Chapter 96 - "What's sleeping in our souls."
"Page of Swords? That's not in the Major Arcana…" Severus muttered, bent in front of the Cantuscope.
Circe stopped brushing her teeth and stilled. She listened astutely to the machine's ticking and whirring. Severus was right to sound confused. Until now, the Cantuscope had never displayed anything from the Court Cards.
Page of Swords… Page of Swords… Cards like that often refer to a person. A young person. Someone energetic, curious, quick-witted, determined…
Circe's eyes widened. She knew before the machine started blaring music who that was.
"I don't know what it is
That makes me feel alive
I don't know how to wake
The things that sleep inside
I only wanna see the light
That shines behind your eyes"
She almost choked on her toothpaste as the Cantuscope almost seemed to crack open her head and read her thoughts aloud.
Tom…
"Ugh, not this lot again." Severus grumbled. "I thought we'd put these two to bed after the Tri-Wizard year."
She almost didn't hear Severus's whinging. The Cantuscope was right; she had felt a strange sort of energy inside her since her run-in with Tom earlier that day. She felt less dead, less hollow, invigorated with intrigue and curiosity. Did her brother remember her somewhere deep down inside him? Was there something else to the brightness in his eyes when he looked at her? Whatever it was, the danger and the draw of it made her strangely feel more like herself. More so than she had done in weeks…
She'd had an uneasy, bubbling feeling in her stomach all day, ever since she'd let Tom run back to Hagrid's Hut. And that feeling inside her had persisted: when she'd completed the evening's roll call, instructed the House-Elves to bin the entire night's worth of food, manned her 'Study Session', had a few cozy hours in front of the TV with Herri, and even now, in the Headmaster's rooms with Severus.
"I wonder if someone is thinking of Cedric, and the cathexis aerial is picking up on it." Severus said.
Circe shook her head and tried to look less on-edge. "Huh?"
"Cedric. He was the Oasis fan, wasn't he?"
"Oh, um… yes. When I walked by the Black Lake today, I saw a school of grindylows and it reminded me of the second task.'' She lied quickly.
If Severus knew her thoughts were lingering on Tom, he'd give her a rather stern lecturing about "impulse control" again for sure..
The two of them spoke no more about it as they climbed into bed. Circe cast a silencing charm on the machine, praying Severus wasn't listening too closely to the lyrics. He'd been asleep beside her within ten minutes of laying his head on the pillow. Whereas Circe couldn't get the words of the song out of her mind.
"I hope that I can say
The things I wish I'd said
To sing my soul to sleep
And take me back to bed
You want to be alone
When we could be alive instead"
She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep that night. Her mind was racing with thoughts. Perhaps the machine had chosen that music because there was something about Tom that reminded Circe of Cedric. That magnetic personality, maybe. The way the other First Years seemed to flock around Tom as the students had once done for Cedric… But, perhaps it was simpler than that. Perhaps the Cantuscope had chosen that band... because of the two brothers belting out the chorus. The chorus that wouldn't let Circe sleep…
"Because we need each other
We believe in one another
And I know we're going to uncover
What's sleepin' in our soul"
Circe had quietly arisen from the large purple bed, silently turned the phoenix carving on the wall, and taken up her post within the long, thin hall of mirrors. Some instinct inside her told her to cast an eye over the Scrying Mirrors. She could sense something rolling in, like heavy rainclouds before a storm. Her bones ached.
She knew that she should have woken Severus up. She knew that she should have alerted him to the faint rustle of movement she saw just outside the Fat Lady's portrait. But he was so exhausted. He'd fallen asleep whilst he'd been absent-mindedly twiddling at her hair and mumbling his "I love you"s into her neck. She wanted to sleep too. To enter dreams with him. Circe was just beginning to doubt her bubbling gut and she had just been about to sneak back into bed at Severus's side..
And then she saw the three of them sneak out of their dormitory…
Lars, Jeffrey and Tom. Sneaking straight past The Carrow's night-time patrol. Carrying several buckets full of Searing Solution...
She muttered every swear word she could think of as she dressed herself slowly and made her way down to the Gryffindor dormitory. It wasn't hard to find the evidence of the boys' activity. Several fat blobs of Searing Solution peppered the floor, a faintly hissing, smoking burn on the carpet where it had landed.
Well, one of their buckets is leaking. Circe thought as she raised a brow at the neat trail of seared holes leading away from the Fat Lady.
It was a Hansel and Gretel trail, leading her all the way out of the castle and into the inky night.
I knew they were up to something. She seethed silently, striding through the darkness as the full moon shone above her.
Circe heard their voices before she saw them. High and mischievous, giggling and shushing each other. She cast a quick chameleon charm on herself, not enough to completely conceal her but enough to make her largely unnoticeable as she drew nearer to the boys. They were too busy to have noticed her anyways…
Tom, Lars and Jeffrey were sauntering about the swathes of grass by the Whomping Willow, meticulously placing the Searing Solution on the ground. She watched them for a moment, ducking behind a large and leafy bush and trying to figure out the strange patterns and arching flings they were placing the burning potion in.
"This'll stick it right to The Carrows!" Jeffrey muttered. "Our message will be readable from hundreds of miles away!"
"Some spectacular good thinking this afternoon, Lars." Tom said, patting his friend on the back. "If you two hadn't gathered the last few Bluebonnet Belching Mushrooms, then we never would have finished the potion."
"Sorry we lost you in the Forest though, mate." Lars replied. "But once I spotted them in the distance, I had to run and harvest them before they completely turned into poisonous gas."
"Pfft, don't matter. I wasn't lost for long." Tom said with a shrug.
"You must have been scared though!" Jeffrey exclaimed, looking up briefly from his spraying of potion. "I woulda been."
"Of what? The Centaurs? The Acromantulas? I fought them off easily..." Tom boasted, his tone breezy and blasé.
Circe had to suppress a snort of disdain upon hearing his blatant lie.
"Nah, of running into the Deputy-Headmaster!" Jeffrey exclaimed.
The three boys lapsed into a fit of giggles. Circe's heart panged inside her a little. They considered her to be a Bogey-Man, an object of terror, someone they didn't want to run into alone...
"She's not that scary." Tom said, flinging his bucket of potion onto the grass. Circe straightened her head slightly at that. Once again she watched her step-brother, wondering if there was something deep inside him that knew her. "I think she was crying when I found her."
"Crying? Why?" Lars asked.
Tom shrugged at him, his face pensive and thoughtful. Circe was almost holding her breath. Desperately trying to fight the urge to hope. To believe beyond reason that Tom knew her as something other than The Consort.
"Jeffrey, stop drawing a cock and balls!" Lars exclaimed suddenly. "Neville said the message needed to be serious."
"But I've finished my letters!" Jeffrey replied defensively.
"Then go over them again." Tom told his friend sternly. "Neville said that he wanted this to be readable from a hundred feet up in the air. And we ain't gonna let him down, are we Men."
Both of them shook their heads, smiling widely. They all bent their heads and continued with their work for a moment, all whilst Circe continued to listen in on them from a safe distance away.
Neville. So he's leading the student resistance by the sounds of it. Circe thought to herself. I wonder what message they're burning into the grass…?
"Do you think he'll see it? Harry Potter?" Lars asked breathily.
"I dunno. Maybe. But Neville said it's not important if he doesn't. It's more about telling other people outside of Hogwarts that we're trying to make contact." Tom said, his voice sounding assured and commanding. Circe could tell that he was the natural leader amongst his group of three friends. "Our little distraction this morning didn't buy the others nearly enough time to sneak out of the castle. And after Ginny and Dennis's go at it too, we need to think of another way to make contact with the outside. Before the Carrows cotton on. Especially after Luna was almost caught sneaking down to Hogsmeade too."
So, I was right... Circe thought, digging her nails into her palms. All these little "outbursts" they've been having recently, they're distractions. Ways of trying to focus our attention on them, whilst someone else tries to escape down to Hogsmeade. Clever little bastards.
"You almost made it!" Jeffrey said, pointing at Tom. "You could have made it all the way down to the village, without a distraction, if you hadn't run into the Deputy-Headmaster."
"I know… I thought I'd have a good go of it and take advantage of you lot losing me in the Forest!" Tom said, rolling his eyes at his two friends. "I headed for the edge of the trees. I could just about see the village when I made it out of the Forest. I even thought someone was waiting for me on that log. I thought it might have been the man Neville talked about, and maybe he knew we were crying out for him and he'd come to find me… But it wasn't. It was her."
Circe swallowed hard. She knew who Tom referred to when he sneered "her" into the black night; it had been Circe herself sitting on that log, not the saviour Tom had hoped for.
He even said it. He couldn't help himself. "I thought you were…". "I thought you were…".
But she wondered who exactly Tom had hoped to see. Who Neville had told him about. Who Ginny, Dennis and Luna had gone to The Coolers for, trying to make contact with.
"Why don't…" Lars began slowly. "Why don't we have a go of it now?"
"What do you mean, Lars?" Tom asked.
"We got outside without being seen! We could make a run for Hogsmeade. Right now."
What?! Circe thought, her eyes widening with alarm and a gasp escaping her mouth. But… but… the Spid-
"Let's do it, lads." Tom said suddenly, slicing through her thoughts.
Circe couldn't move quick enough. Lars and Jeffrey dropped their sizzling buckets to the floor and went sprinting off towards the distant trees. Circe just about had time to rise from the bush, draw her wand from her pocket and point it at Tom's back before he went running after them.
"Incarcerous!" She cried, and from the end of her wand, a long string of rope shot forth.
It curled its way around Tom's legs and he thudded to the ground. In his winded state, he still managed to glance back, his amber eyes darting to the floor as he saw and heard the rapid approach of Circe on the grass, still partially concealed by her chameleon charms.
"Tom!" Jeffrey and Lars called back to him.
"Run, lads!" Tom roared at them. "It's-"
"Silencio!" Circe screamed at him.
His voice choked out of him in a guttering halt.
"Immobulus!" Circe shouted, aiming for Lars and Jeffrey, but hitting neither of them. "Stop this instant, you morons! Immobul- Aah!"
Circe felt her legs sweep out from under her as a sharp set of feet collided with her calves. When she hit the floor, she saw her legs tangled with Tom's. As she rasped in a winded breath, the sounds of Lars and Jeffrey legging it through the last few feet of grassland and reaching the Forest echoed in her ears. Her vision went red with rage.
"Right, you little bugger. Immobulus!" She cried, pointing at Tom.
His little body went rigid and still again. His limbs locked into place. And when Circe rose to her feet, hovering over him and studying his wide-eyed expression of shock, she removed the last of her chameleon charms.
A spark of something glinted in Tom's amber eyes. Panic, alarm, recognition? She didn't know. But she hoisted him to his feet, Tom's jumper clutched in her white-knuckled fist, and removed the binding curse and the immobilising hex from him in one fell swoop.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" She demanded, shoving her teeth-baring, rageful face into his.
"Get off me!" Tom screamed back, struggling profusely in her grasp.
"The Spiders are more active at night! They'll be crawling over that Forest now. It's a miracle you weren't found and eaten alive earlier today in the daylight!"
"Get off me! Get off me!" Tom repeated, again and again, fighting and clawing at her like she was holding an alley cat.
Circe pointed her wand straight under his chin and Tom stilled instantly.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" She hissed at him. "Do you think this is some game?! Who can be the bravest Gryffindor and get themselves killed first?!"
"It's better than hiding in the shadows, Professor." Tom sneered at her. "How long were you watching us anyway? Waiting for just the right moment to pounce on us and throw us all in The Cooler or hang us from the Quidditch hoops. Or did you need a bit more time to think of an even nastier punishment? Because if you were, I don't think you can get much worse than what you did to Neville."
Another feather of pride plucked itself from Circe. Tom genuinely thought she was complicit in all that. The punishments, the cruelty… it was all done in her and Severus's name, after all. She swallowed hard and looked him in the eye.
"Call them back!" Circe shouted, shaking his body desperately.
"No!" Tom replied, hissing his answer at her through his stubbornly clenched teeth.
"Call them back!" she screamed again.
Tom looked at her for a silent, defiant beat.
"No." he whispered.
"Who's out there?!" a gruff voice barked from the shadows.
"Show yourself!" Another demanded.
Oh no, Alecto and Amycus. Circe thought as panic churned in her stomach.
"When we catch you, we'll make you wish for angor beans!"
"You'll be thrown in The Cooler black, blind and blue!"
Circe looked at Tom again, and no sooner had he opened his mouth to protest that she had muttered her spell.
"Immobulus." She whispered, and his little body went rigid once more. "Don't you dare make a sound!" she hissed at him, dragging her step-brother towards the bush she'd hidden in. "If they hear you, they'll break every bone in your body. So I suggest you shut up, if you don't want to be chugging Skele-Gro for the next three weeks…"
She dropped Tom into the bush and straightened up, just in time for Alecto and Amycus to come striding around the corner.
"Deputy-Headmaster!" Alecto exclaimed. "We… we didn't realise someone was already investigating out here."
"Investigating..." Circe said coolly.
"The students out of their dormitory!" Amycus shouted, almost gleefully. "And the little trail of Searing Solution they left all the way down to here!"
Bugger. Circe thought. They found the boys the same way I did.
"Oh, of course…" Circe muttered, trying to regain some composure. "I… I think they headed off that way." she added, pointing in the opposite direction Lars and Jeffrey had run off in.
Alecto and Amycus narrowed their eyes at her before turning to each other and sharing a suspicious look.
"Well go after them!" Circe shouted at them, before they could think any deeper or notice her shiftiness even more…
Alecto and Amycus both straightened their backs and went charging off in the direction Circe had pointed. Falling over each other and grinning menacingly, like a pack of hunting dogs, in their quest to find the boys.
Circe let out a long sigh, and looked down into the bush where Tom lay.
"Now listen, I'm not going to hurt you." she said softly to him, drawing her wand and working the spell to release the body-lock. "But if you don't want your friends to die, I suggest you cooperate with me."
Tom's limbs slackened again as he looked at her with a searing sort of hatred. Circe's heart sank.
"It doesn't matter anyway." she muttered miserably, pulling him up by his collar. "By tomorrow morning you'll still think of me as some monst-"
"Expelliarmus!" Tom suddenly cried.
It had been a long time since Circe had last been disarmed, but she felt the boy's spell punch her in the stomach with all the force of a bucking bull. Her wand spun out of her hand and she fell backwards until her spine slammed into the ground. The stars spun above her as she wheezed in a wided breath. Tom ran past her, straight towards the Forest.
"Y…. you…. You little fucker…." she breathed, clutching at her stomach as she pulled herself off the floor. "Come back!"
Circe cast her eye about the floor and found her wand in the grass. When she picked it up, she felt the change in wielding its power instantly. But she couldn't linger over it, how foreign her own wand now felt in her own hands… Instead, she ran after her brother, her feet thumping over the ground as she gradually caught up with him.
"Thomas Lukather! You stop right now!" she screamed after him as the Forest loomed closer and closer. The two of them sprinted into the shelter of the trees, branches and bracken hissing past them. "Attacking a Professor... your step-father would be ashamed of you!"
Something inside Tom made him instantly halt. He turned towards Circe, his amber eyes alight with a fiery loathing.
"Don't you dare talk about my step-father!" he screamed at her. "You don't know him!"
"I know that if he knew you were in this infested Forest in the middle of the night, he'd be pacing around his garage like a madman!" Circe screamed back.
Tom's eyes went wide. Circe's hands flew to her mouth.
"What have you done to him?" Tom asked quietly, his lip curling into a snarl.
"Wh-what?" Circe stammered, trying to backtrack on her outburst. "Nothing. I-"
"Have you hurt him?!" Tom screamed at her. "He's done nothing wrong! Just because your lot despise muggles! You think they're scum! You think I'm scum too, just because I don't come from magic! That's what The Carrow's say. That's what all the purebloods say about me. But I swear to God, if you've hurt him-"
"Listen to me! Your step-father's fine, Tom!" Circe said firmly, grasping his shoulders.
"Then… then how do you know about his garage?" he roared. "Have you been spying on him to try and use him against me, to get me to behave?!"
"No, Tom! They're safe. I'll keep them all safe with my life if I have to!" Circe screamed back. Tears filled her eyes and she stared into his confused face. His brown curls fell down over his brow, casting his amber eyes in shadow, but Circe, for another tantalising second, saw a flicker of something like recognition inside him. "Please…" she breathed, almost on the verge of sobbing. "Please see me."
"What are you talking about? I can see you-"
"Alec and Jane, Dad as well, they wouldn't know me from Adam... But you're magic, Tom. Maybe that's why you know me. I see it! Just a small bit of you… deep inside…"
"H-how do you know their names?" Tom demanded, stepping back away from her. "You must have been spying… You are gonna hurt them, aren't you!"
"No! I told you-"
"Then how do you know me?!" Tom screamed. "Why do you keep giving me those weird looks?! Looking out for me?! Saving my mates from The Carrows?!"
"Because I'm your sister, you idiot!"
There was a long, staggering silence as Tom stared at her. Circe let her tears fall. It had burst out of her like an ugly pimple. And now it lay between them like a limp corpse. Tom's face twisted with disgust.
"You're nuts." he snarled at her. Circe felt an icy dagger of disappointment slide into her heart. "I don't have a sister."
"I know you don't think that, but you've got to believe me-"
"You're insane!" he screamed in her face. "When we find Aberforth-"
"Aberforth! You're trying to make contact with Aberforth." Circe breathed.
"I'm telling him everything about you. He'll let the world know that they've put a mad woman in charge of Hogwarts! You can put me in The Cooler for as long as you want too, I'll still tell all the other Gryffindors that you're completely off your rocker when I'm out."
Circe went rigid. He'll tell everyone… He'll tell them what I said… What happened tonight… I'll be outed as soon as he talks… Severus too…
"No! Please, Tom, you've got to trust me-"
"NO!" he roared, so loudly it set Circe's teeth on edge. "I don't trust you! You're one of them! You hate us all! This is probably some trick… Some cruel, Death Eater's trick to get me to… I don't know…"
"Please, Tom." Circe sobbed, extending her hands out to him. "You have to-"
"Get away from me!" he shouted, jumping back from her.
A terrified scream sounded off somewhere deep within the trees. A duo of boy's screams…
"Lars… Jeffrey…" Tom breathed.
He turned his back to Circe and looked about him, trying to determine which way through the dense darkness to head in.
"Let me help you find them." Circe said weakly.
"I don't want your help." Tom sneered, pointing at her with nothing but hatred in his honey-brown eyes now. "You mean nothing to me."
Tom turned his back and began walking away from her. Circe's guts felt sick with panic as she lifted her wand to his head. Closing her eyes, she muttered the spell she'd been dreaming of saying for years…
"Antistrophi Obliviatus..."
Instantly, a torrent of milky-white strands burst from her wand.
The dark Forest illuminated with bright, white light.
Years and years worth of memories flooded out of Circe's wand, and straight into Tom's mulleted head…
The boy was still. Completely unmoving.
Circe focussed hard, knitting back together all the gaps she'd carved out of his head and all the memories she'd rewritten to remove her from his life.
Magic roared around the two of them.
Tears rolled down Circe's cheeks.
And after she was finished, silence fell….
Circe lowered her wand. Waiting with a heart beating at the speed of a jackhammer. The Forest went dark again. Tom was still for a few moments. Frozen in the position he had been in, about to stride off to find his friends, when Circe had reversed the obliviate spell. She wondered for a horrifying moment that perhaps her spell hadn't worked, or she'd messed up the spell so badly that Tom's mind was now mush. Perhaps she'd not been concentrating enough, perhaps she'd been too emotional to perform a spell that complex, perhaps she'd tried to put back too much in the young boy's memory…
And then Tom slowly began turning around.
Circe gasped aloud as his eyes locked with hers. The air caught in her throat. Her mouth hanging open.
Tom's mouth was open too. His eyes now had an entirely new look in them.
Until finally, the silence was shattered by a single, shuddering word the young boy breathed out to her:
"Circe?"
Circe let out a deep, shaking sob. She covered her mouth with her hand as something inside her knitted back together. She took a tentative step towards her brother. Tom ran to her, slamming into her body and wrapping his arms around her back. Circe gripped him tight, both of them now crying, shaking messes. For a moment, all they did was hug each other tight whilst Circe wept onto his head and Tom sobbed against her chest. After a moment, Circe pulled apart from him and cupped his face in her hands.
"Bangarang?" She asked, smiling weakly, her voice shaking.
"Bangarang!" Tom laughed, throwing his arms around her again.
They wept on for a few more moments before Tom was the one to draw away this time.
"I… I don't understand. Why didn't I know you before, Circe?"
"Oh, Merlin. It's a long story kid…"
The young Gryffindor boys screamed again somewhere off in the distance. Tom's neck almost snapped with the speed with which he turned around.
"Lars! Jeffrey!" Tom exclaimed. He turned back to Circe with wide eyes. "Do you promise to tell me later?"
Circe nodded at him. "Promise."
"Then come on!" Tom shouted, taking off into the trees.
Circe followed Tom, running at his heels as they followed the sounds of Lars and Jeffrey's screams. Eventually they found them, both of them wrapped up in two white sacks of web and dangling upside-down from a large oak tree. Two massive, car-sized Acromantulas hovered near them, poised on their silvery, spun webs. Tom stopped in his tracks with a large skid.
The duo of spiders turned towards him with a sickening squeal, clacking their fangs at him with glee.
"Uhh, Circe…?" Tom said weakly.
"Arania Exumai!" Circe shouted, pointing her wand over Tom's head at the nearest of the two Acromantulas.
A burst of magic collided with the Spider and it shrieked loudly.
"Tom, get them down!" Circe shouted to her brother, pointing her wand at the other spider. "Arania Exumai!"
Tom sent a small severing curse at the web that bound Lars. His magic sliced through the silvery thread that held him up and the boy fell to the floor. Lars landed with a loud "oof!" and Jeffrey joined him on the ground a moment later.
"Ow, Tom! Couldn't you have conjured a feather mattress first?!" Jeffrey said.
"Oh, shut it." Tom mumbled, slicing his spell up his friend's body and freeing him from the cocoon of web.
Circe continued to battle the two Acromantulas as Tom worked at freeing his friends. Again and again, she sent her spider-repelling curses at them, her magic sizzling and cracking, sending sparks flying all over the Forest.
"Boys! Stay with me!" she called to them.
The Gryfindors hurriedly rushed to her side and hid behind her, shivering with fright. The Acromantulas hissed at them, enraged by Circe's spells, but refused to back down. Circe furiously thought of what she could do next. If she told them to run for it, they might stumble into more trouble or get lost. If they stayed here… they might all die.
And then a loud, whinnying bray sounded off behind them…
The rapid approach of hoof-beats thundered in her ears. And then, suddenly, Firenze burst from the foliage at their backs. A whirlwind of hooves and silver-white hair and power.
"Firenze!" Circe screamed, her heart aching with gratitude.
"I told you that I saw you here…" Firenze panted. "I saw you here in the stars. And I heard your screams when I came to meet my mate."
Circe laughed aloud, remembering the strange conversation she'd last had with the Moon-touched Centaur when she'd walked up from Hogsmeade. Never again would she doubt a single word that came out of his mouth.
Firenze turned his massive hind legs to a Spider and bucked it sharply in the face. The Acromantula went scurrying away from him, holding a spindly leg to its bloodied face.
"Professor Firenze!" Circe exclaimed, shouting over the roar of her spells. "Take the children! Get them out of here!"
"I can only carry two on my back." the Centaur replied solemnly.
"Lars, Jeffrey, you go!" Tom said to his friends.
"B-but, Tom-"
"Go!" Tom interrupted quickly, pushing Lars at Firenze. "I'll see you back at the Common Room."
Firenze grabbed Lars by the neck and pulled him onto his back. Jeffrey soon followed. With the two of them astride the beast, Firenze reared up and whinneyed loudly. Lars screamed and grabbed a fistful of the Centaur's silver hair as Jeffrey flung his arms around Lars's waist. Firenze turned his back on the two massive Acromantulas and galloped for the safety of Hogwarts's grounds.
Circe did not have time to feel relief that at least two of the children were on their way to safety. Tom still hovered at her back, hiding behind her as she beat away the snapping jaws of the Spiders.
"Tom! Listen carefully!" she shouted back to him. "When I say "Go!", I want you to turn and run back to Hogwarts as fast as you can."
"What are you gonna do?" he asked shakily.
"My signature move."
Circe took a deep breath in and summoned up all of the pooling magic inside her. With a great stomp of her foot, she sent a ripple of power through the soil. The ground creaked and groaned as earth and root shifted. And then suddenly, the floor in front of them collapsed into a deep crater, taking the Acromantulas down with it. Legs and fangs and too many beady eyes disappeared into the hole she'd made and dust plumed into the air.
"GO!"
Together, Circe and Tom ran for dear life from the hole Circe had made in the ground. She knew the Spiders would eventually recover their senses and crawl out of it, but her move might just buy them enough time...
Tom was faster than her, shooting through the trees with the speed of a whippet. He looked back to check on his sister but his face fell into a mask of fright. Circe could hear the rustle of leaves behind her, the sound of spidery feet rushing over the forest floor.
"Run! Don't look back! Keep going!" she screamed at him.
Tom looked forwards and Hogwarts's grounds peaked out at him from through the trees. They both bent their heads low and ran as fast as they could. The Spiders squealed at them. The branches nicked at their faces. And when the two of them burst from the tree-line, they threw themselves bodily over the warded barrier.
The Acromantulas crashed into the castle's magic with a loud bang. The magic flared mere inches from Circe and Tom's feet. Instantly, the spiders were thrown back as the wards that kept their kind confined to the Forest pushed them away. A shrill, insecty, scream rang through the night. The Spiders were enraged by the loss of their prey. But eventually, they turned their large, pulsing bodies around and stomped off, back into the darkness of the trees.
Circe, lying on the ground and panting hard, lay her head on the grassy floor and thanked the small little bit of luck she seemed to have left. Tom lay beside her, similarly panting, but after a while, he lay his little head on Circe's shoulder.
"I missed you, Circe." he said softly.
Circe put her arm around his shaking shoulders. "I missed you too, kid."
For a few seconds, they both stared up at the sky and thanked God that they were alive. With each other.
"There he is!" a loud, gruff voice shouted out over the grassy fields.
Circe's eyes widened and she shot to her feet. Advancing on them with a duo of gruff and cruel faces, was Alecto and Amycus. Circe bent to the ground and whispered quickly to her brother.
"Just play along for a bit longer. Pretend it's all like it was before you remembered me. I promise I'll explain when I can."
When Tom hurriedly nodded back at her, she grabbed his collar and hoisted him up to his feet.
"Here's your escapee, Professors." Circe sneered, looking at Tom like she was holding a bag of rubbish. "Did you find the others?"
"The Centaur brought them back to the castle a few moments ago." Alecto said. "We sent them both straight to The Cooler."
"What?!" Tom gasped. "For sneaking out for a bit of midnight air?" he added cheekily.
"Silence, boy!" Circe shouted, giving him a good shake.
"Don't lie to us, mudblood." Alecto growled at Tom. "We've seen that little message you burnt into the grass." he said, pointing up towards the grassy field where the boys had been applying their Searing Solution.
Circe squinted into the dark, but couldn't quite read what it said…
"Well, Alecto, Amycus, thank you both so much for your help tonight, but I think I'll personally see to the punishment of this young ma-"
"Oh no, no no no…" Amycus purred. "We let him get out of one stint in The Cooler this morning. Ain't no way he's weaseling himself out of it this time."
Amycus fixed Circe with a fierce and vicious look. A look that dared her to challenge him. Dared her to stick up for the boy yet again and out herself as a two-faced liar.
Circe had no choice but to let her grip on Tom slacken and drop her arms to her side. She prayed that Tom hadn't been lying to her earlier when he said he didn't mind The Cooler so much. Yet she felt a hole of sadness inside her; For all that had happened that night with Tom, she still couldn't save him from the darkness and isolation of the dungeons.
Alecto grabbed Tom by his wrist and yanked him to her side. Tom struggled in her grasp but stilled when the Carrow twin growled at him.
"We'll make you pay for each letter you burnt into the grass." Alecto sneered at him as she dragged him back to the castle.
Amycus smirked at Circe before turning on his heels and following his sister.
Circe closed her eyes, letting her mask of composure fall for a brief moment as she thought through the utter mess she was in right now. The mess she'd put Tom in now. Circe didn't quite know how she was going to tell Severus that Tom now knew everything… not just about her, but about him too.
I had to. I had to. He'd have told everyone about us if I hadn't…
But Circe couldn't shake the thought that she'd been selfish in getting her brother back. In giving his memories of her back, she'd given herself the gift of him, without considering the long-term consequences of it. Still, she couldn't suppress the swell of pride she felt inside her when she walked back up to the castle and read the words Lars, Jeffrey and Tom had burnt into the grass:
"Hogwarts stands with Harry Potter."
Tom had only been sitting in the dense and endless quiet of The Cooler for a few minutes when he heard a chorus of raised and angry voices headed his way.
It was impossible to see more than a few inches in front of his face, but already his time in the dark had made his sense of hearing heighten.
Taking a guess, he presumed it was an hour or two after dawn. Just around the time the morning roll-call would be conducted in the Great Hall, but after a while, tracking the time of day in The Cooler would become impossible as the hours of darkness blended into each other.
That's what made most people hate The Cooler: the darkness, the unhinged lack of time and light and everything. It drove people a little bit mad. But as Tom heard the voices heading his way, he rose to his feet and swiftly pocketed his small bit of entertainment. The one thing that he always carried with him just in case he was caught and taken to The Coolers. It helped with the long, endless stretches of nothing. It reminded him of home, of his family, of all the happy memories he'd had using it. He thanked Ginny Weasley in his head once again, for showing him how to cast the concealment charms on it that kept it hidden, and he thanked the Carrows for being too slapdash or stupid to look through all of his many pockets when they searched him before throwing him in the cold, damp, dark cells. It had been a parting gift from his big brother, Alec, before he left for school: The model Mercedes Scalextric car.
Amongst the voices he heard Headmaster Snape, his voice strained with the force of his anger, both of The Carrows, simpering and afraid under Snape's roaring rage, and his sister, muttering nervously somewhere at the rear of the whirlwind of voices…
"But Headmaster, it'll spoil the whole point of the Coolers if you-"
"I don't give a damn, Amycus! Open this door right now!"
"But the boy needs to be sanctioned for his behaviour."
"Severus, slow down.."
"Get these cells open this instant!"
"But Headmaster…"
"Now, Carrow! The last I checked, the Dark Lord put me in charge of this school. Not you!"
Tom heard the clack of metal and the heavy scraping door slide open. Light burst into his cell and he shrank back from it, throwing his arm over his face as his eyes burned.
"Alecto, Amycus, make yourselves scarce." Severus snarled at The Carrows. "I wish to interrogate the boy alone."
"Alone with Professor Smith, Headmaster?" Alecto asked derisively.
"The next time you fail to refer to the Deputy-Headmaster by her proper title, Alecto, I shall turn your tongue into a slug."
Silence echoed in Tom's cell. He bit down hard on a laugh that threatened to bubble out of his throat.
"Now, get out." Snape said in a low growl. "The morning roll-call needs seeing to."
The door creaked on its hinges as Alecto and Amycus reluctantly shuffled away. When it shut with a metallic boom, darkness filled The Cooler once more.
"Circe, give us a light, for Merlin's sake." Severus muttered in the gloom.
"Oh, sorry." Circe murmured. "Lumos."
Light flooded the cell again and Tom scrunched his eyes shut. He exclaimed in discomfort as his eyeballs screamed in pain once more.
"Oh stop it, you big baby." Circe said to him teasingly.
Tom blinked and squinted into the too-bright light. Gradually, he peeled open his eyelids, forcing his vision to adjust to the sudden illumination and eventually he could make out Circe's happy, smiling face staring back at him from through the bars of his cell. He had seen Circe's face almost every day that he'd been at Hogwarts and there had been none of the warmth and love and familial care that seemed to glow out of her now. It was like he was seeing her with fresh eyes. He hadn't dreamt it. She did know him. She was his sister. She'd always been his sister.
"Are you two quite finished with your touching reunion?" Severus grumbled next to her.
Tom glanced at the Headmaster. His arms were folded over his chest and his face was as sour as battery acid. From the sheepish stance of Circe and the indignantly angry tone of Snape's voice, Tom guessed that his sister had managed to explain the new situation to Snape in the few hours since their escape from the Forest…
"Hi, Severus." Tom said casually to him.
"So, you remember me too." Snape asked the boy.
"Sure. I remember when you came to Windmill Way with Circe. We played Scalextrics."
"Wonderful." Snape said sarcastically.
Tom thought that he was in just as much of a foul mood with him and Circe as he had been in front of The Carrows. He'd hoped that Headmaster Snape had been acting. Only pretending to be in a foul, tempestuous mood…
"I don't know why, but I thought it might take a while for everything to come back to you." Circe said to Tom.
"It didn't really… It's not like a lightning bolt striking me in the head. It just... takes me time to remember that I know." Tom shrugged. "Does that make sense?"
"No." Severus stated flatly, tapping his foot irritatedly on the cold dungeon floor.
"Sev, stop taking it out on Tom. It's not his fault that I reversed the obliviate on him." Circe said quietly.
"No, no, no. You're both in the dog-house as far as I'm concerned. You..." Severus said, pointing a finger into Circe's face. "…for letting your "bleeding heart" get in the way of your better judgement once again. And you…" Severus sneered, pointing at Tom, squarely between his eyes. "… for getting caught up in all this trouble and forcing her to restore your memories."
"I didn't force her!" Tom exclaimed defensively.
"You were gonna dob me in to Aberforth!" Circe exclaimed. "Or to the other kids!"
"Oh yeah… but…. That was before I knew you were my sister." Tom said bashfully.
Severus scoffed and rolled his eyes. He went pacing up and down the dark and cramped cell, obviously fuming at them both. Circe drew nearer to her brother and placed a hand around one of his cell bars.
"So, you really do remember everything now?" She asked quietly, unable to smother a small smile that pulled at the corner of her mouth.
"I remember that the last time I saw you was that night back home. When we had a curry." Tom said, delving back into his old, previously missing memories. It was like leafing through a photo album he'd not looked at for an age. A photo album he never even knew he had… "But that was… years ago, Circe. What happened?"
"You… you know about the War now, Tom. Your friends here must have told you about The Dark Lord and Harry Potter… and what's happening outside of Hogwarts." Circe began cautiously. "Well, when me and Sev came to Windmill Way, the War had just barely begun. And we both-"
"You're both fighting in it. For the good guys too." Tom added confidently.
Severus stopped his furious pacing to look at both Tom and Circe. Silence settled over The Cooler again. Circe returned Severus's concerned glance before her gaze drifted back to her brother.
"H-how do you know that?" Circe asked, wide eyed.
"Alec was too busy making stupid notes in his Sonic the Hedgehog book to notice." Tom said with a scoff. "But I was listening on the stairs to what you were talking about with Dad, in the living room."
"Alec walked in… to take our curry order." Circe breathed. "Do you remember, Sev?"
Severus nodded silently. "What exactly did you hear us say?" He asked Tom coldly.
"I didn't really get it at the time." Tom shrugged. "But I remember Dad sounded upset. He said to you…"I thought you'd at least try to let me know what was keeping you away."
Circe swallowed hard, able to hear the voice of her father in her head, the words of their last proper conversation ringing in her ears.
"And then you said…" Tom continued. "..."I'm trying to make sure that there's a decent world left for us all at the end of this". Mum found me after that… And she shooed me away upstairs. And I was thinking it over, when I was in here, in the dark, before you turned up… The Carrows think you're all on the same team, but you're not really, are you…"
Circe looked her brother in the eye. Utterly lost for words. Tom had figured it all out by sifting through his head in the hour or so since his memories had been given back to him. He knew that she and Severus were spying for "the good guys". He knew that the front they presented to the rest of the world was all a pretence. And when she glanced at Severus, she could almost hear the anxious grinding of his teeth in the dark cell.
"Shit, Circe. The boy knows." Severus hissed. "The only person in the world who knows where our true loyalties lie… is a First Year Gryffindor! This is why I begged you to check your impulse control!...To try and stay away from the boy!"
Circe hunched her shoulders in shame and shrank back from Severus an inch. He was right. This all could have been avoided if she had distanced herself from her brother. But she knew that she couldn't. Even if she was forced back in time to the first moment she'd glimpsed Tom in the Boat House, she knew she'd behave exactly the same way. She wouldn't be able to stay away from him. He was family. He needed her. And she needed him.
"I won't tell anyone!" Tom exclaimed.
"It's not that, Tom..." Circe sighed.
"You might not have a choice in who you tell." Severus said darkly. "If Voldemort gets even an inkling of the bond between you and Circe, then he'll be inside your mind in an instant. Any information in your head could be cracked open like an egg and scooped out without you so much as whimpering in protest."
Tom's brown eyes widened underneath his mop of hair. He gulped loudly.
"Don't frighten him, Sev." Circe said, fixing Severus in her sights. "Voldemort doesn't even know he exists."
"But The Carrows-" Severus said.
"They don't suspect anything yet either. They think I was outside tonight chasing after three naughty Gryffindors who I caught out of bed. I've done my best not to treat Tom differently to any other student…. But any small favoritism I might have shown, I've also shown to Lars Malmsteen and Jeffrey Beck. The Carrows are too stupid to notice anything that subtle. And if they do start to grow suspicious… then they'll have trouble distinguishing which one of the three First Year boys is the one I'm attached to."
Severus was quiet, raising an eyebrow at her and thinking over what Circe had said. There was silence in The Cooler for a long time.
"Please, Circe." Tom said shakily. "I don't want to forget you again."
Circe's eyes filled with tears as she looked into her brothers imploring face. She turned to Severus with cloudy vision, her bottom lip quivering in the light of her lumos.
"Severus, I can't do it again." she said quietly. "It almost killed me the last time."
Severus searched her brimming, green eyes. The eyes that always looked so hauntingly beautiful when she cried. He felt her pain inside him. He knew how much it would tear her soul to have to obliviate Tom again. And with so much of her fire and spirit and compassion being lost to this War, it was refreshing to actually see her care for something as deeply as she did for this. It was the old her, awakening deep inside her, fighting for what she loved. He couldn't take that away from her…
"Alright." he said in a low mumble.
Circe gasped and looked to Tom with a bright smile.
"But the boy must know of the perilous consequences that would await us if he were to say anything." he continued hastily. Severus looked straight at Tom and as the young Gryffindor's expression sobered under his gaze, he was reminded of a time long ago when Tom had answered the door to him… and he'd almost burst into tears at the sight of Snape. "If any of the information you have learnt tonight leaves this cell, not only will your sister and I die, but a great many more people too. The Dark Lord would win. Do you understand what a dire state of affairs that would be, Tom?"
Tom nodded. "Like The Carrows. But… ten times worse, Neville says."
"A hundred." Severus said darkly. "A thousand."
"So, you must say absolutely nothing to Lars and Jeffrey." Circe said to her brother sternly. "Nothing to Neville. Nothing to Aberforth. Nothing to no one. No matter what they say about me and Severus. Even if they call us all the names under the sun and say we're worse than the Devil..."
"I'll know deep down none of it's true." Tom stated with a proud smile. "Like when the Slytherins try to scare us by saying you two killed the old Headmaster. I didn't believe that anyway…" he said with a scoff.
Circe and Severus shared a glance with each other, a red-hot bolt of sorrow and ignominy lancing through them both.
"Yeah… just… just like that rumour." Circe replied weakly. She couldn't quite bring herself to admit that to Tom. That it wasn't a false rumour…
She cleared her throat and tried to press on, before Severus began retreating in on himself now Dumbledore's death had been mentioned.
"So, after Sev and I leave this cell, you must pretend that nothing has changed. Severus and I will have to continue in our cover roles, pretending to work for Voldemort, pretending to be on The Carrows' side. And you will have to carry on as if you… still hate me."
"I can do that." Tom said, flashing her a cheeky smile.
"Oh, you rude little bugger!" Circe laughed.
Tom and Circe shared a quick chuckle as Severus rolled his eyes at them. When the laughter had faded, a strange and stormy look crept over Tom's features.
"Circe, can I ask a question?" Tom said quietly.
"Of course."
"Why did you do it?" The young boy asked. "Why did you make us all forget you?"
Severus's eyes darted to Circe's face. Even in his anger, his instinct was to watch Circe for any signs of distress. And he knew, when he saw the very faintest of tremors on her bottom lip, that remembering the night she'd walked away from Windmill Way, possibly forever, still made her soul ache.
"Because…" Circe said weakly. "...because I thought that if I did, I could keep you all safe."
"Safe? From what? From who?" the young boy asked, his brow furrowing underneath his mop of curls.
"Bad people." Circe said, shaking her head slowly. Her head swam with even more memories of Bellatrix and the family of muggles she'd tortured at the Christmas Fair. All the pain and screaming and fire…
"People that would have hurt you and your family if they'd found out who you were." Severus added when he sensed Circe's rising emotions.
"So, when I go home… Mum and Alec and Dad, they still won't be able to remember you?" Tom asked.
"No. No they won't." she stated simply.
"Will they ever remember you?" Tom asked, his voice growing in alarm.
"Maybe one day… if we win this war… I can restore their memories like I did with you."
"B-but… if we don't win… does that mean…?"
"Your sister was very brave in doing what she did." Severus cut in. "When she kept you all safe and removed herself from your minds, a possibility she had to accept was that she may never have seen any of you ever again."
Tom looked at his sister for a moment, thinking about what Severus had told him. For a second, he glimpses how lonely she'd been without her family in the hunch of her shoulders and the haunted look in her eyes. And although he did not know the details of everything Circe had been through, the trials she'd faced alone, he understood just how brave she'd been.
"But if we don't beat Voldemort…" Tom eventually muttered."…Dad will never-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." Circe butt in swiftly, unable to stomach talking about her Dad anymore. "What's all this "we" stuff? You are not fighting in this war, Tom."
"I'm a wizard too! Gryffindor and proud! And we stand with Harry Potter!" the young boy stated defiantly.
"Stop talking like that! You aren't a soldier, you're a child...
"We aren't children. We are Dumbledore's Army." Tom said proudly, lifting his chin up.
"Dumbledore's Army?!" Circe scoffed. "Dumbledore's dead! And if you say that name in front of Alecto and Amycus, they'll make you wish you were too!" Circe hissed at him. "All of this… it's too dangerous, Tom. I won't allow it!"
Severus couldn't help an ironic smile spread across his lips as he looked at Circe. You sound like I did, once upon a time. When I tried to forbid your involvement in this War…
"It's a little late for that, Circe." Severus muttered to her.
"What?" She asked Snape.
"Well… the boy's already involved, isn't he. He's already been to The Cooler once. The Carrows already know him to be a troublemaker. Look at tonight. The message he burnt into the grass… It would be rather odd if he were to stop all of his defiant behaviour suddenly."
"Severus, he's my brother." She said, her eyes glistening as she turned to him. "If something happens to him because he was dragged into this by me-"
"I'm afraid he's rather dragged himself in." Severus said with a shrug. "You said yourself that we must all go on as if nothing has changed. Tom must try and stick to the same behaviour he exhibited before tonight, which must include continuing his involvement with Dumbledore's Army."
Circe bit down hard in her bottom lip and placed her hands on her hips. She went pacing up and down the cell just as Severus had a few moments ago.
"But… I need him to live, Sev." Circe said weakly. Her fingers trembled as she pointed at Tom. "You don't understand… I need him."
"Circe, I do. I do understand…" Severus said softly as he grabbed her shaking shoulders. "But once upon a time, somebody promised me that the person I needed to live would be safe. And he couldn't promise that. Nobody can promise you that."
"Circe…" Tom said quietly, reaching for her through the bars. She looked at her brother with cloudy vision and took his small hand in hers. "I need you too. You're my big sister, the Lost Girl, the only other witch in the family. I didn't realise how much I missed you until you were here again… Did that make sense?"
"No." Circe chuckled, tears streaming down her face.
Tom smiled back and looked her deep in the eye. "I believe that you can win this war. And Dad, if he knew what was going on, he'd believe in you too. But it's like you said to him all those years ago when you came home. We've all gotta fight against this now, so we can have something decent at the end of it. A decent world. And this isn't it." He said, casting his eyes around The Cooler.
"But what can you do? That's what Dad would say! What can you do from inside these walls?!" Circe said to him, her voice hoarse. "What can any of you kids do from here that will affect the war?"
"What's Dad's favourite film, Circe?" Tom asked her, a wry smile on his face.
Circe blinked at him, a little taken aback by his question. "I… the… the World War Two one. The one that's always on at Christmas. The Great Escape."
The number of times she'd been forced to sit and watch that film with her Dad…The number of times he'd made her stay up till gone midnight on Christmas Eve to finish it… It seemed that without Circe, Matthew Smith had done the same to his step-sons, Alec and Tom.
"And what do they say was the duty of every British Officer taken as a prisoner of war?"
"To...To try to escape…."
"And if they can't, it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them and to harass the enemy to the best of their ability." Tom quoted
That time it was Severus who scoffed. "So that's what you're doing. "Harassing" us?"
"Distracting you." Tom said confidently, his smile growing wider. "From what's going on outside Hogwarts and what else is going on within…"
The door to The Cooler slammed open. Light struck Tom in the face again as he shrunk back from the opening.
"Headmaster! Deputy-Headmaster!" Alecto Carrow exclaimed loudly.
She came rushing into the room, red faced and wheezing. Circe and Severus both instantly straightened their backs and let their cold unfeeling characters slip into place.
"What is it, Carrow?" Severus asked flatly. "I asked to be left alone to interrogate the boy…"
"But, sir… There's someone missing from the morning roll-call."
"Who?" he asked, so forcefully The Cooler rang with the sound of his command.
"Neville Longbottom."
Circe and Severus both, as one, turned to Tom, who was grinning very smugly indeed. Severus turned back to Alecto.
"With me, Carrow." he said sternly, and went striding from the room. Alecto fell in behind him, shutting the door to The Cooler once more.
Circe slowly returned her gaze back to Tom, her stomach churning with anxiety.
"Harass and distract." Tom repeated, practically glowing with Gryffindor cockiness.
"Your prank… out on the grass… You left the trail of Searing Solution on purpose, didn't you. Because you knew whoever was patrolling the halls last night would see it and follow it…"
"Giving somebody else enough time to hopefully slip out of the castle and make it to Hogsmeade."
Circe stared at him silently. After a long beat of quiet, a single, defeated scoff escaped from her mouth.
"You clever little bugger."