Chapter Twenty-Nine, wherein it turns out waiting in queue is an excellent time to write
Somewhere, Sometime
He couldn't see, but he nonetheless got the impression that there'd be nothing to see even if he could. Time had become meaningless, and he'd tucked his memories so far within himself that he couldn't recall even so much as his name. Some instinct told him that he would otherwise never manage to come out of this as himself. Around him, he felt others, and they had almost all given up on hope and constantly urged him to do the same. Most of them had lost their identities long ago. He still felt it though - something tugged at him from some place other, and so long as that tug persisted, there was hope.
Hogwarts, 1995
Ginny never did call on him to end her detentions. Instead, Tom felt as her initial distress twisted into hatred. In an effort to distract himself, he spent more time with the Slytherins, much to their displeasure, since he typically decided to invade their dorm to do it. It gave him more opportunities to check on Malfoy though. The boy was on the edge of a breakdown. His skin was ashen, his appearance in disarray. He'd stopped eating and spent meals gulping down tea and coffee like his life depended on it, even though they couldn't possibly be helping. Tom caught him staring into space from time to time, and several times the boy flinched and hurried away from absolutely nothing.
The others hit by the curse were much the same, aside from Umbridge. It gave Tom an interesting view into the differences in the progression of the curse by age, though he couldn't be sure if the curse merely worked more strongly on the teenagers or if being young made them react worse to the same level of sleep deprivation.
Unexpected results aside, a missive from Severus finally came, instructing him to meet Malfoy in his private lab Saturday morning. Tom went to the meeting, only to be caught off-guard by the presence of Lucius and Narcissa.
"Mister Potter," Lucius sneered, but his eyes were tight with worry.
Tom smiled and bowed slightly. "Lord Malfoy, Lady Malfoy. It's a pleasure to see you both in such good health." He cast his gaze over to Draco, who sat in a chair and couldn't be bothered even to glare at him. "A shame I cannot say the same for your son."
"Name your price, Potter," Lucius snapped.
Tom blinked. Had Severus not told them then? He considered the matter. They no doubt had already discovered that Severus no longer bore the Dark Mark. Voldemort couldn't possibly have missed it for this long after all. That meant there was no point pretending Severus didn't already belong to him, but… He smirked. "Didn't Severus tell you? He already offered himself up to me to release Draco from the curse. I would have done it this weekend either way."
Narcissa gasped, one delicate hand rising to cover her mouth. "That's why he -" She cut herself off, looking distraught.
Tom pretended to have no idea what she meant, letting her believe Severus's defection was entirely for her son's sake. "However, he did ask me for another favor, one I was disinclined to grant. He wished for me to protect Draco, both from Dumbledore and the Dark Lord. That was more than Severus was worth to me, but if another person were to make the same request... " Tom smiled. "I might be willing to reconsider, in exchange for gaining another, more useful servant. Of course, Draco will have to swear himself to me as well, because I can hardly protect him if he refuses to allow me to do so, but I promise not to treat him poorly."
Even as Lucius drew his wand in outrage, Narcissa stepped forward. "I'll do it."
"Love, you can't be serious."
Narcissa lifted her chin imperiously and sniffed. "Of course I am. The Dark Lord cares nothing for our family or our ways. I will not lose Draco to that madman if there is a better option."
"And you think this boy could be a better option? You think a boy no older than our son could possibly protect anyone?"
"Severus does," Narcissa retorted. Her glare dared her husband to argue against that.
Lucius clenched his jaw and looked away. Small wonder. Many of the Death Eaters had hated Severus, but that was primarily because they acknowledged his competence. The blond man studied his son, whose expression plainly showed that he was incapable of following the conversation for any length of time. Lucius exhaled noisily. "Fine."
Tom gave him a small, polite smile before turning to his wife. "Lady Malfoy, if you would extend your arm?" At her questioning look, he explained, "I will mark you." He ignored Lucius's disbelieving snort and held out his hand expectantly. Slowly, but without any visible nervousness, Narcissa took his hand and allowed him to turn her arm over. Tom took a moment to solidify the image he wanted within his mind, then pressed his wand to the pale flesh of her inner forearm. "Dominamortum, dominanima," he hissed.
"Nngh!" Narcissa shook as the skin on her arm sizzled. Deep, burnt-orange lines spread out from Tom's wand and etched out a picture not unlike one of those muggle illusions. One moment it appeared to be a phoenix; the next, it became something like a dementor with one skeletal hand outstretched.
Tom examined his work, checking that the spells tied into the brand had all taken hold properly. That done, he cast a numbing charm on Narcissa's arm. "Well done, Narcissa," he said sincerely. "I believe many would have fallen to their knees in tears at that." He glanced toward her husband as he said it, remembering when the man had done just that.
"I'm a Black," she told him stiffly.
Tom inclined his head. "Indeed you are. My apologies. I meant no insult."
Lucius looked as though he'd seen a grim. "Who are you?" he whispered.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord, of course," Tom replied, baring his teeth in a poor approximation of a grin.
Narcissa took her husband's arm, pulling him to her side. She looked to be doing nothing more than taking comfort in his presence, but knowing how many Death Eaters collapsed after receiving their mark, Tom expected she was using the man for the physical support as much as the emotional. The blonde took a fortifying breath. "And my son?" she said more than asked.
"Of course." Tom waved his wand carelessly in Draco's direction. As the one who'd placed the curse, it was beyond simple for him to remove it. "It's done."
Before the words had fully escaped his mouth, Draco tumbled forward off the chair he was seated in. Tom barely had time enough to stop his fall with a silent and overpowered Arresto Momentum. He clicked his tongue in irritation. "Would one of you be so kind as to take your son? He appears to have fallen asleep immediately."
Narcissa was already at his side, and she took over, carrying the teen from the room with the aid of a Featherlight Charm.
"Who are you?" Lucius repeated. "Only the Dark Lord should know that spell."
Tom cocked his head. "I'm exactly who I said I was," he told the Death Eater. "Now, what do you intend to do with your wife? Shall I ask Sirius to take her in, or do you believe she will be safe at your manor despite your guest?"
The man started, then shook his head. "I'm beginning to see why Severus would have such high expectations of you, Mister Potter. You almost seem like a different person from the boy I saw at the graveyard." He tapped his cane impatiently against the ground for a moment, then said, "I believe Narcissa will be safe enough for the time being, but I would ask that you have a place prepared for her to go with my son once the summer begins."
Tom nodded and turned to leave. Just before he reached the door, he hesitated. "Lucius, I will do my best to spare you, should we meet as enemies, so long as you return the favor by sparing my allies. Let me know if you ever decide you want me to replace his mark with my own." He left. He would take care of marking Draco another time. It was something that required active consent to bind properly, so he needed Draco awake and aware to do it.
The next morning was the first study session of the new year. To Tom's surprise, Malfoy appeared along with the rest of the Slytherin contingent. Tom instructed Greengrass to make sure Malfoy knew the alignment ritual so he could perform it the following week, even though he expected that the Malfoy family performed it as a matter of course once their child turned thirteen. As those two completed that assignment off to the side, Tom ran a practical with the others. It turned out that the twins had been holding back, not wanting to risk hurting their friend. With that consideration taken out of the way, they managed to seriously injure him. Twice. Tom pressed a hand to his stomach and Vanished the wooden stake sticking out of it, then, grinning, blasted both boys across the room and into the wall. Though irritated, because it hurt, Tom was also proud of the pair. He resolved himself to find a copy of the animagus transformation and provide it to them.
Luna, Ginny, and Hermione also worked well together, although they didn't quite manage to catch him. Similarly, the three Slytherins (four, once Greengrass joined them, as Malfoy stood to the side and watched) nearly managed to last the entire twenty minutes without getting hit by a single 'deadly' spell. Overall, everyone was performing well, and Tom felt a rush of pride for his students.
Once the practical drills were over, Tom began teaching them the patronus charm. Naturally, no one else was able to get so much as a shield during the first lesson. However, over the next couple of weeks, Luna, Ron, Ginny, Bones, and Greengrass all managed to produce solid shields that were right on the edge of becoming corporeal patroni. Hermione and the rest of the students weren't far behind at all, with only Malfoy still struggling. That, however, was likely because he continued to ignore Tom most of the time despite frequent letters from home. Tom suspected Narcissa was becoming fed up with her son and wondered whether she'd wait until the summer to take him to task or visit the school before then.
In fact, everything seemed to be going incredibly well, Ginny's detentions with Umbridge aside. Voldemort was lying low and not causing any additional trouble, and Tom felt, for the most part, relatively stable.
In mid-February, the Gryffindor Quidditch team played Hufflepuff. This time, Ron had no trouble saving the ball, and Ginny caught the snitch quickly, leading to an easy win for Gryffindor. Ron explained, that night in the dorm, "After everything else, I just… don't care, I guess. If Slytherin wants to waste their time making up stupid songs, then they can go on ahead. I have better things to do."
Ginny nodded from her spot on Tom's bed. "After all our practice dodging spells, flying after a snitch is kind of tame." By now, her presence in the boys' dorm was totally accepted. Even McGonagall didn't seem to mind, though she made a comment that she had best not hear about any 'funny' business. Tom really hadn't thought the old woman would be the sort to look the other way. He felt a bit let down, because he'd been looking forward to sneaking around her restrictions once she discovered the girls staying in the boys' dorm.
Hermione came in after her rounds as Prefect and settled in on Tom's other side with a smile. "Well done, Ron. You did really well today," she said warmly.
Ron's ears turned a bit red, but he just grinned and said, "Thanks."
The next morning, Tom walked into the Room of Requirement curiously. The door had already been there when he arrived. He crossed his arms and watched Luna flit about the room, seeming to be working on several different things at once. One of those things was a very familiar circle of runes on the ground. She finally spotted him when the rest of the study group started to trickle in. "Hello! It's time for us to do another ritual!" she said cheerfully once everyone had entered.
Bemused, Tom sat back to see where she was going to take this.
Luna donned a pair of glasses for some reason, then gestured to the lines on the ground. "As you can see, the circle for this ritual is a bit more complex than the last ritual we did. That's because the effect is more complex. This is an old ritual originally intended to be used between a couple to strengthen their marriage bonds. However, there's no actual requirement that the pair be romantically involved, nor does the ritual enforce any kind of fidelity. The only necessarily physical part comes in the first of three stages that can be performed one after another or with significant lengths of time between them.
"Like many rituals, you won't find all the effects in a book, which is why it's important to collect as many sources of information as you can on a ritual beforehand." Luna gestured for Tom to come over. As he did, she handed him a vial of her blood so he could finish drawing the runes. "As an example, Tom and I will be performing the first stage of this ritual today. The effect, as I understand it, is a high level of empathy with the other person. It becomes difficult, but not impossible, to purposely lie to them or be cruel to them, and each person can actually feel the other's emotions. Now, before we begin, are there any questions?"
Greengrass asked, "What does the ritual entail, specifically? And what are the glasses for?"
Tom answered the first part for her. "There's an incantation, and a certain amount of each person's blood is required. Finally, the pair need to kiss each other on the lips for two seconds, then…" He grimaced.
Luna took over for him. "Massage each other's tongues for six seconds. The timing is important, so it's best not to think of it as kissing really. As for the glasses, they make me look more intelligent, and someone teaching you really should be intelligent, don't you think?" She waited to see if Greengrass would ask anything else, then smiled at Tom. "Are you ready?"
Tom sighed, but after taking a moment to compose himself, he nodded.
Performing the first stage of this ritual with Luna was less distasteful than it'd been with Severus and Hermione, but Tom attributed that to both desensitization and her general oddity. They hit the six-second mark and separated, and then Tom fell to his knees. He heard Luna give a startled cry and fall also.
Take care of Luna, he instructed Hermione. He grit his teeth and tried to get a handle on the new bond. It was far more overwhelming than the first three had been. The strength of Luna's emotions ebbed and flowed erratically, making it difficult to concentrate. This wasn't the time for a breakdown though. Tom forced himself to his feet and smiled tightly at the rest of the group. "As you can see, it can take quite a bit out of you. Right now, I can feel every emotion Luna is feeling, and she can feel everything I'm feeling. It's…" He clenched one fist behind his back to keep his focus on the present. "It's a bit overwhelming at first." Ginny, can you take over? Finish up the lesson and get them out of here.
As Ginny walked up, Tom stepped back and slipped away to join Luna at the side of the room.
"Tom," she whispered, and a rush of sadness crashed over him.
He grit his teeth against the emotion. "Are you alright?" he asked her.
She smiled weakly and nodded. "I'm fine, but you're not. Even after three, you're still so cold and empty. I'm sorry Tom. I'd have done this sooner if I'd known."
Tom grimaced and looked away. "I'm fine," he said. "It's possible to shut off your awareness of the bond, so just do that if it's too painful."
"No." Luna shook her head. "You're my first friend at Hogwarts, Tom Riddle, and I won't abandon you."
He'd have escaped then, because that level of sentiment was frankly disturbing, but she climbed into his lap and curled up like an overgrown cat, effectively pinning him down. Well, he could have stood up anyway, he acknowledged, but he wasn't so uncomfortable he needed to hurt her to escape.
Instead, he pet her much as he normally did with Ginny. To his amusement, she started purring. "Luna, did you look up a charm to make you purr?" he asked.
She peered up at him and curled her hands into 'paws,' batting at him playfully. "Meow."
"Potter."
Tom looked up to see Malfoy looking at them in bewildered disgust. "Yes, Malfoy?"
"What did you do to my mother?" The blond crossed his arms, perhaps attempting to look intimidating, but even though he was standing while Tom remained sitting, it only made him look defensive.
Tom tilted his head. Of course. If Malfoy was reading other students' letters for Umbridge, he'd naturally have told his parents not to send sensitive information. That disregarding the possibility of Voldemort checking their mail if he became suspicious. "I Marked her." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "It's a shame Dumbledore's Order doesn't have a mark too. Then you could get that one, and your family would have all their bases covered."
Luna pinched his arm. "You're getting off-topic, Tom Riddle."
Tom gave her a half-hearted glare. "You keep calling me that around others, and someone is bound to wonder what you mean by it eventually."
Luna blinked up innocently. "Oh, were we still keeping that secret?"
"...only from Dumbledore, really," Tom admitted.
"I'm still here!" Malfoy exploded. "And what in Merlin's saggy balls do you mean by Marked my mother?"
Tom gave Malfoy a mean smile. "It means your mother belongs to me now. In return, I grant the both of you protection from both Voldemort and Dumbledore." He shrugged. "Of course, if you refuse that protection, there's nothing I'm willing to do about it, and your mother's sacrifice will be wasted. It makes no difference to me."
Malfoy frowned. "Who's Tom Riddle?"
Tom shot Luna a look as though to say 'see?' but she didn't look the least bit apologetic. "Just the name of the Dark Lord before he decided he liked Voldemort better."
Malfoy blinked. "Why is Lovegood calling you that?"
"Because I'm actually a version of the Dark Lord who travelled through time to take over Harry Potter's body when he accidentally lost his soul over the summer."
"That's the worst lie I've heard from you yet," Malfoy muttered. "What does this 'mark' entail?"
Tom smirked. Going the Cassandra Truth route could be fun on occasion. "A fair amount of pain initially and a brand on your arm. A few other, minor spells, such as the one that would allow me to summon you to me." He gave Malfoy a curious look. "Has your father really never spoken to you about his mark?"
Malfoy flushed blotchily. It wasn't his best look, Tom thought idly. "Of course he has! But it's not like I could tell if you knew the real thing or not without asking."
"He has a point," Luna commented. "It's really not nice of you to tease him like that when he doesn't deserve it."
Tom rolled his eyes. "You're the last person I want to hear that from." He looked down at her. "Are you feeling better then?"
She nodded. "Yes. It was just… a shock, I suppose."
Considering the gratuitous amounts of emotion he continued to feel from her, Tom wasn't surprised. They were poorly matched for the ritual in that regard. He glanced back up at Malfoy. "Was there anything else?" he asked.
Malfoy looked around. The study session was over, and most of the students had left already. Only the Gryffindor girls and the Slytherins remained. "You gave Uncle Severus that mark too?"
Tom shook his head. "No. I just removed the Dark Lord's mark. I trust Severus to remember who owns him without it."
Malfoy bit his lip and furrowed his brows. "You… No, nevermind." The boy shook his head. "I'll take it," he sighed. "But don't expect me to act any nicer to you and your group of mudbloods and blood traitors when we're in public."
Tom nodded. "Give me your left arm then." As he took Malfoy's arm and pressed his wand to it, he commented, "It might be best if you don't call my allies by derogatory terms right before I perform a painful spell on you. I've been known to be a little vindictive. Dominamortum, dominanima."
Malfoy screamed and fell to the ground, making Tom's lips curl into a smile. He examined the brand carefully and, when everything appeared to be working as it should, cast the numbing charm.
"What did you do to him, Potter?" asked Greengrass. Though the words were accusatory, she merely looked curious.
"Just a friendly reminder that as far as allies go, he's at the bottom," Tom said. He nudged the still whimpering boy with his foot, wrinkling his nose. Pathetic. "Would you mind taking him with you to the Slytherin dorms?"
"I'm not your servant, Potter," she snarked.
Tom shrugged. "Alright, I'll bring him down in a little bit then."
Zabini turned up and helped Malfoy to his feet. "Don't know why you bother, Daph. You know Potter's got no problem waltzing right into Slytherin."
The blonde Slytherin sighed, pressing a hand to her forehead in exasperation. "I know, but I feel like if I don't make at least some protest, he'll escalate."
Tom wondered if they'd forgotten he was sitting right there, then started thinking about how he could escalate his annoyance tactics. "Where's Parkinson?" he asked suddenly.
"What?" the two coherent Slytherins asked. Even Malfoy was beginning to pull himself together enough to look confused.
Tom huffed. "Pansy Parkinson. You know, girl who follows Malfoy around like a pet dog?"
Malfoy glared weakly at him. "Are you forgetting what Weasley and Granger are like?"
Tom stared back blankly. "Cats. I admit, I'd rather have a nest of snakes than a herd of cats, but Luna's proved quite solidly that they are, in fact, cats."
Luna purred loudly. "Dogs are a bit too wet," she added. "And require more maintenance."
"So where is she?" Tom repeated.
Malfoy grimaced. "She's mad because thinks I'm coming here because I fancy Greengrass," he muttered. "Which, well…" He glanced at Greengrass and shook his head. "I don't, but Pans doesn't believe me." The boy examined his arm with a curious expression. "This looks nicer than the Dark Mark," he commented absently.
Tom shrugged. "That's hardly difficult. The Dark Lord designed that when he was still a teenager who thought turning his name into an anagram was a good way of ridding himself of it." He had, in fact, bemoaned his hasty decisions to use the skull and snake image and the name Voldemort as a teenager, so he'd leapt at the chance to redo the one. He paused. "Hmmm… Should we have a name? What would it be if we did?"
Zabini looked suddenly unusually casual. "The Set of Silvanus?" he suggested with an air that suggested he wasn't particularly interested in the conversation.
Greengrass rolled her eyes. "He's been pouring over all sorts of books and waiting for someone to ask that." She skillfully dodged the hex that flew at her, as well as the six followup hexes and curses.
With a cough, Zabini said, "I don't see anyone else coming up with anything."
Tom had already lost interest. "Sure, that's fine, I suppose." He stood, carefully sliding Luna off him as he did. "Is it too soon to use the ritual you found at home, do you think?" he asked her.
Luna considered the question. "I think it'd be best if you waited until you performed the next two rituals. Do you have any ideas for partners?"
Not since Severus vetoed Neville. "Do you?" he countered.
"Astoria Greengrass and… hmmmm…. I'm not sure. I haven't met anyone who looks like they'd fit properly." The answer came so promptly, Tom knew Luna'd been thinking about it for a while. He gave her a small smile in thanks.
Hermione and Ginny wandered over as she was speaking. Hermione seemed curious. "What does that mean, exactly? Does it really matter who the other two are, beyond making sure they're people who could conceivably manage the next two steps?"
Luna hummed thoughtfully. "I suppose it's like… baking, maybe? You started out with some Tom, Professor Snape, Hermione, and Ginny. You could think of that as flour, sugar, eggs, and salt. Just about everything you bake is going to have some of those. Then you add me and I'm… yeast? So you're making something that needs to rise now, but there are still a lot of options available. From here on out, with every additional ingredient, the number of new ingredients that you can add and still make something delicious becomes more and more limited. If you added Draco, that might be like adding chili powder. It'd be hard to find other things that would work with it. But Astoria is, maybe, vanilla extract. I just mean that of the people I know, adding her leaves the most available options."
Luna hesitated, forehead wrinkled up in thought. "It's not quite the same as that though. There's another set that I don't understand. Maybe you could consider them… processes? Each process has to pair with an ingredient. It doesn't matter so much which comes first, but for instance, I can tell that before today, you could do either another process or add another ingredient, but now that you've added me, you need to do another process before you add any more ingredients."
Ginny frowned. "So you're saying that Tom's managed to do these processes correctly so far by accident? That's… well, I'm glad it's worked out so far, but we can't really expect to keep getting so lucky."
Luna nodded. "I'm reasonably confident I'll be able to see the change if he accidentally completes another process, but all I can say right now is that he completed the one that paired with Ginny sometime over break, and he'd already completed the one for Hermione when school started."
"Do you know when he did the process that paired with Uncle Severus?" Malfoy asked suddenly, startling everyone who'd entirely forgotten the Slytherins were still there.
Luna recovered quickly and concentrated for a minute, but she eventually shook her head helplessly. "Even disregarding this summer, I didn't pay that much attention to Harry Potter before. The changes made by the ritual are like the difference between red and scarlet. You can tell the difference if you're paying attention, but not so much otherwise."
"Why do you care, Malfoy?" Hermione challenged, arms crossed.
Malfoy sneered at her. "Because now that my mother and I are Marked, I intend to make sure Potter wins." He grimaced. "The Dark Lord will kill us the second he realizes what we've done, so there's not much choice now."
"Fair enough," Tom decided. He'd assumed as much already. As for the other Slytherins, he wanted to see what they would do with the limited information they had. School was becoming increasingly boring, and side diversions like this kept him from doing anything drastic to relieve that boredom.
AN: Turns out logging into FFXIV is basically impossible past early morning, so instead I'm just relogging over and over as I get kicked out of my place in the queue by server error 2002. As I type this, I'm at 7,334. This is pain.
On a more physical pain note, getting the flu shot and a COVID booster on the same day has made my body so very sad.
Tom asking Luna if he could summon the deity yet was really me asking her. I've got it already written, but Luna told me no. (I suppose, technically, it was my subconscious telling me no, but if it wants to pretend to be Luna, I won't argue.) I also have Hermione and Severus's third stages mostly written, even though they can't possibly happen before September, 1997. Oh well.