So, just so you know, this fic is also on Archive of Our Own, which is an objectively better fanfiction site than this one, and the formatting on this story looks way nicer on there. I also publish chapters there first, so if you're eager for the next chapter, go check it out on AO3 under the same name. Also, I wanted to let y'all know that, if you want to use my OCs or my ideas about Hogwarts (i.e. the class schedule, how places like the Ravenclaw common room look, and just how things work in-universe that I've made up) in any of your work, feel free to do so! All I ask is that you credit me somewhere in your work. That's all!
Content warnings can be found at the end of this chapter.
"Tim went out again last night," were Purdie's first words when he sat down at breakfast.
Cordelia looked up from Seeker Weekly and pushed up her glasses. "Really? How long?"
"I wasn't awake when he left, but he came back in around two thirty."
"And was it the cat again, or was he just loud?"
"The cat," he told her, starting to fill up his plate. "He, however, is completely silent. I don't know how he does it. The door to our dorm is notorious for its noisiness. That's why we all try to go to bed at the same time."
"A Muffliato Charm?" she suggested.
"No, it can't be, I could still hear Alfred just perfectly."
"Huh, that's weird."
Both of them turned in unison towards Aruna, who was leaning on one hand and pushing her scrambled eggs around on her plate.
"Aruna?" Purdie said, raising an eyebrow. "Anything to add? You've been rather quiet."
She looked up from her plate and stared at Purdie dryly.
He rolled his eyes. "More so than usual."
She shrugged and returned to her food. "He's busy."
Purdie looked at her for a moment before shoving a sausage in his mouth. He needed some time to figure out what exactly Aruna meant. Aruna had always been the quiet type, and she only said things that she thought were important. She also did not care for explaining herself, even at the expense of looking like a freak. She was quiet, but she was far from meek.
'He's busy.' So, Tim wasn't just exploring the castle. He was doing things. Things important to him. Not that Purdie was planning on stopping Tim any time soon, Purdie didn't particularly care about rules and whether or not people followed them. But Tim was being purposefully stealthy. That made sense to Purdie; Tim probably didn't trust anyone here enough to clue them in on his little evening strolls. He was still new here, and Purdie was more than happy to respect his boundaries. It was more that Purdie (and Cordelia and Aruna, for that matter) was trying to befriend the transfer and therefore hoped to understand him. He was just curious. It didn't seem like Tim ever got caught, and that, if nothing else, was worth looking into.
Admittedly, Tim was more than a little disappointed that he would have to wait until tonight to watch Umbridge blow up. He assumed, given her pleasant demeanor at breakfast, that she hadn't noticed the lack of torture devices in her office, and he sincerely hoped that he would be able to watch her come up with a different detention for Harry. Of course, there was the very real possibility that she had other punishments just as nasty to inflict upon Harry, but Tim would cross that bridge when he got there.
He had two free periods before Transfiguration, which meant that he had made camp in his favorite secluded nook in the library and was reading about "Justice Served!—Perchwood Sentenced to Life in Azkaban."
Earlier that morning, Tim had made the infuriating decision to put the quest to get internet in the castle on hold indefinitely. The more he read about Multi-Charm Layering and large-scale protection spells, the more he was coming to the realization that he wouldn't be able to safely allow specific electromagnetic frequencies to enter the castle without compromising its security. The radio in the common room, which Tim had been studying extensively, ended up proving useless, as the signals it was receiving were from within the castle's enchantments (which certainly explained why it seemed to cycle the same music on a daily basis). Getting the signal out was doable, but to successfully receive signals would be a pathway into the school for all unwanted entities. It would be akin to getting a hole in your jeans and assuming that it wouldn't grow bigger over time.
So, here he was now, lazily scanning through November 1994, pondering how old he would be when he finally managed to finish sifting through all this information. This would be so much easier if it was digital. Tim had debated taking pictures of each page, scanning them to his computer, and then searching for specific text, but that was before he remembered that, in the Daily Prophet, articles faded into other articles and words rearranged themselves whenever they felt like it, which wasn't something he could capture with his 'primitive Muggle technology.'
After getting though an article about cursed shoes being used in a Muggle ballet, Tim was just about done with this entire mission. Letting out a very soft groan (no way was he getting kicked out of here in his second week of school) and pushing the book away from himself, he folded his hands on the table and lay his head rather forcefully on them.
"Stupid—wizard—book—!" he grumbled, slamming his head into his arms with each word. "Stupid—old—newspaper—! Is it too much to ask to find a single article about Albus Dumbledore?"
He was stirred out of his state of turmoil when he heard the sound of pages flipping. Curious, he lifted up his head, and the book in front of him had flipped on its own to a paper for April 21st, 1891. Tim watched numbly as the small, red ribbon sewn into the binding floated up like a tube man and tapped on an article titled "Dumbledore Behind Bars—Family Silent."
"What the…?" Tim turned the page, and the tome flew past another thousand pages before landing on February 3rd, 1897. The ribbon excitedly pointed out, "Hogwarts Student, Alchemic Prodigy?" Had the book responded to Tim's request?
He pulled the book closer to him. "Show me articles about Harry Potter."
No response. The ribbon continued to point out the article. Tim frowned. Maybe there was a specific way to ask it?
A thought suddenly occurred to him, and Tim hastily flipped to the beginning of the book, just to make sure he hadn't imagined the message when he had read it earlier:
Ask, and thou shalt receive
Seek, and thou shalt find
Knock, and the door shalt be opened unto thee
He had been hitting his head on the table before like one might knock on a door. Sitting up straight, Tim made a fist and rapped twice on the table, repeating, "Show me articles about Harry Potter."
The book sprung to life, pages flipping themselves at a rapid pace, and Tim grinned as it sped forward to November 1st, 1980, "The Boy Who Lived." He grabbed his notebook and began to write.
Eleven days. That was how long Tim managed to go without getting a detention. Honestly, that was better than any of his high schools in the past. The worst part, though, was that he had been having a pretty good day before it happened. Tim had beat Professor Vector in a timed calculation in Arithmancy, and all day Tim had been looking forward to watching Umbridge embarrass herself in front of himself and Harry. Those plans went out the window when a young Slytherin boy scurried up to Tim as he was walking back to the tower after dinner.
"E-excuse me…?" he said quietly, tugging on Tim's robes. He looked down at the boy, who could not have been much more than four feet tall.
The boy kneaded his hands, staring at the floor. "Um…I…" He cleared his throat. Tim bent down so that there wasn't such a great difference in height.
"Hi there," Tim greeted, patting the boy on the head. "You wanted to talk to me?"
"Uh…" He nodded. "Malf—someone told me to tell you that he's—they're waiting for you in the…um…in the—on the third floor. In the corridor. The one near the Trophy Room." He paused. "O-oh, and he has something of yours…"
Great. Was this another attempt of Draco's to duel Tim? Or had he somehow actually managed to snatch something of Tim's? Tim suspected a combination of the two. How would he have gotten his hands on one of Tim's possessions, though? Tim kept everything in his dorm. Someone would have had to take it right out from there, and Tim seriously doubted any Ravenclaw would do something like that for a Slytherin.
The boy continued to stand there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and twiddling his thumbs. Tim took pity on him; it wasn't this boy's fault that Draco was trying to harass Tim, he was just the unfortunate messenger.
"Thanks, kid," Tim smiled, and he ruffled the boy's hair as he stood back up. The small child stared at Tim a second before bolting away in the opposite direction. Tim, in turn, hopped onto the nearest staircase and let it take him down to the third floor. As he walked (at a slightly faster speed than normal, he wasn't panicking), he tried to imagine what Draco had planned for him, but for the life of him, he couldn't come up with something that Draco might have taken.
It wasn't that Tim was particularly scared; he was currently carrying three shuriken, a couple tracking beacons, and two smoke pellets, along with his wand and six years of combat experience. It was just that he had places to be later today, namely the window outside Umbridge's office.
At this point, Tim had all but memorized the basic layout of Hogwarts, so it took him no time at all to reach the Armory and hang a left.
"You decided to show up, then, Wayne?"
Four Slytherin boys were clumped together about halfway down the corridor, Draco easily distinguishable by his pale hair and confident posture, alongside what looked to be Crabbe, Goyle, and Zabini. Tim had seen them all in Herbology but had never talked to them face-to-face.
Tim smiled politely. Drake-Wayne, why is that so hard? "Yeah, didn't want to make that poor first-year feel bad," he replied, approaching the group with a relaxed disposition, hiding the fact that he had slipped his wand up his right sleeve. As he got closer, he was able to make out more details of the scene before him. The four boys were all circling a small black object on the ground which sported a sword protruding from it like it was Excalibur. Tim instantly recognized the weapon as one from the Armory and chastised himself for not having noticed its absence on his way over.
"Anyways, you said you have something of mine?" Tim asked, staring at the object and trying to remember if he had packed something that looked like that in one of his suitcases.
Draco shrugged. "Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it's more accurate to say that we had something of yours."
Had? Tim narrowed his eyes at the little black thing. The hallway lights better illuminated it as he approached, and now Tim could see that it was lying in a small puddle of red liquid.
Everything came together at once, and Tim's heart stopped.
Without even thinking, he broke into a sprint, reaching the group and shoving Draco and Goyle out of the way. His eyes, as if unable to take the entire thing in, slowly traced down the hilt of the sword, down its blade, down to where it pierced the stomach of a small, unmoving, tuxedo cat with wide, grey eyes.
Tim collapsed to his knees and pressed two fingers right behind its front leg and placed his other hand in front of the cat's mouth. Behind him, Draco was saying something, but Tim blocked it out. Someone kicked him in the side, and he let them, immediately getting back up to check the cat's pulse.
The only heartbeat that Tim could find was his own, pounding like rain on a stormy night.
"…no…" he whispered, leaning over the cat and staring into its dilated pupils. "A-Alfred…no…no…" He grabbed the sword by its blade and slowly slid it out of the corpse.
Tim couldn't think straight. Correction, he couldn't think. His mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. He's so small, there's so much blood, how do I tell Damian, why did I let him wander the castle, why does everyone I love die, why can't I save anyone—
"Yeah, the nasty thing was following me, making a racket," Malfoy drawled from behind Tim. "I might have taken things a little too—"
Crack. In one fluid motion, Tim stood up, spun around, and punched Malfoy in the ribs, sending him crashing into the opposite wall.
"The hell—?" Zabini started to say before Tim yanked him aside and kneed him in the stomach. With a loud groan, the Slytherin sunk to his knees. Crabbe and Goyle didn't even get a chance to speak. He tripped one of them and threw him over his shoulder, and he kicked the other in the side. Tim couldn't remember who was who.
Not once did he think of Stunning them. Not once did he consider a Full-Body Bind. No, Tim wanted to hurt them, and this was the best way he knew how.
Malfoy moaned, leaning against the wall as he tried to get up. Tim watched him with cold, unforgiving eyes, and gave each of the other three Slytherins another kick in the stomach to keep them down. Then he rushed at Malfoy and pinned him to the wall before the boy could utter a single spell. Tim whacked the boy's wand away and shoved him into the wall again, eliciting a small yelp from him.
"You heartless bastard," Tim hissed, making sure his voice never got louder than a whisper. "Why would you commit such a heinous act? Do you get off on it?" He tightened his grip on Malfoy's neck.
Malfoy's eyes widened as he struggled to breathe. "It—joke—not—your—!"
"You call murdering a harmless animal a joke?" It was becoming harder for Tim to keep his voice down. "You call watching a living, breathing creature die a joke? Do you find that funny? WELL, GUESS WHAT? IT'S NOT FUNNY!" He released his hold of Malfoy just enough that he could knee him in the crotch, taking a particular pleasure in the choked gasp that came from the boy's throat. Then, he let go of the boy's shirt and let him drop to the ground, doubled over.
From somewhere behind Tim, he heard Zabini whisper hoarsely, "I-it's not—not a real cat." Tim immediately forgot Malfoy and walked over to Zabini, picking the bloodied sword off the ground and leveling it at the boy's throat.
"What do you mean?" he whispered back, his voice dipping into Batman territory. Zabini let out a little whimper and slowly reached for his wand. Tim made sure to press the sword close to his throat and hold his own wand at the ready.
The boy lifted his wand up with a shaky hand, pointed it at the prone form of Alfred, and choked out, "R-Revertifarge." There was a small flash of blue light, and Tim watched as the small, bloody cat transformed into a Potions textbook. The pool of blood disappeared, as well as that which coated the end of the sword.
For a moment, Tim was frozen there, staring at the book with the sword and wand still pointed at Zabini.
Then, "Mr. Drake-Wayne! What is this?"
"He tried to kill us, Professor!"
"—a sword against my throat—!"
"I think he broke my arm!"
"—almost sliced off my neck—!"
"I swear I'm gonna vomit!"
"—right under my chin—!"
McGonagall raised a hand and, surprisingly, the four Slytherins stopped talking. She turned to where Tim sat, hands folded neatly in his lap, never taking his eyes off of hers.
"Mr. Drake-Wayne, have you anything to say on the matter?" she asked him, staring daggers at him. Tim, being used to having daggers thrown at him frequently, was not particularly fazed.
"No, Professor," Tim replied slowly, staring off to her left at nothing in particular. "They're telling the truth. I attacked them first."
McGonagall's eyes widened, and she raised an eyebrow. "And why did you do that, Mr. Drake-Wayne?"
That was what Tim had been asking himself for the past ten minutes. Because I was angry. Because I let my anger control me. Because I sought vengeance instead of justice. Because I'm frustrated at not being able to see the people I love. Because I wish someone was here to help me. Because I'm scared of losing the few things that connect me with my family. Because I'm scared of losing my family. Because Bruce raised a failure of a Robin.
"I was tricked into believing that they had killed my cat, ma'am," Tim told her, keeping an impassive face and an even voice. "It made me angry, and I wanted to hurt them. That's all there is to it." McGonagall frowned back at him, like she was finding that hard to believe.
"Is this true, Mr. Malfoy?" She turned to the other boy, who shook his head.
"It was a joke, Professor," he ventured to explain. "We just transfigured a textbook, it wasn't the real thing."
"And yet I assume that Mr. Drake-Wayne was not made aware of that fact," she said dryly, looking at the other Slytherins. They shifted in their seats nervously.
She folded her hands on her desk. "I see." She stared at Tim for a long time before saying, "Ten points from Slytherin for each of you, and twenty from Ravenclaw. And detentions for all of you. A week's worth for Mr. Drake-Wayne." Zabini opened his mouth as if to argue this point, but Malfoy sent him a harsh glare that quieted his fellow Slytherin.
"And I would like to have a word with you, Mr. Drake-Wayne," she added. "Now," she continued, turning to the others, "you best be off to the Hospital Wing, and then you are to return straight to your common room, understood?"
The four Slytherins all mumbled something approximating, "Yes, Professor," getting up from their seats. Malfoy stood behind Tim for a couple seconds before being the last to leave the office. And then, it was just the two of them, on opposite sides of her desk, waiting for the other to be the first to speak.
McGonagall broke the silence with a deep sigh. "Tell me, Mr. Drake-Wayne, what really happened?" That was about what he had expected her to say.
"I told you the truth before, ma'am," he answered softly. "That's all there was to it."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Drake-Wayne, but you do not particularly strike me as the kind of person who would recklessly attack an enemy."
"Then I've played my part well," he agreed before he could stop himself. Across the table, McGonagall stared at him with even more shock than before. Tim bit his tongue. Dammit, that was stupid of me.
She cleared her throat. "I heard news of you standing up to Malfoy and his classmates during your first Herbology class. You have been at this school for little more than a week, and I am already hearing from a Gryffindor of mine about your pleasant demeanor, kindness, and respect towards others. You'll understand why I feel as though you aren't telling me the whole story."
Don't get emotional, Tim. She's just another person on your undercover mission. Keep your emotions to yourself. No one else deserves to have to sort through all of those except for you.
"I don't know what to say, Professor," Tim answered, the most truthful thing he had said all evening. "The cat was given to me by my youngest brother—" who was stabbed right in front of me while I watched helplessly from beneath a collapsed plane "—so when I saw it like that—" it felt like I was watching Damian die all over again "—it was hard to keep calm."
She nodded, apparently more satisfied with this answer. "While you are still to be punished for violence against another student," she started sternly, "I understand from whence the impulse came. Now," and she waved him away, "off with you." Tim nodded and got up to leave, but before he got halfway to the door, she added, "And try not to keep all of that bottled up inside you, Mr. Drake-Wayne. It's unhealthy, to say the least."
When Tim returned to the common room ('How old is Man?' 'As old as his nose and a little older than his teeth,' that one had stumped him for a bit), he headed straight for his dormitory, where Terry was writing an essay and Anthony was reading the next chapter in Defensive Magical Theory. On Tim's bed, stretching with a yawn, was a small tuxedo cat. Wordlessly, Tim walked over to his bed, drew his curtains, and curled up alongside Alfred, and he did not leave there until morning came.
On the opposite end of Hogwarts, just one floor down, Harry, too, was not having the best of days. In fact, he would venture so far as to say that this was possibly the worst day he'd had all year. Sure, he and Ron had had a good laugh that morning about the potentially salacious meaning The Dream Oracle could be assigning Ron's dream last night, and sure, he had managed to vanish his mouse in Transfiguration with careful instruction from Hermione and Tim, but detention that evening cancelled all of that out and potentially cancelled out any future positive experiences for the next couple of days.
He had arrived at Umbridge's office at five o' clock sharp, his right hand trembling as he knocked in an almost Pavlovian response to what it knew was coming. However, when Umbridge's reply came, her voice sounded tenser than normal. He entered the room cautiously, like one might approach a venomous snake, avoiding eye contact and trying not to do anything that could potentially provoke her. Without so much as a second thought, he walked over to the desk and dropped his bookbag next to him, rolling up his sleeves and picking up the quill to begin his detention.
He was not able to get far in this, however, as there was neither quill nor parchment to be found on the desk, just the same pale doily. Confused, he looked up at Umbridge for the first time, and he saw that she was not smiling in the sadistic way that she usually did. On the contrary, she wore a deep scowl that really accentuated her frog-like cheeks.
He waited a moment, but she seemed to be waiting for him to speak, so he cleared his throat and said, "Professor? You haven't set out any supplies for me to get started." Not that he particularly wanted to carve into his own hand, but the sooner he started, the sooner he would finish.
"No," she hissed, staring him down, "I have not, Mr. Potter. Do you know why that is?"
Harry could only assume that she had somehow devised a worse punishment for him. "No, Professor."
"Well," she started, standing up, and Harry immediately tensed up. He felt safer when she was seated behind her own desk. "My collection of quills has gone missing. Would you happen to know how that happened, Mr. Potter?"
"No," he immediately replied, which he realized probably made him sound extremely guilty. But it was the truth; even the fact that she possessed more than one of those horrid quills was news to him. Who other than Ron, Hermione, and himself was aware of the nature of his detentions? Additionally, why couldn't Umbridge just summon them back to herself? Was it because they were cursed with Dark magic?
She looked entirely unconvinced, and rounded her desk, her heels noiseless against her massive floral rug. Wordlessly, she lifted up a hand and pointed her wand at Harry, who gasped as cords of rope secured his torso to the back of his chair and forced his arms to his side. Harry instinctively struggled against them, glaring at Umbridge with fury to disguise the fact that his heart was racing and that he hadn't a clue what she was planning on doing to him. The next time she raised her wand, Harry couldn't help but wince, waiting for some kind of explosion. But all he felt was a cool breeze on his face. This somewhat pleasant sensation was followed by Harry choking on his own tongue, which had rebelled against his mouth and curled backwards. He struggled against the rope, eyes watering as he involuntarily continued to gag on his own tongue.
And then, seconds later, his tongue flopped back down, and Harry greedily gulped in breaths of fresh air, leaning his head on the back of the chair for a moment.
"That should do the trick," Umbridge said, and, out of the corner of his eye, Harry watched that terrible smile return to her face as she approached him. She marched right up to Harry so she could look down on him. He gave her the most enraged scowl he could manage while still trying to catch his own breath.
"Now then," she started, lifting her wand again. "Your detentions are going to be a little different from now on."
Sorry not sorry for putting our boy through the ringer. He really deserves better. But I needed Malfoy to get back at him somehow. I just don't think the Slytherins realized what an angry Bat can do. Sucks for them, huh?
Oh, and sorry not sorry about dropping the 'getting-internet-in-the-castle' plot. I feel like that would make things too easy for Tim. Maybe in the...next fic...? (yeah that's right, folks, this thing's gonna have multiple installments, y'all gotta put up with me for even longer if you wanna see the grand conclusion)
CW: animal injury/death, blood, general violence towards minors