Tom has a fever. He's six and the doctors just took away Jimmy's dead, cooling body. Petrified, he hugs his knees to his chest, feeling he'll be next. Every moment he closes his eyes, he sees Jimmy's bluish skin, his limp arm as they had taken him from the bed.
It's alright. I'll live. I will. And now I'll have Jimmy's things for myself, I won't have to share the room anymore. All will be fine, as long as I don't develop a fever. All will be well. Coughing sounds reverberate through the walls of the orphanage, continuously.
But Tom is burning up, he can feel himself boiling from within and death is close, is coming and moans-
I'll see mama. I can see how she looks. She'll be there for me, on the other side.
No, Tom. You're going to Hell. The priest whispers in his ear. No one can deliver your soul from evil. No one but me-if you only stay nice and quiet, that's it, that's it, don't flinch away, I'm just touching you-yes, doesn't it feel good Tom? It's God's touch. And if he touches you, if he gives you his love, you can live forever, in his everlasting Kingdom. Forever, Tom, just stay quiet, lie down, that's it, good boy, my good, beautiful boy.
Tom gasps, bolting up.
"Don't touch me!" He snarls when a hand goes on his shoulder, trying to lie him down-
"Don't touch him!" Another voice, stronger and a big block of black obscure Tom's view, makes the hand go away.
Marvolo. He calms. Marvolo killed the priest. Nothing can happen to Tom.
He falls back asleep.
(-)
"Mr. Gaunt, your son is in a precarious situation. I can't fathom why you would want to deprive him of expert care." Dumbledore. Voice cold but insistent.
"Sir, please, a couple of the curses spreading through him are truly dark in nature and long lasting. St. Mungo's has experts that-"
"Step away." A growl, low and menacing, and Tom wishes he could talk.
"His body won't take kindly to teleportation, Mr. Gaunt! Be reasonable!" Tom tries to open his eyes. It's all a blur, but he sees a slim woman wearing the coat of a Healer.
"I understand that you must not be thinking clearly, with the fright but-" Dumbledore again.
Tom's eyes close, a deep pain located in his neck explodes out of control and he's trying so hard to cling to reality-
(-)
He is bathing in cool waters. It feels amazing. It takes away the terrible heat. He dunks his head underneath, and it's perfect, perfect; he opens his mouth and water goes down his parched throat-
He blinks awake. Marvolo is supporting his head, keeping a glass of water at his lips. Tom swallows, obedient. It tastes cold, but bitter.
"You will be alright. The worst has passed."
Tom feels so weak, his muscles are twitching all over. He nods and Marvolo lays his head back down onto a very soft pillow.
Tom grabs his sleeve, trying to talk, pulling him closer.
"What is it? What do you need?"
"-see you." Tom attempts to talk and Marvolo's face appears in his field of vision.
Tom breaths in, deep. Coughs, but keeps staring, reassured. This is reality. Marvolo is really here.
"I thought I'd die without seeing you again." He whispers, voice hoarse.
"You will not die, child." There's something different in the way those red eyes watch Tom. "But you came close. Too close." He whispers and rests a hand on Tom's cheek, and Tom leans into it and falls back asleep.
(-)
He wakes up feeling much better. Very weak, but the fever's gone, and he breathes with ease. Morgana is purring loudly, sleeping next to him on the pillow.
Tom sits up, carefully rests his back on the headboard. Marvolo is sitting on a chair besides the bed; there is no book or paper in his hands. He just looks at Tom.
"Drink this". A goblet filled with a bluish potion floats in the air. Tom takes it, swallows it in one go.
"How long was I asleep for?"
"Three days." Marvolo says, slowly. "If I would have let them take you to St Mungo's you'd be there for weeks, at the very least." A muscle jerks in his jaw and Tom remembers fragments of conversation from Hogwarts' Hospital Wing. "You are alright now." It sounds like both a statement and a question.
"Yes. Just hungry." By habit, he reaches under his pillow. "My wand!" He says, alarmed when he doesn't find it there.
Marvolo hands it over and Tom calms.
"I can't believe they took it away from me." He says, mortified, unable to meet Marvolo's gaze. There's a scratch on the otherwise perfect wood, and it upsets him to see it. "There were so many of them, they kept coming…" He tries to justify his failure, but stops.
There is no excuse for losing his wand. He dares look up to see Marvolo watching him with all the intensity in the world.
"Tell me what happened. After the girl stunned Orion; he told me what occurred prior."
"Is he alright?" Tom asks and then, with a sharp stab, he remembers Walburga, her beautiful broken body laying motionless, eyes open and glassy. "Where's Waly?"
He tries to stand.
"The boy is fine. She-" Marvolo spits. "Is at St. Mungo's. Last I heard, her condition was serious."
Tom is upright. The room spins around him before it comes back into focus.
"Sit down."
Tom attempts to go to his wardrobe, despite a fresh wave of dizziness. "I want to see her."
"You can't do anything for her." Marvolo stands.
"She stayed behind for me." Tom still can't quite believe it. "Can't you help her?" He asks.
"If you insist." Marvolo places a hand on Tom's back and directs him to the bed. "Tell me what happened."
Knowing he's not getting out of it, Tom goes over every single detail, except one. He doesn't mention going back into the flames for Walburga, makes it seem like she just followed him until the end, in that alley.
"I did all I could." He says, when he ends the story. "I'm sorry." He's never been so ashamed in his life. "I'm sorry Dumbledore had to save me. It irks me but I bet it angers you-"
"You did well."
"I lost." Tom points out. "You wouldn't have lost-"
"You are sixteen!" Marvolo says, exasperated. "You haven't even taken your O. yet." He rubs at his temples for a second, before re-assuming a lifeless expression. "You will tell no one, of course, that you cast the Fiendfyre."
"Won't Grindelwald's men talk?"
"They're dead." Marvolo sneers, displeased about it.
There is only one reason Marvolo would ever be unhappy with the news of someone dying.
Because he hadn't killed them himself.
"Dumbledore killed them?" Tom asks, shocked.
"No." Marvolo's sneer deepens. "Dumbledore and his so called morals-" He shakes his head. "It is a common practice, in Grindelwald's ranks, to fight with a poison capsule in their mouths-"
"Right. Yes. I read about it." Tom's upset too, hearing those men got the easy way out.
"Slughorn used the Floo to contact me when he first realised something is going on in Hogsmeade." Marvolo speaks. "But it took him precious minutes to do it. When I arrived, the Anti-Apparition wards were still up. I ripped through them, but by the time I reached the part of the village that was most devastated, Dumbledore had already taken you and Black back to Hogwarts." His eyes spark with fury. "I found your wand in Stein's robe and retrieved it before the Aurors could get hold of it."
"Stein?"
"One of Grindelwald's generals."
Tom well remembers those blue eyes behind the mask. He doesn't think he'll ever forget them.
"Won't the Aurors want my wand, anyway? For the investigation-"
"Oh, there had been some requests." Marvolo sneers. "I put an end to that. They will not bother you. However, they found Black's wand."
"Fuck." Tom remembers Walburga yelling out at least two Cruciatus.
"Arcturus got it back eventually, and he had a talk with the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She's a daughter of the House of Black, the most ancient bloodline in Britain. A minor, fighting for her life. Nothing will happen to her. The privilege these people have is endless." Marvolo says with spite.
Tom could remind him they're privileged too, enough so that the Aurors will not go over Marvolo to demand Tom's wand.
But Marvolo had to fight for these privileges. Blacks are simply born into them.
"They examined the german wands and saw none had cast the Fiendfyre." Marvolo looks at Tom. "But there is one wand, damaged, that they cannot recover information from. They assume it must be the one to have cast the curse."
Right, the wand Tom snapped.
"There is the problem that its owner died in the fire and they found his wand far from his remains, but I will make sure they look no further into the matter."
Something coils in Tom's stomach. He remembers the man he wrestled to the ground. Last Tom saw of him he was writhing in pain, clutching his face.
Of course he died, wandless in a tornado of cursed fire. What did you expect?
Tom shakes the ominous feeling off. I didn't kill him. He tells himself, even if he had been the one to release the flames and then disarm the man. I left him alive.
"Did anyone else die?" He asks, his voice low. "Did they kill anyone? Or the fire-"
"Three villagers, in direct combat."
Tom nods.
He was trying to hurt you. His mind says, persuasive. His own incompetence killed him.
"What did they want with me?" Tom asks, dispelling the stranger from his head. "Their leader tried to convince me to go with them."
Marvolo's jaw twitches again.
"They tried to get me a few times; they failed. I never considered they would come for you. I never had anyone, before, that could be used to hurt me. I did not imagine you would be in any danger."
He looks at Tom thoughtfully, a slight tilt to his head, gauging his reaction.
It pleases Tom, a comforting feeling chasing away any lingering feelings for the dead german. Grindelwald is not a stupid man. He had judged coming after Tom would hurt Marvolo. And Marvolo just confirmed it.
"I warned you to take him seriously." Tom whispers, but without any reproach.
"It is an old habit of mine, to underestimate people." Marvolo still searches Tom's face for any reaction. "It is good, that you are more careful."
Tom settles snugly on the pillow. They sit in silence for a while, looking at each other. But it's not rigged with tension.
Perhaps the attack had been a good thing, Tom thinks. Otherwise, who knows how long it would have taken Marvolo to get over their last talk, how their first encounter after it would have gone.
It still gnaws at Tom, some of the things he'd said in Hogsmeade. Marvolo is seemingly content to pretend it hadn't happened, but Tom isn't. He doesn't want the bitter remarks to remain between them, unresolved.
Bitsy is the closet thing I have to a parent. If you wanted to act like a father, you should have started sooner.
"I didn't mean it." He breaks the silence. "What I said when-"
"You did." Marvolo cuts over him. "I'll ask for a meal to be brought up." He stands. "Less you accuse me of starving you, next. You certainly seem to have a long list of grievances against me."
It's not a long list at all, but Marvolo is already defensive. And he's the same as Tom. Defence, for them, means aggression.
"It came across uglier than I would have wanted." Tom says.
Marvolo gives him an indecipherable look. "Doubtful."
(-)
Mr. Black takes Walburga home against recommendations.
In the chaos of her arrival, Tom sneaks into her room without anyone taking any issues. Her mother is by her side and her father paces back and forth.
She looks frail, smaller somehow. There is a nasty open wound on half her face, extending down her neck. It hadn't been there when Tom last saw her. He knows it must have been something that spread silently, and no one at St. Mungo had been able to heal it, apparently.
She struggles in her magically induced sleep and Tom would take her hand if her parents or Marvolo weren't around.
"I have never seen someone survive such curse combinations." One of the healer that had brought her home is saying as Marvolo examine her. "Especially the flesh eating one- and it had spread so far already, even if we stopped it, I do not know what you could do."
Marvolo gives him an annoyed look and Pollux orders the man out of the room.
"Will she survive?" Pollux asks, jaws locked together.
"She will."
Marvolo doesn't hesitate.
"But the scars- they'll be so terrible-" Her mother intervenes. "Is it not possible to-"
"Her life is what is most important, Irma."
"I need to be alone with her." Marvolo demands and her mother protests, but she's dragged out by her husband and Tom has no choice but to follow, though he lingers in the doorframe.
Marvolo's eyes turn red, which Tom presumes is the reason they were kicked out, because he cannot maintain the glamour during the healing process.
Tom worries, just a little, leaving her alone with him, but he closes the door behind him and goes to Orion's room, where he finds all Black siblings.
"I'm sorry." Alphard says as soon as he sees Tom. "I'm sorry I ran, Abraxas is sorry too."
"No, he isn't."
Tom knows Abraxas well. He's loyal and helpful until things get messy. It is in his nature. It is in all their nature.
Except Orion's and Walburga's it seems.
Orion gives him a small smile.
"You should have been a Gryffindor." Tom tells him and Orion's smile widens.
"That hat considered it, truth be told."
"Merlin, don't go around repeating that, even in jest." Lucretia admonishes him. Her eyes are irritated, she must have cried before Tom's arrival.
Cygnus is unconcerned, looking bored.
He's the youngest of the lot, so they don't spend too much time together. Though Orion is only a year older and his siblings take him wherever they go.
Even in the room, Cygnus sits alone by the window. Tom will ask Walburga about it, when she recovers.
The next morning, she wakes up. After her parents fret over her, Tom is allowed to see her, as a concerned friend, even if her parents send Orion along.
Her face is normal, skin as perfect as always and he's a little surprised Marvolo hadn't left her disfigured, seeing how he'd hated her since she was but a small girl.
She blinks, slightly disorientated, pale, tired and still undoubtedly in pain, even though many flasks of pain relieving potions are on her nightstand.
"You stupid bitch." Tom whispers fondly, sitting beside her.
She gives him a strained, but sincere smile.
He doesn't know what to say, how to respond to what she's done.
Orion is a brash, brave boy that would have stayed behind for any of his friends, without a second thought. But Walburga, he is keenly aware, would have only done so for Tom.
He takes her hand in his and she grips, though she lacks the strength to do it properly.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake! Just kiss her!" Orion snaps. "I'll look away."
Tom does.
(-)
Marvolo is in a foul mood. Tom imagines he must be tired and hadn't appreciated waiting for Tom's little visit with Walburga, on top of having to cure her, at Tom's request.
"You could have gone home." Tom says, defensively, later in the day, when they finally return to their house. "You shouldn't have waited for me."
"You are not leaving my sight until Grindelwald is dead." Marvolo says but then proceeds to do the exact opposite to his declaration and storms up the stairs to his room, closing the door with unnecessary force.
Tom retreats to the library, asking Bitsy to get him his mail.
Dozens of letters await him from various students.
Get well. I wish I'd have been there with you. Rodolphus is short and to the point, as is his character.
Abraxas' later is long and filled with excuses.
Tom has no issue with Abraxas and Alphard leaving. He'd have left too, if the target had been one of them.
But he supposes they are friends, and they must understand the concept more deeply than Tom, since it moves them to guilt over such perfectly reasonable attitudes. Still, Tom will take advantage of the guilt Abraxas feels.
You owe me. He writes back, just those three little words, smirking when he imagines how Abraxas will fret over them.
Both Dippet and Slughorn wrote to assure him that even if he misses his O. , it will be arranged so that Tom can take them during the summer.
Tom huffs. There are almost two more weeks left until the exams start. There is no way he will be missing them.
He picks a book randomly, opens it but finds himself just staring at the pages, unfocused.
"You went back for her. You placed yourself in danger."
Tom must be a little jumpy, because he startles at Marvolo's voice. As always, he hadn't heard him approach.
How would Marvolo know about it? Unless-
"You went into her head?" Tom asks, incredulous.
It's not that he's concerned with Walburga's privacy, but she has several memories about him and saving her is on the bottom of the list of things Tom really doesn't want Marvolo to see.
He slams his book shut. Marvolo stands in the doorway, without any expression on his face, but Tom can feel he's angry.
Well, so is Tom.
"I placed myself in danger." He spits out, mocking. "I was already in danger. Moving forward, moving back- it didn't matter."
It doesn't convince Marvolo.
"She stayed behind for me." But even as Tom says it, he knows Marvolo won't get it. Even Tom still doesn't understand why he'd take that risk, small as it was.
"You didn't ask her to."
"I'm their leader. I'm responsible for them-"
"Spare me." Marvolo sneers, stepping inside the room. "Look at me and tell me you would have turned back for Malfoy or Lestrange."
"Maybe I would have." Tom lies, just because he can't admit whatever it is Marvolo wants to hear.
"You could have died." Marvolo speaks through his teeth. "And for who?"
"I almost died several times that day."
"No. They would have taken you, to blackmail me. Fiendfyre would have killed you, however."
Tom stands. "Oh, I see. You want to blame me for what happened? You're angry because I could have died? Them I guess I can blame you, since that whole situation happened because you decided to piss off Grindelwald."
As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he regrets them. Marvolo's face doesn't change, but Tom knows he went too far.
Another part of him doubts that his words could ever hurt Marvolo, who seems beyond hurting. And yet, Tom remembers the way he'd looked at Tom, as he was healing, and he knows Marvolo can indeed be hurt.
Grindelwald had guessed it as well. The only weak spot Marvolo has is Tom.
He feels so guilty over it.
"I didn't mean that." He says, trying to lower his tone, to put his anger aside. It's misplaced, anyway.
Is it? For a while, he's always angry with Marvolo, with good reasons.
"She's not worth it." Marvolo says, after a few seconds, though his mouth barley moves, jaws clenched.
"I calculated it. There was no way -I knew I could take her out without risking anything." Tom tries to explain, though he's not sure why he needs to defend himself.
"I know." Marvolo hisses.
Tom spreads his hands. "So why are you saying all this?"
Marvolo walks towards the window, turning his back to Tom.
"You are getting attached."
Tom can't deny it. He likes her, he enjoys her company and not just in a sexual way. He wants her close by. He doesn't love her, he's not attached in ways he saw other boys being attached, but either way, whatever he is feeling towards her, no matter how little, it is too much by Marvolo's standards.
And by his own, as well, if he's honest.
"It's not what you think." Tom says, slowly. "You know I'm not one of those people to -"
"I know what it is." Marvolo talks over him.
"I'm not sure that you do." Tom says.
He runs a hand over his face and he's surprised to feel the stubble on his chin. It's getting really irksome, shaving, what with having to look at his face in a mirror for it.
"I understand the instinct."
Do you? Tom can't see Marvolo getting attached to anyone, in whatever capacity. He's barely forming a connection with Tom, and he's an exception.
"Black women have a certain charm."
Tom remembers the conversation they had in his fourth year and he's just as jealous to hear it now, as he was then.
"I too did things for Bella that I would not have done for any other."
Bella. Is she off the French Black family branch? And then he's forced to imagine Marvolo doing anything for a woman and that is far, far worse than just thinking he's a man with needs that occasionally slept with an attractive witch.
"What things?" He demands. Who is this bint, exactly?
"Reckless things, like heading into battle to save her."
This is shocking, to say the least. Somehow, with all the thought Tom gives to Marvolo, he never can quite grasp the concept there was a life before Tom. He imagines Marvolo as reading, drinking his tea or writing. Going on killing sprees perhaps, plotting with important men. But further than that, Tom can't imagine an actual life and it's distressing to hear it existed and there was an important person in it.
"Where is she?" Tom can hear how angry he sounds
He doesn't think he'll get an answer, but it comes a few seconds later, as Marvolo turns to look at him.
"She's dead."
Tom breathes a little easier. He thoroughly examines Marvolo's face for any sort of emotion, but it's blank.
"They all die. And there is nothing you can do about but watch it happen. Walburga doesn't hold a candle to Bella. She was a warrior, fierce and wild. She died young, fighting." And there it is, right in his eyes. Anger. "Walburga will die too, even if old and wrinkly in her bed or whatever else takes her, it will happen. Best avoid the messiness."
Tom doesn't give a shit just then about Walburga and her eventual death.
"You cared about this woman." He says, upset. "I never heard you talk well about anyone, in all these years. What could she have had to make you care?"
Tom would really like to know.
It's just inconceivable. Beauty won't cut it. So many beauties have been around Marvolo. Young women, older women. Intelligent. Powerful. None, ever, got a second glance from him.
Marvolo searches Tom's face. "What Walburga has, for you."
Tom frowns. What does Walburga have, now that he thinks of it? He's established it's not her beauty-after all, her cousin is just as beautiful. And her character- Tom likes her despite it, not because of it.
"Bella was loyal." Marvolo speaks, slowly. "Unfaltering so. She stayed besides me, when no one else did. She would have given her life for me. And in the end, she did."
I would give my life for you. The thought pops out of nowhere and immediately Tom knows it's the truth.
He doesn't say it. Because Marvolo would think him weak. He might have liked it in that witch, but he undoubtedly holds Tom to a different standard.
Besides, it's not a contest, is it? He's not competing with this dead woman.
Aren't you?
"I'm sorry." Tom says instead, though he's actually very glad she's dead and out of the way.
"You aren't. And you shouldn't be. It's in the past."
"Who killed her? Why?" Tom asks, curious again, now that he's convinced this Bella will not show up out of nowhere at their doorstep and interfere with their lives.
Another flash of emotion makes the red shine in his eyes. "Oh, they'll pay. I couldn't settle it just then, but settled it will be."
So much for "it's in the past."
"In fact-" Marvolo looks at the calendar, stuck to the wall over the fireplace. "In fact, I think the time is nearing when I can have my revenge."
Startled, Tom turns to stare at the calendar, trying to see something that Marvolo had, but there is nothing there to give him a clue.
Marvolo still stares at it, moments on end and Tom sits back on the armchair, picking up Dippet's letter.
"Hogwarts wrote about my exams-"
"I know." Marvolo returns his attention to Tom. "Absurd. You will take them in time."
Tom nods. "Of course."
"You will not step foot outside the castle. No trips in the Forbidden forest, no sneaking out at night-"
Tom raises an eyebrow. "I highly doubt they'll attack again. They wasted their chance and the advantage of surprise-"
"You will do as I say." Marvolo cuts over him. "Did you not complain I do not act fatherly enough?"
Tom rolls his eyes. "This isn't fatherly. You are acting like a dictator."
But Tom doesn't mind. He appreciates the evident concern for his well being.
"You will only go there in time to take the exams, and floo back home, as soon as you are done, from Dippet's office."
"Fine"." Tom agrees.
(-)
He wakes up, cold and shivering, heart slamming against his ribs. Shadows still try to claim him, distant voices whispering, pulling him in, pulling at him, hot fingers- the only colour is red, Marvolo's eyes, but they're dead. Gone.
Tom stumbles to the window, opening it, letting the air in. He can't remember what precisely he had dreamed of, and it always bothers him more than the nightmares he remembers.
It feels like he has an unknown enemy, waiting for him in the dark.
Tom paces around his room, but he can't shake the dread off. Marvolo's been dead in his dream. At least of that, he is sure.
He tries to read something soothing. Something safe. He picks up the Beedle and the Bard, perhaps for the thousand time, and opens it to the tale of the Three Brothers. He knows all the words by heart; he remembers Marvolo's rich voice, each inflection, the way they reached between Tom's ribs, unknotting all the fear.
He plays with the edges of the book, still tormented. He needs to do something, take his mind off those dead eyes.
What better cure than to see them alive?
It's late, so late it's almost early as Tom leaves to find Marvolo. He stops and knocks at his bedroom door. There's no answer.
A light flickers up the stairwell, casting shadows everywhere.
He's probably in the library.
Yet Tom lingers by the bedroom door. He stays there, forehead on the cool wood, breathing deeply, simply resting for a couple of seconds, before he slowly reaches for the doorknob and opens it.
There had been no precautions taken against him-the same old wards are around the door and they allow him in as easily as before. Tom can recognise some of the runes now, but he doesn't focus on them, heads straight to the closet, and the fake wall inside it.
He retrieves the box and immediately picks up the wedding ring. It is hot in his hand, and Tom's far more sensitive to the magic inside it. Dark and twisted yet beneath all that, a different kind of magic calls to him, reaches out, trying to break free.
Tom lies on the floor, his back enjoying the hard wood beneath him. He toys with the ring between his fingers.
A sense of peace settles over him. Of fulfilment. Sleep tries to claim him, but he resists it, preferring to remain in that lulled state.
If he stays still enough, if he holds his breath, Tom can feel an answering heartbeat coming from the ring, that matches his own.
It's as if he's not alone. Tom squeezes it between his fingers in a tight fist. The heartbeat travels up his wrist, blends with the one it finds there, fluttering in his veins.
It brings Tom pleasure, the kind that settles inside his chest, the kind that he only gets around Marvolo.
He feels pleasure coming from the ring too, mixed with anguish and dark magic.
It is a surreal experience, one that he cannot put in words. It just feels so, so good. Tom holds on to it and he doesn't know how he will ever be able to let go.
He closes his eyes, basking in the sensation, mind clear and quiet.
He's somehow in another room, without knowing how he got there. It's dark, but he can see light in the distance and Tom walks towards it, with sure steps, until he finds a mirror.
He catches sight of his reflexion and tries to look away, on instinct, but there's something off, it seems as if-
Tom looks again and the image in the mirror smiles at him, though Tom is quite certain he is not smiling. He moves closer. He's older in the mirror, he thinks, but cannot be sure.
"Tom." The mirror says, voice deep. It sounds more like Marvolo's voice than Tom's. But it's not quite right.
There's something passionate about it, in a way Marvolo's never is.
"Come closer." It says and leans on the frame, arms crossed over his chest, long legs crossed at the ankle.
The eyes are brown, like Tom's, but emptier.
Tom goes closer, mesmerized.
The mirror smiles at him, a wicked thing. "Closer."
He hears a noise in the distance. A snake, hissing.
"Ignore it." The voice asks, suave and persuasive.
'Master', the hissing comes closer.
"It doesn't matter. Come, let's talk."
Tom opens his mouth, reaches out with a hand, to touch-
Master, wake up.
When Tom opens his eyes, he's not sure how much has passed. But he's no longer alone. Atlas hisses at his side, agitated.
Marvolo stands above him, and from this angle he seems impossibly taller.
Something inside the ring twists, fights, reaches out, magic so potent around it.
"It wants you." Tom says, siting up, warily. He opens his fist and the band just lays there, motionless, even if he can feel the torment inside it.
"It is mine, after all." Marvolo says, after a brief pause.
Tom winces. "Sorry." He says. "I know I shouldn't go through your things."
He doesn't let go of the ring, though. Doesn't want to.
"A horcrux." He says, watching it, caressing the ridges.
Marvolo walks away, only to sit on the floor, facing Tom.
"Yes."
Tom smiles, forming a fist again, trying to feel the heartbeat inside. It's more pronounced in Marvolo's proximity.
"Found Secret of the Darkest Arts, didn't you?"
Tom hums in agreement. "Why they'd keep that at Hogwarts, even in the restricted section, is beyond me."
"Only four copies left in England. Is too precious to be discarded."
Silence. Tom can't help but look at the ring, opening and closing his fingers. It looks so inconspicuous when it is everything but.
Tom's read more about Horcuxes, in Grimmauld Place and in Malfoy Manor, even older texts, hidden behind covers with no titles, protected by curses so strong, it took him hours to reverse.
The theories cannot agree, if a Horcrux is sentient or not, or if just enough to protect itself.
But they do agree, it will always want to reunite with that which it was ripped away from.
"It's what you mean for me to do." Tom says.
"You don't want it on your own?"
Jimmy's rattling breath. The muggle dropping to the floor. Death is terrible and human life so fragile. A second, and it is gone. Tom swallows. "I do."
"After you are done with Hogwarts. There is a reason we reach adulthood at seventeen. That is when we are done maturing, magically." Marvolo is insistent, as if he believes Tom wants to make one before he graduates.
"I know. You've told me that several times." He says, slowly. "How old were you?"
Marvolo doesn't answer. But Tom is not too upset, with the ring in his hand.
"I read they are meant to affect other people. Protect themselves. Play on fears or desires. But I never expected it would feel so… good." Tom says after a little while. The book spoke about possession, mind control. The piece of soul inside the ring doesn't try to posses Tom.
It just wants to be whole, again.
Marvolo says nothing.
"It wasn't clear, how it keeps you alive. I understand its purpose. It guards a part of you. But how-I mean, were you to get hit by a killing curse you'd just shrug it off or?"
"My body would die." Tom looks up, a twist in his stomach. Marvolo looks as impassive as ever. "But I would remain alive."
"And then? What would you be, without a body?"
"A wraith."
Tom wrinkles his nose. "I don't like that."
"It is not pleasant, no."
Tom frowns. "You mean-" His mouth is dry. "You mean you-" He can't get the words out of his mouth, the notion too upsetting.
"Yes." Marvolo says, very softly.
Tom is standing without meaning to. "Who? Who would dare-"
Marvolo looks up to him, head tilted.
Tom gets a fleeting sense of contentment, looking down at him, but he hates it at the same time. It's not natural to look down at Marvolo.
He sits back down.
"My own doing."
"I don't understand." Tom says, squeezing the ring tighter.
The only thing to stand between Marvolo and Death. Why does he keep it in a fucking closet? Had he gone insane? They need to find another hiding place. In fact, no. No. There is no place safe enough. Maybe Tom should wear it?
"I told you, dark magic is prickly. It does not accept betrayal or hesitance. As I cast that killing curse, I wasn't -" He snarls. "I wanted to kill him." His eyes shine with fury. "But there was this minimal trace of doubt, due to some circumstances. The curse rebounded."
Tom has never heard nor read about the possibility of that happening.
"And you-" Tom can't say it, he can't say the words. He died, a sadistic part of his mind supplies them. Tom banishes it away. "You became a wraith." He swallows. "You're not a wraith now. "
"There are rituals. Unfortunately, one cannot perform those on one's own, in that state. I needed someone to help me."
"Teach me." Tom says. "I have to know. Don't make me hunt for it. Just tell me." Tom needs to know, so if it happens again, he can help Marvolo, because who else-
The meaning registers, awakening a jealousy in him larger than his fear. "Who helped you? Whom could you trust with this knowledge?"
"They didn't know about the Horcrux. Wasn't all that happy to help either, but I was persuasive. An idiot. A coward. Just followed instructions."
"Are they dead?" He asks. He hopes they are. No one but Tom should help Marvolo or see him vulnerable.
"Yes, child." Marvolo sounds a little exasperated when he looks at Tom. "They're all dead. I trusted no one. I only trust you."
Tom could melt. Everything inside him rejoices. Yes, that is how it should be. Marvolo shouldn't trust anyone else. The world is filled with men like Abraxas, so ready to save their own skin, so ready to betray.
"I will teach you, what you would have to do, in case we hit that minor bump again. I know you will not wait around for years to come to my aid. And you are competent, you will not make mistakes."
"I wouldn't rest a second until you were back." Tom assures him, hotly.
"I know." Marvolo says, simply.
Good, good.
"Don't you miss it?" He asks, looking back at the ring. "It misses you. I can feel it."
"No." So simple, so cold.
"But how can you not miss it? It's a piece of your soul."
"You get over it."
Tom makes himself hold the ring out to Marvolo, though he's loathe to part with it. But it wants to be back with him, and Tom doesn't like it in distress.
Marvolo rejects it. "I mislike touching it. Put it back."
Tom takes a few minutes before he makes himself just drop it in that metal tin, where it will be so alone. Abandoned. To distract himself, he takes out the other ring.
"And what's this?"
"I told you, it is a family heirloom, coming down from Peverell-"
"The deathly hallows!" Tom exclaims. "That's how I knew the symbols, first time I saw it."
Tom had just reread the tale of The Three Brothers, the image clear in his mind.
"Yes, the Peverell coat of arms is fashioned after them."
"And what's inside?"
There's magic there, too. Heavy. Sinister almost. Tom doesn't like it.
"The Resurrection Stone."
Tom laughs. Marvolo's sense of humour strikes at the most odd of moments. "Fine, don't tell me. I'll figure it out."
Marvolo smiles. He looks amused. "I am sure you will."
"Why are you smiling?" Tom asks, smiling himself, because he cannot help it.
"You will understand when you crack that little mistery open."
Challenge accepted.
(-)
"Mr. Gaunt, a word, if you will." Dumbledore says, just as Tom finishes breakfast, on his first day back at Hogwarts.
"Don't keep him long, Albus, he might be tired." Slughorn calls from the head table.
He'd been hovering around Tom like a mother hen, from the second Tom came out Dippet's fireplace.
Tom has no choice but to follow Dumbledore towards his office.
Maybe he wants gratitude. He's a fool, in that case.
Tom doesn't like Dumbledore any better, even if he saved Tom from an unknown, but most certainly awful experience.
With all Marvolo's warnings, with the animosity Tom felt towards Dumbledore and the grudging respect for the man's intellect, Tom had never taken him too seriously.
He does now. Dumbledore is far more than a meddling, bleeding hearted Professor. Far, far more.
The expression he'd had on his face as he faced the dark wizards is seared into Tom's eyelids.
Marvolo's been right all along, as always. Dumbledore is dangerous. His morals make him even more dangerous, because Tom never knows what the man is thinking, they don't operate on the same values.
They sit, facing each other over his desk, cluttered as always with several interesting artefacts.
Tom meets his eyes, trusting his Occlumency will keep anyone out, even him.
Dumbledore waits before he speaks, searching Tom's face.
"You look well." He says, when Tom refuses to break the silence. "You were injured quite severely. The Healer wasn't optimistic when you were refused treatment at St Mungo."
Tom shrugs. "She was mistaken."
Dumbledore's eyes move to the side of Tom's neck, where Tom knows they have wounded him, remembers the blood flowing down his robes, drenching him, before he had fallen.
He has a vague recollection, snippets of conversations as he laid in the Hospital Wing, delirious, the Matron and the Healers that had arrived at Hogwarts trying and failing to contain the curse.
Dark Magic leaves traces that can only be countered by Dark Magic.
Tom feels the impulse to cover his neck, knowing what the lack of any scar tells Dumbledore. But it's too late at that point.
"My father has some old acquaintances." Tom says, stiffly. "Unconventional Healers. They've been kind enough to help me."
Dumbledore doesn't buy it, but he cannot prove anything.
Another long stretch of silence. Dumbledore's gaze is penetrating, nothing friendly about it. It's nothing to do with Legilimency. Dumbledore isn't trying to look inside Tom's head.
No, he seems to look straight into his soul.
Tom forces himself to not look away.
"I found Miss. Black unconscious besides you. And yet St. Mungo's report states that her lungs were badly burned. They determined she must have fallen in the thick of it. That tells me you pulled her out."
Tom shrugs again. "I did."
"That was very courageous of you."
"It is what anyone would have done." Tom says, though they both know that is not the truth. "If that is all, sir-"
"The investigation revelled grave injuries in some of the attackers. A blood curling curse, the bone crusher, an ancient Armenian mind altering one, the Cruciatus. And while I hear the later had been cast by Miss Black's wand, the others weren't."
Tom squeezes his fists at his side, but he controls his face to remain expressionless.
"There is also the matter of the Fiendfyre. All their wands had been throughly investigated and none cast it."
"Curious." Tom says, with a calmness he doesn't feel. "But, sir, I did disarm one of the men, after the fire was already all around us. I broke the wand. I'm quite sure he was the culprit."
"The man who died, you mean?" Dumbledore asks, and something coils in Tom's stomach.
Dumbledore doesn't seem to blink as he waits for an answer.
"Didn't they all die, sir?" Tom asks, choosing to ignore the accusation.
"Indeed. They all died, but only one was killed."
Tom swallows. What does Dumbledore want?
"Was he? If he cast the Fiendfyre, i'd say that was suicide as well, if accidental."
Dumbledore leans back in his chair, hands folded together on the desk.
"I tried to approach your father, during the last year, about your concerning interests-"
"You mean about your suspicions." Tom cuts over him. "Because I have no concerning anything."
"Let us be frank, Tom." Back to Tom, are we? "I cannot prove it, but you are slipping down a dangerous path and your father doesn't seem inclined to help you. In fact, I believe he's encouraging you."
"Leave my father out of this." Tom leans in, the words coming out through gritted teeth.
"While the Aurors are happy to believe the only wand they couldn't examine had been the one to cast Fiendfyre, while they will never think a fifth year student could master such a spell, I know better."
"You know nothing." Tom says, but it's a lie. Dumbledore knows too much.
"I know you were under attack. I know you did not ask for this to happen. I know the man that was consumed by your flames had been far from innocent. But taking a life, Tom, it has drastic consequences and I am not referring to legal ones."
"I'm sorry, sir; are you accusing me of murder?" Tom demands, feeling heat traveling to his cheeks.
How dare he-
"No. I -" Dumbledore sighs. "I hope and chose to believe that you didn't have the intention. That you only sought to protect yourself and Miss. Black. But using Fiendfyre… Tom, you are too young to understand what that branch of magic is capable of doing. What harm it can cause, not only in others, but in the user-"
"I didn't cast it. But had I done it, sir-" Tom leers. "It would have saved my life, hypothetically, bought me time until your grand entrance, sir. You'd rather I'd have died or be captured?"
"There are ways to defend oneself from any attacks, ways that do not involve Dark Arts. I never needed it-"
"With all due respect sir, you are an experienced wizard-"
"I am. And you are an exceptionally talented young man. If you feel your life is at risk, I will be happy to offer you private Duelling session-"
Tom snorts. "No, thank you." Marvolo would have a heart attack. "I will entrust my life in Hogwarts's capable staff." He sneers. "And to the Aurors that are so good at their jobs."
Dumbledore says nothing, his eyes still on Tom, unfaltering in their scrutiny.
All the red and gold hanged over the room reminds Tom of something. Of stupid acts of bravery-
"How's Hagrid?" Last Tom saw of him, the giant was trying to fist fight a dark wizard.
Dumbledore gives Tom a small smile. "He has recovered well. He's been in my office daily, asking about you."
"I shall pay him a visit, then. If we're done here?" Tom asks, impatient to be let go.
"I believe we are." Dumbledore has the gall to look saddened.
It irritates Tom greatly. He stands. "Have a good day, sir." He says curtly and heads to the door.
"Tom?"
What more do you want from me?
"Yes?"
Dumbledore is standing as well. "If there ever comes a day when you feel you had been forced into a situation you do not wish to find yourself in, my door is open to you."
Tom bites his lip, crosses the threshold and slams said door behind him, so hard it rattles in its frame.
He'd heard the implication, clearly. Dumbledore seems to believe that Tom's interest in the Dark Arts is imposed on him by Marvolo.
If the old fool would know how long Tom had begged to be allowed to read the books they have in their library, how Marvolo had confiscated any material Tom had stolen from Knockturn-
How dare Dumbledore stand there and speak badly of Marvolo?
(-)
Tom spends the night awake, staring at the flames crackling merrily in the fireplace down in the Slytherin Common Room.
"You alright?" Rodolphus asks, in the early morning, the first to come down the stairs.
Tom nods. Hogwarts is far quieter than usual, with the boys in his year revising for the examinations and with Walburga still trapped in her house, barley able to walk inside her room, unassisted.
Rodolphus looks preoccupied. They'll have their first test in just a few hours, but Tom knows Rodolphus is not concerned over O. .
"What is going on with you?" Tom asks, happy to get out of his head and try to concentrate on anything else. "You've been acting strange all year."
Rodolphus sits beside him. "I've a -" He coughs. "I've a problem. Delicate."
Tom waits in silence.
"I need some help."
"Clearly." Tom comments when another minute passes and no explanation is offered.
"It's bad." Rodolphus is nervous, but determined, his jaw set in that stubborn way of his. "Really bad. Illegal. Not the sort of thing anyone would want to be involved in. I considered coming to you, but you've been dealing with your own stuff lately so-" Rodolphus rubs his temples. "Besides, I won't- I am aware of the consequences and I won't implicate you. All I need, if you agree, of course, is for you to look at a potion I'm trying to brew and tell me if it's well done or not. I won't ask you to brew it for me."
Tom regards him sharply. He should say "no". If Rodolphus thinks it's bad, then it must be downright awful.
Besides, he thinks he knows what potion Rodolphus needs looking at.
"I'm morally flexible." Tom drawls, just as doors start opening in the distance.
Rodolphus gives a little laugh.
(-)
His tests are boring. Tom finishes long before anyone else, with Nott shortly behind him.
Only Nott immediately opens the books for the next subject, with frantic eyes, muttering to himself.
Tom just wanders down the hallways, aimlessly.
The practical ones are better, only because Tom enjoys showing off to the examiner.
They're all very impressed.
Dumbledores walks among the students when they are tested on their practical application of Transfiguration.
"Merlin, this is incredible!" An old man claps when Tom goes far beyond the requirements. "Albus, what a student you have here!"
Dumbledore just nods, once, and moves to observe one of his precious lions struggling to change a bird into a hairpin.
Tom checks on Rodolphus's potion, in a deserted classroom down in the dungeons.
"No." He declares, inspecting it and reading the recipe Rodolphus has provided. "I think you boiled it too much. And I can't see why it turned a dark shade of blue."
Rodolphus looks frustrated, but sticks to his word and doesn't ask Tom for pointers.
"It did kill a thestral and several nifflers." Rodolphus says.
"I'm not saying it's not lethal." Tom picks it up with a wooden spoon from the cauldron and examines how smoothly it drops back. "But I doubt it leaves no traces, as it is."
And that's what interests Rodolphus the most, if he resorted to potions. Otherwise, he knows plenty of other ways to kill someone.
"I'll try again."
Rodolphus is many things, but not a quitter.
Abraxas bends himself backward, trying to do things for Tom, but there is nothing Tom needs from him. It is amusing to see him try, however.
"You seem upset with Alphard, but not with Abraxas." Orion comments one day, trying to stack more cards on an already unstable column.
"I'm not upset with either." Tom says, but next he sees Alphard he acknowledges there is a spike in irritation.
Tom has enough on his plate to try to figure out why.
After he takes his final test, Tom heads to Dippet's office, where he says his farewells to Slughorn and the Headmaster.
(-)
New wards had been set up around the house, on top of the ones they already had.
"Kind of useless, no?" Tom asks. "I mean, they would stop most anyone, but you said a powerful wizard can bypass any ward, if he's determined."
"Grindelwald could circumvent them, yes." Marvolo says, a tick in his jaw. "But it would take him time, and that is all you need to get away."
Tom would grow frustrated, fast, being trapped in his house, unable to go anywhere, but Marvolo stays with him, so that makes it more than tolerable.
"Aren't you needed at work?"
"I can work from here." Marvolo dismisses him, focused on a letter.
"But you're the Undersecretary-"
"I don't care."
While he works, Tom stays close, splayed on the couch, reading or sleeping.
At night, Tom wanders to Marvolo's room, that is hardly used since Marvolo doesn't seem to need much sleep, and takes out the Horcrux from the box. He spends hours just sitting there, playing with it.
Besides the heartbeat in it, Tom can hear his name, whispered in his mind. He shrugs it off. Horcruxes can posses people, but not so fast, and especially not if the person in question is aware.
When he is free, Marvolo teaches Tom how to duel. And Tom though he knew how to do it, but it is nothing compared to what he's shown.
Tom has to use the dragon heartstring wand, his first one, because Marvolo insists the yew wand will be reticent to fight Marvolo's.
"What are the rules?" He asks, the first time they go in the garden, to duel.
As not to destroy the house. Marvolo had explained, which doesn't bode well with Tom.
In his Death Eater meetings, the rules vary. Usually it is first blood, if Tom is in a good mood. If he's in a bad mood, it's "until someone starts crying." Unless that someone is Avery. Than Walburga usually has to pull Tom's hand to make him stop.
"No rules." Marvolo answers him.
"So how do we know when to stop?"
"We will stop when you can no longer stand." Marvolo smirks.
It is not really a duel. Marvolo barley moves, deflecting Tom's attacks without much effort, a running commentary on what Tom does wrong and how to do it better.
When Tom does fall, it's mostly because he had exhausted himself, rather than due to Marvolo's harmless counterattacks.
"We'll do it again tomorrow, yes?" Tom asks when Marvolo helps him back to his feet.
"We will." Marvolo agrees.
"And we'll keep doing it until I win."
Marvolo laughs. "Than we will have to keep at it forever."
It is perhaps meant to insult Tom, but he just smiles. Forever sounds very nice to him.
After Tom whines about it daily, for over a week, Marvolo accepts to take him to visit Walburga.
(-)
"I'm perfectly safe here". Tom says, reasonably, when Marvolo insists to wait for him in Grimmauld's library. "You go back-"
"No."
Marvolo doesn't trust anyone with Tom's safety. He's more paranoid than ever, sees potential betrayals everywhere, eyes staring daggers at anyone.
Orion pretends to keep an eye on his fiancé and Tom, less something improper where to happen.
In reality, Orion gets inside Walburga's room with Tom and goes out the window, leaving them alone.
Walburga's elf, Kreacher, is obsessed with her and even if he has to punish himself, he makes sure no one will bother them.
She's lost some weight, but the colour is coming back to her skin. She looks much better than last he saw her and it pleases him.
"I can't stay very long. Marvolo's waiting for me."
She makes a face. "Marvolo? What happened to 'father'?"
Tom brushes it off. "What's your problem with him?" He demands. "He saved your life, you know."
"He hates me. Always did." She crosses her arms over her chest, chin raised.
"He hates everyone, don't take it personally."
She sighs. "He's-"
"What?" Tom asks, some anger in his tone when she falters.
"Scarry." Walburga finishes, though Tom is quite sure she had something else in mind.
It bothers him. So when pain is sneaking on her and she takes her potions for it, that make her dizzy, Tom lays besides her.
He knows he shouldn't do it, it doesn't sit well with him since it's a violation, but he has to.
Tom looks into her eyes and slips inside her mind, because he does care for her but if she has something against Marvolo, Tom has to know and cut her loose.
It's not like he's searching for himself, or for anything else. He makes a concentrated effort to only see her thoughts on Marvolo and little else.
But, of course, Marvolo's connected with Tom in her mind. She thinks of Marvolo, only in relation to Tom.
Her first memories of him are murky, irrelevant. Just another friend of her Uncle's, until Tom's second year at Hogwarts.
Marvolo must be cruel, she thinks as she watches Tom become more and more upset when no owl comes from him. To cut contact with a child, not even Mr. Malfoy would do something like that.
She sees fear in Tom's eyes, when they take the train to London, for their winter break. She hates it. Fear doesn't look natural on his face. She wants to reach over and hold his hand, to comfort him like she comforts Orion or Cygnus. But he wouldn't allow it. He doesn't like being touched, she'd noticed.
(-)
At the New Year party, Tom seems like himself, all the fear and panic gone from his face. Whatever had happened had been resolved.
And yet, he still spends most of the night peeking towards his father every few minutes.
Look at him! She screams in her head, staring at Marvolo as well, who not even once turns to acknowledge Tom, busy with the rest of the adults.
(-)
Dumbledore catches them in the hallway, handing a stack of papers to Tom.
"You'll find these very interesting, I'm sure. And I will be glad to hear your opinion once you read them." He tells Tom.
He likes Dumbledore, which is akin to a capital crime in Slytherin. He hides it well, but not from her.
"Thank you, sir! I appreciate it." Tom says, honest.
He likes Dumbledore because Dumbledore is intelligent, no matter his faults, because the professor takes interest in him and looks at him often, with a smile, the way Tom desperately wishes his father would.
Tom leaves as the bell rings, not wanting to be late for Charms.
"Professor!" Walburga calls and Dumbledore stops.
"Yes, Miss Black?" He looks surprised. Not many Slytherins interact with him when they can avoid it.
"Tom thinks highly of you." She says, deliberately.
"I'm glad to hear it." He says. "I think highly of him too."
Walburga bites her lip. She doesn't know how to say it. She shouldn't even talk to him, blood traitor that he is. "He- it does him good, when you compliment him."
Dumbledore comes closer, his eyes get sharper.
Walburga takes a big breath. "His father is a strict man." She says.
Dumbledore doesn't look surprised at all. "I see." He says.
Walburga nods. "Alright then."
Dumbledore gives her a smile usually reserved for his stupid lions.
"You are a good friend, Miss Black." He says, kindly.
(-)
New Year parties are very boring without Tom, she finds. She's thrown off by his absence, he'd always been there since he came into her life. She misses his acidic cometary, about anyone that passes through, the way he can use his magic, discreetly but with so much control even a room full of adult wizards can't tell he's responsible for the occasional tripping or small explosions that happen.
She even misses the way he stares at his father.
Abraxas doesn't know why Tom is not there.
"He wrote that something came up." He shrugs, unconcerned.
Mulciber gives her a glass of champagne, when none of the younger boys are around to see it.
Tom would have noticed, she thinks as she drinks it, hastily.
After it, she heads over towards Marvolo.
Men fear him. He's an imposing figure. Walburga fears no one.
"You're so much like your father." People tell Tom all the time, but she thinks they're all mad. They might have the same face, more so as Tom grows, but Marvolo's is so pale, it's like he must never see the sun. All his features are sharper, all bones sticking out, too much to be elegant.
His eyes are cold. Marvolo looks dead.
And in all her life, she'd never met anyone more alive than Tom, whose eyes shine with passion and anger and life.
"Excuse me, sir." She says, voice bold.
He looks down at her, as if she's nothing. Something in those dead eyes tells her that she is less, insignificant.
She straightens her back, reminds herself she is basically royalty, if wizards still held titles, she'd be a princess.
He doesn't answer, just pierces her with that stare.
"I was wondering, where Tom is. Is he alright?"
He stares at her for a few more seconds. She stops herself from shivering. She's no coward, she's an almost Gryffindor. She doesn't get scared, even if her skin tries to crawl away from his eyes.
"Yes." He says and even his voice is dead. Like a deep whisper, cold and penetrating.
"Is he grounded?" She asks, because she sometimes thinks of Tom trapped in a house alone with this man and she doesn't like it. No one went to their house. Ever. Not even Uncle Arcturus. People gossip about what might happen there.
"Walburga, stop bothering Mr. Gaunt!" Her father comes over with a panicked look in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Marvolo, she really should learn some manners. Go, girl. Go join your friends."
When she sees Tom, days later, back at Hogwarts, he says he simply stayed home to read some books his father had gifted him. Walburga doesn't believe him, though the other boys seem to.
(-)
Alphard tells her how Tom, Lestrange and Abraxas had gone to great lengths to avoid the Boggart.
She shares a meaningful look with her brother.
"Funny." She says, though there is nothing funny about it. "I know exactly what that Boggart would show."
Their fathers.
Mr. Lestrange is rumoured to have killed his squib son right in front of Rodolphus. The boy had never showed signs of magic and then one day he just vanished. Off to France, Mr. Lestrange said, but Black relatives in France had never seen the boy.
Mr. Maloy is getting sterner and sterner as the years pass, always onto Abraxas, belittles him for any little thing he fails at. Walburga knows he used to take a belt to Abraxas, back when they were children, and she dreads to think what that had evolved into.
And Marvolo Gaunt- after every break, Tom returns more haunted, more distracted.
"Tom seems to like his father." Alphard says, knowing what she's thinking.
Tom is obsessed with his father. He is Tom's whole world. Four years later he still watches out the widows, eagerly waiting for letters.
(-)
As the fireworks go off, she tries to get closer to Tom, because it would be socially acceptable to hug him for the occasion. He stalks away, straight to his father, alone on the other side of the terrace.
She hadn't known dead things can smile, and she never wishes to see it again. Marvolo Gaunt is a terrifying man when there is no expression on his waxy face.
When he smiles down at Tom, he's the stuff of nightmares.
Come back here , she begs Tom in her head. He doesn't belong far away with his father, in that silent, dark corner.
He belongs with the alive group, with laughter and cheeriness going around.
Will she have to watch him grow up and die inside, every year a little more, until he becomes Marvolo?
(-)
She barley sees him through the summer, and each time he looks worse, circles under his eyes as deep and black as ever.
At the few functions he attends, he looks at his father almost non-stop, often missing question asked of him, distracted.
Marvolo never once returns the favour, more menacing than ever. As the years go by, men are even more cautious around him than they used to be.
There are whispers in Grimmauld Place, low and in the dead of night as Walburga and Alphard try to listen in.
A new dark Lord is emerging, it seems like.
One that Uncle Arcturus seems to support, whole hardly.
Lord Voldemort sounds almost as frightening as Marvolo Gaunt.
(-)
"How is it?" She corners Abraxas, after his punishment for running away is done with and he's allowed outside again. "Tom's place?"
Abraxas shrugs. "Small. Only five rooms." He shudders. "I don't know why they live like that. They're obviously wealthy. At least the grounds are huge."
"What else? How is it? Come on!"
Abraxas gives her a look. "I know you fancy him." He says, looking around and lowering his voice.
"I do not!"
He rolls his eyes. "What do you want to know, Wally? He has a freaky tidy room, he plays Quidditch and reads, has a cat and a snake-"
She never knew he had a cat. It throws her off. A snake, she'd have guessed. But a cat-
"How is his dad?"
"He wasn't there, the whole week. I left when he came back. He's the one that encouraged me to return home. Very fine man. Very fine. I like him."
(-)
He smiles so wide when the train pulls into Platform 9 and 3/4 and he sees his father waiting for him, like he never did before.
She wonders what he sees when he looks at Marvolo, because it can't be the same man the rest of the world sees.
Tom is downright exuberant. She'd never seen him so happy, so anxious to get off the train. He shuffles on his feet, like a restless eleven year old.
It's like she stopped existing. He departs without a single word, heading straight to his father, who stares at Walburga.
She shivers under it, but meets his gaze. You don't frighten me.
Only it's a lie. He does. Because his eyes, for once, aren't dead but filled with a formidable anger that she had seen the ghost of in Tom's, on occasion.
They Disappear from the Platform and Walburga isn't sure what to think anymore, what's happening between the two.
(-)
Tom returns worse than ever. Thinner. Paler. And so very angry, all the time. The boys start to be weary around him.
Everything sets him off. He puts too much power in his curses during dulling sessions.
He's more paranoid than ever. She suspects he makes liberal use of some type of sleeping potions.
(-)
Dumbledore watches Tom as closely as Walburga does.
And while Dumbledore watches all the boys in Slytherin with suspicion and dislike and that is present in his eyes when he looks at Tom, there is also worry there.
She gets summoned to his office, a few days after Fleet and Weasley are found unconscious in the hallway.
Tom and Lestrange are responsible for it. But she's surprised as she climbs the stairs, because she'd always flown under Dumbledore's radar, because he knows how sexist Slytherins are. Pure blood women of high standing don't duel. They are polite and cold and obedient.
And yet, she is called, now-
Dumbledore offers her a lemon candy, that she declines.
"I'm worried, about Tom." He says and Walburga breathes out. "He's not looking very well."
She nods, once, sharply.
She feels like a traitor, speaking to this man.
"I tried contacting his father, but the letters go unanswered."
She nods again, more emphatically and stares at him, Occlumency hard at work but she tries to tell with her eyes that contacting Marvolo will not solve anything.
"You've told me once, that he is a hard man."
She nods again.
Dumbledore seems to understand her predicament. She cannot talk to him. He is the enemy. The MudBlood champion, the breaker of traditions, the one to oppose her family at every turn, wishing to rob them of their privileges.
He's the only one that can help Tom, pull him away from his path to become a dead, cold thing.
"I imagine Tom is under a lot of pressure."
Another nod.
"Most Heirs in the Sacred Families are." He says, and she doesn't nod, because this is something else than the usual strict father.
Dumbledore's smart, if nothing else. He gets it. He's the one that nods.
"I can't do anything, as long as there is no proof." He says.
Walburga has a choice to make. It's for Tom's own good , she thinks.
Only- only that is what her parents said, when they engaged her to Orion. "For your own good, darling."
That is what they said when they wouldn't let her practice duels with the boys as a small girl. "For your own good."
Walburga worries about Tom, but she respects him. Whatever is going on, whatever she thinks is going on, it is his business. And she can try to get him to share with her, but she should never betray his secrets to anyone else, least of all this half blood, well intentioned as he appears.
"His father expects only Outstanding in Tom's exams. I find that is a bit unreasonable, myself. But there is nothing else going on." She says, backtracking. "Tom is simply exhausted, sir. I do not know what proof you speak of."
Dumbledore looks disappointed.
She'd rather die than betray Tom. She'd rather both of them go down in a dark hole than ever snitch on him. Even if it would be for his own good.
(-)
Tom's drunk, tired, on the verge of falling asleep, but still clutching his wand, tightly.
"He's lying." Tom whispers, more to himself than to her. "He's still lying."
She places her fingers on his forehead, traces them down his firm jaw. Such a work of art he is, as if he stepped right out of a perfect painting.
"Does he hurt you?" She asks again, so quiet she can barley hear herself. But it's such a heavy question, she feels as if anyone in a hundred miles can hear it. She feels like Marvolo would manifest right beside her and make her regret it.
"No" Tom insists.
She frowns. Than what's wrong with you? She wants to ask.
As his mind drifts off into unconsciousness, his body remains rigid, ready for attack, his fingers gripping around his wand so tightly, she fears he will break it. Tom struggles in his sleep, curls around himself, in a defensive position.
It breaks her heart to see him in such pain.
(-)
Abraxas and Alphard run and she is very surprised, in that brief second she can spare to give to anything that is not the immense threat around her.
She isn't surprised they fled. No. She's surprised she stayed.
Gryffindor. The hat's voice rings into her head.
She stuns Orion, another Gryffindor, the hat had taken so long with him, she practically knows what it must have said.
But she's proud of him, as she hears him drop to the ground. At least she won't marry a coward.
If she'll get to marry anyone. She falls herself some minutes later and wakes in a firestorm.
The pain is unreal. It shreds her to pieces. The air is thick with smoke and heat, burns going down.
Tom is in the distance, wrestling a man.
She screams his name as the flames advance towards her.
For a second, she's sure he will not come.
Tom is Slytherin, through and through.
She falls unconscious.
(-)
She thinks she's dead when she wakes up, because there's a dead man at her side.
Her mind takes a few seconds to make sense of her surrounding.
Marvolo. She gasps. She must be alive. Or hallucinating, because his eyes are blood red.
"Stay still." He orders.
She's in her bedroom at Grimmauld. She struggles to sit up. "Tom" She says, her voice like shards of glass cutting at her throat.
"Still." A cold hand pushes on her chest and she does still, because she's not fearless Walburga Black. She's a scared young girl, vulnerable and so easy to defeat.
"Tom-" She repeats, even if she doesn't move. "Is he-"
"He's downstairs." Marvolo sneers at her.
Tom's wand is moving above her. She frowns. Why would he use Tom's wand? She lets him work, trying to stay still.
"Why do you hate me?" She whispers an eternity later.
"Shut up." He commands, and he points the wand straight at her face. "Do not speak to me."
She nods and closes her eyes, because he's so terrible to behold, as frightening as the nightmare she woke up from.
(-)
"You are very quiet." Marvolo observes back at their house, looking up from some papers.
Tom knows Marvolo must have seen everything he did in Walburga's head. Much more, since Tom did his best to preserve whatever privacy he could.
"I used Legilimency on her." Tom confesses.
"I doubt it is the first time." Marvolo doesn't seem bothered.
"It was, actually."
Marvolo gives him a weird look. "Is that so?"
Tom nods, slowly. "I wouldn't have allowed her to get so close, if I knew how she thinks of you."
Marvolo laughs. "Child, no one thinks well of me, unless I put in effort into it."
Tom thinks the world of him. He wants to say so, bothered by the matter-of-fact way in which Marvolo stated it.
"She is more insightful than I had suspected. Wrong, of course, in most of her assumptions, but nonetheless. You need not be concerned about her. She's loyal to you. That is all that matters." He makes a derisive noise. "Dumbledore is good at manipulating lost, scared teenagers to his cause. Turn them into spies."
What cause?
"At least she's no fool, to let herself played like that."
No, Walburga is no fool.
"About Dumbledore and what she saw -" Tom starts to say, because Merlin, he had liked Dumbledore, once upon a time, hadn't he? Walburga thinks it's because Tom wanted the attention and approval that he'd lacked at home and it is possible she isn't wrong.
Marvolo raises a hand, shaking his head, once. Apparently he doesn't want to talk about Dumbledore.
"I hate him now, I swear!" Tom insists, because he does hate Dumbledore, especially after their last talk.
"I know."
Tom paces around the room, preoccupied with what he'd seen in Walburga's mind.
She thinks she loves him and it's- Tom would have brushed it off, had she said it, but to feel it, to have that emotion sink into his head…
He thinks that is how people are supposed to feel, towards partners, instead of the passing interest and sporadic spikes of affection he experiences around her.
He'd thought that he cares too much for her. It had sat heavily on his shoulders, uncomfortable and oblivious as to how to deal with his emotions.
But it is nothing compared to how she feels for him. His interest in her is like a drop of water in the ocean, while he is the ocean, for her.
Tom only feels that way about Marvolo and he pities Walburga, because Tom is that drop of water for Marvolo. Even less.
Tom acts much nicer and closer with her than Marvolo does with him.
It's wrong to compare. Very different type of relationships.
Tom frowns, confused.
"We will depart for Russia, shortly." Marvolo's voice drags Tom from his ruminations, which is for the best. "I cannot change my plans, so late, and it is important to be seen making an effort to reach out to the Russian Ministry on behalf of ours. I will just have to find a way to keep you besides me whenever feasible. And when not, when I will have to leave you alone, you are to stay put. Not a single step out of line. You will listen to me to the letter."
"Fine." Tom agrees, because he cannot wait to get out of the house and travel with Marvolo. That is always interesting, and it shall be even more exciting now, with Marvolo having to take him along everywhere.
"Take off your shirt."
Tom blinks at him. "I'm sorry?"
"I do not like repeating myself, you should have leaned that by now."
Tom discards his robe and shirt, confused. Marvolo directs him to sit on the couch, pulling out his wand.
"I will carve a rune on you." He says, bending over Tom.
Tom's shoulders draw back with tension. Placing runes on one's body is a tricky affair. Painful and dangerous. Runes are not meant to reside in living flesh. Not even in ink.
And as he knows, Dark Magic demands that runes are made in blood.
"What rune?" Tom asks, but he doesn't shrink back when the point of Marvolo's wand touches his chest, right above his heart.
"A locator one. In case they take you from me, I will trace you easily."
"They can cut it off-" Tom says, mouth dry, bracing himself for the coming pain.
"They won't be able to. I will bind it to your heart."
Oh, just marvellous.
Are you sure? Is this really necessary? My fucking heart? All questions his mind demands he asks.
But he doesn't. It's Marvolo, he reminds himself. He knows what he's doing.
It is carved in blood. Pain is an understatement. It hurts, and it burns, and it's as if his heart is trying to run away from it. Tom actually feels when the magic from his flesh reaches out, envelops his vital organ.
For a second it squeezes, very tightly, and Tom's afraid his heart will just explode from all the pressure.
It doesn't. The pain and pressure recede, leaving behind just moderate discomfort.
"Don't put dittany on it. Let it heal on its own."
Tom's breathing hard, but he's proud he hadn't made a single sound.
Marvolo hands him his shirt and Tom puts it on, though it's immediately soaked in blood.
Marvolo tilts his head. "Perhaps you can cover it with some bandages until it does heal." He says, wiping his hands on a towel that appeared from thin air.
"I don't know." Tom says, watching his own blood on Marvolo's long fingers and finding it oddly pleasing. "I think I look fetching in red." He says.
Marvolo laughs.
There are no mirrors in the house, except a small one, above Tom's sink. Marvolo must have caught on to Tom's dislike of seeing his reflection.
He didn't just "caught on". Remember how you screamed at him you'll rip your face apart, when you were eight?
Tom snorts. He's been such a dramatic child.
He conjures a mirror and places it just so he can see the rune, still dripping blood all over his abdomen.
He doesn't recognise it. It looks both Scandinavian and Anglo Saxon. Tom puts his fingers over it, traces its edges, not minding the way it stings.
He likes it. Something of Marvolo, always on him, a visible reminder. No matter what happens, Tom will always have a piece of Marvolo's magic residing inside his heart, on his skin, sewed between his muscles. He doesn't want to cover it with anything. He'd rather walk shirtless forever, so everyone can see it.
You are still dramatic, even if no longer a child.
Tom covers it with bandages, less he stains all the house in blood.