In a cot in the Hospital Wing, tucked under a thick quilt that went all the way up to his pale little chin, Abraxas Malfoy appeared in equal parts a sleepy child and a sickly animal. On the right side of his bed stood Antoine Rosier, whose silly head of brown hair somehow accentuated the concern fraught on his tanned face, and on the left, Mary and Arcanius Fawley, who wore strange, repressed expressions that Tom did not like at all. Ever since the pair—the three of them, Tom reminded himself, for Abraxas was among them—returned to Hogwarts two hours after the rest of the students, he had not the opportunity to talk to Mary privately. She and Fawley were first called to the Headmaster's office where they stayed for an hour, after which they immediately went down to the Hospital Wing to check on Malfoy.
But it was not just circumstance that emancipated his sister from her obligation to talk to Tom; she, whenever he looked at her, would hide from him at once, not permitting their gazes to commune for any longer than two seconds. It was infuriating; were it not for that Tom found the very notion of regret, remorse, repentance and all those grandiose re– words repulsive, he would have regretted orchestrating his sister's abduction of Abraxas' affection. It was as though he had cast an ancient, powerful spell for a ritual, only to find that he had done so with someone else's wand.
Tom found it beneath him to wait for Mary as she tended to the unconscious Abraxas, but it would also be unbecoming to force words from her. Coercion may extract the truth, but it would only renew and intensify her already present resentment. Furthermore, her sadness only amplified her abundant beauty; he preferred her pensive loveliness to her wrath. Nonetheless he found it troubling that a creature so beautiful, and so kindred to him, could frustrate him so. Let her come to me, Tom thought proudly, before turning away.
Near the exit of the Hospital Wing stood one of the stranger characters of Hogwarts; Ezekiel Tansley, a pale, bespectacled, hunchbacked, solitary fourth-year Ravenclaw. With an intelligence that far surpassed his peers, the professors had granted him leave to spend his days at the Hospital Wing, to assist and learn from Madam Milosz; he was to become a healer. His phlegmatic temperament and allegedly mechanical manner of speech marked him as one of few friends. Yet, what Tom did not know, was that Tansley was a—
"Mudblood!" spat the burly Alexius Lestrange, who had just thrown open the doors through which Tom was about to depart. Lestrange was accompanied by the snivelling Amos Nott and languidly amused Thane Mulciber. Tansley, scrubbing a cauldron that must have been tainted by potent ingredients, ignored this comment. Lestrange continued. "Still here cleaning away, are we? Missed your calling as a muggle charlady, evidently. Why don't you give us a twirl and a curtsey, Mrs. Mudpuddle?"
Unperturbed by the abuse, Tansley made no reply. Dissatisfied that his provocation did not engender any reaction, Lestrange violently pushed the Ravenclaw to the floor and cast a spell to splatter some foul green substance over the cauldron. With Buddhistic equanimity, Tansley rose to his feet and resumed his cleaning, while Lestrange and his accomplices walked past, scowling at him, as if he was the one who had done wrong. Tom felt his anger boil within him beholding the weakness in Tansley. It wasn't that he cared about the suffering of the muggleborn prodigy, but rather that he had violated the one moral imperative in life—to fight back when one must.
"Hello, Tom," Thane greeted Tom cordially, as the trio approached him.
"Thane," Tom replied in a measured tone, ever slightly inclining his head. "Alex, Amos. Here to inquire about Malfoy, I presume?"
"Indeed we are," Thane replied. "I hope the little rascal is faring well."
"He could be worse," Tom responded, his tone unruffled. "I'm afraid I must take my leave, chaps."
"Not so fast, my rudderless Riddle," Lestrange interjected, impeding Tom with by laying a heavy hand on his shoulder. "What do you think your lovely little Mary was doing with ol' Archie at the Fawley Estate for all that time? Rather long for a tea party, don't you think?"
Tom removed Lestrange's hand sharply. "That is none of your concern, Lestrange. Do not presume to grab me again."
With that, Tom quickly left the Hospital Wing in a flurry. The suspicions of Lestrange troubled him; they were the very same suspicions that plagued him, suspicions that must have held some measure of truth. The cold air seemed to mirror his tumultuous thoughts as he walked briskly across the courtyard, trying in vain to leave those worrisome whispers behind.
As he made his way back to the Slytherin Dungeon, various students accosted Tom and made the same irritating inquiry as Lestrange, albeit less rudely. He gave them curt, perfunctory answers and continued on his way, all the while suppressing the urge to challenge each idiot who asked him some variation of the question, "D'you reckon Arcanius Fawley fancies your sister?" to a duel. By the time Tom returned to his dormitory, his rage had subsided into weary irritation. He needed to rest, he needed to think.
"Begone!" commanded Tom. Wilkes, who had been amusing himself by torturing a half-melted chocolate frog with badly formed Incendio charms, leapt from the bed like a scalded cat.
The chocolate frog gave a warped croak as Wilkes scurried about the room, scooping up his possessions in a panic. His spellbook thumped to the floor, puffs of smoke trailing from singed pages. At last, Wilkes stumbled from the room, crashing into the doorframe on his way out. Tom glared after him, annoyance twisting his features.
Still dressed in the black robe-jacket he had donned for the day, Tom threw himself upon his bed. He let out a long sigh and struggled not to clench his fists, for he knew that physical and mental stress were mutually enforcing. He needed a clear mind, he needed useful thoughts. But every fibre of his being cried out for physical release, for an outlet for the roiling emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. He yearned to see Mary weep, to wrench from her the truth that he so desperately sought. And yet, even as he imagined her tears, a strange thrill coursed through him, igniting a fire within his loins that burned with a fierce intensity.
For a moment, he forgot his anger, lost in the heady rush of desire. His mind whirled with possibilities, each more tantalising than the last. But as quickly as it had come, the feeling passed, replaced once more by the cold, hard reality of his situation. He berated himself for his weakness, for the base desires that threatened to consume him. In that moment, he felt like a lecherous idiot, a muggle idiot caught in the grip of his own primal urges.
Tom found a small solace in the unlikeliness of Mary deliberately orchestrating her escapade to the Fawley Estate. Like most of the other students, she likely thought the portals infallible. Clearly she had somehow deviated from his plan; but it could not possibly have been her intention to end up in Arcanius Fawley's house. But Tom realised that, unless he actually asked his sister personally, he was more or less at a dead end; trying to uncover the truth through pure reason was a futile endeavour. Mary's intentions were unimportant; what mattered was what she had actually done. The spell reveals the intention more than the intention reveals the spell.
At dinner, Tom sat far from Mary, who had placed herself among the fourth-year girls, all of whom were remarkably lacking in charm and beauty compared to her, who possessed both qualities in divine excess, and all of whom eagerly asked her questions about the uncivilised hypotheses concerning Fawley. She made no acknowledgment of Tom, who sat in their usual place.
Tom quickly consumed a meal of lamb tripe stew (a pureblood superstition stipulated that tripe nourished one's magical faculties; Tom humoured it), and made his way to the Hospital Wing. It was late enough for the place to be almost entirely deprived of daylight, yet not so late that Madam Milosz deemed it necessary to light the lamps and lanterns. Abraxas Malfoy appeared particularly morose and lonely in his cot, with only one person for company—at his bedside, perched upon a tall stool like a praying mantis, was the Ravenclaw savant, Ezekiel Tansley.
"Riddle."
It was the first time Tom ever heard Tansley speak. His voice was feeble and somehow devoid of pitch; had it been just somewhat darker, Tom wouldn't have been able to discern the age or sex of the speaker.
"Tansley," Tom said coolly. "Skipping dinner, are we?"
"I prefer solitude while consuming nutrients," Tansley replied mechanically. "Social interaction is inefficient and distracting."
Tom noticed the floating brass plate beside Tansley; on it were what appeared to be slices of toast, all slathered with nothing but honey, in a haphazard pile. Tom scrunched his nose.
"I administered him three-and-a-half ounces of Elixir of Hypnos," Tansley murmured, acknowledging Tom's gaze fixed on the younger boy.
"Sleep is as essential to the patient's convalescence as sustenance, hydration, and medicine," Tansley explained rather redundantly. "Though all that I have thus far will only provide temporary relief for Malfoy's ailment. A method to address the underlying cause of his sickness may exist, but Madam Milosz adamantly rejects it."
Tansley's utterances flowed forth like a meticulously prepared medical dossier. It was not inconceivable that he perused more such documents than he engaged in conversation with fellow beings.
"And what might that be?" asked Tom.
"Legilimency," Tansley replied so immediately, that Tom was startled. "Longinus Malfoy, the father of Abraxas, appears to have neglected to arrange for a magipsychotherapist—a specialist in the therapeutic utilisation of Legilimency—to attend to his son. It appears that British purebloods display a lesser proclivity than their Continental counterparts to embrace the advancements of the Muggle world."
Tom interjected to ask the foremost of many questions raised by the Ravenclaw's rapid discourse. "What, precisely, is Legilimency?"
"Ah!" Tansley exclaimed. "Thomas Riddle, a muggleborn. A most unforeseen revelation."
It appeared that Legilimency was to wizards what church and the London tramway were to muggles—notions so ubiquitous and taken for granted that they went unexamined, and thus were left unexplained to those who lacked knowledge thereof.
"Perhaps I am not truly muggleborn," said Tom, suppressing the indignation in his voice. "I'm an orphan after all."
Tansley promptly apprehended the implication behind his words. "Blood status, Riddle, is a social construct, not a biological one. Even if you were secretly the Minister's son, the circumstance of growing up in a muggle orphanage renders you muggle-born—unless the Minister deems fit to publicly reclaim you one day."
Now truly infuriated, Tom responded, "Well, Tansley, if we go by your definition, I'm certainly less muggleborn than you. Lestrange called you a mudblood. He considers me a friend."
"Lestrange is but one individual, a fourth-year Hogwarts student, who extends acceptance to you. The wider culture he belongs to rejects and will continue to reject you. Nonetheless, your aptitude is evident. Perhaps your progeny shall be embraced. Such is the way of things."
"You have done well for yourself, have you not?"
"Healing, by necessity, is a meritocratic discipline—intelligence and magical prowess facilitate healing, irrespective of one's surname," Tansley replied. "Regardless, I remain muggleborn."
"Can this not be said of any discipline?" retorted Tom. "Take Aurors—Intelligence and magic preserve one's life in combat, not the possession of a venerated surname."
"Fallacious," Tansley rebuffed, wagging his finger, while relishing folded slices of honeyed toast. "Aurors uphold Ministry policies, necessitating recruitment from families with vested interests in the continued perpetuation of these policies—pureblooded families. Every now and then an exception may be granted to an accomplished, conservative-minded muggle-born, should the Department of Magical Law Enforcement so permit."
Their argument before the sedated body of Abraxas Malfoy went on only for a few minutes. Where Tansley, the blubbering savant that he was, spoke loquaciously, Tom operated on a false principle—he did not actually care about muggleborns at all.
Tom's patience had worn thin. "You have yet to explain this Legilimency business," he said, his voice laced with frustration.
Tansley, ever so nonchalant, took another bite of his toast before responding. "Legilimency is the art of penetrating another's mind through the use of magic," he said, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. "In Malfoy's case, it could potentially aid in the resolution of his curse by allowing him to confront its origins through introspection."
Mind-reading! Tom was stunned. A flurry of surprise, terror, and excitement washed over him, before a conscious thought formed into a question—could it be that, almost eighteen months ago, when he was four inches shorter and yet uninitiated into the world of proper magic, Professor Dumbledore had employed this power to unearth the truth about the lamb and subject him and Mary to shame in the bedroom of their childhood? It had to be. Tom felt his jaw clench; he had never hated any being as much as he hated Dumbledore in that moment.
Yet, Tansley's revelations did not end there. "Wait—Abraxas is cursed?" Tom asked.
"Drat, I spoke too soon," Tansley muttered to himself, his cheeks flushing with undue embarrassment. "Indeed; I perused a report from St. Mungo's, which Abraxas's father provided to Madam Milosz. It appears that Longinus Malfoy's former spouse inflicted a curse upon Abraxas, while his subsequent spouse, Iphigenia Malfoy—also Abraxas's mother—sacrificed her own life in a successful attempt to save him. The precise attributes of Belladonna Malfoy's curse remain unknown, as Abraxas, the lone survivor of it, suffers from traumatic amnesia. Nonetheless, it is undeniable it was of a significantly malefic nature."
Tom's gaze lingered on Abraxas's still form, his mind racing with a mix of horror and fascination. The tales he had heard from his housemates now seemed to hold some truth, and the idea of a curse causing such lasting damage repulsed and thrilled him at the same time.
"Why?" asked Tom. "Why would Longinus Malfoy's first wife do such a thing?"
"The intricacies of this narrative elude me, as they do Abraxas," Tansley responded nonchalantly. "Hence my advocacy for magipsychotherapy as a means to unravel them."
Tom's mind raced with a dozen different thoughts, but he knew he could not tread every path of inquiry simultaneously. Prioritisation was imperative; the first thing he had to ascertain was whether Professor Dumbledore had used Legilimency upon him and Mary. With a quick farewell to Tansley, Tom hurried to the library, where he spent the rest of the night poring over books on the very subject.
The dawn broke with potions with Gryffindor, where Professor Slughorn announced that they would be brewing a Strengthening Solution, a potion rumoured to have been swigged by the great warrior-mages of yore, granting them the might to heft the clunky metal weapons of ancient muggles as if they were toothpicks, thereby turning them into the gods of muggle myths.
But the ardour of the second-years was dampened by Slughorn's disclosure that the brewing process would span six lessons, stretching across the expanse of three long weeks.
Tom and his sister found themselves at their usual workbench, where Mary, though weary from the previous day's events, no longer avoided Tom's gaze, but instead bestowed upon him a timid smile, as if all was right in the wizarding world.
"A long night, I presume?" Tom inquired.
"I spent it conversing with Florence," Mary replied.
"Regarding yesterday's events, I presume?" Tom's voice was chilly, his nostrils slightly flared as he plucked a shriveled griffin claw from a jar."Yes."
"And when might you share those events with me?" Tom pressed, sharpening his cleaver with the tip of his wand.
Mary began plucking the fangs from a bouquet of baby fanged geraniums. "There is not much to share, really. I had intended to spend a few minutes with Caney, but circumstances led me to linger at his mansion for the entire afternoon."
Tom paused, considering whether or not to interrogate Mary for the ridiculous vagueness of her answer, before she continued, her eyes locked with his.
"I'd never seen anything like it!" Mary exclaimed, her envy evident in her huff. "Caney's mansion is right by the Thames, in an enclave that has never seen muggles before! The place was ancient and modern all at once, and their garden would put Buckingham Palace's to shame. A house-elf even offered me iced chocolate, which I refilled thrice. It was divine. Don't you wish we could have a place like that, Tom?"
Tom knew his sister was trying to distract him, and not even trying to hide her intentions in doing so; but he was too susceptible to her caprices. "We shall have a place that surpasses it in every way," he assured her, as he chopped up griffin claw chunks and deposited them into a mortar.
Mary's mischievous smile grew wider. "Excellent. But I need your help. You see, I procured a small number of flowers from Caney's garden and desire to grow more. Alas, they don't bear seeds."
Tom suspected his sister of sidestepping the weightier matter at hand. Nevertheless, unable to confront her directly, he entertained her whimsical fancy. "How will you grow more, then?"
"There exists a potion called Thesmaphorium that reverts plants back into their seeds. I've come across descriptions of it, but no actual recipes."
"We shall find it," Tom said. "But what sets these flowers apart?
"You shall see after class," Mary promised with a sly smile.
After their classes had ended, Mary took Tom's hand and, with a skip in her step, led him down to the Slytherin Dungeon. Tom was left in the Common Room to await Mary's return, and when she did, she carried not a small bouquet, but a large, glowing blue jar containing a profusion of vibrant purple flowers.
"A preservatorium," she murmured, her pale, slender fingers clasped around her prize attentively. "It slows the decay of uprooted flowers. But we must act quickly, I fear they will not last much longer."
With a tap of her wand, Mary vanished the thin metal lid of the jar and—
Music!
Tom, who had always been indifferent, if not hostile, to music, was stunned by the beautiful sounds that floated into his ears. It was not, strictly speaking, music, but rather a harmonious blend of various sounds of his life—the sound of the wind rustling the leaves in Abney Park cemetery, the splashing of water in London gutters, the lapping of the Thames against innumerable embankments, the lilting cadence of Mary's laughter and soft sighs, the bubbling of properly brewed potions, and the thumps of books returning to their shelves at the library.
"Singing Saffron, or so Caney calls it," Mary said softly. "What do you hear, Tom?"
"London and Hogwarts," he replied simply.
Mary tapped her wand on the jar twice to rematerialise the thin metal lid, stopping the music. "Five ounces of Thesmaphorium would suffice to revert them into seeds," Mary explained, "but I've scoured the library from top to bottom and found aught."
Tom pondered this information before declaring, "It must be in the restricted section."
"Which we have no access to," Mary reminded him.
"Ezekiel Tansley has a pass. You can convince him to retrieve the book for us."
"What do you mean, 'I can convince him'?" Mary asked incredulously.
"You have a knack for bending boys to your will."
Mary glared at him.
"Moreover, they're your flowers."
"I wouldn't know how to approach Tansley," she said, crossing her arms. "What if he informs on us?"
"He won't tell," said Tom. "But let's meet him in the Hospital Wing tonight. I'll tell you the name of the book you'll have him procure."
With that, Mary departed for lunch while Tom retired to his dormitory to retrieve a trinket from his old suitcase, hidden beneath his bed. Under the neatly folded muggle clothing on the right side of the suitcase, he retrieved a magnifying glass, a silver-framed instrument with a dark wooden handle, a gift he had pilfered for Mary when they were ten. He had long considered imbuing the glass with enchantments, but had never found the time or need until now.
The enchantment proved more time-consuming than expected, causing Tom to miss both lunch and much of their afternoon class. But by evening, the lens of the magnifying glass was transformed into a glowing sheet of green crystal. Tom first went to consult a general 'anthology' of potions—Thesmaphorium, he learned, was one of the dozen 'sacred' potions used in the annual agricultural rituals of the Roman Empire. With that in mind, he tiptoed along the Restricted Section, which appeared like a huge confession booth under its vaulted ceiling. With a tap of his wand, Tom's glass magnified and demagnified at will, rendering the previously unreadable volumes legible in the darkness. It was not long before Tom discovered Potions Herbologickal, Volume III; Renewall & Transformacione, the very book he sought.
When they met that night in the Hospital Wing, there was a greater crowd than Tom had anticipated: in addition to Ezekiel Tansley and Mary, the full cohort of first-year Slytherins were gathered. Tom whispered the name of the forbidden book to his sister, who merely nodded in acknowledgment. He greeted the students whose acquaintances would prove advantageous to him, and then turned quiet to observe Mary's interaction with Tansley. Tom knew full well that his sister held no affection for the eggheaded, cerebral Ravenclaw, so he could not help but furrow his brow in consternation as he watched her ensnare Tansley with her bright smiles and warm glamour. Tansley was left stammering, smiling, trembling, and laughing. If Mary could wield such power over a boy she cared not for, what could she have accomplished with one who she actually liked?
The following day, as they brewed their potions, Mary grabbed Tom's arm and pulled him close, her warm breath tickling his ear as she whispered, "The ingredients for the potion will be ready within the week."
She spoke not of the Strengthening Solution, but of Thesmaphorium.
"So soon?" Tom queried in disbelief. "How did you manage it?"
"I enlisted the help of Tansley and Abraxas," she replied, in an absurdly innocent tone.
"You did what?" Tom asked, appalled.
"I enlisted the help of Tansley and Abraxas," she reiterated, this time with a touch of petulance. "They are my flowers after all, like you said. Is there a problem?"
"You met Ezekiel Tansley for the first time yesterday. How can you trust him so soon?"
"I can tell he's trustworthy," Mary said in a manner that Tom knew any further enquiry would be futile.
Tom would later learn that it was Tansley who approached Mary with the offer. As the steward of the Hospital Wing, Tansley had his own brewing workshop, and was tasked with acquiring all the necessary ingredients for Madam Milosz. When it turned out that the ingredients for Thesmaphorium proved too costly, Abraxas gracefully intervened (at the insistent behest of Mary, naturally), graciously drawing from his bountiful allowance to acquire the necessary resources.
With a contented expression, Abraxas observed Tansley, Mary, and Tom putting his generous contribution to use. Though Tansley's workshop was small and cramped, it was blessed with a large window that allowed the fumes from their cauldron to escape.
While the Strengthening Solution took two weeks to brew, Thesmaphorium required a month and a half, just in time for the end of term. Mary did most of the work; she applied herself to the cauldron with a frenzy reminiscent of the seven-year-old girl who slaughtered a pigeon to avenge Metis. Towards the last weeks of the term whence came every exam at once, the twins enacted a division of labour. Tom, whose study notes were otherwise highly idiosyncratic and illegible to eyes that were not his own, now prepared them with a special diligence so his sister could easily read them—he did this on a small desk in Tansley's study, while Tansley and his sister worked at the cauldron.
Weeks passed. Tom found himself no closer to the truth of what had transpired between sister and Fawley on that afternoon they were auspiciously consigned to the latter's home. Despite his efforts to extract information from Abraxas, the boy proved immune to Tom's charm; he was receptive only to the sickly sweet whispers of Mary. Tom even began to suspect that the first-year harboured a certain animosity towards him; his little face tensed up whenever Tom drew Mary's gaze away from him or spoke harshly to her.
On a Friday in May, Grindelwald invaded France.
It was a spectacle three times more exciting than the Quidditch Cup. Although Professor Dippet insisted that copies of The Daily Prophet were only to be imported every Sunday, older students began smuggling prints—not just of The Daily Prophet, but of exotic foreign publications such as the French L'appel du Clarion, whose correct rendering was argued over by its quarrelsome translators—various older students, mostly Ravenclaws—on a daily basis.
Poland had been a training ground for journalists and correspondents, for the Battle of France was transcribed, described, and photographed so painstakingly that it unfolded in real time through Hogwarts castle. Boys devoured reports of the skirmishes between the Freimagier and the combined forces of the French Ministry; some of the less judicious among them sought to learn and use the curses detailed within these reports for hallway duels. Girls showed each other newspaper cut-outs of particularly handsome Aurors or even Freimagier magetroops, and everyone waxed lyrical about the suffering of muggles.
Abraxas Malfoy's heart was more invested in the Battle of France than anyone else's. Every wizarding skirmish or muggle battle that the Germans won was received by him like the notice of a relative's death. When news came of the fall of the Headquarters of the French Auror Office, he collapsed at the breakfast table, and was relegated to the Hospital Wing for the third time that year.
"Why does it bother him so much?" Tom asked Tansley one night. "Does he really think France is all that separates Grindelwald from us?"
"That theory is not entirely without merit," said the Ravenclaw, "but no. Abraxas is distressed because his mother was French—in his melancholic child-mind, every attack on France equates to an attack on her memory. You understand, don't you?"
Tom wanted to say he did not understand, because his mother had died on the day he was born. But he held his tongue. In truth, though he venerated Grindelwald as the greatest living wizard, perhaps even the greatest wizard to have ever lived, Tom was afraid of the Freimagier. They were ruthless and often wantonly violent; if they attacked Britain, he would have little means of protecting Mary from them. He was, by necessity, bound to his country—he was sufficiently intelligent to decide his allegiances in theory, but not powerful enough to decide them in practice.
But he did not sulk. He still had his prodigious ability to learn—it was all he had—but he felt with every fibre of his being that it was enough to one day render him into one of the greatest sorcerers of his generation. It was only a question of time, of which Tom felt simultaneously impoverished of and profoundly supplied with. He knew he was young, but the war on the continent was a vortex that seemed to suck time out of air.
"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat," said the newly inaugurated Prime Minister Churchill to his Empire. Tom was not inspired—though it proved a useful mantra for contemplation. He recalled a proposition of Mòzi in The Principles of Change—everything in the world is cyclical. The spells of the Latinate and Germanic magicks are quick and intense, suited for battle, whilst the spells of the Chinese are slow and flowing, predicated on a system of wand-calligraphy that produces airborne runes that last anywhere from moments to years, though they always fade away. There is no spell, no curse, without a lifetime.
For a week, Tom studied this enigmatic eastern language with as much fervour as he studied for his exams. After a dozen attempts, he managed to paint with his wand the character for 'water': 水. The symbol was three inches long and wide, and shimmered with a diaphanous blue hue like a crystal. A stream of water flowed from the symbol, growing brighter and stronger until it was as radiant as the sun, before eventually diminishing and dribbling like a leaky faucet. 'Blood, toil, tears, and sweat' were but drops in the puddle of history. Yet, history is eternal, and the puddle was merely a stage in the lifespan of a historical period. But was it the youth of one era or the senility of another? The muggles to whom it was addressed would have seen it as the former, whilst Tom knew it to be the latter.
Every cycle is part of a greater cycle. The moon revolves around the Earth as the Earth revolves around the sun. The more Tom meditated on the seasonal nature of all things, the more he saw Churchill as redundant. Muggle reality, divorced from magic, was nothing but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. It was not a reality worth living in.
Yin and Yang, the eternal interplay of chaos and justice, happens slowly, just as a river must flow in a direction no matter its calmness. The internal dance of creation never ceases its movement. Every modern phenomenon, whether a miracle or malaise, could be understood through the study of history. Nothing is absolutely unique. And so, a great intuition, or perhaps hope, of Tom's, was substantiated—that muggle industrialism cannot sustain itself. The larger machines grew, the more muggles went to the cities; the more sophisticated they became; the more food muggles had—but how large could a city get before it would burst? And would great cities not burst more violently than small ones? Had it not already happened, at the end of the Roman Empire? But even the Roman Empire was without machines. Muggle civilisation was bound to cannibalise itself, like an overgrown hive of wasps in an abandoned cellar—unless they were stopped at wandpoint.
Thus, Grindelwald's "For The Greater Good" was not an euphemism, as The Daily Prophet claimed, but a call for universal human salvation. Whether the ancient Mage-Emperors existed or not, Grindelwald sought to become one, as much from historical necessity as from personal vanity or ambition. The International Confederation of Wizards knew nothing; to preserve the Statute was nothing but saving lives today at the cost of more tomorrow. Tom thought all of this was glaringly obvious; if he managed to figure it out within two years of his initiation into the magical world, how was it not evident to everyone?
In fact, the inevitable implosion of muggle civilisation was obvious well over a century ago. The Daily Prophet often accused Grindelwald of 'Bonstregonism'. Tom thought this sounded like a cooking method favoured by Mayfair toffs. It was not; it was the ideology of the greatest wizard of the nineteenth century—Claude Bonstrégon. Tom had not once heard of this man in two years of 'History of Magic'; his name was only ever invoked by the press, unfavourably, to condemn Grindelwald for lack of originality. A year ago Tom would have adopted the opinions of respected older students on Bonstrégon; now, he knew they were inferior to him. He went to the library.
Claude Bonstrégon's father was Hadès-Blangis Bonstrégon, the patriarch of an old Lombard pureblood family who made an illicit fortune amidst the chaos of the French revolution, which had profoundly overturned not only the institutions and lives of French muggles, but also of French mages. It was during this upheaval that Claude was born. His mother was a young muggle woman who was a nonentity. For her, no author thought it necessary to present anything more than a trifecta of facts: that she was young and beautiful; that she was either coerced or 'seduced' to sleep with Bonstrégon the father, who was ninety years old; and that she died shortly after the birth of her only child.
A half-blood bastard, Claude Bonstrégon's childhood was a difficult one. His father pulled strings in the Reformed French Ministry to enrol his son at Beauxbatons, which only permitted purebloods at the time. However, Claude was anything but grateful. He was known to have said, 'I may be a bastard before the law, but my father is a bastard before God'. Despite this holy declamation, Claude was not a particularly pious fellow—he got expelled from Beauxbatons at the tender age of fifteen, which proved to be a very fortuitous event for him—his devilish charm had already inspired such devotion in his peers that many left with him in protest, and followed him to enlist in Napoleon's muggle army to fight all over Europe.
In just two years, Claude Bonstrégon had broken every edict of the International Statute of Secrecy, becoming the most wanted wizard by the International Confederation of Wizards. The Supreme Mugwump personally authorised French Aurors to employ unforgivables in the pursuit of Bonstrégon and his men. Yet, it was not long before he had convinced the majority of these Aurors to join forces with him, overthrowing the Reformed French Ministry and establishing the Imperial French Ministry. Under his leadership, wizards from all walks of life, including muggleborns and half-bloods, rallied behind the Napoleonic cause. Modelling his armies on the Ancient Roman Magicio model, wherein every cohort of a Roman legion had its own mage-warrior, Bonstrégon coined the principle, 'A wand for every thousand rifles.'
Alas, in the infamous campaign for Russia, traditional squadron-Aurors prevailed against the anachronistic mage-warriors, ultimately leading to Bonstrégon's capture and condemnation to the Dementor's Kiss by the International Confederation of Wizards.
Tom related all this and more to Abraxas and Ezekiel Tansley, both of whom proved more enthusiastic for history than he had expected. A boon. At last, there was something with which Tom could gain Abraxas' favour. It incidentally aided Tom's understanding of himself. What was it that made the trifecta of these boys so abnormally enchanted by history? Especially when there was magic itself to learn? The flattering answer was 'intelligence'. No, it couldn't be, thought Tom. It failed to account for why Alexius Lestrange—who was intelligent, but affected a brusque stupidity—was averse to history, or why someone like Amos Nott—who was a dunce, but affected sophistication—took pride in knowing all its facts.
The answer, Tom realised, was a profoundly psychological one. The three of them were all highly endowed, even for wizards, yet deeply deficient in some way. Abraxas, proud of being the scion of perhaps the wealthiest pureblood family in Europe, was burdened by a seemingly incurable curse from his father's ex-wife. Tansley, proud of his immense intellect, found himself isolated from his peers by the same. And Tom, proud of his many gifts, felt the weight of his orphanhood and the gulf between himself and the great sorcerer he was destined to become. It was these departures, these gaps between who they were and who they could be, that drove them to seek solace and power in the past, through understanding the passage of time.
On the second of June, the Freimagier overran the headquarters of the French Ministry—the Place de Furstenberg in Paris. Two weeks later, the German muggles took over the city completely. On a sunny Saturday morning, the Slytherin table buzzed over a particularly flagrant piece of editorialism.
THE SEDUCTION OF FRANCE: GRINDELWALD'S GREAT CAMPAIGN OF SUBTERFUGE
It came, of course, from the rag that was The Daily Prophet. But in spite of its innumerable shortcomings, Tom knew that within its columns could be found glimmers of truth, as one might extract water from a broken tap by applying one's lips to the cracks in its piping. Lockhart claimed that Grindelwald had spies placed throughout French society, be it muggle, magical, or goblin, stoking the flames of discord that already simmered within the country. Such a notion was plausible enough, but Lockhart did not stop there. He went on to allege that a cabal of 'high-ranking Bonstregonists' had neutralized large portions of the French Auror Forces through the clever use of the Imperius Curse.
As Tom perused the article, he found himself increasingly assaulted by the absurdity of it all. The supposed conspirators were named, their portraits garishly animated, and their seductions expounded upon in great detail, all supposedly aided by exotic love curses. Thane, with his green eyes alight with excitement, breathed, "Fascinating."
Tom regarded the elder boy with skepticism. "Fascinating, indeed, that anyone would swallow such drivel."
"Some of it must be true," Thane replied, shrugging. "After all, Lockhart moves in important circles. He hobnobs with widehats like Lestrange's dad. His knowledge is far beyond ours. The truth lies between the lines, my friend, for those with the wit to perceive it. Secrets worth uncovering, by reading between the lines."
"And have you uncovered any such secrets?" Tom asked, his tone direct.
"That the French will flee here!" Thane exclaimed, his eyes gleaming. "Just like the muggles at Dunkirk. Their mundane and magical ministries are converging, uniting their forces in a grand mobilisation."
"Is this even anything more than propagandistic bluster?"
"A total mobilisation, dear boy!" Thane repeated, his voice ringing with excitement. "We shall finally be on equal footing with the Grindelwaldians, with every department of the Ministry having war as its primary focus, even the Improper Use of Magic Office."
Tom's eyes widened in amazement. The older boy spoke of a great possibility, one that was almost too fantastical to imagine. "What do you have in mind, Thane?"
"They won't concern themselves with whisperwand misdemeanours," Thane stated with a sly smirk. "Not when there are far weightier problems to tackle. We shall be able to practise magic during the summer, in muggle parts. We could have genuine... amusement with the muggles."
"And what of The Trace?" Tom asked, his skepticism returning.
"I doubt they will even worry about it," Thane said. "But we shall…experiment. If not a single owl comes swooping down after we confound a muggle, we shall be able to push the boundaries further than ever before."
Yet Tom had no interest in spending his summer with Thane, even if he promised to practice curses on muggles without consequence. He preferred to spend it with Mary, alone, making London their playground once more. Their powers had grown tremendously since they last used them on another orphan.
Tom found himself eagerly awaiting his conversation with Ezekiel Tansley later that day, eager to learn what truth he—admittedly much more intelligent than Mulciber—might have gleaned from Lockhart's absurd exposé. And what he learned was valuable, although their conversation began, as usual, with Tom redressing Tansley's tendency to babble.
"…the Freimagier and Wehrmacht captured Paris at separate intervals, though it is conceivable that a syncretic strategy—"
"Focus, Ezekiel," Tom interjected.
"Allow me to recalibrate," Ezekiel said evenly. "The Statute is not designed merely to keep dragons from the sight of muggles, but rather to ensure that if a muggle were to catch a glimpse, they would be deemed insane by their own kind. The true strength of the Statute is its ability to strengthen with the passage of time. The ongoing war attests to this fact. Unlike the Great War, which lacked magical involvement, this war has witnessed the unabated use of magic for nearly a year, and yet the Statute remains as strong as ever. Wars often prompt the International Confederation of Magic to seek avenues for further consolidating the Statute. It was during the Napoleonic, or Bonstrégonic Wars that their initial endeavour to retrieve magical artefacts from the Muggle world transpired. However, it is also during conflicts that these very artefacts can fall into Muggle hands."
Tom, listening intently, lifted a halting hand. "How could purebloods so willingly surrender their 'artefacts'?" he asked, with genuine confusion and disappointment.
"Many of these artefacts predate the Statute and were lost prior to its establishment," explained Ezekiel. "Consider, for instance, the pillage of India by Britain. Countless ancient trinkets were safeguarded by protective curses, which accounts for the inexplicable demise of more than one affluent Englishman upon acquiring them for their manorial treasure chambers. This also accounts for the enduring superstitions surrounding Oriental, gypsy, and Latin objects being deemed 'cursed'—superstitions that, ironically, bears some semblance of truth. However, even protective curses erode over time, especially when they cease to command affection or fear—though, in the case of Hindu relics, they occasionally persist curiously due to the veneration bestowed upon them by Mundane devotees. Perhaps that is by design."
Tom pondered this information, his brow furrowed. "If the curses fade, can they still be considered magical artefacts?"
"Cursed objects merely constitute one category among the myriad types delineated by the Confederation's classification of magical artefacts," Ezekiel replied. "Certain magical affects, can be permanent. Take, for instance, the poisoned sabres wielded by the Mohammedan Knights of Aurangzeb, infused with the venom of basilisks. Such venom never dissipates, remaining eternally potent. It is plausible that a number of these blades have inadvertently found their way into the possession of unsuspecting British Mundanes, subsequent to, let's say, the pillaging of the great palace of Mysore."
Tom made no reply, but instead retired to the library, where he spent hours researching basilisks, poison-infused weapons, and the history of colonial India. From this study, a plan took form, and he presented it to Thane Mulciber the next day, as ambled along the edge of the Forbidden Forest, haphazardly flinging various spells to cut and sever at particularly thin branches.
"I have a plan for our summer," Tom declared.
"Oh? Do tell."
Tom proceeded to divulge the information he had acquired from his Ravenclaw acquaintance. Though Thane did not particularly care for history, the notion of an ancient Indian sword infused with basilisk venom did manage to captivate his attention.
"Be mindful, my dear Tom," Thane interjected, his voice a mere breath in the wind. "Inviting that mudblood into our fold may prove unwise. He already knows too much."
"No, we shall keep our group small. I was contemplating inviting Lestrange."
Thane raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Surly old Alexius? If you deem it necessary, so be it. What of your sister?"
Tom felt a twinge of unease at the thought of Mary spending the entire summer with Alexius Lestrange, who he had otherwise intended on courting for some time. The prospect of being separated for Mary for an entire two months was unbearable. Thus, Tom resolved that she would indeed join them, while Lestrange would not. But it was unnecessary to disclose the entirety of his reasoning to Thane.
"I shall speak to her," Tom merely said. "I'm certain she will agree."
However, at dinner that evening, Mary was not present. Tom remembered that tomorrow was to the harvest day for their Thesmaphorium. Mary, who had become singularly obsessed with the project over the past two months, was likely attending to it at that very moment.
With the morning's arrival, an hour before breakfast, Tom hastened through the corridors, his steps hastened by an urgency that tugged at his being. The path led him to Tansley's study within the Hospital Wing. Alas, Mary had already departed, leaving behind an empty cauldron that had maintained a ceaseless boil since April. Mary had already left, and the cauldron, which had been constantly boiling since April, was finally empty. The green liquid inside had been extracted with an impressive scrupulosity. Tom could not help but recall the countless hours Mary had spent tending to her concoction, her movements graceful and fluid as she stirred and added ingredients with an almost musical rhythm. He remembered the way the steam had risen from the cauldron, curling around her decliately, as she leaned over it with a rapt expression on her face.
"Tom," a feeble voice breathed, stirring him from his thoughts.
"Abraxas," Tom replied, his body shifting with ease on the ball of his foot. "I didn't expect to find you alone. Where is Mary?"
"She has left me, Tom," Abraxas responded with a voice so delicate it seemed inhuman. "She has gone to harvest her flowers at last."
"Really? Shall we go see her then?"
"I think it would be best if you went alone to see her," the younger boy muttered, barely audible.
"Are you feeling unwell?"
"Not at all, but I believe it would be wise for you to visit Mary alone."
"Why's that?"
"You must convince her to destroy the flowers."
"What?" Tom spoke in a hushed tone.
"The flowers don't just make music—they can affect one's behavior, perhaps—"
"They can change one's behavior—"
"Stop with the enigmatic talk." Tom took hold of the first-year's shoulders. "Speak plainly. What do you mean?"
"When I was at Fawley's," Abraxas began in a quavering tone, "he told his sister Héloïse to take me to a chamber to rest. However, Héloïse and I secretly trailed him and Mary to the garden and stumbled upon an arbour composed entirely of those very flowers. It was within that arbour that Mary... kissed Arcanius Fawley on the lips."
Tom stumbled backwards, and felt his mouth dry with impossible quickness. He felt as if he had been hit by anvil. He could scarcely fathom the words that reached his ears, for they defied the boundaries of belief and reason. And yet, the solemn countenance of the younger boy, etched with weariness and sorrow, left no room for skepticism. A sense of complete horror, like nothing he had ever known before, began to rapidly gnaw at his insides. He could not fathom why Mary would be so horrid—act so contrarywise to everything he wanted—he clenched his fists, gnashed his teeth, and felt himself foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal. Then, in an instant of madness, he seized Abraxas by the shoulders and slammed him against the wall. The younger boy's face transformed into one of pure hurt and fear, and Tom, in a moment of clarity, realised that he had just shattered any residual affection or trust that Abraxas had for him. He was not sure he would be able to ever recover it.
"You must be telling me the truth," Tom hissed. "The full and complete truth."
"I... I speak only... only the truth," Abraxas stammered, his words barely escaping his quivering lips. "The... the full and complete truth."
"You should have told me sooner."
The swell of Tom's despair had reached such a crescendo that even the fear Abraxas held for him failed to offer any comfort. Tom left the Hospital Wing in a daze, his footsteps leading him to the clearing in the Forbidden Forest. With each step, he felt as if he were walking towards his own damnation. The magic he struggled to control raged like boiling water within a stove, causing the twigs upon trees to spontaneously flame and the pavement beneath his feet to crack, but he was heedless of these disturbances.
When at last he laid eyes upon Mary, he regarded her with a gaze that lingered, unyielding, contemplating the myriad ways in which he might inflict pain upon her. In the depths of his anguish, nothing seemed unjust, for she had driven a stake through the very core of his soul, and only an infinity of suffering could begin to redress the imbalance. Gruesome and primal thoughts, repugnant under any other circumstance, danced with ease within the recesses of his mind, seduced by the image of this girl who had transgressed all bounds.
Clad in velvety orange pyjama robes likely bestowed upon her by Florence, Mary's form was more alluring than ever, a beauty somehow made all the more profound by its association with sin. In the golden light of the dawn, she stooped and plucked one of those wretched flowers, her loveliness so striking as to defy comprehension.
The time for contemplation had ended—it was now time to take action.
Tom lunged forward, seizing his sister and pinning her against a gnarled tree trunk.
"How could you?" he demanded, his voice crescendoing into a piercing scream. "HOW COULD YOU?! UNSISTERLY! UNSISTERLY—UNSISTERLY—UNSISTERLY!"
For a moment, terror was plainly etched upon Mary's face, before it was replaced by a countenance of defiance. The rational part of Tom's mind, relegated to the depths of his being, was aware that Mary's accidental magic might at any moment inflict a destructive release. But it did not. Mary allowed Tom to marinate in his anger, as if to make a fool of him.
"How could I what, Tom?" she retorted, plainly mocking.
"You... you know goodly well what!" Tom's voice cracked, a jumble of anger and hurt. "You... you kissed that... that blood-traitorous unbrotherly dog on the lips, and you... you kept it from me—six long weeks of deception, of making me a fool, of spinning a web deceitwise." Tom felt his face contort in impossible directions. "You... you said you did aught at Fawley's posh manor! Why, Mary? Why?! Why did you lie? Why?!"
Mary, unruffled by Tom's fervour, replied in a voice that was both sweet and mocking, "So that you would know what betrayal feels like, Tom. You took Caney from me and brought Ilaria, along with nearly every Slytherin girl, against me, without so much as a giving me a warning, let alone consulting my opinion."
Tom was perplexed by Mary's composure and eloquence, despite his hands gripping her shoulders and his furious expression towering over her. And then, he realized—she had anticipated this confrontation, rehearsed her response, and even instructed Abraxas to tell the truth. Abraxas, who had only taken a liking to her because of Tom's influence.
"But you proper enjoyed it, didn't you?" Tom asked, quietly, almost involuntarily. "You liked kissing him, Fawley."
Mary replied with a sinister calm, "I like him very much. 'Tis your wrong. I told you that I desired him, it would have just been a bit of fun scant of fun. But you didn't listen. One'd reckon you'd took him from me so that you could have me yourself. You couldn't bear the thought of sharing even a crumb of me with anyone else. You're the one who hasn't been brotherly, Tom, don't you see?"
Despite his seething anger, Tom forced a sneer to cross his lips. "Has your mind regressed to that of a child? A necklace is not the same as a kiss."
"You're right," Mary conceded. "A necklace is worth much more. You give me kisses aplenty, but you've never given me a necklace. In fact, you've even taken one from me."
Tom remained silent, his gaze fixed upon Mary, his hand clutching tightly around the handle of his wand. He wished to obliterate the clearing, to scorch the bluebells, to mar his sister's angelic beauty. Instead, he took a step back and released a heavy breath. His body seemed to suddenly slump, like a puppet with its strings cut.
"You were meant to be mine," he whispered, his voice broken. "You were all I had."
"Tom," Mary said softly, her voice suddenly charged with pity. She no longer regarded him with malice. "It's all over now, don't you see? No more fighting. It has all become so tedious, hasn't it?"
"I cannot comprehend your idiocy," Tom muttered, his insult losing its sharpness in his resigned tone. "We were already even. We belonged only to each other. It was you who changed it, not me."
"Why did you tell on me for Ilaria's necklace?" Mary asked in a petulant tone. "If you were mine, you would have let me keep it."
"It's just a necklace," Tom replied.
"And Caney is just a boy," Mary retorted.
Tom glared at her.
"One'd reckon a boy and a necklace are aught," said Mary, offering a tentative smile and placing a hand on Tom's chest. "Don't you love me, Tom? I love you enough to forgive you for these frivolous things."
"Of course, I love you," he spat out. "But you kissed him."
"What difference does it make? You've kissed me too."
"Not on the lips," Tom replied.
"Would you like to rectify that?" Mary inched her visage closer, until their lips were but a breath's width apart.
Her sincerity was unmistakable, and it was more than he could bear. It was not only the embarrassment she had caused him that Tom could not endure, but her pity as well. He could not accept her offer—even if her lips were as lovely and enticing as the softest fruit, covered in vanilla pudding—it would somehow mean nothing. They were meant to be equals, twins. He pushed her away.
"No. Only separation will make amends for what you have done."
"Separation?" Mary asked, her voice filled with sudden alarm. "What do you mean?"
"We won't spend the summer together, Mary," Tom said.
"What?! What do you mean? But where—?"
"I have arrangements with Thane," Tom replied.
With a mix of anguish and fury, Mary seized Tom's shoulders. The malevolent spirit that had taken hold of Tom for the past half-hour now possessed her. But Tom felt no vindictive satisfaction, only the coldness of necessity.
"You can't leave me! Not in London!" Mary cried out in desperation. "I-I'll do something bad! I'll hurt myself!"
"You won't," Tom replied with calm assurance. "But I wouldn't care if you did."
