Book 3: Axioms and Aberrations

Chapter 1: Φιλίαν ἀγάπα

With his chin burrowed into the crook of his elbow, Tom Marvolo Riddle scratched the frayed edges of his desk as the rest of classmates finished their last exam. Neither the practical nor the theoretical sections of the Charms final challenged him despite his current state of distraction. A state plaguing him in the two days since seeing his mother's face and hearing her voice for the first time in a memory gathered by Albus Dumbledore. The images and sounds of her telling him she loved him never left the front of his mind. It left him in simultaneous contentment and melancholy. He could almost feel her embrace wherever he went, comforting him even in the abnormally cold dungeons and Slytherin Common Room when their fire wouldn't spark the night before. He didn't want to let her go.

The previous day, as Tom, Tula Wolfe, and Artemis Woode checked their inventory counts on the ingredients cabinet, Tom stopped listening and curled up in his chair with his arms embracing himself. He ran through the memory as many times as he could before Artemis winked at Tula and nudged him in the forehead with a dehydrated bow truckle arm. His eyes shot open and he almost cursed her for it. If it weren't for a strict ban imposed by the Headmaster, Armando Dippet, who, upon his return to his office found Albus Dumbledore, Piper Nobel's, and Tom's heads still submerged in his pensieve, Tom would gladly have skipped the rest of his finals just to replay the memory over and over.

Just that moment. He didn't need anything else. He didn't need the food Piper tried to force down into his gullet the morning of their Charms exam. He didn't need to bathe, despite the loud, and frequent, protests from his neighboring dorm-mate, Rodulph Lestrange. He definitely didn't need to sleep, for risking seeing yet another nightmare and shaking loose his failing grip on the memory of his mother holding him as a baby frightened him. Even more than the nightmare's themselves.

Even his excitement and desperation to solve the conundrum of the magical, door-shaped glyphs in his nightmare faded. He only diverted a small portion of his attention to the now finished Charm's final laying face-down below his arm. With his eyes closed, shutting out his classmates' furiously scribbling quills around him, he could still hear her voice. Raspy, desperate, and kind above all, his mother told him she loved him. And she died to bring him into this world.

The last bell, ringing ten times to mark the end of the exam, jolted him out of the memory and a piece of wood he lazily scratched at dislodged from the desk and stuck under his fingernail as his head lurched up. Feeling the pulsing pain centered on the point of impalement, he nearly screamed when he looked down and saw the blood pooling from his hand and Professor Corra Whitlocke bellowed in a slight Irish brogue from her desk at the front off the room, "Oi, not on the exam, Riddle! Do yuh wark in the Wing or not? Nobel, stop balancin' ya're quill on ya're 'stache and help him, if yuh please?"

Piper, their face morphed into that of a crown-balding, red-haired man with a handlebar mustache that extended 2 inches wider on both sides their bowling-ball shaped face, pocketed their quill and turned to Tom to help. With all the eyes in classroom now fixed on his situation, Tom bit down on the strap of his book bag while Piper, still in their altered form, procured two pairs of tweezers from their bag. Piper gently placed the two ends of the tweezers around the barely visible end of the splinter jutting out from under Tom's nail and breathed as they clamped down, "Count of three, then?"

Tom nodded, his hand and pained voice shaking as the pulse reverberated up from the tip his finger up to his shoulder. Piper sighed and closed the ends of the tweezers a littler harder and counted down, "Ett, två…" They yanked hard and pulled out the 2cm long splinter, holding it up with a prideful smirk, "Got it, Professor Whitlocke." Piper looked at where Tom had scratched the edge of the desk for half an hour and continued, "Though his desk will need a repair. He wasn't the only one to be bored in here, apparently.

Piper heard the words escape their mouth and stammered, "Ah… I mean…Of course your lessons are the most informative a-a-and interesting at Hogwarts. And… And…"

Professor Whitlocke, now walking towards them as she picked up everyone's exams and the rest of the class started to leave, giggled, "Ya're flattery is noted, Piper, but yuh can thank Old Binns-y for these. Though i' still hurts that yuh dozed durin' my…" Whitlocke held her gathered exams close to her chest and continued in a mocking tone, "Riveting discussion on the many uses of Shrinking Charms."

Professor Whitlocke picked up Piper's exam and ran her finger down their answers until she smirked as she pointed to one. "Surely one with yer' abilities would nary fairget why keeping dimensions in ya're mind when performing it matters? Hmmm?"

As Tom scoured the blood on his desk and the stained cuffs of his white dress shirt, Piper's form reverted, careful to not let their scar show, and they replied, "Well…I mean… Can't we just go back to laughing at Tom? I'd like that much more, Professor?"

Professor Whitlocke thumbed through the many pieces of parchment in her arms until she stopped and pulled out one Tom recognized to be his. Her finger drifting down the first, the second, and then the third page, she failed to hide a smile and chuckled "Even distracted, Riddle's go' the best marks in the year, again. Only a point ahead of Tulie this time, though. Ya're losin' ya're touch, Riddle."

Tom shuddered against the searing sensation under his nail as he pulled out his Willow wand and cast, "Episkey. I'll do better next year, Professor. I just…"

Professor Whitlocke halted him with a hand up, "Ya're still tops, Tom! I'll hear no more, now get goin' 'fore the train leaves yuh here and I have to side-along yuh tuh London. Merlin's saggies, don't make me go tuh London. I hate London."

Piper and Tom nodded and followed the last stragglers from the exam out of the Charm's classroom and into the third floor corridor of the South Tower. Tom guided Piper along a perfect path to descend the Grand Staircase, taking a rapidly rising staircase up to the 6th floor and hopping onto one descending from the 7th. As they descended, Tom saw, jerking his head look past a passing staircase going up, the unusually disheveled, red-hair of his rival, Tarquin Alexander D'auferio the 4th, as the boy stared with glazed eyes up the middle of the tower from the bottom. Tom gently elbowed Piper in the ribs and pointed him out with a shrug. When they reached the last stop and walked down the last set of stable stairs to the bottom floor, Piper walked around Tarquin's still transfixed gaze until they reached far back with both hands and loudly clapped just in front of his nose. Tarquin didn't flinch.

Still gazing up, Tarquin commented, his voice dreamlike yet flat, "That was unnecessary, Piper. I was merely admiring the view, among other things." Without moving his face, Tarquin shifted his eyes to Tom and the briefest of smiles crept across his face before he looked back up, "Magical, isn't it? Beyond the obvious? I imagine you know many of its secrets, Riddle"

Tom turned away to face the door leading to the Entrance Hall, "Some…Do you mean to teach me something, Tarquin?"

Tarquin smirked with just the left side of his face and closed his eyes to reply, his voice unchanged, "I can still see it, you know…The arch… The voices…Did you know that the staircases here are enchanted not just with levitation magic for themselves, but also for students? Or…I should say, what it recognizes as a student…Imagine…" His hand shook a little as he reached up and ran it through his hair on the same side fissured against a rising staircase the year before. "Such luck, it must have been…To hit one before its magic could grab you…And then for it not to grab me after…Curious…"

Tom turned back to face him and saw an almost wicked smile momentarily smear Tarquin's face as he gripped the side of his head and shook. Tom stepped forward, put his wand away in his robes, and mumbled to Piper, "Pipe, let's go. We still need to get our things…Piper…" He grabbed them by the wrist as they stared at Tarquin, who resumed his blank stare up at the winding, intricate patterns of the floating staircases high above them. "Come on…"

Piper shook his hand away but obeyed, reaching out but closing their hand just before it could touch the back of Tarquin's red-accented Gryffindor robes. Just before the door to the Entrance Hall closed behind him, Tom heard Tarquin say in a haunting tone, "Such… beautiful… voices…"

Tom hastily packed the rest of his belongings, the books gifted to him by Piper and Albus, his potions supplies, and his spare robes into the small and aged trunk gifted to him by Tom, the barkeep of the Leaky Cauldron. Interspersed with the returned thoughts of his mother, Tom wondered what being back in Muggle London would be like, now that he had magic. He knew he wouldn't be able to use it, for the penalty of doing so was harsh, especially when in the presence of Muggles. But that didn't mean he couldn't work with Blink on his concoctions, or visit Diagon Alley to peruse the shelves of Flourish and Blotts for hours on end. On a whim, Tom picked up the small pouch of wizard coins given to him by Albus Dumbledore on behalf of the Hogwarts trust just before he began his first year at Hogwarts. He poured out its contents onto his bed; he still had a few sickles and knuts left. More than enough for a few books if he bought them second-hand.

He wondered if he would get more before the start of the new year. Due his taking a Stunner to the face, rendering him temporarily comatose after the last of Dumbledore's challenges the previous summer, Tom wasn't able to go to Diagon Alley again and thus had no use for the leftover coins from his first year. He put the coins back into the pouch, pocketed it, and magically levitated the rest of his belongings into his trunk before clasping it shut and taking one last look into the mirror between his and Rodulph Lestrange's four-poster beds. No flash of red came, much to his temporarily cold-sweating hands and thought-spiraling mind's ease, and he left the second-year Slytherin's dorm to join Piper just outside the common room.

Together they walked out of the Entrance Hall and joined the slow moving procession of students waiting for the carriages by the edge of the lake, which unfortunately reflected the Sun onto those waiting. Tom took off his robes and rolled up his sleeves, feeling the humidity and his sweat mingle on his forehead, hands, and armpits. The gathering halted when a first year Gryffindor Tom didn't recognize dropped her trunk as she pulled it onto the carriage and the wheels underneath it both shattered upon impact. Lucky for her, and to the delight of the butterflies ricocheting off the inside of Tom's stomach like a pinball cabinet with only bumpers, Tula Wolfe was near the front of the line and walked forward to help. Tom edged his way outside the group to watch her work and marveled as she repaired the trunk as it levitated up to the teary eyed girl and Tula stepped around the carriage.

Tom took a step back and nearly fell backward over his trunk when he saw what Tula gave a piece of jerky she procured from her robes to. Its charcoal flesh clung to its bones, exposing what little musculature it possessed within its otherwise emaciated frame. Its spiny tail and conical horns reminded him of malnourished dragon. It beat its hooves and its…Tom thought its head resembled a goat/bird hybrid with a massive beak that enveloped all of Tula's hand. Just when Tom reached for his wand, preparing his mind to see a green flash for the spell he planned to hurl at it, Tula giggled and the monstrosity released her now slobber-covered hand. She wiped it with her robes and didn't notice the attention centered on her until she turned around and saw the mix of shock and confusion. She found Tom's horrified eyes in the crowd and she smiled faintly before turning around to levitate hers and the rest of her fellow passengers' trunks and animal cages onto the next carriage and a similar monster pulling it whisked her out of sight.

Tom laid his trunk down and sat on it, his hands wringing through his greased hair until a familiar voice and a playful prod into the top of his head pulled him out of his accelerating mind. "Frigh'nin sigh' vose Festroo's are. Nearly bogged my pants my firs' year when one nudged me in vuh face and I turn tuh see i'."

Tom, not lifting his head to face Piper as they sat next to him and asked Blink, holding up their arm to shield their eyes from the reflecting light from the lake, "Who'd you lose, Blink?" Tom's ears perked up but he kept his head down.

"I's no' abou' loss, Pipes. I mean, va's defni'ly a way tuh see one, sure, bu' you on'y have tuh see i' happen and ge' i' tuh be a-boo tuh see vem," Blink replied as he dragged his trunks, both larger than Tom's, along with the progressing line.

Tom picked up his own trunk, feeling his favorite part about it: the frayed leather on the underside of its handle in his grasp, and inquired facing away from the lake to look at Piper, "Mind translating what he called them, Piper?"

Raising their voice over Blink's brief, albeit loud, cursing protestation, Piper chuckled, "Thestral. If you take Care of Magical creatures with me next year, you'll learn more. Most people can't see them, hence the crowd around the object of your pathetic ogling. Think of it like a consolation prize where the reward for seeing someone die in front of you is being able to see half-dead half-horse that haunts your dreams more than seeing the dead person does."

Blink cursed, yanking his trunk over a stubborn stone along the gravel path, "Fanks for vuh Boo's Feav'uh, Pipes. Anyway, i's veir eyes va' o'ways ge' me. I's like I'm seein' my own def…" Blink shuddered as he moved to the forward and awaited the next carriage. Another Thestral, this one with a longer, onyx mane and pronounced shoulder bones that jut out so far Tom thought they might pierce its hide with every step, approached with the next carriage and Tom copied Tula, pulling out his wand to levitate his, Piper's, and Blink's trunks onto the back of the carriage.

Throughout the silent ride along the path through the dense forest between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade Station, Tom stared intently at the movements of the thestral. He kept expecting the outwardly vicious looking, winged horse hybrid to buck their carriage eat them for good measure. Yet, Tom found, there was a calm, almost elegant demeanor to their dignified steps, the few breaths they raspberried out mid-stride, and the way they stretched their necks when the straps became too tight around their long, bony necks. He wished he had some jerky to give it too, but all he had in his trunk in the way of food was a few hardened bread rolls he nicked from the Great Hall after the Christmas feast.

The thestral came to slow, wobbly stop in front of a waiting Professor Picard with her hand raised to grasp its reigns. She helped everyone and their luggage off the carriage and as she guided the thestral back around to go back down the path for the next group of students, she waved them goodbye and said in her notable French accent, "Bonne chance, étudiants. Ne meurs pas!"

Only Blink laughed and replied in a broken french hindered by his own accent, "Aloe, commen' vais-je vous han'er, ma chère?" Professor Picard shook her head with a smirk and turned to gather up the reigns of the next thestral as it approached with another group. When they got to the station, Tom followed Blink to where the students handed off their luggage to a porter waiting by the luggage car by the Hogwarts Express's caboose, and then followed Piper to a comfortable, empty compartment towards the middle of the train.

Though Blink fell asleep ten minutes after their departure, Tom spent nearly an hour idly chatting with Piper and perusing through their gifted spellbook. The strain in his eyes built up and a deep yawn, having the opposite of its intended effect, sent a rush of adrenaline through him. His heart stuttered between pounding and fast beats as he remembered the last time he rode the Hogwarts Express, before his first year. He attempted to calm his breathing, counting them down in his mind as he nervously scratched the leather upholstery of his seat and its brass fittings. Piper noticed his sudden discomfort, leaned forward from across their compartment, and whispered as they laid a gentle hand on his knee, "If you look like you're going to have one, I'll shake you awake, alright? Tom?"

Tom rapidly switched his focus between their mismatched eyes and saw their earnest plea. He closed his eyes and, clenching Piper's hand, let his heart slow with deep, calculated breaths. In and out, letting his shoulders fall, letting his back sink into the seat, letting the thoughts of his nightmares drift away like leaves from a tree, Tom slowly regained calm and fell asleep with his hand still grasping Piper's, who smiled as they saw his face droop a little.

No dreams came to Tom while he napped inside the compartment with Blink and Piper, who vigorously read through an extended edition of the Daily Prophet through the rest of their journey back to Platform 9 and 3/4 at King's Cross Station. Piper poked their companion's awake with the now rolled up Prophet when the train came to a halt. "Oi, best put your muggle clothes. We're back in the land of the dull. And Blink…BLINK!"

A startled, drooling Blink spazzed awake, slapping away the slimy, miniature octopus tentacle Piper grew out of their pointer finger and suckered onto his face. "Elisha's go'den trousers, why is i' owe-ways vuh ten-tuh-coos wiv you?"

Piper grinned as they suckered their own face, red leaving circles along their chin, and replied, "Because you react like that, Blink. Your flame, Isobel, came by earlier to tell you to meet her on the platform before you left with Tom. She seemed pretty insistent too."

At the mention of Isobel Kelly's name, Blink sat bolt upright and checked the reflection of his teeth in the mirror. He then leaned out of the compartment and beckoned over the candy-cart driving woman, "Sorry, luv, bu' you wouldn' happen tuh have any Stringmin's left? Preferably vuh Peppuhmin' flavuh. Again, sorry."

The elderly woman, who's silvered bob haircut still held despite her age, smirked at Blink and pinched his cheek as she said in a Doric accent, "If it's for the lovely lass who came your way earlier, most definitely." She reached into a sub-compartment of the second drawer of her trolley and pulled out what looked to Tom, who peaked out to see the transaction, like fisher's twine and finished with her other hand out expectantly, "That'll be a sickle and 3 Knuts, lad"

Blink handed her the money and as they all left the train to join the queue on the platform to get their luggage back from the porter, he hurriedly ran the silvery-blue string through his teeth a couple times before chewing on the rest of it. Tom smelled the sharp, spicy mint as Blink breathed into his face while handing him his luggage and had to wrinkle his nose and shake his head recover. When Piper finally got their luggage too, they all entered recently vacated queue to exit the platform, waited for the man by the barrier's signal to exit, and walked through the brick barrier back on the muggle side of King's Cross.

Piper turned and looked around until they saw a black-haired woman in a blue and white, flowery, short sleeved sun dressing waved her over. Tom could recognize her resemblance to Piper immediately as she came closer and he saw the same gunmetal blue eyes that matched Piper's. But as the woman, a few inches taller than Tom, leaned over to hug Piper, Tom saw yet another similarity. Much like Piper's scarring from their collar bone up to their right eyebrow, a veiny, pink and white scar extended from her shoulders and covered the back of this woman's neck, even into the hairline concealing the majority of its damage.

Piper's mother turned around with the same, kind smile Tom knew well and said with her hand out to shake his in a barely noticeable Swedish accent, "You must be young Thomas Riddle. Piper tells me much about you. Best in your grade, even better than my little Piper. She tries so ha…"

Tom, feeling a pang of anger spark, cut her off while pulling his hand back "Piper's not…" but stopped short when he saw Piper shake their head no at him, their eyes sullen but assertive. "Piper is formidable as well, ma'am. Ahem…She keeps me on my toes, ma'am."

Piper's mother's smile faded for but a moment before she turned to Blink and said with a forced, wider smile, "Who is this, Piper, my dear?"

Blink stepped forward with his overfilled trolley and extended his hand to shake hers, "I' is a pleasure tuh meet you, Mrs. Nobel. Truly i' is… Gaah."

Two men in dark suits suddenly appeared beside Blink and one pressed his umber wand into Blink's neck while the other held an arm out to guard Piper and their mother. The one holding his wand to Blink's neck, pressing it further as Blink held his hands up, asked in a heavy Swedish accent, "Shall I dispose of dis filthy... fru…"

Piper's mother pushed the bald man with his arm across her chest aside and slapped the other man hard across the temple with an open hand and yell-whispered in with a look of fury Tom saw Piper inherited, "Dummare än tåget, din åsna! We do not use that, not anymore." She turned to Blink as the man lowered his wand and stepped away. Her face quickly shifted back to her normal kind eyes and smile as she apologized, "I am so sorry. He is not ummm… I do not know the English word…From the slums? He is not a bright light. You have merely…" Her eyes flashed assertive for but a moment and Tom understood exactly her intent as she finished, "…misspoken. My family name is Noble. You know my daughter, Piper Noble. I am Andriette Noble." She extended her slap-reddened hand again for Blink to shake.

Blink shot a momentary look to Tom before smiling and nodding as he shook her hand, "Winky Crocke', bu' mos' jus' call me Blinky or Blink. Long story, anuvuh time. Maybe wivou' viuh racis' bru'es abou' tuh curse my head off my neck."

Andriette Nobel hesitantly laughed before giving both the bald man and the other man with receding blonde hair a snarling look. She looked down at the small, rectangular wrist watch and noted to Piper, "The cab is waiting for us, we shall go. Hej så länge, pojkar!" She walked away with the two men in dark suits flanking her.

Piper hugged both Blink and Tom and said before they joined their mother and her guards, "Sorry about that, Blink. Sweden, unfortunately, has the same problems we do here. Just with worse words, maybe. Tom… Don't forget…" Tom nodded and watched as Piper joined their mother and as the crowded platform consumed then, they vanished with a just noticeable pop!

By the time Tom turned back around, he also lost sight of Blink for a moment before seeing him putting a folded piece of parchment into the pocket of his striped, oversized jacket as he hugged Isobel Kelly tight. Tom sat on a bench and watched as they stayed their, hugging, Isobel whispering into his ear as she kissed his cheek with a tear slowly falling down her cheek. When her eyes met his, Tom faked a smile at her, who returned on in kind. Tom watched them part, Blink holding onto one of her hands as she turned to walk away. When he finally let go, Tom saw a tear fall from his face to the tiled floor of the platform. He waited as Blink shook a little and wiped his face a couple times before returning to where Tom sat and said, "Bes' no' tuh ask, Tommy-boy. She's jus' goin somewhere I can' know jus' ye'. We're fine… We'll be fine, see. Yeah… Okay… Le's ge' us a cab and head to Ol' Red. I'm starvin'." Blink wiped his face again, gasped a last sob, and turned to lead Tom out of King's Cross station and onto ever-bustling streets London.

A/N:

So, this is the beginning of Book 3: Axioms and Aberrations. The chapter title roughly translates from Greek to be "Embrace Friendship", and Greek, like the Latin of Book 2, is the "theme" for this book's chapter titles. For reasons.