Notes: I know I haven't really foreshadowed this, but it's one thing I wanted to keep pretty close to my chest, because any clues at all would have led to the correct conclusion, I suspect.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Enigma Charm
"My dear Hermione," Dumbledore said compassionately, "thank you so much for coming." He pushed his candy dish forward with a smile.
Hermione had been fingering her ring. She separated her hands and took a lemon drop from the dish. She forced a smile onto her face as she met Dumbledore's twinkling blue eyes. In truth, she was deathly nervous—about all sorts of things. But when the Deputy Headmaster wanted a personal meeting with her, and she was purporting to be his close relative, it behooved her to be there.
"I have been remiss in offering you my thanks for a couple of things," Dumbledore continued.
"Your thanks?" Hermione asked, startled. She had not been anticipating that.
Dumbledore nodded. "As you know, when the wizarding world was asking me to duel Gel—Grindelwald, I did not want to do it. But I had resigned myself to it as a matter of duty, and I intended to spare him if I possibly could. I believed that if anyone else dueled him, they would kill him out of hand. I thank you for proving me wrong about that."
Hermione managed a smile. "You're welcome, Professor."
"Bob Ogden, the Minister, and the Interim German Minister have agreed to incarcerate him in Nurmengard instead of Azkaban," Dumbledore said. "This, too, is a good thing. Azkaban is a dreadful place. I have…." He hesitated for a brief minute. "As a young man, I considered a political career for a short time. I concluded it would be a mistake for me to seek that sort of power, due to the disastrous lapse in judgment that you know of. But sometimes I wonder if it was the correct decision. We have accustomed ourselves to terrible things, and the condition of our legal system is one of them. We live in a society that was founded on fear—the Statute of Secrecy was enacted out of fear—and people who are afraid are easily persuaded."
Hermione nodded. "I think we should examine the Muggle justice system and reform ours based on it. But… fear… it's a fine line to walk. There are many more Muggles, and they do have powerful weaponry. And will have even more powerful bombs very soon."
"Grindelwald's records indicated that Muggle governments are indeed working on such a project," Dumbledore said. "The Ministries have decided not to interfere with it."
Hermione sighed. Her thoughts on dropping the bomb were not fully settled. She knew there was a calculation that a traditional war would produce many, many more casualties. She supposed it was just as well that this aspect of history would play out unaltered.
"Muggles are human too, and also prone to fear," she said quietly. "If we do terrible things when we're afraid, so would they."
Dumbledore sighed heavily. "I have been trying to atone for my youthful mistake by promoting the idea that we shouldn't be afraid of Muggles, but…." He trailed off. "I cannot forget what they did to my sister in fear, much as I might wish to."
Hermione winced. "Maybe the best choice is a healthy respect," she suggested. "Acknowledgment that they are advanced and can hurt us, but… there are some people in wizarding society who seem to forget that Muggles are also human. And that means that they have the good parts of being human as well as the bad."
Dumbledore looked sad but content. "I think you are wise beyond your years. It gratifies me that you, instead of this prideful academic, were involved with the defeat of Grindelwald. Was it your decision not to execute him?"
Hermione was grateful for his words of thanks, but she did not like the question at the end. He seemed determined to think ill of Tom. But, she reflected, Tom had wanted to execute Grindelwald—albeit reluctantly, and to protect himself rather than simply for the hell of it.
"Professor, Tom actually Disarmed Grindelwald," she said. "I did persuade him that it was unnecessary to kill, but it was a joint decision, because he didn't have to listen to me."
A shadow came over Dumbledore's face. "I have noticed that Mr. Riddle has been using a different wand sometimes. He defeated and Disarmed him at the end of the duel?"
Hermione nodded, her heart sinking. Dumbledore knew. He had already figured out that Grindelwald had indeed found the Elder Wand, as they had talked about as young men.
Dumbledore cleared his face—and it was deliberate, Hermione noticed. "Well," he said in falsely cheerful tones, "it is a wonderful thing that he does listen to you. You have been very good for him." He paused. "I have to ask, though—and you are free to tell me that it is none of my concern if you wish. But are you… was this your choice? Are you—happy with him?"
You're right; that is none of your concern, Hermione thought at once with a flash of resentment. She stared back at him, trying to decide how to answer the question.
"You don't have to—" Dumbledore began to say.
Hermione cut in. "It was my choice," she said. "He asked me, and I could have said no." I did at the first, she thought. "As you know, I didn't like him when I first arrived."
"Because of something he did in your future—which I assume you changed."
"It wasn't one specific thing, but I think I must have changed his trajectory."
"If I may ask—"
"He would have become like Grindelwald," Hermione said evasively. "He never had Ministry ambitions in my timeline. And… he never had a partner. I wouldn't have even become friends with him, much less anything else, if he had been the person I knew about from my time." She paused. "As for being happy… I'm happy about that. I'm happy that he's doing something productive with himself. We've had serious discussions about fixing the wizarding world. He cares a lot about it—and yes, he knows I am from the future, and was horrified when I explained to him what he would otherwise have become."
"This is gratifying," Dumbledore said gently, "but it does not answer the question of what you feel about him."
"It contributes," Hermione argued. "I mean… I was able to see immediately that he has a lot of potential. But I wouldn't have been able to like him if he hadn't decided to put it to appropriate uses." With a couple of glaring exceptions, she thought wryly. "It was a surprise to me when I came to like him, and it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't allowed me to influence him. In my time, too, it was hard for me to ever find anyone I could talk with who shared my interests. I'm sure you understand that," she added with a sideways smile. "But he does, mostly. He listens to me and respects me. I don't know what else to say."
Dumbledore managed a smile. "Well. I don't think anything else does need to be said, in that case." He rose from his seat. "Just as long as you are happy, Hermione. The wizarding world is important, and Mr. Riddle is important, but so are you. Please don't forget that."
Hermione thought about the discussion all the way back to the Room of Requirement. She had very mixed feelings about all of it. She was pleased that Dumbledore did not resent not being the person to get credit for Grindelwald's defeat, and since he did distrust himself so much with power, it was probably better if he remained a well-regarded professor. It troubled her that he knew Tom had the Elder Wand and clearly did not like it. But then, she wasn't entirely thrilled about that herself. The wand was already doing things to him. He was becoming more reckless and irrational when using it.
Dumbledore's parting comment stuck with her as well. Her own needs were important, and she was not sure if what she was doing was the best way of meeting them. The issue was that her needs conflicted with each other. She needed Tom to remain "grey," as he was right now, and that was at least partly dependent on her remaining close to him. She was pretty much the only person he would listen to consistently. But she also needed to be happy in more personal aspects of her life, and she did not know if it would be enough to have his confidence, to have his darkly possessive form of love, and to know that she was helping him.
The real problem came back to a simple fact: He had already done the darkest thing he could do. Otherwise she could tell herself that there were clear, well-defined lines he must not cross. No blood purity politics, no murdering, and certainly no Horcruxes. It was a shell-shock to discover that she could rationalize one of the three, considering the circumstances involved with it; that another of them, the darkest one, she could somewhat overlook if he held to his word of stopping there; and that the one that would be a deal-breaker was the one that was most personally offensive to her. What was her definition of "too much" if what he had done so far wasn't it? What might her heart allow her to turn into if her lines were so malleable? Hermione did not like to consider herself motivated by selfish considerations. She wanted to believe she was a moral person who made judgments strictly based on good and evil. And yet….
"Black. Rosier. I've been looking for you."
Hermione's thoughts suddenly deflected at the sound of Roland Lestrange's voice. She stopped walking and hurried into the nearest dark corner. Thinking quickly, she cast a Disillusionment Charm over herself as well. Once invisible, she carefully moved toward the voices.
To her surprise, Lestrange was not talking to Vincent Rosier, but to Druella. Next to her was Walburga Black. They gazed back at him quizzically.
He looked around the hall furtively. "I really should ask you this inside," he mumbled, heading toward a classroom door. "I don't want Riddle to overhear."
Well, that settled it for Hermione. Being careful not to make a sound, she pattered quickly after the group as they moved into the classroom. She got inside just as Lestrange closed the door.
I hope Tom isn't looking at his list right this moment, Hermione thought idly. If he sees that I'm in a room with Lestrange, he'll assume the worst and it'll be revealed that I've been spying on their conversation. She decided to hope for the best. Tom couldn't track her all the time.
"I was wondering if either of you knew how to get into Green's room," Lestrange said in a low voice.
Druella and Walburga looked at each other blankly, then turned to Lestrange. "I don't know what you mean," Druella said. "Boys can't get into the girls' dorms. You know that."
Lestrange rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean, Rosier. Nott and I both know. You don't need to pretend ignorance for us."
"I don't understand," Walburga said, frowning in confusion.
Lestrange sighed. "You really can trust me. How do you get in? What is she asking of the Room of Requirement? If you don't know, you can just say so."
Hermione gasped silently. He shouldn't be able to name it.
"I don't know what you mean," Walburga said slowly. "She's going to the Room of Requirement for some reason? I don't know anything about that. What of hers do you want, anyway?"
Something suddenly occurred to Lestrange. He regarded them shrewdly. "You think Green lives with you still?"
The girls glanced at each other. "Well, no," Druella said, "but she moved to another room in the girls' dormitories, right? That's what Riddle told us after Christmas."
Lestrange looked grimly satisfied. "I see. That explains it." He turned to the girls, raising his wand. "Obliviate!"
Hermione was not caught in the short-term Memory Charm, since she was standing to the side of Lestrange. She held her breath as he escorted the girls out of the classroom. She waited until all three of them had disappeared before taking off to locate Tom.
"He what?" Tom exclaimed once Hermione had explained everything to him. "You're certain?"
"He named the room by name," Hermione said patiently. "And a few days ago, he and Nott were lurking outside it while I was in there and muttering things under their breath like 'I need to see what Riddle sees.'"
"They shouldn't be able to do that," Tom muttered under his breath. "That doesn't make sense. I sure as hell didn't tell them the Secret."
She frowned in contemplation. "Would you have to? I mean, suppose they were hiding in the corridor and saw me enter it. Would that—"
"You aren't the Secret-Keeper. They shouldn't be able to… though I wonder… I think you can name the place, just not in the context of the Secret. Are you positive—"
"He asked them what I was asking of the Room of Requirement," Hermione said once more. "And then when they didn't know what he meant, he asked if they thought I was still living with them. It sure sounds to me as if he knows the Secret itself."
"That cannot be," Tom said. "It just can't."
"Tom, are you positive that you didn't overlook anything in the casting?"
"You know the theory as well as I do. You have any ideas?"
She bit her lip. "I've never cast the spell. But shouldn't we read the book about it again, the section about the Fidelius Charm, just to be sure?"
"I want to see this for myself," he finally said. "Tomorrow's Saturday. I want you to be seen in the common room tomorrow, alone—I'll keep watch on you, don't worry—and then be seen leaving. But I'll be lurking up there invisibly, waiting for them to show up. They can't know the Secret. It is literally impossible."
Hermione was not so sure of that. The Fidelius Charm was very complex, and if any detail of it went wrong, the entire charm would be invalidated. Passing a Secret to a person could happen inadvertently, as she knew from her experience with Yaxley in the war year. And Tom, of course, was supremely confident in his own magic, but it did not always follow that his confidence was justified. She didn't know what might have gone wrong, but there was a creeping feeling that something very much had. She didn't want to test it, because there was no one she would trust with the information, but she was fairly sure that she herself could tell someone about her living quarters—and she shouldn't be able to.
The next day, Hermione sat in the Slytherin common room, pretending to revise for her DADA NEWT. Lestrange was in the room with her, she noted. Nott wasn't. She wondered if they had a system of passing messages to each other and Lestrange would inform Nott when she left.
She closed her book and got up, observing out of the corner of her left eye that Lestrange reached a hand into his pocket at the movement. They probably did have a means of passing simple messages, then—perhaps something like her DA coins.
Meanwhile, on the seventh floor, Tom stood invisibly in the corner, protected by a perfect Disillusionment Charm. He did not hear anyone else in the hall, though that didn't mean anything. Lestrange and Nott were probably too wary of him now to lurk there all the time.
He couldn't tell the time with his pocket watch—the one Hermione had given him—under the charm, but he knew it was approaching their agreed-upon time for her to leave the dungeons. If one or both of them intended to make an appearance, now would be the time.
Suddenly he heard lightly pattering footsteps. He held his breath and slunk further into the shadows. In a moment, a blur appeared in the hallway. It was someone under a poorly cast Disillusionment Charm.
Tom's hand twitched on the Elder Wand. I should kill you right now, he thought, but he did not cast. As tempting as it was to simply remove the threat, he needed to understand what the threat was. He had to be patient.
The bad Disillusionment Charm made the walls look as if they were rippling and faintly discolored when Lestrange or Nott—whoever it was—passed over a given spot. Tom was able to easily track the person's progression until the unknown boy stood directly in front of the wall concealing the Room of Requirement's door.
"I need to see the place Hermione Green sleeps," the boy—Claudius Nott—muttered.
An outline began to appear around the door. Nott exclaimed in malicious joy.
Tom gasped in astonishment. No, he thought. No. This cannot be—
But it was happening, and he reacted at once before the room would betray Hermione's location. He slashed the Elder Wand through the air.
"Maceracorpus!"
Tom had not intended to cast that. He had meant to use a simple Petrificus. It must have been the wand again. There was no time to worry about it, though—the spell, although technically a Dark curse, would not do any lasting damage. It would weaken his body by making his muscles weak and his skin feel bruised, but it was easily enough lifted. The blur that was Nott tumbled to the ground and began to twitch, evident by the quickened rate of rippling. The twitching slowed as the curse intensified.
Well, it would hold Nott for a while. Tom hurried down to intercept Hermione.
She knew the plan. Get up, leave the room, go to the library, and then return to the common room with a book, making it appear to whichever boy remained there that she had simply meant to do that. She was already on the way back with a tome when Tom arrived in the library, so she did not see him.
He took the Disillusionment Charm off himself and glanced around the library to look for her. She wasn't there. That meant she probably had already returned to the common room. She would be all right if she remained there. Tom headed over to the section about advanced charms and took the relevant tome off the shelves.
He sat down at a table, opened the book, and went to the section about the Fidelius Charm. He had never cast it before using it to protect Hermione's location, but he was sure he understood the magical theory. He had not given away the secret to Lestrange or Nott. It should have been a piece of information known only to him and Hermione. He must have overlooked something in the books. He hated having to acknowledge any mistakes, but the evidence of the door outline was indisputable. The only thing to do was to figure out at once what it was so he could recast it properly this time.
.
The Fidelius Charm is a highly complex and structured piece of Light magic that requires numerous conditions to be precisely ordered…
.
Tom read over the text. The piece of information to be protected as the Secret had to be precisely true; if a Secret ever became false in any respect, the charm would break. Hermione does reside in the Room of Requirement, he thought. That wasn't the problem.
.
With the unique magical signature of a Keeper's identity as the Key, the Secret is Arithmantically encoded into a form of information that can be decoded only by the Keeper and read only by those who have been given the Secret by the Keeper.
.
Tom read on, frowning as he did. He had not violated any of the conditions in the book. What, then….
.
In the event of a Secret-Keeper's death, all persons to whom the Secret-Keeper had entrusted the Secret will become Secret-Keepers. It is functionally equivalent to casting the charm many times for the same Secret—which can be done only by an already existing Keeper, as no one else would have the ability to divulge the Secret to others.
Since Keepers can act independently of each other, it is inadvisable to rely on the security of information with multiple Secret-Keepers. Casting the charm more than once for the same Secret (to have multiple Keepers) is not recommended. When possible, breaking the charm by invalidating its accuracy is the advised course of action if a Secret-Keeper dies. It should then be recast with one person as the new Keeper.
.
The Secret-Keeper hadn't died, though, and no one else had been told anyway. This was all very nice theory, but it didn't seem relevant. Tom continued.
.
The salient point of the Fidelius Charm is that it has very precise and singular requirements to be valid. It might be tempting to counter the risk of Secret exposure by trying to cast the charm with multiple persons as a single collective Keeper, but this cannot be done. The charm prohibits it for the very reason that it would not work properly. If one individual in the group died, the group identity of the collective Keeper would change, breaking the charm. For this reason, when an original Secret-Keeper dies, the inheritors are also not a collective Keeper, but individual Keepers with their own unique Keys to the same Secret. The Arithmantic equation encoding a Secret requires a single Key, and this Key is based upon the deepest level of identity of one Keeper. A Secret must be sealed into a single soul.
.
A crawling feeling began at the base of Tom's spine. Surely not, he thought. He closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and shuffled listlessly back to the Slytherin dormitories to look for a certain Dark Arts text.
Hermione was in the common room as he passed through, reading by the fireside. He touched her shoulder as he passed by, and she looked up. A smile formed on her face. He just managed to return it. He noticed with much less pleasure that Roland Lestrange was also still there, lurking in a dark corner by himself and apparently reading the sports section of the Daily Prophet. Tom regarded him with a sneer and continued to the boys' dormitory.
In a little bit, he was reading the book increasingly frantically, the truth slamming into his mind like a wave as every sentence seemed to confirm his newly minted theory.
.
In addition, performing this magic is suspected to strongly weaken or break other complex mind- and soul-based magic, especially extant Imperius Curses. It is theorized that a dark wizard's capacity to sustain such spells cast after the creation of the Horcrux may be permanently reduced, though much depends on the magical power of the caster and target. The Patronus Charm may also become more difficult to cast.
.
The Fidelius Charm was not explicitly named in the book as a spell that might be negatively affected, but it was unquestionably a complex soul-based charm. There were a Secret and a Key in a single Arithmantic encoding. The Secret itself had to remain identical to what it was when the spell was cast, and he would wager that the Key did too.
Not that there is any way but one to alter that….
With the information about Fidelius in the other book, it seemed horribly likely that he had inadvertently broken the Fidelius Charm by changing his "Key," the deepest level of his identity. He had to drop new memories into the diary, after all; it was not connected to his mind and did not receive his experiences automatically, nor did he receive the memories of, say, Hermione writing in the diary….
The thought quickly passed through his brain that this was really a fascinating magical discovery—and that it was damned unfortunate he could never tell anyone about it. It was even worse that he had to discover it this way.
Tom shut the cover of Secrets of the Darkest Art, banished the book into his trunk, and hurried out of the boys' dormitory.
Hermione was not in front of the fireplace anymore. Tom's heart sank. He looked around quickly, hoping to pick her out among the shadowed faces, but no, she was not in the common room.
Neither, Tom noticed with dread, was Roland Lestrange.
He bounded up the stairs, seven flights of them, until he was out of breath, panting in the corridor. He gathered his strength and darted down the hallway.
Nott was gone too. There was not even the smudge that was the signature of his incompetently cast Disillusionment Charm.
I need to see Hermione's living quarters, Tom thought frantically.
The door appeared along the stretch of wall. Tom grasped the knob and opened it. "Hermione?" he called into the room.
There was no answer. He strode into the room and looked around. "Hermione!" he called louder. There was still no answer.
Homenum Revelio, he thought, holding up his wand tip. Nothing happened.
Tom breathed deeply, calming himself. The list, he thought. He reached into his pocket and withdrew his charmed list of names from it.
The parchment was only able to plot locations inside the castle, and it seemed that the Room of Requirement was Unplottable. People who were in this room—or were not on Hogwarts grounds—had blank spaces in the location column next to their names. For the past few months, Tom had deduced that Hermione was in her room when the location column for her was empty, but he knew that nobody but him was in this room right now. He scanned the list quickly.
Lestrange, blank.
Nott, blank.
Hermione, blank.
End Notes: There are unclear details about just how the Fidelius Charm works, but PoA does say that a Secret is concealed in a "single, living soul." This is somewhat complicated by the charm designating everyone who had been given a secret a Keeper if the original Keeper dies, but it also says in that PoA passage that it's an "immensely complex charm." Obviously the theory in this chapter is not canon, but I think it is workable within canon. The Secret is not a normally acquired memory, after all (those do seem to be duplicated neatly into Horcruxes, at least up to the date that one is made), but a piece of information magically sealed into the soul. I have used the analogy of cryptography for my headcanon regarding this charm's operation, which is what I've attempted to convey in Tom's reading about it.