Hogwarts, Scotland, March–June 1939
Ilaria Greengrass was at once a profoundly impressive yet deeply irritating figure. The fifth-year Slytherin girls' Prefect, she was also an enchantress capable of spells beyond her years, and a strikingly beautiful witch. Her face was small and foxlike; her eyes, an immaculate cold gray at once constantly alert yet always proud; and her long, honey-brown hair smooth and waving, like sheets of luxurious silk in the wind. Her only competitor in Slytherin was the seventh-year girl's Prefect, Seleste Syrril; both had their throngs of admiring but jealous peers, and each possessed an eminent boyfriend; Syrril had Jean-… Bremer, the star chaser of The Delicate Dementors, while Ilaria had Arcanius Fawley.
Mary enjoyed the favour of this accomplished older girl, but she detested sharing Arcanius' affection with any other girl—even his girlfriend. She admired how Ilaria commanded the respect of older boys and girls alike, but loathed that she was the one who possessed Arcanius' affection in the greatest measure, how she got all the hugs and the kisses. Still, Mary knew to hide her envy.
On the Saturday morning before their first Quidditch game of the season, the Slytherin Common Room was busier (and considerably more colourful) than Mary had ever seen. Everywhere students enchanted and transfigured for each other costumes, props, and all sorts of trinkets to sport in the stadium later in the day. Mary herself sat before a mirror, where Ilaria stood behind her with wand and comb, braiding her hair, transfiguring each braid into a snake. She was to look like Medusa, a legendary ancient Greek transfiguress.
In the mirror, Mary's eyes were captivated by the gem, bright and blue like the sky, that rested on the collarbone of the older girl. It was, without a doubt, the product of sophisticated charmwork. Even in the Slytherin Dungeons where darkness reigned around the clock, it looked like a huge raindrop that absorbed all of the midday sun. It made Mary conscious of her own necklace, the gold-encrusted ruby-heart, which felt very much like a toy for a little girl when compared as such.
"I adore your necklace," purred Mary, smiling. "How did you come to possess it?"
"It was a gift," the older girl intoned reverently, as though she got so many gifts that they were beyond counting, yet still knew the exact value of each of them. "From my grandmother. It's been passed from grandmother to granddaughter for generations, ever since the great Cartismandua Sturgeon — the first of its wearers — was given it by a goblin warlord in the fourteenth century."
For of course, just as Ilaria herself was a living monument to the glory of history and heritage, so was the jewel around her neck. Neither Mary nor her small ruby necklace had any background, at least not a known one. She knew she was more powerful than Ilaria, not absolutely so, no, not yet—but she knew that there were few first-years who had ever been as powerful as Tom and herself, and that Ilaria was, by her own admission, not among them. She would outdo the older girl, someday. She would have a better necklace. Everyone would know of it.
"My fierce little siren." Arcanius came to pat Mary's head.
"Hello, Caney!" Mary gave the handsome older boy a wide smile.
Mary felt her snake-braids instinctively strike at the older boy. She commanded them to stop; thankfully, he was unphased. "Gorgeous charmwork, Aria — you've made the sweet little thing look terribly frightening."
"Well, she has a great duty to fulfil today." Ilaria stroked Mary's hair.
"You've not told her, then ..."
"Told me what?" asked Mary, turning her head from girl to boy. She imagined that perhaps this was what it was like, to have parents.
"I had a little talk with Bassenthwaite," came Arcanius' contemplative voice. "We agreed that Slytherin should have a new flag-bearer, and, well, who better than you, Mary?"
"Truly?" Mary clutched the older boy's arm. "I would be honoured!"
Thus, at the first Quidditch game she ever watched, Mary stood in the front row of the Slytherin stand, and, occasionally plopped atop the shoulders of one burly older boy or the next, waved their house banner. A glorious flag, wider than she was tall, it sported a huge, scaly silver snake that hissed threateningly whenever the Ravenclaw players came close to the Slytherin hoop, and victoriously, whenever the Slytherin players threatened the Ravenclaw one.
"LIKE FATHER LIKE SON," yelled Augustus Sallow, their possessed seventh-year prefect, "WE WON'T BE OUTDONE!"
"LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, WE WON'T BE OUTDONE!"
"THROW YOUR SHOTS, THE SNAKES'LL ALWAYS OWN GRINGOTTS!"
"THE SNAKES'LL ALWAYS OWN GRINGOTTS!"
"WE'LL CATCH THE SNITCH, AND THEN WE'LL CATCH YOUR WITCH!"
"THEN WE'LL CATCH YOUR WITCH!"
Such was the nature of the Slytherin 'war-cries', as Mary learned they were called: allusions to the social eminence of Slytherin families; reminders that even if the game was lost, they would still lose nothing, for they were forever and always winners beyond the pitch; and simple boyish vulgarity.
Mary, though she cheered and waved her house's giant flag whenever they scored a goal, not only failed to understand the fervour of her housemates, but felt unnerved by it. A screeching throng of adolescents, most of whom were boys, unanimous in purpose and intention—it reminded her rather of Wool's. Nor did she understand the pride for Slytherin; she was proud of being a witch, yes, of being clever and beautiful, and of being a flower in a bouquet of two, with Tom—but she had no affinity for her house.
Yet it was all the same delightful to watch the game. Her heart belonged not to either team but rather the great choreography of it all; she saw two troops of birds, one green and the other blue, engage in a ritual that was a combat between dancers, a ballet of war. It was especially beautiful when any pair of chasers flew together through the pitch, like unravelling, intertwining ribbons, seamlessly sending the quaffle back and forth, back and forth, like a pendulum that undulated faster than a shooting star could cross the sky.
At last Dorea Back, the Slytherin seeker, caught the golden snitch—the game was won.
Though the stand erupted in cheers at the win, it quickly pacified again—the spirits were high, but the celebration was pragmatically minimal. "This is the first step in a long campaign," Arcanius explained to her, "but I have faith we'll make it to the finals — we always have."
Since their first flying lesson, during which most of the first-years, Tom, and herself flew about like clumsy monkeys trying to ride bicycles, Mary had a rather bad and unfair impression of the magical broomstick and what it could achieve. Tom was equally disillusioned, which was why he had refused even to come to the game. But now Mary understood the heart of flying; it was to not only to be free from the constraints of the wingless body, but also a means by which one could be intimate—whether in harmony or antagonism—with others.
Thus as they walked back to the castle, Mary implored Florence to help her realise her dreams. "Flo! You've got a broomstick, haven't you? You must teach me Tom and I how to fly!"
Like a rose unfurling its petals, so did excitement bloom on Florence's face at the promise of Tom. "Why of course! We'll do it at night, after dinner — it'll be lovely to fly about the castle when it's quiet."
"If we want quietness, we should sneak out after curfew," Mary suggested with mock innocence. "Hide your broom somewhere, perhaps under a bench in one of the courtyards — we'll come for it at night, it'd be too noticeable if you just walked out with it."
"Oh joy, I know just where to hide it."
For the rest of the day Mary was restless; she wanted nothing more than to soar freely like the Quidditchers did earlier in the day. She spent the remaining hours of the afternoon and evening with Tom who, unsurprisingly, was utterly immersed in a book in the library. Mary herself could not concentrate on anything at all, and thus took to irritating him.
"Tom, Tom … Tommie!" She poked his still nose with a quill. "Look at me!"
He raised a single indifferent figure to touch the quill. Without a word, it caught fire and, within no more than five seconds, was nothing but a small pile of ash on the table.
"Hey! That belonged to Lucy!"
"And?"
"And you've burnt it to nothing!"
"What's she going to do? Cry about it?"
"Yes exactly," Mary vanished the ashes from the table. "Now Walburga'll tell her to never lend anything else to me."
"Just steal from her, Mary."
"Steal her stuff for me."
"I don't think I will."
"You're becoming such a bore." She snatched his book from his hands. "We beat Ravenclaw today, though that's no surprise, since they just sit around and sit all day."
Tom lifted an eyebrow. "The difference between a Ravenclaw and I is that I put to use what I learn."
He told the truth. Mary knew that Tom did nothing idly; as though life were one great potions lesson, he instinctively and necessarily calculated the intervals for everything he did to serve some greater purpose—and everything had to be done to perfection, lest one fault ruin it all. She did not know whether she was the same, but it was only at Hogwarts that she realised he was truly, truly so very different from the rest of the squabbling crowd.
"Dorea Black caught the snitch," Mary recalled. "She's not supposed to be very good, not any better than the Gryffindor seeker at least — so it was a nice surprise."
"Now that you've seen one," began Tom, indifferent to the news, "you needn't waste your time watching any more Quidditch games after today."
"It was … beautiful … to watch." Mary recalled how they soared like eagles but harmonised like songbirds. "You've never seen anything like it, Tom. We'll go to the next Slytherin game together."
"There's use in flying on a broom," Tom conceded, "but our housemates become dumb and muggle-like, when they make they talk about the sport on which it's played."
"Use indeed! Very well then — tonight we're going flying with Florence. She's got a broom and she's got the skills to teach us."
After dinner, where the mood on the Slytherin table was particularly heated—a man named Leonard Spencer-Moon had nominated himself for Minister for Magic, and was gaining support among every segment of Wizarding Britain, even those families of the highest crust who traditionally only supported men like Hector Fawley—Mary and Tom retired to their respective dorms. Only late into the night, when the corridors of the castles quietened and where their peers were already in bed, did they and Florence tiptoe to rendezvous in the common room.
"Oh hello, Tom," said Florence. Her voice always became high and demure around him. "Let's go get my broom."
They had rarely walked the corridors of the castle so late at night; sometimes, Mary accompanied Arcanius on his little supper voyages to the kitchens, but never had she gone exclusively with other first-years. Florence had fixed her Cleansweep Two, a long, pleasingly smooth black pole which gleamed under the moonlight, under a long stone bench in one of the courtyards by the Entrance Hall. From there on, they tiptoed out the castle, narrowly avoiding a pair of patrolling prefects.
"You'll need to get a sense of how a broom can move," Florence told them. "The best way to achieve that is if you ride passenger first — I'll fly you!"
Mary knew Florence wanted Tom to sit behind her, which was why she rushed to the broom first, before Tom came on to hold her. Then, Florence soared into the air, only to suddenly dive down, before accelerating at a permanent curve to fly in quick, small circles. Mary cheered in exhilaration; the velocity of the chilling wind killed all the remaining semblances of sleepiness in her, and her spine tingled as Tom tightly pressed into her. Then, she looked down, and realised that they had hardly even left the ground, and that Florence must have been going very, very slowly.
"You can give it a go now — don't fly too far so I can tell you if you're doing anything wrong."
Only a couple metres from the castle walls, the twins and Florence at first only whispered to each other, fearing that any noise made at all might draw the attention of some lurking Professor or Prefect. As they realised that they were truly alone, they rapidly lost all inhibition.
"You've got to arch your arms!" Florence shouted at Mary from the ground. "Like a butterfly's wings, see! But still, you've got to steer with your body!"
It was thus that they practiced for some time; either Tom or Mary, or both of them, would ride the broom and hover slowly in circles a few feet into the air, while Florence shouted instructions at them from below.
By the time they returned to their dormitories, it was three o'clock—besides the snoring of some portraits, the castle was engulfed in quietness. Mary and Florence restrained their giggles as they strained to get into bed without waking the others. Drowsy, heavy-headed, and aching all over the next morning, the twins ate twice their usual share of breakfast.
"Perhaps we'll do this once a week," said Mary, stifling a yawn. "I haven't ever felt so sore."
"It'll take a while for our bodies to heal," came Florence, who slumped over the table with her head on her plate. "I don't want to go to class today."
Yet in the afternoon, after History of Magic during which they napped to Professor Binn's monotonous drone, the girls recuperated their energy, and decided they would sneak out at night again. They established a routine of feasting copiously every breakfast, napping every afternoon, and drinking pepper-up potions every night to prepare for their forbidden expeditions.
Though they improved steadily, flying slightly higher and faster every time they practiced, Mary still felt uncomfortable on a broom. She could not naturally steer how Florence did. She did not feel like the broom was an extension of herself. Always, she feared falling off if she flew too high or too fast, though she knew well to yell Arresto Momentum if that were to ever happen.
Their excursions went undetected for three weeks—the patrolling Prefects never went near the exit of the Western Entrance Hall courtyard, the route to which was from the Slytherin common room fortunately short—until one day there were a pair of them, a boy and a girl, perhaps lovers, who went out of bounds of their own patrol parameters.
"Prefects!" Florence shouted frantically, pointing a finger at the pair of silhouettes a hundred feet away, who had not only spotted them, but were rapidly charging towards them. "RUN!"
Mary, whose long legs and graceful physique enabled her to run faster than Florence, got to the broom first. There was no protest from the former at Mary being the flier, perhaps because she finally got to get hugged by Tom from behind. With everyone atop the Cleansweep, Mary took off.
"Stop!" yelled the boy Prefect. He was much closer than she expected.
"Faster!" Tom commanded. "Even if he can't catch us he'll see us — faster!"
But it was hard to go faster. She was used to flying alone or with either Tom or Florence at her back, never both of them. Thus, the difficulty was twofold. As the weight she had to support was twice of that to which she was accommodated, it was not only heavier, but also difficult to steer by virtue of being unfamiliar—it would be difficult to smoothly cast spells if her wand doubled in weight.
"Get back here! The farther you run, the more points we'll deduct!"
"SSSERPENSORTIA FLAGRANTĒ!"
"PROTEGO!"
Heat and light pierced the cold midnight air. Shocked, Mary looked back and—both to her relief and awe—beheld a huge snake made of fire that erupted from Tom's wand to strike the Prefects. The boy Prefect managed to conjure an invisible shield, and maintained it against the raging, pounding snake, which only delayed rather than prevented their pursuit.
Her brother would burn someone, blister their skin and melt their flesh, just so that she would not be seen. Mary was motivated to return the favour: rather than continue to fly forward, she flew up. She went higher and higher, higher and faster she ever had flown before, with more blood and excitement pumping through her veins than she thought possible—she became an angel, who knew the will and reality of God as easily as a human knew the sun in the sky—and flew over the castle, cheering in ecstasy.
She could finally fly.
However, over the next few days, they did not dare go out, in fear that the same Prefects would take greater measures to catch them. But without a broom between her legs, the days became increasingly stale and choking to Mary—she needed to be aflight in the air again.
After two weeks of cautious boredom, the twins and Florence made their next excursion. However as they tiptoed their way to their usual courtyard exit, they were suddenly immobilised, for a pair of invisible walls fell to sandwich them in suspension.
Around the corner came a pair of silhouetted Prefects, the girl with her wand pointed at the twins. As she came closer so did the shiny silver-blue thing on her chest grow clearer and clearer; it was Ilaria's sapphire necklace! At night, it was even more beautiful; it refused to let the darkness subdued it, while also not permitting its own light to be too bright, too glaring, so that it concurred with everything—it was seductively luminescent, like the reflection of the moon in a still lake.
"Aria!" Mary exclaimed. "Good evening."
Ilaria Greengrass lowered her wand. The invisible walls crumbled and the first-years regained their freedom. "Good evening girls, good evening Tom," she toned ironically, spying Florence's Cleansweep. "Going for a little midnight jaunt, are we?"
"The Riddles!" exclaimed her suddenly energised Ravenclaw partner. "They must be the ones who attacked Macmillan with the fire-snake —"
"Without a doubt," Ilaria affirmed, "but you shall tell this to no one."
"What! They deserve to lose two hundred points for —"
"No!" Ilaria snapped. "They need to know how much danger they've put themselves in — a pair of first-year girls with no one but a first-year boy to protect them, wandering the castle alone at night … have you any idea what could happen to you?"
"Tom's no ordinary first-year boy!" Florence blurted. "You know that."
"Don't be silly, Travers," Ilaria intoned. "If some of the very older boys in the castle knew the pair of you were here, they'd have a mind to find you, and do unmentionable things to you."
Mary however took no heed to Ilaria's words; her gaze was glued to the sapphire, whose subtle lunar glow was utterly tantalising—the light on it ebbed like water, as though it were a surface of a lake reflecting the moonlight. Nonetheless, she said what she had to say. "I'm sorry, Aria ... we found it a very lovely thought, to fly when there's no one around. We didn't think of how dangerous it would be."
"Very well then. Do not act so thoughtlessly again . You are a Slytherin — sense, rather than obstinacy, is your virtue. Though, I'll allow you to continue to fly after midnight — but only when I am on patrol. I will lend you my broom as well, one broom seems hardly enough to share between three."
"You're too good to us!" Mary burst forth to hug the older girl. "Thank you Aria!"
"I hate Ilaria," Mary whispered to Tom as they worked intimately over a cauldron during potions the next day. "She's too in my way. She gets Caney all to herself, and now she won't let us fly unless under her supervision."
Privately, Tom appreciated Ilaria's injunction. Though he already missed wrapping himself around his sister's warm, soft body as they flew together every night to brave the nocturnal wind, he was once again able to sleep properly—and when he slept properly, he thought clearly, which was the basis of all magic, all power. Moreover, the idea that they would get to use one of Ilaria's brooms pleased Tom; he and Mary would settle on one broomstick, and Florence on the other, permanently—he was irritated by the latter's fixation on him.
"Why does it matter that she gets Arcanius 'to herself?'" asked Tom, grinding a bezoar to dust in his mortar.
"Caney should be mine." Mary aggressively stirred her potion. "I want him."
"You fancy him, Mary?"
"He's the Minister's son," Mary said, as though it were an obvious, justifying fact, "and he's clever and gentle. He's mine!"
"Let go of your fancy," Tom commanded. "He's already fond of you, you don't need his love."
But Mary persisted in her violent stirring, her long hair wobbling back and forth as her whole body shook from the impassioned motions of her arm.
Tom prodded further. "Ilaria's more powerful than you."
"I can still hurt her."
However, for the days and weeks that followed, it was unclear to Tom how Mary would hurt the older girl. Whenever they went out at night to fly under Ilaria's supervision, Mary was nothing but utterly friendly, even grovelingly so, to her. Whenever Tom asked, Mary claimed she was biding her time—but for what, she would not tell. Indeed, Mary was withholding secrets from him, and he understood why. He knew his sister knew that he had no affinity for Arcanius Fawley, and moreover she knew that he knew she had an unquenchable desire for him. Such a chasm could not have emerged between them, before Hogwarts, and unsurprisingly in it there grew reptiles of secrecy and distance.
He did not blame her either, for there were also things he did which she disapproved. Amongst these was his command of a group of boys, counting William Wilkes, Banius Avery, and a pair of second-years, who brutalised weak, solitary members of other houses with spells that he taught them. Mary had no sympathy for the victims; rather, she detested the way Wilkes and the second-years looked at her with eyes full of naked lust. She detested that Tom not only tolerated their obscene stares, but even spent much time with them that he could otherwise have spent with her.
At any rate, the object of his sister's plans were revealed to him one certain night, when they went out of the castle to fly. Florence Travers, with a motion so graceful that Tom thought she was handling a baby bird, took something out of her pocket.
Ilaria's necklace.
Like a murderer washing the blood of her hands, Mary ceremonially set it around Florence's neck. It looked like a shrunken little moon; wondrously, where at day it was a deep, pensive shade of blue, at night it became so silvery, so seductive, that it became half-lifelike, the white eye of a ghost.
Mary's own glinting eyes turned to Tom. He remembered that she had, for the past few weeks, rather obsessively practiced the switching spell.
The next day at breakfast, Tom leaned over his plate to peer down the table where all the eminent older students sat. To an inattentive observer, Ilaria Greengrass was composed, proud, and judgmental—but Tom saw that her thin lips were more drawn than usual, as though she were clenching her teeth, and that the corners of her eye were creased, as though she wanted to glare, but consciously refrained from doing so. Moreover, there was nothing but a solitary slice of toast on her plate, which she had violently split in half and left untouched since.
Throughout the day, news of Ilaria's misfortune spread; by the afternoon even the first-years were talking about it. Tom was decidedly annoyed. Muggle girls and women fretted over jewellery because there was little else for them in life. That magical girls, and even boys, made a great fuss out of a missing necklace, seemed a mortal sin to Tom. Why did it matter? It was so little compared to Magic. But they cared so little for magic—so little for Metamagicology, for Ritual, and for The Statute's diminishment of the two.
As the days passed, Florence grew emboldened by the stolen necklace; at night when they flew, she was much more prone to chit-chat with Tom than before, as though she now had a license to do it. It was disrespectful. How could she not see that Tom cared neither for her nor her necklace? That Tom tolerated her only because she was his sister's friend? How could she not see that she was in every way—power, intelligence, charm, and beauty—inferior to Mary? After all, it was Mary who stole the necklace for her and transformed her into the irritating bint that she had become.
Indeed, Tom thought, Mary stole the necklace for her. Thankfully, Florence was careful and only flaunted it at night; but if anyone discovered her with it, they would know at once who truly procured it—only so many first-year girls were capable of casting the swapping charm. It was not something they were expected to know until they mastered the summoning and banishing charms; these alone were to wait until fourth-year.
Tom understood that the curriculum was designed so that most students could keep up with it. This is why he flouted it and studied whatever he liked. Yet he was not absolutely above the fray: in some classes, he was truly ignorant—and deliberately so. Herbology was one such class; he saw no use in glorified gardening. He preferred (and was far more adept at) hurting plants than nurturing them. Mary was of the same mind as him, and in fact, her distaste for the subject was more plain to see than his—she skipped Herbology classes entirely.
"You should at least come," Tom had told her. "The Professors adore us — we're brilliant and moreover, always well-behaved. Wagging classes undermines this."
"Professor Beery doesn't care," Mary said easily. "I doubt he even knows who's in his classes."
"All the Professors notice us. They relate and reinforce what they see — and they like us because of the consensus they make together."
"Well, I haven't gone to Herbology since January — all the other Professors like me still."
"Then come at least sometimes," Tom concluded. "You mustn't fall too behind, we can't drop Herbology until fifth year."
Mary reluctantly came with him every second week. Tom would not have minded this were it not for the fact that, during her off-weeks, she spent her time with Arcanius Fawley or other profligate older boys. He would approve of her skipping every Herbology class, if she went to the library to read and broaden her magical spirit—but what reading was to him, commanding the affection of boys was to her.
As he walked back alone from Herbology one day, on the path along the Black Lake, he conjured a rock and skidded it across the still water. Like a leaping, potion-addled grasshopper, it traversed the lake in rapid bounces, each impact on the water generating a large ripple, many of these ripples colliding with each other to foment even more little waves.
Ahead of him skipped Walburga and Lucretia Black.
"Trust is dying," Walburga stiffly asserted. Tom knew she was about to go on a tirade to her quiet, receptive cousin.
"English pureblood culture is built on trust — take your dad, Lucy — he hosts parties because he trusts his guests to not steal his paintings, abuse his elf, or flirt with his wife — he can't make sure of these, but they have his trust."
Paintings, elves, and wives — these are trifles, Tom thought, they would not matter, if the pureblood elite aspired to things higher than them.
"Whoever stole Ilaria Greengrass's necklace," Walburga continued icily, "has still not returned it. Such selfishness! They don't even know it, but they've deprived all of Slytherin, not just Greengrass!"
Now, Tom was struck by an idea. He caught up with Walburga. "Come to think of it, I saw Florence sporting a necklace the other day. It looked much too large and grand on her."
"Travers!" Walburga spat. "You have to tell me, Tom, how did it look?"
"The lace was silver, but the pendant itself was an enchanted sapphire," Tom recalled calmly. "I thought it must've been a birthday gift from her father."
"Torquil Travers has neither the wealth nor the taste for that!" Walburga snapped. "What you saw, Tom, was Greengrass' stolen heirloom!"
"That may be so," Tom said with mock thoughtfulness, "but I'm afraid I have to go — Professor Slughorn awaits me for a private appointment."
Tom sped up to the castle. He did not have an appointment with Slughorn; he was going to the library.
What will happen now, I wonder? Walburga, Tom thought, hated Florence. The two embodied different worlds. Walburga sought to maintain 'properness' everywhere; Florence believed that the fulfilment of her own desires was the only proper thing in the world. Walburga would, self-righteously, reveal to Ilaria that Florence stole her necklace. She would not mention Tom, whose raw observation she would render into verdict—she wanted only to implicate Florence, but moreover she wanted Ilaria's undiluted favour.
Where Walburga and Florence were heroines respectively of manners and desire, Ilaria Greengrass was a goddess of wrath. Indeed, there was always something volatile and repressed in the older girl, even before the theft of her necklace. She liked being in control, but she rarely had control. Arcanius Fawley, disregarding even the fact that he was a year younger than her formidable girlfriend, was very much her opposite—always acquiescent and tempered—a necessary complement to her, the garden to her fortress. More than a fortress, Ilaria Greengrass was a hot kettle; one could use her to pour tea, but if one touched her, their hand would burn. Thus she would wage nothing short of war against Florence; she would banish her from the interlocking rings of judging, calculating Slytherin girls.
Mary, too, would become a victim of Ilaria. Tom accepted this. Walburga had no way of inferring the means of her theft, but Ilaria would; Ilaria would know that the greater girl was complicit in the great crime of the lesser girl, and would glimpse at once, a fraction of the terrifying, terrific reality that Isaac Booth had witnessed in full glory years ago—that Mary Riddle was as indifferent to suffering as she was powerful.
That Ilaria was both wand and wizard of her relationship (Arcanius was the fancy robes and hat) meant that she would, if not turn her boyfriend's heart from Mary, at least turn off his support for her, just as she could swiftly turn off a water-tap that had been erroneously left on for weeks. There were already those in their house resentful, envious, and perversely desirous of the twins—it would be a boon to them for Ilaria to cast Mary out of the spheres of social protection.
Then Mary would have to return to Tom. She would quickly infer that it was he who tattled on her, but she would not grudge him for it—she would not be able to do so, emotionally; there would be no point in it either. She would chide him privately, but publicly they would necessarily be together. It would be like Wool's again. The two of them against the world. They would have limited aid from the few who knew that Tom's hitherto limited Magic would soon eclipse that of both Greengrass and Fawley (and in fact everyone knew, but few had the patience for it—neither wizards nor muggles were capable of thinking far ahead—only those who were with him every day would know), and that one day he would be the one banishing unwanted weaklings and subverters from his domain.
Mary would have to set aside her trinkets and prized older boys (whose inertia and weakness was contagious—Tom no longer saw any use in them) for true Magic—they would need Magic and each other to defend themselves. And just as cauldrons required fire to make dirt and herbs into the glowing, potent substance known as potion, so would the twins amplify in power under heat.
And as the weeks and months came and passed, all that Tom speculated came to pass.
A/N: Hello dear readers — this chapter concludes Mary and Tom's journey as first-years! Thank you for having bore with me. Chapter two marked the summer preceding the twins' first-year; the chapter following this one will begin in the summer preceding their second one. I would greatly appreciate reviews.