January to August 1940, 2nd year and summer

Around the time Tom started practicing Legilimency on students, food rationing was introduced in Britain. Tom learned this through the memories of older Muggle-born students, who had been advised by their parents to stay at Hogwarts during the Easter Holidays. Tom was decidedly not looking forward to the summer holidays.

Naenia didn't care. It didn't come as a surprise to Tom, considering her odd relationship with food (and things that kept you alive in general).

At the same time, Dumbledore's scrutiny suddenly intensified – as if the old man knew exactly what Tom was doing, even though Tom was careful with his practices in all aspects including randomised locations and victims and ensuring he left no traces whatsoever. At least the old man hadn't invited him to tea, yet.

Right before Imbolc, some minor scandal surrounding a third-year Slytherin – Wilkins – disrupted the peace of Slytherin House. The Slytherins became outright hostile. (Behind closed doors, of course. It was barely noticeable during mealtimes, even Wilkins kept a neutral face.)

Tom disliked not being in the know and so asked about it during lunch. It was Nott who told him that Wilkins had apparently been caught in liaison with a Muggle-born and neither his parents, nor most of his housemates were happy with this revelation.

Tom looked at him in contemplation. Nott … had not been surprised when the news had broken. He also thought Wilkins deserved it, but those were useless information for Tom. He turned to Naenia, who was … waging the benefits of reanimating a roasted chicken to scare half of the Great Hall against the consequences that might follow.

Tom blinked.

Then he tried again.

Naenia did not care about the fuss surrounding Wilkins and wished the rest could just move on with their measly lives. (Which made so much more sense than reanimated roasted chickens, if you asked Tom.)

Tom thought that was that and put the matter out of his mind, deciding it wasn't worth his while – especially not with the war going on and all. But then another Slytherin from the upper years got entangled in a minor scandal less than a month later and then a third that caused such a large commotion that Tom decided enough was enough.

He had been trying to decide whether it was worth taking all elective subjects for his third year just for the prestige of twelve Outstanding O.W.L.s (and perhaps N.E.W.T.s, as well). Both Naenia and Nott had already decided – and on the same subjects at that. It irked Tom.

"What is going on?"

Nott looked up from the letter he was penning, threw a glance over his shoulder at the commotion, and then gave Tom a half-shrug. "It seems Mulciber has been cheating on his fiancée and she dragged the matter before the higher-ranking families."

Tom narrowed his eyes. Nott was carefully not thinking about the topic. Nor the letter he was penning.

Naenia, without bothering to take her eyes off her latest novel – Tom was almost convinced she would manage to read through the entire fiction section of the Hogwarts Library before they graduated – raised her hand to point at someone in the assembled crowd.

Tom followed her gesture and took a look at the girl's thoughts.

What.

"You started this?"

"Mulciber was going to become a problem. We took care of it before he could even attempt to gain a foothold."

Tom did not gape at her. He did not.

"Are you taking out every Slytherin that could potentially stand in your way?"

"Don't be silly, Tom. That wouldn't be worth the effort. Theo has already made an assessment of every pure-blood of high standing within our inner-house hierarchy and how likely they are to hinder his –"

"Our."

"– his plans of taking control of all of Slytherin House."

Nott rolled his eyes – not that Naenia was paying enough attention to notice.

Tom allowed himself to stare at them.

"And how did you manage –" he gestured at the commotion that was still happening just behind them, "– to accomplish this?"

"Not by reading their minds," Naenia replied and left it that.

Tom wanted to tear something apart. Nott's letter, preferably, whoever it was for.

"The art of taking over rulership," Nott told Tom with an amused quirk to his lips, "is to know how to manipulate everything and everyone in your favour without anyone even noticing you've done it."

Which Tom interpreted to mean that he would not gain a satisfying answer from Nott.

The year continued on like this.

Over in Europe, Germany invaded Norway, then Belgium. Italy decided to declare war on Britain. Paris fell. It wasn't looking very good, yet not a single person in the magical world that didn't have Muggle relatives was concerned.

Tom thought this was rather short-sighted of them. Naenia thought this was typically short-sighted of them.

On one side, Nott was rising in Slytherin's hierarchy through Naenia's name and his own schemes with no one noticing he was even doing it, because neither was ever involved in any of the incidents that took out those of higher ranking one by one, nor actively asserting their dominance and control.

On the other side, the Muggles were waging a worldwide war with a death toll that kept rising higher and higher.

Either way, things did not look good for Tom in the least.

⸸

Things got worse.

One fine summer day in the middle of June, a letter arrived for Naenia. It was delivered by an undead barn owl and bore a crest that couldn't have been anyone's but the Totengräbers'.

Naenia and Nott had been discussing their first – and so far only – failure of a scheme of theirs that had failed simply because they had overestimated the concerned party's intelligence.

Nott had been explaining that the boy in question was 'dead serious' and Naenia had tilted her head at that and said, in a slightly confused voice, "But he's not dead, yet."

Nott had opened his mouth to retort but then thought better of it and Tom had turned his head to hide his smile and that was when he had spotted the – what he had for a brief moment assumed to be blind – barn owl making its way over to them. (Of course, it hadn't been blind. Why did he keep making the same mistake when it came to undead animals?)

Naenia had accepted the letter silently and simply looked at it for several moments. Then, without another word, she had abandoned her meal and left the Great Hall. Tom had found himself unable to read her thoughts as he had watched her retreating back.

Tom didn't manage to ask her about it until the next day. He was fairly sure she wasn't avoiding him and merely too occupied with whatever had been in that letter.

When he finally found the chance to properly talk to her, Naenia considered his question for a moment and then said, with a look Tom couldn't decipher, "A lot of things that went left unsaid."

"And these would be?"

"Well, with wars being fought on several fronts in both the Muggle and magical communities of Europe, I am to stay in Britain for the time being. It seems likely that Grindelwald will take an interest in our family, should he ever catch wind of our existence."

The Dark Lord had already contacted the Lémures, but been refused.

In return, the Totengräbers had taken an interest in Gellert Grindelwald. More so because of the many deaths he was causing on top of the victims of the Muggle's war. As they could apparently find no personal benefits in Grindelwald's agenda, the Totengräbers decided to not offer any help and stay out of the entire mess for now.

"It is about respecting the dead," Naenia said, clearly aware that Tom was reading her thoughts. "Wars never respect their dead."

Tom licked his lips. "So they will not take you back?" Naenia would still return to the orphanage with him, come summer?

His friend shrugged. "I did ask in my return letter, but I don't think they will. Nowhere is safe. It doesn't matter whether I spend my summers over in Europe or in prime-target London. Of course, a family of Necromancers could provide the sort of protection a Muggle orphanage never could dream of, but …"

"They want you to remain here for a reason."

"It would appear so."

Tom could not read that reason in her thoughts, but he knew Naenia had a suspicion at the very least.

"We could ask Theo."

Tom suppressed a grimace. "I do not want to owe anyone any favours."

"If you say so."

"Perhaps, if things come to pass as you say and London will be targeted – the Hogwarts Express starts and ends in London. Diagon Alley is located in London. They will have to take notice, then."

"Of course, they will." Naenia gave him an amused look. "But 'taking notice' does not equal 'taking it seriously'."

She was, unfortunately, entirely right.

⸸

When the time came for the students to board the train and leave Hogwarts for the summer, Naenia confirmed with Billy the Undead that while the children of London had been evacuated for the most part, Wool's was still operating as usual. The evacuation wasn't compulsory, after all.

Tom did not like this.

Their summer was … Well, Naenia took it better than Tom did. Naenia did not mind the food rationing or the constant fear or … anything, really. Tom was somewhat envious.

The first bombs were dropped near London at the end of August, a week and a half before they would be able to escape back to Hogwarts. Two days later, bombs dropped on Oxford Street. Civilians were killed. Tom knew this was only the beginning and he was proven right when the air raids started on Birmingham and Liverpool.

Just before they were about to finally leave Wool's, Naenia went around the orphanage to lay some groundwork for wards against fires and for general protection. Tom did not ask why and Naenia did not tell him, either.

Neither complained about how packed King's Cross was on the first of September.