1945
.
.
Tom found Hermione's interest in the Aurors perplexing.
Personally, he tried to avoid their notice as much as possible. He loathed their ubiquitous presence, always feeling the need to ask "Why? Where are you going? Who are you meeting?", as if the Hogwarts Head Boy was obliged to answer to anyone but the Hogwarts staff. And he had unpleasant things to say about the way they further usurped his authority, taking charge of the night time patrol schedule, dormitory inspections, and confiscation of contraband items. It wasn't as if he wanted these chores for himself, but he had enjoyed delegating them to the ever-dutiful Prefects. They were thankful for every scrap of drudgework conferred upon them from above, as if Tom's recognising them as "Hard Workers" was any different from his recognising them as "Easily Exploited".
He kept silent about his suspicions on the Auror involvement at Hogwarts, even when Hermione had shared with him her own speculations, bringing out London newspapers to track the state of the Muggle war. She thought the Ministry had taken action because they had received intelligence about Grindelwald's making suspicious movements on the Continent, and he didn't correct her assumptions. He certainly didn't confess to her of his own involvement, if it could be called that, with Grindelwald. Which was non-existent, as far as he was concerned, since he had never interacted with Grindelwald. Not directly, in any case, but if it was plausible enough for 'plausible deniability', who was he to haggle over the insignificant details?
He said as much to Hermione directly as they walked along the viaduct bridge, one of the few places considered "within bounds" and also too unpopular for couples' private conversations to be noticed by others and overheard for the school gossip mill.
"There could be other reasons for the Ministry's interest," Tom said mildly, as he leaned over the railing to look at the ice-filled chasm at the base of the bridge. In the loosening grip of a dying winter, the ice in the Black Lake had begun to recede, but the deepest shadowed crevices of the highland hills remained frozen until the early days of May. "I wouldn't presume to know, of course. But the Aurors seem very cosy at the table with Dumbledore during mealtimes, although it doesn't look like he enjoys being cosied up to. It's like they want something from him. Like they're waiting on a decision. Waiting for... something."
Tom let out an irritated plume of breath and drew his wand. "They're not alone. I expect we're all holding our breath, having come to different logical conclusions about what the future holds."
"What do you think it is?" asked Hermione in a nervous voice, nestling close to his side for comfort.
"It could be any number of things. A cynical mind can invent an infinite variety of disasters. Someone's guess will be proven correct in the end, and the possibility too terrifying to contemplate is that it just might be your own." Tom shrugged. "Best not to dwell on it, I say, and concentrate your attentions on the changes you can make in this world."
He aimed his wand over the side of the bridge. "Incendio!"
With a great whoosh, a blinding torrent of fire erupted from the end of his wand, which he directed to maintain its shape as a solid beam of flame, to reach as far as it could without surrendering its energy to the frosty wind. If he could melt the ice at the bottom of the chasm, it would be his magic that had effectively replicated the turning of the season. Ordinary-minded people only thought about making small changes, or didn't think about it at all. If Tom was to be limited to only what he himself was capable of, then he ought to ensure that limit posed no such obstacle to the scale of his ambitions.
"You and I, Hermione, would be better served if we—"
"Tom!" cried Hermione, whipping out her own wand. "Ventus!"
A smothering wall of heat rose up in front of Tom, sizzling his eyebrows and stealing the breath from his lungs mid-sentence; the tongue of flame extending from the tip of his wand flickered out. With a sweep of Hermione's arm, the heat dissipated in a charmed breeze, and suddenly he could breathe again.
"That was stupid and short-sighted of you," Hermione remarked, sniffing. "Experimenting with the permutations of spellcasting configuration may be an interesting exercise of magic, but you shouldn't forget that while magic is, well, magic, the rules of natural philosophy still apply to spells that manipulate physical elements. Magical fire creates real heat, and the heat has to go somewhere. It's elementary thermodynamics. You had better not be doing that in a closed room; none of the classrooms here have artillery wards like my cellar at home."
"I may be stupid, but I'm not that stupid," Tom huffed, and put his wand away. With his hands free, he gathered Hermione into his embrace, enclosing her within the folds of his cloak. "Would a stupid person be able to do this? Look at this, my patented and extra-exclusive wandless, wordless Disappearing Charm. Oh no, where did the Head Girl go?"
Hermione's squeak was muffled by the woollen cloth, which covered her up to her ears. "Tom, Tom, let me out! This is so silly!"
"The counter-incantation is 'Tom Riddle is the most brilliant Head Boy ever'," said Tom, holding Hermione close, the cloak around her head like a privacy curtain. When she lifted her gaze, words of protest poised to burst from her lips, he saw that she was wide-eyed and breathless. "Come on, Hermione, I know you can say it. Just a few little words..."
"Tom Riddle is the most brilliant—"
"No, no," Tom chided her. "Are you a witch or not? Remember, it's a magic spell."
"Tom!"
"You can't just say the words, Hermione. You have to mean them."
Hermione buried her face against his collar to stifle her laughter.
Tom gripped her tighter, resting his chin on the top of her head. As the ice crackled and groaned in the crevasse below, he contemplated the feasibility of keeping Hermione under his cloak forever.
.
.
By late February, Tom had observed enough Auror shift changes to know when and where it was possible to sneak around without being seen. Confident in his knowledge of their rounds and routines, Tom planned another "owl mail delivery" excursion to take place during one of the Hogsmeade weekends. Or rather, he and Nott had attempted to plan one. This didn't go as successfully as the first set, due to an unfortunate and unpredictable complication.
The first part had gone faultlessly. They'd slipped out to the goat pen at the back of the Hog's Head Tavern, and Apparated behind the shed. No one noticed the crack of their leaving over the bleating of the barman's pampered goats.
After climbing up to the Nott family's owlery, Tom opened his potion case and selected a crystal vial of Basilisk venom. Only three more left; he would need to collect more from the Basilisk soon. The Auror patrols were making it harder to sneak a boat out from the Hogwarts boathouse, to visit the Basilisk's sunbathing beach. But it wasn't impossible, not for someone of his abilities.
He checked the rest of the glass vials in the potion case: Acromantula venom, Essence of Dittany, Blood Replenisher, a few tubes of pain reliever potion poured from the large bottle in the dormitory bathroom labelled HANGOVER CURE. Draught of the Living Death, which he'd used to keep his pet spider in stasis while he was away for holidays and couldn't bring it food. He knew he needed a plan to remove the Acromantula permanently before his last day at school, as it would be an unconscionable waste to leave it at Hogwarts. Otherwise Hagrid might find it and reassert ownership, and Tom knew Hagrid was a careless at best beast keeper.
"The address is: Number Eight, Eskwater Road, Montrose wizarding village, Scotland," Tom told the owl. When he finished speaking, the owl cocked its head and blinked its big round eyes. "Go on, time to earn your keep."
The owl didn't leap from the perch and flutter off. Tom made to shoo it off. It pecked at his hand.
"Montrose, Scotland," Tom repeated. "Did you not hear me? Deliver to Mr. Vajkard Kozel of Number Eight, Eskwater Road." With slow and careful enunciation, Tom read the name again. "Vajkard Kozel."
The owl still didn't move.
"Nott, I think your owl is broken."
"Here, let me try it. You must not be pronouncing it right." Nott snatched the address list from Tom's hand and read out the directions, along with the recipient's name. The owl didn't fly off. It fidgeted around on the perch, squawked, ruffled its feathers a bit, and did a poo. But it didn't cast itself into the arms of Zephyr, as expected.
"Huh." Nott frowned. "Well, that's unusual."
"Try a different owl," Tom suggested. He began untying the letter from the owl's leg.
The second owl didn't fly off, either. Neither did the third. Or the fourth. Tom was starting to become irritated.
"Are wizarding owls this incompetent?" said Tom. "Must I do everything myself?"
"It can't be the owls," Nott said thoughtfully. "It can't be. One owl, perhaps that could've been written off as the hatchery having sold us a bad egg. But four owls, purchased at four different instances, of four different breeds? Can't be a coincidence. It's just too unlikely. More than possibly, they, he, the—you know, the lucky winner of the day—has cast a Fidelius Charm to keep away unknown deliveries, some time between right now and when we first looked at the address list. They might've begun to expect foul play with regard to the previous deliveries. As I had figured, they also must have guessed it's too unlikely to be coincidence."
"The Fidelius," Tom mused, "I've read about it. An advanced magical method to hide some important object, place, or piece of information, but I considered it useless since it required entrusting a second party to keep that secret. If you need a second, what's the point? You've just defeated the purpose of having a secret."
"Subverting the Secret Keeper is historically how the Fidelius Charm has been broken," Nott said, placing the useless owls back into their sleeping niches. "It should be used as one redundant line of defence out of multiple, not the defence in and of itself. It'd be too vulnerable otherwise. Anyone who knew the secret before the secret was placed under the Charm won't be forced to forget it after it's cast. They'd find it hard to remember the secret unless they're thinking directly about it, and they can't pass it on to new parties, like we can't tell the owls the address, because we aren't Secret Keepers."
"That's such an obvious flaw," Tom pointed out. "There's no guarantee that the auxiliary keepers would feel impelled to protect the secret, or feel pleased that the Secret Keeper has meddled with their recollections for his own benefit."
"I believe the strategy is to choose relatively obscure knowledge to place under Fidelius," said Nott. "It reduces the potential number of 'auxiliaries', or secondary keepers. Nonetheless, they can't pass it on through the most common means of communication, and that is sufficiently protective for most people."
"The more I hear about it, the more useless the Fidelius Charm sounds," Tom remarked. "Any auxiliary keeper who discovers that a fact he knew yesterday becomes unutterable knowledge the next day would recognise that someone has deemed that fact too important, dangerous, or valuable to be openly known. Would this not prompt scrutiny? A smidgen of curiosity? Secrets aren't kept and protected for no reason. Tell me, Nott, is it common for wizards to cast Fidelius Charms for no other motive but personal amusement?"
"No," admitted Nott. "Never. It's tricky magic, devilishly complicated. If the caster and his Keeper get it wrong, or waver in their intent and resolve, they can scramble their own memories beyond repair. This is deep stuff, far beyond the school textbooks, because it's soul magic. It affects the minds of uninvolved passersby as it does because it transfers knowledge from the mind to the Keeper's very soul."
"Then, do you suppose," Tom mused, "if we're auxiliary keepers, we ought to be able to see the address hidden by the Fidelius? An owl sent in our stead wouldn't find it, but surely there is nothing stopping us from calling in person. If it is a secret worth protecting, then obviously, is it not a secret worth investigating? Fidelius Charms aren't cast for no reason."
"You're suggesting, Riddle, that we visit the home of an individual who goes above and beyond the average wizard to defend his person and privacy?" Nott said, a shrill of alarm entering his voice. "Are you mad?"
"No, I'm not mad," said Tom. "And I'm not an average wizard. Come now, Nott, if they're putting up protections like this, they're starting to suspect being targeted. The days of quick and easy marks have passed us. We might as well investigate a bit. Just a peek or two; no one will ever notice us. Then we can go back to Hogsmeade."
"This is a terrible idea," Nott muttered. "I can't see how this won't go badly. Ugh. Wait here for a moment, Riddle."
With a pop of Apparition, Nott disappeared from the estate owlery, and soon reappeared, holding a thick bundle of heavy black cloth. "Here, cloaks and scarves. Cover up your Hogwarts robe; everyone in the Isles recognises a House crest when they see it. Put the hood on, and tie the scarf over your face. Sticking Charm if you need it so no one can pull it off in a tussle." When Tom complied, Nott covered his own uniform with a hooded cloak, still muttering to himself. "Montrose... Montrose, where was I there last? Can't remember, must've been years ago... Montrose, ah, yes, Summer of Thirty Nine...
"You're lucky I've been to Montrose before," Nott said, charming his scarf to his face. "Else you'd have to go through the Floo on the high street, and they can track those. Here, take my arm. No, you have to take it, not touch it; it's not the same as a Portkey—yes, I don't like it either, but I daresay you'd like getting Splinched more. We'll have to go Side-Along. Keep your wand out; we'll Disillusion ourselves on the moment of arrival."
With a pop! and a barrage of mumbled profanities, they stumbled off each other's feet and into the shadowed ranks of a tiered seating deck. On either side and over their heads, canopy cloths in black and white whistled in an icy wind, tied to wooden support struts. The long rows of seats were desolate, the pitch outside frosted white and empty, and under Tom's feet, a forlorn paper wrapper gave a dry crunch.
"The clearest memory of Montrose I had was the balcony box for the league final in 1939, Magpies versus Tornadoes. Rosier wanted a Quidditch box for a late birthday present, instead of luncheon and cake at his house like a normal person; that's why I remember it well enough to Apparate. No one should be here. Still, better be careful." Nott touched the tip of his wand to his hooded head and Disillusioned himself. "We may have a bit to walk to the high street, and Eskwater Road leads off that. The whole village is under Extension Wards that connect it to the Muggle town."
Tom and Nott slipped down a corkscrewing staircase from the windy top box down to the stadium foyer, hollowed out beneath the Quidditch pitch. Tom noted rune sequences indicating that the staircase could spin so passengers wouldn't have to expend the effort to walk themselves down, but the enchantments were quiescent at present, presumably because there was no match being played. On the underground level, broad pillars rose up to support the ceiling, dividing the foyer into different entrance gates leading to the seating sections: Premium Deck, Magpie Gallery, Economy Stalls. Tom ran a curious finger over one carved rune on the base of a massive wooden pillar.
"Interesting," he remarked. "This looks fresh, compared to the rest in the runic phrases underneath. The edge is crisp, not weathered like the rest. Dagaz. Illumination and revelations. Are they renovating the stadium, do you know?"
"If the village council is renovating, then this job is being done cheaply," Nott whispered. "There are cleaner ways to inspect the state of the original enchantments than carving revealing runes on top. You'd have to write another line or two to hide the runes again when the renovation is done, with the added complication of ensuring it won't conflict with anything else. Leaving the runes exposed is like going out with your shirt untucked. Needlessly sloppy craftsmanship and no attention to detail; I hope the savings are worth it."
In the late morning, the village of Montrose presented a cheery image, full of tidy Tudor row houses with sharply angled roofs and exposed beams. The pace of life in Montrose was noticeably less frantic than Diagon Alley, the premier business district of Wizarding Britain. It lacked the blatant commercialism of Hogsmeade's shopping square, in which every inch of frontage on the path from the Hogwarts gates was turned into garish window displays of expensive sweets and useless baubles. The village houses had second-storey window boxes dripping with dewy blooms, and neighbours greeted each other from across the cobbled street. Songbirds chirped and enchanted brooms swept clean the front steps of fallen leaves, but Tom didn't spare the sight more than a cursory glance. He was too busy looking for the house marked "Number Eight", which he found eventually when he saw the one house in the row whose window boxes were choked with dead flowers and truncated stems.
Number Eight looked the same as the other houses in shape and size, but the front steps were covered in dried muddy footprints and the view from the large front windows concealed by blackout curtains on the inside. With exhilaration hot in his veins, Tom made to ascend the steps and inspect the door, but Nott pulled him back with a hiss.
"Wait, Ri—" Nott cut himself off. He glanced down at his hand, the one bearing his family ring, and took it off, secreting it somewhere in an inner pocket of his robes. "Right. No names from here on. Hold on a moment, there."
"Why? We're still Disillusioned, no one can see us!"
"Disillusioned, yes, but corporeal. You could trigger a pressure alarm if they've set one," said Nott. Still standing on the street, he drew his wand and twirled it over the front door and steps. "Revelio. Revelio Incantato. Aparecium."
"Well?" prompted Tom.
"Shh! Have an ounce of patience. Specialis Revelio. Incisus Apparesco. Incisus Revelio."
Nott scanned the rippling golden line of runes that appeared on the doorframe, spiralling out from the door itself at the initial rune placed at eye-level. The symbols pulsed for a moment as Nott held his wand to them, but the moment he lowered his wand and his attention faltered, they began to fade back into invisibility.
"Standard weather-resistance and draught-blocking spells; this door is basic commercial enchantment, not a custom job. The one interesting thing is the peephole." Nott pointed to the eye-level rune, dimmed to dullness. "You only see that in town houses. Anyone who lives on their own land doesn't bother; they set boundary wards on the property border. This rune means that there's a small paired looking-glass on the other side of the door so the resident can see who's knocking."
"That's interesting," said Tom. "I wonder what happens if I do this."
He conjured a black handkerchief from his wand, levitated it over to the viewing rune, and attached it to the door with a Sticking Charm. Then he conjured a small rock and shot it at the door.
Knock!
"What are you doing?" said Nott in a panicked whisper.
"We couldn't have just looked at the door and then gone home," said Tom, keeping his wand at the ready. "It's a door. That doesn't count as 'having a look', not really, since I haven't seen anything."
Nott was about to respond when the door opened a crack.
With a burst of motion, Tom shifted Nott out of the way, directed the tip of his wand into the crack, and cast his spell. "Imperio."
Disable any intruder alarms or locking spells. Admit us to the premises. Stand down. Do not draw your wand. Treat us as if we were friendly compatriots, he ordered.
"I didn't think that would actually work," Tom admitted. "I thought for certain that no wizard would be foolish enough to open the door when he couldn't see what was on the other side. I shall concede to being proven wrong. Such a rare and unfamiliar sensation. Is this what it feels like to be 'normal'? Ah, and now it's gone." He lifted one foot, but before he placed it on the front step, he paused and asked Nott, "I ordered him to disable the door locks and alarms before letting us in. Is there anything else, to ensure no one knows we've visited?"
"Some door enchantments record a magical imprint of visitors that cross the threshold, friend or foe," Nott whispered. "Or record the spellcaster's imprint if magic is aimed at the door itself. Tricky work and horrendously expensive, binding a Priori sequence over a wooden slab the size of a door. I haven't seen it with my own eyes, only heard of it used with doors built of wand-quality wood. Never on doors made of stone, metal, or glass."
Deactivate any spells, charms, runes, enchantments, or magics that may be used to indicate, record, or communicate our presence to any entities living, unliving, dead, or undead, Tom ordered, feeling his temples throb with the effort of maintaining control. The more tightly he defined the terms of the spell, the narrower grew the subject's freedom of interpretation. He could feel the wizard on the other end attempting to repel the compulsion, hurling himself at the boundaries of Tom's will like a feral hound on a short leash. Let us in.
The door opened.
Tom glanced at Nott, flourished his wand, then stepped inside Number Eight, Eskwater Road.
The interior was dark and gloomy with the covered windows, white plaster walls with traditional wooden beam ceilings magically Extended to rise high over Tom's head, dimensions grander than what was presented by the house's humble exterior. Nott hurriedly followed him in, pulling the tail of his cloak in just before the bespelled wizard shut the door and pressed his hand against the small round mirror fixed to the inside.
The wizard. Tom supposed this was the Vajkard Kozel fellow, the person they had... well, Tom had, at least, come all this way to meet. He was a rather forgettable looking man, lank brownish hair and sunken cheeks, a scruff of short beard on his chin and neck, and a gleam of sweat on his furrowed brow. Tom raised his wand, and the wizard, without any conscious intention, gave a feverish shiver.
Tom's wand glided over the man's face and jabbed under his chin, lifting his head to meet Tom's eyes. The man's eyes, Tom knew from reading the Auror handbooks back in Fifth Year, should be milky and dazed. The expression vacant and unfocused. He'd tested it on the Acromantula confiscated from Rubeus Hagrid, but never on a human being. He was pleased to see that the books were accurate in their descriptions. He had cast the spell correctly.
"Tell me your name," said Tom.
"Vajkard Kozel."
"Your occupation?"
"Construction tradesman by profession, humble servant of the Glorious Revolution by calling."
Nott let out an emphatic cough, which Tom ignored. "What exactly is the wording of the secret hidden by this Fidelius Charm?"
"I cannot say. I am not the Secret Keeper."
"Who is the Secret Keeper?"
"Václav Janošík."
"What is the reason for your hiding in this house? Why are you in Britain? Wouldn't you be better off bringing the Glorious Revolution elsewhere, to people more eager to take part in an idealist's fancy of a perfected society?"
"The Revolution must be brought to those who are least eager to hear its message. They are the people who are so thoroughly enslaved by the chains that shackle them in mind and thought that they quail at the possibility of liberation. They are the people whose natural impulse to hearing the briefest mention of freedom is to recoil with fear and outrage."
"You have to be more specific with this one," Nott suggested. "He's swilled too many of The Truth They Don't Want You To Know pamphlets to give a clear answer unless you push for it with concrete questions. Ask him what the Revolutionary leadership decided to give him as a personal task or assignment."
Tom repeated the question.
"My task..." The man shuddered, his back bowing and his lips quivering as he tried to resist Tom's order. "T-to demonstrate the might and reach of the Revolution. To inform the petty bourgeois of Britain of how well they are taught to waste their vital energies, their lives, their magic, on shallow diversions that contribute nothing to the greater path that would better us all. T-to destroy the townsfolk's precious sports stadium and remind them that if they, too long coddled and pacified into complacency, are frightened of what it means to embrace the Revolution, then they shall be taught to overcome their reservations."
"How will you destroy the stadium?" Nott spoke sharply. "The Montrose village Quidditch pitch. Is that what he means?"
"Runic enchantments. The stabilising wards in the stadium foundations," said the choking, tremulous voice of Valkard Kozel. "The plans showed a circular, mirrored sub-structure. Seven pylons, the most Arithmantically stable number. The enchantments of each pylon are linked to each other, and linked to the power of seven. Without seven..."
Tom and Nott exchanged a glance.
"Do you have written diagrams?" Tom asked. "Blueprints, schematics, drafts, any kind of prototype or tangible efforts you've made to enact this 'Revolution in practice' scheme?"
The wizard trembled, twisting and writhing in the grip of Tom's spell. Kozel's will battled against Tom's.
No, thought Tom. You won't win. Not against me.
With his wand-tip, Tom turned the man's face to his and glared into his eyes. Tell the truth.
Kozel resisted, face reddening with the strain. With his inner vision, Tom pushed his way into the Kozel's mind, and was bombarded with a whirl of flashing lights and sounds, scored by deep, habit-carved tracks of repetition and muscle memory. With his peripheral vision, Tom distantly observed the wizard moving his limbs, then saw Nott leap forward with wand raised, but he didn't dare break his concentration. He was almost there; he could feel a gap, a slender fissure prized open by the force of his superior will and the crackling yellow-green spell boundaries of the Imperius. He found it; he pushed in remorselessly, setting his mental claws into the rupture and bracing himself with the implacability of his conviction.
I will never yield, he projected into the alien mind. There is nothing you can do. You will tell me. There is no other choice.
"U-upstairs. Blood-bound w-w-wa—" the wizard choked out, his eyes bulging, tendons in his neck thick with strain. With a monumental effort, he jerked in the thrall of Tom's control, nostrils flared and snorting, with blood drawing red runnels down his lips and crusting on his beard. His body fell limp, eyelids fluttering.
Tom reared back, avoiding the blood. The wizard collapsed to the ground, spasming manically.
"What's wrong with him?" said Nott, his wand raised.
Tom glanced around. "I don't know. He tried to resist me, and I had to push him a little to get through." The man gibbered, grimy fingernails splintering on the stone-flagged floor as he clutched and grasped and shook with convulsions. "Ah. I think he must be having an aneurysm. That happens sometimes," said Tom, remembering the first two Peanuts from First Year. It wasn't usual that Tom's abilities caused spontaneous fits. But it wasn't normal for Tom to meet such a level of resistance as he had in this wizard. If he had to guess, it would be due to some proficiency in Occlumency.
"Is he going to die?" asked Nott. "And was that part of the plan?"
"He might die, yes. That also happens sometimes." Tom made a face. "Get out the potion case from your bag, I have a vial of Draught of the Living Death in there. It'll put him in stasis until a Mediwitch can fix him."
Tom forced the vial down the wizard's throat, observing him warily until Kozel's skin grew waxy and the spasms reduced into little quivers and finally to stillness. He noticed that the man's wand was on the floor by the door.
"Why did you Disarm him?" Tom asked Nott.
"He was reaching for his wand while you were distracted," said Nott, adding quickly, "I assumed that you'd win in the end. Had no doubts whatsoever. But it was best to make it as clean as possible. Uh, did you want to have a look upstairs?"
"Blood-bound... something," Tom murmured. "He was trying not to think about what it was he'd hidden upstairs, but I saw how it was protected. Blood."
"Blood ward, I suspect," Nott nodded. "Very traditional, I approve. Rather unfashionable in recent decades since it's considered inconvenient and messy, but one can appreciate the benefits. If an ancient paterfamilias crosses the final bridge without telling anyone the password to the family vault, the descendants can access it if it's sealed by blood. Appallingly common habit, that is. You aren't the only one who goes around thinking he can greet Death on his own terms, instead of unexpectedly being greeted by Death while sitting in the garderobe."
With a conjured handkerchief, Tom swiped up Kozel's blood where it had begun congealing on the floor, then ventured upstairs, Nott at his heels. The door was barred with a heavy length of wood, and Nott showed him where to dab the blood to make the bar slide into a concealed wall pocket.
"Another benefit of those blood wards: you don't have to be an exceptional wizard to cast or use one. Very simple intent in the end, based around a magical sacrifice of one's essence, but even the people who appreciate the elegance of blood magic are leery of admitting it. There's a tendency for the laymen to get squeamish about the—oh." Nott's ramblings were abruptly silenced. Hesitantly, he turned to Tom. "I suppose he wasn't lying about his secret schemes, then."
The floor upstairs had been turned into a carpentry workroom. On a large trestle table in the centre of the room, a wooden scale model of a Quidditch pitch squatted ominously, its hoops rising past head-height, unpainted and rough with unsanded chisel lines. The various struts of the model were of light wood, run up and down with stark lines of runic stanzas that looked like they'd been burned on with a hot needle. By the wall, a sideboard cabinet lay cluttered with a number of smaller models in various stages of construction. Syllabary reference books splayed in uncoordinated piles on the floor, parchments black with cramped handwriting sticking out between the pages.
"I have excellent intuition. It never leads me wrong," said Tom. "There is no reason why it would ever lead you astray."
Nott snorted. "Yes, therefore I should put my trust in your intuition to lead me. How could that ever go wrong? What about about my intuition, then? Where does it go?"
"If the day should come that I haven't enough intuition for the both of us, by all means, use your spare. But you'll be waiting a long time for that day," Tom replied. "In the meantime, remember the last time we scavenged a house. Grab anything that looks incriminating first, anything interesting second. Oh, and be careful in case you find another portrait."
"I never found the last portrait," Nott grumbled under his breath.
Tom ignored the mumbling to scan the pile of books. Logogrammatica, 14th Edition. Advanced Runology. Spellman's Syllabary. Futhorc for Frühstück: Recipes for Runic Concatenation. These were standard texts, nothing of value worth keeping or reselling second-hand. Other titles at the bottom of the stack looked more exotic. þeory of Fuþark. Runae Futhark Vetustioris. Norsk Runealfabet og Runeinnskriftene. He hefted one of the unusual books, bound in scuffed leather, and had just opened it to the table of contents, when Nott spoke.
"The Montrose stadium was enchanted to be impervious to physical and magical elements. The stadium itself is the spell boundary, consisting of one whole built of seven parts—the seven pylons holding up the wooden skeleton. If one pylon is removed from the array, then there is no longer a harmonic 'whole' to which the magic should be focused. Kozel planned to re-focus the unbound magic into rune sequences of his own creation. Wooden pegs inscribed with runes, driven into the pylons at strategic points, could negate all layers of spellwork at once. Among other things."
Unfurling another scroll, Nott continued, "It's quite ingenious a proposal, I have to admit. Mad, but ingenious. He was going to use a ritual of Alchemic Transfiguration to damage or transform a pylon, a loophole through the definitions of the original Impervius enchantment. I don't know if it would actually work, but it may very well have done the trick." There was a sharp intake of breath. "Oh. I see now why he was building the wooden models. He didn't know if it would work either. But he was going to figure out how to do it. Given the state of those models over there, he wasn't far from his Eureka moment."
Nott hesitated. "I think we both agree that the wizard downstairs is an eminent danger to public safety. Why didn't you let him die? If you left him there long enough, he would have suffocated on his own blood, and you wouldn't have had to lift a finger."
That was the question, wasn't it? Why had Tom stayed his wand, when he had not been quite so modest in the recent past?
He supposed it was due to the Aurors at Hogwarts. They bumbled about the grounds and castle corridors with a vague awareness that out there was lurking a threat to the wizards and witches of Britain, but were utterly clueless as to what it was. He, Tom Riddle, had been eradicating the threat under their noses, garnering no appreciation for his exceptional deeds of cunning and valour. As the days passed and the threat continued to lurk, the Aurors did not gain any greater awareness. And Tom did not gain any greater appreciation.
It was frustrating. He had expected someone at the Ministry of Magic to have figured it out by now, the growing list of coincidences that were too unlikely to be due to chance, as Nott had the sense to realise. That would be Tom's cue to step out of the shadows, doff his mask of mystery, and announce himself as the Brave Defender that the nation never knew it had. After that would come the applause, the standing ovation, the curtain call where he ducked his head and gave a humble explanation while shaking important hands and receiving his justly-earned Order of Merlin medal: "Oh, I wasn't thinking of myself at all, I was simply doing my duty to Britain".
He knew Hermione called this aspect of him "histrionic", but he didn't find it insulting. Pageantry was an expected part of public life, and he was a public figure. Well, his journalist pseudonym Thomas Bertram was, and Tom Riddle wasn't... yet.
"I didn't kill him because I want the Ministry to do it," said Tom. "We're handing him over to the Aurors, along with the papers, models, and books. If you've found any gold, I'll hold onto that for safekeeping."
Nott stared at him. "What took you so long to get there? You could have done that from the start. Last year, before you decided that the best course of action was a 'parsley juice' adventure."
"Last year, I only had a list of names. The Ministry wouldn't have done anything but send it to the Archives if I had given it to them." Tom knew this to be a fact, since he'd taken the list from the Ministry Archives. "Unfortunately, if I had told them that certain people were up to no good, and this was corroborated with my remarkably accurate intuition, it wouldn't have been deemed sufficient evidence to take action."
"Inconceivable!" Nott interjected. "How could anyone conclude that your intuition is inadmissible evidence?"
"But now, we have physical proof," Tom continued. "The Ministry, who is always looking to Be Seen Doing Something for the newspapers, can't ignore that if we deliver it to their doorstep. They won't brush it off and assume it's some eccentric craftsman's hobby activity, because the wizard downstairs admitted, at wandpoint, what he had planned to do." Tom began pacing in thought, speaking quickly. "I'll write a note and include bottled memory snippets, from both of us, of our conversation." At Nott's startled look, Tom clarified, "Only our conversation, from us coming in the door, until he has the fit. I'm not going to incriminate myself by putting an Unforgivable in the open like that. And the result of this is that the Ministry will investigate the stadium tampering. I didn't want to do it myself, of course. While I appreciate the skill and craftsmanship of runic enchantment, the work itself is, quite frankly, as dull as watching two courting Flobberworms trying to figure out which end is which."
"How exactly is the 'package' going to be delivered to the Ministry's doorstep? Have you thought about that part of the plan, or are you going to make it up right now?" asked Nott.
"We'll grab any important information—shrink the models if we have to—and burn whatever's left. Tie an envelope around the wizard's neck containing the memories and a note. Apparate him Side-Along to the Ministry Atrium, dump the evidence, then Apparate back to Hogsmeade. Simple, clean, easy," said Tom. "A Fidelius house shouldn't have Anti-Apparition wards on the inside, like the last house we visited. It wouldn't make sense to have to go outside every time someone wanted to visit London. The neighbours would notice a wizard walking out of an invisible gap between the houses, and that'd be suspicious. Any questions?"
"Yes, in fact, I do," said Nott. He began ticking points off on his fingers. "Firstly, have you ever extracted a memory before? Second, did you know that for security and emergencies, the Ministry Atrium only allows one-way Apparition for unauthorised visitors? You can Apparate in, and only as far as the Atrium, that's true. But if you want to leave, you have to go out through the Floo fireplaces or the gateway to Muggle London. And third, do you have any idea what effect doing this will have on Britain?"
"Plan adjustment, then: Apparate in and Floo out," said Tom. He had read about memory extraction during the brief phase in Fourth Year when he was interested in mind magic, and Rosier had lent him a few books in exchange for spell training. He didn't believe his lack of real experience was an issue worth addressing. "And yes, I do have some idea of the repercussions. Magical Games and Sports will probably be forced to cancel the League Championship while Quidditch pitches all over the country are checked for safety. The loss of the Quidditch season carries a priceless emotional toll, and on top of that they'll have to refund the ticket sales, but I'm sure we can bear it with proper dignity. Anything else?"
"Fourth point: Do you expect people to be warm and friendly to two hooded figures dropping off what looks like a dead body and running away?" asked Nott blandly. "We'd look indistinguishable from the foreign menace from which we are supposedly defending Britain."
"We'll Disillusion ourselves and slip in without being noticed. They'll understand our intentions once they look at the memories," said Tom stubbornly. He drew his wand. "I have extra vials in the potions case, for you and me. Only a master of mind magic can alter his own extracted memories, and altered memories compress time or dampen the senses in a distinctive manner. A congruent pair of memories is near impossible to forge. After you're done, take the papers. I'll shrink the models."
Nott sighed. "I recommend you refrain, if it's at all possible, from casting illegal spells. Otherwise the Ministry might not be so sympathetic as to ascribe good intentions to your actions."
"Very well," said Tom. "I shall keep your advice in consideration. Now, on to the next point: how will we sign our note? If we leave it anonymous, they'll not only assume it's a one-time occurrence, they'll forget who we are because they can't attribute a motivation to our deeds. If we leave it as 'Messrs. N and R', they won't take us seriously. I wouldn't. We need to give them a name so they can remember us properly, and reward us when the time comes. Something significant to our identities, so we can say it was us all along, and they could have figured it out had they been paying attention."
For many years, Tom's extracurricular motivations had been bolstered by the glorious satisfaction of one day revealing his identity. The theatrical denouement where he could openly claim credit for his exploits and not have some cheeky bystander or interfering schoolmaster in the peanut gallery pointing out that the real Tom Riddle was a Cockney pauper, a schoolboy charity case, a pompous gutter-rag writer whose talents lay in producing more flash than substance. He had excised from himself the first two points with his familial discovery; the real Tom Riddle was by right of birth a gentleman of the leisure class, a matter of public documentation. But Thomas Bertram, a mask of convenience who overshadowed his real face? Bertram was much admired by a certain segment of the population who tended the family hearth, and while it may have given him some level of notability in wizarding society, it did nothing for his reputation as a serious scholar of magic.
This bothered Tom more than he thought it would.
"We want them to take us seriously," Tom continued. "'Yours sincerely, Mr. So-and-So' is too common. We should go by an alias. Something impressive, like a title. Everyone respects a proper title."
"What kind of title?" Nott asked, skepticism colouring his voice. "A Wizengamot judge can legally sign his notes as an 'Honorable', and the same for magical Masters and Healers with legal accreditations. But as far as I know, you don't have one."
"I didn't mean real titles," said Tom. "The whole purpose of this was not to tell them who we are, but hint at it."
"What level of artistic license are we talking about here? As much as the 'Most Noble and Ancient' designation appeals to me, it's not a good idea to associate your identity too closely with a political agenda, unless it's destined to be a tool to further that agenda."
"When you invited me to your house last Christmas," Tom mused, "you mentioned the positive sentiments held toward wizarding romanticism. If we want to make ourselves known as gallant defenders, champions of the people, we should have suitable names. It would be harder for the Ministry to frame us as outlaws and vigilantes if we played that hand before they could, so to speak. But if they are as unscrupulous as I would be in their situation, it'd be best if we set aside a contingency..."
.
.
Tom propped the unconscious wizard up against the rim of the Atrium fountain, ensuring the envelope addressed "To the DMLE" was in view. He stacked the piles of papers to one side of the wizard, then placed the shrunken models on the other side.
Perhaps I should un-shrink them, Tom considered. The Aurors wouldn't know what size they're meant to be.
"Psst," Nott hissed. "Hurry up. The Atrium guards are walking in this direction. I think they've sensed something's up."
"But we're Disillusioned," Tom whispered back. "How do they know we're here? Did you bungle your charm?"
"We Disillusioned ourselves and this fellow here—" Nott emphasised the last word with a kick to the man's shoulder, "—But you didn't Disillusion each sheet of parchment or stadium prototype. Once they've left your hand, they become visible. To everyone around us, they look like they've been popping out of thin air."
"Oi!" shouted a guard, drawing his wand and pointing it in their general vicinity. "Who's there! Show yourself!"
"Right. Time to leave," said Nott, tossing the last handful of scrolls out of his Extendable bag and turning for the Floo fireplaces.
Tom turned to follow him. As he was sliding his wand out of his sleeve, he felt the faint electric tingle on his skin of someone else's magic interacting with his own. His Disillusionment Charm dissolved mid-step, and Nott's figure flickered into view a heartbeat later. The Sticking Charm holding the borrowed black scarf over Tom's nose and mouth slipped; with a mutter, Tom held the scarf up with his free hand and re-stuck it to his face.
"Intruders!" the guard yelped. All across the Atrium, heads turned, the assorted workers and registrants letting out a gasp of shock at an ominous pair of black-cloaked wizards appearing within their midst, wands brandished. From the corners of the Atrium, uniformed wizards with the M-insignia badge of the Ministry abandoned their watch posts, scurrying toward Tom and Nott.
"The Ministry's under attack!"
"Stop them!"
"Close the Floos!"
The shouts of alarm echoed their way through the room, but the hue and cry was muted by the grind of metal grates sliding out of the walls over the bank of fireplaces. The fireplace entrances were being blocked, Tom realised. As he had desired, the Ministry has responded to his provocations, but much faster than he'd liked, and not at all to his own preferences. His daring plan would end with him trapped in the Atrium and left to the grace and mercy of Ministry justice.
Not today, he thought.
"The gates!" Tom snapped at Nott, both of them thudding across the slick tile floor. "You didn't mention the gates!"
"I didn't know!" Nott panted back. "They're new, weren't there the last time I was—incoming!"
Protego, Tom incanted, flicking his wrist in the familiar downstroke of the Shield Charm. White light burst over him and Nott in a sparkling dome as it was hit by a volley of spellfire.
"Go," Tom ordered, maintaining the spell as whistling stars of red and blue light scattered over his shield. "Get to the Floo and open a gate. Break the wards, I don't care how. I'll hold them off."
The grates had fallen over the fireplaces by the time they'd reached the other end of the Atrium. Nott knelt down and murmured a complex string of revealing spells over the shining golden bars, but Tom couldn't observe any longer, for all his attention was now on preparing for a duel. A real wizarding duel, which Tom had only read of in books and heard stories second-hand from Hermione, had different rules than stage duelling. But this wasn't a proper firefight; the Atrium casters had so far only sent Disarmers and Stunners at him. In the Auror manual, the policy was not to escalate, it was to reciprocate. An opponent who used lethal magic against Aurors would be answered in kind, but it was not the standard procedure to jump in with Cutting Curses unless they knew without a doubt that the wizard on the other end was a legitimate Undesirable.
"...Damage resistance, curse deflection, physical impenetrability," Nott muttered behind him, engrossed in disentangling the revealed runic phrases on the fireplace bars. "This is some damned good work, almost as good as goblin smithing..."
"I'm going to try something to buy some time," said Tom between gritted teeth. "But do hurry it up, we haven't got all day."
Standard charms and spellwork could be countered with a simple Finite Incantatem. The Disillusionment Charm, which granted a semblance of invisibility, had fallen after a quick spell shot by a guard. As Hermione had reminded him, spells affecting the natural properties of the material world were different. Particularly elemental manipulation spells, which were resistant to simple Vanishing or termination due to the vagueness of their boundaries. How might a wizard outduel a hot summer's day? What was the method by which one could challenge a monsoon or disarm an avalanche?
Finite Incantatem required a finite spell boundary. Hermione could neutralise the flame, but it wouldn't counter the heat wave produced by his overenthusiastic Incendio through the conventional means, because the heat wave was an effect of the spell, not the spell itself.
Aguamenti!
Holding steady to the Shield Charm protecting both Nott and Himself, Tom sent a sheet of water surging across the floor tiles, a violent, churning tide that roared loud over the shrill voices of the Ministry employees, spraying white froth over robes and shoes and the yelping bodies of wizards who'd been knocked down like ninepins and swept away by the flood. After clearing the area in front of him, Tom sent a controlled tongue of fire licking over the water's surface all the way to the Atrium fountain, from which rose with a menacing hiss a great rolling bank of white steam. By the time the fountain had boiled dry, his pursuers had lost the advantage of visibility, and the volume of shouting increased.
Glacius, Tom incanted, his wand sweeping in a demicircle, punctuated by little flourishes at the cardinal points. Iterative conjoined casting: this was an advanced Charms technique that spread the effects of multiple charms over a broad area, instead of casting a single overpowered spell in one direction. He drew on memories of freezing nights and frosted mornings to focus his intent: the sombre winter walks in the Little Hangleton graveyard; the lines of snowcapped marble monuments, white on white; the sudden and piercing realisation that the ice-rimed gravestones shared one thing in common: the name Riddle.
lce crackled in a swathe around him, intricate lacy patterns leaping forwards in an ever-expanding arc, forming treacherous rings of frozen stalagmites. Snowflakes burst into the air from his upraised wand, drifting throughout the vast chamber of the Atrium, further obscuring his apprehenders' sight and aim.
In the freezing white fog, Tom glimpsed flashes of light—red, blue, yellow, and orange—which hissed and popped on his shield. Other spells, careening through the fog and going wide on either side of him, hit the metal grates of the nearest fireplaces and dissipated into nothing. Without visibility, the casters on the other side of the fogbank had wavered in their certainty and their spells were not quite as fierce or rapid as they had been before. Which was a relief, because Tom was starting to feel the strain of holding the Shield Charm while performing a number of area-effect spells in quick succession. These charms, water conjuration, flame, wind and ice, were expected competencies for even the poorest of students, and their proficiency was measured by conjuring and freezing a simple cup of water.
But he wasn't an ordinary student. No one had beaten his O.W.L. record in Charms; he'd only been matched once in forty-six years, and he had his suspicions as to who had done it. He wasn't content with pleasing an examiner with a sculpted ice dove animated to sing and flutter. It would be a testament to his own humiliation if his student charms were perceived to be of student proficiency. That was the purpose of this entire convoluted exercise, wasn't it? To create this public image of the wizarding ideal, ready and waiting for him to step inside and inhabit its form like an old cloak. He could bypass the expectation of having to prove himself as every other Hogwarts graduate in his year was required to do, because he'd already done it, and the salient point was that while the shell was false, the core was real.
The magic, the deeds, the talent, the panache. That was his.
He made out dark figures approaching through the fog; it looked like the Ministry guards had tired of shooting spells blindly into the white mist, and had decided to wend their way through the garden of frozen spikes and apprehend the intruders in person.
I need more cover, he realised. I can take some pressure off the shield if I have a strong physical barrier in front of me.
With that thought in mind, Tom flourished his wand once more in an arc, throwing sheets of water out in front of him with alternating Freezing and Engorgement charms to construct the start of a crenellated castle wall, curved around the fireplace opening. It was growing taller, but still too low; he'd have to crouch behind it and maintain his Shield Charm anyway, since he didn't put much faith in the restraint of zealous Ministry guards. The Reductor Curse was considered lethal for human combat, but it was perfect for destroying physical barriers. At least his ice wall could block the Auror handbook's standard Bodybind and Incarcerous charms for detaining lawbreakers.
Tom built up his ice barricade as it took blows from the across the Atrium. Whenever the occasional spell glanced along the top of the ice wall, it threw up knife-like slivers of ice which vapourised on his shield, inches away from his face. None of the flying ice shards cut him, but he could still feel the wind and chill of their passage.
He massaged his wand arm with his left hand; it had begun to ache.
"Are you nearly done?" Tom rasped.
Nott's reply was a tinkle of tile, a short pause, and a grunted, "Nearly. The bars are too strong to break, but I can raise them manually by cracking the enchantment of the tile where the bars are ejected." There was another jangle of broken ceramic; Nott had the bars gripped in his hands and was pulling them upwards, gradually returning them to their slots in the tile above the fireplace. "There! Get your back up against the grate, as close as you can. My magic's completing the augmented runic circuit, but as soon as I let go, they'll come crashing back down."
When he'd raised the bars to knee-height, Nott wriggled underneath and started lifting the bars from the inside.
Tom couldn't look any further, as the guards had ventured close enough to start throwing jinxes at him, thick and fast. He concentrated on flicking spells at them to freeze their sodden robes and trousers into stiff, inflexible boards, before adhering them to the icy floor. This was real ice created from water, not sparkling spell-ice conjured wholesale for Christmas party decorations, so it had to be melted the old-fashioned way. And that hurt. He could hear the guards' vigorous swearing over the chaotic noise of people shouting, owls screeching, and elevator bells dinging in the distance.
Red light flashed in his peripheral vision, fizzling on the metal bars in front of Nott's scarf-covered face. Nott reared back and let out a low cry, his hands momentarily losing their grip on the bars, which jerked down almost a foot before he caught them again. "That was a Crucio! Come on, come on, you'll have to duck and get under; they know you're relying on your shield—"
Nott's warning came too late. The top of the ice wall exploded into pinging chips of icy shrapnel, followed by a Cruciatus Curse that hit Tom in the shoulder, and then he was gripped by a wave of bone-rending pain, rising and rippling through his body with the force of a gunshot. Tom wheezed; his eyes watered and formed glistening icicles that clung to his cheeks and spiked from his eyelashes, and his vision narrowed to a wavering line of grey figures.
His wand slashed a line through the air; a barrage of powdery white snowballs knocked down the figures and set the next wave of spells ricocheting in all directions, crashing off shattered tile and throwing mortar dust over the hood of his cloak. Tom ducked, feeling another Cruciatus hit him in the back, but he kept moving, the mantra of One step, one step more, just another step playing in his mind like a broken gramophone, and then he'd slipped under the golden bars and grabbed Nott and hurled them both into the green flames, while red flames seared mercilessly up his back, puncturing through his flesh and into his spine and out the other side, then doubling back for another round of torment like a moon-drawn tide. He was paralysed into a humourless parody of rigor mortis—but he wasn't dead, even if right now he considered it to be a slight improvement on his current situation; he was still alive—
For as long as I can help it, thought Tom, then cleared his mind of all thoughts, emotions, and sensations, as he had been taught by his most beloved teacher, Professor Dumbledore.
As soon as the distractions were driven away into the farthest distance, he was able to focus on a location. The Leaky Cauldron.
The flames surrounding him flashed green, then the view resolved into the dingy pub in Charing Cross, with a hubbub of hungry travellers calling for another round of ale and a bowl of the soup of the day. Nott loosened his grip on Tom's forearm and stepped forward, but Tom pulled him back again.
The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade. Flash.
Borgin and Burkes, Knockturn Alley. Flash.
Home. The Riddle House, Little Hangleton. Flash.
They smacked against the grate when they landed, this time a regular latticework fire cover of cast iron, which toppled onto the hand-knotted Turkey carpet of Tom Riddle's bedroom in the North Wing of the Riddle House. Nott collapsed onto the grate, covered in soot and ashes, and Tom fell on top of him coughing, a hollow rattle in his lungs. The Riddle House was registered as the residence of an adult wizard, so he could use magic without restriction here, but the fireplace was Muggle-made and of Muggle dimensions. Hardly built for leisurely strolling.
Nott pushed him off and rolled onto his back, gasping for breath, peeling the scarf from his face and wrinkling his nose at the state of the once-fine wool. "What was that for? Why didn't we get off at London?"
"You mentioned that the Floo at the Montrose high street could be tracked," said Tom from his comfortable resting position on the floor. He tested his control over his muscles and, finding that they responded to his will, forced his fingers to unclench and release their hold on his wand. "So I thought I should make it harder for any trackers. And we had our hoods on and faces covered. Not exactly your typical dinner guests, were we."
"Oh. That was clever thinking."
"I know."
"Do you think the Disillusionment has worn off the wizard we delivered to the Aurors?"
"Yes. The Finite they cast got him when it got us."
"So... What happens next?"
"We sit and wait for the fireworks," Tom said, after a minute of contemplation. "There were too many witnesses today. Too many questions fielded which give them no choice but to launch an official investigation. It should be obvious in hindsight that I hadn't cast a single curse, only variants of textbook charms, and none with lethal intent. You weren't fighting at all. The Minister has to respond with something or he'll look weak. A desperate grasp for any good publicity, and although the Montrose stadium landed in his lap today, he won't be able to claim full credit for it. I unshrunk the wooden models from the house, and they'll be the first thing the investigators see when they retrace our steps. He's walking on treacherous ground from here on."
"Father will be pleased to hear it. He despises Spencer-Moon and preferred the old Minister, Hector Fawley. Good family, diplomatic to a fault, but no surprise there as his line runs to Hufflepuffs," remarked Nott, sitting up on the carpet and pushing back his hood. "You could use this to your benefit, had you any ambitions in wizarding politics, you know. A Ministry shuffle is the perfect opportunity to allow the well-positioned to adjust their spots on the company ladder."
"I've no personal interest in office politics," said Tom, staring at the moulded plaster ceiling of his bedroom. "But Hermione does."
"Hmm."
"I won't pretend to know what you're implying there."
"That we should clean up and return to Hogsmeade, obviously. If it's a dire emergency, the London Aurors will send Patronus messenger signals that outfly owls. They'll start herding everyone back soonish. No student wants to be found outside the gates during a castle lockdown. Not even the Head Boy."
"Alright. I'm getting up." Tom groaned and pushed himself to his knees. "I thought the Cruciatus would be worse than this."
"They probably didn't cast it as strongly as they could have," Nott theorised. "Senior Aurors are given special dispensation to use Unforgivables during appropriate occasions, though they don't like to talk about it because it confirms the unflattering rumour that connected individuals follow a different set of rules than everyone else. Which, by the way, isn't a rumour, it's a fact. But even the weakened version of the Cruciatus isn't meant to be walked off like that."
"I've had worse. Remember the New Year's Day of last year you spent in the St. Mungo's waiting room?" Tom gave a hoarse laugh. "I suppose I can say that I live to be disappointed."
Nott gave him a mystified look. "Riddle, I think you're the farthest thing from a normal wizard that I've ever encountered."
"Thank you for the compliment, Nott," said Tom graciously. "I think you make a fairly adequate minion."
.
.
It was mid-afternoon by the time they'd finished cleaning themselves up in Tom's bathroom, aware that while a Scouring Charm cleaned the grime off one's skin and robes, it did very little for the distinctive smell of a young man's physical exertions that lingered on the body, wizard and Muggle alike. (Nott informed him that his own witch mother found the smell unseemly. This confirmed Tom's assertion that, contrary what he'd been told as a young child, rich people's bodily functions were no more superior than that of a poor orphan's—they merely covered it up better.)
After Apparating to shadows behind the Hog's Head goat shed, Nott tossed Tom a vial of pain reliever from his potions case.
Tom broke the seal and sucked it down, letting out a breath of relief as the stiffness of his back began to ease. "The Auror manual said the tremors would last up to a day after curse exposure. I assumed I'd be able to repress them..."
"With what?" Nott snorted, peering around a feeding trough; he ducked back against the wall immediately. "By sheer force of willpower? Watch out, Aurors on broomsticks overhead. It looks like they're bringing everyone back in early; they must have got the message from London already."
"Willpower worked for the curse itself, didn't it? I'd assumed that because the pain was only a mental illusion, not real torture, a well-organised mind would be able to, hmm, negotiate the pain levels," said Tom. "We'll have to make sure we're seen with the rest of the crowd returning to the castle. Until the moment is right, no one should have any suspicions that we weren't where we were supposed to be."
"Just because it's a mental construction, doesn't make it any less real," said Nott, looking bewildered at Tom's explanation. "The others told me they'd be spending the day at the Hog's Head. We should join them inside; that way they'll be able to claim truthfully they had been with us at Hogsmeade if anyone asks. We'll be two innocent students too busy having a drink with friends to be jaunting off to London."
"They'd claim they had seen me in Hogsmeade if asked, even if it wasn't true," Tom pointed out. "But not the same for you, I expect. Let's go in, then. A drink wouldn't go amiss."
They crept into the dimly lit tavern with the Aurors none the wiser. At the bar, Tom ordered the goat milk, while Nott had himself a gin served neat, each of them making an expression of mild revulsion at the other's choice of drink.
"What's wrong with goat milk?" Tom asked, sipping from his cup. "Wizard-raised goats are subject to prolonged ambient exposure to magic, extending their lifespans and making their bodies take on magical qualities. I should think magic-infused milk to be a few degrees less offensive than bezoars, yet I doubt you'd have a problem with eating a bezoar."
"They're completely different situations! If I was eating bezoars, I can't imagine I'd be doing it out of choice. No one eats bezoars because they taste good," Nott said as he knocked back his glass. "Where are the others? Do you see them?"
"The back table, by the kitchen," Tom pointed out. "They haven't noticed we're here—"
Nott slid back his stool; Tom kicked it back into place. "Don't. Not yet. I want to observe."
In the dimmest corner of the tavern, farthest away from the grimy, blown-glass windows, the members of Tom Riddle's Homework Club listened intently to the witch sitting at the head of the table. Hermione's bushy-haired head slanted over a roll of parchment, the soft plume of a quill bobbing to and fro. She looked up now and again, her mouth forming a question he couldn't hear over a discreet Silencing Charm, then placed her full concentration in turn on Travers or Rosier or Mulciber, granting them leave to speak while her soft brown eyes attended them like they had anything of worth to say.
It was odd how throwing a single witch into a pack of traditionalist wizards in one instant transformed a brotherhood into somewhat civilised mixed company. It altered the established group dynamic; it sanitised the boisterous and often crude humour of schoolboys, softening the edges of interpersonal squabbles for dominance, because although it was a fact that Tom alone was on top, the pecking order below him was a matter of contestable opinion. Since it was Hermione who led the discussion, however, the elbow-shoving had been replaced by talking in turns and respectful interludes while waiting to speak.
Disturbing, was it not? Tom thought. It had taken him until midway through Fourth Year to revise the impressions the Slytherins of his year group had formed of him at his Sorting. How on Earth did they do it, he wondered: how did they create a compartment in their heads that told them Muggleborns should be scorned for counting as people by no more than a hairsbreadth of technicality, and another compartment that told them that witches should be esteemed and protected as the means by which the wizarding race was propagated into the future. For they must have been made aware that there was no such thing as a powerful lineage without the sufferance of accomplished witches.
How did they manage it without their brains, whatever shrunken kernels of it existed, exploding from the sheer hypocrisy? he wondered. And as he continued observing, he supposed he found the answer: the power of selective ignorance.
If Tom Riddle had a "Killing Face", as Orion Black had once joked, then Hermione Granger had a "Learning Face". Her eyes shone in the satisfied light of discovery, her whole body animated in the excitement of absorbing the newest tidbit of information, pursuing the next page in the book or the lecturer's next word as eagerly as Hipparchus the Stargazer followed the waxing moon, waiting to pounce on the answer to a problem she'd devised for her own pleasure. There was an extraordinary vibrancy to her when she was in that state; her enthusiasm was so sincere that one couldn't help be captivated by that rare combination of earnestness and aptitude. She knew enough about most subjects to volunteer an intelligent opinion, but little enough that she remained appreciative of the expertise of another. People found that flattering. Tom knew it from personal experience.
He was still looking when his thoughts were interrupted by Nott shaking him on the shoulder.
"Riddle," Nott whispered, glancing at the tavern door, which had just been thrown open. "The Aurors are here to kick us out."
The Aurors' arrival caused a cacophony of screeches and squeals as chairs were pushed back and suddenly all the day drinkers and unlicensed businessmen found they had other places to be than enjoying the culinary delights of the Hog's Head.
"Hogwarts students, please return to the castle," the Auror at the door announced. Then, eyeing the mad rush to the fireplace, she continued, "We're not here for anyone else but students today; you may sit back down, sir. But tomorrow, who knows? Hahah!"
Her partner brandished his wand, pulling out chairs and Vanishing the contents of tankards and glasses. "You there, those Gryffindors by the window, quickly now! You're to assemble by House group at the carriages. Smartly, sir, if you don't mind. And Slytherins, that means you as well. Yes, I know the Three Broomsticks has the venison pie special tonight, but you can come back another week and the Hogwarts supper is just as good. Trust me, you shall miss it when you've left school. We're to be taking roll in the courtyard—oh, good day, young Travers, didn't expect to see you here. Please relay my regards to your father—"
Tom joined the growing crowd of students milling about the cobbled street, having been turned out of the various shops as the Aurors went around door to door. He quickly found Hermione by her distinctive hair. When he came up and tucked her under his arm, so as not to lose her in the fray, she gave a little squeak of surprise.
"Tom!" she cried. "I didn't see you there. Were you in the Hog's Head? I haven't seen you all day; I would have invited you to join us if I'd seen you!"
"I was busy," said Tom, guiding her around a knot of mutinous Gryffindors intent on hiding contraband fireworks down their trouser legs. "I thought, since the Aurors were out in the village, it would be a good opportunity to visit... certain places I shouldn't be in." He gave a meaningful look at her.
"Oh," she gasped, and lowering her voice, said, "Do you mean... certain places like the bathroom that shouldn't be mentioned?"
"Yes," Tom nodded. "Places like that."
"You have to be careful," Hermione said. "Even when most of the students are in Hogsmeade, it's not everyone. The First and Second Years aren't allowed to go. You could've been seen!"
"'Careful' is my middle name," Tom assured her. "Anyway, I didn't find anything other than some interesting architectural designs, so I left early. And I do know that if I run across a difficult situation outside my personal, ah, arena of interest, there's nothing wrong with deferring to the Aurors. I'm just a student, after all."
"That is prudent advice," said Hermione approvingly. "You've really learned a lot about responsibility since becoming Head Boy. I quite admire it. Do you remember when you'd only just got your Prefect badge, and you were boasting about some nonsense like, 'I'm a Prefect now, which means I can do whatever I want'?" She clung to his arm, and added, "I'm glad to see how far you've progressed, Tom. You should be proud of it, truly. It's called emotional growth."
On the way back to the castle, Hermione was so delighted with his "emotional growth" that Tom didn't have the heart to correct her. After his day of mishaps—attributed to no other reason but a poor roll of the dice, of course—he was happy to see that she, at least, had had a pleasant time.
The combination of magical exertion and the pain reliever potion wearing off left Tom ill-tempered for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. His sour mood lasted until the next morning, by which time the mail owls had come in and unveiled the existence of two unlikely heroes: the Prince and the Knight.
.
.
Note:
— It's assumed in this story that the Fidelius Charm doesn't mindwipe anyone who knew the information before putting it into a secret. Otherwise, the Order could have turned "Harry Potter lives in the UK" into a secret to protect Harry's location, and made anyone who knew about the UK forget it existed. That would be storybreaking and brainbreaking.
— This chapter ties back to the previous chapter: "Vouchsafe your life to the skill and wit of another, and defend him, body and soul, with your own." Is this what emotional growth looks like?