London, August 1939
London was a potions' classroom in the shape of a city. When it was not cold, dark, and damp, it was certain to be hot and suffocatingly humid. In turn when it was hot and humid, so did fog and smog shroud everything and everyone. One always felt dirty at potions. The cauldron vapours were disgusting and malevolent—they made your face dirty and your hair mangled. Moreover, the stuffiness of the room always made you sweat like a pig inside your robes. Were it not for the availability of showering immediately afterwards, Tom would not have tolerated potions. Wool's was not so terrible; the humidity of London was not so grave as the odorous humidity of a potions classroom; but as he and Mary were accustomed to the luxurious, magical bathtubs of the Slytherin dormitories, the prospect of those decrepit, colourless little cubicles they called 'showers' at the orphanage was not an inviting one.
Yet, Tom found that neither he nor Mary could tolerate going without showering for more than a week. It was thus that they returned to Abney Park cemetery, one of the city's oldest graveyards and a veritable forest, which they considered more of a home than the orphanage itself. There, Mary sat on a flat gravestone, her long legs sprawled over the fading plague, her feet dangling off it. Tom recalled that she sat in this exact position a year ago; she was, back then, much shorter, much more childlike, and dare he say it, much kinder to him.
Now, she was even taller than him. Now, she gets very cross with him sometimes. Girls reached adolescence before boys, after all.
"Caney wasn't yours to take, Tom," she would murmur to him, often out of nowhere, fraught with restrained anger. "Caney wasn't yours to take."
"I saved you from wasting time with him," Tom would always say. She never understood him.
With buckets of conjured water and soap, they washed each other amidst the graves.
"You're growing up," Tom said in hushed tones, tracing a finger along her exquisite waist.
"Well noticed." She grasped his wrist to stop him. "Wash my hair — that green vial's Florence's oil — rub it in. Gently, Tom!"
Before Hogwarts, she never had any stipulations on how her hair ought to be washed. Tom used to douse it in fruit juice and decorate it with flowers. Now, having lived among other girls, she knew how to beautify herself properly—and Tom conceded that this was a boon—though she had always been vain.
But he, too, was vain. What the muggle priest called vanity, was in fact dignity—and it was nothing more than a case of sour grapes that the miserable magicless race scorned that which they could not attain. As Tom tousled his vain sister's hair with his vain hands, his vigilant eyes scrambled all over his field of vision. Perhaps there was a muggle watching them, ogling Mary's lithe, tender form—come out, Tom thought, see what she will do to you.
No perverted muggle ever came. The twins were left undisturbed. In fact, they were left undisturbed for the rest of their summer. The other orphans left them alone out of fear, and they left the orphans alone out of disgust. In fact, they did very little, for they were not permitted to do magic outside of Hogwarts—for the first time of their lives, they spent a week, then a month, then the entirety of summer in London without committing a single crime.
Hogwarts, Scotland, September 1939
Once the cool night breeze became the cozy, dry warmth of Hogwarts' torchlit interior, Tom found himself back in the broad familiarity of the Great Hall. However, though there were still thousands of candles floating over four long tables, and though these tables were still laid with glittering golden plates and goblets, something was different—there was, by the side of every goblet on each table, a rolled-up newspaper.
The sight was terribly bizarre. All of the older students who had arrived and seated themselves before Tom were reading the paper. He had never seen so many people reading newsprints at the same time since he and Mary took the Tube once, for fun. But the eerie, sombre manner in which they read—some were utterly quiet, while others furiously whispered—suggested that something quite severe had transpired.
As Tom seated himself at the Slytherin table, he took the copy by his goblet, and unrolled it—
BRITAIN AND FRANCE DECLARE WAR ON GERMANY
Headquarters of the Danzig High Mages' Council overrun—Duke Wodnik forced to surrender personally by Grindelwald
Tom blinked. Should he have felt fear? Perhaps sickness, or even excitement? It seemed as though that which was inevitable and implicit had finally become real, so he felt nothing.
Beneath the Daily Prophet Headline was a moving black-and-white photo of Grindelwald himself, doing precisely what the subheading described.
The photo, like a very short film, began with a close-up shot of a stone wall. Like a small sheet of plaster getting smashed by a large hammer, the wall exploded, revealing a man with a raised wand, whose face was contorted with such fervor that he seemed possessed by a joyous demon—Gellert Grindelwald.
Lucifer, the ruler of the fallen angels, the greatest renegade among renegades, was the most beautiful being of God's Creation—Grindelwald's wild, curling coils of blonde hair blew from his handsome head like rolling foam from a furious storm-wave, and in his determined yet unhinged eyes was a glint of boyish glee, of childish haughtiness—he was a child donned in the robes of death, a mystical Napoleon who still remembered the hazy Mediterranean afternoons of Corsica. Though his coat was rather nondescript, something between a blazer and a robe, it billowed against him as though he was standing from a precipitous cliff, bracing the irate wind of the Baltic Sea. He haughtily walked towards the Duke—an elderly but upright looking man who, in any other setting, would have looked handsome and imperious in his tailored robe with his long, dark hair—but who in the face of Grindelwald, was clearly every bit the weaker wizard and man.
As Tom raised his head to examine Mary's response to the news, the huge front doors of the hall opened, and the loud creaking and whining of its heavy hinges resounded through, before a much quieter sound became audible—the pit-a-pat of a dozen quiet footsteps. The new first years. They stopped, and the Sorting Hat broke out in song.
"It was nearly a thousand years ago,
When masons and wizards, from to and fro
Fashioned a castle midst barren snow,
Hogwarts was her name, protection was her aim …"
Tom supposed Sorting Hat was trying to assuage everyone, particularly the new students, in face of the grim news. He didn't need any reassurances himself. The Great Hall burst into applause.
"When your name is called, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," Professor Merrythought exclaimed, "Alderton, Mortimer!"
A rather tall boy, an early bloomer, with dishevelled dark hair and thick-rimmed eyeglasses, walked towards the stool and sat down, placing the hat on his head. A shallow thought occurred to Tom; his eyeglasses suggested that he would become a Ravenclaw—but the Hat's shout vindicated her.
"RAVENCLAW!"
Sorting continued. Antonia Cole was sorted into Gryffindor, Lydia Cotterill into Slytherin, John Dawlish into Gryffindor, Cornelius Fudge into Slytherin, Arthur Hill into Gryffindor. There was nothing in the new students, not an intelligent glint in their eyes nor a certain poise in their bearings, that particularly caught Tom's attention.
Then, Professor Merrythought called, "Malfoy, Abraxas!"
A thin blonde boy slowly walked towards the stool. His hair was pulled back over his head and held at his shoulders—a hairstyle that, for a boy, immediately suggested purebloodedness. His face, which was as white as a marble grave, would've been handsome if it weren't for how sickly he was—he looked dehydrated and underfed, and his conspicuous grey eyes looked absently ahead, in a way that uncomfortably reminded Tom of the vacant, unmoving eyes of statues in muggle London.
Even the hat must've thought something was wrong with him—a minute passed, and then two, while the hall remained in utter silence. Abraxas Malfoy's small weight seemed to sag on the chair; with the hat covering his eyes, Tom had the suspicion that he had fainted. Eventually, however, the hat delivered—
"SLYTHERIN!"
As though they were told they won the house cup, the Slytherin table burst into cheers. Malfoy, however, was hardly encouraged by his ovation—he walked slowly towards his new house's table with the same glum expression he had worn during his sorting.
Malfoy's sorting proved to be the longest of his lot. Septimus Weasley was the last to be sorted, and he was placed into Gryffindor.
The Headmaster looked a lot older and haggard than Tom remembered, though he supposed that he was 302 years old—it was only natural that he looked permanently on the verge of death. His skin, creased like a scrunched up tissue, coupled with his frail stature and loose-fitting purple robe that looked like an Egyptian ruler's funerary gown, gave Tom the sense that he was beholding an animated corpse, a well-groomed Inferius with a sense of fashion.
"Welcome, everyone — first years and new Prefects, Professors and Aurors, to a new year at Hogwarts," he began in a raspy though clear voice. "You will have noticed that copies of The Daily Prophet have been placed by your goblets. They were printed three hours ago, and — indeed — before the Wizengamot, Minister Fawley has declared war on Grindelwald's coalition."
Whispers broke loose in the hall. It was quite clear that coalition was an euphemism—Mary supposed it was more comforting to hear than the combined forces of wizarding Germany, Austria, and Czecho-Slovakia.
"But I assure you —" The Headmaster suddenly thundered in continuation "— that Hogwarts is safer than it has ever been, and that Britain herself, in both her Magical and Muggle domains, will mobilise and mount a spectacular defense should evil dare beset her. With this established, you shall continue to receive editions of The Daily Prophet every Sunday, for it is integral to your education that you become enlightened in current affairs, however morbid they may be."
Expectedly, murmurs of agreement broke out at the Headmaster's proclamation.
"Now that our affairs are in order, let the feast begin!"
And the feast began.
The Start and End-of-Term feasts were the most indulgent of the Hogwarts banquets; appetisers, main courses and desserts were served simultaneously, and everything looked as though it came from either a fancy restaurant or a picnic set for the Royal Family. There were multisyllabic French dishes—Bouillabaisse and Cassoulet—set alongside the homely pastries and gravy-laden staples of England.
Tom had suspected that the Headmaster's newspapers would have extinguished his peers' appetites, but he was wrong. The banquet was as festive as a banquet could be; chatter and excited gossip (surprisingly about the war, rather than frivolities to distract from the war) burgeoned hotly among the student body, while the platters and bowls of food depleted at a regular pace.
"We've all been dupes, that's for sure," declared Antoine Rosier, a rather bold first-year with curly, brown hair and a face that, for whatever reason, distinctly annoyed Tom. "Grindelwald's a mudblood lover. He's done nothing against the Muggles, and what — fifty, sixty wizards died in Danzig? On both sides?"
"Thing is, he'd need to deal with the plethora of blood traitors before he deals with the Muggle problem," Alexius Lestrange patiently told the first-year. "Y'have to cure your own dragon pox before you can heal others."
"Plethora," Amos Nott chimed in thoughtfully. "That's a big word, Lestrange."
"Wodnik ran Danzig the right way, too," continued Rosier. "No mudbloods in any of the important positions. And Grindelwald? He's the saviour of bloodthirsty mudbloods, centaur despots and what-have-you!"
Tom stabbed his steak in irritation. His house-table's debate on Grindelwald was utterly idiotic—first-years and forth-years flinging moral screeds at one another, like mandrakes throwing soil into each other's pots. To Tom, the contention could be reduced to two considerations: firstly, that if magical organisations exclusively comprised of legacy purebloods were truly superior to other organisations, they would be able to defend themselves against the latter by means of their wands, without the need to resort to debate—and secondly, if wizard-kind was to unite against the Muggle world for a war of conquest, wizards would necessarily fight other wizards, for not everyone could be persuaded.
"I bet he'll cut off the mudbloods and centaurs once he's done with them," William Wilkes noted wryly. "He's using them — he doesn't truly care for what they want."
"Purebloods have died 'cause of him and we're no closer to ending the Statute of Secrecy!" Rosier whined.
"I, for one, think we need the Statute," said Oscar Montgomery. "Grindelwald's just like the mudbloods who fight for their muggle countries. He does what he wants, and all of us are worse off for it."
More fundamentally, the moving photo in The Daily Prophet showed a truly powerful wizard dominating a pathetically ordinary one. The way Gellert Grindelwald moved radiated power, decisiveness. Tom was jealous, but he knew that one day, he would become just like Grindelwald—the best sort of wizard there was. The fact that Tom's peers saw Duke Wodnik as a sympathetic victim rather than old firewood that needed to be burned reflected something profoundly unhealthy in their spirits. Wodnik was the sickly and wilting fruit of an old tree; Grindelwald was a forest fire that promised power—how could anyone in their youth support the former? It was enraging. Tom's peers didn't understand magic—how could one declare a gentle summer shower more enlivening and promising than a storm capable of overturning cargo ships, of devastating cities?
With a decisive swish of his wand, Tom partitioned an apple pie into eight equal slices, and levitated four of them onto Mary's plate.
"Have we any point in actually making war against Grindelwald?" asked Thane Mulciber. "He's done very little to threaten British interests — and so what if he's thrown continental purebloods from the seats of their power? May the best wizard win, I say!"
Mulciber was a fifth-year boy; tall and thin, he had a feminine mane of straight blonde hair on an otherwise startlingly skeletal but nonetheless masculine face. There was something about his energetic, circular green eyes that gave the impression that he was always enjoying himself, as if there was always some secret about his surroundings that he alone knew and found funny.
"Suppose Grindelwald conquers Europe," came the contemplative voice of Arcanius Fawley, who was now fifth-year Prefect. "What reason, then, will he have not to invade Britain? Clearly, we ought to attack Grindelwald before his lackeys apparate into British territory."
Cheers broke out around Fawley, as though his words were anything more than a reflexive justification of his father's decisions. But everyone knew, too, that Hector Fawley had only declared war because he had no choice—it was Leonard Spencer-Moon who said war was inevitable, Leonard Spencer-Moon who said they ought to declare it sooner, rather than later.
Tom finished dinner quickly. He thought to ask Mary, who sat opposite him, if she wanted to retire with him early to the common room, or perhaps the library. But as he looked up, he saw that there was still plenty of food on her plate—and that she was apparently deeply engaged in conversation with Lydia Cotterill, one of the new first-year girls. He thought not to disturb her; rather, he watched her, intently so.
There were physiological trends for each of the four houses; how could there not be, when Sorting segregated by personality, and when personality dictated behaviour? Not to mention, of course, the differing environments of the dormitories.
Slytherins were often more pale than others; they had the most well-groomed hair; the most guarded expressions; and the most well-fitting robes. Gryffindors were a mixed bunch, but they often dared to challenge convention by stylising themselves in bizarre ways, sporting rather ugly hairstyles and wearing flashy outfits on the weekends—and perhaps Tom was imagining it, but their mouths were bigger, too—they talked the loudest of the four houses. Ravenclaws never came in groups larger than three, and were the quietest and most observant among their peers. Hufflepuffs, conversely, tended to swoop in large groups—usually entire cohorts by year, and they were often plumper and less vain than their peers from the other houses.
"Tom? You alright there?" Banius Avery tentatively asked.
"I'm fine, Avery. I'm meditating."
"Ah. You were staring into the distance …"
Mary, however, wasn't overtly and exclusively Slytherin, in the way that Florence Travers and Walburga Black, opposites though they were, were. She had the elegance of a well-established Slytherin girl without her frigid haughtiness, the conspicuous presence of a powerful Gryffindor girl, perhaps a Quidditch star, without her useless garrulousness (though she was, at times, excessively talkative), and the tenderness of a Hufflepuff—somehow—without their obscene weakness, their implicit idea that strength was to be found in the warmth of a herd.
Tom greatly appreciated the likeness that she bore to him; they both had thick eyebrows, mildly aquiline noses, thin, long lips and dimpled cheekbones. They both had perfectly symmetrical faces, though that was less of an affirmative feature than an indictment of how the majority of humans, even magical ones, were deformed. They both had long necks, too, but Mary's was much thinner than Tom's—her incipient swan's neck made her look delicate, made Tom want to protect her.
The most prominent difference, aside from that which is owed to sex, (their hair and their physiques) was their eyes. Tom had slightly sunken, upturned eyes, which various Slytherin girls had on different occasions described as sharp, if not cold. Mary's were prominent and soft, shaped like large almonds, and they seemed to express sympathy if not love at whoever she gazed at, when she wished to gain the affection of the subject in question. Her dark pupils radiated warmth, warmth Tom knew that many boys desired to behold and consume.
She bit into a small, blood-crimson apple. Her bite was small, and she took her time to chew—Tom imagined how it would feel to touch her moving cheeks, impelled by her teeth grinding the syrupy flesh of the apple into smaller and smaller bits.
The first-year girl she next to was Lydia Cotterill, who looked comparatively so immature and underdeveloped that Tom was sure any onlooker would've thought Mary at least three years older than her. Tom watched his sister talk to Cotterill, her face unfalteringly gentle and smiling in a motherly way, as she introduced the younger girl to Hogwarts. But in spite of Mary's ostensible kindness and gentleness, there was something intense and withdrawn in her eyes—something subtle that few people aside from Tom would notice.
"First years, follow me!" Beatrice Sommerfield called, bringing Tom out of his revelry.
An idea quickly came to him.
Wiping his hand on his handkerchief, Tom stood up and followed the new first-years and their new fifth-year girls' Prefect.
"Tom, correct me if I'm mistaken, but I asked for the first years to follow me," Beatrice said sharply.
Antoine Rosier sniggered. Tom was unphased; though the older girl was churlish, he knew that that was just a matter of her character. In fact Beatrice Sommerfield was greatly fond of him and Mary; she, for whatever reason, disliked Ilaria Greengrass, and was thus deeply appreciative of Mary who the whole of Slytherin now knew as the one-time thief of Greengrass' necklace.
"What do you think of the war, Beatrice?"
"Must I have an opinion?" she snapped. "Slytherin boys are all the same — you think you're all grown up and ready to discuss world affairs, when there are so few of you who can brew even a single potion by memory!"
"I'm sure Fawley and Mulciber can each brew at least a potion or two by heart," Tom drawled. "On that, with which of them do you agree more?"
"On the war? Hold on, this way," Beatrice gestured for the first-years and Tom to go down a staircase. "Arcanius and Thane? Both their opinions are stupid."
"Stupid how?"
"Arcanius likes to act as though he thinks for himself, yet he always happens to agree with his father," said Beatrice, "while Thane, though he didn't admit it at dinner, supports Grindelwald."
"Supports Grindelwald," Tom repeated in a murmur.
It was a pity that the correct opinion was the least popular one.
Before they reached the staircase that went down to the Slytherin Dungeon in the Entrance Hall, they passed the portrait of Sir Hervouet, a knight concealed from head to toe by battle-chipped plate armour. His portrait was a rather queer one, as Tom was to explain.
"This is Sir Hervouet, who is more commonly known as The Oblivious Knight," said Tom, gesturing at the painting.
"Thy effronterie!" The painting shouted furiously. "I woldest thine head mounted on a speare, hadst I a forme corporelle!"
"Oblivious?" inquired Lydia Cotterill. "That means forgetful, doesn't it?"
"Indeed," Tom answered, smiling. "You see, Herouvet's original portrait was destroyed, some five centuries ago — a Slytherin student by the name of Hugelin Ives cursed it; Ives had a blood feud with Hervouet's family, or something of the kind — and so, they had to remake it. This is a painting of a painting… a memory of a memory."
"Yes, yes, Tom likes to wax poetic," Beatrice rudely interrupted. "The bloody imbecile of a Knight loses his memory every few hours. And for some reason, many among Tom's age find this greatly amusing."
"It is greatly amusing," Tom affirmed, his smile remaining. "You can ask him about his life in the morning, and surprise him by the same facts in the afternoon."
"Childeryng conspiring on the deficient nature of mine mynde…" muttered the painting. "Ô howe the mighty falleth!"
The new first years looked quite enthralled by Tom's trivia, though he knew they were all magical by their names—Cornelius, Orpheus, Abraxas—and thus already acquainted with the quirks of enchanted painting. Lydia Cotterill in particular seemed enamoured by him already; she could not stop smiling at him.
Antoine Rosier, however, shared no such reverence.
"You know a lot about paintings, Riddle," Rosier smiled snidely. "Trying to prove something?"
"And what might I be trying to prove?"
"You're a muggleborn in Slytherin," Rosier said with unexpected bluntness. "You're trying to get on our good sides — us, the younger lot — 'cause your peers hate you."
Now, all the first years had their eyes on Tom—Lydia's blue ones, small and hopeful, yet detached and assessing; Hortense Rowle's dark ones, gilded by eyeliner like Mary's, though not nearly as pretty; and Abraxas Malfoy's vacant grey ones—all of these were fixed on him. Even Beatrice Sommerfield looked at him and said nothing. They were waiting for him to pass judgment.
Tom, whose expression remained utterly calm and neutral, turned to face Rosier. Much to his pleasure, the smaller boy's smirk faltered.
A strange sort of anger seeped into him. Usually, anger came to Tom in sudden bursts, like flashes of lightning—they went as quickly as they came. But this time, it slowly came into him, as though he was outside in the bowels of winter, letting the frost slowly puncture through his skin and his flesh, all the way to the marrow of his bones.
It wasn't that Rosier's insult had any gravity, for it was utterly wrong on all counts—Tom was certain he was of nobler blood (for he was powerful, and had to thus be of great extraction) than whoever the hell the Rosiers were; and while he indeed courted the new first-years, he did not do so from a lack of friends, but from a desire to make an ally of all in his house—and finally, none of his peers despised him, at least not for his blood—the few who hated him above all feared him.
Before the younger boy could react, Tom had his wand drawn and pointed forth.
Wingardium Leviosa. Estouffaire.
As though heaved up by an invisible giant, Antoine Rosier was lifted five yards into the air, suspended just above Sir Hervouet. The collar of his robe fastened against his neck as though tightened by a thick, invisible rope, and he helplessly tugged at it as he struggled and sputtered. First saliva spewed from his mouth, then blood. His face quickly became red, before going even purple-like.
"Do you think a mudblood would be able to do this, Antoine?"
Seeing the boy struggle wasn't terribly fun—Tom lowered his wand, and Rosier unceremoniously dropped to the floor, thump. Tom couldn't kill Rosier; he was only able to make him helplessly suffer, which was rather vulgar to behold—suffering was the commonality between magicals and filthy, ordinary humans; seeing a magical being suffer was undignified.
"Know that I welcome my friendship to all Slytherins," Tom extended a hand to the fallen boy. "I don't hate you, Antoine. There is no reason for me to hate you."
Rosier took Tom's hand, and Tom easily pulled him up. Tom patted him on the shoulder, and gently straightened his tousled robe.
"Y-y-you have to show me how to do that," the new first-year said in an excited tone, blushing.
"Well, it's easy," Tom smiled. "The hovering charm, in tandem with lasso jinx."
"Yes yes," Beatrice Sommerfield quickly blurted. "This is all very dramatic and touching, but we have to get a move on, the feast will be ending soon — everyone will return."
As they continued on, Tom closely examined the faces of the new first-years; admiration tinged with fear or rather, fear tinged with admiration, was painted on all of their faces.
Even Abraxas Malfoy, who had distinguished himself from the others by his sheer impassivity, looked awed—his grey eyes expanded as though in terror—he was terrified rather than awed, too terrified, something was amiss, Tom realised—but his realisation was too late.
Malfoy's grey pupils disappeared into the white of his eyes. Then, he fell to the floor with an ungracious thump.
Beatrice raised a hand to halt the first-years, before spinning around with a fearful expression on her face—Tom supposed she wasn't thrilled that her first gig as a Prefect had gone awry at so many points—and yelled shrilly, "Tom! What did you do!"
A small throng of the first-years gathered around Malfoy's fallen, unconscious form, and surprisingly, it was Antoine Rosier who squatted by his side and placed a hand on his neck.
"Nothing," Tom said impassively, holding the older girl's gaze.
"Out of my way," Beatrice pushed two girls aside to kneel by Malfoy. "Tom —"
"Rennervate," Tom shot his spell square at Malfoy's chest.
At once, Malfoy jolted into consciousness, breaking into convulsions as he gasped for breath. Antoine Rosier, Sommerfield and Tom helped him back onto his feet.
"How do you know that spell?" Sommerfield asked in an equally appraising and suspicious tone.
"A book," Tom answered quickly; he had learned it incidentally while trying to discern useful information from a foreign Auror office's report concerning the discovery of an Inferius ritual-chamber.
"Abraxas, it's me," Rosier murmured quietly. "You collapsed a few seconds ago — Riddle brought you back."
Malfoy, who appeared entirely undisturbed by his situation, looked around, his tired grey eyes switching between Tom, Rosier, and Beatrice.
Beatrice and Tom exchanged glances; they, as a Prefect and a second-year, were the only ones who knew their way around Hogwarts in this throng of a dozen, and they understood at once what had to be done. The first years had to get to the Slytherin Dungeon, but Malfoy was due for another destination. Tom took the initiative—
"I'll take Malfoy to the hospital wing."
Then, for as far as Tom knew, Abraxas Malfoy spoke for the first time since setting foot on Hogwarts—
"I'm fine."
His voice was high and boyish, but of the flat, disinterested tone of a jaded old man.
"You're not!" Beatrice decisively insisted.
Tom's eyes flicked between the Prefect and the first-year. It was clear that the former wanted to designate responsibility of the latter to another authority, and that the latter wanted to avoid the shame of being seen having to go to the hospital wing on the first day of term.
"We'll go around," Tom dipped his head to whisper into Malfoy's ear. "I know a long way to the hospital wing, no one will see us — how about that?"
His assurance gained an acquiescent nod from Malfoy. With a final nod to the new fifth-year Prefect, Tom and the sickly first-year boy embarked on their detour.
Unsurprisingly, Malfoy said nothing as they crossed the dark corridors. Several inferences were made; Malfoy and Rosier, despite being diametrical opposites in their temperaments, were well-acquainted from before Hogwarts; Malfoy's faints were regular in some capacity; and whatever his affliction was, it had been with him long enough to contort his eleven or twelve year old self into an extremely shy, withdrawn creature—it was clearly untreatable.
"Abraxas," said Tom, opening a large door with his wand. "We're here."
For such a large chamber, the Hospital Wing was eerily quiet. Nonetheless, Madam Milosz, a robustly built middle-aged woman whose stern face vaguely reminded Tom of Ms. Cole, came to receive them.
"Ah, you must be Mister Malfoy." Her accent was crisply foreign yet gentle. "Come with me, you'll be alright."
"Mister Riddle," Milosz inclined her head at Tom. They were somewhat acquainted; Tom had once asked her questions regarding the relation between anatomy and sacrifice in ritualistic healing. "Would you be so kind as to give me an account of what happened?"
But surprisingly, before Tom could say anything, let alone conceive of a lie that didn't involve him choking Antoine Rosier in the air, Malfoy himself interceded—
"It was a standard episode, ma'am," he said amiably. "The Sorting, the news of the war — it was a little much for me."
Malfoy gave Tom a knowing look—both of them knew that Malfoy had lied, to a great extent—even if the things Malfoy enlisted played some role in incurring his episode, it was ultimately his observance of Tom's magic that sent him into shock. Tom dipped his head and gave the younger boy an appreciative smirk.
"Gunhilda's Grimoire!" Milosz exclaimed venomously. "I warned the Headmaster not to be so quick with news of the war! The burden shouldn't be levied on the students so soon — not at the start of term! Well, that's for nothing now."
The awkward way the healer intoned 'that's for nothing' made Tom suspect that it was an idiom from another language, crudely and directly parsed into English.
As Milosz helped Malfoy onto a bed, she gestured with a hand to tell Tom that he was no longer needed.
"You'll be all well and good, Abraxas," Tom dipped his head at the healer, before giving Malfoy a reassuring smile. "I trust I'll see you later in the common room."
"Yes, you will," Malfoy said listlessly. "Bye, Tom."
Tom left the hospital wing, wondering what Mary would think of his attack on Rosier—surely one of the girls, perhaps Cotterill, would tell her.
His stomach twisted uncomfortably. There was something primally disgusting in the fact that even purebloods could be permanently incapacitated by sickness. Yet, in spite of his weakness, Malfoy wasn't despised—no, when he was sorted, the Slytherin table cheered as though the Headmaster had announced that they won the house cup—a feeble, weak boy, a sapling forever green and rubbery, was the object of unconditional esteem.
There was, of course, only one explanation—that he came from an eminently important family. Perhaps, Tom thought, Abraxas Malfoy would become a most useful ally.
A/N: Thank you for the reviews Ashley, Blonde Dude, and Amelia! You've given me much food for thought — I hope I shall be able to satisfy you in the chapters to come. Also, this story is indeed on Ao3, where I write under the same name.