cw: mention of retching. teenage hormones.
Kixakgatlilh mintankgaxekg,
kakilhmilh kxpulakni tiyat,
kakilhmilh minakú.
Paks kixakgatlikgolh mintalhtsi,
kilixakgatlikgolh xmustalekg miakganín,
kilixakgatlikgolh xtatlíkan laktsu spun.
Kixakgatlilh mintankgaxekg,
kixakgatlilh xatipalhuwa mintachiwín,
kixakgatlilh kxtutu minchaxpán.
Kilixakgatlilh xataknun tachiwín,
kilixakgatlilh xlijutsutsu mintawán,
kilixakgatlilh mintamputsní.
Kixakgatlilh mintankgaxekg
kilixakgatlikgolh xtatlinkan ninín,
kilixakgatlilh xatalakgxtokgo xanat.
Kakilhmilh tu tapumakganit kgalhni,
kakilhmilh kulus chu limajinin,
kakilhmilh minakú.
Kixakgtlilh mintankgaxekg by Manuel Espinosa Sainos
.
"Do you want some lemonade?"
It's the middle of June, and he hasn't yet breached the topic of…caring for Ximena yet. To anyone. Not that it would be anyone's business, but he can no longer spin a tale of hypotheticals and pretend feelings to others because, well, it's not hypothetical anymore. Not pretend. He cannot open his mouth and speak to her because, well, what if she heard him? Heard him and laughed. Scoffed. Scorned him. Her attention is a rare and addicting substance.
He glances at the pitcher, "I never understood why people had to affix sweetness to lemons, it ruins a perfectly good treat by making it sour. And then they overcompensate for that sourness by pouring more sugar into it. If you wanted it sweet in the first place, why bother adding sour? Not to mention there's a shortage of lemons, and people are wasting it on sweets. Ridiculous to me how some people like it, it's why I never liked sitting in Dumbledore's office with his lemon drops and obsession with treacle–"
She puts her finger on his lips.
He freezes. Transfixed. Wanting to be repulsed, and knowing he could never be. Her attention is more than solely on him, a part of her is…is…on him. She's touching him. Not his hands or his shoulder.
It's taking all of his concentration not to tremble. He doesn't even open his mouth for fear of his voice cracking (or worse, wheezing).
Ximena doesn't seem to notice. "You talk too much. I need to concentrate on my reading, so you owe me an hour of silence. Do you understand? Nod if you understand."
To his great shame, he finds himself nodding automatically. Eagerly. As if something in her voice (her command) naturally switched on his sense of obedience. Disgusting. He wants to open his mouth (her finger is on his lips!) to protest because she is not his mother or keeper and no one tells him what to do. But he doesn't. The mere thought of opening his mouth at this second is too much. It's all too much. Overwhelming. Overstimulating.
If he opened his mouth he could taste her magic–
He bites his lip so hard, he thinks he'll bleed.
"Good boy."
He wheezes. He sounds like a squeak toy.
She removes her finger. "Is your throat dry? Are you thirsty?"
Tom coughs, ehems. "Parched."
"Here, have some lemonade."
.
Ximena continues to translate the pages of the diary found in the common room, even if Tom's already found the chamber (and is scrambling to figure out what to do with it). He debates still the merits of sharing with her what he found. In the same way he still has not talked about what happened with the Riddles. What that strange green light spell was. Why he did what he did. How he spoke Parsel and all but confirmed that he was a natural speaker. The heir of Slytherin.
He didn't expect to be bombarded with inquiries, but considering her curiosity and her study of the man, he… Well, he should be grateful that she's respecting his privacy. He's kept it from her for so long, wanting it to be just his secret. And now it's theirs. A strange fact.
Where true waters run, I will show you the way. It turns out his ancestor had a penchant for poetry because most of the other Parselscript in the pages turn out to be just as flowery. He hasn't tossed aside the idea that any of the other passages have something just as useful in them, but if he says so himself he rather does have his plate full with…matters.
He tried entering Balam's study before, during Eostre holiday. Naturally, he did not get in, but he was able to identify many of the protective locks on the knob, the frame of the door. It reminds him of the magic in the bracelet, he knows it so well. It knows him. The magical signatures and sigils on the door are noted for study, no one in the house any the wiser.
Well, except Churro, whom Tom bribes with a treat and scratches behind the ears.
And then, of course, there's the matter of…the one feeling (sometimes two!) that he has for Ximena… As easy as it's been to ignore it for these past years, he can't seem to do it anymore. It's loud, blaring. A siren in his psyche. Always calling attention to himself. Always reminding him of what a fool he is. He hates it. Hates that he doesn't necessarily want to rid himself of it. Not before mastering it. Suppressing it. Showing that he's better, more capable.
He's thankful she hasn't noticed. That no one has–despite how…obvious his idiot younger, child-self made it. He's changed. Wisened. And he doesn't have any intention of fulfilling any…any ideas of his. Not at all. Not even a little bit.
He catches himself staring at Ximena more often.
There's so little time to talk to her in between all his engagements with his pureblooded comrades. The cotillions, the birthdays, the engagement parties. He's almost one of them. Almost. He'll reveal his hand when he's good and ready. When it counts the most. Then these insects will have no choice but to fully–openly–admit that he is their better. No matter what his dubious blood might say.
He doesn't tell any of his plans to Ximena, whom he knows couldn't care less. The life of a pureblood socialite is beneath her, in her eyes. Something to be fulfilled by those poor enough to be born into the lifestyle rather than something to aspire to and dream about like many other witches surely do. Although, he knows how much she hates it when he compares her to other witches. Other girls. He never understood that. Why doesn't she want to be Special? Why doesn't she want to embrace it as he has? What is she afraid of?
Few people still ask him about her, fooled by the act he and Hedwig put up (and how easily deceived are they!). Instead, they ask why it's taking so long for him to ask her father for her hand. They ask if they're waiting for confirmation on Tom's pedigree. If they're waiting for Grindelwald to win. Or lose. Or come to a stalemate.
Dancing around their questions has always come easy to him, but Hedwig is an expert. To the point where he looks like a clumsy simpleton trying to lead a polished ballerina in a dance. He supposes it makes sense: she's been pretending at this longer than him, for Merlin knows how long. Maybe it started as a child. Or a baby. Or in the womb. Not just for her preference for witches, but in her personality. Her life.
He sees it in Nemesis too, how still and lifeless she becomes in the shadow of her mother. Her sisters. How she blooms to live under the praise of others (of him). How her ability to shift her features (barely different from how she was born) makes her all the more confident.
Their masks are their armor. The reason they've survived for so long. Long enough to come under his protection. Under his banner.
His mask is his armor too. The reason he's been able to infiltrate this world that he was meant for. Born for. It wouldn't be right to discard it. Not now. He's come so far and he has so much further to go. He doesn't have the same amount of familiarity as his retinue, but he has more drive. Ambition. He's a Slytherin by blood, after all.
You look good. When you're not pretending.
If only he understood what that meant.
He can't ask her. Not directly. She would know, then, that he…cares what she thinks. That he harbors one feeling for her. Sometimes more. Somehow. She would know because she always seems to know the most inconvenient truths. The most absurd things. He's kept this secret so close to the surface (so close he couldn't perceive it), it's only a matter of time before she realizes and…
He can hear Hedwig's unabashed laughter from across the hall, she's holding a coupe glass full of some vile tonic, rambling to a group of intrigued but scandalized purebloods about avoiding marriage–
He threads his arm through hers and excuses themselves to a private corridor, away from the party.
"Wot the fuck are you doing, you clown?" Her hand bats at him, and he pushes her off.
"Your growing alcoholism is getting in the way of your own plans —"
"The fuck would you know about my plans you dickless piece of —" Hedwig coughs, doubles over, hands on her knees, and begins to retch. Tom performs a nausea spell he invented for after apparating, and Hedwig ceases: taking deep breaths. "Fuck."
"People are going to notice, especially if you're blabbering about them openly."
"But they haven't, have they?" She wipes her mouth with the back of her gloved hand, "You don't know what you're…what you're talking about you bloody gombeen. I've been doing this shitty act since before you even bloody knew you were magic." A bitter chuckle, and when Tom looks closer he can see tears at the edges of her eyes. "They never notice. They don't even…They don't even know me. You know who knows me? Sophie. Sophie does.
"And do you know where she is right now? Fucking… fucking miles away from her home because the sodding Muggles are dropping exploding little pods on it. Because I'll tell you…Here…come here, shithead — yeah. She's a fucking…she's Muggleborn. And I can't…I can't do anything about that. I can't protect her. I can't even…I can't even change for her. I've never, never fecking…on my life never called her a filthy mudblood. But it's not enough. It's never…I'm — I said it in front of her. The fucking muddie who died, Tom, I said she didn't matter and–And Sophie asked what if it was her?"
Hedwig grabs Tom's robes, fierce with anger. He doesn't recoil, but his discomfort is obvious. Emotional…people are not his forte. Much less when he actually cares to call them comrade.
"Do you know…I found this shite out just before Eostre, fuck you'll…you'll fucking… Do you know why mum likes me better, Tom? Why that bullheaded sister o'mine isn't? I… You'll never fucking… Do you know why mummy kept me out of the sun as a child? Why she tried so hard to straighten out my hair? No one in my bloody family has hair like mine, Tom it's —"
She's rambling. Perhaps delirious. But as she goes on, Tom looks at her. Really looks at her. Her garlic bulb nose, flatter than her sister's. Her lips, thicker than her mother's. Her coarse hair, nothing like her father's.
"— I should have… I shouldn't have looked in her quarters, but I wanted to know, I wanted to know whose letters those were and I fucking…"
Tom stares, wondering if perhaps the whiteness of Hedwig's skin had blinded him to something so obvious.
"It's so much worse, Tom. It's fucking… If my father finds out, he'll kill me. He already has an heir who isn't a dirty half-breed —"
Someone? Killing Hedwig? For something as stupid as… No. Absolutely not. Fathers, no one, will not get in his way. Especially not fathers who would cast aside their own child for this. His father had an excuse, but Hedwig's…
"...Who else knows?"
.
Hedwig most resembles her mother, at least in her eyes. Her coloring.
The photo of her father is stern. No-nonsense. An admiral at attention.
It is also, still. Unmoving. Muggle.
The man wears a Muggle coat and cravat but is by no means upper-class. His environment is one of books and tools, and his hands are calloused. His skin is dark. Like wet soil. On the back of the photo is the year 1920, with writing in sharp cursive, Max im Frankfurt. Below it, in another's handwriting, is a poem that Tom begins to read (Mein Schmetterling), but stops when it gets dirty. His mind flitters back to Inés and Wáng, and unwillingly he wonders if they have similar letters exchanged between them.
"I'm a fucking half-breed."
"I believe the Spanish would call you Mulata."
"Shut your hoor mouth, you dryshite." But his comment serves to humor her, now that she's calmed down: her powdered face and lined eyes ruined with tears. "Do you…do you think I look like him?"
Odd moment to be getting sentimental, but with a distant paternal figure like hers, he could only imagine what a terrible desperation she must have to find any sort of connection with a stranger.
Yes, just imagine. Not at all relate.
"You both have that look of don't fuck with me." He answers honestly, not enjoying his language, but knowing it needs to be said.
"Heh." She sniffs. "I hate it."
She's handling it better than he did. But then, to be fair…
"Do you want to find him?"
Hedwig shrugs, "Not…Not really. I know he exists and that's… That's fucking enough. For now." She wipes her eyes, smudging black on her gloves. "I don't even know if he knows about me. If it'll matter."
"...And your father?"
"...Ye, I'll fecking kill him." She removes her glove, revealing a long, jagged scar wrapped around her right hand. "He's a lickarse and nobody even likes him, not even Eric." A long sigh, "Gods, look at the bleeding state of me."
"I've seen worse."
"Aye, I'm fucking sure you have, you sap."
A lull of silence.
"Why is it that you told Nemesis?"
"Oh…You don't know, huh?"
Tom blinks, intrigued and prepared to be outraged on behalf of his court once more, "Know what?"
.
Three weeks later, he is in Bavaria, of all places, accompanying Balam and Wáng to a series of small magical shops specializing in increasingly absurd products. The magical side has never attached itself to Germany (nor any other nation), but being here still makes the hairs on the back of Tom's neck stand. If he looks up will he see the planes? Hear parades and protests and bombings? See the distant black smoke of pyres? He knows he won't. But that doesn't stop him from looking over his shoulder. Second glancing at every shadow. Anticipating a siren.
He wants to get away from the war and yet here he is because…
The shop where Nemesis purchased Tom's toy knight from all those years ago is a stone's throw away. He excuses himself to visit it: something small and quaint. A delight to children, and undoubtedly a place his child self would have wanted to spend all his time in. Alas, he is not a boy anymore and has not been for a long time. Browsing through the store, at first, brings him little interest aside from a silly little whistle in the shape of a toad that reminds him of Ambrose.
'There's this enchanted little shop in Bavaria that sells all sorts of magical toys and trinkets… It's also where I get my stationery. Custom, you know.'
He browses for several minutes, running his hands over various types of paper and bindings. Lingering at the fountain pens and remembering when he abandoned the use of one in favor of a quill.
The attendant is the owner: a man with dwarf ancestry old enough to have spots on his skin and white in his hair. Old enough to make Tom uncomfortable. Enough to avoid looking at him as much as possible.
Tom grabs a blank diary off a display: black leather. Not dragonhide. Smooth hand-pressed paper on the inside. Made and bound by hand. A dying art, according to the owner: a half-blood. Everything's industrialized these days. On the Muggle and magical side.
Tom looks up at the man, the diary splayed in his hands, "How much?"
.
He sees Ximena outside, alone, next to a glowing bonfire. Staring silently into the dark woods surrounding her home.
"Ximena." He greets cautiously as if his tone of voice would somehow give him and his stupid feeling away. "You look…healthy."
"What a weird thing to say. Do I normally look unhealthy?"
"N…No, what I meant is… You look very robust."
"Robust?"
He presses his lips together, this interaction not at all going as he wanted, "Strong and powerful."
"Hm. Very weird." She still hasn't turned to look at him. "But thank you."
"...What brings you out here?"
"Waiting."
"For?"
"Nana's boyfriend."
"Secret meeting, I presume, for her upcoming birthday this September?"
"Mm no. He's going to give me another tattoo tonight when he arrives." She doesn't stop looking at the trees before her, the orange light bouncing off the leaves and trunks, "Protective, of course. All of them are."
All of them are. As if they were afraid she'd disappear a second time. Who knows, it could happen. It could…
No, he'd rather not think about that.
Instead, he sits in the chair next to her, separated only by a few feet, and stresses over what to say next. "...Are any of them decorative?"
"Hmm? Oh. I guess so," She turns her forearm up towards him, revealing a small line of pictographs, "It's Nahua: xóchitl noyollo cuepontimania."
He pushes because he knows he has to, "And what does that mean?"
"Hm. There are a few ways to translate it, but basically it's saying 'my heart is floral, it's blooming'."
Tom stares at her forearm, hating how intimate this part of her body seems to him at this moment, "It's like Parsel, then."
"Sometimes… Another translation could be 'my heart is a flower, it bursts'."
Oddly relatable. "How violent."
"Nana said it was romantic."
"How unsurprising."
"She can be very…much with her passions."
"Intense." Tom supplies, "Ravenous."
"Mmhmm."
"And…you?"
Ximena pauses, and Tom believes maybe she didn't hear him or got lost in her head. "I can be." Her eyes gaze at him from her periphery, "What about you?"
I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.
He gulps. Opens his mouth —
Wáng exits the house, illuminated by the fire in the garden. "Aiyah, there you are–come, closer to the fire, daylight's gone."
The warlock then asks Tom to leave, but Ximena interrupts, "It's okay. He can stay."
Nothing more is said to Tom. Wáng merely turns back towards Ximena, rolling up the sleeves of his Zhongshan jacket. Ximena lifts her blouse and exposes her back to him.
Tom watches Wáng dip his ink brush into the golden glaze: so highly reflective, that it shines the firelight back into Tom's eyes. It drips, thick like ichor, before Wáng runs the bristles over the rim of the dish, ridding the excess.
Supported by three fingers, the brush is held as if Wáng were going to practice his calligraphy. He marks Ximena's bare back with swift and beautiful Hanzi that Tom cannot identify, little bigger than an inch. The gilded ink stays lustrous on the sienna skin of his ex-classmate for a few seconds before being burned black and fading into her skin. As water evaporates under the sun.
Wáng picks up his tattooing tools.
It's painful. If the blood and occasional grunts from Ximena are anything to go by. Wáng is skilled in his craft, swift and meticulous in the way he handles his needles, made from a variety of materials: rose thorns, shark teeth, bronze.
The first pigment is red ochre. It blends in almost seamlessly with her raw, red skin. Like Wáng is using her blood to outline the tattoo. As he carves the words into her back, Tom can feel the man's magic imbed itself into her skin: something dimensional and fierce. Creature blood.
The second pigment is ash, he can smell it from where he stands. Black as her eyes, Wáng creates small details alongside the red lines previously done. Moving back to fill out any outlines only after he was finished with the details. As he fills her back with black, Tom can sense Ximena's magic coming up to meet Wáng's: a strange mixture of water and fire. Liquid and plasma. Not opposites, but certainly not compatible.
During this process, the large boa glides silently around her body, surrounding the area being worked on, but never crossing over. Always moving. Not quite restless. Always alert. Aware.
It's here that he fully processes her partial nudity. His face burns, looks away. Ashamed or sheepish at his (her?) immodesty. What was he thinking just staring at her bare skin like some sort of tramp? As if he had any right to it- as if he had stood before her father and asked for her hand–
He leaves quietly.
That night, Tom sneaks into Balam's solar.
Afterward, he approaches Wáng. "Teach me how to tattoo."
.
It's night or evening, or dawn. The fire blazes. Ximena has all manner of ink on her skin: her tattoos, notes written on her body, words that others have spoken about her. Thoughts about her that have been rattling in his head for days. Months. Years.
Balam is with her. His own body marred with designs and words. With scars and cracks. Shows of age or shows of life. Experience.
They hold hands in the strangest way. Side to side, their outside arms curved inwards to reach the other's, both their arms — their bodies — forming a large loop. The boa. The boa on their bodies, there's only one here — it moves. Slithers around the curve of Balam's arm, off his hand, and onto Ximena's. Around the arm, onto the bare back, back out the arm, and returning to Balam. Over and over, it loops.
Tom blinks — no, he was wrong. There are two snakes. Large and imposing, one for Ximena and one for her father. Painful. Burdensome.
"Give me your hands," he says, "let me join."
"No. It's not yours to carry."
He can't understand who said it. Maybe both of them. Maybe neither — perhaps the snakes? The snakes that loop together, mouth to tail, almost opening up their mouths and biting. Consuming.
When he wakes, Tom checks his magic for jinxes. Anything that could inflict him with dreams, the same way he was affected when he kept the bracelet to himself. Nothing. Clean. Absolute. Pure.
He documents the dream in his diary.
In the morning, he sits in the living room, contemplating the dream. His newly acquired wooden whistle in his hands, thumb rubbing over it like a worry stone. He learns about tattoos. About permanently marking the body. Binding himself to others, in magic and in soul. And then he has this dream. Alike to others he has had, which he has documented and transcribed into the newly purchased diary. Green light. Woolgathering. Surnames. Mamá. Strigine. A path. Beast with two backs —
He blanches, then, realizing only now what that dream —
"Nana has a whistle like that, but it's in the shape of a snake."
Ximena sat on the opposite side of the sofa while he was lost in thought. He doesn't recoil, but he does cross his legs, rests his hands in his lap. Tries to create something, a barrier, between them. He fiddles more with the whistle, clearing his throat.
"It's to imitate the sound of a toad, to summon them. I brought it for mine."
"You have a toad?" She perks up, leaning towards him, "What's his name?"
He straightens up, "Ambrose. I named him myself."
"Very poetic. What kind is he?"
Tom preens, "Thank you. He's a common variety. Oddly sullen, for a toad. Dignified. Hogwarts gave him to me." Not exactly true, he's expected to give him back when he graduates, but Ambrose likes him better. He's his.
"For transfiguration? I had a rat I found on the street. I set her free before withdrawing."
"I would have thought you'd have your crows."
"Mm, no. They run errands for me, but I don't think they would have liked to have been turned into goblets."
Fair. The corvids he's seen around her seem highly strung. "What was your rat's name?"
"Corn."
Tom blinks.
"I found her in an empty corn can. It felt right."
"It's…an interesting choice, compared to Phobos and Deimos."
"Mars' moons were out the night they hatched."
"Ah. You raised them?"
"Yeah. Their nest was abandoned. I don't know what killed their mom."
Tom blinks. Assures himself that it couldn't possibly be the same crow he accidentally…
Balam enters, still packing items into his messenger bag, with Churro trailing behind him, "I'm leaving now, if I'm any later than I am, Pendragon will probably get himself into trouble. I'll be back in a day. Oh, Ximena, Carlos was here earlier."
"Oh?" Ximena rests her chin in her hand. "What did he want?"
"Something stupid." The man frowns, waving his hand. "You know him and whatever pendejadas he gets up to."
"Mm." She hums as her father kisses her forehead. "Bye, dad. Say hi for me."
"Behave." He points his finger at her, stern but loving. "Tom, your train leaves soon —"
"I can make it on time." He nods once. "Have a safe trip."
It's odd, perhaps, noticing the little protective quips from Balam. He had once thought them simply a sign that the man thought him incompetent, but now…
Dad thinks of you as his kid, you know.
Balam leaves and Ximena hums to herself. "He hates Carlos so much, you know. Says I could do better."
She can. But everyone's already told her that to no avail.
Tom decides to be bold. "What do you like about him?"
Ximena shrugs, smiling. "I like his eyes, brown eyes are the most sweet you know? And he's so stupid."
He's so bothered that he doesn't even correct her on sweetest. To say Tom doesn't understand is an understatement. Tom is stupid, according to her. So why isn't it him? Didn't she say that she liked that about him? He came first, really. He's better. Smarter. More capable. Taller.
She continues. "He's just… carefree. Lovely. Someone comforting."
"Comforting?"
"He looks at me, and there's history there. A past. He remembers me from when we were children, and… I might not really remember him, but I can feel that we were friends. He's familiar."
And what about Tom? They have an actual history together. As long as she and Carlos. More important than she and Carlos.
"We would walk together to the sweets shop when we were young — the one I took you to months ago, remember?" Yes, what a way to taint that memory. "Hand in hand, we'd accompany each other. And play games in the graveyard after."
"Morbid."
She laughs.
Has Carlos asked about him? His role in her life? Did Ximena smile when she recounted the good times? Frown if she recounted the bad? "I still fail to see how stupidity is attractive."
"Of course you wouldn't understand."
What is that supposed to mean? "What is that supposed to mean?"
"You're so… uppity." She giggles, and he wonders why all of a sudden it's so common to hear her laughter, when before he had never heard it. "You want everything to be perfect and prim. No room for error. Or chance."
You're supposed to be…controlled.
Oh? "Is that what it's about then?"
"Partly," Ximena hums, drumming her fingers on her thigh, "another part is knowing he'll never get the best of me."
Something fuzzy buzzes in his chest. "And I will?"
"Who said anything about you?"
Shit.
He clears his throat, "I am the only other close male friend you have, I presume?"
"Mm." She nods, "You wouldn't get the best of me, but you'll try to."
You'll. Not You'd.
He swallows his nerves. Presses his mouth into a thin line. Licks his lips.
"Actually, I had quite the infatuation with you in my first few years at Hogwarts." And only in his first few years, as far as she knows, he refuses to admit otherwise.
"I know."
…
What.
"— Wot?" It's not often he's rendered so dumbfounded that his cockney comes out, but at the moment it's as if someone had pulled the rug out from under his feet and there's no floor at all below him he's just there floating over nothingness, and any second he will go falling to his —
Ximena looks at him with something that isn't tenderness, but it's similar enough to make him think of the word. "My third year. You told me." He did?
He thinks back to being twelve (thirteen?)
I know how you feel.
Shit.
Something squeezes his chest tight. "Oh."
"Mm." She hums, turning over a page in the grimoire. "I never noticed beforehand, but it goes to show how far my powers of observation go."
— -Is she being funny? Sarcastic? He can't tell. "I didn't realize I felt that way either." Honesty.
"That happens." She underlines a sentence on the page. "You've never been one for that sort of thing."
"—What about with Hedwig?"
Ximena gives him a look.
Tom gulps, "... You know?"
"It's easier for...us of other tastes to find each other." Us of other… "It's why Carlos and I get along so well, I think. Our other nature. Our queerness[1]. Like you and me."
Tom chokes on his spit, "You — You like women?"
"When the mood strikes."
"That's…That's allowed?"
She tilts her head, amused or pitying. "Yeah. I thought you knew — I used to think that was why you mentioned Adam so often in school."
Tom coughs, centering his thoughts, fiddles with the gifted beaded bracelet on his wrist, "You thought — I don't," Fucking hell, why can't he speak English anymore? "I don't like men that way." After all, he banished Adam, didn't he?[2]
Ximena hums again, she doesn't believe him, "And women?"
"Not either." He reacts before really thinking.
"And me?"
Oh.
Taken aback, he takes his time to answer… Ximena… If she were a man — a man like he is or a man like her father is...What would change? His forwardness, for starters, and much of their past…He doesn't like Ximena because she's a woman. It's a...pleasant bonus, but if she were different...Shorter or fuller or voluptuous...Lighter or darker-skinned, blonde, red of hair, or even bald...If she went by he and his, or by nothing at all or she had a body like his...No, he feels no repulsion. Curiosity and hesitation, perhaps, but no repulsion. What attracts him to her is not her physical shell. Not completely anyway.
"You were Special."
"Oh, I'm not special now?" She rests her chin in the palm of her hand, not at all bothered as her words would imply. "What changed?"
Nothing. Nothing changed. Unfortunately. "-You're my best friend."
She nods. "Thanks. I guess you're mine too."
He hates the cool tingles those words bring to his chest. The strained urgency that grips his throat. Tom flexes his hands. "— Come to the pictures with me."
"Don't you have a train to catch?"
"I can…I can floo and apparate to the Hogsmeade station on time. I don't need to catch the Express."
Ximena tilts her head to look down at him, "You're nervous." A pause. "Okay."
You look good. When you're not pretending.
.
He lets her pick the movie again.
"Tierra de Pasiones, I hear it's good. Nana has a crush on the lead actor."
He wonders if there's any resemblance to Wáng. "What is it about?"
"Love during The Revolution. Those stories are popular, it's good propaganda. Keeps patriotism up, especially with the war."
He frowns, still upset that the war could reach this far. Taint this land, even in the smallest of ways. "Your revolution was at the start of the century, right?"
"Yup. You should ask Nana about it, she has photos and stories."
Inés as a revolutionary sounds positively terrifying. "Witches were involved? With the Muggles?"
"Do you ever get tired of asking questions you already know the answers to?"
"Yes yes, I know…Things are different here." he runs his hand through his hair as Ximena reaches into her bag for money. He stops her. "My treat."
"If you're sure."
They sit between couples. He tries not to wonder about what they might think of them both here. Alone. Together.
The town shown in the film is much like that of the ones he's been to, if not a little outdated. There are white actors dressed in the clothes of Tehuanas, like Ximena's aunts. Like Inés. With lace headdresses that remind him of white daisies. With flowers embroidered on their skirts and blouses, which he only knows are colorful because he has seen them in real life.
Jorge Negrete, the lead actor, serenades a woman in a garden. They walk towards each other, perhaps spellbound. They look at each other the same way that Inés and Wáng look at each other. They embrace and kiss. Is that how it's done? So easily? Without asking permission? Some sort of silent agreement. A mutual legilimens.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glances at Ximena, wrapped up in the next scene of the movie.
Tom cannot sing. Obviously. Nor play an instrument. Serenades were absurd and out of the question. Could he recite something? Poetry from another hand, said to her in the garden of her home? At her window? He's not even sure she likes poetry.
On-screen, the protagonist is met with opposition to his intent to marry the woman he loves. They keep referring to her by her full name. As if she were a status or precious object. Ximena chuffs when Jorge Negrete's character whips his enemy in the face, drawing blood.
Tom grips the edge of his seat when soldiers drag a mother away from her baby, leaving it for dead. From his left, the tense aura of his seatmate almost drowns out the cries of anguish coming from the woman on screen.
'But it was beautiful. A beautiful song-wail. Comforting and haunting all at once. I wanted to find it. To capture it somehow. Keep it bottled and near me for always. It was a woman calling for her children.'
He lifts his hand and places it on hers. Finds himself surprised that there's no repulsion. No immediate need to retract his hand and cease the skin contact like he expected. A failed experiment. There's nothing separating their hands now. Not even blood.
He swallows the nerves in his throat. Tries moving his thumb to rub over the top of her hand. He fails. His hand trembles. Breath comes out shaky. Chest constricts. The movie runs on.
"Tu no eres ya del pueblo, perteneces al monte como yo." [3]
.
They talk about the movie. About the unfairness of it all: the protagonist's death. The way it pitted women against each other. How no one in the film looked like Ximena or her family. Or anyone in the audience.
"It's typical. We don't show up as well on film, you know." She jests, the house lights appearing a short distance away, "You have to be as pale as a ghost — you'd be a great actor. You have it all down."
Ridiculous thought to have. "Me? An actor?"
"Why not? You're very…fake. Did you know you have a fake laugh? I mean, I didn't know either until I did, until I heard your real one. You know?"
'You care what others think.'
'Everyone does, to some extent. Don't tell me you don't mind what your loved ones think of you.'
'I guess. But you take it so far. You're so dramatic. What are you hiding that's so important?'
'I prefer to think of it as not allowing the unworthy to have access to me. Who I truly am.'
'Don't you get tired?'[4]
He pauses as she opens the front door, playing dumb on instinct, perhaps. "What do you mean?"
"You go back and forth…one moment you're hiding. Pretending. And then you're yourself. I didn't notice it before, not really, but now I do."
Tom flexes his hand at his side, unsure of what to do. "Before?" They haven't talked about it. They haven't brought it up.
"I realized, fully, when you met your uncle. And grandparents." And killed them.
"Ah." He's painfully aware of her gaze on him. Painfully aware of how pleased it makes him. Painfully aware of the way his stomach threatens to churn. "I…I need to."
"Even with me?" She sounds…disappointed? Upset? "Even after all that?"
Yes. "You shouldn't have had to… I'm sorry you had to see that."
"Why? You would have done the same for me, right?"
He gulps. "Without question."
"Hmm." She looks away from him. Frustrated or unconvinced. Chin up. "I thought you said I was your friend. Do you pretend around Evan? Hedwig? Nemesis?"
Yes. Obviously. He is, perhaps, more genuine with them than with others, but he cannot just…reveal himself. Not wholly. It has to be a piece of him, carefully cultivated to ensure he gets what he wants. That they keep thinking of him a certain way. Keep seeing him as someone to lead them. To stake their loyalties on. And he has to do it with Ximena because…
"I want to see it." She interrupts his thoughts, his scramble to get something out that'll pacify her and be the truth. Or a reflection of the truth. "I saw a little of it before when we went to the movies together for the first time. Then I saw more, that night we traveled. I want to see you again, like that. As you are. Not pretending. It was…grisly. Wonderful."
Here, he manages to give a chuff. "I believe you have the wrong word,"
But she shakes her head, "No. I don't. You were ugly. Monstrous. Something seen only in horror. In the pages of books. I didn't think someone like you could have had it in you. You're so…in control. Fake. Wet clay in the hands of those Purists, their little morality pet. But you can be more."
Her speech rings a bell in the back of his memory, a promise of hope and ice cream.[5] It erupts gooseskin on his arms, the back of his neck, and makes his hands tremble. His throat parched.
"I hide because I don't want to be seen — perceived — as someone I'm not. But you, you hide to do the opposite. Why? Is it really that bad?"
Somehow he finds it in himself to respond. "Are you saying you wish to watch me murder once more?" Trying to play it off, to somehow push Ximena away from him is his natural reaction.
"I want you to be yourself." She's looking at him, pitifully reminding him that she is, a second time, surpassing him in height.
"That isn't a no."
She scoffs, walking away from him towards the library. "You're doing it again… You're masking up, making jokes like Avery. You want to be just like them. I don't understand." Her hand rests on the handle of the door. "Don't they make you sick? Don't you hate them?"
Yes. Without a doubt. They're nauseating sycophants. And he's… No different, on the surface. Just like he wanted, ever since Dumbledore sat with him on that foggy afternoon. She knows this, she has to. That this was his goal, the way it's supposed to be. Why it's the way it has to be.
But she wants to hear him say it. For what reason? Confirmation? Justification? He thought she knew better than that.
He blinks and finds she went inside while he was lost in thought. When he follows after her, she's sitting and reading a dark tome with parselscript along the spine and cover. There's a cockatiel perched on the top of her head, her curls serving as a cozy nest. She looks a statue in her stillness, but impassive as ever, her colorful skirt gathering at her knee and draping at her feet. She's not going to engage in conversation anymore, he knows her too well. But that's just as well. For the better. Because…
He sits adjacent to her, feeling possessed. Possessed because it's absurd, all of this, for him to hear her words and then react in this way. There's no love potion involved, and yet his actions are still illogical. Irrational. Ill-conceived. There's no spell on him and yet he dares to try and be open. Vulnerable anew. By choice.
He reaches out, runs his finger over the back of her hand, resting on the armrest of the chair. Lightly. So hardly there, it could be confused with the breath of a ghost. She hums an acknowledgment but does not look up from her book. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
That won't do.
He gulps.
"...There were times, in the library, in that little nook you liked to hide away in…I'd find you there absorbed in some kind of tome or scroll to the point where you didn't even know I was there."
She hasn't looked at him, but he knows she has stopped reading. He presses his lips together.
"Once...It must have been around midnight, I was...Well, I was outside of bed, breaking curfew." He allows himself to chuckle. "I wanted to get my hands on a reference book...And you were there, still and asleep. I…I just watched you. For a while. Transfixed, I…I was so angry. I had thought to myself 'how stupid that anyone fall asleep here, in public'... It was still when I didn't know you, really. Those first few months of Hogwarts. I had resolved that you weren't worth my attention and that I was wrong about you. But I…I didn't leave you alone. I kept coming.
"I hated you, sometimes, I think. For a little bit. Or at least I tried to. I wanted to. For being a year ahead of me, yet in the same house. For being like me, but not. For being interesting and not being obvious as to why… I think I still try, sometimes."
She's still quiet. Still not looking at him. He gulps. Swallows his pride. Grips her hand. Her magic flares against his, cold and stinging. Ringing. The taste of ginger returning once more to his senses. It pushes him. Closer. Closer. Closer. He gulps. A pit in his gullet and sweat on the back of his neck.
"Weren't your eyes blue? Why are they dark?"
He stills, blinking, blood flushing to his face. "I…"
"You're so close, you hate closeness…" Ximena sets the book down on her lap and leans in. Her eyes are black. As always. Terrifyingly dark. He's compared them to so many things over the years, in his dreams, in his thoughts. Ink. Pitch. Ash. Cockroaches. Beatles. Night. They all feel flat as comparisons now. Shadows on the wall of Plato's cave.
"Your face is red."
He gulps again.
"You still like me, don't you?"
His voice cracks.
"Are you scared?"
She's openly taunting him. Teasing him. He can perceive it on her face, in her voice, and woven between her magic. He can see the micro-expressions, bared so clearly to him. The subtle curl of the corner of her lip, the arched brows, the flutter of her blink. Was this there before? Did he miss it like a fool? Is he merely hallucinating this, projecting his ridiculous (hopeless) feelings onto his unsuspecting ex-classmate? Is it a trick? Will she laugh at him when he tries, or in a few seconds when he doesn't move. Call him stupid? Jeer with his mask in her hands? Bruise his pride further?
He takes the bait.
The doubt once held in his heart is gone. Ceased to exist. He wants her. Whatever that means. He wants to be a crucible for her. To cast away any memory and trace of any other person who dared touch her skin before him. To dare touch her magic before him. Man, woman, or otherwise. His magic is restless, wiggling and thrashing about in high emotion, unable to settle down and figure out how he is feeling. It wants to spread out yet conquer her own, which was pacifyingly still. Unyielding.
Tom doesn't know how to describe lips, nor the awkward way in which he pushes himself forward before he loses any more nerve — and is rewarded with the gentle, clumsy knocking together of their front teeth. His ambition took him and hurled him into this strange chasm in which he has no reference. No experience. But her lips are soft, perhaps, and she is more experienced than he, so when she moves, he does too. Tries to. He's stiff and scared and his hands cannot stop trembling. He has no idea what to do with his hands and his heart is pounding in his head. He hasn't even closed his eyes–Don't the stars in the movies close their eyes?
No, he can't rely on the instructions of others, he has to try and trust his instinct. His want, his…
It doesn't make sense. He wants to sink into her. Deep like a stone in a river. Wrap himself in the very essence of her. Her magic. To pluck whatever trait it is that makes her like this and keep it all to himself forever. It belongs to him. Only him. Mine. Mine. Mine.
She breaks the kiss, "You're an awful kisser."
The cockatiel on top of her head squawks.
[1] Queerness is being used in the original sense of the word, that is: being strange, other, and unusual. But also being used in the modern way.
[2] Tom gave Adam a potion at the end of his second year, which was implied to be made with nigella seeds, which are traditionally used to banish someone far away. Hence why, in the following chapter, we see a telegram sent to his mother telling her to keep him at home.
[3] Camilla, Tierra de Pasiones, 1943.
[4] Tom and Ximena's conversation on his birthday in Chapter 54: Don't They Look Like They're Crying? (Part III)
[5] Paraphrased from Chapter 10: Real Talk:
'I didn't think you'd understand-I thought by now they might have brainwashed you I thought maybe you were just humoring me on my ideas about dark and light magic… About everything else too. I...People here come and go from me. Never linger. And that is fine. I like that. My ideas aren't taken seriously, I'm seen as an amusing little curiosity, and people don't listen to me. Not really.'
But he's different. Of course he is. Only he really listens to her and what she has to say. To share and teach. Only he's smart enough to see her worth.
'You've given me hope.'
As a disclaimer: Hedwig isn't upset about being half-black (you might recall an early chapter where she doesn't care about the races of others so long as they're pureblood), she's upset that she's a half-blood. And ofc, upset that her mother lied, among other things.
I got bored and made TWO shitty wattpad style trailers for this fic (those who already saw the first one, go look at the second one), lmao. You can see them on the WattPad and Quotev vers of Sepentine if you want, and there's links in LMR…speaking of, there's been TWO updates for LMR with a deleted scene was was meant to be in this chapter, as well as a fun deleted epilogue if you're interested :) Speaking of, in chapter one of LMR, Ximena mentions one day having those words tattoo'd on her. Looks like she got her wish :) as a little incentive for you all to review/leave a comment: i'll write a ximena pov of this chapter for LMR. Also, you know, it won't take me six months to update the next chapter. Yes, this is a threat.
That finger on his lips, "robust", and then "you have a toad?" interaction was based off old RP threads between theaspiringcynic and I, lmao. You can thank her for the high levels of romcom activity here, because she actually wrote half of the interactions/ideas/phrases on some of those paragraphs. Hi saz! Go read her fics, she's on AO3 uwu
It was interesting to see the reaction to the last chapter considering the one it followed. Hedwig's actions were played for laughs right after a chapter talking about how people/society don't take SA on men seriously. It's not a "gotcha" moment so much as a "hey… we are not immune to propaganda" moment.
:D rainybelieverbouquet on tumblr made a really beautiful cover/art piece inspired by Serpentine, which you can see if you go to my writing blog (skooffuskaild on tumblr) or if you go to Quotev, AO3, or WattPad! Her usernames there are IMBailey, Madone, and ThatOneBrownGirl_ respectively. Her Finding Neverland story greatly influenced my views on lil baby tom. Read her fics!
And uh, with Hedwig's revelation, that's really the last of all major spoilers that will be revealed (rather than implied) in Serpentine :D so you can (if you want) check out my rp blog finally at gildedscripture on tumblr! I've been inactive, but hope to be back soon! You can read about Ximena, Nemesis, Hedwig, Evan, Balam, Yami, Elle, and even my interpretations of Tom, his mom, his dad, Bellatrix, Salazar (as well as my OC for his wife)–You can even see Inés in her original form: as a Hetalia Mexico OC bahahaha
Thanks to jaq n via for reading over this!