Year Six: Chapter Twelve

As much as he'd like for it to be otherwise, Tom did still have to attend classes. Defense was… fine. Most of his classes were, at the least, tolerable. Barely. Potions, however, had become a new brand of torture.

Because he was certain that Slughorn suspected him.

Of course, he didn't think the Slytherin had determined that he was actually a horcrux of Tom Riddle's, accidentally created while attempting to kill Harry Potter, that had taken over after the boy had been Kissed. The story sounded ridiculous even to him. However, Slughorn did know about his horcruxes, he had taught Tom for seven years, and he was not an idiot. An oily, unpleasant coward, but not an idiot. The only thing saving Tom was, he thought, the fact that Slughorn had never met the real Harry Potter.

Even so, the man distrusted him.

"Your technique is remarkably similar to that of a student I once had," he commented as he examined Tom's work station. Beside him, Davis sent the man a quizzical look, then apparently gave a mental shrug and resumed brewing.

Tom smiled up at Slughorn. "My mother?" he asked, attempting to inject a note of eager curiosity into his tone.

Slughorn faltered. "Ah, no. I'm afraid her technique was much more like your previous professor's."

"Professor," Hermione asked, raising her voice a little. "Are people's brewing techniques really that different?"

There was a moment where Slughorn continued to look at Tom, gaze drawn to his hands, before he turned to Hermione with a gentle laugh. "Not always, no, but they can be. Typically, a student's technique will closely resemble that of their teacher." His smile faded. "Naturally, most of you use methods similar to Professor Snape's."

Everyone but Parkinson, Nott, and Hermione's roommates looked at Tom with greater or lesser degrees of comprehension. Tom wondered what it said about Parkinson's 'relationship' that Draco had apparently told Goyle and Crabbe about his suspicions about Tom's behavior and not her.

The next day, after dinner, Hermione pulled Tom and Luna with her to the library. Ginny and Astoria followed, since she was absconding with the people they spent most of their time with, and Daphne and the rest of his Slytherins followed them. So it was that a fairly large group found themselves sat at a table as Hermione pulled out pages and pages of notes covered in equations out of her bag.

Tom raised an eyebrow as the muggleborn girl eventually thrust a neatly ordered page with a single equation on it into his hands. "What's this?" he asked, even though he was already skimming through the equation to work out the answer to that question himself.

Hermione took a deep breath. "It's a curse to prevent the people you cursed before from committing suicide. I'd like you and Luna to cast it."

"Why would we do that?" Tom asked, taking out a quill and correcting the formula. It was good work – at least as good as he would have managed at Hermione's age – but still the work of a novice to the art of spell-crafting. It couldn't be helped though. Hogwarts barely brushed against the basics of it in the NEWT levels, so creating something like this, which included elements of magic Hermione had little to no experience with, was impressive.

Hermione nodded to herself, looking ready to recite a well-practiced speech. "If there is some manner of punishment after death for killing oneself, I don't want them to suffer it. But if there isn't, do either of you really want them to be able to escape justice so easily?"

Tom lifted his head, gaze moving from the curse in his hands to Hermione, who held his gaze easily. His lips curled into a smile. "I have no objections," he said. "But it's ultimately Luna's decision."

The blonde nodded without hesitation. "I don't believe that's how the afterlife works," she said, "but I was concerned about the possibility of them escaping to it." She cocked her head to the side as though listening to something only she could hear. "We'll do it soon. Tonight, I think."

With that settled, Tom smirked at Hermione. "You based a fair bit of this off of the arithmancy for the Imperius. How did you get hold of that equation?" As far as he knew, the only ways to discover a spell's equation were to be intimately familiar with the spell or to find it in a book. Needless to say, the only books that might contain that equation were morally questionable at best. Either way, Tom felt something like pride in his clever muggleborn witch.

Hermione flushed. "I bought it." She pulled a book out of her bag that Tom knew she hadn't found in the Black library. "Or at least I asked Fred and George to buy it for me. I've been, just, well, trying to make sure I know enough. So I can be useful."

Tom cast a glamor on the book in her hands because it most certainly was illegal in Britain even if it was also obscure enough that very few people would recognize it. It was pure Arithmancy, and thus made for extremely dry reading, but it contained the equations for such things as the Unforgivables, horcrux creation, and the basis for the Dark Mark.

"Merlin, Granger, you don't do things by halves do you?" breathed Davis with an appraising look at the girl next to her. On Davis's other side, Daphne held out her hand, silently requesting the book, which Hermione reluctantly handed over.

Tom glanced at the girl. "I don't believe that book will help," he noted lightly. At Daphne's frown, he shrugged. "Voldemort spent time researching his snake, Nagini. She wasn't always a snake, you know." Judging by the confused looks he was getting though, perhaps they didn't know. "She was a maledictus. That's one of the books he looked through. Not that I think he was trying to help her, but…" But he'd have noted it if he'd seen any hint of a cure, if only for his own curiosity.

Daphne frowned, looking at the book in her hands. "Even so," she murmured. Tom inclined his head. It was only reasonable for her to check.

Across the table from her, Astoria sighed. "It's fine. It's not like I'm gonna expire anytime soon." She smiled at her older sister. "You have time." A feeling of warm exasperation tinged with regret and worry came through the bond.

How could she be so unconcerned with her own mortality? Tom didn't understand that. "You're not dying," Tom commanded. If nothing else, she was one of the tethers holding his soul stable. He wouldn't let her abandon that role for a mere blood curse.

Astoria rolled her eyes. "Right. I'll get to curing myself straight away." A sly grin crept across her face. "Right after I take care of Daphne's problem."

That made everyone sit up straighter. The Slytherins looked resigned, save for Daphne, who looked irritated, while the others merely appeared curious. "What kind of problem?" Ginny asked.

Daphne tried to wave it off. "It's nothing. Stori's just -"

"Father set up a marriage with a super old guy," Astoria cut in.

With a sigh, Daphne closed the book and slid it back across the table to Hermione. "He has important contacts, he's willing to pay for your treatments, and Father's met with him and assures me the man is kind. If he wants a wife and an heir in exchange, I'm perfectly willing to pay that price." She glanced at Tom. "Sorry Potter. I hope you weren't reconsidering turning me down. Marriage is off the table now, I'm afraid."

Tom shook his head. "I wasn't. But.." He grasped her arm and twisted it to show his Mark, ignoring the way she winced. "You're still mine. If you don't want to marry this man, you won't."

Daphne pulled her arm away from him slowly, gingerly rotating it. "Then cure her. You have until Summer. That's when the contract will be formally negotiated." She pushed herself away from the table and stood. "I'll see you later," she said and left.

Tom rubbed his temples and glanced at Hermione. "Cure her," he said simply. He could do it, if he but put his mind to the problem. He was absolutely certain of it. However, Hermione was the one seeking out ways to be useful. Even if she failed to complete a cure, he fully believed that she would save him time by getting at least part of the way there.

Despite a cornered look in her eyes, Hermione only nodded and turned to Astoria. "What can you tell me about the curse?" she asked quietly.

Slowly, the groups settled in to research or study their own topics until the library began emptying for the night, when Tom and Luna stood and left for the Room of Requirement. Hermione followed them, wanting to see her first attempt at creating a curse brought to life.

Less than an hour later, Hermione led the way back upstairs, pouting. "I'm just saying that it wasn't what I was expecting," she told Tom.

With a smirk, Tom asked, "Did you think there would be a build-up of power, perhaps magic sparking around us, flashing lights and thunder?" At Hermione's flushed cheeks, he took pity on her. "So did I. Rituals rarely have anything of the sort though. Even the most powerful ones aren't that dramatic."

Luna smiled weakly at them both. "Unless you mess up. Then they're very dramatic."

They both winced. "That's true," Tom agreed. He hesitated, considering. "Potter… he was hoping that the ritual to give Voldemort a body would fail." He gave them a grim smile. "If it had, Voldemort would still have had his horcruxes, but it's entirely possible that Little Hangleton would be gone. Rituals are boring when they go well, and that's for the best."

"Right." The three of them were quiet on their way back to their dorms, waving goodbye to Luna as they separated. As they approached their Common Room, Hermione asked, "Are you going to start The Gray on the Animagus transformation soon?"

Tom started. He'd entirely forgotten about that. He considered it as he climbed the stairs to the boys' dorm and nodded to the others. Ginny wasn't there yet, and neither was Ron. Tom sighed at last. "Yeah. We may as well." He pursed his lips, aware that Hermione could feel his trepidation and would want to know the reason for it. "I hope my form isn't…" He'd never made the attempt as Voldemort. While he'd told himself it was because becoming an animal simply wasn't interesting or useful enough to justify the effort, he knew at least a part of it was that he worried he'd turn out to be something disgusting. Like a cockroach.

Dean perked up from his bed. "Are you talking about the Animagus thing? Are we starting then?" At Hermione's nod, he pumped his fist with a grin. "Alright! I've been waiting for this one ever since you first mentioned it."

"You don't get to choose your form," Tom cautioned. "And while it's part Transfiguration and part Potions, it's also still a ritual, and if it goes wrong, there's very little that can be done about it."

Neville spoke up hesitatingly. "Are any of the Death Eaters animagi?"

Tom blinked. "Well, other than Pettigrew, of course…"

For some reason, that sparked shouts of outrage, and it was Finnegan of all people who demanded, "What do you mean, Pettigrew? Black killed him, didn't he?"

"Of course not. Pettigrew was a rat. Ron's old rat, to be exact." He hummed thoughtfully, considering his former followers, ignoring the horrified shudders from his dormmates. "Black fought on Dumbledore's side, but he was a Grim. Severus made the attempt, but it was fouled up early on in the process, and he never tried again so far as I know. Lucius completed the transformation, but he never used it. He said his form was too embarrassing. Rookwood was a crow. And Bella…" He grimaced. "She would have been a panther, but it went… wrong. She survived, obviously, but unlike Severus, she was far enough in when it failed that she can't try again."

Neville nodded, a whoosh of relieved breath leaving him. "Alright then."

"What do you think you'd be?" Dean asked.

"You'd be a snake of some sort," Hermione supplied, looking at Tom. "I… honestly don't think I want to attempt it myself though. I don't like the idea of other instincts overriding my usual reasoning."

"Fair enough," Dean commented. "I don't know what I might be, but I know I definitely want to give it a try."

The door opened, admitting Ron and Ginny. Once they'd caught up on the conversation, Ginny declared, "I'm going to be a lioness," only to have everyone else, including her brother, express skepticism.

Tom leaned back and closed his eyes, enjoying, for the moment, the conversation as it ebbed and flowed around him.

The next morning, Edgecomb was back at Hogwarts, though she was blindfolded. Through her, indirectly of course, they discovered that Cho Chang had attempted to kill herself, only for her body to leave her control and bring her to a Healer. She found herself informing them about the attempt before finally regaining control of herself. (In fact, they later learned, this had the odd effect of giving her a temporary reprieve from her terror, making it not quite the deterrent Hermione doubtlessly would have preferred.)

Edgecomb approached them at the next meeting of The Gray, even though it was the second-years' night. She took off her blindfold to reveal a pair of eyes that, while not as ugly as Moody's had been, were equally fake and disquieting to see. "I'm sorry," she said, closing her eyes. Luna was there, as she often was, and Tom glanced at her. Edgecomb knelt down and prostrated herself. "I'm so, so sorry. We were wrong. Please, please remove this curse. They replaced my eyes, but the replacements are already breaking." Her voice wavered, and Tom suspected her eyes only remained dry because they weren't capable of producing tears. "I can't stand the dark. I can't stand not being able to see. I can't stand not being able to read or write or draw or paint or anything I love doing."

No one said anything, and she hurried on, voice turning desperate. "Please! I'll do anything! I'll - I'll swear a Vow. I'll serve you for as long as I live. I'll let you do whatever you want with me. Just don't take my sight away again."

Luna spoke up from her corner. "No." As Edgecomb trembled, shock keeping her from fully processing that, Luna added, "I won't remove the curse from anyone until it's been in place for a year and a day."

"A-and after that?" Edgecomb asked, but Luna was leaving, expression closed off completely.

"I think you'd best spend that year doing everything in your power to demonstrate your regret for your actions," Tom observed idly.

"Alright." Edgecomb nodded frantically as she rose. "I'll do it. And - and if you think of anything else that might even possibly convince L… Lovegood to end the curse, I'll do it."

Tom wondered at the implication that he was the more compassionate of the two. It was a novel experience.

AN: I'm having the fun time of attempting to create some manner of income for myself. It's not going well so far, but I need some sense of security so... Continuing!