JK Rowling owns all these characters and is filthy, filthy rich. I own only this particular plot and any characters I may have invented, and I am not any kind of rich. No copyright infringement is intended. -JM
"There's a letter for you, Tori," Mum said, dropping a parchment envelope onto the table next to Tori's bowl of porridge.
Tori dropped her spoon on the table and glanced up at her mum, a cautious half-smile playing about her freckled face. Mum smiled and nodded. "Open it, dear," she said. The brown post-owl on the kitchen windowsill hooted, clicking its beak, and Tori's Mum turned away to hand him a crust of toast.
The breakfast table had gone silent. Tori's eight-year-old brother, Harry, frowned at the thick, yellowed parchment of the envelope, the neat purple ink and especially the wax seal on the back, stamped with a curlicued "H," visible when Tori finally picked up the letter.
"Aw, no fair, Mum," Harry said, throwing down his own spoon. "Hogwarts. Why can't I go?"
"You're not old enough, twerp," Tori said, and stuck her tongue out at him. Harry bolted up from his chair, his hands curling into fists.
"Enough," Mum said, in her dangerous voice, and Harry froze. "Tori, you are not to stick your tongue out at your brother or call him names, is that clear?"
"Yes, Mum."
"Harry, you are to sit down this instant and wipe that scowl off. You are too young for Hogwarts, your letter will come in a few years. As will yours, miss," she added, turning to her younger daughter. Five-year-old Mattie sat across the table from her brother and sister, her wide hazel eyes turning from one to the other. At her mother's comment, she bent her frizzy head over her porridge again, stirring it rather than eating.
Tori was already tearing the letter open. It was indeed addressed to her: the neat inscription on the front read, "Miss Victoria M. Weasley, The Kitchen, 244 Longburne Rd, West Sussex." The return address above the "H" seal read "Hogwarts School." It was the letter she had been waiting for since before she was Mattie's age. She pulled the parchment from the envelope, grinning.
"Wha's going on..." Tori's dad had wandered into the kitchen. He grabbed a bit of toast from the stack in the middle of the table, ruffling Mattie's hair as he leaned over her; Mattie bore it patiently, continuing to stir her porridge. Harry continued to scowl. Dad caught sight of Tori's letter as he was stuffing the toast into his mouth. "Aw, brilliant..." he mumbled, his mouth full, and slipped an arm around Mum's waist. "Read it aloud, then."
"Swallow your toast," said Mum, frowning, but with a bit of a smile as she handed him a napkin.
Tori cleared her throat, throwing a tart glance at Harry which caused him to kick her under the table. "Dear Miss Weasley," she read. "We are pleased to welcome you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The fall term will begin on September 1. Enclosed you will find a list of supplies required for first year students. The Hogwarts Express will leave from King's Cross Station, Platform 9 3/4, at eleven o'clock on September the first. We look forward to receiving your reply no later then August the 15th. Sincerely, Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress."
"Well done, dear," said Mum; she leaned over and planted a kiss on Tori's cheek. "I'm very proud of you."
Tori's face, by this time, wore a wide grin matched only by her dad's. "You know what this means, don't you?" he asked through another bite of toast. "We've gotta make a trip to Diagon Alley today. Not only is this your birthday, but you're going to Hogwarts."
"All right." Tori jumped up from the table, followed quickly by Harry, who sent his spoon flying in the process.
"I wanna go too," Harry said.
"So do I," said Mattie.
"Fine," Mum said, frowning across the table at Mattie's untouched bowl of porridge. "You can all go; give me a chance to catch up on a bit of work. But only if Mattie finishes her breakfast-"
"Noooo," said Mattie, squirming on her chair.
"-And Harry helps me with the dishes-"
"Mu-um..." Harry sounded barely older than Mattie.
"-So Tori will have time to write her acceptance letter to Professor McGonagall before you all leave-"
"Yes," said Tori, clasping the letter to her chest and starting for the stairs.
"-And Daddy will have time to call his publisher, who has been expecting to hear from him for the past three days, but whom he has been avoiding because he knows he's overrun his deadline on the new book by about three weeks-"
"All right, all right, woman," her dad grumbled. "Can't a man at least enjoy his breakfast..."
Tori didn't hear the rest of her dad's complaints. She took the stairs to her tiny attic bedroom two at a time, threw herself onto her bed, hunted around under the bright orange bedspread for her lap-desk, and once she had found it, tore open the letter again, ripping the envelope a bit in the process.
She read her letter over at least three more times before setting it and the book-list aside. On a new piece of parchment, she wrote:
Dear Headmistress McGonagall:
I am very happy to accept your invitation. I look forward to becoming a student at Hogwarts School. I will see you on September first.
Yours,
Victoria Molly Weasley
She read it over a few times, found it satisfactory, and sealed it up in an envelope. She was still writing the return-address on the envelope when an energetic, high-pitched chirping sounded from the hallway. The chirping grew closer and closer until a tiny, very excited owl buzzed into the room and landed on the bed, turning a somersault and stumbling over his own spindly legs in his enthusiasm to get to Tori. She laughed as Pigwidgeon, her dad's old owl, righted himself and held out his tiny leg for Tori's letter.
Tori laughed, said, "All right, you nutter," and tied her letter to his leg. Pigwidgeon, a tiny saw-whet owl whose enthusiasm frequently outstripped his usefulness, was normally confined to his perch atop the refrigerator, but eagerly ventured down for very special deliveries, as this letter definitely was. No sooner was Tori finished tying a double-knot in the twine than the owl had shot out her open window like a feathery tennis ball. By the time she made it to the window to watch him, he was only a speck in the distance, his wings beating like those of a fluffy Snitch.
She chuckled and watched the owl disappear into the cloudy distance. She sat down at her desk and continued to gaze out the window long after he had disappeared, fascinated by the approaching storm clouds. Tori had always loved thunderstorms, and loved to watch them coming more than anything: the smell of rain, the crisp electricity that crackled in your hair and the distant rumbling of thunder, all made her heart pound a bit faster. She gripped the side of the desk as she watched the clouds and found her fingertips in contact with a heavy book.
Looking down, she saw the plain brown cover of her dad's first book, the one he had written when Tori was very young: "Harry, My Friend." This copy was tatty and well-worn; Tori had read it over and over, ever since she had learned to read, it seemed. She didn't remember ever seeing her dad working on it; it seemed as if the book had always been there with them, a part of the family. Her hand lifted automatically, opening the book at random, and it fell open to Chapter 16.
Chapter 16 was the part of the book that scared Tori the most, and also the one she couldn't stop reading, lately. In Chapter 16, Harry Potter and Tori's dad and mum came face to face with the darkest Dark Wizard who had ever lived. The encounter was described in stark detail. Nothing was left out, not a word, not a gesture. It was horrible and beautiful, and Tori kept being drawn to it.
She was reading it now, while the thunder rumbled outside her window.
CHAPTER 16
I knelt in the mud, still holding onto my wand somehow. My hands were numb with cold and shock and the leftovers of the last Impediment jinx, but I had held onto my wand and that was something. My hand shook, but I managed to reach out and feel Hermione's neck for a pulse. She lay so still, so cold, and I believe I was weeping, but finally I felt a thumping under my fingers. She was alive again.
I looked up at Harry, and nodded. Though Harry's wand was pointed at Voldemort (or at the spot where we had last seen Voldemort; he had disapparated again), his gaze was shifting between me, Hermione, and the phoenix who lay dead beside us. Unquestionably, unmistakably dead. Harry kept looking at us. He seemed to be deciding something.
"Fools." The voice, the high, reedy, shivery voice of Lord Voldemort came from behind Harry. Just behind him.
"Look out," I shouted, but Harry was already turning to face him. Voldemort hit Harry with a curse as he turned; Harry only partially deflected it and caught the rest of it in the face. Blood sprayed from Harry's face; his skin had been split open in dozens of different places around his eyes and forehead by the curse. It dropped him momentarily to his knees. Voldemort stared beyond him, for a moment, to me and Hermione.
Voldemort's red eyes (I wish I could describe them; so inhuman, like he had never been, and would never be, a natural human being) narrowed at us. I trembled; I felt cold, so utterly cold. I gripped Hermione's arm with the hand which did not hold my wand, and I held on to both for all my dear life. Voldemort's eyes were on us, and he was wishing us malice; there was no worse feeling. "Fools," he said again, this time in a high, cold whisper. His thin mouth curled up at one end in a sneer. "Love is useless," he said.
Harry stood up again, brushing the still-flowing blood out of his eyes. "Leave them alone," he said...
Tori could not read any more. She would never read any more, not until she had met him. She decided this as the first really loud clap of thunder sounded, as the breeze lifted her orange bedroom curtains and carried the first drops of summer rain to her cheeks. She lifted her face to the storm and felt the sizzle of a nearby lightning strike. She hugged the book to her chest for a moment, then stood.
Her dad was still in the living room, talking on the fire. He must have finished with his publisher, because now he was kneeling in front of the greenish head of his sister, Tori's Aunt Ginny.
"Right," Ginny was saying, a disembodied green hand joining her head in the fire, scratching her nose, then disappearing again. "See you all in half an hour, then." Her head disappeared from the fire with a soft "pop;" the greenish flames flared up for a moment, then fell to cold ashes. Her dad stood, reached out a boot and scattered the remnants of Floo powder about the fireplace, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
"Dad," said Tori. Her voice was smaller and softer than she would have liked, but what she was about to ask was no small thing.
Her dad turned. His red hair was slightly sooty in front from the fire. He saw her and grinned. "Where's your reply letter?"
"Pig took it," she said. "Dad, I-"
"Well, he should make it fine if he doesn't do any detours. Remember last time he took a letter?"
"Dad, I want to meet him."
Her dad frowned. "Meet who, love?"
Tori took a deep breath. "Him. Tom. You know." She bit her lip; her dad's face had gone completely white. "I want to go to the Department of Mysteries and meet him, before I go away to school."
"But...why?" Her dad was whispering now, hoarse, as if he could barely get the words out.
"I want to know, Dad." She clenched her fists at her sides. "I want to know how it was. And I want to know what you went through. I want to...understand." It was lame, and she knew it, but it was all the reason she had. She hardly ever stood up for anything, unless she was fighting with Harry; she was so easygoing with everyone except her brother, she hardly needed to be stubborn.
But this was different, and her dad saw it. She was standing up straight, clenching her fists like Harry always did. "All right," he said, still in that hoarse tone, and then he cleared his throat. "If you really want to," he said more clearly, " we can go today. But understand, it's not going to be pleasant. It's not going to be fun. And it may not answer all, or any, of the questions you may have."
Tori nodded.
"And if you change your mind, I'm not going to blame you, or even ask you why."
"I'm not going to change my mind. Just promise you won't change yours."
Her dad shook his head, a puzzled frown on his face. Tori's mum came up behind her just then, and Tori saw her dad's effort to clear his face so she wouldn't suspect anything. Tori knew, even without her dad widening his eyes at her and shaking his head, that she wasn't to say anything to her mum about their little side-journey to the Department of Mysteries today. She thought she'd be only too glad never to mention it to anyone.
"Aunt Ginny," called Tori, breaking away from her dad's side, pushing through the crowds in Diagon Alley and running toward her aunt. Ginny Weasley turned to her niece a bare instant before Tori had caught her in a bone-crushing hug, covering her front with Floo powder and crushing her packages between them.
"Oof," said Ginny. "I know I haven't seen you in ages, but that's no reason to punish me, girl."
"Sorry," said Tori, pulling away and smiling at her aunt. She was now almost able to look the woman straight in the eye, as Aunt Ginny had always been small, and Tori had her dad's height.
"Oy," Ginny said now, holding her niece at arms' length and squinting at her. "Are you really eleven already?"
"I am. I'm eleven today, and I just got my Hogwarts letter."
"As if I didn't know." Ginny reached into her pocket and pulled out a small parcel. She handed it to Tori and her smile softened. "Happy birthday. Go on, open it now. I want to see how it looks on you."
Tori began to work on the small package's wrapping right in the middle of the crowd in front of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes (where her aunt worked part time), witches and wizards jostling her elbows. She snuck a closer look at her aunt as she did so. Though Ginny was smiling, the dark patches under her eyes had grown since Tori had last seen her. There were lines around the woman's eyes now, lines Tori was sure she'd never seen before, and she seemed thinner; Tori had felt bony shoulder blades when they'd hugged. Aunt Ginny kept glancing around at the crowd and jumped whenever anyone touched her; her eyes did not rest on any one object for more than a second.
Tori got the last of the wrapping off, and the package sprang magically open in her hands. Inside was a beautiful gold chain, and on it a crystal pendant, entirely clear but for a pulsing white light in its center. "It's gorgeous, Aunt Ginny."
"I had one very much like it, when I was young," said Ginny, taking the necklace from its box and slipping it around Tori's neck. As she did the clasp in back, Tori felt the pendant glowing warm against her skin. The white light glowed brilliantly for an instant, then was replaced by a soft teal. Tori held the pendant up; the green-blue color was pulsing within the crystal, refracted on its surface into a million different shades. "It'll change color depending on how you're feeling," Ginny explained.
"I don't know what to say...thanks," said Tori, still staring at the glowing crystal.
"Hey, sis," said Tori's dad, coming up behind the two of them and dragging Harry by one hand, Mattie by the other.
"Ron," said Ginny. They embraced briefly, and seemed to frown at one another for a moment before turning back to the children. "And who are these two? They can't be my niece and nephew."
Tori's dad turned to her, holding her school list. Whatever he had been about to say stalled in his throat as he caught sight of the pendant around Tori's neck. He frowned, reached out to touch it, then drew his hand back to rub his chin instead.
"Don't you like it, Dad?" Tori asked. "Aunt Ginny gave it to me, isn't it gorgeous?"
Her dad turned to Ginny. "That necklace looks familiar, sis." His voice may have been a bit strained, but it could have been Tori's imagination. "Didn't you get one like that from H-"
"I thought she'd like it," Aunt Ginny answered, her eyes widening at her brother in a clear signal to drop the subject. "I thought she'd need it," Ginny added, in an undertone which Tori just barely heard.
"Well, what shall we get first, from your list?" Tori's dad asked, turning back to her as Aunt Ginny greeted Harry and Mattie. Tori thought her dad frowned briefly at the pendant hanging around her neck before he caught her eyes and held out the school list again.
Tori grinned to herself: her dad seemed almost as excited by this trip as she was. "How about my wand? I can't wait to get a wand."
"Ollivander's it is," he said, taking her hand. Ollivander's shop lay only a few yards away. A bell clanged inside as her dad opened the door and motioned for her to go in. Ginny, Harry and Mattie crowded in behind them, and they all stood awkwardly in the tiny, dim room, examining the old wands and long, narrow boxes stacked behind the counter, before Ollivander himself appeared.
He was a crookedly built old man who talked in a croak, but he seemed to remember Ron and Ginny quite well; at least, he remembered their wands. He recognized Tori straight away.
"I know you, my girl. Oh yes. You could be none other than a Weasley."
Tori nodded.
"No, you can never mistake a Weasley. And who are these two, please?"
Tori's dad smiled and winked at Tori before replying. "This is my son, Harry, and my younger daughter, Matilda, Mr. Ollivander."
"Mattie," said the girl, never taking her eyes off of Ollivander.
"Pleased to meet you," said Ollivander. "You both greatly resemble your mother. Especially you, girl," he said, pointing a crooked finger at Mattie. She ducked behind Harry, who scowled and rose up to his full height, which was, unfortunately, not very tall.
"Lo, sir," said Harry, reaching back and grabbing Mattie's hand; her bushy hair was all that could be seen of her, and it was quivering.
"Will they be needing wands too?" Mr. Ollivander asked.
"Just Tori today, sir," said Mr. Weasley.
At length, after trying out dozens of different wands, Tori was fitted with a very handsome one of yew, eleven inches long and containing, surprisingly, a golden hair from the mane of an infant unicorn. "You don't see many of these," Mr. Ollivander said, wrapping Tori's new wand in tissue and putting it in a box. "It was a beautiful golden filly I took this from, no more than a few weeks old. The mother nearly gored me through when she caught on to what I was doing. I don't know what possessed me, I almost never use them any more, but I felt I had to have a hair or two..."
The family backed out of the shop, nodding politely, while Ollivander continued his speech to the next group of customers. Ginny then took Harry and Mattie for ice creams while Ron and Tori completed the rest of their shopping, buying books, robes, potions supplies and cauldron. Their arms were aching from carrying all the packages by the time they were done, and Tori all but collapsed onto the table at the Leaky Cauldron, around which her brother and sister were sitting, he drumming his fingers on the table, she napping with her head next to her empty ice cream dish.
"All done?" Aunt Ginny asked, her own head resting wearily on her palm.
"Nearly," said Tori's father. "We have one more stop to make, don't we?" He caught Tori's eye, and she nodded, fingering the pendant at her throat. Whenever she thought of her imminent trip to the Ministry of Magic, the soft teal of the pendant became shot through with white streaks of what looked like lightning.
"Well," said Ginny, "I'm going to get these two home, they've had it. I'll take your packages along," she offered, reaching for Tori's cauldron, spellbooks and wrapped wand.
"Aunt Ginny," said Harry, "Can't we go to Uncle George's shop first?"
"No," she said, "He's busy enough, and you have enough fake wands at home to last you several years. Besides, poor Mattie's exhausted." She turned back to Ron and Tori. "We'll be waiting for you two. Is Mione home?"
"Yeah, she had some work to catch up on today. One of the elves in the halfway house won't stop drinking, and the others wanted to throw him out, but I think with Winky's help, she'll get them convinced to keep him," Tori's dad said.
Ginny chuckled. "All right, she won't mind me interrupting her for a visit, then. Ready, you two? Here, Harry, carry this cauldron, will you?" Aunt Ginny, Harry and Mattie stood and made their way to the nearest Floo entrance, staggering under all of Ginny's and Tori's packages.
"Ready?" Dad asked, laying his hand on Tori's shoulder.
"No," she replied.
"Let's go, then."
The corridor was dark and forbidding, close and narrow. For not the first time that day, Tori began to have serious doubts about what she was doing. The guard at the front desk of the Ministry of Magic who had inspected her dad's wand had looked at them nearly cross-eyed when he'd read their visitors' badges. "Victoria Weasley, Visit with Tom Riddle," Tori's own badge read. Her dad had one like it.
In the elevator all the way down to the Department of Mysteries corridor, Tori's heart had beat steadily faster, and walking down the corridor now she felt braced with adrenaline, as if she was not only watching a thunderstorm approach, but was actually anticipating being struck by lightning. She believed her hair actually crackled with electricity. As they approached the thin, somber-looking guard who stood blocking the Department of Mysteries door, Tori grasped her dad's hand, feeling suddenly like a very young child, afraid of a carnival ride. She clutched her new necklace again; it was now throwing silent sparks, like a roman candle, and was shot through with those little white lightning bolts.
The guard wore a badge of his own, which read "Perkins, Department of Mysteries." He frowned when Tori and her dad stopped in front of him, and his frown deepened when he read their badges. Luckily, Perkins seemed to recognize her dad.
"Weasley," he said, catching her dad's eye. "Are you mad ? How old is she?" He pointed to Tori in a way that made her face and ears go red. "You can't-"
"I have a right to be here," Ron interrupted him, "and so does my daughter. You will let us pass, or I will bring it up with your supervisor."
"My supervisor's the Minister of Magic."
"I know that. He's also an old mate of mine from school."
Perkins blanched. He studied his booted toes for a moment, then looked up, huffing and standing slightly to the side, so that Tori's dad could reach the doorknob.
"Thank you so much," said Tori's dad, moving to open the door.
"There's not many I'd open this door for, understand," Perkins said, his voice a bit higher than it had been. "But you, I guess you have a right to see him, no matter how nutters he's gone. After all-"
"Thank you," Ron repeated. He turned the knob.
"Hey," Perkins said, as Ron and Tori moved through the door. He leaned toward them; his face was only a few inches from Ron's. "Any chance you could come back here tomorrow, autograph your book for me? I'm a big fan."
"We'll see," Ron mumbled, and shut the door in his face.
Tori and her dad found themselves in a perfectly round room. They were surrounded by doors identical to the one they'd just walked through. As soon as Tori and Ron had stepped away from the entrance, the walls of the room began to spin, faster and faster, until all the other doors were a blur around them. Tori was reminded more than ever of a carnival ride. She grabbed her dad's hand again, a little more firmly than before. He squeezed her hand back, then said in a loud voice, "Tom Riddle, please."
Instantly the room stopped spinning, and a door directly in front of them popped open. The room beyond was dimly lit.
"Ready?" Ron asked again.
"No," Tori answered again.
"Right, let's go then."
The room they entered was as tiny as a closet, dimly lit by what looked like an ordinary electric bulb suspended from the ceiling. The half of the room they walked into contained only one wooden bench, pushed up against the wall. The walls were plain gray concrete. In the middle of the room was a wall of perfectly clear, foot-and-a-half-thick glass with only a tiny opening on the bottom. The part of the room closed off by the glass wall was clearly a prison cell: it contained only a bare cot (no pillow, no blankets), a dirty toilet and a sink. A plate of food resembling the porridge Tori had eaten for breakfast, but smelling decidedly unlike porridge, lay on the floor of the cell just inside the tiny opening. They didn't even give him a spoon to eat with, Tori realized. Nothing decorated the bare gray walls in the cell. The light from the single bulb filtered through the glass, but the cell was still filled with shadows.
In the midst of one of those shadows crouched a small human figure.
Tori drew in her breath sharply when she saw him, and hugged herself as if cold. The figure was bald and obviously quite old; its skin was perfectly smooth, but when it moved out of the shadows and crouched in the center of the cell, it moved in a jerky, tentative way, as if its bones were brittle. It was thin, as thin as a starving person, as thin as someone who hadn't eaten in years. Tori thought of the infant unicorn from which her wand's core had been taken, when she saw the figure's spindly legs, and doubted that the prisoner would be able to stand.
"You," the creature in the cell hissed, its voice high and cold, just as her dad had described it. It was staring at Ron. Its eyes were slitted and slanted downward, somehow reminding Tori of a snake. She turned to look at her dad. Ron's lips had pulled into a tight line; otherwise, his face was expressionless as he stared back at the creature.
"You!" the creature suddenly shouted, and sprang from its crouch to throw itself at the thick glass. It plastered its face and its whole body against the barrier. Tori realized it was half-naked, and would have been embarrassed for it had she not been so utterly horrified. It had stepped in its porridge, she noticed. Its misshaped foot was coated in the stuff, but it did not notice; the thing was clawing at the clear glass now, trying to climb it, trying to reach through it.
Ron had stumbled back when the thing had moved; he now came back to stand at Tori's side. Tori had not moved; her feet felt rooted to the concrete floor and she doubted whether she would ever be able to move again.
The thing in the cell began to laugh now. It laughed in a high cackle. Tori had no doubt that the thing was insane, horribly, irrevocably insane. The thing began to speak again, in between loud cackles. "I know who you are, you, yes I know you. You were with him. Oh yes. You and the ugly Mudblood. You loved her, didn't you, you fool? Loved her even after I killed her, even after she was useless. Wouldn't leave her side, not even when your precious friend needed you. And now he's dead too, the fool..." The thing turned to Tori, and she felt weak and shivery as its eyes fell upon her. The eyes were red, she realized with a terrified jolt, dark blood-red. "No one's ever brought me a child before, did you know that? No one's ever been that foolish, don't want their children to see me, the horror, the circus freak. That's what they made me, put me in a glass case. Are you not afraid of me, girl?"
Tori opened her mouth. "No," she said. In fact, she had never been more terrified, but somehow her voice came out smooth and calm. Somehow, she looked him in his horrible red eyes and answered him, just like somehow, years before, her dad had held onto his wand. "I'm not."
The thing replied by cackling louder than ever, and capering all about its cell. "You know who I am, don't you, girl? I'm Lord Voldemort, and if I could I'd kill you, I wouldn't hesitate."
"No, you're not," Tori said. Her voice was still calm, though her heart was hammering fit to burst out of her chest. "You're Tom Riddle. It says so there." She pointed to the small plaque on the wall outside the cell. Her hand was numb and did not seem connected to her arm.
"Tom Riddle," the thing repeated, in a horrible singsongy voice. "Tom Riddle, Tom Riddle." It stopped its capering and crouched to the floor again. "The name of my filthy Muggle father, I swore I'd never use it again. And you," and the thing pointed at Ron again, "Bringing your filthy, dirty, rotten little Mudblood's spawn here, to me-"
"Don't you talk to my father," Tori said. She had moved unconsciously, on numb feet, to block her father from the thing, so afraid that her whole body trembled but determined that the thing wouldn't insult her Mum and Dad any more. Her dad put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed; feeling flooded back into her limbs. She walked forward until she had reached the glass; she laid her palm on the glass where the thing's face had been. In the glass, she saw her own dim reflection, her face pale but steady; under her chin, the pendant glowed bright red.
The thing sprang at her again, plastering its face to the glass on a level with Tori's palm, but Tori didn't flinch. The thing hissed and growled at her, cackled and wailed, but she didn't move.
Finally it fell silent. "You really, actually don't fear me, do you, girl?" it asked, and for the first time, it actually sounded serious and sane. Its eyes had lost their fevered light; it was standing up straight and backing away from the glass.
"No, I don't."
"Why?" it asked, cocking its head to the side.
"Because," she said, "you're just a pathetic old Muggle."
The thing let out a cry of rage and began to throw itself around its cell. "Disgusting girl, half-Mudblood filth, I'd kill you if I could, I'd kill you with one flick of my wand, I'd torture you with pain like I did your father and your mother and all the others, I'd kill you, I'd bite you, I'd turn into a snake and slither out of this cell and find you wherever you sleep, wherever you are, however long it takes I'll find you and your children and-"
"But you won't," Tori said. "Because you can't. You can't even get out of this cell."
The thing descended into unintelligible blathering again, crawling back into its shadowy corner and staring from Tori to her father, malevolence in its eyes.
"Come on, Dad," said Tori. "Let's go. There's nothing to see, here."
Ron couldn't be sure, but he thought Tori changed that day.
She was the same happy, gentle creature as ever, on the outside, but there was something hard in her soul now too, something hard and unshakable in the core of her. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it was there as soon as they left the Department of Mysteries, it was there as they walked silently home again that night, it was there while she was eating her birthday cake and opening her presents that night, surrounded by her family. There was a hard, hot core in her, but it made the rest of her all the warmer, all the more glowing with kindness. Her goodbyes to her family on September the first were warm and tearful; she even hugged Harry and told him she'd miss him, and though he only grunted in reply, his eyes showed surprise when he pulled away from her.
"Bye, Dad," she said from the train window. She kissed him on the cheek as a grown woman would have, as her mother used to. It struck him, as it never had before, that his eldest daughter was quite beautiful. He looked into her eyes and found them the same soft, dark blue as ever, but deep within them there shone that hard spark, that hard core she would never again be without. She was not a child any more, he realized with a terrified start, as the Hogwarts Express chugged forward with a jolt. He let go of her hand and backed away to join the rest of his family, all happily waving to Tori as she went off to school.
And though no one but her Aunt Ginny would ever notice, the birthday pendant around Tori's neck, the pendant that Harry Potter had first given to Ginny Weasley many years ago, when they were young, never shone with quite the same shade of teal-green as it had when Tori first put it on in Diagon Alley; it always carried now, at its core, a sliver of hot, hard red.