Chapter 7: Anchor Point

Luca didn't have much motivation to get out of bed on Thursday or Friday. Since Blaise had called out of work for the rest of the week, Luca at least didn't have to lay there alone. Fatigue—both mental and physical—crippled him against productivity.

If Luca was honest with himself, he doubted he would've accomplished anything anyway if he tried. His homework sat forgotten where he had set his bag down by the chair in the sitting room. He couldn't be arsed to read any copies of the Daily Prophet that Blaise picked up on food runs. For the few days allotted to him, Luca just wanted to forget about everything that happened outside the four walls of Blaise's flat.

Considering the official statement made by the Ministry was sitting on the kitchen table, Luca didn't really even want to exist outside of Blaise's bedroom. He felt better that Blaise was similarly keen to indulge him on that. Even when Luca could tell Blaise grew restless about laying around so much, it was pretty easy to draw him back in. They'd just spent a couple months apart, and Luca's extended Christmas holiday wasn't exactly a leisurely stay. It hadn't really been since the previous summer they were able to enjoy each other's company without some stressful veil draped over it.

Luca kept his eyes closed as he roused on Saturday morning. He stretched, reaching over to the other side of the bed. When his hand only found cool sheets, he cracked an eye. Luca listened, but couldn't be sure if the flat was empty. Blaise was naturally a very quiet person.

The bathroom was humid and smelled like wood—like Blaise. Some specks of water still darkened the inside of the shower curtain. Luca pulled a shirt on after using the toilet and poked his head out the bedroom door. "Are you home?"

A shuffle sounded from out of sight, at the kitchen table. A chair creaked and there was a faint static as fabric rubbed against fabric. "Here, yeah."

Luca tsked to find Blaise fully dressed and ready for the day. He didn't much care for the connotation they were going to do something. Blaise had his back to Luca, his left hand loose around a half-drank cup of tea, and the Prophet folded loosely in his right. A messenger was open underneath it. Luca draped his arms around Blaise's shoulders and kissed the side of his head.

"Come back to bed," he murmured in his ear.

Blaise ran his left hand over one of Luca's forearms. "I was thinking breakfast."

"Yeah, so come to bed." Luca grinned as Blaise chuckled.

"You make a compelling argument." Blaise turned his head for a kiss. Luca got him on the cheekbone first before dipping to his lips. "I'm talking to Theo. He mentioned meeting up by the Physic Garden."

Luca groaned internally. "Is he in a better mood now that his dad's home?"

"Seems to be." Blaise's thumb ran in gentle strokes over Luca's wrist. "He said he's been talking to him, although they can't see each other quite yet. Draco let Mr Nott borrow his half of their messenger pair."

Luca had been content to let things sit on ice with Theo while everything settled with his dad. On this side of it, Luca remained hesitant with residual annoyance. He nuzzled Blaise's neck again, inhaling there the same scent from the shower.

"I don't really want to see anyone," he said. "I don't think it's anything against Theo."

"You can't just shut yourself off from everybody."

"I haven't," Luca replied. "Blaise, please. I got to come home for four days, and everything that happened at Hogwarts was horrible. Why are you trying to force me to see other people? Can't we just spend the weekend together? Alone? We never even got to have that day together in Hogsmeade."

"The last couple days certainly made up for that."

Luca pursed his lips. Blaise's playful tone deepened in a way that Luca figured he might have convinced him regardless of the argument he tried to present. Although most of Blaise's expression remained impassive, Luca saw a familiar mix of calculation and desire in his eyes. They further darkened from a combination of low, long lashes and dilated pupils.

"Come back to bed, then," Luca tried again, this time following up with a tug on Blaise's earlobe with his teeth. Blaise's shoulders stiffened toward a shiver under Luca's hands. "If your cock isn't in my mouth in the next five minutes, I will literally cry."

"Dramatic," Blaise drawled.

"Is it?"

Luca wore a placid smile when Blaise sized him up once more. It grew quickly into a grin as Blaise let the paper fall flat onto the table.

They retreated together back to the bed, a mess of limbs that should've known better how to coordinate with each other. Luca immediately set into a shiver after the last shadow of need had been driven out of him. Blaise retrieved the comforter from where it had been pushed to the floor. Luca curled up underneath it, then moved as necessary to get himself cleaned up from the practiced list of spells Blaise ran through. Luca gravitated closer after Blaise set his wand on the bedside table.

Blaise wrapped himself around Luca. Although initially fatigued, Luca started to feel himself come back to a mere state of calm. He lifted his chin for a kiss. His lips remained too sensitive and swollen for a proper snog.

"So do you reckon Voldemort's gay, then?" Luca broke the silence.

Maybe because they were a little too wrecked yet for serious discussion, a snort from Blaise led them into a pair of delighted snickers. Luca grew nervous at the prospective answer though, because all of this here was something he wanted to himself. He didn't want to share his sexuality with Voldemort.

Blaise hummed when he was capable of giving it actual thought. "He had you, so maybe not."

"I'm sure if he wanted me enough, he could get it up for Dagmar's mum." Luca shifted, unsure if it was weird to point out that Dagmar and her mum were both very beautiful women. That felt inappropriate, even if he still couldn't wrap his mind completely around the concept that he was related to them. "Lots of gay men have kids."

"I can't say I imagine him as the kind of person that feels for anything other than what suits a purpose." Blaise paused. "Er. . .no offence meant."

Luca shrugged. "It's kind of a relief he doesn't love me."

"Yeah?"

"It's safer to be curious," Luca carefully said. "I feel like I should leave it alone, even if everyone says that I'm different than him. How do I know that for sure, if I don't know who he was?"

"You know who he is."

"I know what he's done," Luca corrected Blaise. "I don't know who he is. I bet a lot of good people have done bad things. I bet bad people have done good things."

"He's not a good person."

"I know." Luca curled in closer. "What I'm trying to say is what if he's funny? What if he can be nice? I am, right? And me and him are supposed to be completely alike, aren't we?"

"I probed Potter on how exactly doppelgängers worked after he first told me everything." Blaise lightly cleared his throat. "You're the same genetically, so your physical appearance and all that are identical. You still have your own soul, though."

"Yeah."

"Something went very wrong with You-Know-Who," Blaise said. "Another thing Potter said that got me thinking was the concept of nature versus nurture. I don't think it takes much stretch of the imagination that maybe You-Know-Who tripped out of the gate. If he ever had the capability of being like you, I think he would've taken anything that hurt him just a little bit more to heart. The instinct to protect himself by hurting other people first could've been there. But. . .I don't know. He's way too old to hide behind that. He didn't have to turn out the way he did. He had a choice, and this was what he made of himself."

Luca nodded slowly, taking all of those words in and letting them swirl around in his mind like wine. He understood what Blaise said. It made sense. Luca just wished it would take at least an edge off his curiosity. What good had anybody being curious about Voldemort done the world? The people most curious probably ended up his followers.

It wasn't Voldemort's ideology that made Luca curious, it was. . .

He couldn't answer. Luca supposed it was safe to just ascribe it to the massive void that hovered over his life prior to when his mum had first brought him home. It shouldn't matter. Luca knew now where he'd come from. He knew his bio-parents' names. The circumstances leading up to him being left with an unsigned letter in a basket had been sufficiently explained. And yet, Luca just couldn't suppress a feeling that he needed to know.

"It's okay to wonder," Blaise said. "It's only natural."

"I think it wouldn't be so weird if I was just his child." Luca's stomach took a little tumble. "I wish I could say if this feels different. There's a whole world between saying I'm Voldemort's. . .son—" the word came out awkwardly, "—and saying I'm Voldemort."

"You're not Voldemort."

Luca's attention snapped to Blaise. He'd never heard him say the name before. Yet, he did so confidently.

"If anything, you're Tom Riddle." Blaise's voice remained steady. "That was his name before he changed it. He didn't like it because it had roots. He wanted to try and separate himself from everything that came before who he decided he would be. He couldn't escape it. That's still just as much who he is as who came after. Some scared little orphan boy that could talk to snakes, who didn't even know the wizarding world existed until Dumbledore told him about Hogwarts. That probably infuriated him. I bet he thought he was so special because he could make little magic things happen. Then he goes to Hogwarts, and he's nothing. A face in the crowd. Poor little Tom Riddle, who had to murder his father and grandparents to make himself feel worth existing."

Each point Blaise made struck like a switch against Luca's chest. He couldn't ignore the vitriol that seeped into Blaise's tone. It was the same hatred that the vast majority of the wizarding world would probably come to regard Voldemort with as their fear dried up following his capture. When Voldemort was gone, it could so easily transfer to Luca.

Even without that connection, Blaise's words hurt.

"'Scared little orphan boy', huh?" Luca repeated. "Maybe I never should've told you I was a Parselmouth."

Blaise tensed, his idle fingers stilling. "You know that's not what I meant."

"How did you mean it, then?" Luca moved far enough away for them to no longer touch. "What's wrong with being an orphan, Blaise? What's wrong with wondering where you came from? What's wrong with talking to snakes?"

"Nothing." Blaise propped himself up on one elbow. "I meant to point out that that's the way he had to have looked at it if he tried to get away from it."

"That's not how you said it. 'Poor little Tom Riddle'!" Luca threw Blaise's words back at him. "You think he was pathetic, and you're telling me that I was more like Tom Riddle than Voldemort."

Luca got up to find his pants. He was pulling them on when Blaise replied: "He killed his family, Luca. When he was sixteen. He was younger than you are now. That was his reaction to finding out who he was. You didn't do anything like that. I bet the thought didn't come close to your mind down in the Chamber, even if you know how fucking evil Voldemort is—"

"No, it didn't come to mind." Luca felt warm in the face as he faced Blaise. "Maybe it should have. All of a sudden, I'm looking into Voldemort's eyes—looking into my-my sister's face—and I froze. I begged for my life, a life that wasn't even meant for me! I was taken from my family, and who got left to suffer when I wouldn't have felt anything at all? Dagmar did. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to be anywhere."

Blaise's gaze was wide as he stared at Luca. It made Luca feel almost silly how vulnerable he was, yelling these things while only standing there in his pants. His cheeks erupted with heat, as if all the blood in his body flooded to his face as he bent down to snatch up his shirt. He didn't look at Blaise as he sought out the trousers he'd taken off before bed last night.

"Luca," Blaise said.

"What?" Luca snapped.

"Of course you're supposed to be here."

Luca put his back between them as he jumped into his trousers. "Then why are you trying to force me out of the flat? Is it just easier for you if we're around other people? You know I won't talk about all this around Theo or Daphne. Then you can pretend none of it happened and I'm not all fucked up about it. Tomorrow I'll be out of your hair again and you can go back to work, and you can just deal with me whenever you feel like looking at your messenger. Or maybe you'll get lucky and I'll just keep all this to myself, and then you don't have to deal with it at all."

The bed groaned as Blaise got up too. "Luca—"

"Quit just saying my name!" Luca turned around. "Quit just acting like. . .like everything's all right!"

"I'm not! I know it's not all right!" Blaise was back in his pants too. A state of undress did little to undermine his developing anger, for Luca couldn't really say he'd ever actually dealt with it. His own faltered. "I don't have a fucking clue what to do. This is absolutely the farthest thing I ever thought I would deal with in my life, and even further than what I expected you to ever deal with. There's always been a degree of separation between us and Voldemort. Now here he might as well be in the bloody room with us. I never asked for this, neither did you, but I'm trying. All right? I don't know what you need, or what I should be giving. I thought maybe it would make you feel better if we just acted like things were normal, because you're still exactly who you are. You don't have to let what happened at Hogwarts and what you found out define you. If you want to talk about it, if you want to explore it or whatever, then fine. I just don't want to see you get lost in all this."

By the time Blaise stopped, having preoccupied himself with redressing, Luca's upset had evaporated. He resented feeling silly, but that wasn't on Blaise. Luca couldn't say he had any better idea about what he needed or even really wanted right now. How could he get angry at Blaise for not having all the answers? He usually did, so maybe that's where the problem laid. If Blaise didn't know what to do, like how he'd taken lead after Luca's mum died in December, then what hope did Luca have?

He moved around the corner of the bed, uncertain now if Blaise would even want him any closer than that. "I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry." Blaise remained terse. "Just trust I'm on your side in all this."

Luca nodded, chin down. "It's so hard not to take everything personally."

Blaise's feet appeared in the upper edge of Luca's vision. A hand followed to cup his cheek. Luca melted, turning his face into it, for it was somehow more intimate than any of the other affection he'd gotten this morning. His vision blurred as he was brought into a hug. He held on tight, pressing his nose into Blaise's shoulder.

"I'll tell Theo today's not a good day to meet up," Blaise said.

Luca nodded, feeling bad even if he knew he couldn't handle it right now. "What does he know about what happened, exactly?"

"He knows you were there, but that's it." Blaise's fingers in Luca's hair were added comfort. "He assumed you were in the Great Hall when Dumbledore died. I haven't corrected him or anything because I don't want to lie, but it's an easy explanation as to why you might not feel social."

"Thank you."

Blaise nodded against his shoulder. "He and Daphne are more focused on Dagmar being alive anyway. There was nothing in the paper or in what Madam Bones said that hints toward the doppelgänger aspect. They've all just left it at that Voldemort possessed the body of a former student. It's all they needed to say. There aren't a whole lot of people that know the full truth."

"Just the entire Ministry and the Hogwarts staff and Ginny Weasley," Luca mumbled. "I don't know how any of them are going to look at me."

"I won't lie and say it won't change things. I think most of them are pretty understanding. You were raised by a good family, and your mum was an Auror. I bet a lot of people will look at you and think, if only Voldemort was really like this. We could've been spared a lot of grief in the last thirty years."

"We really could have been."

Maybe Luca wouldn't exist were it not for Voldemort, but he'd sustained losses because of him too. If that Magnus bloke didn't know the truth, Luca would have been raised by his bio-mum. A wave of guilt came down on him to deem his mum and grandparents as secondary in any sense of the word, especially since his mum had died in the line of duty of this war. He felt a whole lot more toward Ekaterina Parasca than he did toward Hildegard Ramstad. Luca wished his mum was here. These emotions would be so much easier to navigate.

She was gone, though. Luca's grandparents were a thousand miles away. Home was a thousand miles away, and yet home was under his feet. His geneology was British. His father's name was Tom Riddle.

Luca sighed. It was all starting to feel like too much again as everything swirled around in his mind. "I might try to work on my homework."

"We still haven't had breakfast, although at this point it's closer to lunch." Blaise pulled back so they stood face to face. "I'll run for food if you're hungry."

"I think I am." Luca laughed mirthlessly. "I don't really have a clue on anything I'm feeling."

Blaise cupped Luca's cheek again, and suddenly it was easy to return the smile that Luca received. He melted just a bit more when Blaise leaned in. Broad shoulders felt like an anchor point, sturdy and present under Luca's hands. When he sighed after their lips parted, it was in relief.

"I know I'm a handful on a good day," Luca murmured as their noses touched.

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

Luca's stomach fluttered as he studied Blaise. There was always this hardness to Blaise's expressions, like a wisdom almost given to prophecy. Right from when they'd first met, Luca liked to try and imagine the workings that occurred behind that regally passive expression. One glance of a room, and Blaise knew its entire history. Meet the eyes of its occupants, and their whole lives were laid bare for his leisurely perusal.

"I believe you," Luca replied.

Blaise stood up straight and pressed his lips to Luca's forehead. "I'll get us lunch. And did you want company while you do your homework?"

"Yes please."

It was an easy way to spend time together that felt separate from the reason Luca came home for the weekend. While Luca worked on Transfiguration, polished his Potions essay a bit more, and then started the Defence and Herbology assignments he'd procrastinated on all week, some semblance of peace cooled Luca's core.

He felt good enough by dinner time to actually go out for it. Saturday evening in Muggle Chelsea drew a crowd easy to fade away within. Luca felt at ease surrounded by complete strangers in a restaurant, and then along the Thames. He and Blaise walked with entwined fingers and hot coffee in their free hands. Making eyes, Luca thought with amusement. The way Blaise's gaze slid in the same direction he tilted his head was as clear as saying 'I want you'. As if Blaise had made some sort of promise in that silent gesture, he treated Luca so gently back at the flat that Luca wondered how on Earth he was supposed to leave this place tomorrow.

Luca had half a hope that in all the chaos, Professor McGonagall might just forget about him. Unfortunately for that, one of the school owls waited for Luca in the sitting room when he and Blaise got up the next morning. It flew off through the open window after Luca had taken the letter off its leg.

"I have until four o'clock," Luca told Blaise with a sigh.

"That's a while away." Blaise put his arms around Luca's middle from behind and kissed his shoulder. "Want to make what time we have worth it?"

Until noon at least, Luca could get away with losing track of time. He needed to watch the clock after that, and then start getting himself together a little past two. By three-thirty, Luca was showered and packed back up. That last half hour should've been excruciatingly slow because he sat around waiting. It went far too fast once he and Blaise were tangled up on the couch in a good snog.

"It makes me feel better to know you'll miss me," Luca said.

Blaise's grip on Luca tightened. It was written all over his face as the last fifteen minutes ticked by. "You'll write?"

"'Course." Luca rested his head on Blaise's shoulder. "I guess I won't have to report on Draco anymore."

"Just yourself."

"He's not going to be there anymore, is he?" Luca slumped a little. "The firedrakes are probably going back to Jotunheimen."

Blaise nodded against the top of Luca's head. "This week."

"And Charlie?"

"Back to Romania after that."

"Aw. I liked him."

Blaise nodded again.

"Easter's not far off." Luca sat up straight. "I should write my grandparents and see if they expect me. They probably do."

Blaise rested his head back against the couch. He studied Luca through half-open eyes, a faint smile coming up. "Yeah."

"I don't know that I should commit to the whole holiday, but I think. . ." A flutter of nerves touched Luca's stomach. "If they were all right with it, would you come?"

"I doubt I would be able to take two weeks off from work."

"Just for the holiday itself?" Luca asked. "Easter Sunday in Romania is on the night I'd be returning to Hogwarts, but they'll probably celebrate a week early with me again."

Luca still wasn't a hundred percent certain where his grandparents fell on everything, even if they liked Blaise. Telling them over summer that he was gay and had a boyfriend was met with concern. That was probably the best Luca could ask for when it came to an older generation in a socially conservative part of the world. Luca was content to leave it be after that, but his mum's death didn't leave much chance not to bring it somewhat out into the open. Blaise had walked Luca and his grandparents through all the legal and financial matters in London.

Luca sighed as he looked at the clock. "I suppose I ought to go."

Blaise's chest rose and fell in similar fashion. "Yeah."

Luca resituated better against Blaise's side for one more kiss. He took it slow and deliberately, trying to implant the feeling of Blaise's lips so deep in his memory that he would be able to recall them on demand. It never really quite worked that way, though. Luca could remember how he felt during and how much he enjoyed it, but everything else eventually faded away. Laying in the dorm at night thinking on it just wasn't the same as having a warm body beside him.

Blaise stood up with Luca, pulling him up flush in a tight hug. "I love you."

"I love you too." Luca squeezed. "Don't make me cry."

"Small price to pay."

Luca laughed. "I guess so, when it's easy enough."

His eyes indeed prickled as he stepped up to the fireplace. Luca almost forgot that he had to go to Ramstad Manor first, which was another thing fit to mess with his emotions. When he stepped out there, he looked around out of concern that Hildegard or someone else he couldn't handle right now waited to ambush him. It was only Aurors again in the otherwise quiet house.

Luca had no choice but to gain complete control of himself when he stepped out of the fireplace in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts. He expected to only be met by Professor McGonagall. Instead, the same group of students that had all been present at Hogwarts Thursday morning stood there too. They looked Luca over, perhaps measuring their own long faces against his. Luca averted his gaze in mingled politeness and avoidance.

"Ah, there you are, Mr Parasca." The usual briskness of Professor McGonagall's voice still hadn't returned. Its softness remained unsettling. "I was beginning to wonder."

Luca managed a strained smile and raised his gaze briefly to her. "Sorry, Professor. I didn't mean to be late."

"You're not. Just the last one." Professor McGonagall stood in front of Dumbledore's desk—although Luca supposed it was no longer his—with her hands held together. "I intend to address the school before we all sit for dinner, but I wanted to speak with all of you first.

"Given the weekend to undo the majority of damage caused, the disparity between the other students' experience and yours has developed into a sizeable rift," she said. "I have already warned the populace not to badger you with questions regarding what happened. It is well-known that the majority of you witnessed. . ." Professor McGonagall cleared her throat. When Luca glanced up, she'd dipped her chin. "I made it clear to respect your privacy, at any rate. Between Ministry releases and Daily Prophet articles, I believe their curiosity is reasonably sated.

"The hafgufa—that island on the lake—is here to stay until Magical Creatures Regulation can figure out what to do with it. Be warned that it is expressly forbidden to venture onto it. There are other creatures on it that could prove fatal to encounter."

Luca was too focused on his hands to see everyone else in his field of view, but he imagined they were nodding along with him.

Professor McGonagall didn't have much else to say, so Luca fell in line down the stairs and out of her office. Luca purposely stuck to the back, intent to fall behind and walk alone down to his dorm. A couple other Slytherin boys in Luca's year, Timothy Morcott and Thomas McGruder, walked ahead of him. They'd stayed behind as well for the siege. The two of them looked back over their shoulders. Their hushed conversation ending gave Luca the impression he'd been the topic. The Ravenclaws and Gryffindors carried on beyond the spiral staircase Luca headed down behind Timothy, Thomas, and the Hufflepuffs.

"Luca?"

The call came from behind. Footsteps echoed against the stone steps. Luca's stomach flipped nervously when Ginny Weasley appeared. She leaned her shoulder against the stairwell's inside wall.

Luca cleared his throat. "Yeah?"

"I was wondering if I could have a word."

"Sure."

Luca couldn't really think of a reason not to oblige, other than just not wanting to. He followed Ginny back up to the seventh floor. Everyone else had made themselves scarce. The corridors were quiet, although Ginny led Luca away from the staircase. She turned into an empty classroom. It made Luca feel marginally better that she didn't shut them in.

He stood close to the door. Ginny didn't move much further in than that. Her arms were folded, and she didn't look like she'd gotten much rest over the weekend. Luca averted his gaze. Unsure what to do with his hands, he slipped them into his trouser pockets.

"How are you?" Ginny asked.

Luca shrugged. "You?"

"About the same, I guess."

"What did you want to talk about?"

"I. . ." she trailed off. "Well, you had a lot dropped on you this weekend. I wanted to see that you were okay. I wanted to tell you—I wanted to say that you're really not like him, you know."

"That's what everyone keeps telling me."

"I know a bit more personally than most people, at least as far as it goes for when he was our age," Ginny said. "The only other person who knew him back then that's still around is Hagrid."

Luca shifted on his feet. "Can't help but notice the age difference between you and Hagrid."

"Voldemort left an enchanted memory of himself behind when he left Hogwarts." Ginny came close enough that Luca couldn't avoid looking at her without going to silly lengths. "You've probably heard at some point since you started here about when the Chamber of Secrets was opened back in 1992?"

Luca nodded.

"Voldemort talked about it in front of the whole Great Hall after he—" Ginny glanced down, stilting, "—so it's not a secret anymore that it was me he was controlling to do it. I'm sure as soon as everyone that was up in McGonagall's office makes it back to their common rooms, that'll spread like wildfire. Point is, he was controlling me through a diary I wrote in. He acted so nice to draw me in. Then he started playing on my fears, things like that. He was feeding off me. Eventually he appeared, kind of like a ghost. He was strong enough. And then I realized exactly who he was."

Luca ran his tongue along the back of his bottom teeth. "I always wondered why you looked at me the way you did on the train, start of term last year."

"Sorry about that," Ginny replied. "It just—yeah. It was a surprise."

"Yeah."

"I wanted to stick a hand out, anyway." Ginny tucked some hair that came loose from her ponytail behind her ear. "It's going to be a little strange for all of us that stayed behind, as far as the rest of the school goes. You and me, it's going to be even worse because of everything Voldemort said in the Great Hall."

Luca's stomach took a fall. "He didn't talk about me, did he?"

Ginny blinked. "You don't know?"

"Nobody told me he said anything." Luca's heart lightly pounded. "Blaise told me the papers said he was there possessing a former student. I thought everyone just knew I was cornered with Draco and Potter down in the Chamber."

"I hate to tell you, but everyone knows he was here looking for you." Ginny grimaced. "He asked Dumbledore where you were, and it was pretty clear from their conversation that Dumbledore was protecting you from being found. He implied that he would. . .Dumbledore told him you were either at Ramstad or Malfoy Manor. If you didn't come back to Hogwarts, Voldemort was going to start on the hostages."

Luca's face muscles tightened. He ran his fingers back through his hair, trying to imagine how he'd ever step foot in this school again if he was responsible for the deaths of his classmates. "Guess that explains why Timothy and Thomas looked at me like I had dragon pox. It's all my fault."

"Not really. You were a pawn, like me." Ginny swallowed. "For both sides, honestly. Luring Voldemort here was the most controllable situation to capture him. Nobody wanted to do it, if that makes you feel any better. It wouldn't have been done if you didn't happen to be a student here. Voldemort came with a little more force than was expected, is the thing, and Dumbledore paid the price for that."

"Glad I could be of service then," Luca snapped. "Don't ask my opinion about it though, or tell me what's going on. I think people didn't trust me not to want to help Voldemort somehow. Everyone from you to Potter to Draco to Blaise are all telling me I'm nothing like him, so why didn't anyone tell me I need to get out of the castle if things started happening? You all didn't trust me!"

"Not because we're lying about you and him being similar." Ginny's shoulders tensed. "We all just understood the fragile position of being confronted by your birth parents, of being told if you don't go with him that other people will die—"

"I'm not fragile!"

Ginny's mouth snapped shut. Her gaze darted to the exit behind Luca, then widened when Luca pulled his wand out of his pocket. He cast a Muffliato Charm on the doorway to maintain their privacy.

"I'm not fragile," Luca reasserted, even as his eyes prickled. "It's not about me at all. You're all scared that maybe if Voldemort's life was better, he could've been like me. And if he could've been like me, then maybe I could be like him."

Ginny rooted to the spot as Luca advanced on where she stood. Her shoulders were so stiff they seemed frozen. Her jaw shifted with a swallow as she looked up at Luca. He towered over her when they stood toe-to-toe.

"You're afraid," Luca said when she didn't reply. "Aren't you, Ginny?"

Her name put a jolt through her. In a flash Ginny was gone, having ducked around Luca and headed for the door.

Luca's anger wilted in the silence of her departure. The heat in his gut blistered as it shifted up into his chest. Nausea followed.

The nearest boys' toilet was at the bottom of the stairs he'd been taking. It was thankfully empty. Being close to a proper place to toss seemed to undercut the urge for it. Luca leaned over one of the sinks, gripping its edges before running it. When his hand almost hurt from how cold the water was, Luca touched it to his cheeks and forehead.

He looked up out of habit. His gaze fell as soon as he locked eyes with himself in the mirror. Luca realized then that he hadn't actually looked at himself since Wednesday night, when he readied for bed down in the dorm.

Dread tugged at Luca as he steeled himself to do so. He couldn't avoid himself forever, however hard he had tried over the weekend.

This felt silly. Nothing had really changed in the mirror as Luca studied his reflection. He'd let his hair do whatever it wanted, so its natural waviness bordered on curly in places. The swelling in his lips from snogging Blaise was long gone. His nose still had that little bump between his eyes. His eyes were still brown, not—

Luca closed them briefly as two red dots swirled by green light flashed in his mind. He breathed a little harder as he studied himself anew. Was that level of terror he'd felt down in the Chamber how so many people experienced their end? Had they looked in their last moments into eyes like Luca's, trying to understand or even to beg for mercy?

Please, his own voice echoed. Please, no.

Luca never expected terror like that to suck the air right out of him. His mouth tasted slightly acidic to think he might have incited anything similar to that at all just now, out of Ginny. It wasn't power that Luca wanted. It wasn't power anyone should have.

I am Voldemort, Luca cautiously tested as he stared at himself. I am Voldemort.

How did saying that make him feel? Luca waited for a flurry of something, whether despondency, adrenaline, or disgust. Nothing really happened other than a slight furrow to his reflection's brow.

It was true that Luca shared Voldemort's biology with him. Voldemort had already started down his path by the time he was Luca's age. He'd really murdered his father and grandparents? Why?

Cold flushed down through Luca's entire system as he tried to imagine doing the same thing. His grandparents, cowering before him. Or worse, not reacting at all because murder would not be what they expected if Luca turned his wand on them. The acidity in Luca's mouth swelled, bringing extra saliva that forced Luca to swallow. There was a block if Luca tried to imagine his grandparents laying motionless on the sitting room floor of their villa. He literally couldn't see it.

I am Voldemort, Luca told himself again, his heart rapping against his rib cage and reflection pale.

Maybe that was true. Maybe they were one in the same, but they were still so different. Luca could find out who Voldemort was. He could steep himself in knowledge of what all Voldemort had done. As far as Luca went in moving forward from this, none of that really mattered. The only question Luca had to answer was: who was Voldemort going to be?