Summer was long and green, winding slowly like an old river through the months of June and July. Most days I'd floo over to the Malfoy Manor after breakfast, and Abraxas and I would take our brooms into the bright heat of the morning and fly as high as it took for the air to become cool again. We'd fly past the Manor and the surrounding gardens with their pale, glittering fountains and carefully curated blocks of colour until we reached the forest spilling wild over the land beyond. Beneath its dark foliage was the lake we'd come to every summer since we were toddlers, when the Malfoys would take us out on the water on one of their many boats. Now that Abraxas and I were old enough to go sailing on our own we'd take the yacht and steer it, just the two of us, out onto the shining blue water. We'd steer it to the middle of the lake, then strip off our clothes and dive off the starboard bow. For a fleeting moment I'd be free, as alive and as present as an animal. But I'd land, and my guilt would come back and pull me away from the lake, the sun and the trees. I'd think the same thoughts that made it hard to fall asleep at night: What was Tom doing? Was he unhappy? Was he thinking of me, too?
Strangely, Abraxas was the first to voice out loud the idea of venturing out into London to look for Tom. He had grown bored of the monotony of the long summer days, especially now that the sun had burned his skin a horrible shade of pink and vanity kept him indoors, where he could be neither burned further nor seen. So when he stumbled upon one of Tom's letters while lounging about in my room at Grimmauld Place, he immediately saw the possibility of adventure.
"Say," said Abraxas, perching on the edge of the bed and waving Tom's latest missive under my nose. "Is Riddle really stuck in a muggle orphanage all summer?"
I looked up from sketching Hogwarts on a piece of parchment to glance at the letter. "That's private correspondence, give it here."
Abraxas ignored me and went on. "Well it sounds awful so why doesn't he escape? I'd escape. It can't be hard giving the muggles the slip."
It was true that Wool's Orphanage sounded awful. At my behest, Tom had described it in detail: the overcrowded dormitories that were too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer, the meals that kept him from starving but never quite filled him up, the endless chores that left him with no time for studying, the beatings that were reserved for children who misbehaved.
"Merlin," Abraxas exclaimed, his eyes wide as they scanned Tom's letter, "Riddle had to clean the loo? Like a house elf? That's disgusting."
I snatched the letter from him before he could unearth any more fodder for gossip.
"I suppose he can't escape," said Abraxas to himself as I dipped my quill into the ink and drew ripples in the lake around Hogwarts. "Not by himself without magic or money. But we could get him out and he could stay with you."
"What, break in at night and kidnap him?" I scoffed. "Even if we managed to pull that off without magic he'd get in trouble, the orphanage would find out, and Dippet would find out, and Tom would be-"
"Whipped, yes, I read that part," said Abraxas impatiently. "Come on, there's got to be a way to get him out. It's your birthday next week - won't they let him come to that?"
"It'd be grand if he could come," I agreed, and rolled off the bed and onto my feet. "But how do we persuade the matron to let Tom run off with two eleven year olds?"
It was, of course, out of the question to ask any of our adult relatives for help. Every single one of them would have rather disemboweled themselves with butter knives than risk dishonour by setting foot in a Muggle establishment.
"What about Polyjuice?" I said suddenly. "What if we took Polyjuice and went as Dippet, or Dumbledore?"
"We can't go as anyone from Hogwarts," said Abraxas. "We'd get expelled. Let's go as random adults and say we're Riddle's parents. We'll say oh, hello, we're alive after all. Could we have our son back, please?" He picked up my sketch of Hogwarts and started adding to it with great flourishes.
"Well what about our own parents?" I asked. "You'll go as Mother or Father and I'll go as me. Tell the matron that Tom and I are friends from school and that I'd like him to come visit for my birthday."
"Brilliant," said Abraxas, and set the quill and paper down to clap me on the back. I glanced over and saw that he had ruined my drawing, extending my painstakingly drawn branches of the Whomping Willow such that they snaked tentacle-like all the way across the grounds, up the castle, through the Transfiguration classroom window, and up Dumbledore's bottom.
Brewing Polyjuice Potion was well beyond Abraxas' and my capabilities. I had no head for potions and had relied heavily on Tom's meticulous mind and watchful eye to get me through my first year. Abraxas, who had been partnered with the less capable Lestrange, had earned Professor Slughorn's ire by exploding three whole cauldrons.
Luckily there was no need to brew the potion on our own - we both came from pureblood families that took great pride in their knowledge of the dark arts. Our parents brewed and collected Class A potions the way other people collect expensive wines. So when we raided our houses it wasn't too long before a few flasks of the potion base turned up, nestled between dusty green bottles of fifteenth century wine in the Malfoys' cellar. We threw a lock of Mother's hair, taken from a locket Mother had given to me when I was younger, into one of the flasks. The potion bubbled and hissed and turned deep violet, then I stopped the flask and put it away.
On the Monday before my birthday, Abraxas floo'd over to my room right after his breakfast and waited for me to be done with mine. I told Mother I was floo'ing over to the Malfoy's but would be back before dinner, kissed her goodbye and shut my bedroom door behind me. Then Abraxas and I changed into the muggle clothes our mothers had bought us for our annual trip to King's Cross station and climbed out of the window.
Once we were safely down the street, I stuck out my right hand.
"You sure about this?" Abraxas asked after a few seconds of nothing. I wasn't sure at all. I hadn't even heard of the Knight Bus until Tom mentioned it in one of his letters over the summer. Rich, pure blood families just didn't take public transportation.
"Tom says it works," I said. I stuck out my right hand again, feeling stupid.
Then out of nowhere a great rumbling filled the air. A bright purple vehicle, as tall as a house, came hurtling towards us. I grabbed Abraxas' arm and leapt backwards, away from the road. Moments later the bright purple vehicle ground to a halt where we were standing only moments ago.
Doors flew open.
"Knight bus," announced the driver without any enthusiasm. He was old and seemed grumpy even though it was only ten in the morning.
"We're headed to Wool's orphanage in Hackney. Do you know where that is?" I asked uncertainly.
The driver said nothing and only motioned for us to board the bus. Abraxas and I exchanged nervous glances and stepped onto the bus The doors closed behind us.
"That'll be five knuts apiece," said the driver. "And you'll want to grab seats before we start moving." He chuckled, his mood presumably improved by the thought of us losing our balance and falling over.
We paid up and moved all the way to the back of the bus, which only had one other passenger - an elderly and sickly looking man in tattered robes clutching a paper bag a few rows ahead of us. The driver revved up the engine, and with a violent lurch, the bus tore down the street faster than any vehicle I'd sat on before. The only other passenger on the bus heaved and threw up with a horrible sound into his paper bag.
Abraxas buried his face in the window glumly. "Riddle owes us big time," he muttered.
Wool's orphanage was a complex of brick buildings so austere looking that my first thought was that even St Mungo's had more cheer. The road leading into the complex ended at an iron gate that stood firmly closed. Behind the iron gate there was a clock tower, presumably the main building, which was flanked by two wings. All the windows were shut, all the curtains drawn. There was no sign of the life within.
There was a small park right next to the orphanage. Tom had written about being allowed out there with the other muggle children some evenings, but at this time in the morning the park was secluded and was an ideal location for Abraxas to take the Polyjuice potion. As an added precaution, he went to hide behind some bushes.
"How is it?" I called. I'd promised not to look and was facing the other way.
"Strong," Abraxas shouted back. "But also weirdly sweet. Tastes like rum."
"Is it working?"
"Nothing's happened yet but I feel all tingly inside and - ohhhhh!"
I swung around. Abraxas was doubled over like he was going to be sick. He began to convulse and I wondered if something had gone horribly wrong, if we'd picked up a mislabeled poison by accident or if the potion had gone bad, but then his body began to morph. His skin turned to jelly and started to stretch. His limbs grew longer. They thrashed about, too long and heavy for his child's body, and brought him tumbling down. Then his torso grew. It became longer, it changed shape. His blond hair turned black and shot downwards until it spilled all the way to his knees. His blue eyes darkened. Finally the shaking stopped.
Abraxas stood up and examined his new body with wonder.
"Amazing," he said in my mother's voice. "I have breasts now." He poked at my mother's bosom.
"We'd best get going," I said quickly, disturbed by the situation, "We only brought enough potion to last two hours."
I helped him into a dress (stolen from Mother's wardrobe) and carefully applied some red lipstick and blue eyeshadow (stolen from Mother's dresser) onto his face. My hands slipped a couple of times but I wiped off my mistakes as best as I could with my fingers. Then we tried to get his hair into Mother's customary bun, but it proved too difficult and so we just left it hanging loose around his knees.
In retrospect, our plan only worked because we were fooling muggles who didn't know any better. As far as they knew, it was beyond the realm of possibility for people to shapeshift into other people. The matron at Wool's orphanage was taken aback by Abraxas' smudged make up and wild hair when we showed up at her office, but it did not once cross her mind that he only looked that way because he was actually an eleven year old boy who had no idea how to approximate womanhood.
Tom knew almost immediately. When the matron called him to the office he stared confusedly at Abraxas for a moment, then had to turn around and feign a coughing fit so the matron wouldn't see him laughing.
"Tom," said the matron, when he had composed himself, "Your friend Alpha- Alph-"
"Alphard," I chimed in.
"Yes, Alphard, sorry dear. Your friend Alphard has invited you to his birthday party in Islington this coming Sunday. He's also very kindly invited you to stay with him for the rest of the summer, but I'm afraid that's against the policies here. Visits are capped at one week. Safety reasons, you see," said the matron, looking apologetically at Abraxas, who nodded sagely. The matron went on. "If you'd like, Tom, you can leave with your friend now and stay for the week. As long as you're back at Wool's by ten on Monday morning."
"Yes," said Tom immediately. "I want to. I'll leave now." He beamed at me. I beamed back.
"Why is there a picture of a dead man on the wall?" asked Abraxas in alarm. I looked up and saw that his attention had been caught by a photograph. It was a black and white, gold framed photograph of a handsome man wearing a brocaded shirt and many war medallions. The man was completely immobile, and Abraxas, having never seen a muggle photograph before, had jumped to the conclusion that he was dead.
"King George? Dead?" exclaimed the matron.
Tom burst out laughing.
And then we had seven days. Time, which had moved so slowly all summer, took on a different quality and became something precious, like nectar, like ambrosia. We cupped it in our hands and savoured each day before it slipped through our fingers.
For once, Tom forgot all about books and spells and studying. Every waking hour he had he spent outdoors with me and Abraxas. We flew and swam and ran and cartwheeled, we set our bodies free in the sun until our skin glowed.
On Tom's last night at 12 Grimmauld Place, which was also the night of my birthday, Father and Mother took the three of us and Cygnus by Portkey to the summer solstice carnival at Hampstead Heath, where Dolohov and Lestrange were already waiting for us. Every year the carnival took place in a different city, and this year was the first time in our short lives that it had come to London. I had never seen anything so massive and so alive. There were rides - a great ferris wheel turning slowly high above the crowd, roller coasters, water slides, and, most excitingly, a real live dragon that was trained to take you up to the clouds and circle the Heath for five minutes. There was a hall of mirrors, some of which made you look fat, some skinny, some old, some young again, there were fortune tellers and a menagerie of fantastical beasts, and there was a fighting ring where you could watch trolls wrestle and bet on the outcomes of matches.
As soon as we arrived, Dolohov and Lestrange promised Mother and Father that we'd meet them in an hour and dragged the rest of us boys off to the troll wrestling ring, claiming they'd waited all summer to see trolls tear each other apart. They weren't exaggerating; the trolls were indeed tearing each other limb from limb. One of the trolls was missing an ear, and I saw to my horror that the missing ear was lying discarded by our feet at the edge of the ring. Abraxas, who'd always been far more sensitive than he'd have ever admitted to being, leapt at the sight of the disembodied ear and immediately excused himself to use the bathroom.
Tom leaned over and muttered, "Want to get out of here?"
We left Dolohov and Lestrange with the rest of the roaring, bloodthirsty crowd that had amassed behind the rings and went to explore the fair on our own. We bought ice creams from an ice cream cart. As we licked our ice creams we drifted further and further away from the crowds and the lights and the noise and washed up on the edge of the Heath. Teenagers sat in circles, laughing and passing around flasks of Firewhiskey, or lay in pairs on the pillowy heath grass, kissing. No one paid any attention to us. I wondered about kissing. Someday I'd be old enough to want to kiss someone, and someday I would have my first kiss. I thought of all the girls in my year at Slytherin. I didn't want to kiss any of them now, but I supposed someday I'd wake up feeling differently about it.
"I didn't get you anything for your birthday," Tom said then.
I shrugged. "Doesn't matter," I said truthfully.
"But I thought of something else." He watched me nervously like he was waiting for my approval to go ahead. Then he made up his mind and reached into his robes and pulled out a small pocket knife. Before I could say anything, he raised the knife and slashed his palm open.
He said, "I know it's dramatic," but he didn't seem fazed by what he'd just done. We both stared at his bleeding palm. He went on,"But at the orphanage they took us to see a muggle movie this summer - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It's about a boy called Tom Sawyer who goes on adventures with his best friend, Huck Finn. Anyway, they make a blood pact. They slit their palms and shake hands."
"Wizards make blood pacts too," I said. "It's old magic. It can mean different things."
"Well I don't know if this is magic, but it means that we'll always be friends," he said. "You'll always have my loyalty." I couldn't remember a time when Tom Riddle had ever sounded his age. I wondered if he'd come out of the womb talking like an adult, about loyalty and forever and other grand things.
I took the pocket knife and ran it over my palm, hard.
I winced. "That stings," I said.
"I know. I'm sorry," said Tom. Then he touched his palm to mine. His bloodstream to mine.
"Friends," I said. "No, best friends."
"Always," he said.
Even though the night was warm I shivered. I couldn't have put it into words, but even then I knew we were on the cusp of something big.
