Chapter 3: Ἀτυχοῦντι συνάχθου
Tom Riddle felt the damp, gritty sand between his toes as he reached out with a heavily burn-scarred right arm to a figure on the grassy hill ahead of him. Only visible by the light of the impossibly massive full moon above them, the figure wore a matching set of black trousers and tunic accented by ruby-red trimming along the neck-high collar, sleeves, and seams of their trousers. The figure's red hair, unkempt and hanging loose to the nape of their neck, swirled with the light wind as it turned to face Tom, their visage enveloped in shadow despite the moonlight, before turning away, cresting the small hill, and descending out of sight.
Tom felt an immense weight in his feet as he struggled to move his legs. He screamed as he strained, tensing every muscle in his body to obey his mental pleas before breaking loose of the unknown hinderance and sprinted up the beach and up the hill to follow the figure. But as he crested it too, he beheld not a field beyond the beach but a battlefield strewn with corpses in unknown battledress, weapons of war rendered inoperable by the sheer amount of damage taken, fires of varying size, and flags of various nations as far as he could see. The figure stood in the middle-distance, their face staring at the ground with their hands stiff at their side. Tom made his way forward slowly, awestruck by the gruesome scene that seemed to go on past the far horizon. No longer barefoot but in similar battledress to a female soldier nearby, Tom tried to yell, "WAIT!" but his voice came out muddled, as if underwater. He tried again and again but every sound that came to his ears, most especially that of his own struggling vocal cords, couldn't pass the filter. Even the crackling fire a few meters from him fell under the same effect.
When he listened closer, bypassing the fire, the beating of his heart, and the wind flapping a planted and burned flag nearby, he thought he could almost hear the battle itself still raging. Though it took great effort, he recognized the sound of bullets flying in every direction. The cacophonous metal tracks advancing and subsequent, deafening boom! of war-machines exchanging fire. The screams and pleas for God's mercy from both men and women all around him. It sent a long, cold shiver through his body before he shook himself loose and looked up to the figure. It faced him again, their face still cloaked in shadow. Tom walked forward over hastily built foxholes and the lifeless, bullet riddled bodies therein. He stepped gingerly around a toppled section of barbed wire and wooden posts. Without taking his eyes off the figure, he ducked underneath the long, cold to the touch barrel of a charcoal-grey tank with three holes larger than his head in its side.
Tom kept his eyes fixed on the figure as he approached, sure that as he looked into it, so it too looked into him. He felt the breeze cool the sweat on his hands and neck and reached inside his pockets for his wand. Finding nothing, not even lint, he pushed on through the gathering smoke between himself and the figure. A male voice in his mind stopped him short, a voice he knew but couldn't place, "Can you not hear it too, friend? Can you not hear them all?" The voice cackled, sending another chill and spasm up Tom's back to his crown. The voice continued, "They're so…pathetic… begging for mercy… for forgiveness… for salvation from a God that forsook them at their very end."
Tom answered aloud, fighting against the muddled filter surrounding him, "Come back to us! You don't have to keep going. Please, there is still time!" He felt his legs stop again and grimaced as every effort made to move even a toe failed. He desperately reached out to the figure, his breath quickening with the exertion as the paralysis expanded up his body. The distance between him and the figure disappeared in an instant and Tom's hand was mere centimeters from the figure's face. He tried even harder to reach out, just to see and touch its face. He knew if he could just touch them, he'd have a chance. He had a chance. And he needed to bring them back.
Tom felt the paralysis in his shoulders extend out to his fingertips as the figure stepped forward, just barely passing by his immobile thumb until the figure's shadowy face came within inches of Tom's. He felt the figure's heavy, determined breaths graze the budding whiskers on his cheeks and the shadow faded into the moonlight. Tom knew the face before him. Its evil smile and bright eyes widened and Tom's heart plunged as it spoke both aloud and in his mind in an impossibly loud whisper, "And soon, you will beg too. You shall join the fallen on this field, your blood with their blood. Your tears with their tears. And I will hear your voice join theirs from beyond the veil. And rejoice."
Tom Riddle's own screams woke him, his eyes shooting open and his heart feeling like it just restarted. He felt all the muscles in his right arm give as it fell to his chest with a dull thump. His breath still caught and tense, he tried to wiggle his fingers and only felt them shake in response. He lifted his left arm and clutched at his still pounding heart as he fought to sit up, his sweaty back and shirt sticking a little to the leather of Blink's couch, before the sound of someone tripping on the last step of the stairs outside Blink's flat and impacting the opposite wall shot his attention to the slightly ajar door.
Tom's anxious first thought to wrench open the floorboards and grab his wand for protection alleviated the moment a gasping Blink shoulder-checked the door open and yelled with a slight slur, "Wuzz wrong? Why're you screamin'?"
Tom, feeling his fingers in his right hand come back to him, used both arms to push himself off the bed but he collapsed to the wooden floor immediately. If not for the luckily placed sitting pillow a few feet from the couch, Tom's head would have collided with the hardwood. His head still hurt from the impact and his ears rang as he straightened himself up again with Blink's hurried help. When he finally helped Tom back onto the couch, grimacing a little as he wiped away the sweat on his forearm from touching Tom's back with a nearby rag, Blink asked, "Wha's happened? Jus' a nigh'mare or some'fin worse?"
Tom, still clutching is chest as he tried to normalize his heartbeat, said between deep breaths in through his nose and out his mouth, "I…Hoooo…It wasn't…It wasn't like the others. I could…"
Blink winced a little before rubbing Tom's back and breathed, "I's awe-righ', ma'e. Take yuh time. Jus breav'. I'm here."
Tom nodded, his right arm from the forearm down regaining feeling as it mildly shook despite his efforts to grip the edge of the couch. Tom took a few more deeps breaths and continued, "I've never had a nightmare like that… It always felt like I was in someone else's body, even if…" He remembered that he never told Blink the full extent of the visions haunting him since he met Albus Dumbledore. Only pieces and vague examples.
Tom sighed deep and inched away from Blink as he began again, "These dreams, nightmares, visions, premonitions, whatever the bloody hell Piper thinks they are, it has always felt like I was in someone else's body. Seeing it through their eyes but still feeling myself there too. This was…It felt like me. Only me, not separate or distant. It was so vivid, but I can't…"
Tom scratched his oily, sweaty hair and wiped it away from his face as he struggled to piece together what he saw. He muttered to himself as the vaguest memories appeared in his mind, "A… man in a black and red suit. A beach. A battlefield. A tank. His…"
Blink clapped him on the back and reasoned, "A ba'oo-field? A beach? Since when have you been to a beach, Tommy-boy? You mean Hogwar's? You fink you had a nightmare abou…"
Tom shook his head and said, still muttering, "No… No, it wasn't at Hogwarts. I know that beach well enough to know it wasn't there. But I also didn't recognize it. And the sand felt… just… different. I don't know how to describe it. And I could smell the ocean. The figure…I can't…" Tom gripped his head by the temples and pressed a little as he strained to remember the person's face. Their voice…Their dreamy, horrifying voice… He knew it. The pitch, the cadence…In the dream he knew. What did it say? He saw their face in that last moment. But no matter how much he tried, Tom couldn't put those pieces together.
Blink patted him on the shoulder and noted as he stood and walked back over to the open door where faint sounds of loud conversation and laughter reverberated up the staircase, "I's nor-moo no' tuh remembuh dreams, ma'e. Some proof, maybe, tuh Pipe's poin' abou' vee uvvuh ones. An' vis one don' seem like the one you tol' me abou'. I fink you're in vuh clear on vis one. Bu' if you fink i's like vee uvvuhs, I know where we can ge' an owl tuh send a pos' tuh Dum-boo-dore. For now, ge' a good baf in an' mee' me downstairs. A'ie's go' us a list tuh ge' for tuh-nigh' an' Allens won' le' me in wiv you swea'in a lake into 'veir shop." Tom snorted and took another deep breath as Blink closed the door. Tom considered just going back to sleep. His eyes still felt heavy and when he looked down at the callouses he accumulated on both his palms over the past 3 weeks of living with Blink in a flat above Old Red, the tiniest glimmer of pride warmed him.
Since joining Blink, Tom spent the majority of his days tenderly thumbing through both his and Blink's books with pain-pulsing, often bandaged hands, and an aching back resting against the couch as Blink silently worked at his makeshift potion station. Most of Blink's collection fell on the more obscure and eccentric side of potion-making, often beyond the realm of even Tom's current intellectual capabilities. As a result, he often opted, after numerous questions to Blink about the meanings and origins of certain ingredients and procedures, to also read some of Blink's fiction books from the Muggle world.
One such book, a collection of poetry titled in solitary, gold lettering at the top of its chocolate-colored, leather cover, "The Waste Land," proved to be a worthwhile read. Though he didn't fully understand any of its intricacies, or what even made it poetry, for it rarely rhymed like the books Ms. Cole told him were poetry on the rare days she read to the other orphans at Wool's Orphanage, Tom found its prose and approach to story telling fascinating. So much so that he found himself reading it aloud to a deep-in-focus Blink until Blink nudged him and joked about telling Piper about this softer side of Tom the next time they saw each other. Tom slapped his hand away as he turned back to a page that intrigued
Just behind the front cover, towards the bottom of the page, was a publisher's note saying that Blink's copy was one of only a thousand made and his was number 87. When Tom asked Blink why they would only make a thousand copies and how he came by it, Blink told him about a second-hand bookshop in the Lambeth neighborhood in west London that sold it to him for 50 pence, not knowing anything about it or its apparent rarity. He couldn't remember the name of the shop when Tom pressed further, curious how far away it was from his former home. Blink did note that he had far rarer books, including the book he gave Tom in the first challenge to suss out the subtle differences between the two options in the riddle Dumbledore presented them. Tom's jaw nearly dropped when Blink told him it was one of 15 but Blink clarified that before witches and wizards used magic to automate the muggle's, in his opinion, genius invention of the printing press, they enchanted quill's to copy texts page by page and this took far longer.
By night, however, Tom toiled in the kitchens of Old Red, endlessly cutting potatoes in his secluded corner. While he enjoyed much of the merriment and atmosphere of the pub, its patrons, and the cooks, their shared dialect, and the speed at which they spoke, or rather yelled, to each other during and after service made his seclusion all the more real. During his breaks, which Attie, the head chef and owner of the pub and its upper floors, gave him whenever she wanted to correct his work, which was more often than Tom originally expected, Tom stood in the alley by the back door to the kitchen and watched the streets as he ate leftovers from the day shift. He underestimated the number of people Blink warned him about, ones who sought the paid companionship offered on the top floor of the building, and wondered how the London police hadn't found this place yet.
On one particularly busy night in the pub, he witnessed a group of 11 men dressed in ratty but altogether colorful gowns, makeup, and wigs enter and ascend the stairs inside together, laughing as they went. When Tom asked about them, Attie answered in the middle of a long suck on a cigarillo, much to Blink's obvious chagrin, that they, "Reserved vee enti-uh nigh' for 'vemselves" and that Blink and Tom weren't to disturb them unless the police grew wise and raided them. Thankfully, not even a constable walked by Old Red the entire night, or any night in those three weeks.
After pulling on a fresh pair of trousers and one of Blink's spare button downs, Tom joined Blink outside the alley door where he waited with a small cart containing 3 empty, burlap sacks and a smaller, leather satchel across his chest. Talking as he dragged the cart behind him, Blink clarified, "So we're no' goin' to Allens bu' 'fank you for a' leas' changin' trousers. We'll worry abou' my couch when we ge' back. Firs to vuh marke' along vuh Thames, ven to a place you won' tell a soul, no' even Pipe, abou' lest I slip you some nigh'mare juice you won' wake up from 'vis time."
Tom nodded with a curious look to the serious posture Blink made during the overt threat. He followed Blink up the road towards London Bridge and Blink made an obscene gesture with his hands at the looming Tower of London before turning left onto a narrow walk along the river just before the bridge. A few passersby recognized Blink, and oddly enough his cart, and greeted them both. Blink surprised Tom by introducing him first every time this happened, usually by stepping aside to let them see all of Tom as if showcasing a new automobile. And each time, Tom felt the same uneasy feeling and reverted to the same smile he gave professors and other adults alike, minimizing his words and giving just enough information for them to let him and Blink continue on their path.
They followed the Thames for almost half an hour and Tom's feet began to hurt inside his school shoes. Blink's spare shirt stuck to his skin with sweat. The entire time, Blink led the way with a pace Tom felt inhuman given the boy also dragged along a heavy cart, only stopping once to take a long drink of water from a canteen kept in the cart. When they passed the Waterloo Bridge and Blink turned left, Tom was thankful for ahead, spelled out on a black and silver banner hanging from two tall poles on either side of the street, was the Southbank Market. Blink finally stopped to sit and drink on a bench with Tom, whose unwashed hair now hung in greasy sections on his forehead.
After wiping away the sweat and making the barest attempt to make his appearance presentable, Tom felt more at ease when he looked around and found the familiar assortment of stalls and sellers peddling their goods. A middle aged man with scars up and down both his bare, hairy arms gruffly yelled about the value of his Great War collection from his time in Bavaria. He recognized one of the vendors, a young woman who he'd seen on the Lambeth Bridge Road market that popped up on Sundays, as the seller of what she claimed were the "finest silks and fabrics from 'The Orient'". But Tom knew it to be a farce and laughed as he detailed his account to Blink as the latter prepared his sacks for filling.
Standing out amongst the crowd as Tom continued to take in the market was a young couple and their baby fast asleep under the canopy of a light blue stroller. They whispered to themselves while glancing in Blink's direction at a vendor's stall where he haggled for nearly a minute before Tom walked up and bumped Blink at the waist, "A couple is staring at you. Should we leave and go somewhere else to fill Attie's list?" he asked still keeping an eye on them to his right.
Blink turned away from the seller after handing them a few coins and thanked them as they handed over heavy handful of carrots. After putting them in a sack nearly full with sweet potatoes, ginger, and onions, he tied its string closed and squinted in the couple's direction. With a wide, genuine smile, Blink waved them over and said, "You're gonna love 'vese two. Bloke was a rum digger before Attie se' him up with a mason down river. An' now he's…" When the couple got to them, Blink energetically shook the man's hand and stepped aside to push Tom forward. "This 'ere is the righ' brillian' Tom Ridd-oo. He's new tuh vis side o' London town so I figured I'd show him vuh Friday marke'. An' when'd this one pop ou' ven, Reanie?" Blink leaned over for a second, seeing the baby fast asleep and quickly apologized in a whisper, "Sorry abou' va'. Too used to vuh empty fields of Whales, suppose."
Both the man and woman called Reanie chuckled and the man reached out to shake Tom's hand, and asserted, "Leach, Laurence Leach. A true pleasure to meet another of Winky's friends. Are you here on holiday with him from school?"
Tom put on smile and shook the man's hand firm and quick before shoving his hand back in his pocket to answer, "I hear you're a mason. How incredible to work in a field where you could build the next great church or bridge. How long have you been in the trade? How long have you been married?"
The woman called Reanie answered, "We'll be two years in September. My name is Irene, and this little one is called Norbert. Laurence insists on calling him Nobby because he has his grandfather's knees but I think it's mean. Do you go to school with Winky?"
Tom shifted his smile to Irene and responded, "Yes, but I am actually from London. On the west end, Lambeth to be exact. Winky has been a true friend, letting me stay with him while my parents are away on their own holiday. We…"
Blink looked down at the silver-chained pocket-watch he pulled from his pocket and cut in, "Apologies, Reanie, bu' A'ie would kill me if we didn' ge' vese back in time for dinner prep an' Tommy-boy an' I still have a cup-oo more stops. Give Nobby a good ol' kiss when he wakes for me. Come roun' for a pin' or 'free when 'fings se'le, eh?" With that, Blink turned Tom around by the shoulders and muttered, "Sorry, chap, bu' we do have va' one las' stop."
Blink set the last sack of his purchases into the cart by the bench, took another long, emptying drink from his canteen, and started off again at a pace Tom hated him in for. After crossing the Waterloo Bridge and turning left to once again pass the opulent Savoy Hotel, Tom recognized their path, for he took the exact same roads with Albus Dumbledore two years prior on a similarly hot day, though Albus's pace felt much more reasonable than Blink's. They reached their destination and the young man sitting and blowing smoke rings with a small cork pipe in his left hand stood as soon as they came into view.
Tom smiled genuinely as Tom the Barman met them halfway and grabbed Tom's hand for a long, almost violent handshake and beamed, "Began to wonder if you'd come back, we did, Tom. When Professor Dumbledore came through last, he said you'd taken a Stunner to the head and couldn't come for start of term shopping. Had me and Dott worried, you did. But I see you're well and good. You should have seen the Ollivanders in here when they read about you in 'Challenges in Charming'. Bragged for nigh on a month how they sold you your wand and all its mysteries. Oh…"
The elder Tom looked and smiled even wider at Blink, "And my, my, look who you've got with you. I wondered if your stars would meet. Truly wonderful, I can't wait to tell Dott that her favorite and my favorite are best pals. How's the solution coming along then, Blinky?"
Blink smirked at the younger Tom and answered, "Still comin' along abou' as slow as a Flubberworm in sal', bu' I'm doin' well uvva-wise. Comin' 'frew for vuh usual rounds. You don' by chance need anyfing vis time roun', do yuh?"
Tom the Barman looked back and into the open door to the pub, eying a man sitting and reading a paper before he leaned in to whisper, "You don't by chance have anything for memory, do yuh? Dott's mum is gettin' worse by the day and I…"
Blink placed a consoling hand on the man's shoulder and said in a hushed voice, "I've go' vuh one, bu' vis isn' one I can' give free, I'm afraid. 'Vee ingredien's and time alone…" Blink sighed and reached, to Tom's immediate amazement, elbow deep into the satchel strapped to his chest and brought forth a glass flask the size of his palm with a cork stopper, filled with halfway with a bright orange liquid. He continued, firming his grip on the barman's shoulder, "If I could brew vis' wivou' vuh mandrake, I'd jus' give i' to you. Bu' I can' fin' annuvah substitute'e, an' 'here's a shor'age a' my usual shop, so, I'm sorry, bu' vis would be no less van 11 Galleons, ma'e."
The barman's shoulders sunk and he bit his lip a few times as his eyes darted back and forth in quick calculation. He turned around and puffed on his pipe a couple times before setting it down on the metal table next to the door to the Leaky Cauldron and came back to them. Opening and closing his right hand a couple times, he reached out to Blink and said, "It'll make things tight, but Dotty means the world to me and her mum means the world to her. How do I give it to her?"
Blink said, holding the glass flask firm in his other hand as he shook the elder Tom's hand, "Le's ge' off vuh stree' and talk, firs. I've go'a go 'frew vuh wall anyway." The barman nodded and guided them inside and into a relatively secluded part of the dining hall of the Leaky Cauldron. The barman left for a moment to enchant a patron's glass to refill while he grabbed something from behind the bar and came back to their table behind the stairs.
When he sat down, Tom the Barman and Blink exchanged a small pouch of coins for the flask and Blink explained, "So…once a day, a' dawn, min'…Has tuh be dawn or i' won' work…I'd sugges' wri'in' vis down, ma'e." The barman complied, hurriedly procuring a quill and a small, coffee stained section of parchment from his apron as Blink continued, "Once a day a' dawn, mix two large drops into a pin' of wa'er. Stir slow until i' turns back tuh clear an' ven give i' to her. I' ain' permenan', min'. I'm no healer. Have 'er take vis until you can afford Sain' Mungo's. If you'd like, I can talk to my girl 'vere and see if she can come by pro bono. Name of Alice Ra'cliffe. She…"
The younger Tom's eyes shot to Blink as he interrupted without thinking, "Wait, I know her. Blue eyes, smirks like Piper. A little mad in the head?"
Blink's guffaw echoed off the walls of the room and all the patrons turned his way for a second before resuming their drinking. Blink slapped his friend's back and said, "An' you're be'uh for i', ma'e. Taugh' me half the shor'cu's I know in potioneerin'…"
Tom the Barman's smile widened as he finished scribbling notes and noted, "Thank you, again, Blinky. Dotty's had a rough go of it and I hate to see her like that. I'm sure she'll send you her thanks when she gets back. And I'm sure I'm not your last stop today, so go ahead outside. I'll bring your cart around the back and keep it safe while you're there. Be careful…"
Tom the Barman bypassed Blink' extended hand as they both stood and pulled Blink into a deep hug, which Blink returned with a content smile with his face smushed into the man's slightly blubbery neck. The elder Tom offered the younger Tom a hug as well but Tom declined and offered a handshake instead and Blink led the way out the back of the bar and to the entrance to Diagon Alley. As Tom stepped forward and touched the wall, reminiscing on his time in this spot with Albus and the array of colors and glyphs he saw, Blink reached into the second pocket of his satchel and brought out two wands. Tom turned around and saw Blink handing him his Willow and Phoenix feather wand and questioned, "I thought you said to leave them in the floorboard?" Blink nodded but, with a darkening expression, he replied, "Yeah, bu', an' vis is vuh par' where you don' tell a soul wha' we're doin', an' where we're goin', I migh' need your anger tuh ge' us ou' safe if fings go belly up."
Tom hesitated as he took this wand from Blink, feeling the grooves and perfect line-work of its feather engraving in his palm, and mumbled, "Okay."
Blink, seeing Tom's shoulders dip as he placed his wand into his trousers, tapped the five-part pattern to open the path into Diagon Alley and added, "Bu', if i' all goes well, we won' even need tuh cas' a fing."
Tom's mood brightened immediately as he beheld a different side to the hub of magical commerce than he'd experienced his only time there. Rather than a swath of students and their parents scrambling to purchase supplies amidst the crowded streets, sparse and calm patrons walked the streets or drank tea outside in casual conversation. Seeing everyone in wizard robes brought Tom right back to magical world and he hankered for a day he could sneak away from Old Red to scour the shelves of Flourish and Blotts. Sensing his thirst, Blink nudged Tom in the shoulder and teased, "If you're brain can wai' tuh be fed for a li-oo, I promise we'll come back nex' week. Follow my lead, ma'e."
Tom followed Blink as they wound their way through the streets of Diagon Alley until they came to a T-intersection that led down a path Tom never would have noticed if not for Blink stopping short and gazing around suspiciously. When he saw the only person with a possible viewpoint, a man sitting outside of a cafe and stirring a cup of coffee while enraptured by an article of a newspaper Tom didn't recognize, Blink smirked, brought out his wand, and aimed at the man's paper to cast, "Ventus."
A silent cone of wind shot from the boy's wand and blasted the paper into the man's face, forming a such a tight seal that Tom sniggered at seeing the man's full facial outline through the paper. During the distraction, Blink grabbed a still laughing Tom and hurried him down the unknown off-shoot. "Now, jus' keep an eye ou'. Knockturn Alley ain' mean' for mos'." Tom looked around and confirmed his suspicions. Whereas Diagon Alley exuded the brighter, exciting side of the magical world, Knockturn Alley seemed to almost absorb all color and happiness with its darker palette, decrepit buildings and roads, and overall dingy smell and skin-feel. It reminded Tom of a being in a sewer. Even the people they passed acted like the rats and other vermin Tom came across during his only trip into the sewers beneath London.
Some hid in their corners when Blink and Tom passed by while others, namely older, scarred men and women gestured rudely or grunted at them. Blink kept Tom close as they wound their way through tighter and smellier sections of the area until they came to a thin house with a small staircase and a roughly bent and rusted railing. Blink rapped twice on the middle of the door with his knuckle and waited a few moments before a small, hook nosed, green eyed woman in ragged clothes answered the door with a raspy but kind voice and smile, "Oh, you've come again, boy. He's just up the stairs. He couldn't make it to the loo this time, so if you could…"
Unlike the streets of Knockturn Alley, the woman's house made the most of its poor architecture and housing materials. Though its wooden floor boards and stairs creaked as they climbed to the second floor, it was well kept and a variety of cheap, nearly melted candles at least helped keep the smell of the outside stay that way. Blink opened the door to the bathroom and knelt next to the bathtub where a frail, wrinkly man with little to no hair on his body, for his lower half lay bare in the tub and atop what smelled and looked like fresh feces. Tom turned away and left the bathroom from the sight and stench. It wasn't until he saw the face of the woman downstairs, a look of mixed apology and disappointment hidden in perpetual sorrow, that he turned back and asked as he reentered, "What're we doing here, Blink?"
Blink, busy taking various vials of varying colors and consistency out of his satchel, answered as he placed a gentle hand on the heavy-breathing man's forehead, "She can' pay for Mungo's, so I send her wha' I can an' come by during vuh summuh tuh see 'vem myself. No' often, because if anyone unsavory sees me, she's like to lose vuh house an' even her life. Bu' I can make his potion easy. Don' say a fing, bu' 'vere bof' Squibs. 'Vis place is full of 'em. Unfortunately. Here, take ou' your wand."
Blink picked up what Tom assumed to be the man's trousers, just as threadbare and full of wholes as the woman's, and placed them in the sink before leaning down and with a waking, low-pitched whimper and gasp of pain from the old man, lifted him to his shaky feet. Tom turned away from the man's bare lower half until Blink loudly cleared his throat and grunted, gesturing to the mess on his body and in the tub, "Do yuh min', Tommy?"
Tom wrinkled his nose as he begrudgingly stepped forward and pulled out his wand to cast twice, "Scourgify." A cloud of bubbles erupted on the man's lower half and even through the immense pain he felt from standing, he giggled as they tickled and popped on his skin, leaving him smelling fresh and clean. Tom cast it again on the trousers for good measure and, keeping his face leaned as far back as he could, helped Blink put the man's trousers back on before setting him back down in the tub. Tom sat on the cracked tile floor of the bathroom and watched as Blink gently force-fed the man each of the five vials he brought out of his satchel, each with a different reaction on the man's face and barely open eyes. The man lost consciousness again after a couple minutes and Blink sighed heavily, shaking his head.
Tom left the bathroom for a couple minutes and looked around the top floor of what could barely be considered a house, searching for a pillow with an even remotely acceptable amount of padding. Not even on the bed, its blankets and pillow flat and moth devoured, held what he needed so he went back to the bathroom where Blink sat on the toilet and watched the man sleep, wheezing with each breath. When Tom closed the door behind him, Blink said without shifting his focus from the man, "I's a cryin' shame va' vey exis', Tom. I ha'e i'. So much. Squibs shouldn' be possi-boo. Imagine comin' from paren's wiv magic an' vey wai' for 'vose eleven years for you tuh show your magic too. An' when you don', fear takes over everyfing. Everfin'! You fink you should hide vem away because if one of vuh pure-blood families fin's ou', you're done. You ge' fired from a job you've done for thir'y years. Your kids ge' dropped from vuh lis' a' Hogwar's. For all vuh grea' fings we've done, we still can' accep' i' when one of us ain' like vuh res'. Look a' how Rodulph and his gang treated Mugg-oo borns, like va's all va' ma'ers. An vis man wasn' even a Squib until he go' sick."
Blink's breathing became heavy as he looked to Tom with tears in his hazel eyes, making them look almost green as he continued his lament, "Mungo's could have cured… COULD HAVE CURED, MA'E, him when he was 'vere. Bu' vey jus tol' her he wouldn' live annuvah year if she couldn' pay. She gave as much as she could and i' still wasn' enough. Gave Mungo's 'er 'ouse an' everyfing. He's on'y a Squib now because 'vey wouldn' give her wha' he needed. He could still…"
Tom cut him off, a sudden thought he wished wasn't so delayed breaking into his mind, "Blink, how good are you at conjuration?"
Blink blinked twice and cocked his head a little and answered, "I…I don' follow…"
Tom racked his brain for the spell he knew he'd read at some point but couldn't find it. "Can you conjure a pillow, or something for him. I couldn't find any for him here and I don't know the incantation."
Blink almost gasped out a single laugh, "I…Yeah…Yeah I fink I can. Good finkin', Tommy-boy." With a look of simultaneous gratitude and firm resolve, Blink raised his wand and, with his eyes closed, cast in an assertive whisper, "Paria Pulvinum." Weaving itself before their eyes, a black and purple pillow materialized behind the man's head and propped him up a little off the walls of the bathtub. The man in the bathtub grimaced and whimpered as he opened his eyes and gasped, "Bless you, little Winky. Bless…" He coughed up a little blood onto his chest before he reached up and caressed a tear away from Blink's face. Blink held the man's hand to his face for a few seconds before using a rag from his satchel to wipe away the blood on the man's chest.
After doing a last checkup on the man, smiling little when he pressed his ear to the man's chest and felt the man's wheezing fade, Blink clasped the man's hand for a long while before he gestured for them to leave. When they walked back down to the first floor, the woman sat waiting in a chair by the door with her face buried in her hands and a small purse in her lap. She looked up, her face wet and hair matted to its side, and sobbed, "It… I don't have much but please, just please take this. I can't… I can't ever…"
Blink knelt in front of her, pushing her outstretched hands with the pouch back into her lap and whispered, "No…I can't. And you can't. You need that to help keep him going, and you'll need these…" He pulled out 2 each of the same vials Tom saw him give the man and added, "Once a munf', he needs 'vese by mouth tuh keep vuh cough away and ge' his strength back. If i' ge's any worse, send me an owl and I will sen' wha' I can from Hogwar's or send Alice your way again." When the woman tried to push back against him with the pouch still in hand, Blink shook his head and answered firmly, "Please, Astrid…I'm getting close. And you need i' tuh ge' you bof' ou' of vis Alley."
Without another word, Blink stood up and nodded to Tom as he tightened the strap of his satchel and walked out of the house and back onto the streets of Knockturn Alley. Over the course of the next two hours, Blink brought Tom to three more homes in Knockturn Alley, though they never entered any. He met their owners, each squalid beyond even the worst Tom saw on the Muggle-side of London, and handed them various vials or pouches of spell ingredients. The fourth and last, a man who looked poor but not as rough-living as the rest, persuaded Blink to let him pay since he recently found work in a stable on the north side of London. Blink begrudgingly took it but forced the man to take an extra three doses of whatever potion Tom saw him place in his hands.
Tom and Blink didn't speak much as they slowly made their way through the ever narrow Knockturn Alley and back into Diagon Alley. Blink only gave a passing, half-hearted smile to Tom the Barman when he went with the man around the back of the pub to gather their untouched cart and its supplies. Blink's pace was slow as they quietly made their way back to Old Red along a walkway next to the Thames, passing by the regal entrance to the City of London. Blink made a point of spitting in front of him as they passed the Tower of London and Tom wondered at the origin of such animosity but felt better not to mention it.
By the time they made it back, the sun already long past its zenith and beginning to set, the early dinner rush already hit Old Red and Blink hurried in with the three sacks of ingredients without waiting for Tom to catch up. When Tom entered, unsure if he should stay for this shift, he almost made it to the stairs before Blink called after him, "We need your help wiv vuh portions, Tommy-boy. Come on an' ge' your coa' on."
Just as Tom opened the red and silver painted door to the kitchen, an identical red chef's coat to the rest of the staff's flew into his chest. Blink held out a long soup spoon and japed with a smile Tom didn't think he'd see again that day, "A'ie finks her tay-uhs have suffered enough wiv 'vose hands, ma'e."
Tom returned with a small, genuine yet cautious smile of his own as he pulled the coat around him and started to button it before a heavy hand slapped him by the back a few feet forward, nearly knocking him into a set of bowls with steaming, fresh baked shepherd's pies. Tom turned to see a smirking Attie with a fresh, unlit cigarillo in her mouth and she bellowed in her coarse voice, "We los' again Blink. You know wha' va' means, boys?"
Blink whooped and hollered with the rest of the staff and turned to a noticeably confused Tom. He gestured with his head for Tom to follow and explained as he picked up two of the sacks he brought back with them and threw them up onto the wooden table between them, "Vis' is gonna be vuh bes' nigh'. An' a grea' one given today's errands. I'm glad you're here for vis, Tommy. Help me ge' vese ingredien's ou' an' Graham is gonna show yuh how tuh prepare his famous roux. You're gonna be wiv' him until everyone ge's here. Ven' we're all gonna be ou' in vuh dinin' area."
Tom complied and after emptying the sacks and sorting them to different stations, Blink left him alone in the kitchen with Graham, who grimaced a little at Tom as he muttered, "Mmmm, yes…Watch. No speak." With a patience reserved for only the most calm, Graham slowly and methodically guided Tom through each step of his admittedly masterful roux recipe. It reminded Tom of a more pleasurable version of Professor Slughorn's potions lessons. Using just the right amount of a cheap yet robust red wine mixed with garlic-infused butter and "specially" spiced flour, Graham mixed and stirred it until homogenous. When the first pot simmered to what Graham considered an "adequate" consistency and taste, he slid it across the slick wooden table next to them and into the spinning arms of Fisher who quickly set it up on another stove and started adding the meat and vegetables he and Bradford prepared with the bags Blink brought back.
Pot by pot, Tom eventually being allowed to do one on his own after helping Graham through three more, they made the bases for each stew and passed it off to the other cooks. An hour passed before both Attie and Blink re-entered the kitchen sweating and Attie walked right up to one of the complete and lightly simmering pots of complete stew. Blink tossed her one of the ladles from a tin and she dipped it handle side down, blew on it twice, and slurped it off the edge like a fine wine. She licked her lips and teeth and a quiet took the kitchen until Tom spoke up, "I made the roux for that one, ma'am."
Blink's shoulders shrunk a little as he looked from Attie, paused in reflection and though, to Tom and shook his head. But when Attie opened her eyes with the barest of smiles, everyone perked up as she conceded, "Well, Graham is vuh bes' sous a chef could ask for. Could use a bi' more bu'er to mellow vuh mix, bu' a good effor'. Well done, young Mister Riddle." Tom looked around confused at everyone's amazement, Graham's curt nod being the ultimate sign of praise. Just as Blink clapped Tom on the back, the front door to the pub opened and Attie concluded, "Le's ge' star'ed gents. I's gonna be a long one, I reckon."
Tom barely stepped out of the kitchen before he saw a throng of people of all shapes, ethnicities, economic backgrounds, and gender s slowly flood into the main hall of Old Red to sit on the recently cleared floor. One by one, each of the cooks, including Tom, brought out the massive pots of stew to set them down on a long table just in front of the staircase. Attie and Blink brought out enough bowls and utensils to hand out to each one as they sat and waited for their turn. Behind the tables, Tom and rest of the cooks lined up and started spooning out healthy helpings of stew to everyone as they chatted in line and the room grew to a dull, happy roar.
And as each group of people left after having their bowl and handing them off to a waiting Blink and Attie behind the counter to wash them, more and more people came in. Over the course of 3 hours, hundreds of people came and went from Old Red to chat with each other, Attie, and the rest of the staff about the recent match against the lower ranked Leicester City from what Tom heard them call "Division Two". Songs broke out every now and again and they became even louder when Attie broke out the ale and handed it out to those of age.
At first, Tom stood behind the table and just absentmindedly scooped up servings and sent people on their way without a word. But after the same group of men as he'd seen a few nights before done up as Victorian maidens came in dressed casually in men's suits and ties, and then thanked Tom and the rest of the cooks at the top of their drunk lungs as they left, Tom's spirits lifted a bit. He started to enjoy it, due in part to Blink's infectious smile and boisterous attempts to persuade a fan of a different club called the Blackburn Rovers that their team would never again reach the heights of the FA Cup again and he should thus become a Liverpool fan, for their luck was about to change for the better.
Collins and his wife Eliza came later in the night carrying a large package wrapped in brown paper. After a brief but sarcastic ribbing from both Attie and Blink about the timing, Attie took Eliza in the kitchen and two hours later they emerged with a single pot of the most delicious smelling, and tasting, lamb stew Tom ever tasted. Even better than the one time he'd asked the house elves of Hogwarts for a bowl of it during the winter holiday his second year. Eliza and Collins, whose first name Tom learned to be Alfie, left after relieving Graham and Blink from the line for a half hour to eat their helping of lamb stew.
Lasting well after midnight, the last people departed Old Red after finishing off, to the tasty dregs, the last pot of stew prepared and thanked everyone loudly as they drunkenly walked back into the dark and now foggy London night. Blink and the rest of cooks fell backwards onto the stairs and erupted into fits of laughter. Tom couldn't help but join as they looked at all of the stew stains on their coats, joked about different parts of the revelrous night, and Attie silently smoked her last cigarillo by the open front door.
After the rest of the cooks and Attie left to go home and Blink locked up both entrances to Old Red, Tom went upstairs and barely landed onto the couch before he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, his heart as soft and warm as the stew he helped make that night.
A/N:
The title for this chapter, following the theme of Delphic Maxims for reasons, translates to Share the Load of the Unfortunate.
Apologies for the delay. I realized halfway through editing this chapter on Saturday that about 3/4 of the original 4k words in this chapter were absolute poo-doo. Like, the melodramatic, useless argument doesn't serve the plot or development of the characters involved kind of poo-doo. So on Sunday I deleted the entire thing and outlined what I think is a much better result, writing all 8k words you see here on Monday. I haven't seen this book since December when I wrote it, so there may be more delays if they are anywhere close to as bad as this one was before I caught on.
As always, Puppy-Dog eyes initiated, I like feedback and if you have positive or negative comments on what you see, leave a review. I won't always catch the poo-doo and if I post it and no one says a thing, I might not notice it in the future. Thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoy it.