"That soul," Death hissed, causing the surrounding air to chill for a moment before calming. "It's so close I can taste it! Yet it's out of my reach for now." Death relaxed, letting their hands fall back to their side.
"He's not made any Horcruxes yet," Death whispered in Vulpecula's ear as she extended her hand to Tom's proffered one. "His soul is injured from the murder but it is still intact for now."
"It's a pleasure to meet you too Mr. Riddle," she replied to Tom pleasantly, slightly tilting her head to the right as she smiled.
She flinched a bit as Tom bent at the waist to kiss her knuckles. Quickly she tried to disguise it with a soft gasp and widened her eyes a bit, adopting an expression of innocent shock.
It was not done well, by her own standards. Regardless, when Tom righted himself again there was something in the set of his face that felt bored. This was the sort of reaction he had anticipated. And despite the pleasant, seemingly open expression and words that flowed from his lips like honey as they walked down to the great hall, she meant nothing to him. She was yet another girl, easily swayed and smitten by his charms. He had barely tested her and she had failed... Exactly what she wanted.
Getting started would be a lot easier if she didn't have to keep dodging him and his attention. Her first step had to be finding and attaching herself to allies. And that would be exceedingly difficult if she started surrounded by enemies.
As the pair walked, Vulpecula prattled on aimlessly. A tide of words in which she said nothing of substance and asked shallow questions. Her aim was to distract him and bore him with trivialities so that she was as uninteresting as possible.
She was going into fifth year, transferring from Beauxbaton. The weather here agreed with her so far, but what about the winter months? How would the classes compare? Did he think that she would make friends?
He was a Slytherin (obviously she knew that), going into his seventh year (she was a bit weirded out by that but she figured Time had her reasons). Apparently he had just got the confirmation that he would be head boy this coming year. Classes would be strenuous, but there was no doubt she could do well if she studied enough. The weather in winter would be horrid so she should stock up on wool clothes if she could. He had subtly avoided the question about friends, and she pretended she didn't notice.
"Thank you for walking me down," Vulpecula said as they reached the grand staircase to the great hall. "I'm sure without you I would have been lost for at least a couple hours."
"It was my pleasure," Tom replied smoothly, bowing as they got to the open double doors. "This is where I'll leave you for the night. I hope to see you again at the start of term."
"You won't be joining us?" Vulpecula tried to sound wistful, but it came out a bit more of a whine in her ears. Tom must have thought the same thing as his next smile was a bit more tense.
"I'm afraid not. I have things I have to finish soon and I had a late lunch. I'll get some food from the elves later. They adore spoiling students anyways."
"Very well then," Vulpecula sighed and turned towards the great hall. "I hope the rest of your holidays are peaceful, and I look forward to meeting you again!"
She thought that she might vomit as she heard the disgustingly artificially sweet response from him.
"I look forward to meeting you again too."
Her shoulders relaxed a bit as soon as she heard him walking away, and she glanced back towards him out of the corner of her eye as she turned to step through the double doors.
She caught the tiniest bit of motion of his head, and a couple strands of his hair were barely settling back into place as he walked up the marble staircase, back towards the library. He had looked back at her. An odd feeling in her gut told her that this was far from over.
The evening set with Vulpecula and Professor Dippet walking back to the headmaster's office while discussing astronomy once more. Vulpecula laughed at a particularly well told tale about how after a hundred years if study, Dippet realized that his meticulous calculations were incorrect by a degree and a half, and that he was forced to reconsider several theories that he had been working on because the north star wasn't as perfect a measuring point as he had thought. The damn thing precessed, which threw off his calculations for the latter half of the century!
They reached the top of the moving spiral staircase, and stopped to admire the ceiling once more.
"It's fascinating, isn't it?" Dippet asked softly, staring up at the glimmering lights above them. "They are so constant, yet if you watch them, even the largest, farthest stars are dancing their way through the universe. Even our short lives are nothing to these stars that live on a scale we can't begin to comprehend." He looked over at Vulpecula and sighed softly.
Reaching out, he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. He ignored the soft wince at the unexpected touch. She did not shrink away, but his heart hurt to even consider what she might have been through.
"Regardless, child," Dippet said, hoping that he could help in the slightest. "The universe changes around us, shaping us. But we change it as well. The sun may always rise in the morning and the moon at night, but what they illuminate is something we choose ourselves."
Vulpecula nodded sadly, remembering her friends who had illuminated her life. Luna with her gentile glow and eyes that knew far too much. Neville with his radiating warmth that nurtured everything around him. Fred and George with their explosive light, burning those who tried to get too close, and a wall protecting those who they let in. Teddy. A new star she never got to meet. She hoped that he would still be born in the future she was carving here. She would have to live until he was born, and send a gift. Something from the godmother he would never get to know in either time.
'The sun will rise for them.' She promised herself. 'I will make this world a world where they and everyone else can live and give them a chance to shape the world in turn.'
"Thank you Professor," she said softly. She wiped her eyes as Dippet pretended to be very interested in an invisible piece of lint on his robes. "Have a good evening, and I'll see you when term starts."
"Yes of course my dear," Dippet said with a smile as he proffered a box of floo powder. "I'll see you then. Oh! And one more thing!" he exclaimed before she could step into the now green fire. "When you get off the express, make sure you take the boats across with the first years. It's an experience I wouldn't want anyone deprived of."
"Of course professor," Vulpecula said with a grin.
She clearly stated her floo address, and as she began to spin in the fireplace, she heard a soft snore from the Headmaster once more.
Death was waiting for her as she stepped out of the fireplace in the entrance hall of The Peverell House. They were pacing back and forth, and as soon as Vulpecula was free of the flames, they pounced.
Death grabbed her by the shoulders and enveloped her into a hug. Tendrils of darkness coiled around her like snakes, probing and making sure that she was ok. Despite the chill, and its shocking contrast to the heat of floo travel, the touch was comforting.
"You're ok," Death said, more to comfort themselves than anything else. They relaxed as the tendrils of magic explored, finding that no harm had come to her.
"Of course I'm ok," Vulpecula said soothingly, smoothing Death's thin dark hair back away from their face. "The real question is, are you ok?"
Death faltered, taking a step back and eying her at arms length.
"I am now," Death said slowly. They smiled reassuringly before a flash of anger alighted in their eyes. "But if that soul hurts my master I'll rip it from its body bit by bit in the most painful way I can until the body fails and it comes free entirely." Death took a deep breath and finally settled. "The soul already has a tear. He's committed his first murder. I'm not willing to take risks with my master so near."
"But Tom hasn't made his first horcrux yet," Time said, stepping into existence out of nowhere. She smiled at Vulpecula and winked. "He was supposed to figure that out this summer, but just by meeting him you've derailed that course of action entirely."
"What do you mean?" Vulpecula asked, slightly unsettled.
"Tom is going to spend the rest of the summer researching you," Time said, waving her hand in a nonchalant manner. "Your family history, any news articles, historical alliances-"
"Figuring out if you're a threat to his plans and position," Death cut off Time's list, giving her a look. "Which you are, merely by virtue of being who you are."
Vulpecula sat down on the bottom step of the grand staircase, slightly shrinking in on herself in anxiety. She had tried to make herself as unnoteworthy as possible. She needed time and space to make allies before her enemies identified her as such.
"I thought I did an alright job of making myself seem like a normal teenager going to a new school," Vulpecula said, a slight hitch in her voice.
"You did wonderful darling," Time said, coming over and giving her a gentle hug. "However Tom, being Tom, doesn't like not knowing- well- anything. Especially how the people around you will react. Any new student introduced like this would have been investigated. It's not because it's you. Or at least, not just because you're you."
"You are joining in your fifth year," Death said, their arms crossed over their chest. "That alone is of note. Transfers are not common between schools. That, in his mind, is of significant note. But there is a small chance that he did recognize the name. After all, You come from an influential family with strong family magicks. Even if you did nothing, other families would still try their best to please you and curry favor."
"Suuure..." Vulpecula drawled, uncomfortable with the turn in conversation. "Anyways, Time! You said something about Tom not having made his first horcrux?"
"That's right!" Time nodded with a huge grin. "He's still a human. And his soul is only partially torn at this point. He knowingly caused Myrtle's death but he didn't actually succeed in tearing his soul asunder. There's a difference between letting out a deadly creature that happens to kill someone and hitting them with a killing curse."
"As long as he hasn't made the first horcrux there's a chance he can be saved too?" Vulpecula asked softly, more to herself than to anyone else, but Time and Death still nodded in response. Time nodded with a hopeful grin on her face, and Death had a scowl across their face as they agreed.
"Myrtle's death," Death began reluctantly, shifting uncomfortably where they stood. "It was a tragic accident. Riddle didn't actually intend to kill her, and that is reflected in his soul currently. It's only partially torn because Tom does, in some twisted way, feel remorse for what happened. It's probably remorse that things didn't go to plan, but the effect on the soul is the same. If left alone, it has a chance to heal. However, if he tries to make a Horcrux with his soul partially torn..."
"He'll start going mad," Vulpecula finished, feeling a bit worse for Myrtle than she had even when she first learned how the unfortunate ravenclaw had died. Tom, however, posed an entirely different conundrum.
Vulecula expected, when she would come face to face with Tom, that he would already be firmly entrenched in a murderous, mildly genocidal frame of mind. So to learn that the first death at his hands wasn't even intended was quite the shock. Thinking back to when she first met him in the library, he had seemed almost normal. Granted, he's a seventh year slytherin, but he had had a normal presence. She had been able to tell that he was bored of the endless tirade of small talk, but he hadn't had any murderous intent towards her.
That in itself felt foreign to her, but looking back it made sense. Here she was a stranger. They were not connected by some mutated thread of fate or destiny. They were not bonded by some alcoholic's drunken prophecy. In this time, they were simply students at the same school. Practically strangers passing in the night.
"I know it's hard," Time said softly, settling next to Vulpecula on the step and cradling her in her arms. "He's not the man you thought he would be, and you can stop him from becoming that. It's ok," Time said as she felt Vulpecula's tears beginning to soak her dress. "Let it all out. Feel all your anger, your sadness, and let it out. Feel free to mourn. You've lost what you thought you knew to be an infallible truth. Mourn what was, and let it go. Take as long as you need. I'll make sure that you feel better when it's tomorrow."
Vulpecula cried long and hard. Soul wrenching sobs ripped through her as she remembered everyone who had suffered because of one stupid teenager. For her parents, taken away from her before she could even remember their faces. Sirius, and the decades of abuse and torture he experienced because of his followers. Neville who, like her, would only remember his parents' screams. Teddy. Her godson who she would never meet and see grow.
Lastly she cried for herself, for once allowing herself to be held and cared for as she mourned everything she had seen and suffered. Nobody had ever held her as she cried before. Not in her living memory. She hadn't cried properly since she was around seven. Not since her loving Aunt Petunia had slapped her and snapped at her to clean herself up. Freaks weren't allowed to feel anything but grateful for what she was provided.
Eventually the tears stopped, leaving Vulpecula feeling limp and empty. All that was left was the comforting warmth of Time holding her upright, stroking her hair in a soothing manner, and Death holding her hand to their cool forehead.
A cool cup of water was pressed to her lips and she drank. The liquid refreshed wherever it touched, and soothing her aching head. She finished the glass, nodding in thanks to whomever had gotten it for her.
"Sleep dear one," Death said softly, resting their hand on her head as Time lifted her into her arms like a child. "Tomorrow will be a new day."
Vulpecula relaxed, giving up fighting the bone weary exhaustion that had been making her eyes and limbs so heavy. She took one more deep breath, and was asleep before Time had reached her room.
Vulpecula awoke the next morning to her sooty Headwig gently pecking at her hair. The owl was clearly irritated, but was still being gentle so as to not hurt her human companion. She barked a good morning as soon as Vulpecula opened her eyes properly, and then promptly stuck her leg out onto Vulpecula's cheek.
The leg held a letter, hastily tied and over a day old judging by the slight irritation on Headwig's leg. She pulled at the string, untying it from her companion's leg before she dared sit up.
Once upright, she examined the letter while rubbing the side of Headwig's head (Much to the bird's enjoyment). It was high quality parchment, and slightly stained by drops of rain from the other night. The dark colored ribbon securing it closed was poking something in her still sleeping brain, so she turned it over to look at the seal. She froze, as the insignia of the Black family sat innocently in front of her. The family motto, Toujours Pur, glittered up at her in tiny letters in the morning sunlight.
It had clearly been waiting for a while, and so with shaking hands, Vulpecula Broke the seal and unrolled the parchment.