Monday, 27 December 1993
Granger Home, East Farleigh, Kent
Boxing Day passed sleepily in the Granger household. Mary spent most of it writing over two-dozen thank-you notes (and a proper letter to Catherine) and organizing them by mailing priority and general location. She figured that if Eirene could deliver three or four a night, they would all arrive before it became unspeakably rude of her not to have sent one. The rest of it was spent revisiting the debate of whether to simply replace her Nimbus 2001, or whether to try out the newer brooms on the market, with the added twist of whether she ought to seriously consider purchasing a dueling knife.
After nearly two hours of this, Hermione had irritably pointed out that her parents' work holiday was scheduled to come to an end the following day. The number of families who wanted their dental work done during their own week off from work or school, between Christmas and New Year's, was surprisingly high. If it turned out that there was no way for Mary to get to London in the first place, there was no way she could try out new brooms or even look at how much dueling knives cost.
It wasn't until she realized that she really might have to just owl-order a new Nimbus that Mary realized how much she actually wanted to try the others (especially if Draco had been right, and QQS was letting people test-fly their display Firebolt). By the time she woke up on Monday, she was trying to think of ways that she might make her way up to Diagon for a day. Perhaps she and Hermione could take a train up disguised as muggles? Or she could ask Professor McGonagall whether Trainee Auror Tonks was available to escort them, and they could just floo. She briefly considered sneaking up via floo while the Grangers were at work, but given her luck, she would probably be kidnapped by Sirius Black when she went to check out that armory Neville had mentioned.
Asking the Professor about Tonks was probably the best bet, she decided, and resolved to do so as soon as would be reasonably polite.
She never had the chance.
She suspected that the adults had arranged Professor McGonagall's visit specifically so that the girls couldn't get into too much trouble on their first unsupervised day of vacation. If they had, it worked better than they could possibly have expected: Mary had decided that the Grangers' usual housekeeping standards weren't really up to the one Aunt Petunia had trained her to maintain, nor the image she wanted to project for her first attempt at hostessing, so she had spent most of Monday morning and the early part of the afternoon bringing the rooms the Professor was likely to see up to snuff and baking tea-cakes, crumpets, and shortbread in preparation for her arrival. Hermione had raised an eyebrow at both the voluntary cleaning and Mary's explanation of what she was doing, grabbed a leftover slice of the Yule Log for breakfast, and headed straight back to her bed and a novel.
Housework, Mary decided, was much easier when everyone stayed out of your way, rather than deliberately tracking in mud, licking or putting handprints on the windows and mirrors, and strewing their toys about five minutes after she had finished putting them away. Everything was clean, including Mary, her robes pressed, her hair dried and pinned up (neatly, for once), tea-trays and nibbles arranged well before the appointed time. She was setting the table when Hermione reappeared.
She smirked. "You look like a 1950s housewife."
It was true. Mary was wearing a crimson day-robe with bloomers and an under-skirt instead of trousers, and her low-heeled Mary Janes instead of her usual dragonhide boots. She had also spent the day preparing for this visit like a 1950s housewife, cooking and cleaning with a house-proud eye to appearances, far beyond the bare necessities of tidiness. It was an attitude Aunt Petunia had attempted to foster in her at an early age, and the Urquharts' society lessons reinforced (albeit at a more upper-class level – less chores, more delegating to the House Elves). She found she didn't mind the work nearly so much when it was her own pride as a hostess on the line. She wanted to prove that she was capable of putting the lessons Catherine had drummed into her into practice on her own ground. It was different than being a guest, which was more or less how every other tea she had attended had gone, from those at the Urquharts' to Christmas tea in Aunt Minnie's quarters, to Daphne's parties at school. Plus it wasn't as though she had really had anything else to do today.
She just shrugged. "Sometimes I like to dress up."
"Really?" Hermione raised an eyebrow. "I've never seen you before." Her tone was almost accusatory.
"I was wearing pretty much this exact same thing when I went over to Neville's, literally two days ago, Mary pointed out.
"I thought you were dressing up for Christmas."
The younger girl shook her head. "I wear this kind of thing all the time at the Urquharts'. Less so before my birthday, but even then I still had to dress up for tea. Anyway, I'm not a little kid anymore. You know how our uniforms changed this year? They're really strict about what young adults wear, even more outside of school."
Hermione looked down at her own faded denims and the jumper Mary knew was her favorite. It had faded over years of washing, and the neck was all stretched out of shape. "I should probably change, shouldn't I?"
Mary laughed. "I kind of doubt the Professor's going to hold you to the same standards she would me, or any of the other girls from Noble Houses. I have to learn to fit in with them. You don't."
The brunette gave a put-upon sigh. "There's a difference between being held to that standard and looking like an unkempt frumpet in comparison. I'll be back." She turned on her heel and stalked away, muttering about outdated sensibilities.
By the time she returned, wearing a green Christmas dress and black tights, with her hair plaited more or less into submission, Mary was welcoming the Professor into the house. She did her best to imitate Mary's greeting. Mary hid a smile, and made a mental note to teach Hermione the proper curtsey she ought to use, because it definitely wasn't the same for a muggleborn and an heir of a Noble House (and she suspected that most society matrons would find it more offensive if said muggleborn tried and failed to fit in than if she hadn't tried at all). The three of them made small-talk for a while, and Mary and the Professor exchanged gifts. Mary took her cue from the Professor in setting them aside to open later, understanding that it would be rude to do so in front of Hermione, when she hadn't received anything.
Right around the time the settled down at the table (with approving nods at Mary's efforts, and much appreciative eyeing of the shortbread on the Professor's part), when Mary was just about to bring up Neville's suggestion that she look into a dueling knife, her need of a new broom, and the fact that she was considering if and how it might be possible to get to London before the end of the holiday, Professor McGonagall dropped a bomb-shell.
"You might be interested in a most fascinating piece of correspondence I received only this morning, Miss Mary," she said with a small, cat-like smile, her eyes glinting with suppressed glee.
"Whyever so?" Mary asked. Hermione eyed her quietly. She had kept her mouth shut for the most part after the introductions, which was so far out of character for her that Mary suspected she must feel very out of place in the formal atmosphere. The Slytherin had to admit, it was kind of nice to see how far she had come in the past two years, that she could hold this conversation, playing hostess as she was, and maintain that atmosphere with only a little effort.
"Well, you see, Mary, dear, it has come to my attention through a contact at the Ministry that the Firebolt Broom Manufacturing Company attempted to make a delivery to you, scheduled to arrive on Christmas Eve. Due to some confusion about your current location, the package was returned to the sender, and it was only today that they contacted me as your guardian to determine whether I was authorized to take delivery on your behalf."
Mary blinked twice. Her jaw fell open. She closed it and blinked again, every thought of propriety scattered to the wind in an instant. "Are you telling me someone tried to send me a Firebolt for Christmas?!"
Professor McGonagall laughed aloud. "Indeed, lass. And before you ask, no, I don't know who it was – the representative I talked to this morning says that the order was put in anonymously nearly two months ago, through the goblins."
"I can't believe it! This is too good to be true! Please tell me you took delivery!" Hermione was laughing at her now as well, but Mary didn't care.
"It'll be arriving at the Castle tomorrow morning by direct owl-post," the Professor grinned. "I'll have it placed in your room. I daresay young Mr. Flint will have you out putting it through its paces the day you return."
Mary groaned. "That's nearly two weeks! I can't wait that long!"
Hermione sniggered. "It's just a broom, Lizzie."
"We have been through this, Maia! It's not just a broom! It's the best broom! Bar none. I wasn't even considering it as a replacement – I've got to tell Malfoy. He's going to be so jealous!"
This brought forth another wave of laughter from the other witches. The stiff air of formality well and truly broken, the three of them settled into a comfortable chat about their holidays thus far, and their plans for the remainder of the break. The girls had no plans whatsoever, aside from lazing and enjoying their break from classes, but Professor McGonagall was heading to her family home for a brief visit with her brother and his children before term resumed, and would be spending some time with the Urquharts as well. She had, in fact, already spent Yule with them, and had volunteered to pass along a message to Mary, inviting her to stay the night with them on January second, and then attend the first Wizengamot session of 1994 with Lord Urquhart the following day.
Hermione had asked if she would be able to attend as well, simply to get a better feel for how the government of Magical Britain worked, and had sulked for nearly half an hour when Professor McGonagall informed her that members of the public were required to submit an application to attend any given session, and that she would not be allowed to apply on her own behalf until she was of age. The only reason Mary was invited was that she would be expected to take up the Potter seat when she came of age, and needed to learn how things worked before then. Mary promised to relate everything she observed during the session in the smallest detail, but even that only seemed to frustrate the older girl – apparently having to rely on second-hand information regarding the operation of the government ran counter to her Ravenclaw principles.
The Slytherin suspected that her friend was already plotting to find some other way to weasel her way into the government chambers over the summer, because she perked up considerably when the Professor mentioned that there was a section for the press, and that Lords occasionally brought along legal aides or secretaries to advise them on precedent when casting votes, or keep track of events that would not be captured in the official minutes. Mary wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out that Hermione just so happened to want to get a summer job as a legal intern or take over her father's role as a 'Special Correspondent' for the Quibbler to get a Press Pass.
After that, the conversation wound down quickly. Mary did get the Trainee Auror's contact information from the Professor, in the interests of potentially taking a trip up to Diagon to go shopping for a day, though she had to admit, that trip was less of a priority now that she already had a Firebolt waiting for her back at the Castle. Professor McGonagall took her leave, and the girls spent the remainder of the afternoon eating leftover crumpets, watching Aladdin on VHS, and discussing whether a flying carpet would theoretically be easier to enchant than a broom.
Friday, 31 December 1993
Granger Home, East Farleigh, Kent
Mary slept in on the morning of New Year's Eve, in deference to the fact that she and Hermione were planning on staying up at least until midnight that evening. She woke and drifted off again several times as she heard the elder Grangers moving about, but stubbornly rolled over and refused to get out of bed until the older girl did. By the time they made it downstairs, it was half past ten, and the house was otherwise deserted. Dan had a few patients to see before they closed the practice for the weekend, but Emma had just said something the night before about not having to go in, so Mary had expected her to be around somewhere. Instead, there was a note on the counter by the sink.
"What's in Wiltshire?" she asked Hermione, as the older girl padded into the kitchen. Mary was already mixing pancake batter, eager to do something after lying in for so long.
"Um… Salisbury? Stonehenge? Chalk? Sheep?" The answer was strangely muffled as her friend hunted through the refrigerator.
"Why would your mum go there?"
"Has she?"
"Gone to Wiltshire to lunch, should be back before dinner," Mary read.
The older girl yawned. "Maybe that's where the Malfoys live. She's been dropping hints for ages that she's got someone on the hook to help out with IMP that we'd never expect, and I'm pretty sure it's Narcissa Malfoy. Are we really out of milk?"
"I already got it out," the cook answered absentmindedly, considering this information.
IMP, the Informed Muggle Parents' network, had started out as an informal networking sort of thing between the parents the Grangers had met at the Muggleborn shopping trip in August. Reading between the lines of what Emma had written over the course of the term, and what she had said over the past two weeks, the group was still little more than a monthly newsletter filled with summaries of major headline news (for those who didn't get the Prophet), especially related to Hogwarts or muggle or muggleborn rights; a few articles on the best tactics for dealing with the Ministry; and contact information so that parents could get together and bond over the difficulties of raising magical children, or arrange playdates for their younger kids who were already showing signs of magic. Two of the other mothers, Mrs. Fletcher and Mrs. Taylor, had taken on the role of writing and editing it.
The group's eventual goals were twofold: to have some input on the decisions of Hogwarts' Board of Governors, possibly in the form of something like a PTA, and to find a way to reform the muggleborn integration process, so that future muggle parents would have resources and explanations for all the weird things that happened around their children the first time accidental magic happened, rather than being repeatedly obliviated or slowly going mad wondering what the hell was going on. A few of the witches who were in on the letter-writing and petition campaign were supporting them, but they were having difficulties gaining any real traction outside of that group, because the number of wizards who took muggles seriously was incredibly low.
"Seriously? Narcissa Malfoy? I thought Mrs. Diggory and Mrs. Tonks were working on getting the more-influential Light supporters on their side."
Hermione's bushy curls reappeared from the pantry. "What was that?"
Mary didn't bother repeating herself. "We are talking about the mother of Draco Malfoy, prat extraordinaire? Pureblood bigot? Leading member of the Allied Dark Bloc?"
"I don't think she is, actually. A bigot, I mean. If you look at her voting record and the transcripts of the speeches she's made since she took over the Malfoy seat in the Wizengamot, her views, or at least the ones she'll admit in public, aren't really that unreasonable for a Dark Traditionalist. What did dad do with the confectioners' sugar?"
"Lucius Malfoy was definitely a Death Eater, though. I don't think even Draco believes his Imperius Defense," Mary pointed out. "And we used the rest of the powdered sugar on the Yule Log."
The sugar fiend, who had been taking advantage of the presence of normally-forbidden sweets as much as possible since Christmas, pulled a face. "Fine, I guess I'll make due. Anyway, the fact that the Malfoys managed to weather the end of the war with most of their fortune, influence, and reputation intact should tell you something, shouldn't it?"
Mary wasn't getting it. "What? That the entire magical world is corrupt to the core?"
Hermione rolled her eyes with a tisk. "Narcissa has been in charge of the official House Malfoy political stance since she became Lady Malfoy in… 1977. Pureblood supremacy was already a failing position politically even then, when the Dark Lord was still gaining power outside of the Wizengamot. She shifted their official line to be more about maintaining traditional values and the rule of the elite, and generally defensible."
"Your mum's still a muggle, though. There's no room in traditional values and maintaining the Wizengamot nobility or whatever for getting muggles involved in Magical Britain." Even if pureblood supremacy was politically incorrect, magical superiority was alive and well in Magical Britain. Even Professor McGonagall didn't really think muggles were as capable as wizards.
The older girl smirked and shook her head, hair flying. "That's what Mandy said when I ran this by her, but you're overlooking that Malfoy is absolutely ruthless in her politics. She's obviously willing to say and do whatever she has to, to maintain her power and influence, even if it means publically renouncing the Dark Lord and her sister and pureblood supremacy. Embracing the demographic shift and working with a muggle group would be minor in comparison. If she spins it right, it will be a bloody coup when it comes out that the Allied Dark are behind IMP."
"I can't see the other Dark Houses being okay with it, though. They're mostly traditionalists."
"They're also mostly pragmatic. You know how the Dark are more in favor of Creature Rights?"
"They're really more anti-regulation," the Slytherin clarified. Creature rights had been a big topic of conversation in the common room over the last few weeks of the term.
"Whatever. It plays out as the Dark being in favor of greater rights for most sentient creatures, and means that most sentient creatures are on their side, politically speaking. I think, if it really is Lady Malfoy that mum's been talking to, and like I said, she has been dropping hints, then she'd try to play it like that, taking the moral high ground from the Light by undermining their claim to support muggles and muggleborns. Plus, if the Dark have influence over IMP, they can undermine Dumbledore's influence over Hogwarts by nudging parents and children toward Dark values before they get to school.
"And then there's the issue of the long-term political landscape. According to Arrowgate, it's only a matter of time until one of the Allied Dark Houses caves to expediency and begins courting muggleborns. It's all related to Democratic Expansionism. Given the voting trends over the past twenty years, it's probably twelve years at the outside until the Expansionists get the majority they need to create a House of Commons equivalent. Arithmancy Quarterly had an article on it back in September. The Magical British public almost overwhelmingly supports the Light agenda, because the Light is the side that has traditionally supported policies favoring the Ministry, and the Ministry is currently the only way most of us have to affect the government. Unless the Dark starts making major inroads on public opinion in the next five years, the newly expanded Wizengamot is likely to be flooded by new members who will start voting for greater regulation and restrictions on the traditional privileges of the Noble Houses, and they'll be steamrolled."
Mary knew most of that, she realized on reflection, but she hadn't heard it put together in quite that way. Her lessons with Catherine hadn't quite extended to predicting those sort of interactions yet. "But you really think that Malfoy is going to be the one to make that first move?"
Hermione shrugged. "I do. The Parliamentarians, that's the Ravenclaw political analysis club, have a pool going on it, and most of the older students' money is on Yaxley or Rowle in the next three years. I think they're underestimating House Malfoy because of Lucius' history, and the way Draco acts in public. Lord Yaxley and Lord Rowle weren't actually Death Eaters, even though there were Death Eaters in their families. But like I said, if you look at the transcripts, the way the Malfoys vote is borderline neutral."
"I never thought I'd say this, but Ravenclaw might be out-politicking Slytherin," Mary admitted lightly.
The other girl laughed. "Don't worry, we only talk about politics, and debate the what-ifs. Slytherin's still got us beat hands-down when it comes to actually getting involved in politicking. Speaking of which, you'll win me twenty galleons if you start your own political bloc before you leave school."
"Wait, what?"
"I got really long odds on House Potter starting its own voting bloc when you finally get to take over your own Seat."
"Seriously? That's like, four years away!" Even as she said it, Mary didn't know whether she thought that was too far out to say what she would be doing, or far too soon to pull together an actual political alliance.
Hermione laughed again. "Apparently they've been betting on which camp you'll fall in with since you got Sorted. I didn't find out about it until I started having a bit more free time this year."
Mary gaped at her. The Ravenclaw politics club was betting on her future political decisions. It was… absurd. And also incredibly unnerving. Catherine had been telling her for ages that she was an important public figure, and she knew about Mary Potter Day (equally ridiculous) and the quasi-legendary status she had among the incoming students (both for being the Girl Who Lived and the Heir of Slytherin). But the awkward hero-worshipping stares and the newspaper articles, and even the whole situation with Daphne and her tea parties hadn't brought the idea home quite like this, that people she'd never spoken to or even met actually cared what kind of decisions she was likely to make four or more years in the future.
She was just Mary! She was thirteen! She cared about Quidditch and hanging out with her friends and, and making pancakes, for fuck's sake! Not starting her own gods-cursed political party at the age of seventeen!
But that was (apparently) the sort of thing other people expected her to do. It was a very uncomfortable realization, and she found she didn't particularly want to think about it at the moment.
Instead, she changed the subject, flipping the last pancake onto the serving plate. "Speaking of free time, what have you been up to all term?"
Despite Hermione's promise (or at least strong insinuation) that they would be able to catch up over this holiday, they still hadn't really talked much about anything that had been going on all term. At first, they had been avoiding being alone with each other after their fight at the Moons', and then Emma and Dan had been around, anyway, making the most of their week off by spending as much time as possible with the girls. Mary knew better than to bring up the question of what Hermione had been doing with all her turned time when her parents were around, as she strongly suspected that Hermione hadn't told them exactly how much she was using the enchanted device. Then she had spent Monday preparing for the Professor's visit, and she supposed she had just been avoiding bringing it up since then, mostly because she still felt a little bad about ruining Hermione's chances as a Junior Unspeakable or whatever the program was called. She was curious, though.
"I've been waiting for you to ask about that," the older girl said with a mischievous smile, helping herself to breakfast. "I have so much to catch you up on!"
And then she was off. Mary applied herself to the food and simply nodded along as Hermione chattered away in a way she hadn't heard in months – in a more animated, less lecturing tone than her report on the Ravenclaws' political analyses, or the one she used when they were working on homework together.
"I've already told you about working on studying for my O-levels, right? Well, I've finished with all the Year 8 material, and about half of Year 9. I really like Geometry – it makes so much sense with Arithmancy. Well, with more dimensions. I've also been reading ahead in the magical subjects, because I figured, well… why not? I could probably take my OWLs at the end of the year – not that I would – I'd rather wait and get O's on everything than try to take them soon and just do alright. That takes up about half of my free time in any given week. I've been trying to keep a low profile about the Turner, so I've really only been showing up to the MSA, as far as extra-curriculars go. I don't know if I mentioned, we voted on officers at the second meeting. Penny's the President, now, Eric's VP, and I'm the Secretary." She frowned slightly.
Mary hid a grin. After Hermione's speech at the first meeting, she could guess why she hadn't been made President. "I'm sorry," she said insincerely. "If it helps, I'm not an officer for the Dueling Club at all."
"No, it doesn't particularly, but it's not important," the older girl obviously lied, and quickly changed the subject. "I stumbled onto the Parliamentarians in October. It's very informal. It's kind of an offshoot of the Arithmancy club, and it's been around for years, but they don't have official meetings or anything. They just hang out at their table in the Common Room, and debate models and make predictions whenever they have time. And then bet on them. John Arrowgate is in charge of it, but he's less of a President and more of a bookie."
The younger girl giggled at that description, and Hermione gave her a wry grin. "Don't tell me you thought Slytherin had cornered the market on in-school gambling."
"No, of course not!" she laughed. She hadn't actually given the matter much thought.
"Yes, well, in any case, I've been spending quite a bit of time studying with them, and with Padma and Mandy, when I'm not with you and Lilian at the library. Only the things I should be studying, you know. Homework. Padma and Mandy are still pretending they don't know about the time turner." She stressed her Ravenclaw friends' names in a way that suggested she was still a bit sore over the fact that her Slytherin friends weren't doing the same.
"You're not, um… still upset about that, are you?" Mary asked hesitantly.
Hermione sighed. "No. I mean, I have gotten a lot more done these last few months, learned a lot, and I can't really complain about that, so I guess I can't complain about you guys pushing me into taking that first step, either. I just wish you'd had better timing, or something. I don't know."
"Sorry." This time, Mary meant it.
"No, it's fine. Don't apologize. Anyway. That's the… less sketchy part of what I've been up to, basically. The more sketchy part is, well... I've been doing loads of theoretical reading on blood wards and protective rituals, possession, soul magic… and basically anything else I could think of that would help us figure out what happened with you and the Dark Lord and Riddle, and what Dumbledore and your mum might have done, and how it all fits together."
"I'm kind of surprised you've found anything about any of that. It sounds… really dark."
"It is. It's um… a little horrifying. Like, really, really awful. The things wizards can do to each other with magic…" she shuddered. "Dying is the least of your worries if a real dark wizard decides to torture you. I've had nightmares about the things I've read," she admitted.
Mary could believe it. The older girl had spent most of the nights since they had been sharing a room tossing and turning, and she always seemed to wake up tired. "So you really have been camping out in the Restricted Section, then?" she asked, trying to inject some levity into the conversation.
"Kind of… the thing is, and you have to promise you're not going to be upset about this, and you can't tell anyone, either, not even Lilian, understand?" She paused, and Mary nodded eagerly, too curious to think of doing otherwise. "The thing is, I've kind of been doing like… an independent study of sorts, with Snape."
"You've what?" the Slytherin sat back, shocked. "How the hell did you manage that?"
"Well… it started that first week I started triple-timing it. Snape held me after Potions, because I guess he noticed I'd been popping up too much where I shouldn't have been, back before I quite figured out how to make the logistics work without being too suspicious. And he told me that more or less everything I knew about the history of time turners was wrong – apparently they're a Death Eater invention, really – and he gave me a detention so I could read through his log of the time travel mishaps he's had to fix since he started working at Hogwarts. Um… mostly in an effort to make sure I'd be careful, I'm sure.
"And then a few weeks later, I ran out of references in the open section of the library, since most of what I needed to have a look at was Restricted, or outright Banned, so I asked him if he'd give me a pass to the Restricted Section. I thought he would be the best one to ask, since he has an interest in what's going on with the Dark Lord, as well, and, well, I wouldn't have to lie about what I wanted to look up and why, like I would if I asked Professor Flitwick. He asked me what topics I was interested in, and then he said that there was no way he was going to let have open access to any of it, but that if I was willing to write research reports for him, as more of a guided reading, and have a meeting with him to discuss them every week, he'd give me an unrestricted pass. I agreed, of course. I mean, wouldn't you?"
Mary nodded. Of course she would. Any Slytherin would, and probably any Ravenclaw as well. She was slightly jealous, actually. (Less so than she would have been before their detentions, and Snape demonstrating that he didn't actually care for her more than any other student, but still…) "Did you find anything that looks promising?"
"Well, not right away. It's hard to say what will end up being useful, though. Everything's so interconnected. He usually gives me an essay topic for each week, and I turn it in to him on Friday, and we meet up after he's had a chance to read it over. But since I have three times as many hours, I normally get through summarizing all the available literature a day or two early, and then I can spend as much time as I want looking into other things, like really advanced magical theory and philosophy, digging deeper into what the Powers actually are and how magic actually works, and we talk about that, too."
"Why?"
"Well, partly out of curiosity, of course," the Ravenclaw grinned. (Mary rolled her eyes. Of course.) "And partly for more background on the topics I'm summarizing for Snape. But also because that's the direction freeform magic and the question of spontaneous magical tattooing seemed to be taking me.
"Best guess on that, by the way, is that the Libra is your token, the sign that represents you in your personal runic lexicon. That's a semi-unconscious association thing that comes up in books on scrying, enchanting, and advanced, personalized wardcrafting. It's kind of obscure, since most of the people who would be doing that kind of magic or even just being keyed into wards in a way that they would need to identify a symbol for themselves would also be presented to magic at a very young age, but if you've already identified your token before you're presented to magic, the theory is that it's kind of encoded in your magical signature, an indelible part of your personal identity, and the mark forms as a symbol of the connection between your personal magic and outside magic or Magic with a capital 'M.'"
"Okay, but there's only one problem with that theory," Mary said, raising an eyebrow at the rather long-winded (and, toward the end, breathless) explanation.
"What's that?"
"I've never found this symbol or token or whatever for myself. I don't even know how you would."
Hermione hesitated. "I thought of that. I figured you'd've known the significance of it, if you remembered that it was your token. I actually set it aside as an explanation for a while for exactly that reason. But then I was reading a book on designating individuals' roles in multi-person ritual creation, just a few days before break, and, well… It was kind of archaic language, but I think it was saying that the token can be used for that, along with any of the four humors, or your name, especially if it's signed by your own hand. So I started thinking it might have had something to do with… whatever happened in the Chamber of Secrets and it… it feels right.
"We already know there was some kind of Black Arts ritual going on down there. Did you know that Snape went down and looked over the evidence for signs of what exactly had happened?"
"No, no one's mentioned anything to me," Mary admitted. She didn't mind, really. She would much rather not think about the Chamber of Secrets at all most of the time.
Hermione nodded. "He said most of it had been cleaned up before he got there. There was one circle that was burnt into the floor, and a couple of areas that had been cleaned with scouring charms. He says there were magical traces of manifestations of the Binding, Chaotic, Constructive and Destructive Powers, and at least three ritual events distinct from the one that went with the circle that was burnt into the floor. We're still trying to decipher exactly what that would have done, by the way. There were physical traces of basilisk blood in a few spots that he says are most likely from blood-linked runes. We only know that, though, because it kind of ate away at the stone a bit. Activating the runes would have erased the actual magical traces and the runes were scoured away, after, so we don't know how or why it was used. It seems like a good chance your blood was used in linking runes as well. There were a couple of rocks that had been transfigured multiple times, with traces of your blood on them, mixed with chalk. So it would make sense if your 'token' was used somehow."
"Oh." Mary couldn't think of anything else to say to that. She supposed it was good to know that there were some leads as to what had happened down there, even if she didn't know what good they would actually do. "Is there anything I can do to help? With the research, and figuring things out, I mean?"
"I'll ask, but I kind of doubt it," Hermione said blithely. "It's mostly down to figuring out what runes he used in the burnt circle and why, at the moment, and looking for rituals that might have involved any or all of those Powers, and books with that kind of information are hard to come by. Snape has quite a good collection, and decent contacts to borrow or acquire others, but they're mostly Banned, and some are even Anathema, so it can be tricky finding references or examples that might have served as inspiration."
"Inspiration?" Mary interrupted.
Hermione snorted humorlessly. "Part of the problem of trying to figure out what happened in the Chamber, or with your mum in 1981, is that most of the actual rituals, and the more dangerous curse incantations, for that matter, are lost or locked up tight in family grimoires, or were deliberately destroyed by the Wizengamot as too dangerous, after their creators were killed or arrested for going rogue and actually using them on other people. The Restricted Section is mostly histories and descriptions when it comes to curses: theory, not instructions. They're Restricted so that they won't give anyone bad ideas."
The younger girl felt a flood of relief at the answer to a question she hadn't realized she'd been holding back. "So you're not actually learning Dark Arts or Black Arts, or whatever?"
"Well… I kind of am, but kind of not. See, learning Dark Arts isn't quite like learning Charms or Transfiguration. I have picked up a load of nasty hexes and jinxes – not that I've actually cast them," she hastened to add. "Battle magic, basically, that's Restricted because it's too destructive for students to be messing around with. Snape says that stuff is politically 'Dark Arts,' but not inherently dark magic.
"Maleficium, the Greater Dark Art that gets conflated with political 'Dark Arts,' is less about learning proper wand movements and incantations and more about… assimilating the mentality behind it, I suppose. I mean, there are wand movements and incantations and arithmantic breakdowns and diagrams, but, well… Snape says that the heart of the Maleficia is finding ways to express malicious intent via magic. It's very… personalized. Individualistic. Emotional. Visceral. It all comes down to intent, power, and control. There are proper curses, of course, but, well… it really is an art, more than anything."
The bit about intent, power, and control sounded vaguely familiar, but Mary couldn't place it. "Is it this creepy when Snape talks about it?" she had to ask. It was one thing to see her friend babble excitedly over her latest academic exploits, but it was something else entirely when she was talking about the Greater Dark Arts and malicious intent.
Hermione flushed. "I don't know what you're talking about," she lied.
"Art? Visceral? The Dark Arts?"
"Okay, fine, yes, I know it's a bit creepy," the older girl admitted, sticking out her tongue. "But it's fascinating, and yes, to answer your question, Snape is way worse. He called the Maleficia an ever-shifting hydra, fueled by the basest instincts of mankind, and limited only by human imagination in its effects. His exact words were that it is 'unfixed and ultimately indestructible; constant only in its inconstancy, and tenacious its flexibility. Wherever it is rooted out, it invariably crops up again, the form subtly different, perhaps, but drawing on the same foundation, the fundamental darkness of the human species reflected in the greatest of Arts. The Maleficia and the Beneficia lie equally close to directing Magic in its purest, unadulterated form, but the Maleficia are by far the more powerful, for the human capacity for inflicting cruelty and suffering on each other far outstrips our natural ability or inclination simply to be good…'"
Mary shivered. Snape did have a way with words. Even if Hermione couldn't quite capture his intensity and subtle shifts in tone, the general inflection was enough for the Slytherin to imagine her head of house making his speech, lingering over the description with a sort of caustic appreciation for the magic he discussed. It reminded her of the speech he had given when he introduced them all to Potions, way back at the beginning of first year, but far more disturbing.
She had the impression that she was getting an illicit, second-hand look at the reason the man had become a Death Eater in the first place, so long ago.
"You know what? I take it back. I'm not jealous of you at all." Hermione raised an eyebrow, and she realized that she hadn't ever said that she did envy the other girl aloud, but that didn't matter. "Doesn't it, I don't know… wig you out?"
The Ravenclaw sighed, and pushed her plate away so she could put her elbows on the table. She rested her hands on her shoulders, and her chin on her crossed wrists. It was one of her favorite reading positions. Mary thought it made her look ridiculous, especially when she was talking.
"It did, at first," she admitted. "I mean, it's not like I didn't know there were bad people in the world, even before Hogwarts. I did. I watch the news, and read the papers – I know about that nurse Allitt who was killing kids in hospital, and things like the illegal slave trade and the Gulf War and Sierra Leone. But until this year, I just… didn't realize how much worse those people can be if they have magic."
The Slytherin refrained from asking how that hadn't crossed her friend's mind at any point after they had known that Voldemort had been in the bloody school two years in a row, and bit her tongue on pointing out that they had been 'those people' when it came to the Conspiracy. It was just as well: Hermione was still talking.
"I didn't think about how much scarier war can be, when everyone basically has a loaded gun at all times. It's… I'm still adjusting to it, to be perfectly honest. I just… It's a bit like when I learned that vampires and werewolves and all the monsters out of muggle myths were real, and more. But I'm getting used to it."
Mary gave her an understanding nod, but that wasn't really what she had meant. "I actually meant isn't it weird having Snape talk about the Dark Arts like that, though, not that dark wizards exist in general."
Hermione cocked her head to the side slightly. "We both knew he was a Death Eater."
"Well, yeah, but he isn't really… obvious about it. Yeah, he plays up the stereotype with the robes and the attitude, but he doesn't ever make a big deal of being a dark wizard. He never talks about the war, and definitely not in a way that sounds like he's still really into the Dark Arts."
"Well, it's not like telling me is making it public," the older girl smiled ruefully, sitting up again. "But that is part of the reason I said you really couldn't tell anyone. He was pretty clear that if word got out what we were doing, it would stop immediately. Dumbledore wouldn't like it, and it some, well… a lot of the books I've been reading are illegal."
"Are you worried about that?" One of the lessons Mary had learned in detention was that Hogwarts was a major legal grey-area, but if Dumbledore wanted to press charges against Snape for giving a student access to illegal texts, her Head of House would almost certainly end up in Azkaban.
"Snape thinks that the worst-case scenario would be Dumbledore confiscating and destroying the books, and maybe forbidding all contact between us outside of class. And it's important to include them in the research, because a lot of them weren't banned fifty years ago, so Riddle easily could have gotten access to them. Any one of them could have been an important influence on his thinking."
"That inspiration thing you were talking about earlier?" Mary asked, realizing that they had strayed far from the topic of her original question.
"Ah… yes," Hermione said, clearly mentally backtracking as well. "Even back then, there wouldn't really have been anyone teaching Dark Arts at Hogwarts. I said that most dark arts texts are actually histories or descriptive, not instructive, right? And that they're hidden away so that we won't get bad ideas?" Mary nodded. "Well, part of that is because the actual means of casting curses tend to be kept hidden, or destroyed, or else counters are developed for them fairly quickly. But one of the reasons the Maleficia are so varied and hard to fight is that any wizard with a certain amount of power and creativity has the potential to come up with his own ways of creating a given effect, that can't necessarily be countered by the same means that work on older curses with similar effects, because he had to start from scratch when he was designing it.
"The reason I said I kind of am learning the Maleficia is a lot of dark wizards and witches start by doing what I'm doing, researching what's already been done and getting a feel for different techniques and styles in the abstract, and the sort of things that dark magic can do – those things are easier to replicate simply because they've been done before.
"Snape says that's part of reifying a curse, convincing the universe to act in a certain way in response to your magic's influence, and it's easier if there's already… an imprint, sort of, for your curse to follow. It will tend to flow through the same channels, even if you effected it differently. Even if there's not really a step-by-step guide to casting each spell available, with wand movements and incantations, there are sort of well-worn paths, enough that it's relatively easy for dark wizards to tweak existing neutral or light spells and give them a more malevolent twist, and they'll still work, albeit somewhat less efficiently.
"So I couldn't necessarily create a spell from scratch, but I could probably put enough dark intent behind a Severing Charm to result in a variation that would cut a person to the bone, instead of just giving you a scratch like Lilian did when she missed the target in class. That variation wouldn't necessarily have exactly the same arithmantic breakdown as if, say… Theo did it, even though it would still have the same effects, because our magic would be basically improvising. And both of them would be different from if you actually knew enough spellcrafting to work in arithmantic variables to resist healing charms, or carry a secondary curse into the wound, or optimize the efficiency. That would be a new curse altogether, and somewhat harder to reify and cast reliably, but still easier than, say… a curse to make all of your hairs ingrown, because there are dozens of dark cutting curses that follow the same path or channel, and I've only come across one ingrown hair curse."
Mary made a face at that. Ingrown hairs were just gross. Hermione ignored her. "Point is, we're assuming that Riddle would have learned the Dark Arts basically the same way, by seeing or thinking of an effect he wanted to duplicate, and then tweaking existing spells and rituals to accomplish that task. It's kind of an analogous process, developing new rituals and developing new curses. At least some of what he was doing would have fallen more in line with Subsumation rather than Maleficium, but since Subsumation has been Anathema since before the Statute, it's a bit more likely that he was basically re-inventing the wheel using what he could pick up of Maleficium techniques, than that he was actually basing them on proper Subsumation rituals."
"What exactly is Subsumation? And anathema?" Mary asked, getting a word in edgewise for the first time in ages.
"Anathema means that the Wizengamot and later the Ministry and the International Confederation, have systematically destroyed any information they can find on how to do it, and, erm… Subsumation is Vampirism, basically. Not just the blood-drinking sort, thought. Visanguination is one of the less-dangerous aspects of it, actually, from what I understand. It's the Greater Dark Art that has to do with adding to your own power or life or strength at the expense of someone else's. Stealing Ginny's life-force and magic would have been Subsumation, specifically a Lesser Art called Captandum, life-capturing or spark-theft.
"Subsumation as a whole is considered too dangerous to exist because it can, theoretically, allow wizards to become ridiculously powerful, gain eternal youth, and live forever by preying on each other. Its sub-disciplines include life-drinking, ambient power assimilation, power-sapping, psychic or sexual vampirism and so on. Practicing any of them is considered Unforgivable, which means a one-way trip through the Veil, or life in Nurmengard or Azkaban, if they think death is too easy for you. Some creatures like vampires and Lilin rely on similar techniques for basic survival, and can be killed for using them on wizards. It's technically illegal for them to feed on muggles, too, in most countries, but that's almost impossible to enforce.
"Anyway, we're working off the theory that Riddle didn't know there is a theoretical distinction between the different Greater Dark Arts, at least when he made his first horcrux, so I've been looking for anything that seems vaguely related to the hints I've got from Ginny and from what you've told me, for anything that might help us figure out what he was doing in the Chamber. It's slow going, though, and it doesn't help that we don't really know for certain what the purpose of the ritual was."
"Creating a body," Mary suggested promptly.
"Well, that is our first guess, too. There's a very distinct, 'I won't be trapped in this diary forever, Ginevra,' sort of theme to Gin's memories, and he did outright tell you that was what he wanted. And one of the three bits we don't have circles for was probably destroying the horcrux. And maybe one to bind the soul from the horcrux to the body? The real question is how he would have created the body, and bound them together, and whether the rituals he used would have had any side-effects for you and the Weasleys." At the look on Mary's face, she added consolingly, "The fact that we haven't seen any so far suggests not, but you can't really be too careful with this kind of thing."
"Do I even want to know what kind of side effects we're talking about?"
"No. Definitely not." Hermione shivered and made a face. Her eyes looked haunted, but she shook off whatever she was thinking after a moment. "That's the sort of thing that gives me nightmares. Well, that and the descriptions of some of those curses. The horcrux ritual is relatively tame, compared to some of the others I've read about. Lady Bathory's Bath, or the Kelling, or the Curse of Marseilles. They're only described in the vaguest of terms, and they're still horrifying. And that's not even getting into the ones that target the soul itself, like the Malattia dei Borgia or the Aniquilaram. Even Arzătoare și Întuneric sounds worse than the horcrux ritual, and that's a counter curse… kind of.
"And that's before we even get into whatever your mum might have done to protect you. Soul magic isn't tied to any one of the Great Arts – it crops up in subsumation, necromancy, maleficium, all kinds of binding rituals, even demonic congress and bio-alchemy, if you want to count resurrection animation as a sort of temporary ensoulment. And according to Snape, there's no guarantee that your mum would have stuck to Dark Arts. There's all sorts of protective spells she could have used and tweaked, or she might easily have created her own ritual or rituals. Problem is, outside of the Dark Arts, most of the books just go on with these dire warnings about how Soul Magic is insanely difficult and dangerous and evil, and don't say much more than that. It took me over twenty hours of slogging through that shite to realize that half the danger is in wizards not knowing any more about the soul than muggles do, or what it does, or if it even really exists."
"If it doesn't exist, what the bloody hell are the spells doing?" Mary asked, startled. It wasn't something she'd given a lot of thought to, but the very fact that soul magic existed had seemed to her a reason to assume that souls also existed. And what about ghosts, and whatever they had experienced at that very first Samhain Revel, so long ago?
Hermione shrugged. "Obviously they're targeting something, maybe the mind, or magic? But it's all so intent-based that if you don't at least think you know what you're doing, or you aren't on the same page as the person who invented the spell, you can do all sorts of horrible things by accident. You don't want to know what those are, either," she added drily, then sighed. "I'm going to grab a glass of water. You want one?"
"Sure." Mary's mind was reeling from the torrent of unfamiliar information. She had forgotten how exhausting talking to Hermione for long periods could be. She had no doubt that the older girl knew far more than she had just mentioned, after however many months of reading she had done. Six? Seven? The Ravenclaw had an excellent memory, but she could only focus on so many things at once, and she was easily distracted. Long conversations between them often left Mary with more questions than answers, as they drifted from one tangent to another and only rarely returned to any given point unless Mary herself managed not to be distracted long enough to remind Hermione of where they had left off. It always left her with a lot to process.
Hermione returned with two glasses of water and a plate of sandwiches shortly after Mary began wondering what had happened to her, and whether she ought to have followed her into the kitchen.
"Good news!" she said brightly. "This is the last of the ham!"
"Thank Merlin! I thought we were going to have left-overs for the rest of break," the younger girl laughed.
"I think dad might have binned some of it, or fed it to stray dogs, or something."
"Maybe," Mary agreed. Dan did like cooking too much to be enthusiastic about finishing off Christmas dinner a week later. "Hey Maia?"
"Hmmm?" she hummed, mouth full.
"Are you keeping copies of your reports for Snape?"
She had to wait a moment for Hermione to finish chewing, but then: "Not the actual reports, no. But I do have my notes on everything. Do you want me to make you a clean copy?"
"Only if it's not too much trouble," she answered hastily.
"I'd have to do it for myself, anyway. There's so many connections, now, I need to go back and look at the first things I read again, and see if I understand it better, now that I've got a broader view of the literature. I was planning to do it the first week back."
"But copying everything for me will be a pain. I could just read yours when you were done," Mary suggested, relieved that she wasn't asking her friend to go too far out of her way.
But Hermione shook her head. "You should have your own, in case you want to look at it or find things to add things to it over the summer or something. Tell you what, get a couple of those fancy never-ending grimoires when you go up to town, if you want to make it up to me."
"Um, I don't actually think I'm going to go." Mary had owled Tonks to ask whether she might be available to accompany the girls on an unplanned shopping trip to Diagon and Knockturn Alleys, and the Auror Trainee had, of course, asked why she wanted to go to Knockturn. "I just got a letter from Tonks last night saying that I can borrow her old dueling knife, and see if I like it before I buy one of my own. She said she'll bring it over tomorrow if your mum says it's okay. So I don't really have a good reason to. But I can owl-order them for you," she suggested eagerly. It was only fair that she pay for materials if Hermione was going to put in the time and effort on research and copying.
The Ravenclaw looked slightly disappointed that they wouldn't have an excuse to wander around the bookstores of Diagon Alley without her parents' supervision, but she shrugged and said, "Okay. Just have them delivered to Hogwarts. I can't start until we get back, anyway."
The rest of the day passed just as quickly as the morning had, as the girls chattered about lighter subjects: Slytherin drama, Ravenclaw projects, and gossip from every house in the school.
When Emma returned, they ambushed her in the kitchen, and Hermione presented her argument that it was Lady Malfoy she had been meeting with on the sly. Emma smiled slightly ruefully, and admitted that the cat was well and truly out of the bag: apparently Draco had stumbled upon the ladies' luncheon, so it was only a matter of time until everybody knew. Mary was slightly worried about Emma's safety, as a muggle visiting the house of one of the most outspoken pureblood supremacists she, personally, knew (Draco), but Emma said that Lady Malfoy was well aware that Mrs. Tonks knew where she was, and would hold her accountable if Emma went missing or showed up obliviated, so she felt safe enough.
Dan returned shortly after that, and they celebrated having finally run out of ham by making chicken tikka masala. It wasn't quite as good as his French dishes, but a dramatic change from the increasingly bland Christmas leftovers.
Everything went very well, in fact, up until the point where Dan and Emma had wandered off to the kitchen to make popcorn and pour champagne (and really to have a few minutes of 'alone time,' Mary was sure, since it didn't take that long to make popcorn). She and Hermione, giggling at the elder Grangers' silliness, had gone up to the Entertainment Room to wait, and attempt to tune in to the BBC for the televised fireworks that would be coming on… soon. Reception through the wards was fussy and unpredictable at best.
"What time is it?" Mary asked, poking buttons on the VCR. The clock was wrong. It had been bothering her for ages, and now seemed as good a time as any to fix it.
"Oh, um… just a second."
She looked around to see the older girl fiddling with a heavy-looking brass watch. Mary hadn't even known she had a watch. They always used the Tempus charm at school. "Is that new?"
"Oh – what?" Hermione looked vaguely guilty, which only made the Slytherin more curious about the timepiece. "Yes." She hesitated, obviously steeling herself, then added: "It was a Christmas gift."
"Who from?" Mary thought she had seen all of Hermione's gifts, and she couldn't think of any reason a Christmas present should make her feel guilty.
The older girl mumbled something she couldn't quite make out.
"What?"
"It was from Fred and George, alright?"
"Fred and George?" Mary repeated flatly. "I don't understand. Why would they buy you a Christmas gift?"
"They didn't buy it, they made it –"
"So not the point, Hermione! Why are you even still talking to them? And why didn't you tell me? Have you been – have you been hiding this, intentionally?" her voice was rising slightly hysterically, but she didn't really care. She thought it was justified, seeing as those two idiots still hadn't apologized to her for the Chamber of Secrets, and one of her so-called best friends had led her to believe she had Mary's back, when she obviously didn't.
"No!" the older girl objected quickly. "Well, not really – damn it! Only because I knew this was how you would react!"
"Girls? What's going on?" Emma interrupted. She was carrying a tray with glasses of sparkling wine, and Dan had a bowl of popcorn, as promised.
Hermione hesitated, but Mary, channeling Lilian in the face of the realization that Hermione had been sneaking around with the gods-cursed Weasleys all term, did not. "Hermione is still friends with the backstabbing wankers that kidnapped me into the Chamber of Secrets!"
"Elizabeth!" Hermione looked at her, stunned. Dan and Emma looked at Hermione as one, not even reprimanding Mary for her language.
"Is this true, Maia-bee?" Dan asked carefully.
"They were worried about their sister!" Hermione defended them.
"They were stupid and Gryffindor!" Mary snapped back. "They put us all in more danger!"
"They weren't thinking clearly!"
"That's no excuse!"
"Girls! Girls!" Emma tried to interrupt, but they both ignored her.
"They kidnapped me and they're not even sorry!" Mary continued.
"They just –"
Dan cut Hermione off with a very loud whistle.
"I don't think we feel entirely comfortable with your keeping company with that sort of person," Emma said.
Dan nodded. "You seemed just as angry with them over the summer. Weren't they the ones who turned you into a cat-person?"
"And the ones you said were bullying you about your looks?" Emma added.
"They apologized for that!"
"But not for kidnapping me?! Are you fucking serious?!"
"Hermione, dear," Emma started, but Hermione, tears of frustration in her eyes, cut her off.
"You can't tell me who to be friends with!" she yelled at them, and shoved her way out of the room, nearly causing Dan to spill the popcorn. "I don't have to justify myself to you!" floated back to them as the girl stomped down the hallway toward her room.
"Hermione!" her father called sharply, and started after her, but Emma stopped him.
"Let her go, Dan. Let her cool off, before you talk to her."
A door slammed, and Dan sighed. "Fine." There was a moment of silence, save for the sound of fireworks and Auld Lang Syne playing on the telly. "Happy New Year," he added after a moment, his voice heavy with irony.
Mary mustered a weak smile. "Somehow I don't feel much like celebrating anymore," she said. She left the adults exchanging worried, indecisive looks, and retreated to the downstairs living room sofa. There was no way she was going to sleep in the same room as Hermione tonight.
Knockturn Alley, London
Lord Voldemort
Lord Voldemort did not consider himself a man prone to fits of joy. In truth, he hardly considered himself a man – after all, men were mortal.
He was not.
But the point was, he was not often a happy being, man or not. The feeling was foreign and almost uncomfortable in its strangeness.
But tonight, he was very pleased with himself nevertheless, because tonight, over a year and a half after being evicted from the near-corpse of that inane moron Quirrell, by one of his own (Severus Snape would pay for his disloyalty!) he had finally wormed his way into the mind and body of another wizard.
It had been harder, this time – harder even than it had been the first time, to acquire a willing host.
Then, years and years before, when his body had been destroyed by the infant Potter and he felt himself being drawn into that wretched witch's trap, when he had torn himself free of it, and damaged himself in ways he had not thought were possible – even then there had been energy. His power had been waning, to be sure, and quickly, but he had been able to ride the wave of power, the backlash from the splitting of his life-spark (and how far he had come, indeed, that even that had not killed him – further along the path of immortality than any man in history had ever come, he was certain), directing himself eastward, far enough from England that the pull of his horcruxes did not unduly hinder his movements. Far enough that Dumbledore's power would not find him. The wave had run out and he had fallen far short of his goal – Istanbul, where there were wizards with the power to revive him and a teeming underworld of unscrupulous characters who would underestimate his wraith, easy targets…
He had landed, instead, in the dark forests of Romania and, all sense of direction lost, made his way by snake and rat out of the woods, following the pull of self and history, the senses of the wraith more shadow-creature than human. He fetched up in the Albanian hinterlands, near the now-abandoned hovel he recognized as the place where he had created his final horcrux, the diadem. There he rested, possessing serpents, killing his hosts as he siphoned away their life energy and that of their prey, biding his time, gathering strength. He could not have said how long it was, that period of time when he moved like a slow shadow across Bulgaria and Serbia, nor how long he waited, building his strength, but at long last, a man – a wizard – alone and weak, wandered into his forest, thinking to stay the night safely in the abandoned cottage before he continued on his trek.
Lord Voldemort, in the body of a serpent, slithered into his bed, whispering sweetly, mind to mind. Golden ideas of power, glory, and recognition seeped into his sleeping thoughts. He stowed himself away in the wizard's bags, and every night, every day, corrupted him further, until the line between sleeping and waking blurred, and the wizard, Quirrell, welcomed Lord Voldemort willingly into his mind, this voice that promised all the things he had never dared to want for himself before.
They had returned to London, then to the school – what great good fortune it was, that the wizard already worked there, that he could return without question, no need, even, for any suspicious accidents to befall another candidate (or perhaps that, too, was his own doing, indirectly, the wizard's fate already entwined with his own, for he had already willingly taken on the curse laid down, so many years ago, the gauntlet thrown at Dumbledore and his Defense Professors).
And then he had heard that the Philosopher's Stone would be brought to the school – another stroke of fortune, to have a convenient means of maintaining his host until he could arrange a more permanent re-birth so close at hand.
But Quirrell, by then, had realized who he was, whom he had so naïvely invited into his mind. He was seeing, already, the effects of possession – the effects of a presence no longer of this plane on a body that most decidedly was. He tried to fight, sabotaging his rightful lord's efforts. For that alone, he would have been disposed of, when the time had come. He had not wanted to kill Mary Potter, had tried only reluctantly, and had been equally reluctant in his efforts to discover the true protections on the Stone – not the little children's obstacles, so easily by-passed, but the underlying tricks that must exist, so well concealed that even he had not been able to identify them.
It took many months before he was fully able to break Quirrell's spirit, bring him to heel. The first unicorn's blood was the turning point. It was only after the silver life's blood passed his lips that Quirrell realized the only way to further sustain himself was to serve his lord's will and take the Stone – not that he would have lived long past then, for his earlier failures. By the time he had done it, discovered Dumbledore's great trick, it was nearly too late, and then – then the traitor, Snape, and that little Potter abomination had ruined everything!
Unlike the first time, when he had ridden a wave of power out of the pull of the safety net and trap he had created for himself, Snape, who would burn for the indignities he had caused his lord to suffer, had stripped him of his power and banished him directly into the center of it. Born of this world, the ritual his unfaithful minion had used (and how spiteful Snape was, using a light devocation – it must have hurt him nearly as much as Lord Voldemort, steeped in the dark as he knew the slimy little prick was) had only sent him to the place he was most strongly drawn to: the geographical balancing-point of the competing attractive forces of his horcruxes. He was suspended, unable to move, underground (Bella would be made to find some way to repay him for the oversight of consigning one of his anchors to the depths of Gringott's, despite the fact that she had been right about that skeezy little half-blood bastard all along – and she had best not dare say 'I told you so' when he finally tracked her down!), without even rats or snakes nearby to suck the life from, to attach himself to and use their bodies to fight the elastic pull which was drawing him relentlessly back to the center of the web. He required more energy, always more, to resist it, to move away from that point.
When he finally reached the surface, fed by the paltry sparks of earthworms and beetles, he found himself… in a field. A fucking field. In the middle of nowhere. A single human presence passed by him once in the many weeks he was trapped there, luring in mice and finally, finally, a snake. A harmless grass snake, a male, small, and relatively weak as snakes went, but more welcome than any other presence he had ever encountered in his life. He sank into the reptile's mind almost gratefully, careful not to harm it, lest he be trapped again in the endless ocean of dirt and invertebrates and rodents. (If he never had to possess and assimilate another rodent's life-spark again, it would be too soon.)
He had found the farm-house as the weather began to grow cool, approached the muggles who lived there in the same way he had Quirrell. Unfortunately it seemed his luck had momentarily abandoned him, for the muggle whose mind he whispered to was a Christian, and stubbornly disinclined to trust the voice of a serpent whispering directly into his mind, even as he slept. He had been lucky to escape with his grass snake intact, but had been forced to set off in search of another target, a more likely victim.
He did not find one before winter fell upon him, and was forced to allow his host to burrow and hibernate, once again confined, unable to approach a human host, and unwilling to sacrifice the relative comfort of the snake for a more active but less appealing rodent. A pair of rabbits denned too near him, and he briefly took hold of their minds and bodies, ripping the life from them to sustain his hold on the snake with a viciousness he sorely missed from the days when he had had a body of his own. He waited for months, impatient, but trapped for the moment by accursed biology. (One of the few things he found he genuinely preferred about a human body: internal temperature regulation.)
In the spring he was forced to abandon his snake, its body too mutated by his presence to survive much longer. He forced it to lurk near a pond until he found its replacement, a strong, melanistic female adder. She carried him to a nearby city, where he found the lowest of the low – the drug addicts and madmen who wouldn't even notice a new voice in their head. She remained at his side over the summer and through the autumn, while he worked his way up the hierarchy of homeless drunks and wastrels, each one slightly more presentable than the last, until he found one that would survive a trip to London, that would pass as an drunk and absentminded wizard long enough to follow an actual drunk and absentminded wizard through one of the hidden doorways, that would allow him to begin the process over again with hags and indigent werewolves, and the largest population of Spark addicts in Britain: the depths of Knockturn Alley.
And now, now this was a day to celebrate, for he had managed at last to acquire a magical host!
As soon as the hook was sunk into the drunken, drug-addled, broken-down wizard's mind, as soon as he had permission, when the wizard accepted him, he tore the remainder of the muggle's life-force away. His heart stopped. A leg jerked once, and then the body began to cool. No one, not even the waste of magic he had so-recently acquired, noticed. The wizard was so high that it was a matter of minutes for Lord Voldemort to fully take control with the burst of energy the muggle's life (weak and paltry though it was) provided. He waited for the physical effects of the drug to wear off, then hauled himself to his newly acquired feet and set out to find his next victim. Not so far above this one in status or quality that the current body would chase the next one away, but enough that it could serve as the next step.
A rictus grin spread across his host's face as he passed a hole in the wall filled with drunken merrymakers. They were counting down the seconds to the New Year with the wireless. As 1993 gave way to 1994, the being once known as the man Tom Riddle thought: happy birthday to me.