Sundays aren't as interesting without Ximena being available to follow around Hogsmeade. She knew good places to find cheap school supplies and secondhand books, and while he thought (at first) that this was where she got her supplies of strange tomes, he now knows that none of the shops carry anything like what she's shared. Not like the books Tom saw within Balam's library or in the small towns they've visited.
He's never asked about her supplier. Maybe if he had, she'd have been reunited quicker. Taken away from him faster. Couldn't have that. He's not done with her. He has questions. Ideas.
Like the idea, the prospect, of showing her around the areas in which he's traveled with Balam. It excites him. To show her the people he's known and the shops he's found. This scenario is only possible if she remembers nothing about where she grew up, and (even if she does) that Balam has never taken her to the same places he's taken Tom.
The idea of teaching her rather than she teaching him something is such an appealing thought, he bathes and lathers in it for a good part of the afternoon, accompanying the Slytherin boys in his year around Hogsmeade and drowning out their boring drivel. Hogsmeade was more appealing when his upperclassman was here, her freetime open and available to him.
At least in México, he won't have to share her with any other students. Just possibly her family, but luckily for Balam, Tom has grown to enjoy him. There's no condescension when he teaches, just disdain for Tom's teachers here at Hogwarts (something that still bothers him, if only because this school was his savior). He tells Tom they should have done better. That things should be different for those like him. With dark magical cores.
Undoubtedly, the man is teaching Ximena about magnificent dark magicks, things he's kept tight and secret from Tom, despite how hard he's working at peeling them away from the man. He's already figured out what mechanism is keeping Balam's study locked (the magic is akin to that of the bracelet), now he only needs to open it and search…
...Would Ximena…?
There's no use thinking about what ifs and guestimations. He'll know soon enough. Keep himself from daydreaming his time away instead of focusing on more important matters. On his goals and on his social circles.
He sips his butterbeer as Dion says something vulgar about Hedwig's plump figure. Tom owes it to her to silence him, so he stretches out his magic and squeezes the boy's hand painfully tight. Just enough for his own group to notice. None of the barmaids or other customers around them do. The group stops their incessant tittering.
Evan clears his throat, "I've found the information you were looking for."
The other boys in the small circle perk up. Tom remains impassive.
"It was Little Nott's sister that spilled it," Ah, Gwendolyn, "Of course, I would take her word with a grain of salt, with that mouth of hers." There's a snicker from Dion, a glare silences it, "She bragged about her great uncle Cantankerus being the wizard behind the Sacred Twenty-Eight list."
Katux scoffs, "Impossible. The man's a lunatic. Completely batty."
"I wouldn't brush him off quite yet, Katux." Evan drums his fingers on the table between them, "His family has helped the Averys publish their Nature's Nobility editions since the very beginning."
"Yes but Cantankerus isn't the best and brightest of the Notts." Katux mumbles, drinking from his mug, "He doesn't even have an heir, what kind of respectable man has no wife or next-of-kin at his age?"
Tom refrains from snorting. He has no intention of ever marrying or fathering children. There are better status symbols for a wizard of his caliber, "Terminal bachelor?"
The group stiffens, sniffs and avoid eye contact. Interesting.
"That's all well and good," Evan speaks, his throat clearing, "so long as he does his duty as a pureblood."
Another rehearsed phrase. Heard and repeated from figures of authority. Tom's growing tired of those, "Another wondrous difference from Muggle society." He dresses up his curiosity as praise, "With them, it is solely a woman's duty to have a family. Men can stay working men."
"Typical." Katux scowls, "Muggle men are notoriously lazy, you know. Only good as labor fodder."
It doesn't take a genius to pick out the oxymoron in the wizard's words. If they're so lazy, why use them as work horses? But he's been aware of the contradictions in these peoples' prejudices for years now. It feels useless to point it out now, especially when he has so much more use to take from them by being complacent.
"Quite." Evan agrees, "A wizard's duty is to his family. If he cannot raise another generation, then what is he good for?"
Very different from Muggles.
He prods more information about the expectations of male heirs, and the subject leads to the Avery heir, whose mention continues to bring up a sour taste in Tom's mouth. The boy is reportedly courting one of Nemesis' sisters, and is basking in the lingering events from last Yule holiday: being framed as someone generous and open-minded alongside his father. The same wizard who once told Tom that muggleborns didn't belong in Slytherin and that Muggle girls were exotic treats. Buffoon. Even without memory of his previous conversations and what he's heard through the grapevine, Tom can almost guarantee that his ex-mentor has little to zero knowledge as to who wrote the Pureblood Directory. The boy revels in power but wields none of it. Daddy's money, daddy's connections. He couldn't even help Ximena on his own, he needed help. It's pathetic. Tom has no real in with Colin Avery anyways, he only met with him during the trial… Didn't Nemesis have a connection with him? Something familial...
His retinue longs to know why Tom is so interested in the author of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. He can see it in their eyes, could see it if he manages to master legilimens on the animals he's been practicing on. They all surely assume it has to do with Tom's want to claim blood from a respectable old family, particularly one without an heir apparent.
Or maybe they with Tom to be a part of their family. To have some seniority over him, who would most likely be a bastard. A half-blood by any other name unless he were formally adopted. It would reverse the pecking order. Give an excuse for a coup within his ranks. He'd like to see them try.
Sometimes he thinks maybe the Gaunts already have an heir lined up. Someone birthed before him, a half-sibling. An inbred of an inbred, spanning decades. Two centuries. Would they be as powerful as he, with Slytherin's blood running through their veins? Their mastery over snakes more pronounced and authoritative? Valid? Ridiculous. If there's going to be any sort of heir to the Gaunt line, it's going to be him, so help him God. Any previous children that his mother might have had with her brother are void. Gone. As good as dead.
The boys are also curious about another thing: About Hedwig. About Ximena. Why the sudden switch? There are theories, Tom knows it. Behind their eyes, rolling around in their simple minds. But they know better than to bring up the subject of his former upperclassman. And when he hears them muttering about it to themselves in the common room, well, what they have coming is their own fault.
Abbas and Topaz are a little more forward about it, at first. It makes sense: they're his upperclassmen. They probably still think they had some semblance of power over him, if only for the purpose of teasing or making racy comments. He's a little lenient with the two of them (fifth year spells are nothing to sneeze at), giving passing comments on their own engagements and marks of being affianced (the strings of pearls around their necks would grant them odd looks in the Muggle world, but here it's a very popular accessory for all[1]). He doesn't wish to be seen as falling into the habits of debaucherous married purebloods, but he also wants them to think (to know) that he belongs here. With said wizards. That he can easily adopt their customs and views and attitudes towards witches and relationships, despite being raised Muggle.
It's a delicate balance to keep.
Gossip within the circles of British wizards rarely leave the Isles, and the rumors that do rarely leave Europe. There's no way or method of his supposed switch to Hedwig reaching Ximena at all. He is (begrudgingly) not important enough, and Hedwig's influence is stationed almost entirely within Ireland. But what if some of it leaked anyways? And news traveled its way into Ximena's ears and simmered in with her thoughts. Through the travels of her father or through the strange friendship he witnessed between her and Nemesis? What would she think? Say? Would she be curious about his life and what she's missing at Hogwarts? Be upset that she is no longer considered to be his in the eyes of this society?
Jealous? Don't be ridiculous, why on earth would he want Ximena to be jealous? Hogwash.
.
His final day before the holidays is ripe with sullen anticipation. Anticipatory, because he's eager to learn overseas once more, and sullen because leaving Hogwarts always puts a rotten mood on the burner. If only Balam could teach here, rather than away from the only home he's known. The house in Mexico is welcoming, moreso than any of the manses and citadels he's been invited to by his pureblood contemporaries. But it's not his. He is a visitor. Temporary.
Tom shakes his head, banishing the thought.
Potions class was also more exciting when his favored upperclassman was around. Nemesis' sister doesn't quite fill in the same gap, though her resources are probably more useful, as is her willingness to not baby him (not rescue him in the last second even though he didn't ask for it). Slughorn adores their pairing, and doesn't push Tom as much to try and find variety in his partners as much as he did the first few weeks of his added advanced class. He doubts he could stand to work with anyone else in the room, anyways: they'd all either undermine him out of jealousy or leach off of him for his smarts. Crawlers, all of them.
Unfortunately, as a result of this, Eris seems to think they're friends. Not helping this is his apparent closeness with the witch's 'baby sister'. Eris discusses all manner of frivolities with him, from engagements to school squabbles. If the later involved reasons in regards to his interests (sacred twenty-eight or any scandal he was involved in), then he'd be interested, but as it is, he's bored half to death with all of her talk.
"-Colin Avery, he's my goodbrother's brother, visited last holiday with his new baby, and oh he's so precious! You know his son is eyeing my sister? Strange to think so much Fawley blood will mix with the Averys-"
And there it was.
Manipulating the conversation is sinfully easy. It wasn't his idea to bring up his invitation back, it was Eris'. He has been overdue, after all, for a visit to his friend and classmate's household!
A date and time is agreed upon, and Eris smiles, clapping her hands in excitement: it looks less staged than when Nemesis does it, but more annoying, "Excellent! I'll owl Mother during dinner!"
He mirrors her smile, looking less humbled (as he would if he were still a little boy), and more esteemed. As he should. He's almost a man of sixteen. Whatever he finds at the Fawley manor, he's sure it's not as stressful as Nemesis claims it to be. What kind of stress can be found in a happy, rich home where one has never known hunger or poverty?
Does she still fancy him, he wonders? Or has she finally gotten over it after years of no attempt at pursuing him? Her attitude towards him hasn't changed much, but that's no sign of anything: many of his fellow witches treat him with respect and admiration. Surely they don't all harbor such inane feelings towards him. It wouldn't be proper or right for half of them. Due to their engagements or otherwise.
Alone in the dormitory, he sifts through his things, picking and choosing what to take to Mexico. Sorting through years of items given and brought. Stolen and coerced.
Nemesis' first Modranicht present is found last.
He holds the toy knight in his hand, once greatly treasured and used. Commanded and led. It did his bidding without question or hesitation. As a knight does his king. He compared his boys' club to knights once, didn't he? Long ago, as a little first year. As a little fool. What could those other small boys do for him that his growing cabal can't? More than just finding lost treasures in the common room.
Tom runs his finger over the cold armor of the toy, the metal engravings nicked here and there from use. In the beginning, the armor would simply heal itself (some spell from the manufacturer), but now the marks are permanent.
He should ask Nemesis where she had purchased it.
.
This time he is prepared for the ruble and ruin of the Muggle side of the train station. He does not stutter or stumble over his steps as he emerges from the rot. Paying no mind to any passing people giving him curious glances or the familiar smell of London. There are no other students who walk through the threshold with him.
What he's not prepared for is the attack on his only night in London this holiday.
It's not his first bombing. He's been here before. Has heard the sirens, hid in shelters, turned off all the lights, and waited to die. It's not his first bombing, but he fears it'll certainly be his last in the worst of ways. Not because he'll escape and never see war again, but because this is the closest they have ever hit. The tubes have been closed off, but people run to them anyways, wanting to hide within them for weeks at a time, and somehow Tom knows that if he's sucked into that black hole, he'll never again come out.
The earth shakes and buildings crumble in the bright flashes of light seen soon after. In the terrible whiteness, he spots flesh and limbs from beneath rubble and squeezes his eyes shut, but is unable to make the afterimage of death disappear from his mind. His ears are ringing and it's terribly dark and the few miserable orphans left in Wool's are pressing up too close against him and don't touch him don't touch him don't touch him, don't fucking touch him-
The groundskeeper of Wools, who served their country in the first war, he quiets the children as best he can. Hushes and tells them it's just a great big band warming up. It's just noise, just fireworks, just the entire brass section. Against his will, Tom remembers the Muggleborns at Hogwarts dancing to Jazz. With trumpets loud and erratic. With the almost comforting buzz of the gramophone humming in the background of the music that plenty of uppity purebloods called just noise.
"It's just noise. Tubas and trumpets. Don't worry. Don't worry."
Tom is as much of a sitting duck as they are and he hates it. Being this vulnerable among Muggles who cannot even cloak themselves with a shield charm, as a basic first year can.
A protego can't do much against a bomb. He doesn't want to try it out, either.
[1] Historically speaking, rich and noblemen have worn jewelry as a beauty/fashion standard for far longer than they have not. More ways of showing how stuck in the past wizards are, but not always in a bad way. I briefly referred to another big fashion difference in Chapter 37: The End, where someone in the crowd commented on Ximena wearing heels: wizards see them as a very masculine shoe.
Ximena comes back in the next chapter.
This chapter and the past two are meant to all be the same one… But you know, getting it all out like this is hard considering the situation. Thanks for your patience. These updates about Tom's time in Hogwarts weren't written in advance like Tom's time in Mexico, so there's more of a wait there.
I'd also like to thank anyone who wished my family well. They've so far recovered well from Covid, but the recovery process for the months afterwards loom over my head. I finally got my vaccine shots (as a teacher, I get priority), and I went back to teaching in person on the 16th, so I'm exhausted.
Serpentine is still much loved, but it's starting to feel really...redundant. Idk. I think it just comes with writing such a long piece of work without deep editing/preplanning. Typical fanfiction issue. I do hope to rewrite it all someday to be more concise and to keep my themes in order.
I know this work of fiction is long, and I wanna thank anyone reading this for sticking around all this time. It really means a lot. I'll try to upload more analysis and symbolism/theme breakdowns for LMR :) As of right now, it's updated with a Soulmate AU.
Something to correct from the last chapter! It wasn't in Chapter 11: Soft Hands in which the concept of age gaps first came up. It was in Chapter 9: Autumn. WHOOPS! Heheh.
One last thing: please PLEASE read 'Unbending, Unbroken' by theaspiringcynic on ao3, she wrote it for my birthday and I can't stop gushing over it. It's a fanfic of Serpentine with a lil extra Padma (we roleplay on tumblr, and it's a #thing)