was a thick, golden torque engraved with runes that was wrapped around its neck.

Nott offered his hand to it, and without hesitation, the creature laid one knobbly-fingered little hand onto Nott's waiting palm.

"Amity," ordered Nott, "take me around the back; the south-side corner of the stableyard should do it."

The small creature bowed, and this time, with a louder pop! they disappeared into thin air, leaving Hermione staring at a pair of footprints in the snow.

Shaking her head, Hermione returned to the motorcar, which she drove back to the Riddles' garage, parking it next to Mr. Riddle's Rolls-Royce. When she got out, she cleaned the snow and mud from the body and bonnet, then topped up the petrol tank with a Refilling Charm.

She might not be interested in the 'nobility of character' that Mrs. Riddle had talked about, but the least she could be was polite.