Chapter Thirty

Using Kreacher, who remained disturbingly excitable, Tom sent out three anonymous letters to the heads of the Nott, Warrington, and Steele families instructing them to sign the enclosed contract in return for the removal of the curse on their children. The contract bound the signees loosely to Tom, the best he could manage via simple parchment at the moment. Both Nott and Warrington thus found themselves suddenly falling asleep in the Great Hall as Tom removed the curse from them. Steele's family hadn't sent a reply yet. For their son's sake, Tom hoped they did. He'd seen the boy tumble down the stairs twice now, and he'd heard Severus had banned the boy from his classes.

Umbridge, too, was developing more severe symptoms. She snapped at anyone and everyone, mood rising and plummeting without rhyme or reason. She tripped over nothing and spoke to people no one else could see. Tom saw her exiting the Hospital Wing one day, ranting about being perfectly fit to continue work, as Professor McGonnagall looked on with a troubled expression.

Perhaps related to the DADA professor's decreasing mental health, the number of students attending his study sessions kept increasing. By now, almost every fifth year had joined, along with a number of students from the other years. Tom ended up needing to split the group into two just to have enough time to give each student a fair amount of attention. Additionally, with exams coming up, Tom increased the frequency of meetings from once a week on Sunday to an official meeting on Sunday plus whatever times students could make it to the Room of Requirement after dinner. Tom made sure that, if he wasn't available, at least one of the people he was bound to was present during those hours.

To make matters worse, somehow performing the ritual with Luna during a study session inspired the other members to do the same. Those bound to him kept out of it, in case it affected Tom's stability, but Neville ended up bound to Bones and Abbot, who each bound themselves to every other Hufflepuff as well. Davis and Zabini, Dean and Parvati, Ron and Lavender, the twins and each other for some ungodly reason (though they also performed it with Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell, and Alicia Spinnet, so maybe it was simply a Quidditch thing)... If they were content to do it on their own time, that would be one thing, but they all felt the need to do it during the study sessions. It got to the point that Tom had to make the sessions longer just to fit everything in. Tom hexed Luna, eliminating her sweet taste buds for three days, when that happened for her role in inciting the whole thing.

Then there was the increasing number of students he'd marked. It started with the Slytherins. After one session, Bolstrode approached him. Greengrass, Davis, and Zabini stood behind her, looking oddly protective, for Slytherins at least. Malfoy stood beside them, but despite being roughly the same physical distance away as everyone else, he managed to look like his own very lonely group. Bulstrode lowered her head and requested that he mark her.

"Why?" asked Tom, not looking up from where he was making a list of spells to have the students review before exams.

Bulstrode answered slowly, "When I was growing up, we always celebrated your birthday, because father said his biggest regret in life was joining the Dark Lord and taking his mark. Then, last summer, when I got home he broke down. He begged me to forgive him because the Dark Lord would almost certainly force me to take his mark as well." Bulstrode grimaced. "If I have to accept a mark either way, I'd rather it be yours."

"It's going to hurt quite a lot," Tom said. "Malfoy's reaction was a bit pathetic -"

"Hey!" Malfoy protested.

"- but it's true that it's incredibly painful. It's a brand, at heart, and it feels much like a physical brand would." Or so he'd heard. Tom obviously had never given himself the mark, so he didn't know firsthand.

Bulstrode nodded. "My father told me how much it hurt to receive his mark. I still want you to do it."

Somewhat impressed despite himself, Tom nodded. He set down his quill and, after a pause to firmly fix the image in his mind, pressed his wand to her arm and marked her. Bulstrode grunted and fell to her knees, but she was able to rise again as soon as he'd cast the numbing charm on her arm. Tom smiled at her more warmly than he usually did. "Thank you, Miss Bulstrode, for your trust."

As though she's been a test subject - and given that they were Slytherins, she probably had been - Davis, Zabini, and Greengrass all stepped forward and requested the same.

Tom's brow furrowed. "None of your parents were death eaters," he pointed out. "Do you really feel like you need this?" It wasn't that he didn't want or appreciate additional people sworn to him, but he didn't like being in the dark as to their reasoning.

Zabini shrugged half-heartedly. "I'm just in it for the ride," he said. "I've got nothing better to do, after all."

Davis swatted his arm. "You're such a prat," she hissed. To Tom, she said, "You know that we're dating, right? Well, everyone's been turning a blind eye so far, since it's 'just a school-aged fling,' but if the Dark Lord takes control, we'll never be allowed to stay together past seventh year. Since, you know, I'm a halfblood. If we want to stay together, we'll have to fight for it." Beside her, Zabini's cheeks darkened at the blatant sentiment, but he didn't disagree.

Tom cocked his head, a little surprised. He hadn't realized they were so serious about each other, but then, it was difficult to tell given Zabini's preference to pretend disdain for everything and everyone. He turned his gaze to Greengrass, who shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. At last, she steeled herself and looked up. "I want to take your mark in return for a favor," she said.

Tom narrowed his eyes. "What kind of favor?"

Expression determined, Greengrass said, "I want you to marry me."

Hermione made the noise of outrage, and Tom frowned. "You can barely stand me. What do you need that requires the Potter name?"

"Not the Potter name. I need the money and your fame," Daphne told him. She took a fortifying breath. "Our bloodline has a curse bound to it, and it's manifested in my younger sister. My father has nearly bankrupted our family trying to cure her, but he can't afford to keep searching. If he does, he won't be able to afford the potions that keep her strong enough to attend Hogwarts."

Tom blinked, interest piqued. "Would you mind if I took a look at her?" he asked. "I knew someone once with a blood malediction. The symptoms are undoubtedly unrelated, but the underlying base of the two curses might be similar enough to give me some insight. It's a rare enough condition that I doubt the people your father asked had experience with anything similar."

Greengrass studied him for a moment before nodding . "I don't want you to do anything without me there. But if you manage to cure her, I will do absolutely anything that you want me to."

Tom nodded. "Can I ask why you lied earlier in the year? You said you didn't get along with her, and she's one of the only Ravenclaws in her year not attending these study sessions, so I assume you've been keeping her from them intentionally."

Greengrass looked a tiny bit sheepish. "I thought you might possibly be working for the Dark Lord. Because of how much you'd changed over the summer and, you know, some of your spell repertoire is a bit… dark."

"I'm not, but even so… You don't think the Dark Lord would be capable of curing your sister?" Tom asked curiously.

"Of course he could," Greengrass snapped. "But he wouldn't just take from me in return. He'd take from my entire family, including Astoria, and that would defeat the entire purpose. I want her to be free to live her life and do what she wants to with it. If I can get that for her at the cost of just myself, then that's obviously the better option, isn't it?"

The Slytherins were full of surprises today, weren't they? He hadn't expected to find such naive notions in one of the more reserved Slytherins. Still, he had no reason to refuse, and he was interested in studying Astoria's curse, so he nodded and gave the three Slytherins his mark as well. When not a single one of them screamed, Tom sent Malfoy a smug look, making the other boy flush unattractively.

Tom didn't anticipate the effect this would have on the other members of his study sessions though. The following session, the Gryffindors who knew his secret came and requested he give them his mark. Then it was the Gryffindors who didn't know, all coming up at one point or another during the week. Next it was the Ravenclaws, and finally Bones came to him with the other Hufflepuffs and told him that she'd already decided to join him, so could he please get on with marking them as well?

Tom asked Hermione about it one night, bewildered by the phenomenon of teenagers flocking to be branded for no discernable reason. They didn't even know his stance on any important issues yet. Hermione set down her book with a sigh. "Part of it is that you really are… something." She shook her head. "Being around your magic is exhilarating. I'd imagine it was similar for the Death Eaters. It's hard not to want to go along with you when you're excited about something, and when you give someone your approval, it feels more validating than just about anything else." She wrinkled her nose. "To be honest, I don't like that aspect of things. I don't enjoy being at the mercy of instincts I didn't even know about until recently."

That was interesting. No doubt she was referring to the theory that magical beings were drawn to powerful and/or compatible magics. He'd heard about such instincts before, but he'd more or less dismissed the idea as pureblood nonsense. If Hermione was saying it though, it gave the idea more credit. "You said that was part of it," Tom prompted when she didn't immediately continue.

Hermione nodded shortly. "Right, well, the other part is that they're teenagers." She giggled at Tom's look of incomprehension. "Well, the Slytherins came first, and they had their reasons, right?"

"Right."

"Well, then the Gryffindors who know who you are felt like they needed to get marked as well to ensure you had some 'good' influences on your side. Then the rest of the students followed suit because by then it was just… part of belonging to the group. A lot of people, teenagers especially, will do almost anything to avoid feeling left out."

Ginny lifted her head from its spot in Tom's lap, where she'd been dozing off while he and Hermione stayed up reading. "There's also the fact that it hurts."

Both Hermione and Tom looked confused now. Ginny rolled her eyes and sat up, stretching before curling her legs up under her and looking at them with a wry smile. "I know this from having six brothers. If one guy does something really painful on purpose, the rest of them will have to do it too. Otherwise, and I want to be clear that this is how Bill put it when I asked him, 'the guy who took the pain will win.' Basically, it's a pride thing." She shrugged. "I'll bet someone taunted Malfoy about crying, and he said something like 'why don't you do it then if you're so tough' or whatever, and the next thing you know, you've got a bunch of guys hurting themselves for no good reason."

Part of Tom felt like this made some level of sense, but the rest of him thought that it made much more sense to simply be the one causing the pain, since that person was obviously the real winner.

Rapidly growing circle of people bearing his mark aside, Hermione had started disappearing during the day, then evading questions about her whereabouts. Since her emotions during her absences typically consisted of determination, frustration, and smugness, Tom tried to leave her to her secrets. Nonetheless, he did tag her with a tracking charm that placed her near the Forbidden Forest unusually often. When he happened to be studying Astronomy during the day and happened to see her with his telescope, he could see that she was speaking with the centaurs.

During one such trip to 'study astronomy,' a frail woman covered in shawls and smelling strongly of sherry approached him in something of a daze. "My dear boy," she slurred. "I must thank you. Without your distraction, she would have evicted me."

Tom looked at her, searching Potter's memories for her name. Oh. The divination professor. He smiled blandly. "Of course, professor," he said without any idea what she was on about.

The woman blinked owlishly and adjusted her glasses. "I'm sorry, what was that? Oh! It's you, Mister Potter! I was sorry to hear that you would be leaving my class, but if one lacks the Sight, there's little to be done about it." Having said her piece, she wandered away, leaving a thoroughly confused Tom behind.

The only other occurrence of note before the spring break began was caused, Tom supposed, by his curse on Umbridge. He couldn't think why else she would decide that attempting to interrogate him with, presumably, Veritaserum was a good idea.

"Well, Mister Potter," the woman said cheerily, pouring tea for the both of them, "it's been a while, hasn't it?"

"Not long enough," Tom replied just as brightly.

Her expression didn't change from its slightly manic smile as she poured milk into her cup with exaggerated movements. Just as obviously, she added several drops of a clear potion to his. "Drink up, drink up." She watched him closely as Tom gave her an incredulous look and pretended to drink while wandlessly Vanishing the tea from the cup. She giggled, and the kittens decorating her office stared intently. Tom thought that if he ever did die and ended up in hell, it would look something like Umbridge's office. "Now then, is there anything you can tell me, dear boy, about a certain study group I've heard about?"

Tom wondered who'd been stupid enough to break Hermione's contract and resolved to check the Hospital Wing later. "It depends," he said. "What study group did you hear about? Only, there are quite a few, so it's hard to know which one you mean."

The smile grew wider, and she licked her lips hungrily. "Oh really? And just who might be the ringleaders for these groups?"

Tom raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure why you think I'd know."

The woman's smile disappeared. "You're leading them! I know you are!"

This was the closest he'd ever been to someone who'd been under the Curse of Ill Sleep for so long, and it was interesting. Also terribly alarming, but interesting all the same. He wondered if, having gone this far 'round the bend, she would recover completely even if he removed the curse. Unfortunately, Tom was also curious if it was possible for this curse to kill a person. It'd all be a moot point if Hermione's revenge turned out to be lethal, of course, but what were the chances of that? Between the two questions, the latter was more interesting to him, so the curse remained.

"Answer me!"

Tom blinked. "You didn't ask me anything, ma'am."

Her face purpled with rage, and she reached across the desk, hands outstretched as though to grab him. Tom immediately pushed his chair back and stood. "Excuse me, ma'am, but I have a meeting with Professor Snape regarding my Potions grade." He escaped before she could try anything else, though he heard the sound of something shattering against the door as he closed it.

The next day, to most students' relief, Spring Break began. Tom announced, first thing in the morning, that he was moving to Severus's quarters for the duration of the break, along with Hermione, Ginny, and Luna.

AN: Still can't log in to FFXIV past about 10:30am. Oh well. Off to Genshin Impact now that another chapter's been done. In a single day. … Why am I writing even more now that Endwalker's out? T_T Anyway, gonna edit tomorrow, then post. But yay, finally getting close to the end of fifth year!