A/N: My authoress heart is bursting with SO MUCH HAPPINESS! You guys have given me so. many. WARM FUZZIES! Thank you thank you THANK YOU! Truly, my appreciation for the phenomenal outpouring of love and support that came in the last chapter, but also always - to those of you who have always returned and reviewed, cannot even be expressed. I wish I could reply to every single one of your reviews, but that would significantly slow down my posting… and I am not sure you want that. :) Please be assured how happy each and every one of your reviews has made me, and how glad I was to see so many old and new names in last chapter's comments and know you're (still) with Reverse. I have needed them - the next three chapters you'll be seeing have been the hardest for me to write.

Before you read:

This chapter-series is a succession of vignettes that include a variety of our main characters, presented in chronological order of their occurrence over the course of a week. Each transitions to the next by a single sentence and holds quite a bit of information. I know some of you all are reading jackrabbits, so in an effort to help you slow down and digest it all, I've broken what was originally one (MONSTROUSLY LONG, 20,000+ word) chapter into three chapters. The whole thing will be coming out over the span of the next few days as I finish up the other two. And thanks to my beta JF100% for editing it all!

Confessionals, Part I

"… and as Hogwarts' Assistant Minister for Sovereignty Regulatory Affairs and Compliance, I can assure you I will return Hogwarts to the highest standard of educational excellence—"

Harry sipped his coffee unconcernedly, pretending to read The Daily Prophet, as the most tight-arsed Weasley of the entire brood spewed off the same old bollocks he had last night: Hogwarts was in an abysmal state, he was the school's new bureaucratic saviour, and anyone who did not abide by the preposterously lengthy list of rules or tattle on their friends and neighbours would face the Sovereignty's wrath.

"—but I cannot be everywhere at once!"

"Counting on it," Harry heard Creevey mutter from down the Gryffindor bench, where the seventh year was sitting with Granger and the rest of the Muggleborn Worship Society.

"I will need the assistance of each and every one of you here. I assure you any verifiable information you share will reflect very positively on your record, which, whether or not you know it, is already being forged in these halls. For those of you who would like to speak with me privately of any suspicions you may have, I will keep regular office hours…"

Subtly, Harry raised his gaze over the edge of his paper slightly to see how the half-filled Great Hall was responding to Weasley's breakfast threats. A good fraction appeared bored, confused or still half-asleep. Among those who weren't, the faculty seemed disgruntled (likely at the idea of a pompous paper shuffler who was half their age sniffing through their affairs); the Hufflepuffs nodded with wholehearted understanding (let's face it, they'd eat anything the Sovereignty fed them), and the Gryffindors looked sullen — probably because Weasley's pedantic presence would take a significant piss out of their after-hours fun.

But it was the uncomfortable expressions on the faces of the older Ravenclaws especially that Harry found the most interesting. Following Slytherin, their House had suffered the most losses to the Second Intervention. Only six of ten Ravenclaws had returned for eighth year classes, and he'd seen one or two of the missing four on the roster of Hogwarts' House-Witches and Wizards.

His gaze landed on Padma Patil, who despite her bored gaze was sitting rigidly, and then shifted to the equally nervous-looking woman beside her. Harry recognized her vaguely from some of his classes but had never bothered to learn her name.

Before he could consider their reactions further, Longbottom dropped down onto the empty bench beside him, looking like he'd had either a rough or exceptional night. He mumbled something that sounded halfway between a "G'morning" and "Sod off" in greeting and instantly tucked in to a full fry up.

Harry held back a contemptuous snort; he easily saw how the resident Gryffindor Adonis could have been a lardbottom in Granger's universe.

Unfortunately, Longbottom, true to form, didn't take the hint to shove off himself; while Harry's "Evans" aura had managed to deflect the majority of Hogwarts' populace, it hadn't kept Ronáld Weasley's band of idiots from treating him like a 'comrade when convenient.' In the case this morning — someone to irritate while all of the other eighth-year Gryffindor boys were still merrily tucked away in either their beds or someone else's.

When Percy Weasley finally shut his mouth and sat back down between a sour-looking Trelawney and an impassive McGonagall, Longbottom incredibly paused his sickening rate of inhalation to comment, "Reckon I might take advantage of that one straightaway. Earn myself some extra points in the Sovereign's notebook."

"What're you on about?" Harry grunted dispassionately.

"D'you think I'm daft? Not going to tell you, am I," Longbottom said, shoving half a sausage into his mouth at once. "No one's getting the gold star on his record for this one but me."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Blimey, Lardbottom, which Viceroy do you think this is all going through? If you seriously think I need to do anything to boost my record with my own mother, then I won't think you're daft, I'll know you are."

Longbottom ignored the insult and kept shovelling food into his mouth like the famine was nearly upon them, but after a minute, he glanced around shiftily and lowered his voice. "That Fusty rat my parents took off the street's up to something," he said, leaning toward Harry slightly to keep the conversation between them. "Seen her coming and going at odd hours when she thinks no one else's around. She already defies my family at every turn; no doubt she's planning her next turn against us. Something to best let those Fusty specialists over at the Phoenix 'rehabilitate,' eh?"

A surge of hatred for a puffy-haired midget abruptly burned through Harry like a fire. The strength of the emotion honestly took him by surprise; it was unlike anything he had felt since My — or Granger as My — had last threatened him with Pansy's safety.

Longbottom finished off the last of his potatoes and threw down his napkin, standing. "Anyway, reckon I'll go have a chin wag with ole Weasley before the crowds do, eh? Drop a line for later."

"That's be a pity, when you could give him so much more than simply your suspicions by waiting a half hour more," Harry drawled calmly.

Longbottom stopped moving. Then he sat back down. "What?" he hissed.

Harry turned to the next page of The Prophet. "Passed your bushy-headed gremlin coming back in from an early morning flight. Brewing some kind of potion in that practice classroom outside the West Tower. Thought she was doing extra work for Snape, but I suppose there's always the possibility it could be poison…"

The eager idiot immediately turned his attention back to Weasley and made to stand, obviously ready to report it that second. Harry grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back down before he could move more than an inch.

"What are you doing, Longbottom?" he hissed irately, lacing him with his most scornful stare. "Do you really think he's going to be pleased if you drag him all the way across the castle and she's already long gone? With that mentality you'd need twice as much sense to be a half-wit. Try to use a fraction of your brain for a blasted minute and go have a look for yourself first."

Longbottom yanked himself from Harry's grasp. "Think twice before you push me around, Evans," he spat. "Just because your mum's Viceroy doesn't mean my line's anything to scoff at."

Harry rolled his eyes and returned his attention to his paper. "Fine. Your funeral. I don't care how long your parents have followed the Sovereign around pretending like he actually needs a personal guard, it won't save your ruddy record if you mislead a Sovereignty official."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Longbottom frown deeply. Then he stood, straightening his robes with a huff, and all but raced from the Great Hall.

Harry counted to ten before he tossed aside his paper, casually strolled to the Hall's nearest side exit, and then threw his Invisibility Cloak over himself and started to run.

His Quidditch conditioning gave him a clear edge over Longbottom's primary form of physical exercise, which, since they no longer shared a dormitory, Harry thankfully didn't have to overhear at two in the morning anymore. Harry reached said spare classroom — empty, of course — a full thirty seconds before Longbottom did and watched his approach on the Mauraders' Map.

He gripped his wand tightly, his chest heaving with unfamiliar panic at the knowledge that he was about to take one of the most dangerous actions he could.

Never in the years he had scraped by with one foot chained to the cultured world of the Elites and the other desperately reaching for the solid ground of Pansy's presence and then her memory had he put himself at risk by using the Imperius Curse on a person of consequence — never. Over the years he had witnessed enough witches and wizards succumb to his mother's uncanny, almost instantaneous knowledge that such compulsion was in use and her various ministries' abilities to trace the magic back to the original perpetrator if it was discovered; not only that, use of the Imperius Curse was so mainstream now there was no easy way of removing it without the victim knowing they hadn't been themselves and possibly enchanted.

And as the son of Dumbledore's bodyguards, Longbottom was certainly a person of consequence.

But that blasted, careless, stupid imp had left him no bloody choice. How many times had he cautioned her? How many times had he told her not to go to the Chamber or to the Head dorms after hours?

The second Longbottom was within spitting distance, Harry summoned him into the room, slammed the door shut, Obliviated his happy little memories of their breakfast conversation, and sent him off firmly under the control of the Imperius Curse. Cassiopeia's comings and goings would be ignored and he would let go of his suspicions of her, as well as his desire to speak to Weasley about them.

As soon as Longbottom left, Harry closed the door again and sealed it with a Muffling charm.

Then he turned and channelled every inch of fury raging through his veins into a single spell.

"REDUCTO!"

The fortified walls of the practice room wavered and instantly blackened, but held.

Harry released a shaking breath, the fist clenching his wand shaking with rage. He gulped in a steadying breath, and then another, his anger still bubbling but at a more bearable level.

Ruddy hell, if Longbottom hadn't decided to sit beside him this morning…

It could all very well be over.

He yanked out the Marauders' Map and pored over it, but Cassiopeia was nowhere in sight. That left only two other options, and both of them might lead her to a fatal end if this continued.

For the moment, they were safe again. But if the deed he had just done here brought his mother anywhere closer to discovering their collective secret, he would never forgive her.

How dare she…

"…do that!" Cassiopeia exclaimed, yanking open the door of Tribute A's small potions laboratory so abruptly it slammed loudly against the hallway wall. "I begged you to let me stay here! And you cast the Shadow Double spell on every single one of them except me?"

Tom's head jerked up, and he swiftly looked between his daughter's tearful face and the dangerously boiling Erumpent Potion in front of him. He had approximately seven seconds to add the Erumpent tail and cast the final sealant on it before the entire thing exploded; he could vanish the potion immediately to save the lab, of course, but it had taken him the full six weeks he'd been here to brew, and less time than that remained until the winter solstice.

He made his decision quickly, turning back to the cauldron and carefully guided the dull yellow powder into the swirling vortex with his wand until the potion turned a shimmering green, murmuring the last stabilizing charm beneath his breath as he did. He would remove this final piece as soon as the day arrived for the volatile potion's use.

"Now you're ignoring me?" she asked, a voice that had so unexpectedly matured in the two years since Tom had seen her last wavering. "Why do you always do this? Why do you push me away whenever we finally start feeling like family?"

Tom breathed slowly and evenly and forced himself to remain focused long enough to complete the last round of stabilization, then properly store and stopper the potion. The moment they were both out of any possibility of danger, he allowed the jeopardy her unexpected entrance had caused to touch his voice.

"Cassiopeia, I have told you that sign is placed on that door for a reason," he said severely, gesturing toward the still-open door, the side of which held a hazardous materials symbol and large Do Not Disturb placard. "It's extremely dangerous for you to enter when it's up, and I cannot respond immediately when I'm the midst of an unstable brewing exercise."

In the many years he had been a Hogwarts instructor, students had become accustomed to his fair balance of humour and reason, even in disciplinary action, but his genuine warning only appeared to anger Peia.

"Go on, lecture at me as if I'm one of your old students instead of listening to what I actually care about!" she exclaimed. "Why didn't you use that enchantment on me? Why?"

The grievance was completely unexpected; Tom knew how much she preferred the Chamber of Secrets to a Sovereignty Hogwarts — and who in their right mind wouldn't? — but he'd thought they had cleared this up last week.

"I've already told you, Peia," he said calmly, trying to soothe her obvious distress. "The Shadow Double Enchantment creates simple puppets that I manage here, in my head." He tapped his temple. "Whatever they see, I see; whatever they hear, I hear. They react how I command them. You can imagine that controlling four at once with virtually no human interaction may possibly be a manageable endeavor, but replicating you would require my mental engagement in a constant stream of stimuli. Such a sustained distraction is one the Defiance and I cannot afford."

"But you're supposed to be brilliant!" she cried. "Please! Can't you think of some way to get me away from them?" Her eyes again filled with tears. "Why don't you want me here? Am I not a good enough daughter?"

The anguished voice of a child that was his stabbed through his long-developed composure.

"No, Peia, you—" Tom fell to a crouch so he was much nearer her height; he reached toward her, but she stepped away from him. "You – You are the most important thing!" At her heartbreakingly doubtful expression, he repeated, "The most important thing. That's why I—"

He stopped before he could say 'keep my distance;' how could a child understand such things as kidnapping, blackmail, political leverage? And, what was more than that… how could he ever tell his daughter that her value had all too often competed with his drive to destroy?

"That's why we must be careful," he finished.

Peia laughed; the sound was limp and sad rather than joyful, and it made some part of Tom he'd long buried loathe what he had become. "Right. I'm so important that you left me and Lori and all of us in that field… that you always disappear whenever I start to believe you actually do like me."

Something broke inside Tom he didn't know was even there, and he automatically began to control his breathing before the powerful emotions that accompanied it could even think of betraying him through any physical response.

"Do not fling statements without regard to their veracity, Cassiopeia," he told her, his voice as perfectly even as if she'd simply asked him about the weather.

With a small jerk, he suddenly realized what he was doing and gave his head a shake. Merlin, it'd been decades since he'd needed to employ such acting tactics daily; this wasn't Dumbledore and the Sovereignty Elites… This was his daughter.

Who, quite evidently, was still very much a stranger to him.

Cautiously, he eased the tight lid on the compartment of emotion he usually kept firmly bottled away except for the specific instances he needed to strategically use it.

"You mother and I summoned you, kit, but the two of you had already been taken," he said, and sighed in relief that the appropriate amount of humanity was again in his voice. "We had seconds before we were completely overrun, and hundreds of people's lives depended on our actions then. With war comes difficult choices, and please believe me when I say that leaving you in their hands was the most difficult one we had to make!"

"So then why don't you take me out of their hands?" Peia cried. "You're back now, aren't you?"

"In spirit, yes, but in body I am still limited. I cannot step outside the bounds of this Chamber, you know that, and neither can your mother when she arrives!" Tom let out a long breath, briefly pinching the bridge of his nose before he focused back on her. "I truly understand that as Bella's daughter, it cannot be easy for you to live in that world, but you must bear it for only a few months longer. You'll be back with us sooner than you realize, but until that day, all our lives depend on no one— no one — suspecting that anything is amiss, do you understand me?"

She stared at him, her expression deeply unhappy, her jaw and chin set to keep from wobbling. In any other circumstance Tom could and would have used Legilimancy to get a better grasp on the situation, but Peia's inborn defences made her unreadable, and he suspected from the way her dark eyes would sometimes try to probe his constantly Occlumens-guarded mind and then abandon the effort in frustration that she faced similar challenges — the curse on them both, he supposed, for his procreating at all.

Then, once, she nodded.

Tom's shoulders lost a bit of their rigidity. He held out his hand to her again. After a moment, she grasped it, taking a hesitant step closer to him, and he drew her into a hug.

"You must never believe I don't want you here, Peia," he said quietly. "I've simply seen first-hand the dangers of disobedience, and as our daughter, you must be careful."

"I-I just… I don't want to give in to them," she sniffed. "I want to make you and mum proud."

"You'll make us proud by taking necessary precautions and keeping yourself as safe as possible." Tom shook his head. "In truth, you should not have come here this morning. You put yourself and us at risk every time you make this journey unaccompanied. Your life isn't worth a few moments here, kit. If we need to put a block on it, then we will."

In his desire to convey the seriousness of the situation, he didn't realize he'd said anything unacceptable until Peia yanked away from him, her eyes wide.

"No! I'll die without this!"

Tom blinked. That seemed like an exaggeration, but Peia seemed entirely convinced of it.

"Very well," he said reasonably. "Then you must time your visits with either Harry or Hermione."

"I have mandatory study group when Hermione usually comes! And Harry likes to visit alone!" Her gaze again grew distressed, and she gestured harshly at her chest. "I'm careful! Why don't you trust me to do things like this on my own?"

With any other person in the entire Sovereign State, Tom would have remained even-tempered, but this approach didn't seem get through to his daughter, and Tom urgently needed her to understand. "Because I know this world, Cassiopeia! I know what they will do to you without pause or hesitation, and I will not see that happen!"

"Oh, just stop acting like you care!" she shouted, suddenly looking exactly like an angry, twelve-year-old Bella. "I'm not anywhere near most important to you, and I'd much rather you shove off before you pretend that I am! Where were you all those times during the Second Defiance, when you would come for a day and then disappear right before ACMI raided our flat? I might've only been eight then, but I remember! Or when you and mum would leave me with Lori in a shelter full of strangers for weeks on end? Where were you?"

"I was trying to make a better place for you to—" Tom broke off, shaking his head, and then attempted to appeal to her emotions rather than her rationality. "With me as your father and Bella as your mother, this is the life you were born into, and I am sorry for that," he said sincerely. "I know it has not made for an easy—"

She let out a snort and spun around, marching toward the door; before she could leave, Tom stood and wandlessly slammed it shut. "Cassiopeia, do not run back up to that world without a clear head!"

"Of course I won't; I know how to hide!" she yelled. "I inherited that much from you!"

Before he could process how much that comment hurt and rebuke her for it, she spun back toward him, her dark eyes shining with tears. "You've never even wanted to be a father! W-Why did you even bother — bother m-making me at all if you knew my life was going to be so hard?"

Dumbledore may as well have slammed his strongest Obliviation Charm directly into his chest at close range. Tom's lungs forget how to breathe; his body forgot how to feel; luckily, his mouth hadn't quite lost its ability to form halfway convincing words.

"Peia, of course that isn't—"

"Don't lie, I know it's true! You never wanted me!" she screamed, tears streaming down her face. "All you've wanted is your revenge! Well, fine — You can have it! I did just fine with mum when I didn't have a father at all! But you will not take Sanctuary away from me because you've suddenly shown yourself back in my life and fancy calling yourself my dad!"

She yanked open the door and stormed out.

This time, Tom let her go.

In all the years of his life, no experience, however trying, could have prepared him for how to handle something like this.

Her screams of anger echoed in his head almost as badly as the final fervently whispered words Sinistra had ever spoken to him.

He pulled out a lab stool and numbly sank onto it, staring blankly at the wooden-panelled wall nearest him. After a moment, he reached out a long, spindly arm, the tips of his fingers just brushing the carefully cut wood. Even with such minimal touch, he could feel the life pulse of the Tributes flowing through the wood, buzzing through his fingers and continuing down to the roots of the trees and water that formed the base of the structures, of the magic that was here.

He had built this place for her… for the family he had never had. The further the Sovereignty had deteriorated for conservatives, the less Sinistra had wanted a child, a decision which he had supported.

"It's only going to get worse until it gets better, Tom. Only when conservatives have been so subjugated that everyday life has become a struggle will enough of them be willing to stand up for themselves and push back against these walls being built around us," she'd said pragmatically. "How could we ask our son or daughter to live through such a thing?"

Sinistra had fought for the future in the hope that such an inevitable nadir somehow might not be reached, and that, someday, it would be safe enough for the Riddle-Lowes to bring new life into a world where he or she could practice the Light Arts without compulsion to the dark; where their offspring would be accepted, free of discrimination, even if they were related to such an outspoken Old-Blood conservative advocate.

Yet, decades later, Tom had done the very opposite, and exactly that which Peia had accused him: deliberately contributed toward the creation of a daughter in the midst of a warring world where she would definitively be a target, possibly even a saviour who would have to face Dumbledore himself… and where even Tom Riddle, with all his prodigal brilliance and his accolades, couldn't protect her.

He hadn't been able to protect her.

He'd been captured and placed in a circle of hell before he had even known that their plan had succeeded and Bella was pregnant.

Now, these walls were all that remained of some distant fantasy at the back of his mind, if not for him, then for others who wanted to have and protect their own families. That his own daughter had emotionally slapped him in the midst of the small world he'd created with a truth he had never wanted her to know was evidence enough of that.

But apparently at some point during their acquaintance he had briefly dropped the defences he had so prided himself on his ability to maintain.

And she had seen.

At that moment, Tom sensed a second presence enter the room, and his gaze shuttered instinctively, though he didn't make any effort to move or lower his hand.

"You heard that, Lucius?" The lifeless voice that exited his mouth was not one he had heard in quite some time.

"The end of it," Lucius said. After a moment, his long-time mentee-turned-friend — certainly one of the few Tom had had for quite this many years who he hadn't turned against, or vice versa — pulled out another seat and joined him. "I would offer any advice I could, but I unfortunately missed Draco's adolescent years… I'm still at a bit of a loss as to how to be a father to a full-grown adult rather than a toddler, let alone one with a woman in his life."

Tom finally dropped his outstretched hand to his side. "I'd say your efforts with Draco in the past week alone have been far superior to all mine with Peia combined. It's Bella who knows how to be a parent, not me."

"The idea of my sister-in-law as a role model for any child or adult is frightening, never mind a young one of her own." Even on a stool in proletarian attire, Lucius's flawless posture emanated an aristocracy Tom could channel at will but had never quite been part of. "Draco's already told me about how she would employ him in elaborate ruses to 'borrow' — with no intent of returning — extra rations and supplies from East Belham Sovereignty officials when he was just a boy. I'm truly astonished Cassiopeia is so very normal."

Tom chuckled. "I wish I could tell you Bella's matured in fourteen years, but she's as wild and obstinate as ever. She was always good with Cassiopeia, though." He shook his head and let out a self-deprecating laugh. "Ironic, isn't it? I advised children Peia's age for almost two decades, won more teaching awards than I probably deserve, and my daughter's got me pegged for worst father in recent history." He gaze returned to the knotted wall. "That is a title I suspect I have fully earned."

"You can't possibly think you stand lower than dear old Minister Crouch," Lucius said in disbelief.

Instant hatred set Tom's teeth on edge. "Bartemius Crouch, Senior," he said darkly. "There's a real piece of work. Still alive and up to his usual destructive tricks; we crossed paths at an International Confederation of Wizards summit at Madrid last October. Spewing his usual rhetoric about unyielding control of dissenting fully Light minorities as use of Dark Magic becomes more prolific. He didn't know it was me, of course." He shook his head. "Merlin, his poor son."

A seventh-year Lucius had taken on the younger Crouch, who'd had the misfortune, given his father, of being sorted into Slytherin, as a mentee when they were both students at Hogwarts. Tom had lost count of the number of times they'd both gone to bat for quiet, sensitive Barty to keep him as protected from the senior Crouch as possible; now, the father had made that same son a slave in his own home.

Tom looked over at the blond-haired man. "If comparing me to that monster is supposed to make me feel better, Lucius, then I really have hit rock bottom."

"I seriously doubt that, but I would imagine – how does Peia say it? – 'going all Headmaster Riddle' on her wasn't of any assistance in this case, either. You're in a difficult position, Tom. Rarely have circumstances allowed five star generals to be five star parents."

Tom sighed as his brain rapidly replayed the string of accusations Peia had flung at him. Abandonment, disinterest, detachment, ulterior motives.

Guilty on all counts, even if some had been unintentional.

"You're a good man, Lucius, but you and Narcissa both have always given me far too much credit," he said. "By all accounts, I should know better."

The greatest irony of all was that he was certain that Sinistra would have never wanted him to sink so low, even for the cause for which she'd given her life. Bellatrix had certainly put her foot down. When Tom had at last managed to escape from the Sovereignty eight years after the first restraints had touched his magic and his blood, motherhood had changed Bella, and she'd made her altered views on their original plan for any potential offspring immediately known.

But fresh off experimental torture with vicious slurs of his departed wife ringing in his head and an even more acutely renewed sense of hatred toward Dumbledore and the Sovereignty, the strategist in him still couldn't see anything wrong with their actions. They needed a saviour, so they had made one.

Then he had actually met his daughter.

Tom had done everything he could not to like the sweet, enthusiastic little girl who had eagerly stared up at him with a square face and big, innocent dark eyes like a kit fox that were almost identical to Tom's brother's — to Tom's own, even, though his innocence had been well lost when he was but 16. He'd done everything he could to maintain a sense of perspective that this girl, with psychic abilities he had never seen in any child her age and a bright and stable mind if not a small body, could very well be his key to completing his promise to Sinistra, to dismantling the Sovereignty and lifting the conservatives from their persecution.

From his decades of interactions with countless parents who were willing to protect their children at whatever the cost, he should have known it was a battle already lost.

But now, however…

Now the situation had very possibly changed entirely.

And Tom was determined that in forging a new path forward, he would not fail the three females in his past and present life who mattered most…

"…yet again! What are you thinking?"

After Peia had emerged from the second floor girls lavatory, fighting tears, she hadn't been prepared for Harry to yank her into an empty classroom, use muffling and repelling charms on the door, and begin yelling about a new Sovereignty Minister and something about Ville planning to turn her in for behaving suspiciously.

Right after she'd just tried to convince Tom that she was fully capable of coming and going between Chamber of Secrets on her own.

Peia struggled not to cry as Harry went on, the smidgeon of hope still present amongst the hurt and betrayal she'd felt the moment she'd passed Hermione going to breakfast and looked into her eyes fading completely. This would surely be the final straw that convinced Tom to make good on his threat and ensure she wasn't able to return to the only place outside Hermione and Harry's common room that she felt safe and happy until the ambiguous plan he refused to share with her came to pass.

One glance into Harry's furious gaze as he towered over her was overwhelming, and Peia had to look away, overwhelmed with images of Lily Evans ripping memories from and arresting frightened souls who had either been victims or casters of the Imperius Curse.

The words he was speaking then finally penetrated her mind.

"—Longbottom might be a bit more perceptive than the rest when it comes to you, but if he noticed, than no doubt whatever little second years you share a dorm with have also wondered where you're getting off to, where you are! You have to stop running off to the Chamber and our common room! You can't keep trying to see us like this!"

His forceful demands flung her back to the strangers who had ripped her away from Lori during the Final Suppression and then sat her down in a white room when she had woken up again. "That woman is not your mother, those people are not your family, and you will never see them again," they had told her over and over again, even though she had begged them continuously to stop.

"No! Please don't do this to me!" she screamed, and burst into tears. Not small tears, but giant, body-wracking, soul-cracking tears that brought her to the stone floor of the classroom. "Please don't take me away from them!"

Thankfully, the voices ceased, and Peia sobbed in relief. She cried so long then that her tears had nearly faded before a hand gingerly patted her shoulder once, twice, as if it was trying to be reassuring but didn't know how. Without hesitation, Peia turned and flung her arms around Harry's waist, practically knocking him over from where he'd crouched a few feet away with all the ease of a coiled snake, looking wary.

She could feel his muscles instantly tense. "Mandrake…" he said warningly.

Peia shook her head fiercely, clutching his sleekly soft robes more tightly as she struggled with a painful admittance she would have never dared tell Tom for the fact that she knew he couldn't - or wouldn't - do magic above ground to help her anyway.

"My… My classmates-–" she hiccupped once, and gulped in a breath, "They… They do things to me," she finally confessed in a rush, her heart racing. Harry didn't say anything, and after an anxious moment she felt a heavy weight lift off her shoulders, even though she knew she might pay for the truth later if he told Tom. "Sometimes I get away, but if I — I have to stay in the common room, I — I just — can't." She began shaking and tried to stop it but couldn't. "Please don't let Tom keep me from the Chamber! I-It'll all be so much easier to deal with if I know there's somewhere better, with — with people who don't hate me… with people who are family—"

Her eyes felt hot and puffy and tears flooded them again, but then Harry's arms finally wrapped around her shoulders and back in return.

"We'll figure something out, Mandrake," he said in a low voice that was still guarded.

Peia slumped entirely into his chest in relief. The comfort that one sentence and action from him brought was more unspeakably reassuring than almost any honeyed or possibly even sincere words her father had ever spoken to her. Peia'd had so much hope that Tom would have more time for her after their joyful reunion in the Chamber, that he was finally ready and wanted to be her father… but those instances were proving to be few and far between since.

"Please don't tell anyone else," she whispered haltingly into Harry's robe. "I — I know it's… just for a few more months, and this is — this is easy compared to what you and Hermione and Draco and Pansy have been through. But it — they… sometimes I — I…"

She ran out of words and so stopped trying to say them. By now, his knees were securely on the ground, and she exhaustedly curled up against him like she would have her mother or Draco or sometimes Pansy after the end of a long day.

Harry didn't push her away when she did.

Peia tried not to think about going to Herbology next to find her assignment mysteriously 'poisoned.'

She tried not to think about how Alexia Davenport and Lawrence Cuthbert would grab her hair and shout "Frizzy Fusty!" while Kelley Bell tried to burn the ends of it.

She tried not to think about every memory of Draco's she hadn't been able to stop herself from seeing, or revealing or abusive memories in the minds of her classmates and instructors — either about themselves, others, or her — that she sometimes couldn't block.

"Who are they?" Harry finally growled.

Peia sniffed and lifted her head. "What?"

The face that looked down at her was a hard mask. "Who – are – 'they?'" he repeated slowly.

Her eyes widened slightly at the murderous glint in his eyes. "Harry, I don't want you to—"

"Ruddy hell, you Slytherins. Even worrying about the people who torment you," Harry said with a scornful shake of his head. "I'm not going to bloody well cut off their tongues, I'm just going to ensure they don't bother you again. Preferably sealed with a nice little kick in the arse. They won't even know it was me."

She wiped at her eyes. "I thought you don't like using the Imperius Curse if you don't have to."

"The Imperius Curse isn't the only form of persuasion out there, is it. I'm not about to let those smug little rugrats muck with someone I—"

He stopped speaking abruptly, but he didn't have to finish the sentence for Peia to guess where he was going with it.

For the first time that morning, she felt something leap at her chest that wasn't misery. She beamed up at him, even though Harry, for his part, immediately appeared nauseated. Peia knew he simply needed lots and lots of time. She imagined it would be hard learning to give and receive someone's unconditional friendship after going eighteen years of one's life without it, and she didn't mind waiting.

"Right, this is what we're doing," he grunted briskly, as if trying to move past his earlier almost-comment as quickly as possible. He swept her off the floor and in one easy motion set her on his knee like it was a bench; the sensation felt briefly like flying, and she almost laughed. "You give me a list of names, and I'll take care of it. In exchange, you won't—" He hesitated, a sour expression briefly crossing his face, before he said tightly, sounding resigned, "—go down to the Chamber of Secrets without me with you. We'll work out a strict schedule, and you will only move through these halls when it isn't part of your regular class and study routine if you're under an Invisibility Cloak, understood?"

Peia nodded without hesitation, so much surprise and gratefulness coursing through her that her face hurt from smiling and she felt about ready to burst. She hadn't asked Harry for his help earlier because, for all her attempts at friendship with him, she honestly hadn't thought he considered her enough of one in return to do something like this for her. That he was, whether or not he said it aloud, meant more to her than she could say.

"Can you… tell Tom, that's what we're going to do, when you see him next?" she asked. When Harry tilted his head once in agreement, she asked nervously, "Y-You won't… say anything else to him about what I just told you, will you?"

He looked genuinely insulted. "What do you think I am, some blasted sixth-year busybody? Unlike you, I'm not a ruddy tattle-tale."

Peia laughed and hugged him again; this time he didn't return it, but that was alright. She was the only person she knew (beside Pansy, of course) who hadn't immediately been put off by his gruff demeanour. As soon as she'd first observed him when she'd arrived as a first year from her original hiding place in the Gryffindor Common Room, in the small space between two of the larger sofas and bookcase, she had seen he wasn't evil — bitter, haunted, afraid and angry, yes, but not evil. She mostly found his dogged efforts to appear to the contrary rather entertaining.

"Thanks, Harry," she said, and meant it with all her heart. "You really are a good friend."

He snorted contemptuously.

"Even if you don't think it," Peia pronounced with a cheerful smile.

Harry sounded pained. "Christ, don't you dare tell anyone else your ridiculous notions…"

"…about me? That I'm unworthy of your friendship because I love someone you don't like?"

A/N: And more of that next scene coming in Part II, on the way. Remember the warm fuzzies. :) Reactions to the Tom/Peia/Harry relationships?