September to November 1939, 2nd year

On the first of September, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Two days later France and Britain declared war on Germany. It only went downhill from there.

The Second World War had begun, as prophesied.

The wizarding world still didn't care. Most of them, anyway – those who didn't have relatives in the Muggle world.

Tom was crestfallen. He didn't show it and certainly would never admit to it – Tom was better than that – but Naenia saw it in his face anyway.

"What's got you so happy, Lémure?" Lestrange asked from across the table, apprehension clear on his face.

He and Avery, both from their year, had for whatever reason decided to sit with Tom from now on. Most likely because he was top of their year, closely followed by Naenia herself. They still did not think too highly of Tom – with his Muggle name and upbringing – but they apparently had decided that he might be useful for them yet. Only, sitting with Tom meant sitting with Naenia, of whom they were still very much afraid.

"Haven't you heard?" Naenia asked sweetly and watched them both gulp. "The Muggles have started a world war, again. There's going to be a lot of casualties from now on."

Avery, though still regarding her warily, snorted. "The Muggles can kill each other all they want. Doesn't have anything to do with us."

Naenia smiled. "I'm wondering when the bombings will start. How long, do you think, until they decide to destroy London?"

"Surely those bombs can't destroy a magical shield," Lestrange looked at Tom, "can they?"

Tom regarded him coolly. "Of course not. Any wizards who are worth their names can protect themselves against some Muggle technology."

But not an underage wizard in a Muggle orphanage, Naenia thought.

Avery shrugged and took another bite of his scone. Lestrange tried not to look in Naenia's direction. From the Hufflepuff table Blythe caught her eye and waved.

Naenia supressed a sigh.

Being the top two students of their year did get them praise all around. The professors were impressed, for sure – Professor Slughorn was already making plans to add them to his collection – but the students were wary of them at best. For one instance, they were both Slytherins. Then there was the fact that Tom was a poor orphan and Naenia came from a family of Necromancers. Nothing new there.

Professor Dumbledore was an exception. He did praise them on their first day of class, but not award them any points like some of the other professors had. And while he tried not to show it, he was still wary of them both. Naenia wondered whether he saw through Tom's façade as well or if something had happened between them.

"He set my wardrobe on fire," Tom said through clenched teeth, when she asked him about it.

They were sitting in their private room up on the seventh floor. It had taken them a few tries, but they were confident they had figured it out by now. They just had to walk past it's location three times thinking about what they wanted. They often used the hidden passageway they had found in first year to have a private talk there or just enjoy some tea and books. Naenia now tended to bring milk with her and always made sure to stock up on tea whenever she had to. Her mother had sent her a lovely herbal blend for her birthday this year.

Naenia raised an eyebrow. "Surely none of your belongings were harmed?"

She did not like Professor Dumbledore, personally. He was an old fool, blinded by his belief in the existence of 'good magic' and 'bad magic', the latter including the Dark Arts as well as the Forbidden Arts. Professor Dumbledore judged her based on the magic her family practiced and not based on Naenia herself as a person, and she judged him for that in return. Nonetheless, the Professor would not just destroy anyone's property for no apparent reason.

"No. But it is the principle of the thing."

She hummed. "What happened?"

"I… may have reacted poorly to his appearance," Tom began. "I thought he was a doctor or something and that they wanted to send me to an asylum, because they couldn't handle that I was special. When he began talking about magic, I couldn't help myself. Gloated about all the things I could do. In hindsight it was a stupid thing to do, of course."

"What did you tell him?" Naenia asked.

"Let me see… 'I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.'"

It was interesting that he could remember it word for word. Naenia had trouble recalling any of her memories clearly on most days, they tended to fade rather quickly. But she was to exist forever, there was no need to hold onto them and stuff her brain with useless sentimentalities.

"Then I told him to prove that he was a wizard and he set my wardrobe on fire."

"He didn't like what you had said," Naenia observed, sipping her new herbal blend.

"Goodie two-shoes that he is, our 'dear Professor'," Tom sneered. "He reprimanded me for stealing worthless trinkets and made me return them to their stupid owners."

"You stole from the other orphans?"

Tom narrowed his eyes. "They didn't deserve those things. It was all useless stuff anyway."

"If it was useless, then why did you steal it?"

"Because," Tom said and took a pause for effect, "I am special and they are not. I deserve to own things like that. They do not."

Naenia shook her head in disbelief. "Of course Professor Dumbledore won't let himself be charmed by you. Although, I think, he would have still seen right through you even without bearing witness to any of that."

At that Tom sat up. "Do you think he's a Legilimens? That he can read minds? I've been trying to win him over since the beginning of first year, but never succeeded."

Naenia snorted. "Yes, I could see that."

The answer to both of his questions was yes, actually. But they were two very different questions and she was under the impression that Tom thought of them as such.

"Legilimency has nothing to do with 'mind reading'," she said. "Where did you even hear about that?"

Tom shrugged. "Might have read it in a book or something."

"I see…"

Naenia regarded him carefully. She wasn't sure how much knowledge she wanted to give him. Sure, he could easily do some research about Legilimency on his own. And the mind reading part was more of a psychological method about observing another person and interpreting their body language. But there was more to it than that.

Naenia wordlessly chucked her saucer at him. Tom threw up his arms and the saucer stopped in mid-air.

Tom glared at her. "What was that for?"

"You have an aptitude for the Old Magics," she mused. "As does Professor Dumbledore."

"The Old Magics?" Tom asked as he set her saucer down on the table with a clink.

"How do you think 'accidental magic' works, exactly? In the Old Days, as our eldest like to call them, magical people had no need for wands."

Naenia gestured in the air and the picture of a tree and a figure on a hill appeared.

"They could feel the magic flowing through the earth and made it their own," she said and let the magic appear as a glowing thread weaving through the earth and the tree and the figure itself. Then she took out her wand and placed it in the figure's hand. "One day they discovered how wands could help them to better focus their magic."

The glowing thread moved from the earth through the wizard and to her wand, brighter and thicker there. Tom watched with wide eyes and his mouth slightly open.

"And then they invented spells and the like," Naenia continued, "and over time they grew lazy and eventually forgot they were able to do magic without a wand or incantation. Nowadays most are unable to perform proper magic without them. It is pitiful, so very pitiful."

She took her wand back and let the illusion disperse with a wave of her hand. Tom followed her movements keenly.

"But you still know about the Old Magics," he said and his eyes shone. "And you can perform wandless and nonverbal magic – I've seen you."

Naenia merely tilted her head in agreement.

Then Tom frowned. "Why do you use a wand anyway?"

"To fit in, mostly."

Which was the truth, if not the full truth.

Naenia had no intention of ever letting Tom know about her seventh sense and how far it extended. Just like she never intended to give him any substantial knowledge about Necromancy. After all, some things were well-kept family secrets for a very good reason.

"Do other people know about that? That you practice the Old Magics? Is that why they're afraid of you?"

"Yes and no." Naenia leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes halfway, not letting Tom out of her sight. "They obviously don't know about the Old Magics anymore. But they're aware that we Lémures are not limited to wands and incantations. And the obvious fact that we practice the Forbidden Arts."

Tom's eyes widened. "Forbidden Arts? What's that, now?"

Naenia sighed. He was a well full of curiosity with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. And he was power-hungry on top of that. Bad combination.

"Necromancy, to name one example. It's not dark magic and therefore can't be categorized under the Dark Arts, no matter what everyone wants to believe. So the Ministry of Magic – or one of the governments of the wizarding world, anyway – decided to call them the Forbidden Arts instead. They do overlap, I won't deny that, but they're not the same. And some spells that fall under the Dark Arts are taught at Hogwarts and used for defence or protections or whatever, so it's not like they have the right to judge us for that."

"It is powerful magic," Tom said and Naenia did not like what was lurking behind his eyes.

"That it is. Old and powerful." She gave him a sharp look. "And a family secret."

Tom inclined his head. "Of course," he said. "I never thought otherwise."

She didn't believe him.

She appreciated his honesty, that he dropped the mask and was mostly himself around her. But he kept secrets from her – which was no problem in itself – and she always got the impression that there was more to his intentions than a mere thirst for knowledge and power. What did he want power for, anyway? To gain respect from the other students? Being top of their year was slowly starting to pay off for him, but it didn't seem to be enough. What could a twelve-year-old boy want so badly that he needed that much power for?

Or maybe it was just her imagination running wild. That Tom had a darker side to him, of that there was no doubt. But it didn't mean that he had ulterior motives, or that it was necessarily something bad and evil. If she let her thoughts run in that direction then she was no better than Professor Dumbledore.

Ꝋ

"Hey, you wouldn't know any wizard by the name of Tom Riddle, would you?"

Naenia looked up from her book. She had been waiting for Tom to appear, so they could go to breakfast together. He was the only one from his dorm who had made it down to the common room so far.

She raised an eyebrow.

Tom rolled his eyes. "Aside from me, obviously."

"No, I don't," she said. "But if your father was indeed a wizard, then he can't have been very important. And he certainly was no pureblood with a name like that."

Tom nodded, not seeming surprised. "What about Marvolo?"

"Marvolo?" Naenia tilted her head. "A very unique name, that, hard to confuse with someone else. Old lunatic, that one, and very poor despite being descended from one of the purest families there ever was – one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, even."

She observed Tom licking his lips in anticipation. "What was his family called?"

"The House of Gaunt."

His face lit up at that. But still, he did not seem surprised in the least.

"And you're sure there was no one else by the name of Marvolo?"

Naenia frowned. "Not that I am aware of, no. I wonder what became of him and his descendants…"

Tom nodded, then paused. He looked behind him where Avery and Lestrange were just appearing from the stairs.

"I think I forgot something back in my dorm."

Naenia sighed. All that waiting around. "I'm not waiting for you, again."

"Then, by all means, feel free to go ahead without me."

She did just that.

It was a bit strange, because Tom never forgot anything, but she didn't dwell on it.

This meant, however, that she was on her own, because Tom was not with her and Avery and Lestrange weren't trying to gain anything from her – when they came across a group of Hufflepuffs headed in the same direction. Naenia spotted a familiar brunette and tried to blend in with the other Slytherins.

Unfortunately, Blythe still noticed her.

"Hello there," she said cheerfully.

Naenia nodded politely.

"How's school so far? I think it's great! I heard you were second of our year in the exams? Congratulations!"

"Thank you," Naenia said.

"Where's your friend? He is your friend, right? The dark and pretty one? I was worried you'd be all alone, but it seems like you're doing well on your own."

Naenia tried not to sigh. Blythe was nice. And not afraid of her. But Naenia still had no intentions of making any friends – or, well, any more friends. Tom already was a handful. And the Hufflepuff talked too much. Or maybe it just seemed that way, because Naenia barely said anything.

Blythe chattered on, undisturbed by Naenia's polite, but short responses, and Naenia was glad to arrive at the Great Hall were Blythe had to bid her goodbye and departed for her own house table. Tom joined Naenia at the Slytherin's table shortly after and the day went on as usual.

Until nightfall, at least.

Because something happened during the night. Naenia didn't discover what exactly until the next morning when she reached for her wand and it wasn't where she had put it. It wasn't anywhere in the room. (Naenia didn't have to go looking personally, she merely left her bed and reached out with her seventh sense.)

Naenia obviously didn't sleep with her wand. She had enchantments in place to sleep peacefully without it – hidden runes all over her four-poster to block her seventh sense. Still, she kept her belongings under quite a lot of wards and anti-theft charms. Most of which Tom knew, now that she thought about it, because she had shown him in first year.

But boys weren't able to access the girls' dormitories. So how had he done it? And she was absolutely sure it had been him. Maybe he had compelled an animal to do it. After all, he had told her that he could control animals just a few weeks ago. And during that conversation he had seen her wand – really seen the runes engraved on the handle.

At the time she had thought he had merely been fascinated by her explanation and the illusion she had used to accompany it, but in hindsight maybe some of his fascination had come from observing her wand as well.

Naenia went about her morning routine as if nothing had happened, making sure everything was in place, Marin tucked under her robes, and her appearance as perfect as always, all the while ignoring the steadily growing ache in her head.

Then she went to the second-year boys' dormitory and politely knocked. The boy who opened the door for her – Wilkins, her memory supplied – was still half-asleep and dressed in his nightrobe. At her sight his face became bright-red and he stammered a high-pitched "R-Riddle!" over his shoulder.

Tom appeared in the door shortly after. He had already changed into his school robes and was just fixing his necktie. He raised an eyebrow at her and made to step out and close the door behind himself, but Naenia stopped him with a raised hand. She stepped past him ignoring the spluttered "You can't!" from one of the other boys and looked around.

"Out!" she said quietly.

There was a brief moment of silence during which six pairs of eyes stared at her – Wilkins still red in the face, bleary eyed Montague and Runcorn, Avery in the middle of changing, a fully dressed Lestrange, and Tom. Naenia looked every single one of them in the eyes (except for Tom), one after the other.

Not a moment later all the boys (except for Tom) scrambled over themselves to leave the room as quickly as possible. Being feared sure had its perks sometimes.

The door closed.

Tom raised his eyebrows, the rest of his expression impassive.

Naenia glared at him, finally giving in to the irritation her headache was causing. She felt her hair rising.

Tom subconsciously leaned back, then noticed what he was doing and immediately straightened his posture.

Naenia paralyzed him before he could do so much as reach for his wand.

Then she went looking for her own wand, sending Marin to look through the less accessible places.

"I must admit," she said, carefully gliding her hands over the curtains of Tom's four-poster, "that it was very cleverly done. Not only did you leave my wards and charms in place without setting any of them off, you also managed to leave the theft unnoticed by me and Marin."

She eventually found her wand in a hidden compartment of his trunk. Naenia didn't bother leaving his warding spells intact. The thrumming subsided. The headache, of course, was still there.

"How did you know?" Tom said, once she had freed his tongue.

Naenia scoffed. "Who else would be foolish enough to steal my wand?" She looked at him, contemplating. "Why did you even steal it in the first place?"

Tom pressed his lips into a tight line. "Would you mind unfreezing me first? So I can explain properly."

"No."

His lips thinned even further.

Naenia crossed her arms.

A frustrating sigh followed. "Fine. I was curious."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I saw the runes and I wanted to see what they were," Tom said, frustration evident in his voice.

Naenia imagined him throwing his arms up in an exasperated and overly dramatic gesture, but Tom would never do such a thing. And he was still paralyzed.

"Did you figure it out, then?" Naenia asked. "What the runes are for?"

"No," Tom said. "I did not."

She studied him for a while, watched the way he regarded her in return, his expressions and his cold, cold eyes and the rage behind them. She wondered what he was angry at – that he had been caught red-handed? That he hadn't been able to figure it out? That she had so easily trapped him and found the wand he had so carefully hidden from her?

It didn't matter.

Naenia left the room without another word and only lifted the spell once she had already left the common room and was sure the other boys had returned to their dorm.

AN

Only Tom could come up with the idea to steal a wand from a Lémure and think he could get away with it. Maybe wait a few years first until you're actually better than her, hm?

Also – Amelia! She's usually not a chatterbox (I think?), but I guess she has to compensate for Naenia's lack of response. And someone needs to bring some cheerfulness in here, Tom and Naenia are way too serious. Naenia just needs to get over herself and accept Amelia's friendship, so it won't be as one-sided anymore… (sigh)
I think Amelia's parents are more progressive than most wizards and witches and give her more leeway, allowing her to be her own person and make her own choices. The Lémures are similar, but in a very different way, as you'll see soon.