Thank you, AFamiliarWitch, for spending the last month hearing me complain about this chapter, and providing brilliant help and insight and answering my questions repeatedly without complaint. You are a saint.
Minerva had almost made it out of the staff room before Ilania stopped her. "Min," she said worriedly, "maybe we should contact the Ministry instead? If she's dangerous..."
"No Ministry."
Tom thought he should probably say something, even though it would be easier to allow Minerva to be the one to deal with the world's greatest duelist on her own. Let the pawns go first, so to speak. But he wanted revenge.
And after spending an entire hallucination with everyone believing he had considered accountancy as a career, he also wanted to blow things up with magic very, very badly.
"You should let me handle it," he insisted.
"No."
"You really should."
Minerva glared at him. "You knew she was dangerous. You knew she was doing something illegal and you didn't tell anyone. You're as useless as the Ministry."
"I only just found out myself," he explained, trying to calculate what information he could reveal without giving away the fact that he had a paid assassin and a secret hostage passing him intelligence. "And if anyone withheld information, it was you. You went from denying magic existed to telling us how to escape Nightmare Surrey in less than an hour."
"Can we maybe talk about this later?" Ilania suggested.
Minerva ignored her. "I didn't know whom I could trust. And I didn't see you doing much to find a way out."
"We were building a bomb until you interrupted us."
"Oh, right," she snapped. "Forgive me for stopping you blowing yourself up. How unkind of me."
He was getting annoyed now. "I knew exactly what I was doing."
"Did you? Because you don't really have a history of making good decisions."
"I beg your pardon?"
Ilania looked utterly exasperated. "We need to go-"
"When have I ever made a bad decision?" he said stupidly.
Minerva snorted. "'Oh, no,'" she mocked in a low voice, "'I need to create a diversion. I know! I'll destroy half the Forbidden Forest!'"
"That was-"
"'And hm, it sounds like a great idea to terrify all the sixth-year boys by telling them they'll be castrated if they have sex in the castle!'"
"Well, if they're terrified, they won't do it, will they?"
"That's not how it works, you arse! Stop assuming you know everything."
"I don't assume that."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't."
"WILL YOU TWO SHUT THE BLOODY HELL UP?"
They turned around to find Ilania staring at them in disbelief. "This woman is dangerous," she pleaded. "We don't have time for this right now. Let's go."
They glared at each other for another few seconds before following her out of the staff room.
The moment they entered the corridor, they could tell something was off. A large number of students were walking past at a slow and steady pace, every single one of them heading towards the Great Hall. They all seemed to be older - sixth or seventh years. It would not have been out of the ordinary at all if it wasn't four o'clock in the morning and they were not so well behaved and quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
Minerva tried to get the attention of the two closest to them. "What do you think you're doing?" she hissed.
They did not respond. She attempted to stop one by standing in front of him, but he simply walked around her.
"That's… not normal," said Tom.
Ilania surveyed the corridor carefully. "Is she doing this? It almost looks like... like the Imperius Curse. But you can't control that many people at once, can you? And surely she wouldn't perform an Unforgivable Curse on children."
He sighed. "She would."
"How do you know that?" Minerva asked, looking suspicious.
"Because she is a Dark witch and a criminal."
"Dark witch?" She folded her arms and glared at him. "First of all, I resent that term. Second, that's something else you failed to mention. Any other bits of vital information you feel like sharing?"
"No, that's it," he stated casually, hoping his annoyance was obvious.
"We'll have to stop her, then. Kill her before she can hurt anyone."
"You mean capture, right?" Ilania asked her with concern.
"I said what I said."
They followed a group of seventh years heading up the corridor and into the Great Hall, stopping just outside the doors. The crowd of students that had already gathered inside was sizeable. They were standing perfectly still and staring up at the Headmaster's chair, where Cornelia was lounging with a big, satisfied grin on her face.
Minerva made to enter the Hall, but Tom held her back. "Wait," he said quietly.
"Why?"
"Because the last time I approached her, she threw a hallucination at me."
"It doesn't look like she's got anything except her wand," Ilania reasoned.
"Yes. Her wand, and a room full of hostages."
Her eyes widened in horror as she realized the gravity of the situation. "We have to get them out of there," she whispered.
"We don't know what she can do to them. We can't move too quickly. You and Minerva evacuate the rest of the castle. I'll handle her."
Ilania nodded and rushed off, pulling with her the three or four students still trying to make their way inside. But Minerva stayed.
"Go," he said.
"No."
"Minerva-"
"You can't defeat her on your own."
"Cheers for that. I'm confident I can handle her." Sort of.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"You need to evacuate the castle. Do you want to put even more children at risk?"
"There are children in that Hall who are at risk right now."
He wanted revenge. He wanted to tear Cornelia limb from limb. But a room full of students was going to make that somewhat difficult. And a room full of students with a rage-filled Minerva added would make it even more difficult. He was strongly tempted to stun her and leave her on the ground. "Fine. But we'll need to- bloody hell."
She had stormed ahead, making her way towards the teachers' table, her wand held out in front of her. He followed closely behind.
"So, you found me," said Cornelia, not looking at all concerned by that fact.
"We assumed you were going to flee."
"Why would I flee? I have things to do here. And I'm not exactly scared of a few incompetent teachers coming after me."
"You should be."
Cornelia considered her for a moment. "What's your name?" she asked, twirling her wand between her fingers. "I can never remember. Something obnoxiously English, I'm assuming."
"Call me English again and I will burn you alive."
"Minerva," Tom muttered from behind her, "perhaps it's best not to antagonize the deadly international criminal."
She ignored him. "Let the students go," she said, "and we'll consider not killing you after we torture you."
Well, that was not very Minerva-like.
Cornelia's smile faltered slightly. "I'd like to see you try, honey. Anyway, I'm just tying up a few loose ends. Really annoying that you made Sluggy inaccessible," she said to Tom. "I'll have to take care of that on my way out."
Minerva turned to him with panic in her eyes. "What- what did she do to Horace?"
"Nothing," he told her. "I got there first."
"He's smarter than I thought he would be," Cornelia admitted. "But nothing I couldn't handle."
He still had the unpleasant image of a sweaty, shaking Slughorn in his head, and he was not happy about it. "What did you give him?"
She shrugged. "Cocaine, I think. Or something like it."
"Why would you bother making him an addict if you wanted to kill him?"
"Because at first I was going to test a new product on him, but then I didn't have time, and it was really entertaining to watch him bouncing around the castle like an overly enthusiastic house elf."
Minerva was only just managing to contain her rage. "'Test a new product?'" she said loudly.
"Yes. I've done all my product testing at Hogwarts. And I have to say, the school gave me quite a variety of subjects to choose from."
"What do you mean 'subjects?'"
"I was careful, at first. Just a few here and there, chosen at random. Trials did not go as expected during that first round. Did you ever manage to find them all?"
Minerva seemed confused, but Tom – either because he understood the logic or because he had already worked it out in the back of his mind – knew exactly what she was referring to. "Are you talking about those first years that went missing?"
She nodded. "Useless, as it turned out."
"Useless? They're eleven-year-olds!" Minerva shouted.
"Eleven-year-old wizards. If they can't survive a little experimentation..."
"Ex- experimentation," Minerva breathed, holding her wand so tightly that her fingers had gone white.
"After that, I chose segments of the population with shared characteristics that could be observed in groups. You know - teachers, Hufferporfs, after school clubs, et cetera."
"They're called 'Hufflepuffs,' you bitch," Minerva seethed.
"Porf, puff, whatever. No one seems to care about them very much. I figured their behavior would go unnoticed, for the most part."
Which it did, until recently. Poor Hufferporf.
"And Valentine's Day?" asked Tom.
"I needed to see how long it would take for an adult subject to become violent."
It was apparent that she liked to hear herself talk, but he knew that she was leading up to something. And whatever it was, it would not end well for anyone except her. "You know," he said, stalling for time until he could think of a plan, "I can't decide if your being cowardly enough to use children as shields is more or less American than I would expect from you. I'm thinking the former."
"As if I would need a shield to protect myself from you. No, this is my last experiment. My last… product test. And the most important one." She showed them a shiny gold coin she was holding.
"And what is that supposed to be?"
"Think of it as… a trigger," she told him with a smile. "Actually, you gave me the idea. It's not psychosomatic, but-"
"What are you talking about?"
"It's something I've been developing for a while, now. Every student you see in front of you has been working for me for months, helping my business and serving as my most loyal customers-"
"Customers?"
"Kids like drugs. Anyway, while they happily assumed they were consuming my inebriation draughts and illegal energy potions, I was giving them this." She held up a small bottle filled with black liquid. "It's a form of Amortentia."
Minerva shrugged. "So… what? They'll all be obsessed with you? What is the purpose of that?"
"You Brits have no creativity at all, do you? The only aspect of that repulsive love potion I kept was its ability to control. Every child that drank it is bonded to me. But instead of infatuation, they feel unyielding loyalty. They'll do whatever I tell them to do." She sounded almost giddy, as if she'd been waiting a long time to do this and was even happier that she had an audience to do it in front of.
"And the coin?" Tom asked her, trying to hide his sudden, intense curiosity.
"An augmented Protean Charm. I don't have to control each one of them individually. I simply have to tell the coin what I want them to do. It's connected to the potion. American ingenuity at its finest."
And then he understood. The brilliance and simplicity of it were impressive. And the usefulness... It was with immense difficulty that he refrained from killing everyone in the room so that he could steal the thing and run away with it. Shiny, all-powerful coin. Shiny...
"So, you made a coin to control children?" said Minerva with confusion. "What is the point of that?"
"Imagine being able to use the Imperius Curse on a crowd of hundreds. Thousands. All at the same time. It is possible, with this. I can tell them to dance, or curse each other, or drown themselves in the Lake if I want to, and they would do so happily."
"You would do that to children? To children that trusted you and were loyal to you and assisted you while you ran your little operation?"
"Obviously."
For some unfathomable reason, this made Minerva smile.
"You think that's funny?" Cornelia spat, clearly annoyed by the fact that they were not as impressed as she had expected them to be.
"No, I'm just relieved that your lengthy, ego-stroking confession gives us just cause to murder you."
Tom couldn't tell if she was serious or not, and he wondered if she wasn't about to do something incredibly stupid, like actually try to murder the woman.
Cornelia laughed loudly and, like something out of a nightmare, the children did the same. It was a mechanical, forced laughter that was about as unnerving as their expressionless faces. "Murder?" she said. "Oh, honey. No need to be dramatic. If you wanted a demonstration, all you had to do was ask."
She raised her wand and conjured a line of tall, bright blue flames that erupted straight down the middle of the Hall, right between Tom and Minerva. The heat was so intense that it made the room feel like an oven.
Then the students made their way forwards, lining themselves up on either side of the blaze.
"What are you doing?" Minerva demanded.
"Playing."
Without any indication of fear, every single child put his or her hand into the flames. They did not scream. They did not pull away. In fact, it was so quiet, it took a moment for Tom to understand what he was seeing.
Minerva realized it before he did. "STOP!" she cried, pointing her wand at Cornelia.
"Don't move, or I'll make them walk into it." The children removed their hands and stood still, waiting for orders like the loyal, unwitting soldiers they had become. The Hall was filled with the smell of burning flesh.
The atmosphere had changed drastically. There was a sense of danger and urgency that had not been there before; the threat to the children was much greater than they had assumed. Tom and Minerva glanced at each other through the flames, likely thinking the same thing.
They were all in real trouble.
If the students were not there, and if Minerva had just left like he'd told her to, this psychopath would be dead already and he would have his revenge.
"So," said Cornelia, "at the risk of sounding like the bad guy in a movie, I should warn you that if you come any closer, every child in this room will suffer. Probably die. I'm not sure. How long does it take to burn alive?"
"That is an interesting way to reward loyalty," Tom muttered.
"Well, if they survive, they'll have learned their lesson, won't they? Loyalty is easily misplaced."
They were at a loss for what to do. They needed a distraction – something that could be done without moving, without alerting her in any way so that she did not force the children to immolate themselves before she could be stopped.
He had a plan, or a sort-of plan, one that was going to cause a lot of headaches for him later if he succeeded. But he could not think of anything else. Slowly, painstakingly, he made his way into Minerva's mind, placing inside of it a single specific thought. It wasn't exactly textbook Legilimency. This was something he had refined when he was younger, a tool he had perfected to control others when the need arose. But it was extremely difficult, and if her brain had not been a rage-filled mess at that moment, and if she hadn't been staring at him in terror, he would likely have failed.
I'm going to cause a distraction.
He could see her tense up suddenly, and he knew that she could hear him – or, rather, she could comprehend the thoughts he was sending to her. She nodded to him over the flames, almost imperceptibly, to indicate that she understood what was happening.
I'm going to cause a distraction, he thought again, and when I do, go for the coin.
"I thought you said you didn't need to use children as shields," Minerva called to Cornelia. "But that's fine. I suppose we have no choice, now. And I was so looking forward to removing your head from your body."
Cornelia laughed. "As if you could. Do you have any idea who I am? You have the honor of speaking to-"
With a resounding crash, every window in the Great Hall exploded, raining shards of sharp glass down upon them. Cornelia conjured a shield with her wand and held it above her, and in the few seconds that she had looked away, the flames disappeared, and Minerva made her move.
"Accio!"
The coin flew out of Cornelia's hand and shot across the room, landing on the ground in front of Minerva. She picked it up and turned to Tom. "What do I do?" she asked him frantically, her face and arms covered in cuts from the glass.
"Go," he said while trying to keep Cornelia distracted by dropping pieces of the roof on top of her. "Take the children."
"No."
Why was she making this difficult? "Go."
"No. I'm not going anywhere. I'll- I'll send the children out, but-"
"Bloody hell, Minerva, do you want to be killed?" If not by Cornelia, then by him because she was being so ridiculously annoying.
She was clearly torn. "But she deserves-"
"I know what she deserves. Now go."
Reluctantly, she nodded, and began to usher the students into the entrance hall. Once the children were safe, she turned around and gave him one last look before closing the doors behind her.
He was alone.
This was what he had wanted. Revenge. Without witnesses, he could do whatever he desired to Cornelia and simply call it self-defense later, when they came to collect the body.
But Lestrange's words echoed obnoxiously in his head: 'That won't end well for you.'
"You made a mess of your pretty Hall," she said, kicking rubble aside and walking towards him with her wand raised. "Impressive. Nonverbal, no wand. That's a lot of destruction."
He watched her carefully, ready to strike if she made a move. "You do not seem particularly upset about losing your room full of hostages."
"I don't need them anymore, now that I know the theory works. But you don't actually care about the children, do you?"
No. He didn't. He only cared about how much pain he was going to be able to put her through before she snapped. "I have other priorities."
"Admit it," she said with a wink. "You just wanted to be alone with me."
"I did. So that I could be the one to destroy you."
"Lofty ambitions."
"And you told me you did not liaise with boring professors."
She laughed heartily. "I thought that was what you were until recently. How many assassin spies do you have in your little network, anyway? It was cute, sending him after me. Almost like you're a real criminal."
Well, shit. "I didn't-"
"He wasn't really my type, that Lestrange. But we got along very well. Several times. Now, you, on the other hand…"
Well, shit again. "If you're going to attempt to kill me, just get on with it."
"Why would I kill such a great potential asset?"
"Are you offering me a job?" How incredibly insulting. "I am not an assassin or a spy."
She eyed him hungrily. "I know. I have other… positions that need filled."
Good lord. "Can we please try to kill each other now?"
"What else did Lestrange tell you about me? Besides revealing my impressively organized operation?"
"That you fancy yourself a Dark witch and a competent duelist, though I have yet to see any evidence of either. All you've done so far is talk."
"Did… did you miss the part where I had control of half the student body and almost set them on fire? That thing that just happened five minutes ago?"
"You mean that thing that ended five minutes ago, when you failed to maintain control?"
Her smile turned into a scowl. "I do not fail. I never fail."
"You are failing right now."
"At what?"
"Making this conversation interesting."
And now his own words were echoing in his head. 'Perhaps it's best not to antagonize the deadly international criminal.'
"You don't value your life much, do you, Mister Riddle?"
"Can't tell you how wrong you are."
"And yet, you seem to want to make me angry. If you weren't so pretty, I'd have killed you already."
"And if you weren't so… verbose, this fight could have been over already. Do you ever stop talking?"
He was probably going to regret this.
"Excuse me?"
"Quite honestly, I was expecting a terrifying, intelligent criminal. What a disappointment you've been."
"You haven't seen-"
"But I guess that's to be expected. Women don't really have the temperament-"
She moved so quickly that there was no countering her. One second she was glaring at him, and the next he was being thrown across the Hall. He landed painfully on the floor in front of the doors and scrambled to get back to his feet as she approached him.
"You are a dead man," she said.
He had wanted to make her angry. Well, mission accomplished. Now what?
In a single movement with her wand, she sent the long dining tables crashing against the walls, breaking them to pieces and depriving him of the last remaining physical shields he had to use. And then she attacked.
She was faster than lightning. All he could do was attempt to block the curses she was throwing at him, one after the other hitting the floor and the wall and the doors behind him in rapid succession.
They nearly hit him several times, the spells coming so close that he could feel the force of them as they went past. But there was a distinct rhythm to her attacks, and it did not take him long to pick up on it.
The first curse he shot at her grazed the side of her face. She stopped attacking long enough to put a hand to her cheek, which was covered in blood. "Wow," she said. "I'm almost slightly concerned-"
He did not wait for her to finish before sending every large metal torch bracket in the Great Hall flying at her. She evaded all but one, which hit her squarely in the chest and knocked her to the ground.
"Sorry," he called as she struggled to breathe, "I just assumed you would keep talking so I decided to move things along."
"Fucking- asshole-" she wheezed, looking far less confident than before.
She retaliated with the Cruciatus Curse, the familiar red light of the spell missing him by inches. With impossible speed she repeated the attack, and her second attempt was successful.
The pain was overwhelming. It was like ice in the veins and fire on the skin and the sting of electrocution all at once. He had no idea how he was managing to stay upright, and his eyes had closed involuntarily, but he could hear her cackling at him.
The sound of it filled him with rage and, somehow, he was able to focus enough to push through the pain and cast the first curse he thought of. Boiling water exploded out of his wand, and in her attempt to avoid it, Cornelia's Cruciatus Curse was broken.
Thinking clearly again, he began his own series of attacks, trying, in his anger, to do anything he could to hurt her. Slicing, burning, force spells that cut large craters into the stone floor...
Neither of them wanted to kill. Not yet. That was not the goal.
The goal was pain. Retaliation. It was an extremely violent competition.
"You know," she said angrily after throwing a cloud of sharp knives at him and managing to lodge one deep into his shoulder, "I'm starting to think I may have underestimated you."
"Is that so?" He tried to ignore the pain in his arm as he sliced his wand through the air. The force of the repelling spell hit her so hard that she was thrown backwards several feet, stumbling over pieces of stone and wood.
She recovered quickly and shot another Cruciatus Curse at him, but he blocked it and sent one right back. It hit its target directly, and she fell to the floor again.
He held her there for a while, waiting for her to scream, to beg him to make it stop. He wanted to hear the words. But she said nothing. She merely stared at him, furious, struggling to breathe as she fought against the pain.
He wanted more. He wasn't hurting her enough. She wasn't suffering. In fact, it looked as if she-
She was laughing.
The sight of it distracted him momentarily, and she raised her arm high enough off the ground to throw out a severing curse. It caught him in the leg, leaving a large, painful gash in its wake.
The disarming spell that followed hit him like a bullet. His wand went flying and landed on the ground somewhere nearby. He could feel the blood pouring freely from the brand-new hole in his leg, but there was nothing he could do.
Cornelia was standing now, and that ridiculously pompous smile had returned to her face. He was trapped between a smirking psychopath and the wall. She sauntered towards him, coming in for the kill.
Or limped towards him, rather. They were both in terrible shape.
She walked right up to him, stopping only when they were inches apart. "Ooh, that looks like it hurts," she said, pointing at the knife that was still sticking out of his shoulder.
He felt an overwhelming amount of satisfaction with what happened next. She was standing there, in all her arrogance, deciding how to kill him now that he was unarmed, and through some sort of divine clarity, the solution came to him.
He ripped the knife out of his shoulder and buried it in Cornelia's chest.
Her wand fell to the ground as she staggered backwards, looking down in shock at the large amount of blood that now decorated her shirt. "That was unexpected," she said weakly.
He retrieved his wand from the floor and used a charm to pin her against the wall, all the while fighting off the dizziness of blood loss and the horrible agony his wounds were causing him.
She was severely injured and unable to move, and yet, still, she was grinning. "Shame," she whispered longingly, "we could have been so good together."
"You're not my type."
"I'm everyone's type, honey. And I see right through you."
"Is that so?"
She tried to laugh at him but winced instead. "You have talent and skill. But you are full of anger and hatred, just like I am. That is what drives you, not the other stuff. You should embrace it. A fit of passion can produce more powerful magic than anything innate ability or years of practice can give you."
"I doubt it."
"So, what are you going to do now?" she asked him, trying not to wheeze as blood filled her lungs. "Call your Ministry on me? Have me extradited?"
"I'm going to kill you."
The smile slowly disappeared from her face. "You are, aren't you?" she said.
"Yes."
"Do it, then."
He did not understand. He had seen it several times now, in the faces of those he had killed: that moment the fear overtook them, just as they realized their fate. It was always the same. And it was that fear – or perhaps the ability to create that fear – that had always made the act of killing so… unique. But with her, there was nothing. It made the whole thing much less satisfying for him.
"You're not afraid of dying?" he asked.
She gave a weak laugh. "The only people truly scared of death are those who don't know how to live."
Before he could respond, a spell came whizzing past his head, hitting Cornelia in the face and knocking her unconscious. He turned around to find Minerva standing in the doorway with her wand raised.
"I've contacted MACUSA and the Ministry," she said, joining him near the wall and surveying the unmoving form of Cornelia with disgust. "They'll be here in a few minutes to take- oh, my." She had noticed the large amount of blood on his clothes and possibly also the fact that he was very close to not being able to stand. "You- you should go to the Hospital Wing."
"I'm fine," he lied poorly.
"How did you break every window in the Hall without moving?"
"Magic."
"And you never told me you were a Legilimens."
He was hoping she would not remember that.
"Shame you didn't kill her," she commented.
"What?"
"Technically, I could kill her right now, before anyone else gets here. Could say it was self-defense."
"You should probably not do that." If he didn't get to, why should she?
"But I could."
"I can't see you being a killer," he said as he tried to close the wound in his shoulder.
She removed the charm that was holding Cornelia to the wall and watched as the woman hit the ground with a loud thud. "The best killers are undetectable," she told him.
Well, that was slightly worrying.
The revelation that Cornelia Fowler was a dangerous, violent Dark witch did not take many people by surprise.
What they were surprised by was the fact that Tom was able to fight her off successfully.
This was not a particularly satisfying ego boost.
"Good lord, she almost killed you!" Slughorn had said as he continued his school-wide apology tour. "Killed you, Tom!"
"No, she did not almost-"
"Killed!"
"I was fine."
"You were so lucky!" Peggy exclaimed at breakfast one morning. "I mean, she was known for her dueling skills. How you made your way out of that…"
"It wasn't luck."
Dippet had even pulled Tom into his office at one point to thank him for saving the school (again), which was fine, until he added that "we were so lucky you were able to distract her long enough to subdue her. If it had been a duel-"
"It was a duel. I fought her. She lost."
"Right… Of course." He shook his head. "It is unfortunate that she managed to do so much damage to the Great Hall before you stopped her."
"Yes. Unfortunate."
Even the nurse, whom he had avoided until he had no other choice, had an opinion on the matter.
"May I ask what possessed you to attempt fighting an actual duelist who also happens to be an evil Dark witch?" she asked while poking at the hole in his leg, undoubtedly to torture him.
"No, you may not."
"Well, unfortunately, the wound is cursed."
"I am aware of that. If it wasn't, I would not be here asking you for assistance."
She pursed her lips. "You should have come to me straight away."
"Just tell me how to fix it," he said irritably.
"Fix it?" she replied, pulling tightly on the bandage and making him want to rip her head off. "There's no fixing it. It will take years for the body to replace the cursed flesh."
"Brilliant."
"In light of recent events, I must again insist that you consider counseling to help you cope with your experience."
"The only thing that will help me cope with my experience is killing the next person that makes me talk about my experience," he muttered.
Sable failed to force him into counseling, but she did manage to direct Dippet to allow him several days of leave to recover, which he absolutely did not need at all.
And he kept repeating that to himself as he lay in bed without moving for the third day in a row. He was not so weak as to require recuperation. What a ludicrous thought.
He spent the fourth day in bed, too.
On his first morning back, he decided to visit the staff room, mostly because he wanted to make sure the walls were not made of concrete and the fireplace was there. The Muggle hallucination had been far more traumatizing than anything else that had happened.
Accountancy.
As he opened the door, he only had a few seconds to enjoy the sight of stone walls before Kettleburn had trapped him in a massive hug.
"Please get off of me."
"You poor thing!"
"Silvanus, I swear to god, I will curse you if you don't back away."
Kettleburn let him go and surveyed him carefully. "You almost died."
"I DID NOT-" He took a deep breath. "I did not almost die."
"That's the spirit." The look on the man's face was some mixture of concern and guilt. "And I thought she was an absolute dish when we went to dinner those few times. Though, I did wonder why she was asking me so many questions about the rest of the staff."
"Silvanus, I have no interest in hearing about your- hang on. You dated her? Is there anyone here you haven't dated?"
That was a horribly stupid question.
Kettleburn winked at him. "You know, I-"
"No."
"But if you-"
"No."
"Where are you going?"
He was heading for the door. "Anywhere else."
It was possible for things to go too far back to normal.
Every single one of his classes that day consisted of relentless questions about what had happened. It was exhausting. By the time he made it to the evening, he was thinking four completely unnecessary days of respite were not enough.
Slughorn joined him at the teachers' table halfway through dinner, his face full of pity.
"Still… still doing alright?" he asked.
"Yes, Horace. I was never not alright."
"Right. Of course. Well, I just wanted to let you know that I'm… going away for a while. For my health."
"A brilliant idea."
"And I'll probably be gone for some time."
"Right."
"A couple weeks, maybe even a month."
"Right."
"So, I'll need someone to look after my House for me."
"Sure."
"Wonderful! I knew I could count on you."
"Wait- what?"
He had clearly planned this little trap ahead of time. "Oh, don't worry. All you have to do is keep an eye on them and address any issues that may arise."
"Issues? Like what?"
"All kinds. The prefects will let you know about the minor things. And you'll need this." He handed Tom what looked like a large marble with sparkling liquid inside. "Monitor. For the dormitories."
"What?"
"It's a monitor. It will glow to warn you if any boys go into the girls' dormitories or if any girls- er… It's almost always the boys, to be honest. You'll want to take care of those infractions immediately."
It was an unnecessary waste of time. And it wasn't as if Slughorn needed a holiday. He didn't even come close to actually being murdered. "Horace, I do not have time to be a Head of House right now."
The man appeared crestfallen. "Oh. Right. Well, I suppose I can postpone my holiday until I find someone else…"
"Brilliant."
He took the marble back and stood up. "Oh, by the way, did I mention there's a stipend?"
"A what now?"
"You get a stipend for being a Head of House and taking on extra responsibilities. I confirmed it with Dippet."
Tempting, but no. "Noted."
"And I wouldn't trust anyone else with the job."
"Cheers."
"And you're the only other Slytherin on staff, so-"
"No."
"-really-"
"No."
"-there's no one-"
"FINE!" Persistent fucking bastard.
"Excellent!" Slughorn said cheerfully, handing back the marble.
"Where are you going?"
"I haven't decided yet. Maybe the Caribbean. Or Mexico."
"You're not going to America to buy more cocaine, are you?"
He was highly offended. "How can you even suggest such a thing? On an unrelated note, can you explain Muggle money to me before I leave? I always get confused."
"Horace-"
"No, no, it's fine. I'm sure I can figure it out on my own. Shall we greet the House?"
"Right now?"
"I'm leaving tonight."
It just kept getting worse. "This better be quick."
Two hours later, he had been given a long list of responsibilities, met all four of the arrogant, obnoxious Slytherin prefects he was going to have to deal with, and was forced to stand in front of the entire House while Slughorn made the announcement that he was leaving.
"And while I'm gone, Professor Riddle will take care of everything. Won't you?" He looked expectantly at Tom.
Silence.
"Won't you?"
"Sure."
"Wonderful."
Back in his office, he gave Tom a large bottle and a small, golden key.
"What is this?"
"It's a bottle of Ogden's. Don't drink it all at once."
He sighed. "I'm talking about the key."
"Ah," he said with a chuckle. "It goes to my liquor cabinet. Just in case you need it."
"Why… Why would I need access to your liquor cabinet?"
He stared at Tom for a moment. "No reason. So, if anything should happen-"
"What's going to happen?"
"Nothing! But if anything should happen, you'll have to rely on Army, since Dumbledore is missing."
"Missing?" It was about time someone noticed. Not a single member of staff had bothered to mention Dumbledore's absence since Kettleburn had tried to seek his help with calming the centaurs that he eventually murdered.
"Didn't you know? No one's seen him in ages. Army thinks he's probably doing something secret for the Ministry again, but that's rubbish. I've known the man a long time, and he doesn't disappear without explanation. Anyway, I really must be off."
"But-"
"I'll be back before you know it," he said, putting on his cloak and picking up an expensive-looking suitcase.
"But I don't-"
"You'll be fine."
"And if there's some sort of disaster?
He shrugged. "That's what the bottle's for."
Bastard.
At first, nothing happened. Not a single Slytherin bothered him, and he was able to focus on the ridiculously long list other things he had to do.
But on the third day after Slughorn had left, there was a marble incident.
He had been keeping the monitor on his desk so that he could watch it while he worked, and after a few days of it sitting there doing nothing, he had started to use it as a paperweight.
What Slughorn had failed to mention when he said the thing would glow was that it would also become extremely hot. The first time it went off, it burned a hole right through the pile of essays it was sitting on and caught them on fire for good measure.
It was eleven o'clock at night. Why couldn't idiot students have their illicit liaisons at a more convenient bloody time?
Slughorn had also failed to tell him what to do if the infraction was occurring in the girls' dormitories. He certainly wasn't going to go searching them himself. But the moment he entered the common room, the marble flew out of his hand and floated through the door to the girls' side like a ghost. Minutes later, a fifth-year boy burst through the door, screaming in pain.
"GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!" he cried as the marble burned itself right into the skin on his forehead.
"Learned your lesson, I hope," said Tom as he summoned the monitor back.
The large burn on the boy's head healed instantly but did nothing to vanish his obvious embarrassment. "Y- yes, sir," he mumbled.
The next evening, a duel had broken out between two third years in the middle of the common room, and one of their spells had somehow succeeded in putting a crack in the large window on the wall opposite the fireplace. This resulted in a considerable amount of water from the Lake slowly leaking inside, and by morning the entire room was flooded.
How something like this had never happened the entire time he was at school but managed to occur within four days of him being Head of House, he had no idea.
By the fifth day, he was certain someone was conspiring against him.
It was five o'clock in the morning, and there was a loud banging sound coming from somewhere, which he was very determinedly ignoring. Five o'clock was not an acceptable time for anything.
More banging.
No.
More banging.
Maybe he was dreaming it.
Banging, and some shouts.
"Jesus Christ."
He made his way groggily through the dark living room and answered the door. Two male Slytherin prefects, whom he'd been calling in his head "Short One" and "The Blonde" since he hadn't bothered learning their actual names, were standing there with looks of horror on their faces.
"What?"
"Sir, there's a- a problem in the dungeons."
He closed his eyes and sighed. "You're prefects. Why have you not taken care of it yourselves?"
"Because, Professor… we can't. It's- can you just…"
He made a groaning sound. "If whatever this is turns out to be a waste of my time, I am going to murder you both."
"Yes, sir."
It appeared as if the entirety of Slytherin House had packed itself into the common room. The children were talking loudly and excitedly, many of them wrapped in thick cloaks and holding their wands up to give the room some light. It was dark and freezing. There was no fire in the fireplace, and the lamps that hung from the ceiling had gone out.
"It's been like this for hours now, sir," said The Blonde. "All the dormitories are freezing cold. There are no coals in any of the heaters and no water jugs and-"
"No… coals… I'm sorry, did you forget you were wizards? Light the heaters yourselves. Good lord."
"But sir, this has never happened before. It's usually done for us."
Bloody spoiled little rich-
"PROFESSOR RIDDLE!"
"What? Why are you shouting?"
One of the first-year girls was pointing at the fireplace, which contained, instead of a roaring fire, approximately three drunk and passed-out house elves. They could smell the alcohol.
That explained the lack of a fire.
Before he had a chance to react, another student entered the common room holding a bowl of what looked like fuzzy balls.
"What in Merlin's name is that?"
"Fruit, sir. Or at least, it was, I think. We tried to conjure some from the kitchens for a snack and… and this is what appeared."
The smell was overwhelming. "Just- Jesus- just put it down over there."
He lit the lamps with his wand and vanished the intoxicated house elves to the kitchens. When a roaring fire had returned to the fireplace, many of the children gathered around it, desperate for warmth, looking like the world had almost ended.
"Go to bed, all of you. You are more than capable of lighting the heaters and fetching water yourselves, for now. We'll sort this in the morning."
"But- but sir," said one of the girls, "what about the heating pads? And who will fluff our pillows before bed?"
"Oh no, how will you ever get to sleep without fluffed pillows?"
They stared at him as if waiting for an actual answer.
"GO TO BED!"