1945
.
.
True to his word, in the month of May, Head Auror Evelyn McClure posted an announcement in The Daily Prophet. The Prince of Charming was informed of the upcoming trial of the century, set for the second week of June, and invited to provide a witness testimony. The Green Knight was also invited to choose between providing testimony, or joining the panel of expert witnesses; it was felt that the Knight could not be properly impartial if he took on both duties. The Wizengamot, keen on convicting foreign-born undesirables under a British court of law, did want to maintain an appearance of fairness even if it couldn't manage the reality.
Tom discovered this news by the way of Nott, who delivered the newspaper over Tom's breakfast plate, right in the middle of some urgent wedding planning discussion with Hermione.
"I wrote to my grandmother; she's already decided on a Church of England ceremony down in the village. All village tenants to receive a half-month concession on rent for the happy celebration," Tom told Hermione. "Have you heard from your mother? If she hasn't heard from you, then she would've heard from Mary. If your parents haven't made their travel arrangements yet, I'm sure my grandmother can ring up the station master and have a couple of seats set aside. The Christmas season is always dreadfully busy."
"I must be the last one to know about these decisions," said a frowning Hermione. "No one's asked me a thing. And a Muggle ceremony, Tom? I didn't think such a thing would appeal to you in any way."
"It doesn't, not really," admitted Tom. "But I accept the necessity of it in filing for a Muggle registration. After getting a wizarding registration, we'll be married on both sides of the Statute—isn't that exciting? It'll be a Muggle marriage registration, a religious service, a Ministry civil certificate, and a traditional magical vow. Quadruple married!" he crowed. "I'd like to see you try getting out of that, Hermione. Not that you'd want to, but you could certainly try."
"It's very much like you, even now after you've 'evolved your opinions', to think of marriage as some sort of snare meant to trap people forever," said Hermione dryly. "That's not very evolved at all, in my opinion. It feels like only yesterday when you were going around condemning the double marriage of Lieutenant Pinkerton from Madame Butterfly as extreme lunacy."
"Oh, I haven't forgotten about that," said Tom in a soft voice, leaning in closer to murmur in Hermione's ear. "Not at all. But being married twice to two different Muggles is different to marriage four times over to the same witch. I'd like to think you have intelligence enough to appreciate the distinction."
SMACK!
Nott slapped the newspaper down, rattling the saucers and silverware on the Slytherin House dining table.
"If you're done with your inappropriate and excessively lovesick confessions—emphasis on the 'sick'—then you really ought to read this notice, Riddle," said Nott.
.
To the Prince of Charming and the Green Knight,
On behalf of the DMLE, you are cordially invited to attend the trial of A. Schmitz and V. Janošík on Thursday, July 14, 1945. The venue allocation is Courtroom 2, Level 10, British Ministry of Magic, London.
Official escort will be provided in the Atrium from 9 o'clock.
I remain, as always, servant to the British public,
Head Auror E. McClure.
.
Tom picked up the newspaper and scanned the relevant information. "Second week of June. We knew it was coming. What of it?"
"Have you checked your N.E.W.T. exam calendar yet?" asked Nott pointedly.
Hermione leaned over to read the court date announcements. "That's the same time and date as our Transfiguration N.E.W.T. practical demonstration. I don't know why it matters, though. I understand it's one's civil responsibility to keep abreast of current events and political developments in the news, but there's nothing in there particularly relevant to us. What we should be doing is to keep our focus on the N.E.W.T.s. The exams are the most important factors for how our futures should be determined, and we mustn't let ourselves become distracted by what is most likely to be the Ministry of Magic's interpretation of a kangaroo court show trial."
"Of course," said Nott, and he sat back down on his side of the table and watched Tom glare at The Daily Prophet for the rest of the meal.
Tom sat and stewed over the news. The practical demonstration, from his past experience was the O.W.L.s, was separate from the written portion of the exam. At nine o'clock, students queued up by last name and were called into a closed room in front of a panel of examiners, who requested specific performances of relevant spellwork, ticking off boxes on a list marking levels of competency. Could the Transfigured cat purr and meow? Extra points awarded. Were the Transfigured cat's paws solid, blocky lumps with its toes melded together? Points deducted. Basic textbook business dependent on rote memory. The subject of Transfiguration didn't get interesting until the student reached the end of his session and showed he could add a unicorn's horn and downy white wings to the cat, without turning it into an anatomical abomination with shrivelled lungs that breathed through its anus.
With his surname of 'Riddle', he would be in the second half of the enrollment list. The student numbers in a popular core subject were relatively high, so his name wouldn't be called until the early- to mid-afternoon, some time after the lunch break.
The trial's start was nine o'clock in the morning, on that same day.
Could he sneak out of the castle grounds, attend the trial, then sneak back in and complete his Transfiguration demonstration? He wasn't sure. Could he miss his Transfiguration demonstration altogether? If he did, he would attain a null mark of non-participation, one level lower than the dreaded Troll mark. Even if he scored a full points Outstanding on the written portion of the exam, held several days earlier, it was understood that practical wandwork was vital to mastery of the subject competencies, and his mark of perfect O and an empty 0 would probably result in a composite 'Poor'. He would graduate without a N.E.W.T. for Transfiguration, although he'd have ten more subjects to make up for it.
Was it worth it?
The examiners wouldn't particularly care. They worked for the Ministry and would be testing dozens of students for their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s that week. They didn't know him, and it would be no skin off their nose if he didn't appear at his designated time.
But Dumbledore would.
He would see the missing name in the attendance roll and know at once what had happened.
He would call Tom Riddle to his office afterwards, and Tom would have to sit under the doleful blue eyes of his Transfiguration Professor, and hear the old man say in his affectionate Old-Man-Who-Knows-Better-Than-You voice, "I didn't know you were struggling in this subject, Tom. You'd always seemed so very confident with your understanding of Transfigurative principles. If you had personal difficulties during the exam period, no matter how busy I may be, I would always make time for you to speak privately with me. Tell me, Tom, what has been troubling you so much that you would behave in this manner so unlike yourself? I've always known you to be such a high achiever. I am, quite frankly, disappointed in your choices..."
They would play out their long-established routine of tea and lemon shortbread, steepled fingers and mild reprovals, passive-aggressive Legilimency and verbal ripostes that never landed, but drifted vaguely past each other in the same direction like two broken branches floating down a stream. Dumbledore would know when Tom was lying through his teeth, and Tom would know he knew, and Dumbledore would know Tom knew he knew, and then they would stare at each other over the teacher's desk until one of them broke eye contact first.
It was horrible.
Tom had heard of the saying, "Better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission", and thought the most prudent advice would be to refrain from caring about permission or forgiveness. But in this situation where he was a schoolboy under the devious thumb of a school authority, he knew that even if he didn't care, other people did. He wasn't a free man until graduation. He analysed his possible choices, and the least damaging path he saw was by asking for permission on false premises, so he wouldn't risk being forced to reveal the truth in exchange for forgiveness.
The truth required the sacrifice of his bishop to preserve his queen. He had to put his lower value player in a vulnerable position on the board as a necessary distraction.
This meant, he decided with great reluctance, that it was finally time for Thomas Bertram to tread the stage.
Preparations were required. Tom needed evidence. A compelling narrative. An undeniable truth which rang with the sincerity of painfully earnest emotion, of the type that would make the tender sores in Dumbledore's memory-scarred heart lurch toward compassion. It would have to come at the cost of Tom's pride and haughty self-reliance in order to swing the arm of Dumbledore's moral compass in Tom's direction. And, most importantly, Tom himself had to believe in it strongly enough to convince another it was believable.
He skipped his History of Magic class and spent the hour in the library furiously scribbling out a draft to the Ministry of Magic's Wizengamot Administration Services sub-department. The revised draft was copied out onto a sheet of his good parchment, which he folded into an envelope; it also enclosed a Duplicated copy of his Press Identification Certificate. The name and number of which should match with that of a member in good standing in the Wizarding Britain Society of Journalists.
Having kept his original acceptance letter from Witch Weekly, he recalled that his Press Badge allowed him special privileges above the public. "Wizengamot sessions, including hearings and trials" had been one such entitlement, which he'd never used in the years since he'd attained the qualification. This was an appropriate occasion to put it to use, as he needed that veneer of legitimacy to prove that his deception was harmless, and therefore forgivable.
After attending his last class of the day, he headed straight for the Owlery, not slowing his stride to allow Nott to catch up. He took the steps up to the owl roosts two at a time, Nott panting after him, and when he got to the top, he grabbed the hardiest-looking school owl and began tying his letter to its leg.
"Take this to the Ministry of Magic, London," he ordered the owl, then stalked over to the nearest window and tossed it over the sill. The owl gave him an offended hoot but flew off obediently.
"You came up with a plan," said Nott, out of breath, his hands on his knees. "Are we skipping Transfiguration or not?"
"We're going to have our names moved up to the top of the list, so we take the demonstrations first," said Tom.
"How?" asked Nott. "The examiners are in charge of the demonstration. Is that who you've written to, at the Ministry?"
"The examiners test the attendees, but the attendance roll they're given comes from the student list. The student list is in the care of the Hogwarts teachers, not the Ministry. That's how Slughorn was able to add my name to the Muggle Studies exam roll, despite not having signed up for the class," said Tom.
"Are you going to talk Slughorn into putting our names first on the Transfiguration roll, then?" Nott asked thoughtfully. "That might work... If you give him a good enough incentive, he'll usually do what you want. But it has to be a really good incentive; that's not his own Potions class he's interfering with—it's the Deputy Headmaster's pet subject. Old Sluggy doesn't like doing anything that puts him in the way of a confrontation."
"Transfiguration isn't a useless make-work subject that no one cares about, like Muggle Studies," said Tom. "Slughorn won't do it for a price I'm willing to pay. But Dumbledore... he'll be cheaper. I'll be talking to Dumbledore to have our names moved up."
For Dumbledore's price, he was willing to reveal his Bertram pseudonym, the mysterious eudaemon of the magical household. Thomas Bertram, the wizard who'd placated a goodly number of harridan mothers-in-law across Britain by making sure their precious sons were in competent hands. If those hands weren't exactly the same as Mummy's, they still knew their way around a kitchen and the neighbours had nothing to scoff at, which was enough to earn the grudging seal of maternal approval.
Slughorn's price, he'd calculated, would have been the Prince's identity. Bertram might have had fame, but he lacked the real influence of the Prince, who had both. Tom wasn't going to offer that to someone whose well-known master key was a fifth top-up of elf wine.
"You can't tell Dumbledore," said Nott. "You can't! He may be on too familiar of terms with you, but he's not on your side. You can't trust him with such sensitive matters. And this one, not all! I read up on the Godric's Hollow duel of 1899, the one they mentioned in the papers, and—"
"I know," Tom said sharply. "I know. His own history proves himself to be personally compromised. Trust me, I have a plan, and I won't be confessing any cloak-and-dagger business with him. You need to play your own part: pretend to be my 'friend' and back what I say. Don't look surprised if you find that I'm not acting like my usual self. And whatever you do, don't look Dumbledore in the eyes—he's a powerful Legilimens, and he'll know when you're lying." He took a breath, and added, "If all goes to plan, then Dumbledore will give me what I want, but I'll come out looking like the lovesick fool you claim that I am. Emphasis on the 'sick'. Good God, I don't think I shall ever recover from this."
"Now you're intriguing me, Riddle," said Nott.
"Keep any intriguing you do to yourself," Tom warned him. "Anything you hear, I can make you forget, and Dumbledore will never find out. As my minion, your loyalty is owed, first and foremost, to me."
Tom swept out of the Owlery, a scowl on his face. He didn't look forward to playing an advanced rendition of the old classic "Good Boy Tom", but it was necessary to make the best of a bad situation. Necessary, because the trial was the Prince's first legitimate public foray, attending at the behest of Britain's elected government. The Aurors weren't elected, and the head of the DMLE was a political appointment, but the department itself acted under the authority of the Minister for Magic. If the Aurors made themselves a visible ally of the Prince, then that was the Minister himself silently acknowledging his noble contributions.
The Minister had better be grateful for Tom's sacrifices. If there was one deficit of character he loathed more than stupidity, it was ungratefulness. A stupid person was resigned to accept his rightful place from a young age, whether he liked it or not. An ungrateful person believed himself exempt from his rightful place, and the most notable mark of difference between the ungrateful and the stupid was that the ungrateful man lacked the awareness of his own stupidity.
.
.
Two days later, Tom girded his loins and approached Dumbledore's office during his N.E.W.T. student consultation hours. He had his bundle of letters in his schoolbag and the appropriate memories perched on the edge of his consciousness, their emotional poignancy buoyed up by the electric delight of having stolen a brief kiss from Hermione for good luck. Nott followed him, pale-faced and wary, not liking the gleam in Tom's eyes or the idle way he twirled his wand while waiting for the clocktower to chime the new hour.
"It's against the rules to use magic in the corridors," Nott reminded him. "Just so you know."
"It's not against the rules to walk around, wand in hand," Tom replied. "And the penalty for spellcasting is only two House points per spell—that's if they catch you. I earned nineteen points for Slytherin this week, so I doubt the House would hold it against me if lost a few. The Quidditch Cup points from the last Hufflepuff match will surely tide us over."
"I still can't believe no one's realised that you fixed the match," said Nott disgustedly. "Everyone looks at you and sees the perfect Head Boy Riddle who can do no wrong. Even the Ravenclaws, and they're the ones who usually gang up on the student who gets top marks without staying in the library until closing every single evening. Because that student, according to their irrefutable logic, must be a cheat. But you don't even get that."
"That must be because I am the perfect Head Boy." The clocktower rang the hour, and the internal mechanisms set within the lock on Dumbledore's office door began to click and whine. "And," Tom pronounced, "I can show you how it's done."
The door swung open.
Dumbledore glanced up from the parchment scroll in which he was writing; he dotted the last full-stop and set his quill on the inkstand, wandlessly drying the scroll, rolling it up, and Banishing it to a shelf behind the desk. The drowsy phoenix on the stand behind him croaked and cawed as a cool draught entered from the hallway, then settled back to sleep, tucking its head beneath its swing. Nott hurriedly shut the door after he and Tom entered the office.
"Good afternoon," said Dumbledore, already beginning with the inscrutable smile and finger-steepling routine. "Help at Hogwarts will always be given to those who ask for it. What nature of assistance do you require, Tom? Or is it for you, Mr. Nott?"
Tom sat down on the chair in front of the professor's desk, and with a sharp look at Nott, the other boy pulled up a spare chair by the side and sat down too, dropping his loaded schoolbag on the floor with a prominent thump.
"I have a small request to make of you, sir," said Tom politely, slipping his wand up his sleeve and out of sight, then looking up at Professor Dumbledore's twinkling, bespectacled eyes across the cluttered desk. Enchanted trinkets twirled around in delicate silver frames, flashing distracting glimpses of celestial bodies and mechanical cuckoo birds. "A trifling request, but of heavy importance to me and my future career prospects. Of course, if it's not any trouble, Professor. I'm given to understand that you keep rather busy hours these days."
"You wrote the note to me yesterday, alluding that this request was related to the N.E.W.T.s," said Dumbledore. "Forgive me, Tom, but you appear to have outwitted me on this one. I haven't yet puzzled out the connection."
"Oh," Tom said quietly, his eyes dropping down to his lap in self-conscious embarrassment. "I suppose I ought to have been clearer. I should much appreciate it if you'd move my name and Nott's to first on the list for the Transfiguration N.E.W.T. demonstration. I know that the list is in the teacher's charge, not the Ministry, so I thought it best to come to you first, sir. That day is... well, inconvenient to me. It happens to be that I have another appointment on that same day, on the hour of the exam's commencement."
Tom reached into his bag and drew out an envelope sealed in tamper-proof wax, with the Ministry of Magic's M insignia pressed in. The seal was already broken, but that was irrelevant. From the envelope, he slid out a parchment sheet with a matching Ministry insignia letterhead. This, he pushed over the desk to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore, one auburn brow raised in curiosity, picked the parchment up and quickly read its contents.
"Tom, you said that you had another appointment," Dumbledore pointed out. "But this invitation letter is addressed to a Mr. Thomas Bertram. Have you changed your name? I must say, I have always been partial to the name 'Tom Riddle'. It possesses a certain enigmatic flair. Far more succinct and soft-spoken than my name—my five names. Traditional names are always such a mouthful, aren't they, Mr. Nott? Unnecessary grandiloquence," Dumbledore chuckled. "I would have been quite happy as a plain old Brian."
"This is where I must make my reluctant confession, Professor," said Tom. "I am Thomas Bertram. At least, the Ministry people think I am."
From his pocket, he took out his silver press badge and set it gently on Albus Dumbledore's desk.
"It has been quite a long time since I've seen one of these," said Dumbledore. He picked up the badge and turned it over. It had a number engraved on the back, which matched the number written on the Ministry's letter, a formal notice of acceptance to Mr. Thomas Bertram's request for a reserved seat in the Wizengamot courtroom for the trial of Messrs. Schmitz and Janošík. "The metal is imbued with a flesh memory enchantment. If it's authentic and given willingly by the hand of the true owner, it should glow."
With his wand, Dumbledore tapped the back of the badge. It glowed a faint blue-white which pulsed stronger and brighter, illuminating Thomas Bertram's unique registration number. "And there we have it!"
"Ah, so that's how it works," breathed Tom. "I'd always wondered why they were so fussy about us losing it. I was told it cost fifteen Galleons for a replacement badge, which seemed terribly steep for a flimsy bit of stamped metal. It's the enchantments, it's got to be. Linked to the number, which is coupled to some sort of master record book, I'm betting. If they can't copy a new badge for an existing number, then each badge has to be enchanted individually. The price isn't in the raw materials, it's in the labour hours."
"Exactly," said Dumbledore nodding. "I think I can see the nature of your quandary here, Tom. Mr. Riddle needs to attend his exams so Mr. Bertram can attend the trial. But why is it in Mr. Bertram's interest to attend such a trial? He is not a journalist who frequently, if ever, covers affairs of jurisprudence or politics. I admit to not having followed his exploits recently, but I do recall reading a novel explanation of iterative charmwork in mending stocking runs last October. Found it in the teachers' staffroom and took it back to my rooms, and to my everlasting delight, it proved a successful technique when I tested it on my woollen sock project. I had to alter the pattern diagram myself to adjust for the tension, but the concept itself was magically sound."
"It's a charm for stockings, not socks," said Tom stiffly, who had made sure his editor put STOCKINGS in the title so his London post box wouldn't be inundated the next week by illiterate incompetents complaining he was useless and his spell didn't work. Burned once, twice shy. "If you go past the laceweight yarns, it becomes too heavy a mass for an iterative charm whose intent is centered on the focused manipulation of elements in a specific low-tolerance pattern. If you throw off the tolerances, it throws off the pattern. You might try enchanting a pair of knitting needles if you want heavier socks. That may be beyond the abilities of the regular readers, but not you, sir, I hope."
"Wait a minute here," said Nott, looking bewildered in his attempt to follow the conversation. "If your stocking has a hole in it, why wouldn't you just use Reparo? And can someone tell me who Thomas Bertram is?"
"Reparo on woven fabric fuses the yarns together, but it doesn't re-weave the gap. If you snapped your quill, there'd be no issue. On delicate silk stockings, you'd get an obvious, cheap-looking seam line. It's the magical equivalent of mending a hole in your jumper with glue. A shortcut that not only looks bad, but feels crispy. You might as well darn it by hand at that point," said Tom. "And Thomas Bertram is my alter ego. I heard they're all the rage right now."
"Oh, yes, Riddle. Thank you for that," said Nott, sniffing. "You've explained everything."
"Well, as I was attempting to explain," Tom began in a snide tone, but then he caught himself and cleared his throat politely. He fixed a pleasant smile on his face and continued, "What I meant to say, of course, was that I am fully aware that Mr. Thomas Bertram's sphere of interest is far from national affairs, because he's not considered a serious journalist by the standards of wizarding society. It was, I'm afraid to admit, the best I could do when I first started writing."
Tom sighed mournfully and looked Dumbledore in the eyes. "You know me, sir. You know where I was born. You've seen what it was like. I wrote my first article when I was fourteen years old, not even thinking it could become a career, that it might be something serious one day. I wrote it because I wanted a spare bit of pocket money—we both know that the Board of Governors is not terribly generous with the Student Relief Fund every year. And to be honest, sir, I heard you'd published in Transfiguration Today as a Seventh Year, so I saw no reason why a Hogwarts student shouldn't be an author."
"'Thomas Bertram' is an interesting name," said Dumbledore, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "Wherever did you come by it?"
"Hermione named him," Tom admitted. "From a Muggle novel, Mansfield Park. I never read it, but seemed suitably generic for an anonymous persona. She's been an invaluable asset from the start; she has a good grasp on magical theory and the Arithmantic calculations behind technical spellcrafting. That's what writing as Thomas Bertram was, at first. Pocket money, a diverting hobby for myself and my... friend. Eventually it became about the creative exploration of magic: the precise degree of twist in each wand movement, the rhythm of syllables of an incantation, that swinging pendulum between pushing out with too much power or too little. That was magic in its purest form, constrained by no more than the limits of imagination and creativity.
"It changed when Fifth Year came and went, and we had those career advisory sessions with our Heads of Houses. Nothing Professor Slughorn offered especially appealed to me, compared to what I already had. I began considering my writing as a viable career path, when it was time to leave Hogwarts and start out on my own. But then came the problem: no one knows who he is. For the years since his début, Thomas Bertram is a man without a face. I could give him one, I thought, if I joined Britain's most prominent journalists in the press section at the so-called 'trial of the century'. I'd have the chance to introduce myself, to begin a serious career in journalism with more meaning than the anonymous post box dispatches I've been using so far." Tom's eyes lowered to the table. "I came to you, sir, because you understand where I come from. I lack the family connections of the other students of my House. Good careers aren't that easy to find for someone of my origins—and I knew writing was one of the few vocations in this world to which I could become successful, purely on the basis of skill and merit."
You know exactly what that's like, thought Tom. Perfect exam scores and teachers' accolades mean nothing in this world, if society ranks your family connections as less than dirt. My father may be a Muggle, but yours was a Muggle-murdering madman. A convict. You had to run all the way to France to find a Master to take you on for your Alchemy apprenticeship, because no one in Britain would give you the time of day, not if his cousin's sister-by-marriage's stepson needed the position more.
Dumbledore gazed at Tom. Tom met the old man's eyes, his mind focused and organised just as he'd been taught. "You claim a lack of connections, Tom, but what about Mr. Nott sitting beside you? Is he not your friend, willing to help you when you find yourself in need?"
"That's a separate but connected issue," said Tom. "I plan to marry after graduation. Being unfamiliar with the various departments in the Ministry, Nott offered to help me acquire the various marriage registration forms, so I can have them witnessed, signed, and owled in as soon as possible. But you know about the little idiosyncrasies of my House, sir. Nott wanted to attend the trial himself as my assistant, which isn't against the rules—journalists are allowed to bring an extra, though usually it's a photographer or sketch artist."
"Big trials are popular entertainments. I've always wanted to attend one," Nott added. "We used to have public executions before Minister Rowle commissioned Azkaban as the official wizarding prison in the 1700's. To commemorate its opening, Rowle had a public Dementor execution, but it got loose in all the excitement and attacked the crowd, and that was the end of it. Now the only way wizards can enjoy their morbid jollies are at sentencings, and there's never enough seats for everyone who wants to go."
"Thank you for that wonderful anecdote," said Tom, kicking Nott while keeping his smile fixed. "The essence of it is, sir, that I didn't want to ask you for this favour solely for my own benefit. It will help my future career prospects, I admit. But my future, I am pleased to say, is tied to that of my wife. Hermione. I... I had thought I might support my wife once we'd both graduated school, and she wants to work at the Ministry. It wouldn't be proper for her, a departmental junior following her own career path, to be known as the wife of a layabout wizard, whose reputation amounts to nothing more significant than fripperies and trifles. Literally so—I write about trifle every summer at the editor's bequest because it's assumed there's some objectively correct way to put fruit and cake in a bowl, and we just haven't found it yet."
"Oh, that's rather simple, Tom," said Dumbledore pleasantly. "The cake goes at the bottom to soak up the custard."
"No, you have to set the whole fruits in jelly at the bottom, so it won't turn into a soggy mess," corrected Nott. "Then goes the cake, custard, and cream. Chopped fruits and meringue stars on top for the look."
"It's a pudding! It doesn't matter!" interrupted Tom. "See, sir? This is what my career, what small taste I've had of it so far, has been about. Things of little value and negligible significance. I want to do something more serious, more meaningful, with my life after Hogwarts. I want my wife to achieve what she aims to do in our shared future, without the facile triviality of my work reflecting on her own. If Thomas Bertram is taken as a laughingstock, then so be it. But it matters to me if my wife is maltreated because of it.
"I couldn't bear it if she was made a fool because of me. It's the sworn duty of a husband to protect and care for his witch wife. At least, it ought to be. I want to ensure Hermione is properly provided for, sir. That's all I want, all I'm asking for with this simple request." Tom glared into Dumbledore's placid blue eyes. "No one ever bothered to do that for my mother."
At Tom's words, the dozing phoenix behind the desk croaked and ruffled its feathers, letting out a soft crooning note that resonated through him like the lowest rumbles of the Basilisk's whisper. Nott breathed sharply and sat up in his chair, craning his neck to look past Dumbledore's pile of desk doodads, at the large orange bird swaying on its perch.
"It appears," pronounced Dumbledore quietly, as the last note died away, "that you truly do care for Miss Granger."
"Of course I do," said Tom, who didn't like that unspoken insinuation hidden in Dumbledore's statement. "Did you think I would get married on a whim? It's not a petty, transient whim for me. It's no foolish flight of fancy. It's forever."
The old man studied him. Tom cleared his throat and sat back in the chair, clenching and unclenching his fists and modulating his breathing, keeping his mind clear and his thoughts focused.
"I will write you a note so you won't be stopped by the Aurors while coming and going," Dumbledore finally said, picking up his quill from the inkstand. "Will you prefer to Apparate outside the gates, or use the Floo connection from my office? Although the Ministry officials are organising the exams for Fifth and Seventh Years, the regular end-of-term exams for the other years are under my supervision. My week will be busier than usual, but I can set aside time to unlock my office so you can leave and return, as long as you pre-arrange the exact times of arrival."
"Thank you, sir. Apparition is suitable," said Tom. "What about Nott?"
"Mr. Nott has not been so forthcoming as you have been," said Dumbledore, turning to look at the boy sitting next to Tom. "The case he's made is not as strong as yours."
"Er... um..." stuttered Nott. "Alright, here's the truth: in future, I intend to pursue a Mastery of Magical History and see myself a published author one day. Through merit, not by means of a private vanity press. Riddle's connections, though not considered the 'right sort' in my circles, are still connections. He and I have a certain... understanding. As the man Riddle trusts most with affairs close to the heart, I've been asked to be his witness when he's married. His grandmother expects a marriage both legitimate and legal, signed and sealed and notarised properly. I was invited to his house for lunch, several times last summer, and it was made clear to me that the Riddles don't want a scandal going on in their house." He coughed pointedly. "Scandals are awfully inconvenient, aren't they? I didn't want to say anything because it'd be scandalous were it known that I'd dined with Muggles in a Muggle house. My family is not very... ah, approving of such things."
"I shall guarantee you that every word within these walls remains that way," said Dumbledore. "Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Nott."
"Sir, will you move us to the top of the list, then?" asked Tom.
"I will," Dumbledore agreed. "The rules allow Heads of Houses to write notes for Seventh Years who may need to leave the school grounds to attend apprenticeship interviews. To allow you this particular opportunity is a slight bending of them, but your intent is true and firmly within the bounds of the rules' spirit. Hogwarts was always meant to cultivate young minds into great ones. It serves no one to hamper what I should predict to be, in plainspoken terms, an extra career."
"Thank you, sir," said Tom. "I'm very grateful for your help."
"You need only ask," said Dumbledore, scribbling out a short letter on a Hogwarts-crested scroll. "When you have finished your schooling, I can sincerely say that I will miss having you stop in for tea. Perhaps you might arrange a call now and then when you've become a famous name in publishing, and apprise me on the details of your career progression."
Dumbledore wiped off the nib of his quill, drying off the scroll with a wave of his hand. Wandless, wordless Hot-Air Charm, Tom guessed. An uncommon spell for a wizard's wandless répertoire, as most adults used Summoning and Levitation so often in their daily lives that those two were the spells they learned by heart. This level of familiarity with a Hot-Air Charm was an indication that the caster was a scholar, the same way wandless disarming indicated a seasoned duellist, and the Cushioning Charm a hallmark of a veteran Quidditch player.
"Yes, a teatime visit every now and again," mumbled Dumbledore, holding out the scroll. "I think I could look forward to such a prospect, Tom."
"I think so too, sir," Tom replied, taking the scroll from Dumbledore. Ugh. The old man was trying to make a trade, with the permission slip hanging in the balance. Favour exchanges being a purely Slytherin idiosyncrasy was an inaccurate assumption—this Gryffindor goat was clearly a deft hand at it. "Well, thank you again, Professor. I'll see you at dinner. Come along, Nott."
They stood from their seats and vacated themselves of the office, and only once the door had closed and the locks had whirred back into place did Nott let out a slow exhale of breath and sag against the wall. "You're right, Riddle. He was a Legilimens. And using it on students—that's disgusting."
"You can't do anything about it," said Tom, peeking down either end of the hallway and herding Nott into a corner. With a flick of his wand, he extinguished one of the ever-burning sconces and cast a Silencing Charm. "No proof."
"I see," said Nott. "You learned from the best."
Tom scoffed. "I am the best."
"Yes, look at me, I'm prostrating myself at your overweening superiority. It's too powerful, I simply can't help myself," Nott sneered. "Tell me, how much of that was true in there, Riddle? 'Thomas Bertram'? I still don't know who Thomas Bertram is. Bertram is not a name of particular significance, historic or cultural."
Digging through his schoolbag, Tom found what he was searching for and tossed Nott a magazine. "That's Thomas Bertram. Spell tips extraordinaire."
Nott sputtered, flicking through the glossy, colourful pages filled with fashion plates, society gossip, and horoscope predictions. "Witch Weekly? You're this fellow my mother says has been consulted for Lucretia Black's event wedding?" He cackled loudly. "Wait until the others find out—"
A discreet Stinging Jinx halted the all-too-gleeful cackling.
"Stop gloating," ordered Tom. "It ingratiates you to no one if you've done nothing to earn it. Besides, you must be observant enough to realise that I traded this 'secret' to Dumbledore because I wasn't giving him the real thing, since it still holds currency as a piece of uncommon knowledge. You'd deprive me of this currency if you spilled it to all and sundry, and if that's done, then I'd have no choice but to ask you for fair compensation."
Nott sighed in disappointment, shoving the magazine back into Tom's hands. "Alright, that's fair. But I still can't believe it. You've been this mysterious Mr. Bertram for years, and never spoke a word? Normally, you like gloating about the things you've done—because it's fine to do if you've earned it, of course. But..." Nott trailed off. "Last Christmas, you got tetchy with my mother when she called the Christmas edition a 'sorry showing'. Merlin, it's obvious in retrospect. You only get tetchy like that when your sensitive feelings catch an injury."
"My feelings," said Tom, "are not sensitive!"
"Granger seems to think they are," remarked Nott. "She gets all sad-eyed and bushy-tailed when someone says mean things about you within earshot."
"'Sad-eyed'?" said Tom. "Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I'm quite certain the saying is 'bright-eyed and bushy-tailed'."
"Oh, she does that too," said Nott blithely. "But she saves it for dinnertime when you two do the under-the-table fondling everyone's agreed not to mention in her presence."
Nott's commentary was dignified with another flurry of Stinging Jinxes that left him braced against the stone wall, swearing and and red-faced and muttering, "Worth it."
"Don't forget," Tom called over his shoulder, leaving Nott to pick himself up and dust off his tangled robes. "The fourteenth of June, nine o'clock sharp. Save the date!"
If the wandless Hot-Air Charm was the mark of a scholar, what did it say about him that he felt he was close to casting the Stinging Jinx without a wand? He spoke no incantation, and didn't even perform the full wand movement to cast it; he need only to point his wand in the direction of his target and briefly summon the intent—a sharp and necessary reminder of his authority—and the magic would go as he willed it.
If it says anything about me, he thought, then it is the sign of my excellent, albeit unorthodox, leadership skills.
.
.
In the hour before dinner, Tom returned to the wizarding literature section, assuming it to be as deserted as it usually was, this late in the year. To his annoyance, the section's study table was presently occupied by a Ravenclaw Fifth Year with her nose buried in a book, a novel boasting a cover portrait of a man with gleaming bronze skin and a thick golden mane of hair, out of which peeked a pair of round fluffy golden ears.
"Back again so soon, Riddle?" asked the girl, peering at him over the rims of her circular glasses.
Miss Myrtle Warren, the girl from last time who'd borrowed the book he was in the middle of reading. This time, her book was entitled My Lion of Al-Hambra. Tom stalked over to the bookshelf, saw that The Mysterious Mister Maximillian had been returned to the literature section, and took it. He sat down at the study table opposite Warren and cracked it open to the chapter he'd been interrupted reading.
"Don't you have exams to revise for, Warren?" Tom replied. "Your O.W.L.s are only a few weeks away."
"I am revising." Warren held up her book. "Rafael is a lion Animagus. That's technically Transfiguration, isn't it? Say, Riddle, you're known as something of a Clever Dick around here—"
"Don't say that," Tom said sharply. "That's a Muggle idiom. If people hear it, they'll know you're Muggleborn."
"People already know," said Warren, turning a page in her book. She sighed morosely. "I don't see the purpose of hiding it. It wouldn't earn me any more friends than I already have."
"But it would make you more respectable," said Tom. "You were born a witch, not a Muggle. You ought to act like one."
"Oh, alright, since it's you who insists," Warren replied. "Since you're known as someone weaned on Wit-Sharpening Potion—there, is that better?—is it possible for an Animagus to partially transform into his animal form? Rafael in the book has a half-human form where he has the head, paws, and tail of a lion but stands bipedally. I like the tail the most. The tail is exciting."
"Impossible," said Tom. "Animagy is characterised as a wandless complete human self-Transfiguration into an animal, not a partial Transfiguration. When undertaking an Animagus transformation, there are only two possible outcomes: success or failure. There are many variations of potential failure, but success has only one form—the complete animal. Never part of an animal, and never part-human creatures like centaurs. The only way a 'lion-man' form might be feasible was if Rafael had botched his original Animagus transformation ritual and been trapped in the in-between state on his failed attempt. He wouldn't be able to shift to either the lion or his original man form, and the magical fluctuations of the destabilised ritual would have driven him completely mad."
"I guessed the story was too good to be true," sighed Warren. "Though if these are all nonsensical lies, why are you reading them?" She nodded at Tom's novel. "Mister Maximillian is unrealistic; even I could see it. If Heloise was intended to be Maximillian's only blood source, she would need to remain human for the rest of her mortal lifespan. Then she'd get old and die and Maximillian would be sad and hungry again. How is that a happy ending?!"
"I'm not reading it for the endings," Tom answered. "I don't care about them. It's... personal research."
For several quiet minutes, they continued reading, with Warren occasionally sneaking a glance at him over her book. Tom pretended he didn't notice; at Hogwarts, he was used to being looked at and judged by others curious to discern what exactly this quiet young scholar had that made him a better wizard than the rest of his peers. When they saw it wasn't his name or his blood, they struggled to come up with any more explanations, and simply put it down to luck. If it wasn't his interest in maintaining the appearance of the humble scholar, he would have proved to them, quite emphatically, that it wasn't due to luck at all.
He supposed that, in her own way, Myrtle Warren was just as mistakenly assumed to be a quiet young scholar as he was. She sat alone at the Ravenclaw table, always immersed in a book. Outside of Ravenclaw Tower, she was to be found in the library, and when she wasn't, she was haunting the bathroom on the same floor. She had a disquieting resemblance to Hermione, another Ravenclaw Muggleborn girl, who had more books than friends and a clear logical mind often overlooked by the likes of the wizard-born.
Hermione was better, however. In the Hogwarts library, she went straight for the heavy magical tomes she could find nowhere else, because she understood the value of their short-lived Hogwarts educations. Hermione wouldn't waste her limited time in a wizarding library on wizarding fiction, and when she read fiction, it was during the holidays and usually a Muggle novel. (Tom's reading wizarding fiction wasn't "wasting time", because this was invaluable research. If he needed access to a wizarding library after graduation, he could request his "friends" take out a book from their home collections and lend it to him.)
"It's research for your own amourous adventures, isn't it? Boys don't read these types of books. The only reason why a boy would read them is because he wants to understand how girls work and what they like," Warren whispered. "I overheard some Slytherin girls in the bathroom saying that you'd asked Hermione Granger to marry you."
"So what if I did?"
"Then she's very lucky; those Slytherins sounded awfully close to coveting thy neighbour's husband," said Warren. "And I'd recommend other books than that one—Maximillian and Heloise carry on and on, but they never deliver! I expect the author must be saving it for the sequel. If you're truly invested in your research, you'll want the ones with good wedding night scenes. That'll be Bride of Skye, The Infallible Heart Ward, The Witch Maiden of Westerford, and Two Scoops of Moonstone. The series with Seeker of Her Hand, Chaser of Her Love, and Keeper of Her Heart are good, but they're sports romances and you don't seem like a Quidditch person."
"Who chose those titles?" Tom whispered back. "Don't tell me there's another one called Beater of Her Eggs."
"It's a trilogy, they stop at three," Warren answered in an airy voice. "And I don't believe wizards know what eggs are. They're still at the stage of marvelling over the existence of animalcules."
"Wizards do know what eggs are. You can buy them at the Hogsmeade grocer, ten Knuts a dozen—" said Tom. "Oh. You're speaking of egg cells?"
"Oooh," said Warren. "Weren't you? Is there another type of egg that witches have?"
She put her book down and propped her chin on her hands, looking at him with a speculative smile. She was no Occlumens, and was thus much too open about her emotions; even from across the table, he could feel the sticky brush of her sly curiosity. It was similar but not nearly as welcome as what he felt when Hermione looked at him, her gaze unwittingly drawn to that secret tooth-etched half circle, dawning blush pink over the pale flesh and white horizon of his uniform collar.
She hummed, that smile on Warren's face an unsubtle hint of prurient imaginings beyond the degenerate fascination of any of the boys in his dormitory. "Hmmm. 'Cells'. Who's the one using Muggle words now? People might mistake you for a Muggleborn if you say things like that, Riddle."
"I'm a half-blood. My mother was a witch," Tom shot back.
"You may have more wizarding blood than me, which is none at all," said Warren, "but you act more like the Witch Maiden than I could ever do. Every time Wizard Spickernall came around with a plucked goose or a basket of currant rolls, she hid in her attic and watched him through the scrying-basin. Hard to believe, isn't it, that a soon-to-be married man is frightened by the thought of whisking a witch's eggs."
"I'm not frightened," Tom said, and against his will, he felt his cheeks flushing with anger. "I'm offended by your lack of decency. This conversation is indecent. Furthermore, I don't see any reason why such personal business of mine is any business of yours."
"Romance is my business," said Warren, and in her eyes, he could sense a deep longing, a secret yet passionate yearning for the mercurial forces of Fate to take her in hand and sign the barren pages of her dance card. She blinked, and he had to look away; he'd learned to transcend such petty sensations as that of "loneliness" by the age of six or seven. But other people still felt it, and in Warren the intensity was especially potent, even to someone like Tom who was so numb to it as to have made himself immune.
"If anyone should deserve a handsome prince's happy ending, it's Hermione Granger," Warren continued, giving him that look of wistfulness he'd learned to despise. "She's the quintessential novel protagonist—a plain and awkward but clever young witch who catches the eye of a powerful wizard. If she can do it, then maybe there truly is some soul of realism behind the daydreams and vicarious wishing."
"Hermione isn't plain," Tom said in a cold voice.
"You're the protagonist's paramour, of course you wouldn't think so," said Warren. "So unfair, hmph. In any case, as the happy ending provider, it's your responsibility to, you know, provide the happy ending."
"I'm marrying Hermione, isn't that a happy enough ending?" Tom asked. What an oddball of a girl, this Myrtle Warren. If Tom had ever thought of life as a theatrical performance, then to Warren, it was a sweeping romantic narrative. Utterly bizarre; she was so obviously and obliviously incorrect.
"Only in the boring books that quit the scene with the closing door, when they've only just got to the exciting bits," said Warren. She Summoned a book from the nearest shelf and opened it up to the final pages near the back cover. "The Witch Maiden of Westerford is a good one that doesn't do it. That's why it's worth reading. Here, read Chapter Thirty-One—and sorry if I spoiled the ending, but these are romances, so it's obvious what's going to happen in the end."
Tom scanned the open text.
.
"At long last, I can call you Madam Spickernall," said the Wizard Spickernall, taking her by the hand and leading her into the darkened bedchamber. With a silent flourish of his wand, the drapes fell over the moon-silvered windowpanes; a dozen candles came guttering to life in the scalding reflection of her husband's eyes. "And you, my dearest heart, may call me 'Silas'. I hope to hear my name from your tender lips many times before the morning is upon us." He tore at the knot at his collar, and his wedding cloak pooled in heavy velvet folds over the floorboards. "Let us begin, my love."
.
He slammed the book closed. "This," he sputtered, "is what you meant by a 'happy ending'? This is what you understand to be the culmination of human happiness—carnal activities?"
"Oh no, a pure and virtuous mind. You can hardly find one of them these days," said Warren, sounding syrupy sweet and breathless. "Don't you see that it's symbolic?"
"No," Tom replied disdainfully.
"Hmmm," Warren mused. "Riddle, you say you're a half-blood with a witch mother—your father must be a Muggleborn or a Muggle."
"What's the relevance of this?"
"It means your father would've raised you in a Christian house," said Warren, glowing with the triumph of her brilliant reasoning. "You know all about Muggle sayings, so you must've been raised in the Muggle world by your father's choice. If you were baptised Christian, then you'd have heard the story of Tobias and Sarah—it's the same symbolism as these novels use.
"'Thou madest Adam, and gavest him Eve his wife for a helpmate; And now, O Lord, I take not this my sister for lust but uprightly: therefore mercifully ordain that we may become aged together'," she recited. "Don't you see it? It's not about lust, it's about sincerity and devotion. When the husband and wife pledge to each other in flesh, it's symbolic of their pledge in spirit. They're honouring the spousal covenant."
Tom fidgeted in his seat. It was the queerest thing, for the tremulous, abstract half-thoughts that lingered in his mind to be verbalised that succinctly by someone as clueless about life as Warren was. He didn't like it. Because she was wrong, of course. He hadn't been raised by his father in a Christian house. If her initial assumptions were wrong, then so must be her conclusion.
"Marriage is a sacrament, I know," he snapped, and holding firmly to his patience, adjusted his tone. "I appreciate the effort, Warren, but the reminder is somewhat unnecessary. I had my eleven years of fire and brimstone and that was more than enough for me."
"But you still believe it, don't you?" Warren forged on, the gleam in her eyes far too visible behind the thick lenses of her spectacles. "You and Granger both, since you've decided to marry instead of having each other once and moving on. It's not exclusively a Muggle thing, it can't be, if the people born here are acting like it's perfectly for two seventeen-year-olds to up and marry as students in a public boarding school. That would almost never happen in the... the outside—"
"We're eighteen." And we're not ordinary.
"—Which means she's chosen you for her ending, so you have to make it happy for her. She's the protagonist, you have to!" Warren said fiercely. "And you're required to do the things husbands must do, even if you're the starched pants, virtuous type who's never had an unclean thought in his life, which Granger prefers. Yes, it's very easy to tell, just from looking at you, what she prefers. Granger likes the stiff-necked Fitzwilliam Darcy types, righteous to the bone. They're too uptight for my preference, and no good for... personal research. Too much of a gentleman, when all the lady is in the mood for is a rakehell."
"I see," said Tom. He got up from the table stiffly, gathering his belongings. "I'm going to dinner now. Goodbye."
"Don't forget the book!" Warren called. "You'll thank me later!"
When he had withdrawn himself of the library, it was with The Witch Maiden of Westerford in his schoolbag, hidden beneath his Transfiguration textbooks.
He headed straight to the Great Hall and had a quiet dinner of steak-and-kidney pudding, the scrape of silverware on china overridden by the chatter of his Housemates complaining about their homework, followed by the soothing familiarity of Hermione's voice deliberating about their N.E.W.T. final project for Ancient Runes. They'd been assigned an enchantment task requiring several weeks to complete, before it would be demonstrated, along with the accompanying design documents, to the Ministry's expert panel during their exam sessions.
Hermione had gone back and forth over what project would display her skills most favourably, and settled on adapting her enchanted wooden stakes into a surveyor's tool. When placed in a circle, the area within the stakes would be reproduced on a piece of charmed parchment, presenting a line-drawn topographical contour map with directions, elevations, and magical features of interest. This included wizards, who would be shown on the page as fuzzy red blobs, and any spells cast as tiny pinprick dots that whizzed away in straight lines.
Nott, the only other student in their group who took Ancient Runes, had settled his project on a miniature harp that could play by itself. He planned to enchant it so when he played his real harp in front of the miniature, it would record each note and play the tune back to him, only he'd done something wrong, and all the recordings played in the reverse of what it should have been. Tom thought it unoriginal of a concept; there already were opera glasses for watching Quidditch matches that recorded and replayed small segments of the viewed scene, and they managed to show the images in the right order.
"It's not the same thing," Nott insisted. "It's not the sound being recorded, it's the physical mechanism through which the sound is produced: the plucking of the string, replicated in the exact amount of pressure and resonance as the original. When you play—correction, when I play, since neither of you two can—I have to damp the end of the previous note before going on to the next, or they all slur together when playing presto. So a proper facsimile must time the note correct with the correct force, then physically stop the note correctly on tempo as well. But there's no use explaining it to you musical neophytes, ugh. What are you doing for yours, Riddle?"
"A protective cloak made with twenty-one enchanted metal tokens sewn into the lining," said Tom. "Each token is imbued with a defensive charm—to shield, nullify, reflect, repulse, or absorb. The total effect is a light, flexible, and portable ward built of multiple redundant nodes. Though the tricky part is ensuring that none of the individual nodes conflict with each other. If hit by an atypical spell in the wrong place, I wouldn't want it to explode. That would be... unpleasant."
"If you got it to work, you could actually sell it for a fair bit of money," Rosier pointed out. "It would compete with lower-end dragonhide gear, which costs a mint. Sold by the square inch, that is. The broader the scale pattern, the older the dragon at harvest, and the more expensive it costs. My pair of bespoke duelling gauntlets cost close to one hundred Galleons. I bet Black's full doublet was priced over five hundred."
"Mind you, no enchantment could ever compete with dragonhide's élite status," retorted Nott. "You can pass dragonhide down the family line. Cloth is nowhere near as stable a substrate as stone or metal, or even wood, when it comes to enchanting. You're lucky if a bewitched garment lasts ten years to the day. Just look at invisibility cloaks—proper waste of money, you might as well learn to Disillusion yourself better."
"I don't see why you're so critical of fabric enchantments," said Hermione. "You have a flying carpet."
"Not for its value for money," said Nott. "But for comfort and convenience. I could ride a broom, but I don't like having a stick riding up my unmentionables. You, of all people, should understand it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're a girl," said Nott patiently. "Unless you have the skill of sitting a broomstick side-saddle, you'd have to straddle the thing and show the world what you've got up your skirt. I question your interest in indulging anyone but Riddle with such an exposition."
Hermione gave an audible gasp at Nott's boldness. The Slytherins, to a man, turned to Tom to catch his response.
Tom smiled and said, "I believe Hermione and I to be equally ungenerous with such an indulgence. Lately, I find myself very selfish indeed when it comes to the subject of what manner of Hermione's business occurs above skirt-height."
Hermione blushed and covered her face with her hands and reminded Tom that his non-answer did not refute Nott's at all. Tom did not think Nott's judgement needed a refutation, because it wasn't wrong, and he could overlook personal bias to recognise the truth. With that, Tom ate his supper and kept to his own thoughts as the conversation around him blustered on to the next course.
After seven years in Slytherin, he still found it absurd that wizarding parents would buy their children the equivalent of a Rolls Royce for nothing more than schoolboy amusements. It was even more absurd that Cygnus Black had his own duelling vest for a club he hadn't joined, cut for a boy's figure, and even with the adjustable laces, he would outgrow it by graduation. The ridiculous price was one reason that persuaded him of the good sense in learning how to make and repair protective clothing. He had also "acquired" number of rare new books on metal enchantment from the second-floor shop flat in Tinworth, what was left after he'd cannibalised the commonplace books for their pages, and he thought it best not to waste an opportunity for experimentation.
Another reason, which pained him to recall, was the memory of sickle blades digging into his back when he'd fought the Master Metallurge of Tinworth village. The sharp points would have punctured him through the lungs had he not been wearing Travers' borrowed dragon vest. Tom had to curse his poor luck at yet again facing down a lethal opponent. Why were there so many people out there trying to kill him?
"Still, a cloak isn't a bad idea," Hermione remarked. "But for a garment the size of a cloak to fit you, Tom, wouldn't the number of metal tokens be too heavy? In bespoke tailoring, hem weights are sewn in for the sole purpose of keeping overcoats and dresses from flying up in a breeze. Dozens of them would drag down a wizard who needs to get away quickly."
"Feather-weight charms," said Tom. "It need only weigh as much I want it to."
"But without any weight at all, the cloak would fly up and leave your legs unprotected!"
"Partial weightless charms," Tom replied.
"How do you cast a partial weightless charm?" asked Lestrange. "I read about them in a broomstick guide, and it said they're closely related to Hover Charms and Levitation Charms. It's impossible to have half of a levitation. A broom is either on the ground or it's in the air. There's nothing in between."
"Do you want the long answer or the short answer?"
"Oh, I'll have the short answer, thanks."
"Easy," said Tom. "It's magic."
Lestrange nodded in understanding. Everyone else at the table, however, sniffed disbelievingly or shook their heads in disdain and started on the pudding course, a creamy butterscotch syllabub powdered over with nutmeg and spice. The evening wore on, the pace of life at Hogwarts as sedate as it ever was, with the stresses imposed on the students both artificial and predictable: the night's curfew hour, the next week's assignment deadline, the next month's exam schedule. He understood more than ever why the Ministry of Magic liked to encourage the perception that nothing was out of the ordinary. Wizards, in their quiet and self-imposed isolation, had had generations to devolve into the placid herd-beasts he observed at the feeding trough that was the Hogwarts Great Hall.
Deep in his own thoughts, his wand hand by instinct reached under the table and grasped Hermione's hand. His fingers entwined with hers, felt the hard curve of her silver ring, the laurel wreath bumpy under the pad of his thumb. He spun it around on her finger, the imbued magical enchantments warming in sympathy at the caress of another's magic.
Hermione looked up at him questioningly.
"Our time here is winding down to its end," Tom murmured. "But here I am wishing it to go faster. Our separation is intolerable."
She sighed and rested her head against his shoulder, tickling his face with her hair. "What separation, Tom? We have most of our classes together and share every meal. You see me every single day."
"That's not enough. The days are too short," said Tom in a petulant voice. "I want your nights, too."
"Tom..."
"Hermione." Tom squeezed her hand. "Do you think you'd ever describe me as 'uptight'?"
"No," said Hermione. "Definitely not. What an odd question."
"Good," said Tom happily. "I knew it."
.
.
Note: Lol, welcome to Tom and Myrtle's Sunday School sex ed class.