"You and I are the only ones who are going to know," sneered Tom, mocking. "And then, mere days later, you tell your little lackey friends?"
"Shut up," Hermione said hotly, folding her arms. "It helped me find a place to practice, didn't it?"
Tom rolled his eyes. "But there are loose ends, now, Hermione. Ones who have sworn neither you nor me loyalty—"
"No one has sworn you loyalty," Hermione reminded him sweetly. "The other part of you, maybe, but not you."
Tom scowled. "If it connects them to him, it should connect them to me, too."
"If that were the case, they'd have noticed their marks getting stronger by now, wouldn't they?" Hermione pointed out. "And no one has. So it's not tied to souls, it's tied to something else."
Tom muttered something vulgar about Voldemort, and Hermione fought back a smirk.
"Anyway," she said, gesturing. "Have you ever been down here?"
"Of course." Tom's voice was fond. "Not for many, many years, though…"
The Chamber of Secrets was large and cavernous, filled with stone. It had been largely cleaned up when the Board of Governors and Ministry of Magic had come down to see the corpse of the basilisk, to Hermione's pleasure – she hadn't been fond of the stench or the grime.
At least she'd come prepared this time, similar to last time – she had on a muggle exercise top and exercise shorts underneath her robes.
Tom walked around, just taking in the sheer size of it and the magnificence of Salazar's statue at the far end. Hermione watched him with satisfaction for a moment. She was getting better at pulling him from the diary with her magic – she now drained her magic into it nearly every night, so he would be at the ready if she ever needed him – and she was hoping it was sufficient enough for him to teach her what she needed to know. His obvious awe and appreciation of the Chamber made him seem more human than half a soul.
She shook her head sharply. She needed to remember that he was evil – he had destroyed someone's soul, after all – no matter how small or charming he seemed.
"You're right – this will work," Tom said, nodding to himself. "If you lose control, you'll need to run and hide, of course, until the magic wears itself out."
"Until the magic wears itself out, not until I get worn out, correct?" Hermione clarified. "If we have to wait for me to run out of magic… this is going to be a problem."
"So long as you break your connection to the fire, it shouldn't be a problem," Tom told her. "It'll just need to use up the magic you gave it. Without much more, it shouldn't last too long."
"Right." Hermione blew out her air sharply, readying herself. "Alright. Teach me, then, Tom."
Hermione didn't know the trick to conjure chairs from midair yet. She contented herself with sitting on a big chunk of pillar that had fallen that no one had bothered to clean up. Tom smirked at her, eyes glittering, but he obliged.
"Fiendfyre is a curse that produces enchanted flames of incredible size and heat that are capable of destroying nearly everything," Tom said, settling into a teacher role. "It takes the form of fiery beasts that seek out living targets. It's very advanced Dark magic."
"What makes it Dark?" Hermione challenged. "I thought whether a curse was 'Dark' or not depends on how you use it."
"There are some spells that are necessarily Dark," Tom informed her. "Ones that require inputs as such that they cannot be cast without them. Take the Cruciatus Curse, for example."
"That's the Torture Curse, right?" Hermione scrunched her face up. "I mean, I don't think there's much of a use for it clinically—"
"Even if you want to test someone's nerves, casting the Cruciatus Curse takes a powerful motivation of pure sadism to cast it correctly," Tom told her, his eyes glittering. "It is not just the desire to cast the curse successfully – it is the desire to cause pain."
Hermione felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
"The Killing Curse is another," Tom said. "There is a reason it is not used regularly, not even to put dying animals down. The Killing Curse requires intense hatred and loathing behind it – the sociopathic and cruel desire to deliberately wipe out a life."
Hermione didn't like the sound of that. "So… if you try to do a mercy killing…"
"Nothing happens," Tom confirmed. "There is a reason the Killing Curse is very difficult to cast. Few people, even when motivated, have the proper mindset where they can brutally wipe out a life without flinching or succumbing to some feeling of regret or remorse."
"And… Fiendfyre is one of these?" Hermione winced.
"It is. Fiendfyre is similar to the Patronus Charm," Tom told her, "only at the other end of the spectrum. Whereas the Patronus Charm emerges as an animal and requires happy thoughts to cast, Fiendfyre, too, emerges as animals, but requires a desire to destroy everything and a strong surge of hatred to cast."
Hermione was tapping her fingers to her lips thoughtfully. "What if I wanted to destroy everything for good reasons? And hated things for just reasons?"
Tom rolled his eyes. "It's still hatred, Hermione. Which is not a good emotion."
Hermione wasn't sure she agreed. Hatred was an intense dislike or ill will, often tied to anger and disgust. To hate something wasn't necessarily bad, she thought. And anger and hatred could be powerful motivators. If she hated dementors, which were unquestionably evil and Dark, how could that hatred be evil?
She wondered if it was some commonly accepted notion that hatred was bad and poisoned the soul or something. It sounded like the kind of trite thing Hogwarts would teach to explain spell motivations.
"If I just cast it, though, surely the casting itself isn't Dark?" Hermione asked. "It's just practice. I don't actually want to destroy anything."
Tom raised an eyebrow. "If you don't want to destroy something, you probably won't be able to summon the proper motivation to cast the spell successfully."
Hermione scowled and made a face. This was going to be more frustrating than she thought.
"The incantation itself is Malignis Fiendfyre," Tom instructed her. "Mal-IG-niss. Short 'ă' sound, like in man, not like in tall."
"Malignis Fiendfyre," Hermione repeated.
"Perfect," Tom said. He raised an eyebrow. "You'll need your wand for this next part."
Hermione stood and withdrew her wand. She scanned the chamber, moving over to and end of the Chamber where there were exposed pipes she could run into and hide.
"I'll be safe in here if it goes out of control?" Hermione asked, glancing at Tom.
Tom shrugged. "Hopefully."
Hermione figured that was as good of an answer as she was going to get.
"There's not really a specific wand movement," Tom said lazily, "like most advanced magic. You can do a circle to reflect on the necessary emotion, if it helps you, but you really only need a flick or jab of your wand to release the magic when you're ready."
"It's just a flick and the incantation?" Hermione repeated skeptically. "That's it?"
"It's that, plus the correct emotional motivation," Tom told her, eyes glittering. "Hatred and the desire to utterly destroy."
Hermione bit her lip. "Alright."
"Focus," Tom instructed her. "Close your eyes and sink into your magic. Think of something or someone you hate – something you want to wipe from the world. Imagine destroying it utterly, watching the hated thing go up in flames. Imagine the satisfaction you would feel…"
Hermione closed her eyes.
She hated dementors. She hated them – they were evil, stains upon the world that ate souls. She absolutely hated their existence, and she did want them wiped from the world. She imagined their cloaks catching flame and burning them alive, the satisfaction she would feel. She let herself sit and stew in the desire to destroy them, before she opened her eyes, readying her wand.
"Malignis Fiendfyre!" she cried, whipping her wand dramatically.
Nothing happened.
"Like I said, it's very hard," Tom drawled, when Hermione turned to glare at him. "It takes a lot of work to get the hang of."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Fine."
She tried again, dwelling on her hatred of dementors, their utter wrongness in the world.
"Malignis Fiendfyre!"
Again, nothing happened.
Tom's eyes glittered at her as she tried over and over again for the better part of an hour, not managing to get anything so much as a spark of flame or bit of ash.
"Maybe you need a tangible target," Tom suggested. "A physical object to focus on, to desire to destroy."
Hermione frowned. "I didn't bring anything I want to destroy."
Tom raised an eyebrow. "That's not very helpful, then, is it?"
Hermione groaned. "Fine. I'll bring a target next time, then – something I'll hate enough to destroy."
"Don't get discouraged," Tom told her gently. "This is very advanced magic. Most wizards will never learn such feats. Even I had to practice long hours to master this curse."
Hermione shot him a dark look. "I know that."
Still, though, she left the Chamber feeling mildly better about her failures, despite her loathing that she managed to feel reassured by Tom.
