Chapter 13: Luminous Twin Significance
4th August 2002 - Hotel Merkwaardig, Amsterdam, Netherlands
"Stupefy!"
Percy barely had time to duck, dropping to his knees and rolling to the side as the spell flew over his head. From the crashing noise behind him he suspected that the stunner had still found its mark in Travers, but he didn't have time to look before the air twisted again and Yaxley appeared to his left, his wand already raised in his bluish-silver hand, and Percy didn't hesitate.
"Stupefy!"
Yaxley crumpled, and Percy's lungs expanded slightly in his chest before he shifted his attention to the witch and wizard who were stood across the room.
Hermione looked much the same as ever - perhaps a little thinner, the shadows under her eyes a little more pronounced than he remembered. Her hair, however (certainly her most immediately recognisable feature) was just as wild as always.
"Well," said the dark-haired man who, contrary to the high-alert report from the Dutch Ministry was decidedly not Theodore Nott. "That was rather unexpected."
He spun a light-wooded wand between his fingers, and Percy found himself caught by the movement, by something familiar in the cadence of the man's speech. Percy swallowed, recognising a threat when he saw one, and forced his fingers to loosen on his own wand, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender as he let it fall to the floor beside him and looked back to Hermione.
"Percy," she said, taking a hesitant half-step towards him. "What are you doing here?" She looked more bemused than anything, her mouth edging upwards into something that might have become a smile, but failed at the final hurdle.
"The Ministry," he said. "There's an order for your arrest and I thought - thought you might need help."
"Kind of you," the man smirked. "But you'll excuse me if I don't buy the charitable act."
Percy bristled. "I don't think I will, actually -"
"Percy Weasley," the man sighed. "You do not change, do you?"
Percy frowned at the familiarity in his voice, looking the man over and wracking his brain to think where he had seen him before, though he drew a frustrating blank. He was tall, slim but strongly built, with handsome features that were currently marred by a bloodied nose that looked only just on the right side of broken.
"Who are you?" he demanded finally, deciding attack was probably the best form of defence. "The summons from Schouwer Hendriks said that they had apprehended Hermione Granger in the company of Theodore Nott, but you aren't -"
"No," the man agreed, "I'm not." He smiled wider, all brilliant teeth, and it was enough to send a shiver of fear up Percy's spine. His tone was amiable enough, but that expression was cold as ice. "But neither am I eager to be the subject of an interrogation." He raised an eyebrow and spun the wand again between those long fingers, and Percy's mouth went dry as he was struck once more by the sense of having seen the gesture before.
"Hermione -" he started forward, his only coherent thought that he needed to get her as far away as possible, but the man tutted and shook his head, waving the wand languidly and conjuring slim, dark cords that caught Percy's wrists and ankles, and twined their way around his mouth. Hermione didn't take her eyes off him as she stepped slowly to the man's side, placing her hand on the wand.
"Tom," she murmured, and there was such casual intimacy in her tone, in her fingers on the wand, that Percy would have laughed had he not been gagged.
Tom.
He watched in disbelief as the man released the wand into Hermione's grip, stepping smoothly behind her, all the while directing that terrible smile towards Percy.
He couldn't help it: his eyes slid down the angle of the man's cheekbone, noting the shape of his mouth and the precise curve of his brow. The nose was different; was there; and the eyes were blue, the hair black, but still Percy could feel the familiar roil in his stomach, the animal instinct to get as far away as physically possible - but it couldn't be, it couldn't possibly be -
Tom.
Hermione was watching him, he realised, and he looked back at her, holding her gaze and seeing something ineffable solidify there. "Do you know who this is?" she asked, and Percy wished that it was in him to shake his head, to deny the realisation; to say that it was impossible, a paradox; but before he could stop himself his chin had dipped towards his chest, and the man's eyebrows had drawn into a frown.
"No," he said flatly. "There's no way that he could possibly have -"
"Tom." Hermione shook her head, and Percy felt his stomach weighed down by another ounce of dread at hearing the name spoken aloud again. Still, he had room for a whisper of surprise at how willingly the man - Tom - fell silent when Hermione commanded it. Questions were chasing rapidly through his mind - how and why chief among them - but he tried to stamp down on these as Hermione stepped forward and knelt in front of him.
"I am going to remove the bindings," she said. "I need you to not do anything stupid when I do."
Percy gave her his best haughty scowl, honed during his early years at the Ministry when asserting one's right to be there had seemed to be mostly a matter of trying to make anyone else that you came across feel inferior. Hermione's mouth twitched with amusement, and Percy was uncomfortably reminded of how very attractive she was as she flicked the wand.
"Liberandus."
As the cords dissipated into nothingness Percy lunged for his wand, pointing it at Hermione without hesitation. "Finite Incatatem!"
"Oh for fuck's sake," Hermione cried, snatching her hand away when Tom made a grab for the wand. "That's exactly the sort of - no, Tom - Expelliarmus!"
"You're not bespelled," Percy said, not even trying to keep hold of his wand as the full force of his horror descended. "You're doing this of your own free will."
"And here I thought you were supposed to be the brains of the Weasley family," Tom drawled. In contrast to his voice his face was a mask of tightly controlled fury, and Percy made himself stay absolutely still as he stared over Hermione's shoulder to hold Tom's gaze.
"How are you here?" he asked. "The Dark Lord is installed at the Ministry, how on earth could you possibly -"
"How long do we have?" Hermione sighed, and Percy dragged his attention back to her in order to frown slightly at the question.
"How long do we have before what?"
"Before the Ministry realises something's wrong and sends reinforcements." Hermione's tone was snippy, and it was amazing, Percy thought, that she could still switch herself into that gratingly superior mode. How easy it was to remember her irritating, impossible righteousness.
"Long enough," he said tersely, rising to his feet and rubbing at his wrists. "They wouldn't expect you to come quietly, and Yaxley would want to have some fun as payback for his hand." He saw Tom's eyes flick to the man's prone body, his lip curling slightly.
"That wasn't even me," Hermione huffed, just as Tom growled "I'd like to see him try."
"Are you going to explain what you're doing prancing around Europe in the company of Tom Riddle?" Percy barked, prompting Hermione to gape at him and Tom to level a considering glare.
"How do you know that name?" he asked, with every appearance of mild curiosity, but Percy felt the snaking sensation of legilimency and threw up his mental walls as high as they would go.
"I'm not stupid," he said. "Whatever you might think." He cut his eyes to Hermione, "I'm not Ron."
"And yet you still haven't answered my question." Tom's quiet voice was now dripping with unmistakable menace, and Percy swallowed tightly.
"I make it my business to know things," he said. "I file all the paperwork, including the requests for names to be excised from the Hogwarts attendance records, for mentions of horcruxes in the Ministry archives to be expunged, and as I say, I'm not an idiot -"
"Enough," Hermione said, but Percy ignored her.
"Is that what you are, Tom? Some meagre sliver of a soul?"
"Good guess." Tom hadn't even blinked. "And terribly clever of you to have put it all together." He paused, seeming to consider something. "I think you'll find, however, that I'm much more substantial than your Master."
There was, Percy had to admit, something unnervingly solid about this incarnation. He lacked the mercurial, shifting quality that typified Voldemort, and Percy could not have said right then whether that made this version of Tom Riddle more or less terrifying.
"He's not my master," he countered hotly, unwilling to betray the full extent of his fear. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Do I not?" The words were spoken in the tone of deadly quiet that Percy had grown used to over the last few years, but this voice was deeper, more mellifluous, and he fought to suppress a shudder as it worked its way under his skin.
"Theo told us you were alive, that you had helped him," Hermione said slowly, though a glance told Percy that her hand was still tight around her wand. "He said that you've been keeping the patrols away from Hogwarts, that you fudged the paperwork for some muggleborns and -"
"I think the real question here," Tom remarked casually, almost as though Hermione hadn't spoken, "is how you managed to achieve such astonishing latitude. If I know your Master -" he paused, his smile blooming outwards with the deliberate choice of words "- which I'm sure you'd agree, I am uniquely well-qualified to say that I do, he would demand proof of indisputable loyalty before he would allow you such a position."
Hermione glanced between them, and Percy saw the doubt settle firmly on her face. "Percy. What does he mean?"
oOo
4th August 2002 - Outskirts of Uzès, Occitanie, Southern France
"You know," Draco said thoughtfully as he stepped to Parvati's side. "They do say that a watched cauldron never -"
"I'm watching the horizon," Parvati countered tartly. "I know you've only got one good eye but you could at least try using it."
If she'd meant to put him off, Draco decided, she was going to have to try much harder. "We'd have heard by now," he said. "If she'd been caught they wouldn't keep it a -"
"What if she's just dead?" Parvati snapped. "There's a hundred ways she could have died trying to - to - you know, and we'd never know what had happened to her."
"Tell me again about the reading?" Draco asked, and Parvati sighed, her fingers tracing runes in the fine layer of dust on the attic windowsill. Clarity, Draco saw. Intuition, Determination, and something that looked like a slightly wonky Humility.
"Every card was Death," Parvati said softly, her eyes far away. "When I tried to read for her, every single one. And then I brought them to her and it happened again, every card she drew, until the last three."
"Which were..?" Draco prompted.
"The Hanged Man, The High Priestess, and The Lovers."
"Delightful," Draco mused. "Certainly not at all ominous to have an entire reading full of death before you drew Potter and Granger as -"
"I don't think it was Harry." Parvati's voice was almost inaudible, but Draco looked at her so sharply he almost pulled something.
"What the fuck do you mean it wasn't Harry? Who else could it -"
"I don't know," Parvati whispered. "But any time I read for Harry before...before, he was always The Tower."
Draco couldn't help but acknowledge how a card symbolising destruction and liberation made a great deal of sense in Potter's ill-fated case. "Well Granger was fairly determined that she was going to bring him back from the dead," he said slowly. "It would stand to reason that there would be something...different about him."
"Maybe," Parvati nodded, though Draco could tell she was far from convinced. She blinked, and seemed to give herself a shake. "What was it you wanted?"
"Lunch," Draco pronounced. "No use fretting on an empty stomach, so I have been charged with fetching you from your lonely vigil in order to - are you listening?"
Parvati was looking out of the window again, her eyes narrowed into a squint. "Draco," she said quietly. "Is that an owl?"
Draco turned and followed her gaze, almost starting with surprise when he saw the winged shape growing closer by the moment. "Well, I take back what I said about cauldrons."
oOo
Hotel Merkwaardig, Amsterdam, Netherlands
"Percy." Hermione had felt her blood turn cold at Tom's words. Proof of indisputable loyalty. "What does he mean?"
Percy fidgeted under her gaze before he jerked his head towards Tom. "Do you trust him?" he asked, blatantly avoiding the question. "Because I don't know how he's here, or what you did to get him but I'm not telling you a fucking thing until -"
"I trust him," Hermione said, surprised by her own certainty, and wondering quite when she had decided to do so. Percy blinked in shock, and behind her she sensed the subtle shift in Tom's posture; felt the momentary flare of his magic.
"Fine," Percy ground out eventually, mercifully distracting her from Tom. "On your head be it." There was a brief pause as he chewed his lip, before his next words tumbled from him in an ungainly rush: "It isn't what you think."
In spite of herself Hermione's jaw tightened in anger, and she watched as Percy scrunch his eyes closed, obviously hearing how the words sounded before he sighed defeatedly. "Come on, you know how this works." His gaze went briefly to Tom, before returning to Hermione. "I had to give them something believable, something no-one else could -"
"The Burrow," she whispered, and saw Percy flinch.
"It was Dad's idea," he said, his voice dull before he stopped and seemed to gather himself. "They couldn't get anything out of me with the Cruciatus, but they still wouldn't let me - I had to -" he gestured helplessly before looking again to Tom. When he continued, his voice was no more than a croak. "The Dark Lord only trusts those that he believes have given up everything in order to follow his cause. I couldn't be of any use unless I -"
"How was it Arthur's idea?" Hermione interrupted him, fury making her words sharp and impatient. "We were in hiding, you couldn't have -"
"A Protean Charm," Percy sighed, lifting his wrist to show her his watch, the crystal face cracked and blackened. "Dad was always good with clocks, and he made sure that the watches they gave us -"
"I don't understand!" Hermione cried. "They wouldn't give us up; they'd sooner have died than -" She stopped, inhaling sharply as the pieces clicked into place and feeling her face go slack with horror. "They sacrificed themselves."
Percy nodded. A tear slid down his cheek, though he made no move to wipe it away. "Dad thought it would be worth it in order to secure my place at the Ministry, if -"
"But George!" Hermione cut him off, her voice raw with emotion. "They would never have -"
"It didn't go entirely to plan," Percy conceded miserably. "I never thought he would go himself, it seemed like such a huge risk to take."
Tom made a humming sound behind her, and Hermione's skin erupted in gooseflesh as he ran his fingers down her forearm to take the wand back again. Percy's eyes followed the movement, his expression impossible to read.
"There are certain things that the Dark Lord takes very personally," Tom said slowly. "But I agree that seems a rather foolish gamble. Much as coming here today was a foolish gamble on your part, Percy Weasley."
Percy blanched visibly. "I told you, I wanted to -"
"Have you grown tired of the monotony of serving the Dark Lord?" Tom asked conversationally. "Looking for a little something to liven things up, perhaps?"
"Things are moving," Percy said helplessly. "After years of nothing they're finally moving, with the raid on Hogwarts, Theo and Narcissa's disappearances, this - bloody - whatever this is -" He stopped, took a deep breath, and then looked Tom in the eye. "I came here because I knew Hermione was up to something, and I wanted to help her."
"Helping her means helping me," Tom said, and Percy threw him a look of utter loathing before his eyes moved to Hermione.
"This - him being here, being alive - is a paradox," he said bluntly, "and you of all people must know that it cannot be sustained indefinitely. Whatever it is that you're planning with Dark Lord 2.0, you'd better be certain that -"
"We're going to kill him," Hermione said, and Percy's mouth snapped shut as he stared at her. Out of his line of sight, Tom brought his fingers to rest on Hermione's lower back, and she fought a shiver at the indication of approval.
"'Neither can live while the other survives'," he quoted quietly. "Isn't that rather the definition of a paradox?"
Percy's eyes widened as he recognised the words of the prophecy. "Hermione," he said, voice gentle but firm. "He's not Harry, and you have to realise this sounds completely -"
"I know who he is," Hermione snapped. "You think I could fucking forget? Desperate times call for desperate measures, Perce, and I wouldn't think that I'd need to remind you of that."
Percy didn't even look at Tom, focusing completely on Hermione. "You're serious aren't you?"
Hermione held his stare, her fingers tight on the wand as she tried to calculate how much time they could spare for an obliviation. "As a heart attack."
Percy lifted his hands to cover his mouth, blowing out a noisy breath against his fingers and closing his eyes for a brief moment. "Fine. What would you have me do?"
A/N: For WittyBasketcase. Thank you!