London had changed. War invigorated it. The wireless at Wool's Orphanage, once used exclusively to divert its staff late at night, was now the foremost pleasure of the orphans. The grandiloquent speeches of politicians lent a surreal aspect to their desolate lives. Of course, that the wireless was now on sixteen hours a day, every day, required the steady replenishing of its battery acid. Whichever orphan was tasked with going to the Radio and Cycle shop nine miles down the A1 would have beheld every delineation of the energetic face of wartime London; he would have seen men in uniforms everywhere, marching in tidy groups of five, twenty, or fifty; he would have seen the replacement of currency with little brown books at grocers and markets; he would have seen that boys now played hide and seek with pretend pistols and rifles; and he would have seen processions of trucks carrying paintings and statues from museums fleeing bombers that had yet to come.

Indeed, some believed that German bombers would soon fly over the city, but Mary thought this unlikely. A strange part of her felt that her birthplace was immune to destruction, yet she secretly wished for it. She longed to be entombed beneath the rubble of the orphanage, for her death would force Tom to regret every wrong he had ever done her. London was a paradox; Tom was unforgiving as long as she lived, but in death, he would repent every harsh word and deed. Mary could not bear the pride of her brother, the two ration books left in her room, the curious gazes of the other orphans, and the lecherous stares of strange men. She could no longer bear London without Tom. Tom would have quipped that conflict gave meaning to muggle existence.

And so, in a fit of desperation, Mary scribbled a message to Florence on a crumpled piece of parchment:

Dearest Florence, you must allow me to spend summer with you. You must make it so. Tell your father whatever you must. I cannot endure London any longer.


The Senate House building in London made Tom feel sick. Though he had laid eyes on its formidable structure countless times before, his heart, now steeped in the enchanting beauty of Hogwarts, recoiled at the sight of these colossal muggle edifices. Nineteen stories high and built in the horrific modern style known as Art Deco, its monolithic façade was carved from limestone and adorned with small, deep-set windows. It seemed at once a prison and the hub of the most important city in the world. While Westminster Abbey stood as a symbol of Medieval England and the House of Parliament represented the grandeur of the British Empire of centuries past, the Senate House was the embodiment of modern European civilisation, in all its callous efficiency, erected in a mere nine years as the administrative centre of the University of London. It was a place where statesmen, scientists, political radicals, psychoanalysts, and even royalty are educated; now requisitioned, for the war, by the Ministry of Information. Once a training ground for the international muggle elite, it was now the greatest centre for the dissemination of imperial propaganda. And it dwarfed Hogwarts Castle in its sheer magnitude, as if to mock the magical world.

"This building is dull as a cow's backside, chaps," declared Alexius Lestrange as he, Mulciber, and Tom ascended the grand staircase between the third and fourth levels of the building. "I saw a tower in New England, built by a prince called Rockefeller. It'd make this lumbering rock look like a pile of dung."

Tom scoffed, "There are no princes in America, you ignorant fool. Rockefeller was a businessman in the oil trade, not royalty."

"There are no princes in America," said Tom. "Rockefeller was a businessman in the oil trade, not royalty."

"Can't a business bloke be a prince?" Alexius retorted gruffly, attempting to salvage his misguided argument.

"In theory, yes," Tom said, "but John Rockefeller is not royalty. His grandfather was a lumberman."

Thane chimed in, "Who cares about his grandfather? The man's richer than a goblin, and that's all that matters."

The idea that he would next visit one with a pair of older boys who possessed the same secret powers as he, during another great war with Germany in 1940, would have seemed madness to his younger self. Yet, Tom did not lament the absurdity of his circumstances. They were dreamlike, rather than nightmarish, and the half-hearted attempts of Alexius and Thane to assimilate into muggle normality with freakish costumes amused him, much as they did the many bewildered university students and government footmen that swarmed the building.

As they disembarked on the fourth floor, the three Slytherin boys were overwhelmed. Senate House Library was the office of a bibliophilic accountant replicated ten times lengthwise and sidewise. The system of registration was as obscure as a seventh-year's arithmancy textbook, and the study desks were small and pathetic compared to the ornate tables at Hogwarts. On one busy desk, Tom found six bespectacled men poring over a diagrammatic sketch of an airplane on a placard-sized yellow sheet of paper.

"We are lost," said Thane in a sage manner. "That muggle over there looks like he'd know where's where in this cesspool they call a library."

With a bony finger, Thane motioned towards a resigned librarian in unremarkable black attire, dutifully wheeling a cart of returned tomes.

"Is he a priest?" asked Alexius. "One of those fellows who garb themselves in black and play at being wizards?"

"No," said Tom. "He's a lumberman."

"Piss off. Let's engage with him," said Alexius.

"I'll 'engage with him'," said Tom. "You two shall keep your gobs shut."

Approaching the librarian from behind, Tom tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me, sir? Might you be acquainted with where primary sources on Britain's wars in India could be located?"

"That depends on your definition of a primary source," the librarian responded promptly, turning towards Tom. "Are you referring to the diaries of individual soldiers, posthumously published by their bereaved relatives? Or perhaps the memoirs penned by their officers, composed prior to their demise? Alternatively, you may find value in the scholarly writings of contemporary domestic observers of said soldiers, which hold equal merit as 'primary sources'—"

Tom interjected. "My great-great grandfather passed in the Siege of Mysore. I wish to learn what I can about his final moments in this world."

Unfazed by Tom's sentimental fabrication, the librarian responded with detached indifference. "Your great-great grandfather met his demise during the Siege of Seringapatam," he corrected matter-of-factly. "Mysore encompasses both the kingdom wherein Seringapatam served as the capital and the sprawling trading town located some thirty miles to its southern reaches. The city of Seringapatam, specifically, faced a protracted siege orchestrated by the East India—"

Tom raised his hand, offering a conciliatory smile. "Indeed, sir. I stand corrected."

For a moment, the muggle said nothing. His gray eyes—the only lively part of his being besides his outspoken mouth—swiftly surveyed the surroundings before fixating on the ceiling, as if to magically envision the upper floors of the edifice. "You are in luck. After the East India Office was disbanded in 1858, Vice Chancellor Lefevre offered the Heythrop College dormitories as a warehouse for their archives. Earlier this year, they were transferred into this very building. You will discover them on the thirteenth floor. They will provide what you seek."

"The thirteenth floor. Thank you, sir."

The librarian scurried away with his cart.

"What a swot," Alexius sneered. "Ezekiel Tansley if Hogwarts hadn't so graciously taken him in."

To get to the thirteenth floor, they had to take an elevator. Tom pressed the discolouring yellow button labelled '13'. The system of gears that supported the elevator whined and whirred; the platform on which the three Slytherins stood abruptly shook, and Alexius reached for his wand. Tom swatted his arm. As the machine hauled them up the building, Tom stared straight ahead; it was too pathetic to regard the fear wrought on his pureblood friends' faces by a common muggle contraption.

Upon reaching the thirteenth floor, they found themselves in a place that was much more agreeable than the fourth. It was not a library, but rather a sparse and perfunctory space with scant desks and scarce students. The only other occupants were a venerable old man in a red army uniform, calmly smoking his pipe and poring over ancient documents, and a young, debonair Indian engrossed in an old white book.

Half the floor housed the donated archives of the India Office, a third of which were East India Company papers. It was not long before the three Slytherins discovered what they sought—a leather-bound scrapbook, titled An Illustrated Directory of Objects from the Fourth and Last Mysore War, jointly crafted by the Gentlemen Officers of Prendergast's 25th Dragoons, dating back a hundred and fifty years. Its contents were as advertised, with an eclectic mix of yellowed newsprint clippings of pencil sketches of Company army encampments, to prints of paintings worthy of the Royal Academy, such as "The Last Effort and Fall of Tippoo Sultaun." The final pages contained commendably detailed monochrome sketches drawn by a certain Captain J. C. Meares, of the "Artefacts and Souvenirs confiscated by His Majesty's Troops," or in simpler terms, the spoils of war taken by the victors.

Examining Meares' illustrations with the aid of a half yard parchment scroll entitled 'Sanskrit Magical Symbols' he purchased from Flourish and Blotts, Tom's eye was soon caught by something sandwiched between a white turban and a Persian opium waterpipe—a dagger whose spherical pommel was inscribed with what was undoubtedly a rune.

The rune's form was that of a perfect circle. In its centre, a visage of a serpentine man was etched, and its neck expanded into a spiral, encompassing the whole circumference. As Sanskrit Magical Symbols declared, it represented the naga, a creature denoting purification. It was believed to be a patron of the virtuous, and an affliction to the wicked. Tom construed these indications as he saw fit. Not only the dagger's pommel but the hilt, which resembled a pair of intertwined serpents with their heads as the cross-guard, insinuated its supernatural lineage. The hilt appeared more like two snakes attempting to take on the shape of a dagger's hilt than a dagger's hilt endeavouring to replicate the serpents. Although the blade seemed plain and basic, it looked sharp enough to effortlessly puncture human flesh.

Poetically placed amidst a turban and opium waterpipe, the former finely woven a century prior, the latter no older than two centuries, it instilled a sense of historical reverence akin to viewing an antique pagan altar wedged between a church and bakery. Tom, aware that only the most estimable items endure history's tempests, was cognizant of where to obtain his bounty,

The Ceremonial Katar of The Sultaun, Antedating not only the earliest vestiges of Mahommetanism in India, but even the Prophesier Mahommet Himself,

It was donated to the India Museum on Leadenhall Street in 1817 by Mr. John Ablewhite, nephew of our brother in arms, Major John Montague.


My dear Mary,

Father said yes! When I first asked he was not so eager — because cousin Osborne's staying with us too — you know him — Fawleys mate — hes here to go with Father everyday to the New Ministry they build in the Middle of London. & Father said he's not used to having 2 children around — less 3 &c — even if Osborne you & I are no longer children obviously. But I managed to convince him in the end. Sad little Mary! Of course you can stay with us! Pack lightly, as we have a plethora of garments and such. Not sure when this letter reaches you — but it must arrive before Friday. Our rencontre shall be Friday then. Meet me in the morning — say nine — at The Leaky Cauldron.

With much love,

Your devoted Florence

As Mary and Florence reunited in the dimly lit lobby of The Leaky Cauldron on Friday morning, Mary's ardour was uncontainable. The embrace she bestowed upon her friend was of such intensity that it caught them both by surprise. Though they were best friends, Mary's yearning and vexation, which she could not channel toward Tom, were released in Florence's embrace.

"Mary!" gasped Florence, struggling for breath. "I'm thrilled to see you, my love, but release me! I cannot breathe."

After relinquishing her grip on Florence, Mary scrutinised her friend from head to toe with affection. Florence donned a playful yet elegant purple summer robe, which wrapped around her like an enchanted silk curtain. "You look marvellous," Mary murmured.

Florence was less impressed with Mary's attire. "And you, my dear, look positively frightful!" she exclaimed, pinching the grey shirtdress fabric. "What is this dreadful rag?"

Florence pinched the fabric of Mary's gray shirtdress and wrinkled her nose.

"I assumed your father would desire me to be attired modestly."

"Modest? You look like a cemetery elf, Mary Riddle!" Florence laughed. She took Mary by the sleeve and said, "Come now, we shall procure something more befitting. No, we must first have breakfast—you look famished."

The portly, amiable man behind the bar asked them what they would like to eat. Florence requested pork chops with scalloped potatoes and butterbeer, while Mary asked, "What can I get for a sickle and three knuts?" Florence interjected, "She shall have the same as I, and please do bring us two of the freshest muffins in your stores."

"You spoil me."

"It's nothing," Florence said with a small smile. "Say, Mary, what happened to the robe Malfoy bought you? The crimson one. It would have surely been to the taste of father's sensibilities."

"Abraxas brought it for me in February," replied Mary. "I've grown quite a bit since then. It would reveal an excess of leg and form. It would be splendid, of course, for certain occasions—but it would be anything but to the taste of your father's sensibilities."

"Madam Meisel's craftsmanship is impeccable, if you ever require a tailor, love, but perhaps it's best to keep your robe as it is, for those 'certain occasions,'" said Florence with a smirk.

"Indeed, Flo," Mary replied, returning her companion's impish expression.

Soon, their food arrived. It was a daunting yet delectable sight. Daunting, for the rations bestowed upon these two thirteen-year-old girls could have sated grown men. Delectable, for every dish exuded a scent, appearance, and taste beyond Mary's wildest aspirations in muggle London. There was something decadent about butterbeer—at least an entire ounce of butter had been mixed in Mary's tankard of it—outside of Diagon Alley one was not permitted more than two ounces of butter a week as per rationing laws. Florence devoured her pork chops with an indiscretion unbefitting a young pureblood lady, although this very indiscretion signified the comfortable upbringing that she had. Mary, well aware that a pound of pork cost six shillings prior to the war, savoured her pork chops with care.


Leadenhall Street was a plank on a sinking ship, teetering precariously on the brink of an abyss. It was a symbol of a bygone era, a shining beacon of London's past glory, but now it stood as a relic, a monument to a time long since departed. Its buildings, adhering to the strictures of the Building Act of 1894, were designed to preserve the aesthetic purity of the area's landmarks, such as St Paul's Cathedral, but they were mere ornaments adrift in a sea of modernity. The present age demanded stark, impersonal behemoths, instead of mere beauty. There would come a day when a hundred Senate Houses would clear the skyline of the Building Act of 1894.

Thus the ship that was Roman London was indeed sinking. For the three Slytherin boys who had parsed through old colonial documents in Senate House Library, it sank most inconveniently, for the India Museum—where the Sultaun's dagger was supposed to be—had been shut down in 1879 and replaced by a bank.

It was then that Tom understood muggle banks were appendages of Senate House; they were partial to the same conspiracy that sought to suffocate everything beautiful in the world. He even disliked how Gringotts—a Goblin edifice—towered over everything wizard in Diagon Alley. But Tom was not one to languish in brooding. After inquiring of the City locals, Tom discovered that the India Museum's treasures were either transferred to the British Museum or the South Kensington Museum. On Tuesday and Wednesday, he visited both places with his boys, but the Sultaun's dagger was not found. Returning to Roman London, he discovered that the Museum's unscrupulous director had sold some of the collections to private collectors, feigning to raise funds for relocation. Fortunately, the records of these semi-licit transactions were preserved at the Senate House Library.

Hence, the Slytherin boys returned to the barren building's thirteenth floor three days later. Tom recited from the India Museum's artefact registry book, "The Katar of Tippoo Sultaun. Sold to Mr. Warren Herncastle of Norfolk for £850, the sum of which was appropriated to fund the resettlement of other articles."

"Perhaps a journey to East Anglia is in order?" inquired Thane, stretching his sinewy neck and cracking it in numerous places.

"It's only the arse end of nowhere," Alexius grumbled. "Let's depart now, before the afternoon throng clogs up the Floo Directorium."

Tom shook his head, "No, that's too risky. We can't afford to be tracked by the magical authorities. We'll have to take the muggle rail instead."

"Muggle rail?!" exclaimed Alexius, aghast. "I'd rather not end up in bits and pieces in Norfolk."

"Don't be an imbecile, Lestrange," Tom retorted indifferently. "You read too much of The Daily Prophet."

Thane added in his quiet, shrill voice, "There's a certain charm in traveling like a muggle. It adds to the thrill of the unknown."

Alexius muttered, "I'd rather not lose my neck for a thrill."

Tom cut in sharply, "We have no time to waste. We leave at once."

"Aye, aye, sir," muttered Alexius.


As the eleventh century drew to a close, the Normans, mounted on warhorses that had trodden English soil and wielding lances that had taken many English lives, turned their attention to Wales. Though they swept through Gwalia with the ferocity of fire, their passion was short-lived—and when it extinguished, it would not reignite; at least, not anytime within the next century. Indeed, twelfth century Britain was a time of slow, excruciating tumult; while The Anarchy plagued England, the Celtic princes of Wales liberated themselves of the Norman Yoke—and even the fortress that William the Conqueror himself built in Cardiff went deserted.

It was not until the latter half of the thirteenth century that Edward I, the tempestuous, long-legged barbarian-knight of a King who was little loved but deeply feared by his subjects and adversaries alike, at last subjected Wales to England. But even after Llywelyn the Last was disposed of and Mount Snowdon was encompassed in the domain of an English marcher lord, there persisted resentment, rivalry, and bloodshed after the war. Edward received reports of attacks on travellers by giant spiders, of the wares of merchants being stolen wholesale by disappearing elves, and of young, otherwise healthy lords dying in their bedchambers with no apparent wounds or signs of poisoning on their bodies. The shrewd King did not waver; recognising Dark Magic, he at once sought its best antidote; Royal Magic, or, Magic aligned with the interests of the King.

A new position was created in the Royal Household—the Royal Arcanologist—a post that would exist for no more than two hundred years. Tarquin d'Estrivers, a skilled dragon hunter and wizard, was the first to be appointed to the position and excelled at his job. He not only hunted down rebel Welsh mages, but also recruited many to the king's cause. As his mission progressed, he found himself with an increasing number of prisoners, so he constructed a building that served as both a court of law and a residence for Welsh mages who obeyed the king, known as Tarquin's Court.

Over the centuries, Tarquin's Court underwent a few critical changes. Firstly, its eponymous builder died and bequeathed it to his son, who made it the primary residence of the d'Estrivers family. Secondly, it stopped being a forum for the Welsh, as many petty Kingdoms and princes coalesced into the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Statute of Secrecy split the old world into two new worlds. Finally, the name d'Estrivers gradually changed to Travers.

"But isn't it all so dismal?" Mary asked Florence as the pair of them sat on the sloping lawn of the Court, to face the blue-grey sea of the Bristol Channel. "History always makes me feel so melancholic. Even if those people lived well, they're all gone now. I much prefer the company of the living, don't you?"

"Certainly I do," said Florence, who struck the grass with her wand here and there to produce misshapen little flowers. "I couldn't care less about my ancestry and all that tosh. Sometimes I wish I were a pretty muggle girl in London. It can get so lonely here."

"Flo—that's stupid. Why would you want that? You're a wonderful witch and everyone adores you. But I must admit, I do prefer nature to history. Old buildings always seem to carry so much sadness with them. I'd rather look at the sea and the mountains and the forests."

Nevertheless, Mary admired the elegant brick country-house behind her; it exuded a noble air and a mysterious solitude, standing alone on the coast of the Vale, the only mark of civilization for miles. The coastal horizon was simply endless cliffs and beaches, and inland, more farmland than human dwellings, and more wilderness than farmland. Indeed, where Scotland, with its emblem of Hogwarts, urged Mary to always improve, always act, and always love, and where England, with its emblem of London, overwhelmed her with its abundance of people, buildings, and memories, Wales appeared as a small garden patch in an otherwise unforgiving universe.

"You're getting quite deep, Mary," Florence remarked. "Tom loves history, doesn't he?"

"He does," sighed Mary. "But why do you think he's always so down?"

Florence simply placed a comforting hand on Mary's shoulder and said, "Come on, let me show you around the house."

Dinner at Tarquin's Court brimmed with tension. Mary, draped in a black summer dress adorned with intricate lacework, had heightened her allure with powder, lipstick, and mascara, while a hot-air charm lent her tresses an exquisite balance between undulation and sleekness. Mr. Travers, his demeanour as aloof and unsmiling as it was in his photographs on The Daily Prophet, surveyed all with his sharp gaze, attired in noir leather, reminiscent of a Muggle secret police investigator. Osborne Urquart, though somewhat handsome in his own right, seemed positively diminutive next to his uncle. He was to be a sixth-year in a few weeks.

"Have you written to Walburga Black like I asked, Florence?" asked Mr. Travers, who cut his duck breast with ritualistic carefulness.

"No, father."

"And what reason might you have for neglecting such a task?"

Florence's voice bore a rebellious edge as she replied, "I wouldn't know what to say. Wally-Burger has little fondness for me, father."

"The reason for which is your doing, and that is what you shall remedy tonight. Compris?"

Florence fidgeted with her utensils uneasily. "I doubt that Walburga and I can ever be friends."

Mr. Travers set down his silverware, fixing a piercing gaze upon his daughter for a prolonged moment.

"You must comprehend, Florence, that a witch can have two kinds of acquaintances in this world. Those with whom she may find pleasure, such as Ms. Riddle, and those with whom she forms alliances, such as Walburga Black. The former may be dispensable, but the latter are indispensable."

"But, father," objected Florence, dabbing at her mouth with a dainty handkerchief, "Mary is a far more superior witch than Walburga could ever hope to be."

Mr. Travers turned his icy stare towards Mary, who shuddered.

"It cannot be denied, Ms. Riddle, that you possess certain merits. A comely countenance, an excellent physique, and, as per my daughter and Horace Slughorn, a sharp magical intellect. If you maintain your charms, you may someday secure a pureblood spouse of high standing. Nevertheless, your advantages pale in comparison to those of Walburga Black."

"Thank you, sir," Mary murmured, staring at the tablecloth. She wanted the courage to say what Tom would have said; that though her heritage was yet unknown, it was surely a great one. But unlike Tom she neither cared nor believed that she possessed some secret ancestral prerogative.

Mr. Travers returned his focus to his daughter. "Speaking of magical intellect, Florence, it has come to my attention that Horace is dissatisfied with your potion-making abilities. Starting tomorrow, you will have a tutor who will visit every morning at ten o'clock throughout the summer."

"Father! Please, no!" Florence cried out. "My potions partner is the foolish Pettigrew girl! That is why my potions are deficient—I-I'll study myself—"

"Your backtalk is unnecessary, Florence," Mr. Travers interjected, his expression stern.

Florence held her father's gaze with a defiant solemnity for a moment, but ultimately relented. "Yes, father," she acquiesced.

After dinner, Mr. Travers retired to his extravagantly sombre study, leaving the girls and Urquart to retire to Florence's bedchamber. The room was adorned in a luxurious shade of violet, from the walls to the curtains to the candles. They lounged on violet chaises arranged in a triangle, still dressed in their daytime attire. Mary, well aware of her doll-like appearance, flirted with Urquart, both cherishing and resenting his gaze. While Arcanius was more handsome and gentle than his subordinate, he had never looked at Mary with such unabashed ardour. She appreciated and yet resented Urquart's frankness, but she didn't appreciate his impudent manner of speaking.

Urquart was at Tarquin's Court for his own convenience, assisting in the construction of the new Ministry of Magic headquarters. He regaled the group with too much enthusiasm about his work as an "excavator" - a young wizard who digs earth so that more experienced wizards can lay down supports and build.

Urquart flung his hands in the air, exclaiming, "Ten underground floors! Hogwarts has but seven, and each of our ten floors shall be-"

"Our ten floors, dear cousin?" Florence interrupted with a roll of her eyes. "Do you fancy yourself a Wizengamot frontbencher?"

"Well, I am working for the Ministry now," replied Urquart.

"Unfortunately for the Ministry, you certainly are," Florence retorted with a giggle, and Mary joined in. Urquart tactfully chose to laugh with them rather than continue his charade; but Mary saw in his mirthless eyes the customary desperation boys had when they wanted to be reassured.

"Perhaps one day you'll be a member of the Wizengamot, Osborne," Mary said with a coy smile. "You're quite chummy with Mr. Travers and Arcanius, after all."

"I wouldn't be caught dead in the same faction as my uncle or Arcanius," declared Osborne haughtily. "They're far too soft."

"On what, exactly?" Florence demanded impatiently.

"On centaurs. On werewolves. On muggles. On Knockturn Alley."

"Oh, spare us," Florence groaned, rubbing her eyes wearily. "You know nothing."

"And you do?" Osborne challenged.

"More than you," Florence shot back.

"Arcanius is a softie, to be sure," Mary said in a dreamy tone. "While we're on the subject, do we know what he's up to?"

"Not much," Osborne replied. "His sister is starting at Hogwarts next year, and he dotes on the little thing. She's quite the harpist."

"Arcanius, doting on his sister? That's not the impression I got when I was at his estate."

"He's harsh with her, but he loves her deeply. More than he does Ilaria, even."

"Say, are you writing to him?" Mary asked with a suggestive grin.

"To Arcanius? Of course," answered Osborne, puffing up with importance.

"Could you send him something for me?" Mary asked in a coy voice.

"Arcanius isn't pleased with you, Riddle," Osborne warned sternly. "I don't know what you did, but he's not easily upset. You must have really done something terribly bad."

"Terribly bad, indeed," Mary said with a sweet smile. "Please, Osborne? Let me send a little something to him. You needn't even mention it's from me."

"How would that work?" Osborne asked skeptically.

"This can only end badly," Florence muttered with a yawn.

"Oh, I have just the thing,"

With that, Mary rose from her chaise and led Osborne to the guest chamber. She withdrew a little embroidered blue silk pouch from her hat, revealing a tiny label-less crystal blue bottle of perfume and an enchanted business card that shimmered like water under moonlight.

SEXTUS PRINCE

Perfumes | Powders | Potions

172b Diagon Alley

The letters, enchanted, seemed to reflect water undulating under moonlight. Mary, who had reapplied lipstick throughout the night, reapplied it on her mouth a third time. Then she gave the card a long, deliberate kiss. Finally, she sprayed on it the asphodel and pearl-dust fragrance she had worn on the day she tried to seduce Arcanius.

Mary furtively handed this artefact to Urquart. He snatched it, held it lose to his face to try and sniff it without audibly breathing in, and inspected it with a strangely agonised countenance. He did not move for a very long time.

"Well?"

"Well, Riddle, you must be insane if you think I'll give this to Arcanius," Osborne declared.

The chamber, where the windows were entirely closed, was awash with moonlight and the spectral shadows of ancient beeches. Osborne anxiously shifted his gaze between the card and Mary as though a critical decision had to be made.

"How did you know I was insane?" Mary asked with a coy smile, moving closer to him. "Just send it, will you?"


The Slytherin boys were at a quiet country beach. Though the day was cloudy, there was no rain. Apart from the reticent locals, there were few other people with whom they had to share the scene.

Tom, whose unruly black hair fell to his jawbones, stared pensively into the miserable greyness of the North Sea. At the edge of the shore, a few mossy rocks jutted from the water, disappearing and reappearing under the foamy low tide with a serene cyclicality. It was on a beach like this that he and Mary had found and adopted Metis six years ago. Tom wondered what they would have thought of all that would pass in the years to come; whether they would have been able to comprehend whatsoever the extent to which each would become their own person. He stared unblinkingly at the eerily familiar rocks and their coats of moss; if he forced his eyes not to blink for long enough, he saw dancing on them the phantom of his six-year-old sister, whose face was so innocent, whose smile was so joyous, and whose soul was that of an angel's specially appointed by Heaven to comfort him, and to be comforted by him.

Were it not for his recognition that the two were indivisibly one, Tom would have missed the six-year-old Mary more than the sullen thirteen-year-old that languished in London. Or perhaps not; the latter was a much more complex creature than the former, and thereby more kindred to himself—if the child Mary was perfectly divine, the adolescent Mary, incarnated out of the dust of the latter on the day Isaac Booth separated her from Metis, was a fallen angel—and was not the final object of magic to make wizard God? To become God one had to eat more than a single forbidden fruit. As per final chapter of In Virtute Tenebrae:

God does not exist, but one day He shall.

Yet, Mary had still kissed Arcanius Fawley.

Tom grit his teeth. His rage was, like the North Sea, an eternal, depthless force ever in motion. Reason and imagination were but little barques that sailed through its sunless storms. Yet sailed they did; Tom found that his anger could be steered by force, like a leopard could be dragged at the end of a chain. Tom knew well that any reasonable lawyer or priest would have attributed culpability to his sister for seducing Fawley; that both the gavel and the pulpit would have exonerated Fawley for his powerlessness before such malignant beauty. But Tom was no lawyer nor priest; he held Fawley culpable of a mortal sin. For Tom knew that regardless whether he forgave Mary or not, he would go on loving her—and it would destroy both of them if he loved her without forgiving her. So he had to direct his anger at someone else. Winston Churchill, Lord Woolton, Ms. Cole, Professor Dumbledore, and Arcanius Fawley all made good candidates. Yet, even if Tom performed this liturgy of blame and deflection, there still remained the possibility that his sister would not forgive him in kind.

A voice drew Tom from his brooding.

"The pigfeed is here!" announced Alexius, who carried in his arm a thick bundle of greasy newspaper—breakfast. Following him, Thane carefully held a muggle cast-alloy coffee pot by its wooden handle. The pair of them sat down around Tom, who had already prepared the picnic blanket. The newspaper was unravelled to reveal an obscene amount of deep fried fish—cod, haddock, and a dozen herrings large and small for good measure—atop a mound of chips.

"Rob a fish and chip shop, did you?"

"We paid the chef a shilling and two groats," said Thane, his mouth twisting into a smirk, "the confundus charm goes a long way in your world."

Tom took a herring and bit into its head. "This is not my world."

The dozen ounces of grease that suffused the boys' breakfast sent a wondrous aroma in the air; they quickly found themselves besieged by inquisitive seagulls.

Alexius drew his wand and pointed it at one of their besiegers. "Calixifors avicula!"

The seagull before Alexius squalled in horror as it transformed into a freakishly deformed rendition of a Hogwarts dining goblet—it was spotted here in crude gold and there in an abominable feathery silver substance. Seeing what had become of their compatriot, the other seagulls fled.

"Your transfiguration is horrible, Lestrange," Tom said coolly. "Allow me. Finite Incantatem."

The bird regained its avian shape.

With the precision of a conductor of a symphony, Tom waved his wand to perform a four-step spell, whose final note was a crisp, symmetrical gesticulation of both hands that signified duality. "Calixifors Avicula Geminitra."

An unrepentant smile emerged on Tom's face as he watched his superior magic unfold. The seagull was seamlessly rent into two spotlessly white porcelain teacups. His palm agreeably tingled against his wand, which seemed to quiver in pleasure at its master making such good use of it. He set the two cups before his pair of friends, then levitated the teapot over to fill them.

"I suppose I can't deny you've a gift for transfiguring seagulls. But that only makes two cups, and all the other gulls are fled."

"It's fine. I don't want coffee," Tom said quite simply.

For coffee stank of the dunderheaded country girls Ms. Cole employed as sublieutenants at Wool's. Thankfully Tom had no qualms about fried fish, a dish he had been fond of for as long as he could remember.

While they breakfasted, the boys chatted over a large map of Norfolk they stole from the local library earlier in the day. By the time they depleted half the greasy newspaper's provisions, they were more than sufficiently satiated. The coffee-drinking on the part of the older boys continued only for a few more minutes. Upon seeing his cup begin to grow feathers, Thane carelessly threw it up in the air with one hand and violently jabbed his wand at it with the other—"Bombarda Praecisa!"

The porcelain shattered into blood, flesh and feathers. Alexius' cup, in turn, slipped out of his hands into the other half of the seagull's dismembered corpse.

"Wanker!" Alexius snarled at Thane, wiping his bloodstained hands on his brown linen trousers. "You're cleaning my kit tonight."

"Of course you'd fancy another bloke touching your clothes—"

"Shut your mouth."

"I don't judge."

"At least clean this up. It's unbecoming of a pureblood to leave his excrement for all to see."

"That is not, by definition, my excrement."

"A stinking mass of disjoint bird tendons then. Clean it up."

"Why not leave the muggle children a little something to brighten up their day?"

"Quit bickering both of you," said Tom, who stood up and clapped his hands. "Let's get to work. Vanish the bird, Thane."

'Work' began, on that cloudy, grey morning, with a walk to the phone box two hundred yards down the old cobblestone promenade of the beach. There, Tom cast a gluing charm on his map of Norfolk to stick it to the side of the box. With the aid of a bag of duplicated three-pennies, he called the Norfolk Area Director and ensured that the line could be maintained indefinitely. "Good morning, sir. Would you kindly give me the number of the register office in Bowthorpe?"

"Ken do, bor," came the gruff North Anglian voice on the other side of the phone, between bouts of inconsistent static. "But I can't promise you noothing on wather they answer o' no. Them registry men air busy nowadays, bein'as everyoone fleein' the city's gorn' findin' thairn family whatnot, and thairn phone lines are too."

Tom scribbled the number the man recited on a little handheld notebook. He spun the rotary dial a few times, and soon found himself talking to a man from Bowthorpe, a large village that was some twenty miles west of Norwich.

"Good morning sir. I'm enquiring not after any particular person, but the name Herncastle. It's my grandmother's maiden name. I heard that perhaps there may be remnants of her old family in your county."

"Be a tad moor specific, bor," came the rustic bureaucrat over the phone. "Do you're lookin' for any Herncas'le a' all, they could have bairn born wal atwin yisty and ninety yares ago."

Then search between 'yisty' and ninety 'yares' ago, you beast, Tom wanted to say, before realising that he could not threaten a phone at wandpoint. "Let me think on that, sir."

Having purchased such an expensive dagger in 1879, Warren Herncastle must have already been a man of established fortune that very year—but whether he was entering into manhood or in his last years of it Tom did not and could not know—so he grudgingly made an assumption. Herncastle must have had a son, daughter, nephew or niece that bore his name.

"Could you check the files between 1860 and 1900, sir?"

"Narrow tha' down 'o twe'y yares, do you'll please."

"Why not thirty, sir?"

"Very well," came the grave voice on the phone, as though it was making some great concession. "Go on, then."

"1865 to 1895."

"Very well. The archivist will have a look a' thairn folders for you; I'll put you on 'owld for ten minutes."

Different to the point of opposition though they were in other points, Thane and Alexius were united in possessing the restlessness universally proper to teenage Slytherin boys. The novelty they found in a muggle phone box expired by the time Tom explained the concept of 'hold' to them; they became fidgety. Fortunately, while Tom awaited the return of the registry-man, they remembered that they had the opportunity to do precisely what they wanted to do—harm muggles. Tom recalled Thane's wager; that the merging of the British and French ministries would incapacitate the Improper Use of Magic Office for the entirety of summer.

"Pardon me son," came a bald middle-aged man in the overalls of a fisherman, "yure bairn usin' thur phone for an awful while. How much longer yow tairke? Arve got an impor'ant call to mairk to men who be due today."

"Yar barn oozing the phone for an awful while," sneered Lestrange, who promptly broke into hysterical laughter. "Salazar's slithering cock! Your English is bad even for a muggle."

"Yer a city bor. Do you're flairn thur German bombs yow ough''er show graces 'o yer new hos's."

Thane pointed his wand at the bewildered man's forehead. "Confundo."

"Ah—hah? Wha''s I doin'? Wha''s the toime? Who're yer lads then? Cor blarst me, I can't remember do've had breakfas' or not!"

The man stumbled forward like a sleepwalker jolting into consciousness and left. Alexius looked admiringly at Thane, who looked admiring of himself. Several minutes passed, and no owl reprimanding him for using magic outside of Hogwarts came.

Soon, the registry man came back on the phone and told Tom the answer Tom had, with great forbearance, expected all along—that there were no Herncastles in Bowthorpe. Tom saw a long day ahead of him; there were another twenty-eight register districts in Norfolk. In the following two hours, he was to learn that there were no Herncastles either in the city of Norwich itself, or Erpingham, or Flegg, or Guiltcross. Thane and Alexius wallowed in a profound tedium punctured intermittently by their casting of the confundus charm alike on interlopers that protested Tom's long occupation of the phone box, and passing strangers who looked at them wrong.

A few minutes short of noon, a pretty brunette in a deep blue velvet dress that almost resembled a robe came before Tom. She could not have been younger than Alexius, but no older than Ilaria Greengrass.

"Hello there," said she, in an articulate voice that was impatient but polite. "I've been watching you call and call and call for over half an hour. When will you be done? I'm not from these parts. I've got to call my brother so he can pick me up."

"But of course you aren't from these parts," said Alexius, blocking the girl from Tom. "You're way too pretty."

The girl eyed him fearfully. "I beg your pardon?"

While Alexius stood in front of the girl, Thane came behind her and murmured, "Confundo."

The girl babbled a few words of gibberish, gave terrified glances at the pair of boys who had seemingly detained her by a phone booth for no reason, and hastily scurried away.

"Alex," called Thane, who raptly stared in the direction the girl fled, "I think she'll do."

"Oh, she'll do very well," murmured Alexius, whose eyes were magnetised in the same direction as Thane's. "Tom, what say you?"

Tom understood what the older boys were asking of him. But his desire to complete his work far outweighed the hankering of his carnal appetite, which at any rate would not have been able to appreciate any savour but that of his sister. "No, I want to find Herncastle as soon as possible. Do what you will, but be careful. Don't let a stupid muggle girl jeopardise our mission."

"Then we shall return to the lighthouse late tonight. Don't wait for us."

Tom watched the older boys leave with a spring in their steps. They were going to do something horrible to the girl, and they looked like small children running towards a playground. The phone box felt more spacious without them at either side of it.

In the distance Tom saw an ancient jetty with haphazard, moss-covered supports jutting from the beach into the sea, whose tranquil surface was scarcely disturbed by the dozen little single-sail boats that floated languorously over it. The overhead clouds were at last, now in the afternoon, dispersing to reveal patches of blue in the sky. Looking down this beachy coast, few people could be seen.

Tom was unmoved by this vista. That he still had to make a dozen phone calls to muggle office-workers who spoke a nearly incomprehensible dialect of English dulled his aesthetic sensibilities. Yet the numbing repetitiveness of his task set him thinking—was not numbing repetition the basis of existence for most human beings in the world? It certainly was for muggles; there was no debating that. Yet even for wizardkind it seemed that monotony was the rule rather than the exception. Tom thought of how Avery took days to master spells that he could apprehend within minutes. It was not Avery who was the exception at Hogwarts, but Tom.

Numbing repetition was the foundation of existence; great men and sorcerers were only able to elude it because they subjected weaker creatures to it. But even then, one first had to achieve mastery over oneself before he could become master of others in any meaningful way—or so Tom told himself repeatedly through the next five hours, during which he did not leave his phone booth even once. A dozen more calls were made, and when the sun began to set Tom realised that he absolutely detested the North Anglian variety of English.

At night, Tom retired to the gallery of the abandoned lighthouse that he and the older boys had appropriated as a residence. A few reparos, evanescos and infundum calorias had rendered the place tolerably habitable. On one side of the gallery was a cupboard he had transfigured into a rudimentary bed; on the other, an old stool atop which he sat and read Spellman's Syllabary, a book that would become his textbook for Ancient Runes when Hogwarts recommenced. In the middle of the gallery stood a huge, defunct beacon. From time to time, Tom looked out the murky window at the luminescent blackness of the North Sea that reflected a clear night sky of stars much more heartening than that of London's sky, but inferior all the same to that of Hogwarts.

Tom stuck the map of Norfolk on his window; a third of the subdivisions of the county were marked with little x's to denote Herncastle's absence from them. The sight of it was infuriating. He compared the dagger and his quest for it with Mary and his yearning for her; both were capricious things of beautiful, rare make. Tom scrawled a meandering black line around Norfolk's borders—for no reason but to channel his anger—it resembled a snake in a vague, ugly way. He wanted nothing more than to choke the county, to eject Herncastle and his dagger from its mouth.

As he beheld his work, Tom heard a commotion underneath him; the lighthouse door opened, and in came the pair of older boys, laughing merrily.

The next morning, Tom jolted into wakefulness. He had a nightmare; he and Mary were separated and lost in an unending, windowless labyrinth whose infinite cells were furnished like Senate House—there were telephones everywhere, each one of them able to ring every other one—but Tom never managed to find his sister, nor she him, even though phones constantly rang in the distance, for both of them were trying to reach each other. He could not tell whether he was getting further or closer to her; the entire dream seemed a long, unquantifiable moment in purgatory. Never was the sight of the morning sun more welcome than after a nightmare, in which its ascension reminded one that the external world was governed by the impartial laws of physics rather than the anguished decrees of the unconscious mind.

But there was in this Newtonian vista a Riddlean blemish. The black snake Tom had scrawled on the map of Norfolk last night on his window had moved. Indeed, where it was previously coiled in a circular shape around the border of the county, it was now a frightfully proud curved line whose head jutted out of it.

It pointed directly towards the left, towards the West—it head beckoned at the city of Cambridge.

Tom's eyes dilated in awe. He tore the map off the window and, feeling but not caring for the unwashed taste of his mouth, ran to find Alexius and Thane. Seeing as they were not in the lighthouse, Tom ran to the beach, where again they were not—they must have been getting breakfast. And so Tom conjured a picnic blanket and sat down on the sand, festering in impatience under the morning sun for his companions to come. He only had to wait three minutes.

"… did not need to get her so bladdered though, did we?"

"Have I really got to explain this again? I obliviated her, and when a muggle is obliviated—"

"She stank of it! The grocer will remember that we bought gin!"

"Doesn't matter if she remembers nothing."

"Good morning chaps." Tom greeted the pair with a raised eyebrow. "What's breakfast?"

Thane laid three large paper bags full to the rim on the picnic blanket. They were full of pastries. "All for a single groat and a bottle-cap."

"A bakery this time? Impressive. Don't eat just yet. I have something you will want to see."

Tom unravelled the map in his lap.

"What is it?" Alexius demanded impatiently. "All I see is that you've made a fat scribble over our only map."

"Look more closely at the 'scribble', you daft git. It's a snake!" Tom traced his finger along the snake's invisible scales. "I drew it last night around the border of Norfolk—it's moved on its own accord to point at Cambridge."

"Tom, let me give you some advice. If a wizard draws an ink sheep on a parchment, the sheep will piss ink on the edges of the parchment. It doesn't mean shite. Accidental magic at thirteen is cute, but nothing to brag about.

"No, let me give you some advice, Alex. There are no accidents in magic," Tom retorted coldly.

"Alright, you're right in theory," Alexius shrugged. "But it could mean anything. Maybe there's a bloody awful storm brewing in Cambridge today and your magic's warning you off it."

Tom could not think of why his magic would care for Cambridge. Perhaps his mother, who was surely a muggle, had gone to its eponymous university—no, that could not have been. Fewer women went to university than muggles gave birth to wizards.

A lemon meringue tart, a pork pie, and a handful of shortbread biscuits later, Tom got up and hastened to the telephone booth.

"Aye, its yer agin bor," came the operator of the Norfolk Area Directory over the phone. "Which dis'ricts do it be to'ay?"

"Today we shall cast our eyes beyond Norfolk, sir. Do you happen to know to which register district in Cambridgeshire the city of Cambridge belongs to?"

"Oi do—do belongs to the regis'er dis'rict o' … o' Cambridge. Ha! I suppose you'd like their noomber?"

"That would be much appreciated, sir."

The number was scribbled down along the margin of the map itself. Tom hung up on the Norfolk Area operator, spun the rotary dial of the phone, and soon enough, found himself talking to a man from Cambridge.

"Cambridge Register Office speaking. How may I help you?"

Even if it was from a muggle, hearing clear, crisp, accentless English was a great respite after a day of bartering with semi-civilised provincial servants of the state. Tom recited the story of his grandmother Herncastle to the phone with tired automaticity.

"Herncastle? The name rings a bell for me. I'll have someone take a look for you; I hope you don't mind being put on hold for a few minutes. There's a good chap."

Tom squeezed the phone between his shoulder and cheek to signal to the other boys he was put on wait. But they had their backs turned to him—they were looking at someone else. A girl. The same pretty brunette in a blue dress they had seen yesterday, except she was different. Quite different.

Where yesterday she appeared clean and comely, she was now, to borrow a word with all its magical connotations, cursed. Her hair was dishevelled; her eyes were bloodshot; her chapped lips trembling spasmodically; and her dress, which had looked so alluring yesterday, was now crumpled and dirty, as though it had been violently handled by someone. Rather than scenting of perfume, she faintly stank of alcohol.

Examining Alexius and Thane's expressions, Tom understood everything. They looked like sated carnivorous animals. There was no justice in the world; the girl's suffering would endure for years, just because a pair of strange boys infinitely more powerful than her wanted a few minutes of pleasure. The thought of it simultaneously excited and disgusted Tom. Power was the only real law of the world; that the thoughtless caprices of the powerful could completely devastate the lives of the weak testified only to the power of power. Yet Tom also felt repugnance; he thought of Mary all alone in London, and of all the men she would unwittingly tempt. No one would touch her, of course, but that she was certainly the object of more than one passionate fantasy made Tom want to unleash his own violence upon the world.

"May I … use the phone?" she asked lifelessly. "I need to call my brother. He's to pick me up."

"You'll have to give us a few minutes, darling," drawled Thane.

Tom looked away from them; the map that he had once again stuck to the wall of the phone box was a less gruesome sight. It took no more than three minutes for the man on the phone to return.

"Good news, lad. We've indeed a Herncastle. John J. Herncastle, a professor of ancient history at our very university. Born in 1882 to Warren and Julia Herncastle, at our very Addenbrooke's Hospital."

"I don't suppose, sir," Tom said breathlessly, his eyes fixed at the little red dot labelled 'Cambridge' on his map, "that you know his address?"

"I do indeed lad. I don't suppose you have paper at hand? I'll tell you everything you need to know about him."