"It'll be a tradition then. Just the four of us." Melanie Fronsac boldly declared, stepping into the old, elegant carriage—it looked like a coach belonging to the Regency era, when Napoleon swept across Europe like a hurricane while Ministers got shot in the House of Commons, when Lord Byron fought for the Greeks and when frock coats were considered fashionable—save that it was pulled by thestrals in place of horses.
Melanie was followed by Oscar, Caoimhe, and Mary—precisely one year had passed since the day the four of them had, by chance, convened together on a boat to cross the black lake. Back then, their robes were uniformly black, but now they were trimmed red and green and yellow in visible denotation of their houses. The trimmed robes weren't the only sign of evolution; a year ago, Melanie's blonde hair was knotted in a tight ponytail, giving her a boyish look—now, her hair was long and curled in a pretty way, even more girlish than Mary's. Caoimhe's brunette hair used to be long and rather unruly—it was still unruly, but now it was bundled up in a ponytail—she had switched places with Melanie. Mary's hair, however, remained the same. It was still long, black, and parted from the middle. Longer now, because she hadn't cut her it in over a year.
As Mary sat in the carriage, she tightly clutched Caoimhe's arm as though it was a teddy bear, and rested her head on the smaller girl's shoulder—for the past few days, Mary's nerves had been tying knots under her skin, so she sought solace in other people wherever she could. She spent her entire trip on the Hogwarts Express with her head in Alice's lap, and the last few days of summer constantly with mother or Edward, either endlessly chatting, or otherwise sticking to them like a little girl in perpetual need of company and affection.
"Mare?" Caoimhe asked, wide-eyed, "Are you sure you're well?"
"I'm just tired." Mary murmured.
Ever since returning from Little Hangleton, Edward had been quiet and withdrawn—not in a thoughtful, philosophical fashion, but in the manner of an old man slowly but surely drifting away from his mind and his senses, slowly letting go of the world. He'd say nothing, staring at Mary or mother or his dinner or a book with the same blank eyes that one would stare with at a wall. Initially, Mary was relieved—from the burial of Morfin's body in the Little Hangleton forest to her last day in Salisbury, no one was angry with her for her uncle's murder—but her relief quickly became guilt; she had done an unspeakable evil, and no one punished her for it—it meant her sins were hiding; they would one day come out of the recesses of God's architecture, and rightfully strike her down. Mary was no longer a little girl—not just because she began to bleed—but she was somehow absolutely certain that, over the summer, she had grown into something else, something indefinite but haunting.
Growth was a peculiar thing. If one beheld the same yard with the same lawn every day, they'd hardly notice it change—but if they took a photo of their lawn, and let it grow for a year before taking another photo and compared the two, the disparity would be glaring. For Mary, the benchmarks weren't photos of lawns, but her vivid memory of her first day at Hogwarts—she had cried because of Tom, but the castle's beauty quickly assuaged her tears and made way for awe and wonder—compared with now, her first day of her second year at Hogwarts—she shed no tears, and she found the sight of the castle only mildly reassuring, rather than provocatively beautiful. Oscar, Alice, and Caoimhe were different, too—not just in hairstyle; all of them were taller (except for Caoimhe, who was still a first-year in size), their features were fuller, and their expressions were painted with assurance rather than apprehension.
The biggest change, however, was that of their relationships. A year ago, the four were strangers to each other—now, Mary and Caoimhe were the closest of friends, and Melanie and Oscar were two petals of a flower, touching side by side.
"You can see their footprints." Oscar pointed at the thestral from his arm around Melanie's waist. "They look like human ones, aye?"
While Melanie smiled as she rested her head on Oscar's shoulder, Mary looked on, half in numbness, half in jealousy. She had no idea whether or not the Slytherin boy's judgment was right—for where Melanie and Oscar saw footprints, Mary saw the actual thestral, black, skeletal, and foreboding. She had seen her mother and uncle die, after all.
In fact, she saw dozens of thestrals—the procession of student carriages proceeded in single-file, down a winding path through the forest. Although it was a haunting sight, it was pretty, too; delicate, like a thread of fine silk—if any one of the carriages stopped, the whole procession would come to a halt. Oscar made the same observation as Mary, but his intentions were more devious.
"What d'you think would cause them to stop?" He asked curiously.
"How about we don't try to find out?" Melanie said in a slow, mocking voice. "Not every cauldron needs to be stirred —"
"— or so Professor Slughorn says." Oscar finished for her, before withdrawing his wand, "Aguamenti!"
A small jet of water spurted out his wand onto the thestral's retracted wing, easily sliding off it and falling to the floor. Oscar and Melanie giggled—it must have looked rather funny to them, water moving autonomously—but Mary merely watched as the thestral made no acknowledgment of the stimuli whatsoever.
Her expression must have been impassive, because as Oscar turned his amused face to her, his amusement instantly morphed into shock.
"You… you can see it, M-Mary?"
"I can, yes." Mary said blankly.
For a moment, absolute silence pervaded the carriage, but it quickly became clear that Mary didn't want to elaborate on her ability to see thestrals. Oscar adeptly continued with a guip—
"Well, I suppose you'll see if this does anything." He smirked, "Wingardium Leviosa."
Oscar levitated a small twig from the undergrowth by the path into his hand. Then, he transfigured the twig into a rock, and threw it at the thestral. Mary had seen a boy once throw a rock at a stray cat in Birmingham; after his disgraceful throw, he ran away in shame.
It bounced off the thestral's hide—the creature made no indication that it felt the rock's impact whatsoever. However, Mary was certain that it was hurt; the creature was so skeletally thin that it would've felt everything, including the subtlest changes of the wind. She suspected that it didn't respond simply because it was trained to withstand and ignore provocation from humans.
"Well, Mary?"
"Nothing." Mary said with an edge to her tone.
"Nothing yet." Oscar corrected.
Mary glared at the boy, but her cold disapproval went unnoticed as Oscar immediately occupied himself with breaking a large twig off a tree with the severing charm, before he transfigured it into a rock sized halfway between a snitch and a bludger.
"Quit taunting the poor creature, what if it hurts you?" Melanie asked, though her tone clearly said something else—you shouldn't be needlessly cruel.
Clearly, Oscar didn't care for what his girlfriend said, because amusement twisted onto his face as he continued transfiguring his twig into a stone. In his expression, Mary found a semblance of the complacent smirk that he wore months ago, when he idly watched as Crickerly and Alexius Lestrange taunted her. Back then, she had only regarded his indifferent satisfaction as the sign of a passive betrayal, a sort of duplicity where one could be pleasant as an individual but a thug in a flock, like how teenagers were known to be, but now, she saw that Oscar Montgomery was truly cruel—to cause suffering was not a sin, in his mind's eye. Some witches and wizards seemed to possess Christian benevolence, but there were others who gave into the hubris engendered by magic—a temptation that Mary found herself increasingly challenged to resist. Oscar was mistaken, and he needed to be humbled.
All the fatigue in her body and crawling thoughts in her mind at once dissipated, like a thousand leaves scattered by a profound gust of wind, and a cool, calculating anger brought clarity to her mind.
Oscar raised his wand, but Mary was quicker—
"Wingardi —"
"Depulso!"
The moment Oscar's rock levelled in the air with his face, Mary's bolt of white lightning struck it, hurling it squarely into the former's nose. Blood wildly sputtered from it, and Mary heard a crunch—
"OW — ARGHH!" Oscar cried out.
"Mary! What the HELL was that?!" exclaimed Melanie, who wrapped her arms around Oscar as though to protect him from further assault. Melanie's tone was usually bold, but now, there was an unprecedented ferocity in it, "It's just a bloody beast — being invisible doesn't change that. You're throwing a tantrum again, is that right? Just like with Justin?"
Mary—whose anxious, irresolute thoughts had returned, for hurting Oscar didn't give her her expected catharsis—made no rebuttal to Melanie's slight. Caoimhe, however, did.
"Just because you can't see the thestral doesn't mean it's not there." She said in an impressively firm voice.
"What're you implying, Sayre? Hm?" Melanie intoned the smaller girl's surname with such sharp distaste that Mary's suspicions that Caoimhe's paternal family—who the small girl only ever talked about in a strained tone—was somehow disreputable among certain pureblood circles, congealed into a fact in her mind.
Thankfully, before the argument boiled any further, Oscar made a diplomatic intervention.
"It's alright, it's alright Mel," He said with a hand pressed on his bloodied face, his other arm slung over Melanie's shoulder as he stroked her waist as though she was a ferocious lioness to be pacified, "I was being a right prick — don't support me, or you'll be supporting a right prick, aye? And nice shot, Mary — but d'ye know any healing charms?"
"Yes, you were being a right prick." Mary affirmed in a tired albeit playful tone, "Episkey."
The rest of the journey to the castle continued without incident. For the third time in less than an hour, Mary's attitude towards Oscar changed—it was utterly perplexing that the Slytherin boy didn't seem to resent her for smashing a rock against his face, where Melanie, his lioness and his protectress, continued to send her dirty looks. Oscar Montgomery was less of a Machiavellian sadist and more of an apelike brute-boy, Mary decided; he liked cruelty, but he didn't hold grudges.
Once the cool night breeze became the cozy, dry warmth of Hogwarts' torchlit interior, Mary found herself back in the broad familiarity of the Great Hall. However, though there were still thousands of candles floating over four long tables, and though these tables were still laid with glittering golden plates and goblets, there was one key difference—there was, by the side of every goblet on each table, a rolled-up newspaper.
The sight was terribly bizarre—all of the older students who had arrived and seated themselves before Mary were reading the paper; she had never seen so many people reading newsprints at the same time since she visited London as a small child, and the manner of their temperaments—some were utterly quiet, while others furiously whispered—suggested that something quite severe had transpassed.
As Mary seated herself at the Hufflepuff table, she took the copy by her goblet, and unrolled it—
BRITAIN AND FRANCE DECLARE WAR ON GERMANY
Headquarters of the Danzig High Mages' Council overrun—Grindelwald forced Duke Wodnik to surrender in person
Mary blinked. Should she have felt fear? Perhaps sickness, or even excitement? It seemed as though that which was inevitable and implicit had finally become official, so she felt nothing.
Beneath the Daily Prophet Headline was a moving black-and-white photo of Gellert Grindelwald himself, doing precisely what the subheading described.
The photo, like a very short film, began with a close-up shot of a stone wall. Like a small sheet of plaster getting knocked apart by a hammer, the wall would explode, revealing a man with a raised wand in place of the wall, a man Mary at once recognised as Gellert Grindelwald.
Lucifer, the ruler of the fallen angels, the greatest renegade among renegades, was the most beautiful being of God's Creation—Grindelwald's wild, curling coils of blonde hair blew from his handsome head like rolling foam from a furious storm-wave, and in his determined yet unhinged eyes was a glint of boyish glee, of childish haughtiness—he was a child donned in the robes of death, a mystical Napoleon who still remembered the hazy Mediterranean afternoons of Corsica. Though his coat was rather nondescript, something between a blazer and a robe, it billowed against him as though he was standing from a precipitous cliff, bracing the irate wind of the Baltic Sea. He haughtily walked towards the Duke—an elderly but upright looking man who, in any other setting, would have looked handsome and imperious in his tailored robe with his long, dark hair—but who in the face of Grindelwald, was clearly every bit an inferior man.
Needless to say, the Duke made no attempt at resistance. He drew his wand and handed it to Grindelwald, even dipping his head in deference to formally seal his humiliation.
The photo was so absurdly perfect that Mary suspected it was choreographed—and perhaps it was. Cassian had told her that Grindelwald had a penchant for theatricality.
"The Daily Prophet is stupid — why do they keep showing him?" Alice scoffed, jabbing a thin finger onto the photograph on Mary's paper, "These are just like the bloody highlight reels in Quidditch magazines — they'll make some idiot fall in love with him!"
Alice's judgment was right. The way Grindelwald walked towards the Duke—with supreme self-assurance and majesty—was something that even Mary couldn't help but admire. Charm exuded from him in the way the sun's light was blinding—yet people wouldn't be able to help but look at him. Though Mary could rein in her stomach with her mind—yes, the man was handsome and powerful, but he was evil—she knew that Tom would admire and respect him.
"Says 'ere that the Nazis attacked Poland as well." Ben Chapman said in an oddly excited tone, "Army an' Air Force an' all. Yer know, Mary, Chamberlain's gonna declare war. He's a sop, but Westminster's gonna get 'im to do it."
"There it is, ladies and gentlemen," Came the firm voice of Quidditch Captain and now-seventh year William Holmes, "Ben Chapman — Hufflepuff's resident Expert on Muggle foreign policy."
"Yeh, that's right." Ben avowed in an amused tone, "Anyone care for a wager? I say three galleons — Muggle Britain's gonna declare war by Wednesday."
Before anyone could respond to Ben's offer with bids or reprimands, the Great Hall went silent—the huge front doors of the hall opened, and the loud creaking and whining of its heavy hinges resounded through, before a much quieter sound became audible—the pit-a-pat of a dozen quiet footsteps.
The new first years.
In untrimmed robes, the three to four dozen children waddled between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables like a flock of ducklings without a mother. A twinge of pity stabbed Mary's chest; she had the pleasure of going into Hogwarts on a quiet, peaceful footing—but the unsorted students before her, some of whom Mary knew had only learned of their magical nature weeks ago, were to begin in their new world against the backdrop of a war. She wanted to share her pity with Alice, to tell the taller girl that they ought to be kind and nurturing towards whoever would come into their house, but the Sorting Hat—which sat atop a stool, just like it did in 1938—broke aloud in song.
"It was nearly a thousand years ago,
When masons and wizards, from to and fro
Fashioned a castle out of barren snow,
Hogwarts was her name, protection was her aim…"
Mary supposed it was noble that the Sorting Hat was trying to assuage the new students, but she didn't need any guarantees in verse herself, so she tuned the hat out, and let her eyes stroll to a familiar destination—the Slytherin table.
It wasn't hard to find Tom, his handsome face and carefully contoured hair stood out like the red of an apple drooping from the bark-brown of a branch.
If any anger lingered in Mary at Tom for neglecting to write her back over the course of the summer, it dissipated the moment she saw him. The effects of Wool's and London were marked; his face had become visibly thinner, and his skin more pale, sallow. It was as though he hadn't seen the sunlight for three months, as though he only had porridge and gloop to eat.
But even in his weakened state, Tom looked strong and secure in himself, as though summer had gone precisely the way he intended it to go. Though his hair had grown long, he still managed to fashion it attractively. He held his newspaper open with both hands, and his expression was thoroughly blank, betraying nothing of his attitude towards Grindelwald. Even his dark eyes, slightly squinting, showed no sign of admiration nor surprise—if anything, there was only assessing, cold and impartial.
Before Mary knew it, the Great Hall burst into applause—evidently, the Hat had just finished its song—and Tom raised his head from his paper, his intense eyes rising directly to find Mary. She turned away at once.
"When your name is called, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted." Professor Merrythought exclaimed, "Alderton, Mortimer!"
A rather tall boy, an early bloomer, with dishevelled dark hair and thick-rimmed eyeglasses, walked towards the stool and sat down, placing the hat on his head. A shallow thought occurred to Mary; his eyeglasses suggested that he would become a Ravenclaw—but the Hat's shout vindicated her.
"RAVENCLAW!"
"Baker, Agnes!"
A petite brunette girl, who definitely wasn't an early bloomer, shyly walked towards the stool. She carried a large notebook under one arm and her hair was pigtailed with white ribbons—a muggleborn, undoubtedly. Pureblood girls all had long, flowing hair that rolled in a strange, subtle way that muggle shampoo couldn't procure—it was always easy to tell first year girls apart by blood (boys, however, were often equally careless and dishevelled); cosmetic preferences would blur the lines as they grew older.
A twinge of sympathy tugged at Mary's heart—with her ribboned pigtails, her notebook and her round childlike face, Agnes looked very innocent and helpless as she put the Sorting Hat onto her head. Barely a few seconds passed before the hat shouted—
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
For a moment, Agnes stood still, as though she didn't know which table to go to—some snickers came, likely from the Slytherins, before Professor Merrythought gestured at the Hufflepuff table. The small girl's face reddened with shame as she scampered towards the table, and Mary felt a sudden urge to console her.
"Come here, Agnes," Mary said gently, patting the spot next to her.
The new Hufflepuff did as she was told. As she sat down, she timidly put her notebook on the table, as though she wasn't sure whether she was allowed to, and Mary touched her hair.
"Your ribbons are lovely." Mary said with a smile. "I'm Mary Annett by the way — though I'm also known as Mary Riddle."
"Er, thank you, Mary… " The first-year murmured back.
Sorting continued. Antonia Cole was sorted into Gryffindor, Lydia Cotterill into Slytherin, John Dawlish into Gryffindor, Cornelius Fudge into Slytherin, Arthur Hill into Gryffindor. For a moment, Mary became concerned that the younger cohort would have too few Hufflepuffs—the Hufflepuff after Agnes Baker only came halfway through the alphabet—Harry Mirthgrain, a freckled boy with a runny nose.
Harry sat next to Agnes; the former was bolder than the latter, daring to loudly blow his nose against the sleeve of his robe.
"Merlin's trousers, that's disgusting." Wallace Davies chided.
"S'pose it is." Harry said mischievously.
As though to encourage the younger boy's unsanitary habits, Ben Chapman pretended to blow his nose, too—he buried his face on his sleeve, and loudly snorted.
"Malfoy, Abraxas!" Professor Merrythought called.
A thin blonde boy slowly walked towards the stool. His hair was pulled back over his head and held at his shoulders—a hairstyle that, for a boy, immediately told Mary he was at least a half-blood, though more likely a pureblood. His face, which looked as sallow as Tom's, would've been handsome if it weren't for how sickly he seemed—he looked dehydrated and underfed, and his conspicuous grey eyes looked absently ahead, in a way that uncomfortably reminded Mary of Edward's eyes after he killed Morfin Gaunt.
Even the hat must've thought something was wrong with him—a minute passed, and then two, while the hall remained in utter silence. Abraxas Malfoy's small weight seemed to sag on the chair; with the hat covering his eyes, Mary had the weird suspicion that he fell asleep. Eventually, however, the hat delivered—
"SLYTHERIN!"
As though they had been told they won the house cup, the Slytherin table burst into thunderous cheering. Malfoy, however, seemed hardly encouraged by the ovation—he slowly walked towards his new house's table with the same glum expression he had worn during his sorting.
Malfoy's sorting proved to be the longest of his lot. Septimus Weasley was the last to be sorted, and he was placed into Gryffindor.
The hall broke into a mild clamour again, the sound of straightening newspapers serenading the conspiratorial buzz of a hundred whispers. Once again, as if on cue, the Prefects of all houses—now led by Head Boy Cassian Strangehouse—ordered their peers to quieten. They had anticipated the clamour that the newspapers would engender, and quelled it just before Headmaster Dippet rose from his chair to speak.
The Headmaster looked a lot more older and haggard than Mary remembered, though she supposed that he was 302 years old—it was only natural that he looked permanently on the verge of death. His skin, creased like a scrunched up tissue, coupled with his frail stature and loose-fitting purple robe that looked like an Egyptian ruler's funerary gown, gave Mary the sense that she was beholding an animated corpse, a well-groomed Inferius with a sense of fashion.
"Welcome, everyone — first years and new Prefects, Professors and Aurors, to a new year at Hogwarts." He began in a raspy though clear voice, "You will have noticed that copies of The Daily Prophet have been placed by your goblets. They were printed three hours ago, and — indeed — before the Wizengamot, Minister Fawley has declared war on Grindelwald's coalition."
Whispers broke loose in the hall. Agnes Baker went very still, and Mary put an arm around her shoulders. It was quite clear that coalition was a cryptic euphemism—Mary supposed it was more comforting to hear than the combined forces of wizarding Germany, Austria, and Czecho-Slovakia.
"But I assure you —" The Headmaster suddenly thundered in continuation, "— that Hogwarts is safer than it has ever been, and that Britain herself, in both her Magical and Muggle capacities, will mobilise and mount a spectacular defense should evil beset her. And with this being established, you shall continue to receive editions of The Daily Prophet every Sunday, for it is integral to your education that you become enlightened in current affairs, however morbid they may be."
Expectedly, murmurs of agreement broke out at the Headmaster's proclamation.
"Now that our affairs are in order, let the feast begin!"
And the feast began.
The Start and End-of-Term feasts were the most indulgent of the Hogwarts banquets; appetisers, main courses and desserts were served simultaneously, and everything looked as though it came from either a fancy restaurant or a picnic set for the Royal Family. There were multisyllabic French dishes—Bouillabaisse and Cassoulet—set alongside the homely pastries and gravy-laden staples of England.
Mary had suspected that the Headmaster's newspapers would have extinguished her peers' appetites, but she was wrong. The banquet was as festive as a banquet could be; chatter and excited gossip (surprisingly about the war, rather than frivolities to distract from the war) burgeoned hotly among the student body, while the platters and bowls of food depleted at a regular pace.
There was, however, one particularly strange thing about the Start-of-Term feast—unlike last year's Start-of-Term feast, everything now was uncut, unpartitioned. Neither the shepherd's pies nor the apple pies were carved at all, and there were whole fruits, rather than platters of sliced fruits—entire pineapples, rockmelons, and oranges and so on.
Sylvia Vance, the new dark-haired fifth-year Hufflepuff girls' Prefect, noticed Mary staring quizzically at an uncarved pineapple.
"Head Boy Strangehouse —" Vance began in a playfully mocking tone, "told the kitchen elves to leave everything uncut, so that the students would use magic to divide and share them. It's to build camaraderie, he says."
The idea seemed a little silly at first, but the more Mary contemplated it, the more sensible it seemed. She summoned a pineapple from a nearby bowl and carved it into small squares with the cutting charm, before levitating a larger half of them onto Agnes' empty plate. The first-year girl, unlike the older students surrounding her, appeared genuinely distraught by the prospect of war. There was no fearful expression on her face and she wasn't trembling, but she was utterly motionless—a far more potent symptom of anxiety, Mary knew from experience.
"The Germans couldn't invade Britain under the Kaiser," Mary told the smaller girl, "I don't see how they'll be able to now, under Hitler, or Grindelwald."
She gave Agnes a smile of false assurance; Mary had absolutely no idea whether or not the war would come to Britain, whether or not German Lieutenants would come and shoot English children for sport. She wasn't all that disturbed, however—at least not nearly as much as the first-year girl was—because, counterintuitively, she felt a sense of queer responsibility for the war, as though she was involved in its making—and this responsibility felt like a buffer, an act of distancing.
Dostoevsky, a Russian author who Mary's dad was partial towards, wrote through the voice of a Byzantine Elder that the only way to achieve salvation was by making oneself responsible for the sins of all humanity—and now, Mary saw the perpetually horizontal transmissibility of all sins, the connection between the golden ring with the black stone in her pocket and the warlords sowing grief and despair in Europe. Pain, violence, desire—all of them compounded each other like chemicals in a bomb, and every avalanche required one small snowflake to tip the scales from heaven to hell.
Tom finished carving his steak into perfect half-inch by half-inch squares.
"We've all been dupes, that's for sure." Declared Antoine Rosier, a rather bold first-year with curly, brown hair and a face that, for whatever reason, seemed distinctly French, "Grindelwald's a mudblood lover. He's done nothing against the Muggles, and what — fifty, sixty wizards died in Danzig? From both sides?"
"Thing is, he'd need to deal with the plethora of blood traitors before he deals with the Muggle problem." Alexius Lestrange patiently told the first-year, "Y'have to cure your own dragonpox before you can help others."
"Plethora." Amos Nott chimed in thoughtfully, "That's a big word, Lestrange."
"Wodnik ran Danzig in the right way, too." Rosier continued, "No mudbloods in any of their important positions. And Grindelwald? He's the saviour of bloodthirsty mudbloods, centaur despots and what-have-you!"
Tom stabbed a portion of his steak in irritation. His house-table's debate on Grindelwald was utterly idiotic. First-years and forth-years were flinging moral screeds at one another, like mandrakes throwing soil into each other's pots. To Tom, the contention could be reduced to two considerations: firstly, that if magical organisations exclusively comprised of legacy purebloods were truly superior to other organisations, they would be able to defend themselves against the latter by means of their wands, without the need to resort to debate—and secondly, if wizardkind was to unite against the Muggle world for a war of conquest, wizards would necessarily fight other wizards, for not everyone could be persuaded—if Slytherin wanted all Hufflepuffs to become Slytherins, Quintus Pucey, the new seventh-year Slytherin boys Prefect, would have to fight Cassian Strangehouse; Alexius Lestrange would have to fight Alan Fogbourne, and Tom would have to fight Mary.
"I bet he'll cut off the mudbloods and centaurs once he's done with them." Dharmesh noted wryly, "He's just using them — he doesn't truly care for what they want."
"Purebloods have died 'cause of him and we're no closer to ending the Statute of Secrecy!" Rosier whined.
"I, for one, think we need the Statute," said Oscar, whose nose was inexplicably very red, "Grindelwald's just like the mudbloods who fight for their muggle countries. He does what he wants, and all of us are worse off for it."
But more fundamentally, the moving photo of The Daily Prophet showed a truly powerful wizard dominating a disgustingly mediocre one. The way Gellert Grindelwald moved radiated power, decisiveness. Tom was jealous, but he knew that one day, he would become just like Grindelwald—the best sort of wizard there was. The fact that Tom's peers saw Duke Wodnik as a sympathetic victim rather than old firewood that needed to be burned reflected something profoundly wrong with their psyches. Wodnik was the sickly and wilting fruit of an old tree; Grindelwald was a forest fire that promised power—how could anyone in their youth support the former? It was enraging; Tom's peers didn't understand magic—how could declare a gentle summer shower more violent and enrapturing than a storm capable of overturning cargo ships, of devastating cities?
With a decisive swish of his wand, Tom partitioned an apple pie into eight equal slices, and levitated one onto the plate of Lydia Cotterill, a first-year girl with a small, somewhat pretty head.
"Thank you, er —"
"I'm Tom Riddle." Tom clarified.
"Thank you, Tom."
Tom, however, instinctively turned away from the younger girl as though to hide the shameful bruises on his face incurred by Isaac Booth and his flunkies, but then he remembered that he had exchanged and used the last of Mary's summer money on healing salves—his face was unmarred and flawless. His heart and mind, however, weren't—Tom wouldn't rest until he found a way to make Isaac Booth pay tenfold for his offense.
Finishing dinner before his peers—Millicent Bagnold had bought him a lot of sweets on the train—Tom neatly put his cutlery on his plate, and indulged in his favourite mealtime activity—watching his sister.
There were physiological trends in each of the four houses; how could there not be, when Sorting segregated by personality, and when personality dictated behaviour? Not to mention, of course, the environments of the dormitories.
Slytherins were often pale; they had the most well-groomed hair; the most guarded expressions, and the most well-fitting robes. Gryffindors were a mixed bunch, but they often dared to challenge convention by stylising themselves in bizarre ways, sporting rather ugly hairstyles and wearing flashy outfits on the weekends—and perhaps Tom was imagining it, but their mouths were bigger, too—they talked the loudest of the four houses, undoubtedly. Ravenclaws never came in groups larger than three, and were the most tacit and straightlaced among their peers. Hufflepuffs, conversely, tended to swoop in large groups—usually entire cohorts by year, and they were often plumper and less vain than their peers from the other houses. There were also more freckles in Hufflepuff than anywhere else, though Mary had none.
"Tom? You alright there?" Ruben Macnair tentatively asked.
"I'm fine. I'm meditating."
"Ah. It's just that you were staring into the distance…"
Mary, however, wasn't a mere Hufflepuff. She had the elegance of a well-established Slytherin girl without her vanity or arrogance, the conspicuous presence of a powerful Gryffindor girl, perhaps a Quidditch star, without her temper or gaseous talkativeness, the scholarly disposition of a Ravenclaw girls' Prefect while still retaining liveliness in the way she walked and talked, and the tenderness of a Hufflepuff—somehow—without their obscene weakness, their implicit idea that strength was to be found in the warmth of a herd.
Tom greatly appreciated the likeness that she bore to him; they both had thick eyebrows, mildly aquiline noses, thin, long lips and dimpled cheekbones. They both had perfectly symmetrical faces, though that was less of an affirmative feature than an indictment of how the majority of humans, even magical ones, had misshapen faces. They both had long necks, too, but Mary's was much thinner than Tom's—her incipient swan's neck made her look delicate, made Tom want to protect her.
The most prominent difference, aside from that which is owed to sex—their hairstyles and the figure of their bodies—was their eyes. Tom had slightly sunken, upturned eyes, which various Slytherin girls had on different occasions described as sharp. Mary's were prominent and soft, shaped like large almonds, and they seemed to express sympathy if not love at whoever they gazed at. Her dark pupils radiated warmth, warmth Tom knew that many boys desired to behold and consume.
Tom suddenly regretted not returning her letters over the summer—but no matter, regret was pointless, and he would make amends without apologising.
Mary bit into a small, blood-crimson apple. Her bite was small, and she took her time to chew—Tom imagined the texture of her cheeks (a patchwork quilt of hard and soft, respectively where the apple would and wouldn't be masticated) as they moved in circles, her teeth grinding the syrupy flesh of the apple into smaller and smaller bits.
She sat next to Agnes Baker, a new first-year girl, a blatant muggleborn who wore foolishly sweet ribbons in her ponytails. Tom watched his sister talk to Baker, her face unfalteringly gentle and smiling in a motherly way (or so Tom thought, anyway) as she introduced the younger girl to the magical world. But in spite of Mary's ostensible kindness and gentleness, there was something intense and withdrawn in her eyes—something subtle that few people aside from Tom would notice. At once, he knew that something important to her had happened over the summer.
But Tom had read all of her letters, and her summer in Salisbury was peaceful if not boringly uneventful. She made a brief three-day visit to Surrey which she was curiously ill-mentioned in her letters; perhaps it was something that happened then?
"First years, follow me!" Beatrice Sommerfield called, bringing Tom out of his revelry.
However, an idea quickly came to him.
Wiping his hand on his handkerchief, Tom stood up and followed the new first-years and their new fifth-year girls' Prefect.
"Riddle, correct me if I'm mistaken, but I asked for the first years to follow me." Sommerfield sharply said.
Antoine Rosier sniggered.
Ignoring her question, Tom quickly gave a question of his own, "Who's the boys' Prefect, Beatrice?"
Before Sommerfield gave her answer, she exhaled a heavy sigh.
"Dugal—bloody—Crickerly." She spat tersely, "Of course, he was nowhere to be found in the Prefects' compartment on our way here…"
"You were hoping to be paired with Thane, weren't you?" Tom asked gently.
"I was." She confessed in a defensive tone, "So what?"
"I'm not accusing you."
"You'll probably become a Prefect in a few years, Riddle." She began in a rueful tone, as though she was loath to admit the obvious, "A great deal of your role, then, will be patrolling — now, imagine if, for years, you expect to be paired with someone brilliant, or at least someone you can talk to — and that person gets expelled, and you end up with a sixteen year old boy-sized troll instead."
Tom entertained the older girl's hypothetical scenario—what if he waited years for Mary, but ended up with one of her vapid house-mates instead? It would be terribly irritating, indeed. For a moment, he considered telling Sommerfield the real reason for Thane's expulsion—Cassian Strangehouse's subterfuge—but he figured that dobbing would create more trouble than it would solve.
"Beatrice… did you fancy Thane?" Tom asked with matter-of-fact curiosity.
"No!" She returned with sudden force, "We were friends — close friends — we met on the Hogwarts Express."
"I see."
Before they reached the staircase that went down to the Slytherin Dungeon in the Entrance Hall, they passed the portrait of Sir Hervouet, a knight concealed from head to toe by battle-chipped plate armour. His portrait was a rather queer one, as Tom was to explain.
"This is Sir Hervouet, who is more commonly known as The Oblivious Knight." Tom gestured at the painting.
"Thy impudence!" The painting shouted furiously, "I would have thine head muntered on a spear, if only I hadst a corporeal form!"
"Oblivious?" Lydia Cotterill inquired, "That means forgetful, doesn't it?"
"Indeed." Tom answered, smiling, "You see, Herouvet's original portrait was destroyed — in the fifteenth century or so, a Slytherin student by the name of Hugelin Ives cursed it; he had a blood feud with Hervouet's family, or something of the like — and so, this is a painting of a painting… a memory of a memory."
"Yes, yes, Riddle likes to wax poetic." Sommerfield rudely interrupted, "The bloody imbecile of a Knight loses his memory every few hours. And for some reason, many among Riddle's age find this greatly amusing."
"Well, it is greatly amusing." Tom quickly responded, his smile remaining, "You can ask him about his life in the morning, and surprise him by the same facts in the afternoon."
"Children brewing conspirations about the deficient nature of mine own mind…" The painting muttered, "Oh, how I have fallen!"
The new first years looked quite enthralled by Tom's trivia, though he knew they were all magical by their names—Lydia, Hortense, Orpheus, Abraxas—and thus probably well acquainted with animised painting. Lydia in particular seemed spellbound by him already; she routinely flashed toothy smiles at him.
Antoine Rosier, however, shared no such reverence.
"You know a lot about paintings, Riddle." Rosier gave a smile dripping with mischievous snideness, "You trying to prove something?"
"And what might I be trying to prove?" Tom said with icy coldness, though he knew exactly what the younger boy was insinuating.
"You're a mudblood in Slytherin." Rosier said with unexpected bluntness, sneering, "You're trying to get on our good sides — us, the younger lot — 'cause your peers despise you."
Now, all the first years had their eyes on Tom—Lydia's blue ones, small and hopeful, but also detached and assessing; Hortense Rowle's dark eyes—dark like Mary's, but not nearly as pretty, nor as intelligent either—and Abraxas Malfoy's grey ones vacantly stared at him, as though he was a wall. Even Beatrice Sommerfield had stopped in her tracks. They were waiting for him to pass judgment.
Tom, whose expression was utterly poised in calmness and neutrality, turned to face Antoine Rosier. Much to Tom's pleasure, the smaller boy's smirk faltered.
A strange sort of anger seeped into him. Usually, anger came to Tom in sudden bursts, like flashes of lightning—they went as quickly as they came. But this time, it slowly came across him, as though he was outside in the bowels of winter and feeling the cold slowly puncture through his skin and then his flesh, all the way to the marrow of his bones.
It wasn't that Rosier's insult had any gravity, for it was utterly wrong on all counts—Tom was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, of far more noble blood than whoever the hell the Rosiers were; he was trying to court the new first-years, but he was doing so because having friends meant having more power, even if they were first-years, not because he was desperate—none of his peers 'despised' him, at least none perhaps Alphard Black. No, Tom's anger came from the audacity of Antoine Rosier for daring to estimate his position in the Slytherin pecking order—and vastly underestimating him.
Before the younger boy could react, Tom had his wand drawn and pointed forth.
Wingardium Leviosa. Obstringo.
As though heaved by an invisible giant, Antoine Rosier was lifted five yards into the air, suspended directly ahead of Tom. The collar of Rosier's robe fastened against his neck like a giant rubber band, and he helplessly tugged at it as he sputtered and struggled, his face turning red and then slightly purple.
"Do you think a mudblood would be able to do this, Antoine?"
Seeing the boy struggle wasn't terribly fun—Tom lowered his wand, and Rosier unceremoniously dropped to the floor, thump. Unlike Elsie Jenkins' cat, Tom couldn't kill Rosier; he was only able to make him helplessly struggle, which was rather vulgar to behold—suffering was the commonality between magicals and filthy, ordinary humans; seeing a magical being suffer was undignified.
However, Tom's original anger achieved another purpose anyhow; Rosier's spasms in the air told Tom that he wasn't a true enemy by any means—unlike Cassian Strangehouse and Professor Dumbledore—he was merely an arrogant, likely spoiled pureblood boy, who knew nothing of true power, of true magic.
"Know that I welcome my friendship to all Slytherins." Tom extended a hand to the fallen boy, "I don't hate you, Antoine. And there is no reason for me to hate you."
Rosier took Tom's hand, and Tom easily pulled him up. Tom patted him on the shoulder, and gently straightened his tousled robe.
"Y-y-you have to show me how to do that." The new first-year said in an excited tone, blushing.
"Well, it's easy." Tom smiled. "The hovering charm, and the tightening charm."
"Yes yes," Beatrice Sommerfield quickly blurted, "This is all very dramatic and touching, but we have to get a move on, the feast will be ending soon — everyone will return."
As they continued on, Tom closely examined the faces of the new first-years; admiration tinged with fear or rather, fear tinged with admiration, was painted on all of their faces. The procession comprising of Slytherins continued towards their common room.
Even Abraxas Malfoy, who had distinguished himself from the others by his sheer impassivity, looked awed—his grey eyes expanded as though in terror—he was terrified rather than awed, and Tom realised something was amiss—but his realisation was too late.
Malfoy's grey pupils disappeared into the white of his eyes, and then, he fell to the floor with an ungracious thump.
Sommerfield raised a hand to halt the first-years, before spinning around with a fearful expression on her face—Tom supposed she wasn't thrilled that her first gig as a Prefect had gone awry at so many points—and exclaimed in a shrill tone, "Riddle! What've you done?!"
A small throng of the first-years gathered around Malfoy's fallen, unconscious form, and surprisingly, it was Antoine Rosier who squatted by his side and placed a hand on his neck.
"Nothing." Tom said impassively, holding the older girl's gaze.
"Out of my way." Sommerfield brushed two girls aside to kneel by Malfoy, "Riddle —"
"Rennervate." Tom shot his spell squarely at Malfoy's chest.
At once, Malfoy jolted into consciousness, breaking into a convulsion as he gasped for breath. Antoine Rosier, Sommerfield and Tom helped him back onto his feet.
"How do you know that spell?" Sommerfield asked in an equally appraising and suspicious tone.
"A book." Tom answered quickly; he had learned it incidentally while trying to discern useful information from a foreign Auror office's report regarding an Inferius ritual gone wrong.
"Abraxas, it's me." Rosier murmured quietly, "You collapsed a few seconds ago — Riddle rennervated you."
Malfoy, who appeared entirely undisturbed by his situation, looked around, his tired grey eyes switching between Tom, Rosier, and Sommerfield.
Sommerfield and Tom exchanged glances; they, as a Prefect and a second-year, were the only ones who knew their way around Hogwarts in their throng of a dozen, and they had to allocate roles. The first years had to get to the Slytherin Dungeon, but Malfoy was due for the Hospital Wing. Tom took the initiative—
"I'll take Malfoy to the hospital wing."
Then, for all Tom knew, Abraxas Malfoy spoke for the first time since setting foot on Hogwarts—
"I'm fine."
His voice was high and boyish, but he had the flat, disinterested tone of a jaded old man.
"You're not." Sommerfield decisively insisted.
Tom's eyes flicked between the Prefect and the first-year. It was clear that the former wanted to designate responsibility for the latter to another authority, and that the latter wanted to avoid the shame of being seen having to go to the hospital wing on the first day of term.
"We'll go around." Tom dipped his head to whisper into Malfoy's ear, "I know a long way to the hospital wing, no one will see — how about that?"
His assurance gained an acquiescent nod from Malfoy. With a final gesture at the new fifth-year Prefect, Tom and the sickly first-year boy embarked on their detour.
Unsurprisingly, Malfoy said nothing as they crossed the dark corridors. Several inferences were made; Malfoy and Rosier, despite being diametrical opposites in their temperaments, were well-acquainted from before Hogwarts; Malfoy's faints were regular in some capacity, and that whatever his affliction was, it had been with him long enough to contort his eleven (or twelve) year old self into an extremely shy, withdrawn creature—it was clearly untreatable.
"Abraxas," Tom said, opening a large door with his wand, "We're here."
For such a large chamber, the Hospital Wing was eerily quiet. Nonetheless, Madam Milosz, a robustly built middle-aged woman whose stern face vaguely reminded Tom of Ms. Cole, came to receive them.
"Ah, you must be Mister Malfoy." Her accent was crisply foreign and gentle, "Come with me, you'll be alright."
"Mister Riddle." Milosz inclined her head at Tom. They were somewhat acquainted; Tom had once asked her questions regarding the relation between anatomy and sacrifice in ritualistic healing. "Would you be so kind as to give me an account of what happened?"
But surprisingly, before Tom could say anything, let alone conceive of a lie that didn't involve him choking Antoine Rosier in the air, Malfoy himself interceded—
"It was a standard episode, ma'am." He said amiably, "The Sorting, the news of the war — it was a little much for me."
Malfoy gave Tom a knowing look—both of them knew that Malfoy had lied, to a great extent—even if the things Malfoy enlisted played some role in incurring his episode, it was ultimately his observance of Tom's magic that lit the fuse. Tom dipped his head and gave the younger boy an appreciative smirk.
"Gunhilda's Grimoire!" Milosz exclaimed venomously, "I warned the Headmaster not to be so quick with news of the war! The burden shouldn't be levied on the students so soon — not at the start of term! Well, that's for nothing now."
The awkward way the healer intoned 'that's for nothing' made Tom suspect that it was an idiom from another language, crudely and directly parsed into English.
As Milosz helped Malfoy onto a bed, she gestured with a hand to tell Tom that he was no longer needed.
"You'll be all well and good, Abraxas." Tom dipped his head at the healer, before giving Malfoy a reassuring smile, "I trust I'll see you later in the common room."
"Yes, you will." Malfoy said listlessly, "Bye, Riddle."
Tom left the hospital wing, stealing a glance at at a large jar full of dubious, mucky black gel sitting on a nearby cot as he did.
His stomach twisted uncomfortably. There was something primally disgusting in the fact that even purebloods could be permanently incapacitated by illnesses. Yet, in spite of his weakness, Malfoy wasn't despised—no, when he was sorted, the Slytherin table cheered as though the Headmaster had announced that they won the house cup—a feeble, weak boy, a sapling forever green and rubbery, was the unconditional object of esteem.
There was, of course, only one explanation—that he came from an esteemed family. Perhaps, Tom thought, Abraxas Malfoy would become a most useful ally.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed chapter 17 — you guys are insanely encouraging, I mean it.