Her feet touched ground again only a moment later, though it took another second to reorient herself enough to focus on the polished obsidian shoes treading lightly on the wavy grass before her. Knowing exactly what she'd find, she followed the shoes to legs, past the ornately designed plum and gold embroidered robes, and finally landed on an ageless, instantly recognizable face.
Mouth dry, she managed, "Hello, Uncle."
It came out like a breath, the strain in her voice palpable. Grindelwald raised a hand to her cheek, running his knuckles softly down the slope of her face. He hadn't changed at all, for better or for worse. Despite all he was guilty of and all she'd done to avoid seeing him, she couldn't help the weight that fell from her chest at the sight of him standing so equanimous before her.
"You've done something to your hair," he noted, tone low and soothing. "But, I'm afraid, blonde doesn't quite suit you."
Ophelia didn't even notice him draw his wand before the colour started leaching from blonde back to a blinding silver-white, like a bizarre age progression, until their resemblance was unmistakable. They could have been father and daughter, or even twin brother and sister lost to each other by decades of time.
"How?" How did you find me? How'd you know I was here?
"You know better than to ask that."
He was right. It was glaringly obvious. "You've been having me followed, or... or somehow you've managed to track me."
"Don't look so accusing, child, of course I had to make sure you were safe— what was it you've been calling yourself? Ophelia? You wouldn't believe how I laughed when I heard that name. You truly do have a sense of humor— but you know I won't share my methods. You'll just work to find ways around them and then I'll have to use different methods to get the same result. A waste on both our parts."
It wasn't malicious. Just a statement of fact that Ophelia couldn't really contend with. The mention of her birth name, however, brought heat to her cheeks. Why did his presence reduce her back to a disobedient child, even after almost four years?
"Why are you here?" She was glad to hear the bite in her voice, even if she didn't feel it. Even if she couldn't help but be mesmerized by his eyes or manage to pull her own away.
Grindelwald merely smiled, amused. "I was content to let you keep playing this cat and mouse game, Ophelia." He enunciated each syllable of her name with a light chuckle, like an inside joke only they shared. In a way, it was. "But that was only when I thought you were safe. I'm not ashamed to say I was mistaken. I can admit my own folly. I thought Albus, of all people, would be able to put everything aside and keep you from harm, but I was wrong. So unforgivably wrong." With the flip of a switch, the light humour in his eyes was smothered, going dark. Dangerous. "You're coming home with me."
Movement in her periphery snapped Ophelia out of her reverie. She jerked away.
"I'm not, actually."
"You think I haven't heard how you nearly died today?" He shook his head, assuming the role of the ever disappointed parent. "They can't keep you safe at that school. Not the way I can. It would be irresponsible of me to leave you now. You're lucky I don't rip that castle apart brick by brick— you're lucky I didn't do it when I first got the news that you we're going to die. It was awfully tempting, except something told me you wouldn't appreciate the effort, so I stayed my hand. I let you sneak out. I let you come to me."
Ophelia's thoughts raced a mile a minute, trying to wrap her mind around how he could have possibly known all that. They were careful to avoid being spotted as they left, and less than ten people even knew she'd been injured so gravely in the first place. At last, it hit her.
"The nurse is one of yours, is she?"
"One of many," he confirmed with a theatrical wave of a hand. "How else would you have left your hospital wing so easily? But enough of that. It's time to go. I was in the middle of something when I received word about you, and I'm afraid we must be getting back."
He reached out an open hand, palm up, in an invitation. As though he were actually giving her a choice, only Ophelia knew better. Prison seems so much more appealing when you choose it for yourself than when it is forced upon you.
She didn't move, didn't breathe. "No."
He sighed. "This teen rebellion is getting old."
"I could say the same thing about your rebellion," she shot back, surprised at her own tenacity.
"Revolution," he corrected, irked for the first time.
"It doesn't matter what you call it," she exclaimed, shaking her head in disbelief. "I don't care if you call it justice. How can there be justice in murder? In torture and terror? How can the ends possibly justify the means? There is wrong on both sides, but that doesn't give you the right to— to kill, nor me does it give me that right." Her voice cracked as she added, "I don't want to be a killer, and you made me one of the best."
Grindelwald actually looked regretful. Sad, even. "Another of my mistakes, child. You know I have made so many. You should never have been put in the position to have to kill the traitor, though I can't say I'm sorry you did, or perhaps I wouldn't be here. Still, you were young, too young back then. For that, I'm sorry."
Knowing her emotions were being manipulated didn't do a whole lot in regards to stopping it from happening. Ophelia slowly raised a hand to place it in his still outstretched one, their fingers only a hairs-breadth apart. A fraction of an inch and everything would be back to how it was. He wouldn't make the first move, of course, he preferred his followers to come to him. To individually decide and dedicate themselves to his cause. If he took her against her will, she'd only find another escape anyway.
Suddenly, Grindelwald's head snapped to the side, focusing in on a point Ophelia couldn't discern. "It's incredibly rude to eavesdrop."
A careless underhanded flick of his wand from his free hand sent the first true bolt of fear into her heart. Tom materialised, looking shocked, with his own wand drawn and aimed squarely at her uncle's chest from a few paces away.
That second hand she'd felt when Grindelwald stole her away. That had been him.
"Get away from him," Tom ordered, not taking his eyes off Grindelwald. His fingers tightened around his wand until they were nearly white from the strain.
"Tom," she started, withdrawing her hand from her uncle's quickly. "Tom, run!"
"Too late." Grindelwald sent him hurtling backwards through the air, only stopping when Tom's back slammed awkwardly with a tree.
"Don't kill him!" Ophelia shouted, lunging between the two, arms spread wide.
"Kill him?" Her uncle actually sounded offended in his own offhand way. "Of course I don't intend to kill him. It would be an utter waste of magical blood, so step aside while I see what this little spy is after."
"He's no spy!"
"That still waits to be seen," he countered, stepping around Ophelia even as she did her best to block his view. "His actions seem to imply otherwise. Legilimens."
First, Tom's expression went blank, then his brows furrowed in concentration and and sweat beaded at his temple. Teeth bared, he looked up at Grindelwald with such unspeakable hate it seemed to make the whole world turn a shade darker. He reached again for his wand that had fallen away during his collision with the tree, but doubled over as Grindelwald stabbed harder into his mind.
"Stop this, Uncle! Stop! You're hurting him!"
She wrapped her arms around his wand arm and put all her weight into lowering it, to no avail. The basilisk venom still left her physically weak, in spite of Fawkes' best efforts, and Grindelwald was naturally quite strong.
"Impressive," Grindelwald mused, pouring over Tom's every thought and feeling. "Very impressive. You hold such talent for a boy your age. It's been some time since I've encountered a worthy Occlumens." He stalked forth, one leisurely step at a time, until he was directly in front of Tom, and sat back on his haunches, pleasantly analysing him as Tom fought vengefully back at the force trying to invade his mind. "You could join me, boy. Come with us. A bright mind like yours could go far under the right tutelage. Experience is so much better a teacher than a classroom, I find."
That thought— just the idea of Tom joining him— sent alarm bells ringing violently in Ophelia's head. Under no circumstances would she ever let her uncle mould him as he had her. She could see that future as clearly as she couldn't see her own: Tom would indeed go far. He'd be great, like he always wanted, but at what a cost?
A cost Ophelia wasn't prepared to pay.
Grindelwald didn't even look up as she approached, too intent on Tom's agonised attempts to fight him off in both body and mind. It seemed to amuse Grindelwald, that fruitless struggle. At that point, Legilimency was second nature to him. He'd fought off dozens while forcing his way into their heads for information, to anticipate their movements, or just to prove he could. Most never noticed the intrusion before they died, so the fact that Tom felt anything was a testament to his own ability, despite how Ophelia almost wished he'd just give her uncle what he wanted rather than prolong his own suffering.
"None of that," Grindelwald chastised lightly, flicking his wand carelessly to deflect a vicious, yet sloppy, emerald spell Tom managed to pull himself together enough to fire into the small space separating them. "So, what do you say, boy? Will you return with us to the continent and fight for a new, more just world order?" He didn't wait for an answer. Instead, his eyes widened in alarm, seeing something only he and Tom could, something hidden in the annals of Tom's mind. His volume dropped, cloaking his words ominously. "I knew something was off about you, boy. Even I do not throw my fate in with such dark magic. To make a Horcrux—"
"Get out of my head!" Tom raged.
"I'll give you one more chance. Join us."
"I'm don't want to do this, Uncle."
He whipped his head around at the exact moment her spell hit, only strong enough to stun for about three seconds, though it knocked him clean over. She couldn't ignore the betrayal painted across the plains of his face, for they both knew the only reason she could do what none other could was because she was the one person he trusted enough to lower his guard with his back turned. Her victory was not one bought fairly, but stolen out of misgiven trust, and based on his expression she could almost believe it hurt him as much as it did her.
There wasn't enough time for that. There wasn't time to explore the complexities of guilt at that specific moment, but she'd be sure to revisit it later.
The first second she wasted watching Grindelwald collapse. In the next, she snapped back to the present, rushing to Tom's side. By the third, her arm looped through his, tight enough to cut off both their circulation, and she made one last silent plea to any benevolent deities listening that her Apparation skills had miraculously improved since she'd splinched herself last time as a thirteen year old run-away.
After focusing with all the force she didn't spare for her studies, they reappeared at the foot of the tunnel they had used to sneak out of Hogwarts in the first place. By unspoken consensus, they sprinted the entire way back to the castle, sometimes Tom propelling her forward when she slacked, sometimes the other way around.
Their chests heaved uncontrollably by the time Tom's arm pulled taut at the base of the statue of Emeric the Evil and Ophelia was forced to acknowledge that he was no longer running. She barely noticed the steady tracks of tears crawling down her cheeks other than to silently curse them. She hadn't cried in years, but seeing her uncle had made old wounds sting fresh.
So close. She'd been so close to choosing him. Part of her still wished she had.
Angrily, she swiped at her cheeks, frustrated with Grindelwald, with Tom, and most of all with herself.
"If I hadn't been there," Tom said, sounding like he was fighting to catch his breath, "would you have gone with him?"
A lie would have been easiest. Ophelia didn't think she had enough fire left to hold her own through a brewing argument, not after the record breaking, phenomenally bad day she'd just experienced, only something told her he wouldn't believe anything but the truth.
"Don't ask questions if you don't much care to hear the answer," she replied dully, pressing her palms to her closed eyes.
"You swore you wouldn't."
"Oh, I really don't think you want to be tallying broken promises right now."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"You think I didn't hear my uncle say you made a Horcrux?" she asked, sounding exhausted even to her own ears, considering the weight of the accusation.
"You believe him?" he deflected.
"He's a lot of things, but a liar isn't one of them. He wouldn't say it if he didn't believe it to be true!" She swung around to face him and planted a finger in his chest. "You, on the other hand, do little else but lie. So yes, if you must know, I do believe him! How could you do it, even after I asked you not to?"
"I thought you were dead," he hissed. "I saw you bleed out in a puddle of your own blood. Forgive me for not thinking too much about your opinion on immortality when you seemed to already be beyond such thugs. Given all that— given that you nearly died— I'd expect you might rethink your position!"
If she'd been slapped, it would have stung less. "Don't pin this on me! Horcruxes are against the natural way of things. There's dignity to be found in growing old and dying."
"And what of those who die young? Are they undignified?" he countered, disgusted. "Would your death have lacked dignity? Did my own fool of a mother's? You are hardly old, after all. How is that fair? Don't people deserve a chance to live full lives, by any means necessary?"
"How can you live a full life with only half a soul?" she demanded. "Not to mention what you have to do to even create one..."
"The girl was already dead. There was no taking that back, so I might as well take advantage of it." Seeing Ophelia's stricken expression, he added, "It's not like I went out of my way to murder her."
"I," she shook her head in disbelief, "I don't even have the words to explain to you how much is wrong with what you just said. I just can't."
Jerkily, Tom took hold of both her upper arms and squeezed tightly. "What's done is done. The reason you can't explain why it's wrong is because you must see, as I do, that there was nothing wrong at all. I can see everything so much more clearly now." His eyes gleamed with feverish intensity, like he needed her to understand or something terrible would happen. Gone was the cool, controlled veneer he used as to filter out the world, only to be replaced with what could only be construed as... as madness. "You can make one, too, don't you see? Neither of us have to die!"
"Stop," Ophelia pleaded, struggling to free herself from his grip, but she was backed against a wall with no place to go. "Please, you're scaring me!"
"I scare you?" He laughed brittlely. "I'm only trying to protect you! I'm trying to keep you safe!" He released her from his vice-like hold to cup her face with one hand and bring his forehead to rest against hers. "Why can't you understand?"
"Even my uncle won't meddle with magic like that," she protested, weaving her fingers through his robes and bunching them into fists so tight it made her joints ache. "You've seen the type of person he is. Doesn't that tell you something?"
"If anything, today I learned I'm not nearly powerful enough. Even with all my magic, with my Occlumency and my Legilimency, with everything that marks me as a prodigy within these walls, I've never felt so— helpless. If he refuses to do something, I must, in order to be his better. It's the only way!"
Unsure what else to do, she frustratedly tugged harder on his robes, torn between dragging him closer and shoving him away. "He's had decades more experience than us! Of course he's more powerful, but that doesn't mean you're not a powerful wizard yourself! You practically eviscerate the rest of us in all our classes and you don't see us complaining! Give it a few years and I'm sure you'll catch up, you'll be even stronger than he is, just don't do this! Don't do this!"
"It's already done," he breathed. "And we don't have a few years. If he's already made a move to bring you back, I need to be his equal now. He'll try again to bring you back."
"But Horc—" she lowered her voice to a hissed whisper as a precaution, "Horcruxes do nothing to make you strong. They don't amplify your magic any."
"You truly believe he wouldn't kill me if I got in his way?"
Ophelia opened her mouth to speak— and hesitated just a second too long. "I won't let him. He'll listen to me if I... if I plead a little."
His thumb brushed along the ridge of her cheekbone, high enough that she could feel it tickling her lashes when she blinked. "Are you willing to stake my life on that?"
She swallowed. "I'm willing to stake mine."
"That's not good enough." He let his hand fall and drew himself up to his full height. "But you already know that, and now that he's aware I already have one Horcrux, even that isn't enough."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Laughter rang down the corridor, cutting through the fog of tension. They both jerked away as the sound of footsteps grew steadily louder, although not before Tom inexplicably whipped back around, reaching over her shoulder with both arms to unfurl her scarlet hood and pulling down as far as it could go over her face.
"Why aren't you two at the end-of-term feast?" Tom questioned when they turned into view. Luckily, his calm, authoritative tone betrayed nothing of the untempered fury brewing just beneath the surface only a moment before.
Immediately, the two froze, shooting loaded looks back and forth until finally the taller one replied, "We didn't expect to run into anyone. Why aren't you at the feast?"
He craned his neck to get a look at Ophelia, trying to peer under the hood, but Tom stepped in front, cutting off the view.
"We are prefects. Professor Slughorn sent us on an errand," Tom said with such confidence it left no room for doubt, least of all argument.
"It's not against the rules to miss the feast," the boy retorted, sounding far less certain, as though he was beginning to wonder if it was true.
A gracious smile pulled at Tom's lips, as fake as his tone. "Indeed, it's not. It's just a shame that someone would choose to miss it when we," he inclined his head vaguely towards Ophelia, taking care to keep her blocked from view, "were just bemoaning the fact that we can't be there ourselves."
As he wove his explanation, carefully ingratiating himself and sounding so wistful it nearly tugged at the heartstrings, Ophelia thought that if this whole wizard thing didn't work out he'd have a lucrative career in acting.
"Carry on, then," he urged. "Just don't get into too much trouble. I'm pretty sure Peeves is in the Transfiguration classroom, so you won't be able to blame it on him if you get caught."
The two laughed, waving good bye as they continued on there way, and offering a single, "Thanks for the warning, Tom. Be seeing you next fall!"
Ophelia roughly shook her head, not unlike a wet dog, until the hood fell back off her head, leaving her hair in a state of semi-windswept disrepair.
"What was that for?" she groused.
Just like that, his charming veneer vanished. "It's fine by me if the school sees your silver hair, but I thought you might be less appreciative."
"Ah," she said, off balance from the uncharacteristically considerate answer, especially since she could still feel his irritation radiating off him in waves. "I'd forgotten he'd done that."
Ophelia reluctantly braced herself for a comment along the lines of, "That's why you always find yourself in so much trouble," or, "Try using your head next time," but they never came. Instead, he meticulously straightened his rumbled robes, paying her little notice.
Only when she began seriously contemplating leaving him there to brood in peace did he speak, still paying more attention to his robes than her. "I don't imagine I'll be seeing you tomorrow."
"Probably not," she said after a moment's consideration. "No point having others wonder why I don't board the Hogwarts Express with the rest of you."
Tom nodded tersely, as though he'd expected as much. "And you'll still be here when I get back?"
She snorted. "Where would I even go?"
"You know where."
Of course. Grindelwald.
"Do I look like a magnet to you? Just because you 'let go'," she drew quotes into the air with her fingers, "for a few months doesn't mean I'm going to be automatically drawn back into my uncle's orbit. I was perfectly fine before I met you, and, frankly, you're in far more danger than I am, out in the real world."
The real world. As though this one, trapped within the unchanging bubble of Hogwarts, was false. Stagnant, letting the world pass it by for a thousand years past, and likely for another millennia more. Sometimes, Ophelia had to remind herself she was even alive.
"I would trade the muggle world for this in an instant," Tom said sharply, cracks of envy breaking through his mask.
"And I would trade the world to never see this place again." Ophelia shrugged, pretending she didn't notice his jealousy. "Being the only person in the castle for Peeves to torment is not nearly as enjoyable as you might imagine, besides whichever teachers choose to stay behind." Without realizing it, bitterness crept into her voice. "Not many do." Quickly, she tried to recover some cheer. "It's just three months, anyway. With any luck, I'll manage to find some cure for your horrible ailment in that time."
Her eyes, vicious and determined, left no doubt that the "ailment" of which she spoke referred to the Horcrux.
Tom chuckled with little humor, shaking his head like he knew something she didn't, and turned to walk away, back to the Slytherin dormitory. "You forget. That also gives me three months find a way to change your mind. I'll make you understand. You'll want to join me, by the time I'm through."
End of Fifth Year,
June 1943
A/N
It's, taken so long to get to this point. I'm soooooo tired. Alas, there's still over ten chapters on the docket so it's not over yet. Lowkey can't wait until I finish so I can work on other things. I've had to shelve like eight other stories to focus so much on this one, and as much as I love it, I miss the others too.
Also, I feel like it goes without saying that this work and fantastic beasts aren't apart of the same world line. In my defense, I originally got the idea for this BEFORE fantastic beast came out... but I did steal Grindelwald's look from the movie.