"I thought my capacity for surprise had reached its limit," Tommie said, interrupting Harriet's beautiful demonstration of a large-scale object-to-animal Transfiguration (her desk into a horse and back). They'd been in the apartment with Hermione for a week now, and Tommie couldn't say she was unhappy with her current situation. She had reading material (an ecclectic mix of Muggle fiction and Harriet's myriad magical interests), drafted letters of introduction to be sent to potential allies, and, above all, an entertaining host.

"What do you mean?" Harriet asked, setting aside her wand with a satisfied sigh and wiping the thin sheen of sweat that collected on her forehead with her sleeve.

"Your friend's cat seems to have developed a liking for me." Damn, she'd lost her nerve. Again.

"You mean he's stopped hissing every time my door is opened," Harriet laughed.

"I've never had luck with cats, even before I was cursed," Tommie said, smiling in return. "A lack of hissing is definite progress. It suggests he no longer views me as a threat to his position."

"Hmm." Harriet was unconvinced. "Whatever. Hermione's still suspicious."

The words Tommie meant to say smashed against her teeth, struggling like trapped birds. Harriet frowned at her for a moment. "You're unusually, er, expressive. Looks a bit like you're choking. Are you okay?"

There was genuine concern there that Merlin knew Tommie didn't deserve. "Hermione," she finally spat.

"What about her?" Harriet asked, her eyes narrowing.

"You and her," Tommie said, suddenly wrong-footed. "Your relationship with her. I don't understand it." There. She'd managed to say it and wished she hadn't.

"What is there to understand?" Harriet said gently, defensiveness fading into what tasted like pity. "We're friends. Have been for seven years now."

"How did it come about?" There was such an ease in the way Harriet spoke of her. Whatever they had, it was based entirely on affection… not just what they could do for each other. Tommie feared she could never compete… not that she wanted to, exactly. Though what she did want remained… indecipherable.

"We met on the Hogwarts Express, found we had a bit in common as Muggle-raised kids in a strange world, and went from there." Harriet smiled in remembrance.

"That's it?" Why must people's standards for potential companions be so low? (But rarely did people control such things, influenced as they were by time and place.)

"No." Harriet sat cross-legged next to Tommie. "Our friendship has changed and grown as we have. Some things stay the same, some things don't. We don't agree about everything—hell, we actually turned out to have really different backgrounds, but we've gone through too much together to abandon each other when we disagree."

"This is what you were referring to when you said I should find friends rather than followers." Tommie couldn't hold in her skeptical snort (what indignities this girl brought out).

"Pretty much. Hermione's got my back, and I've got hers—even if one of us gets Transfigured into a sphinx or worse."

"I suppose I have no foundation to comprehend any of it," Tommie admitted. Sacrifices, she reminded herself. All of this will be for the best in the end, when Harriet needed her.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Harriet said.

"I don't want your pity," Tommie snapped. "Without this damned curse, I would have achieved all my goals. With followers. Without friends. I have no need for silly attachments."

"I could show you, erm, what friendship is supposed to look like, if you want," Harriet pressed. "I mean, maybe solving your riddle involves understanding something you never have before."

"Got that from one of Hermione's fairy tales, didn't you?" Tommie murmured. Harriet was steadily making her way through the massive anthology Hermione lent her the day they moved in, with comments aplenty about the treatment of women and the strange endings that passed as the (dreaded, impossible) happily ever afters.

"Maybe. It's worth a shot, though, don't you think?" Harriet sounded sickeningly hopeful. The flavor reminded Tommie of flowers in springtime, a season that never brought anything good (the curse, Hogwarts's near closure when she'd acted rashly''').

"What exactly would this entail?" she asked, suppressing a shudder—of disgust, she assured herself.

"Well, you know, almost exactly what we've been doing, except with more straight-up fun activities and a few more heart-to-hearts." Harriet's excitement assaulted Tommie's senses—sharp and fresh, and she smiled faintly.

"I am like a bug crawling on its belly at your feet, completely at your mercy," Tommie quipped, feeling like a broken record as she said it. "Do what you will." It wasn't enthusiastic assent, but it was the best she could muster.

"Great." Harriet withdrew a photo album from under a stack of textbooks. "Let's start with some pictures of Hermione and me and some other people I knew at Hogwarts." For the next few minutes, they went through the photos. Harriet and Hermione were featured most frequently, with a round-faced brown-haired boy, a small silver-eyed blond girl, and—once or twice—a red-headed girl that Tommie hated immediately. Blood Traitors, all of them, she guessed.

"Who is that girl?" she inquired, glaring at the ginger.

"Ginny Weasley," Harriet said uncomfortably, a faint blush tinging her cheeks. "She went to the Yule Ball with me."

Tommie blinked. "The Weasleys had a girl? That's unheard-of. And did you have a relationship with her afterward?" Perhaps it wasn't Hermione she should be concerned by.

"She's just a friend now, but she's had a thing for me for years." Harriet sighed. "She's great, but… I don't know."

"No one bats an eye at lesbian witches these days?" Tommie asked in some surprise—not that she'd ever cared either way. Succumbing to attraction, no matter the gender of the partner, spelled weakness.

"Not really. It's more like, if they ignore us, we'll go away. It's just a phase, and we'll grow up and get married and shit." Harriet grimaced. "I'm going to upend politics, and I definitely have no intention of doing any of that."

Tommie smiled at Harriet's phrasing. "You and me both, though I've never been attracted to anyone." Thankfully, else she would likely have to include hypocrisy amongst her few flaws.

"Never?" Harriet queried.

"Not sexually, at least," Tommie replied firmly. As for this girl, she thought in annoyance, she will be mine because I refuse to let her go. She tried not to think too hard about why.

A couple nights later, Harriet proposed an activity.

"You want me to do what?" Tommie snapped, praying she'd misheard.

"Watch a film with me," Harriet repeated. "Hermione's at home tonight, so you may as well spend some time in the rest of the apartment and become familiar with hallmarks of popular culture."

"Fine, fine," Tommie grumbled. "But preferably not Muggle culture. I really don't care about it beyond some—hardly any at all, mind you—literature, since, as I'm sure you know, wizards have little to no imagination." (Muggle literature: beautiful, transcendent, and… magical. Damn wizards for their feeble brains!)

Harriet shuddered. "They don't. But you promised to humor me, so come on."

"I made a mistake," Tommie tried.

Harriet rolled her eyes. "Remember what I said about fun?"

Tommie furrowed her brows in mock concentration. "Seems to have slipped my mind," she purred.

Sighing in exasperation, Harriet ushered her into the front room. "Hermione's parents gave us this old television and a really crappy video player

they dug out of their attic," she said, opening a small box containing what Tommie could only assume were films—packaged and sold to individuals affordably, which was endlessly strange to contemplate. "Let's see," Harriet murmured. "Documentaries… more documentaries… The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes… huh?" She pulled a film out and stared at it.

"Absolutely not," Tommie said. "Sherlock Holmes is nothing more than hyperbolic Muggle wish fulfillment."

"Thank god," Harriet replied, relieved. "I've literally never heard of this one anyway." She dropped the offending film back into the box and pulled out another, examining it with a smirk. "As for this one…" Without further explanation, she inserted the film into the player and pressed PLAY.

Tommie watched in horror, curled up on one side of the couch. Animated animals danced across the screen to a terribly celebratory song. And there were lions… Why were there lions? "What is this drivel?" she hissed.

"The Lion King," Harriet chirped. "From across the pond. It's adorable. You will… probably hate it."

An hour and a half later, Harriet was proven correct. "The hyenas should have been the central characters," Tommie growled, trying to forget the (catchy) songs and the ridiculously flawed plotting of Scar, the single intelligent character, who didn't have the guts for kinslaying a second time—when it was arguably essential to success. "They certainly didn't leave loose ends." Vengeance was a beautiful sight.

"Somehow, I'm not surprised," Harriet groaned.

"And this exercise was supposed to be an example of… fun," Tommie continued. "I experienced only agony and discomfort." Well, except for watching Harriet's unbridled joy and then heartbroken tears at the death of Simba's father. For that, at least, the film was worth watching. Ah, and the murder of Simba's father… was wonderfully affirming.

Harriet's disappointment swamped her. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"I'm not finished," Tommie said, to her own confusion. "I enjoyed… your enjoyment. I am, therefore, willing to try whatever else you deem necessary for my introduction to your brand of fun and friendship."

Harriet blinked, her emerald eyes lightening. "Great," she enthused. "I have plans aplenty."

A few nights later, Harriet made another suggestion, though with much less fanfare. So much less, in fact, that Tommie didn't realize what was happening until it was too late to stop.

"Who told you that you were a witch?" Harriet asked, as she threw aside a thoroughly annotated list of difficult charms and ran her fingers through her chronically tangled ebony locks.

"Albus Dumbledore delivered my letter and threatened me with an illusion of my possessions going up in flames," Tommie replied. "Although it is true that I… reappropriated some of them from their original owners." Ah, what memories… She hadn't thought of such things in decades.

"Dumbledore's a stickler for convention," Harriet said. "Professor Minerva McGonagall talked to me. She taught my parents, and I'm glad it was her." Harriet looked wistful. "She was the one that told me how they died. Potions experimentation is more dangerous than most know."

"It is, at that." Tommie allowed herself an expression of what she hoped was gentle sympathy. "But McGonagall," she mused. "Minerva? She's a professor?"

"Of Transfiguration," Harriet confirmed.

"Naturally," Tommie laughed. "She had a mad attraction to Dumbledore while she was in school." And me, Tommie thought with a smirk.

"I'll bet she did," Harriet said. "But seriously, Dumbledore hates you. What the fuck else did you do?"

Tommie considered her for half a breath. "I told him I could speak to snakes. I believe that clinched it." She could have said almost anything else, such as how Dumbledore was a generally wary individual… yet she chose something closer to the truth—at least, what she guessed to be truth.

"That's bullshit," Harriet spluttered. "I wish I were a Parselmouth. I mean, if I could have had snakes as friends growing up, I would have been way more well-adjusted."

Good god, she meant it. What a strange child. Although Muggle-raised sorts tended to be more open-minded concerning many things… Oh, why had she ever bothered with Purebloods? … No, no. She mustn't allow her thoughts to wander in tangled paths.

Her reply gave away nothing of her scattered contemplation. "I'm afraid serpents have little of note to say. As abilities go, Parseltongue isn't terribly useful." Except as a means to uncover secrets long-hidden…

"What would you consider to be more useful, then?" Harriet challenged playfully.

"Legilimency. Heightened empathy." Tommie rolled her eyes. "But we have spent far too long talking about me."

Harriet seemed to have moved on from their conversation anyway, for she was tapping her fingers, deep in thought. "You're a descendant of Slytherin, aren't you?" she guessed after too short a pause.

"And if I am?" Tommie cursed silently. Trying to impress this girl—not to intimidate, now—would be her doom.

"It explains a lot," Harriet said, picking up a book and neglecting to elaborate.

#

Tommie absolutely despised Hermione. Or rather, she disliked the time Harriet spent with her, only to return with a spring in her step and literally oozing contentment. Tommie could banter, could disturb Harriet's dreams… but she could not do what Hermione did.

The days passed. They ran through a forest (the Forest of Dean, as Harriet called it). They reminisced about Hogwarts (the Christmas dinners, the secret passageways, among other things). They ignored each other after they argued over trivial things (why elemental charms weren't classified as conjurations).

It wasn't enough. Tommie wanted more.

Something shifted within her during those sweltering July days, and fascination became… other. A shattering, an expansion in her chest… An entire world formed in her imagination, a world that she and Harriet made together, a world where Harriet smiled blissfully as Tommie brushed her lips against the corner of her mouth.

But Harriet was too pure, too good, too unlike Tommie. She would never toss aside her friends—never far enough away for Tommie to replace them.

perhaps she didn't need to.

#

"I can't do this!" It was the last night before Harriet's exams began. "I haven't done enough. Everything I've achieved was a fluke. I'm going to crash and burn in an epic fucking conflagration." Harriet sat hunched, her arms wrapped about her knees. Her notes lay in an untidy pile on the floor, exiled there in her self-reproach.

"Why not talk to Hermione about this?" Tommie queried.

"She's done so much already," Harriet sobbed.

Tommie felt it then, the first inkling of triumph. She quashed it and padded close to Harriet, close enough to touch. To her shock, Harriet threw her arms around her neck and buried her tear-streaked face into the fur of her shoulder.

She stiffened. Touches between them had thus far only occurred when they Apparated. The difference now was unquantifiable. "Take it from me, my dear," Tommie murmured, her cheek pressed against Harriet's apple-scented hair. "Your achievements are not flukes."

Don't let go, she thought. The feline brain mewled at her to pace around Harriet's huddled form, rubbing her scent into every inch of her she could reach. But she ignored this and stayed still, waiting till Harriet's sobs subsided.

Mine, the lioness keened. My darling, Tommie agreed.

Harriet took deep, gasping breaths, unaware of the turmoil she had unleashed. She pulled away, trembling. "I'm sorry," she said meekly. "I got you wet…"

There was slight dampness on the fur of Tommie's shoulder. "That's all right," she hummed, tasting the residue of Harriet's tears with a curious swipe of her tongue. (Mildly salty… What the devil was she doing?)

Harriet's face reddened. She whispered something almost too quiet for Tommie to catch: "This is so fucked up."

After Harriet went to bed, curling up in a tight ball with her head buried beneath her blankets, Tommie whispered, "It really is."

Tommie keenly felt Harriet's absence during the next few days. She listened to Hermione pacing and writing and crooning sweetly to her insufferable cat. She lay on Harriet's bed, idly batting at the occasional fly that escaped the oppressive heat by finding cracks to slip through in the apartment's walls. She imagined Harriet's happiest smile directed exclusively at her. She envisioned Harriet's eyes, gazing intently into her own.

Harriet returned in the late afternoons, carrying a heady mix of relief and nerves. "God, I can't wait until this is over," she said, stretching out in the precise spot upon her bed where Tommie had lain. "I'll have finished my education officially—no more technicality bullshit—and then we're having a party for the ages."

"A party?" Tommie parroted.

"Yes." Harriet smiled. "Friday night. It's a house-warming, NEWT-FINISHING, and birthday party rolled into one."

"Your birthday?"

"On the 31st. I'm turning eighteen."

Well, of course she was.

"There's going to be, you know, a few people here, so I'm sorry about that."

"I don't mind," Tommie lied quickly. "You deserve to enjoy yourself."

Thursday night was suddenly upon them. Harriet was jittery, cross-referencing History of Magic notes with a timeline that filled at least three rolls of parchment, then reviewing instructions for antidotes and the properties of poisons.

"Potions practical in the morning and History of Magic in the afternoon," she clarified at Tommie's disbelieving stare. "I'm taking six NEWTs, but they combined the herbology theory and practical to save time."

"Sensible. Why History of Magic?"

"That's obvious, isn't it?" Harriet murmured. "I need to have a good grasp on where we came from, so I can usher forth a better future."

"And why is your timeline so long?" From what Tommie could see, the writing was exceptionally cramped.

"I'm making arguments about both magical and Muggle history. They don't tend to ask about such things, but I'm sure my context will make sense to them. Though the truth is that I don't give a damn what some ancient, inbred Pureblood examiner thinks."

"Very good." And really, she was impressed… and satisfied.

Harriet was radiant at Tommie's tepid praise. "You're, like, the first person besides Hermione that cares about this shit," she admitted. "But you… really understand what I'm aiming for, in a way Hermione just doesn't."

"Revolution?" Tommie supplied.

"Revolution," Harriet agreed, her lips drawing back in an anticipatory grin.

And when faced with exactly what she wanted, Tommie Riddle began to have doubts.

"You're not naive," Tommie croaked. "You want what is right and good, yet you…"

Harriet merely listened, waiting.

The words tumbled from her mouth before she could properly think them through. "There are things you should know about me. Things that I would rather not tell you, but I must."

"Yes?"

"I committed my first murder when I was sixteen." She waited for half a breath, expecting Harriet to bolt, but she did not. "It was premeditated. Her name was Myrtle Warren. She saw something she shouldn't, and I found it easier to kill her than to Obliviate her. I committed my next murders within the month."

"Who'''?" Harriet whispered, her dread coating the back of Tommie's throat.

"My father and grandparents." Why was she doing this? "He never came to find me, and seeing him living in the lap of luxury while I had to fight tooth and nail for everything—"

Harriet's expression was inscrutable. "Is that all?" she asked.

"No." Tommie should have stopped there, should have lied. She did neither. "After I started working at Borgin and Burke's—just out of Hogwarts, I killed an old woman who possessed an heirloom that rightfully belonged to me, as well as another relic I desired. After her, I tracked down one of my childhood tormentors. Then there was an Albanian Muggle woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Why?" Harriet turned away, her face buried in her hands. Was she crying? No, no. Her shoulders were still. Tommie could sense nothing now but a horrible absence of emotion.

"I do not deserve your help," Tommie continued, after the silence stretched and contracted and became tangible. "I am better off like this. The world is better off without me to influence it. And you— You—" I don't want to get in your way or to hold your revolution back, beautiful girl…

"I what?" Harriet said, her voice flat.

"You are pure, and I don't want to ruin you." For if she did, then Harriet Potter would cease to be Harriet Potter and become someone wholly strange and other and wrong.

"No single person has the power to ruin me," Harriet snapped, "not even you." She stared into Tommie's eyes, an adorable wrinkle between her brows. Tommie imagined how it would feel to smoothe it with a gentle touch of her hand.

"Good," she said. "May you remain so self-aware."

"I don't know whether to thank you or to pretend you never told me anything." Harriet said. "All the things you've done make it difficult to… look at a compliment objectively."

"I expect not." Tommie let her head drop against her curled forepaws. "I have meant every one I have given you, nonetheless."

"Okay." Harriet flopped onto her bed. "I need to get to sleep so I can concentrate tomorrow. I…" She drew her knees to her chest beneath her blankets. "I'm not going to throw you out. I know I should, but we've come this far."

"I'm sorry," Tommie rasped. What more could she say?

"I hope so," Harriet sighed and closed her eyes in exhaustion.

In the morning, Tommie watched listlessly as Harriet prepared to leave for her last day of exams. They exchanged no words. Harriet hardly spared her a glance. When she left, Tommie tried in vain to go back to sleep, deeply troubled.

#

"Good luck," Hermione called as Harriet left for her last day of NEWTs. Harriet waved.

A couple hours later, she felt it was time to put her suspicions to rest. She would have done it earlier in the week but didn't want to risk confronting Harriet about whatever it was while her exams were still in progress—Harriet didn't need that kind of stress and deserved the same sort of studying environment Hermione herself had had when she achieved her seven Outstandings.

So, Hermione approached Harriet's closed bedroom door, furtively looking over her shoulder. Crookshanks watched her curiously. "If I didn't know better," she mused aloud, "I'd say she was hiding a pet of some kind." Incidentally, she didn't know better. Crookshanks still sometimes bristled at strange moments and at others would crouch outside Harriet's door, mewing. Also there was that one weekend she'd come back from her parents' to find a bit of unfamiliar dark fur on the couch, on which Crookshanks eagerly curled up, his eyes closed in bliss.

Harriet's locking charm wasn't difficult to break. It was only a step up from Coloportus and was clearly meant as more of a request for courtesy than to keep anyone out. God, she shouldn't be doing this, but she had to know…

The door creaked inward on unoiled hinges. Hermione stepped inside and… stared. She blinked, then stared some more.

"What in the name of—"

"You can stop staring anytime," the sphinx—a fucking sphinx, in their apartment!—snapped.

Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them, her hand itching to massage her forehead. "What is Harriet thinking?" she croaked.

At this, the sphinx laughed self-deprecatingly. "I wish I knew."

"But— How did she find you? Why is she keeping you here?" Hermione spluttered, a faint tremor in her voice.

"She's helping me break a curse," the sphinx replied. "Or she was…" Her head drooped.

"So, this is why she wanted to know about sentiment-based curses," Hermione realized. "You're not really a sphinx, are you?"

"It's been a long, long time," the sphinx replied cryptically. "Perhaps I'm better off like this."

Hermione didn't respond. What was she supposed to say?

"Frankly, I thought you would have discovered me sooner. From what Harriet has told me, I gathered you were immensely intelligent."

Hermione blushed. "Apparently not intelligent enough," she muttered. "I should have guessed ages ago. She's been acting oddly ever since the Third Task."

"That is, in fact, where we met," the sphinx confirmed.

"I just… Why would she agree to help you?"

"I am under the impression she thought it was the right thing to do. She didn't ask me for anything in exchange at the outset." A mystified expression crossed her face. "Although I suppose the numerous times she's hinted that this is too great a favor to ever be repaid makes it slightly more understandable."

Crookshanks chose that moment to pad into the room, purr rumbling in his chest. Hermione watched him weave around the sphinx, then settle in a contented ginger heap against her side.

"Little traitor," Hermione said warmly. "If he likes you, then maybe Harriet wasn't wrong to help you."

The sphinx raised a narrow brow. "So quick to trust your cat."

"He's never been wrong before," Hermione said. "What's your name, anyway? You never said."

The sphinx smiled. "I didn't introduce myself to Harriet, either. She discovered my identity on her own. But since you lack the resources that were available to her at the time…"

"Yes?" Hermione encouraged, leaning forward eagerly.

"Tommie Riddle. I am… pleased… to make your acquaintance."

"Oh my god!" Hermione gushed. "You were Head Girl in 1945, weren't you? The only Muggle-born to get the position for decades!"

Tommie shook her head in disgust. "I was indeed Head Girl. I am no Muggle-born."

"Oh." Hermione's disappointment was sharp. "I just always assumed you were. I never found any records proving otherwise."

"You wouldn't have, no." Tommie sighed, her expression curdling in regret. "I never made my parentage widely known. A select few of my Housemates knew the truth, but no one outside ever needed that sort of knowledge. Since I have been gone these fifty years, no one has ever needed to know me."

"Half-blood, then?" Hermione guessed, not really caring about the answer.

"Muggle-raised Half-blood, rather like Harriet," Tommie clarified. She glanced at Harriet's alarm clock. "She'll be back soon. I don't think you want to be caught speaking to me. Better that you break your intrusion to her slowly, hmm?"

Hermione flushed in shame. "You're right. Come on, Crookshanks." Crookshanks blinked at her lethargically, an ear twitching. "No, you can't stay here." She scooped him up and walked swiftly from Harriet's room.

"Don't forget to redo her charms," Tommie taunted. With a huff, Hermione closed the door and magically locked it, just as footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs.