1939
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The rest of the school year passed without much fanfare.
Tom was invited to Dumbledore's office for tea three more times, but managed to get out of it once by volunteering to tutor Lestrange in Potions. Slughorn was delighted; Tom was not. But it was better to spend an hour or two deciphering Lestrange's atrocious handwriting than spend that same time listening to Dumbledore sneakily present philosophical dilemmas as an attempt at friendly conversation.
Tom could smell a test of character a league away.
Mrs. Cole had mentioned psychological examinations in the first few years Tom discovered he had magic. He'd read as much as he could on the subject, to ascertain if there was indeed anything wrong with him, and once he'd found no mention of his strange abilities, had decided that the best thing to do was to make certain other people didn't think he was abnormal. But Tom had learned his lesson: those who applied arbitrary tests of character to others made it very clear what kind of character they had.
His First Year ended with good marks all around. Much to the tears and resentment of their wizard-raised classmates, Tom and Hermione both got straight O's and took the first and second spots in every single subject. (Except for Flying Class, but since it wasn't marked and examined like the rest of their classes, it didn't count.) Tom surpassed Hermione in practical wandwork, which gave him an advantage in Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration. Hermione was better at memorising huge chunks of their textbooks, which won her the top spots in Astronomy and History. In Herbology, Charms, and Potions they were equal, but Tom didn't care so much about the marks—he'd rather ensure that he learned everything he considered useful about the subject, not what the teachers thought was useful.
His First Year success was also marked by having pranked his dorm mates into submission. Apart from the scarf shrinking incident, he'd also shrunk the left shoe of every pair belonging to Lestrange and Travers. It was less than half a centimetre's change, but for people who bought their shoes bespoke and handmade, it was enough that they could feel something odd, but small enough that they, being unobservant clods, couldn't tell that anything was wrong at a casual glance.
Over the period of a few months (and after several re-shrinkings after new pairs of shoes were delivered by owl) the boys had developed a strange, limping gait to compensate for their squashed toes, and later, painful ingrown toenails. Tom got a leg up in Defence class, thrashing them handily as he knew to aim to the left. He'd convinced them that their shoe problem was all in their heads—it wasn't as if the shoes could be the issue, could it? Hadn't they ordered from the same cordwainer who'd been serving their family for the last century? If these shoes were good enough for their grandfathers, why were they being whiny babies about it?
Tom had read an editorial in the London newspaper a while ago that said long term use of poorly fitting shoes could lead to spinal injuries and chronic back pain. If Lestrange and Travers proved that they deserved punishment, then Tom had the next few years to see if the newspaper was right. It was a little bloodthirsty, but Tom had never been tender-hearted in nature; the notion of granting mercy for first infractions hadn't once crossed his mind. And as it was meant as a punishment, they only got what they deserved. He didn't take an eye for an eye, of course—he wasn't that barbaric.
Napoleon, the last great European emperor, wasn't famous for his martial conquests or a strong dynasty of worthy heirs. In fact, from the perspective of an Englishman, it was his defeats that were not only noteworthy, but celebrated. No, the man's true legacy lay in the Napoleonic Code, modern laws that had overturned the existing old-fashioned feudal system. Napoleon had altered the status quo to his own design, beheading the aristocracy and taking half of Europe along for the journey. Tom admired it, and dreamt of replicating such feats within the microcosm of the Slytherin boys' dormitory.
(To his displeasure, "The Tom Riddle Code" sounded a bit silly in his head, and even sillier written down in the margins of his diary, but anything was better than "Schoolmaster Tom's Big Book of Life Lessons". He supposed that naming things after yourself only worked if your name was grand and powerful, like Napoleon or Hammurabi or Justinian. Would anyone cower in the presence of the Grand Sorcerer of the British Wizarding Empire, Tom the Great?)
The rest of the Slytherin boys seemed to have noticed how misfortune befell those who were rude to Tom, although they hadn't figured out what exactly he was doing, or how he was doing it. They just saw what appeared to be a series of unconnected accidents, like Quentin Travers knocked off the duelling platform and landing on his head, or Fourth Year Jasper Hastings' mother sending a Howler because he'd handed in fourteen inches on doing dirty deeds with the Sorting Hat, instead of the Charms essay he was supposed to have written.
(It was rumoured that Hastings had put the rips in the Sorting Hat to convenient use, and added something new to the collection of stains on its brim. Hastings ventured no details, but his reddening at the mention of their Charms teacher, Professor Winthrop, was taken as an admission of guilt. Thereafter, he was known as "Hatty Hastings" and nothing he said could remedy the situation.
It was much as he deserved for using slurs in public and ramming Tom into a balustrade on the way to dinner.)
By the end of the year, most of Slytherin House had reined back on their aggression; Tom was a House point earner favoured by Professor Slughorn, and it was in poor taste to sabotage Slytherin's chances at the House Cup for a petty grudge—most Slytherins could agree they hated all of Gryffindor House more than a single no-name orphan boy. In the case of the First Year cohort, most of them had become somewhat civilised. Only once they'd learned not to mention Tom's blood status in or out of his presence did he declare them thoroughly housebroken.
Having accomplished so much at Hogwarts, Tom was disappointed to return to Wool's for the summer.
"It's only for ten weeks," Hermione reassured him, while they packed away their school robes on the train.
To Tom, it felt like shedding the vestiges of the magical world, although the plain white uniform shirts and trousers (or knee-length wool skirts for Hermione) didn't look too different to Muggle clothes, once one doffed the distinctive drapey robes. Of the few differences Tom noticed was the fact that wizarding clothes fastened with laces, toggles, brooches, or temporary Sticking Charms for the lazy, and never with the newly fashionable zip fastenings. Buttons were made of horn or shell, never plastic. The older girls painted on their lipstick with a brush and a pot of paint, not from a twist-up tube as he'd seen from the minders at the Orphanage. And most people got their things tailored to size with magic, so even those who couldn't afford dragonhide looked fairly decent.
"It's ten weeks without magic," said Tom. "You had trouble going back to living like a Muggle during Christmas, and that was only two weeks. This is like a Roman citizen used to flushing toilets and daily bathing moving to provincial Britain, then seeing people toss their waste into the street from their windows. You can't help but see everyone around you as a barbarian."
"I wouldn't put it like that," Hermione said, undoing her blue necktie and putting it away. "We lived like Muggles for most of our lives; nothing about going back will be unfamiliar to us. Not like it was when we first learned about magic."
Tom scoffed. "For God's sake, Hermione, I'm going back to a place where they use lard as a condiment. Where they believe a lard and onion sandwich counts as a good lunch. Muggle or not, any place that does that qualifies for being Hell on Earth."
"That sounds a bit dramatic."
"You've seen where I live," said Tom. "Now go on, please tell me that I should be grateful for it."
"No," said Hermione firmly. Her hands clasped together in her lap, in a weak attempt to restrain what Tom knew would be a passionate outburst. "I'll never say that to you. I might believe that half your stories about that place are hyperbole—honestly, Tom, most of the time I can't tell when you're joking or not. But I do believe that you deserve better. A loving home should be every child's birthright, not just a privilege enjoyed by those who were lucky enough to be born with the right name. And an orphanage, especially one like Wool's, will never be a home."
Tom regarded her with cold eyes. "You're right. It's not a home. It's a holding pen for Britain's future labour force." On the opposite seat, Hermione fidgeted. "Your words were very pretty. Are you going to do anything about them, or are they just that, words?"
Ever since his first teatime talk with Dumbledore, he'd become sceptical whenever he heard speeches that involved other people deciding that his life would be better off if it had this or if he did that. It was unfair of him to take it out on Hermione, but the Hogwarts Express' imminent arrival to King's Cross was lowering his mood from anxious to bitterly spiteful. It was just so frustrating to go from easy access to magic and books, two of his most favourite things in the world, to a world where he had no access to either. To go from promising, talented Mr. Riddle... to Tom the friendless orphan.
It made him feel powerless. Insignificant. As if everything he'd earned and achieved in the last year no longer mattered.
"I'll ask my Mum if we can meet at least once a week," Hermione said. "That way you can get out of that place as often as you can. We can go to Diagon Alley, too—we can do magic there; with all the adult wizards and witches walking about, they can never tell who's underage, as long as we don't make a show.
"I think it's unfair that the other students who live in a magical home can practise spells over the summer," she complained. "I asked my Head of House, and he said that magical homes have Floo connections and qualified adults who can get an injured child to the hospital in an emergency. Because I'm a witch, my parents are permitted to know about magic, visit magical areas, and use the Floo system. But because they're also Muggles—the same for your caretakers—we're not allowed to have the Floo installed in our house. Mum and Dad can exchange money at the bank, but aren't allowed to open an account. They can rent a room by the month at the Leaky Cauldron, but not a flat in Diagon Alley a few metres away. It's like they can't even decide whether Muggle guardians should have rights or not! I can't wait until I turn seventeen before I can register our house as a magical residence, but by then, the Restriction of Underage Magic won't even apply."
"You're one of the luckier ones," Tom remarked. "You'll turn seventeen at the beginning of Sixth Year, and if they let you register via owl post, you'll have most of your affairs taken care of when you go home for Christmas. You could have your Apparition license half a year before everyone else even begins the school lessons, if you wanted."
"You could do it too," said Hermione eagerly, kicking her heels against the train seat. "You're not that much younger than me, and since your birthday falls during the holidays, you could also take the test earlier, if you had a teacher accompany you to the Ministry office. Knowing you, they'd fall in line to offer, and buy you drinks afterwards."
Tom leaned back in his seat. "I wouldn't have the money to pay the examination fee, or pay an instructor for the private lessons. I'm afraid I'll have to wait for the school instructor just like everyone else."
"Oh." Hermione looked away. "Well, I'll think of something. We have years yet to come up with the money."
"Are you planning some sort of moneymaking venture?" asked Tom. He was intrigued; Hermione was more of a philanthropist than an entrepreneur. She could string together a good speech if she had time to draft and rehearse it—she lacked the charisma for spontaneous public speaking—but it took more than that to convince people to part with their money. The concept of a profit margin would drive her into a spiral of guilt, because it was not much different from cheating people out of their money, and cheating was wrong!
"I was thinking..." Hermione began, chewing on her lip, "that if you wrote something for a periodical or an academic publication, they'd pay you if you got published. You're good now, and you'll be even better by Sixth Year, so I'm sure you can think of something to write. If you aim lower and go for something less prestigious, like the spell tips section for Witch Weekly or Housewitch and Home, the pay is just as good and they publish once per week rather than once a month. It's steady work as long as you don't mind adapting spells to churn butter or fluff up a meringue."
Tom lifted an eyebrow. They weren't bad ideas, and the nature of the work meant that he wouldn't even have to leave his dorm room to get them done. Nor would he have to meet anyone in person who would reject him out of hand because he was underage, a student, or Muggle raised, as long as his work was good enough. Obviously, it wouldn't do for people to know that Emperor Tom's earliest creation was an altered freezing spell for making the most refreshing lemon mint sorbet (perfect for summer entertaining!), but a pseudonym would take care of that issue, as well as obscuring his age and lack of formal qualifications.
But because Tom was a cynic to the core, he said, "You're trying to convince me there are alternatives to writing other people's school essays for money, aren't you?"
Hermione flushed. "I don't want you getting in trouble! And I know you don't take pride in doing other people's homework. I'd much rather see you use your time and skill on original work, even if it's something trivial, like hair charms or airing carpets. For every piece you publish, hundreds of people would see your name, and I can tell you care about that. It's got to be more satisfying than letting someone like Avery take credit for an essay you stuffed with spelling mistakes and poor grammar on purpose. Even if it's some housewife you'll never meet, respect for your skill is still respect."
"And money is money," Tom added. "I'll think about it. It's not as if I have anything better to do for the next ten weeks." Experimental spellwork, even if it was for minor, trifling applications, was far superior to hawking cigarettes on a street corner, or whatever kind of Muggle job the older orphans did for money during term holidays. (He quickly terminated that line of thinking before he began to speculate on what other kind of business the older girls got up to on street corners.)
Weighing up his options, he was quite certain wizarding work paid more, once he factored in the exchange rate.
"What about your summer homework?"
"I got most of it done before we left. I didn't see the sense in not getting as much time in the library as I could."
The train had begun to slow down upon entering the outskirts of Greater London. It was easy to spot the divide between the countryside and the City—the grass faded into swaths of concrete and bitumen, the sky filled with the grey smog of industry, and the horizon disappeared from view, replaced by slate tiling and row after row of pebbledash terrace houses. It lacked colour, vibrancy, and above all, magic.
Hermione's mother was waiting by the platform gate, ready to drive her home in their family motorcar. Tom, however, had no one to anticipate his arrival; he'd expected to take the trolleybus back to South London by himself, and he'd saved his shillings and pence for the fare, instead of converting his Muggle money to galleons as Hermione had done during her first visit to Gringotts. The trolleybus was how he'd arrived to King's Cross back in September.
She waved to Mrs. Granger, then looked back at him, brow furrowed in thought, almost tripping over her trunk.
"Tom," she said, leaning in so that she would be heard over the din of reuniting families, screeching children, and the whistle of the Express' steam boiler. "I'm going to talk my parents into getting an owl, so we can write to each other this summer. I'll tell them it's faster and cheaper than the Royal Mail's service to Scotland, especially with parcel post. If you need anything, or if you want me to come get you, send a note through the owl."
"You should keep mail to the morning or evening like they do at Hogwarts," Tom replied. "I wouldn't want the Muggles to notice there's an owl sitting by my window in broad daylight."
"Alright, unless it's an emergency," said Hermione. "It's less than thirty miles from our house to Wool's as the crow flies, so you can expect a reply on the same day. And if they give you lard sandwiches, write me and I'll send you something from our supper."
"As long as it's not soup," said Tom. "I wouldn't mind a good steak or a pork chop. Don't forget the mustard and currant jelly, though; I don't like my steak dry."
"Oh, Tom," said Hermione, rolling her eyes and laughing. "I'm going to miss you."
And before he could do anything about it, she'd reached over and pulled him into an embrace. For an instant, Tom was overwhelmed with sensations. He felt the warm curve of her cheek press against his own, and the brush of her hair on his neck, not itchy and frizzy as he'd expected based on its appearance, but soft and somehow... organic, pleasantly scented with freesia and orange blossom. Her fingers grazed his shoulder blades, followed by the bony point of her elbows grazing his ribs, a gentle pressure of her arms folding around him, and then a moment later—an eternity later—the arms were unfolding, and the weight was gone, the warmth withdrawn, and Tom was left standing on the crowded Platform staring blankly over Hermione's shoulder, feeling as if he'd lost something before he'd even known what to call it.
What was that?
"Goodbye, Tom!"
"Goodbye," he heard himself repeating.
On the trolley back to Wool's, he came to the conclusion that she'd given him a hug. He wasn't sure what to make of it.
Over the course of his life, he had never found the touch of other people to be pleasant. It was meant to be avoided when possible, and endured when it wasn't. He never asked for it. He never expected it. He never wanted it. Physical touches came in the form of pinches to his cheek, boxing over the ears, shoves on the shoulder, kicks to the shin, and swats on the buttocks and hands. Nothing about it was comforting, caring, or God forbid, loving.
But... that.
Hermione hadn't ever done that before. It wasn't as if they hadn't touched each other before: he could recall instances where her fingers had brushed against his when she passed him a book or a roll of parchment, or the nudge of a knee under the shared bench in Defence, and the quiet tap of a knuckle on his shoulder when he'd lost track of time in a solitary corner of the library.
This, however, was a first.
For the first time in his life, he had been embraced by someone because they'd wanted to, not out of pity or deceit. It was nothing like the old grannies who cooed over his pale skin and straight teeth and pressed his face into a mass of saggy bosoms, assaulting his senses with the smell of talcum powder and dried violets. They'd prodded at him and looked him over the same way they did with vegetables at the market, sighing to each other that for all his sweet manners and pretty looks, he was just another mouth to feed.
Hermione Granger had embraced him because she liked him, and what's more, he hadn't made any indication to show that he hadn't wanted it in return; he had, however tacitly, allowed it, and it hadn't been awful. It was, perhaps, if he was being generous about it, the opposite of awful, although calling it pleasant was overselling it. It wasn't that good.
But—
He didn't mind it.
He minded that he didn't mind it.
What was going on? What was wrong with him?
Was there anything wrong with him?
He tried to imagine Amy Benson hugging him and was repulsed by the idea before Imaginary Amy had even got within arm's reach of Imaginary Tom. The thought of her sliding into the seat next to his in the orphanage dining hall made him wince; the thought of her touching his books, especially his Hogwarts spellbooks, made him angry. Anything more than that was utterly incomprehensible. Next, he tried to imagine Mrs. Cole in Amy's place, and he almost gagged.
Good.
Nothing out of the usual. He had better not be going mad.
Because, he reminded himself, I'm not mad. I'm a wizard.
In the end, he found his mind plenty occupied during the ten tedious weeks without magic.
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Tom's first summer as a wizard wasn't as bad as he'd expected it to be.
He wrote to Hermione every other day with the new owl her mother had bought, a plain tawny owl she'd named "Gilles". Tom thought it a pretentious name, but seeing as every other one of his Slytherin Housemates named their pet owls Athena, Hercules, or Sultan, pretentious naming must be an established practice among wizarding traditionalists. And it wasn't like he could declare himself the Ministry appointed Officiate of Pet Naming, as his own pet was a rat named Peanut. Peanut Three, if he was to be accurate about it.
Tom had let Peanut out to fend for itself during the summer. He would be inconvenienced but not overly upset if the rat got itself eaten or caught in a trap. Tom had no use for a pet that couldn't take care of its own basic needs; if an animal needed constant maintenance and attention from its owner to survive, then as far as he was concerned, it didn't deserve to live. Rats were common and replaceable. He still had that note from Dumbledore, so if Peanut never showed up in his room before August 30, then Tom would go to Hogwarts and catch himself another one.
It was good that Peanut was out of his room most of the day, because Gilles liked to rest on Tom's windowsill in between letter deliveries. The owl had claimed the spot as his own by butchering a few pigeons on it, splattering blood over the glass windowpanes. It was after a quick application of Tom's animal training magic that Gilles soon took his meals elsewhere, as it put Tom off his own meals when Gilles was choking out a furry lump of an owl pellet two feet away.
And his meals were worth enjoying—Mrs. Granger was a decent cook, and whilst he found her Beef Wellington a tad overdone compared to the Hogwarts gold standard, she hit the mark with her puddings and tarts. It was a shame to discover that jam sauces and ice cream sent by owl post didn't travel well.
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Dear Tom, Mum says the food is cheaper and higher quality at the wizarding grocer, particularly the meats and out-of-season fruits, which seem to be in season year round. She's started shopping more at the Diagon market than with our local greengrocer, although we still take our regular milk delivery. She says she finds magical sweets bizarre, and she doesn't know what the dragon liver at the butcher's is meant for. Do wizards eat it? Or make potions from it?
Gringotts' monopoly on currency exchange aside, there must be other aspects where we, having a foot in each world, have an advantage over our purely wizard-raised classmates. For example, we enjoy a Hogwarts education funded by the Ministry of Magic; being British subjects by birth, we both had our primary educations funded by His Majesty's Government. But British citizenship comes with certain obligations, so it might not be so advantageous when we're older, now that I think about it—how would the taxes even work...
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For most of the summer, he met Hermione twice a week at Diagon Alley. The Leaky Cauldron on Charing Cross Road was less than two miles away from Wool's, close enough that he could walk there and back without needing fare for the trolley, as he didn't have a heavy school trunk to lug around. Now that he had a wand of his own to open the brick gateway, he visited as often as he could, either alone or with Hermione.
It was frustrating how the magical window displays beckoned him to enter the shops and try out the wares when he couldn't afford a thing. Until his Second Year book list arrived with the pouch of coins from the Hogwarts Relief Fund, he refrained from spending his money. He did, however, sell and exchange his First Year textbooks for the Second Year basics, while browsing the offerings for the Third Year electives. Introductory Numerology caught his interest, but Social Customs of the Common British Muggle was as ghastly as its title implied.
Once he'd gotten his book list in the first week of August, Tom was invited to lunch and shopping in the Alley with Hermione and Mrs. Granger.
He accepted. A free lunch was a free lunch.
He'd been determined to hate Mrs. Helen Granger from the very first time he had seen her. There was something about her that had seemed unreal, artificial against the Victorian grimness of the orphanage. It must have been the roller-set curls of her hair, the elegant arch of her eyebrows, the click of her heeled shoes on institutional tile. Her aura of affluence had shown him his first glimpse, at the age of eight years old, of the unattainable; it was then that he had truly understood the meaning of the phrase 'class consciousness'.
He wasn't sure he hated her as much as he had four years ago—the list of things he hated had evolved over the years to encompass the abstract rather than individual people.
It was how Mrs. Granger looked in the shop windows in the same way he looked at them, a familiar mixture of hunger and wonder in the gleam of her eyes and the stiff carriage of spine and shoulder. She marvelled at the convenience of simple charms: self-stirring ladles and knitting needles and self-lacing boots, commonplace objects to the people around her but which she'd never seen before.
Mrs. Granger caught him eyeing the boots. "Charmed waterproof, self-lacing, shined with Peckling's Permanent Polish," she read from the card in the display case, glancing at Tom. "It seems as if magic can solve every problem, doesn't it?"
"Not every problem has a magical solution, but I believe that one can create anything with magic," said Tom, and his eyes darted down to his scuffed Muggle-made boots. "It's only a matter of knowledge and imagination."
"Would you like those shoes, Tom?"
"Are you offering, Mrs. Granger?"
They entered the shop and she asked to see the boots from the window. The shop clerk hovered around him, showing him the variety of leathers and finishes as an alternative to plain polished black, offering him the extra sets of laces they had in stock (Ten different colours! One for every season!) and trying to take his address down for their owl order catalogue.
Tom sat on the stool and let the clerk fuss about with the sizing charms.
"I've often regretted the day I brought Hermione to Wool's Orphanage," Mrs. Granger said in a guarded voice, looking him over with a clinical gaze. His face was washed, his hair was combed into place and parted down the side, and he was dressed neatly, so he assumed he was being assessed for more than just aesthetics. "But for all my misgivings, you are the only real friend she's ever had."
Tom's eyes narrowed. "I beg your pardon? Are these shoes meant as a parting gift? A 'Thank you, goodbye, and don't come back' gesture?"
"Don't be facetious, Tom. It doesn't suit you," Mrs. Granger snapped. "I don't dislike you as a person. Your academic standings are impeccable and you make for tolerable company when you aren't trying to be glib. No, what I dislike is my darling Hermione, the only child I'll ever have, spending every day of her Christmas holidays wishing she'd rather be somewhere else than at home with her family. Now she spends every day of her summer holidays waiting by the window for the owl. And what I dislike most of all is that it will only get worse from here."
"I think," said Tom in a low, cold voice that the clerk wouldn't overhear, "that if you're upset your daughter is a witch, you ought to do it in other places than in the middle of Diagon Alley."
"It doesn't matter to me if she's a witch or a lion tamer," she retorted. "She was a witch from the day she was born—but she was my daughter too. I can already tell that when she finishes school, she'll never want to look back. And the one friend she has will never care to show her that there are some things without magic worth having."
"Nothing in the Muggle world—" he spoke the words with distaste, using Muggle like some people used Yankee, "—has shown me it was ever worth a moment of my time. Hermione might have been worth it, but she's not a Muggle, is she? She never was, and never will be. If it bothers you that her plans for her own future don't involve you, perhaps she'd be better off leaving. I may not be an expert in family dynamics, but I do know estrangements happen all the time. In a few years from now, when you're in need of an excuse for your church ladies, just tell them Hermione went off and married a Catholic. They won't even question it."
Mrs. Granger looked away briefly, before steeling herself. "If you think it's as trivial as—"
"Madam?" said the clerk, interrupting them. "I have your purchase boxed up. Would you like the boar brush and shoe horn? It's seven sickles for both."
Mrs. Granger turned to Tom, eyebrow arched. "Tom?"
"Yes, please," Tom said politely, resuming his regular Good Boy performance.
"And the extra bootlaces, young sir? You can match it to your House colours!"
"No, thank you," said Tom.
"He's in Slytherin," said Mrs. Granger, ignoring Tom. "Can you make the box fit into his pocket?"
"Of course, Madam," the clerk assured her, selecting a set of dark green laces with silver aglets from a rack by the counter. He chattered as he worked, wrapping up the extra bits and bobs and fitting them inside the shoebox. "The ones in this colour are always in, and they go with every style of shoe. Can't say the same for the Hufflepuff ones—we can never move them like the rest. I told the boss we should've gone with the black laces and the gold trim, but he wanted it the other way 'round; he was a Badger in his day, and he said to me—"
The bell over the door rang. The clerk's head jerked up.
Lestrange—Tom couldn't remember if his given name was Edward or Edwin, not that it mattered, as they weren't on first name basis—stood in the doorway, not looking as well as he had when Tom had last seen him on the Express platform several weeks ago. His face was pale, his lips chapped, and his black hair lay limp over his brow where it had been dampened by sweat. Most interesting of all was that he walked with the aid of a cane.
"I'm to pick up a custom order," said Lestrange, scowling viciously at the clerk behind the counter. "Name's Lestrange, Edmond."
"Of course, Mr. Lestrange, it's just in the back," stammered the clerk. "I'll just be a moment," he whispered in Tom's direction.
"Riddle? What are you doing here?" asked Lestrange, his fingers curling around the handle of his walking stick like a claw. His beady eyes had lit onto Tom, who was putting his Muggle shoes back on after trying the shop's wares for size.
"Shopping for a racing broom, what does it look like?" Tom replied. He stood and looked Lestrange up and down, forcing away the pleased smirk that had almost slipped onto his face. "Were you attacked by a hippogriff on the way over?"
"I wish," said Lestrange. He leaned in. "Don't tell this to anyone, I swear, Riddle. I had to get half my toenails removed and regrown, and now one of my feet is smaller than the other. It hurts more than anything, but at least I won't have the cane on the first day back."
"I won't," said Tom, who was already thinking about how to best make use of this information. "Did they figure out what happened?"
"Nah," Lestrange shook his head. "They couldn't tell. The Mediwitch told Father I'd dropped something heavy on my foot, but I'd have remembered it if I did. I told him the witch was lying, and Father wouldn't listen to me, would you believe it?"
"Well, I believe you, even if no one else will," said Tom. "If the Hospital Wing cuts you off for pain potions, I know a good recipe or two. I was top in Potions last year, so you'd need only get me the ingredients. It'll be our little secret, eh?"
Inwardly, Tom was amazed at how easily people were fooled into thinking he was harmless. For Lestrange, it only took a tutoring session or two, a few tips with homework assignments, and faking sympathy for his asinine medical conditions. It was also amazing how Lestrange's personality had undergone a total reversal. In a situation where he was separated from his Slytherin cronies and cousins, on bad terms with his father, and suffering from constant low-level pain, Lestrange was almost amicable.
Of course, it had only taken Tom a whole year and the gradual destruction of the boy's self-esteem.
The clerk brought Lestrange's order then, shrunk to a quarter of its original size. Lestrange pocketed it and bid a curt farewell to Tom. Before he turned to leave, his eyes lingered on Mrs. Granger, who was paying for Tom's purchases.
"A word of advice, Riddle? You should've said you were a half-blood from the start," he said, leering at Mrs. Granger's backside. "You wouldn't have got half as much ballyhoo if they'd known about that."
Mrs. Granger wore a dove grey calf-length coat of wizarding make—she must have been familiar with the Diagon shops if she knew about the parcel-shrinking service—over a long skirt and heeled shoes, which would have passed as a smart ensemble, if overly formal for daywear, in the Muggle world. In the wizarding world, she looked like a respectable witch with a taste for modern fashion. Tom had noticed from wandering around Diagon Alley that the modern working witch preferred the practical, closer-cut sleeves of a long coat over the more traditional floor-length witch's robe. And good materials and tailoring spoke for themselves.
"My surname is still 'Riddle'," said Tom, wondering if Lestrange remembered that Tom was an orphan. It wasn't as if he'd shouted it from the Astronomy Tower, but he knew in the first two days of Hogwarts, he had answered a few questions about his parentage, telling them that both his parents were dead. "That's the only thing that matters."
"I s'pose. But some people make exceptions for the right circumstances, if you know what I mean," Lestrange said, with a wink. Weren't Slytherins supposed to be subtle? Mentally, Tom retracted his statement about Lestrange qualifying as amicable. He was still an intolerable boor. "Right, see you in September."
After finishing with the shoe shop, Tom and Mrs. Granger met Hermione outside the uniform shop where Hermione had been fitted for a new set of school robes for the upcoming year.
They went to a fancy Muggle hotel on Hyde Park for lunch, one with a doorman in gloves and tailcoat, which reminded Tom of the night at the opera almost two years ago. Their table had a crisp white tablecloth and floral centrepiece, and was shown them by the maître d'. Tom had dined at a table with a tablecloth fewer than five times in his life (Hogwarts' Great Hall, for all its decadent feasts, was a communal refectory, not a restaurant), and he had never seen a maître d'hôtel.
He didn't mention anything about their earlier conversation as the courses were served. When Tom caught Mrs. Granger's assessing gaze on him a few times, he pointedly did not comment on it. Instead, he spent the meal concurring with Hermione about how much they were looking forward to school, and debating if it was worth it to hire a room out at the Leaky Cauldron for the day just to practice magic from their Second Year schoolbooks.
Summer drew to a close, and everything seemed to be going well for Tom.
He had his new school books. He hadn't had to buy a wand, the single most expensive item on the supply list last year, so there was enough surplus to this year's Hogwarts Fund for him to replace his old uniform shirts and trousers, with a galleon or two left over to spend on second-hand books. The soggy fish and peas of orphanage meals were supplemented by daily food parcels from the Grangers. He'd grown two inches from when he'd last measured himself in December, and despite his lean, rangy appearance common with the other boys at Wool's, it was clear from a glance that he was much better fed and clothed than they were.
The Hogwarts Express was much better this time around, now that he and Hermione weren't quarrelling. After they'd locked the doors of their train compartment, they practised their First Year spells, and Tom was pleased to see that he remembered how to do everything from the previous year. It wasn't hard, as he'd snuck in as much magic practice as he could, loitering around Diagon all summer. Which Hermione hadn't done—when she'd tried to cast a Levitation Charm behind the stack of cauldrons by Wiseacre's, she was so nervous of being caught and warned that the book she'd been using floated half a foot before dropping to the ground.
Yes, thought Tom to himself, when he'd settled back into the Slytherin dorms, in the same bed closest to the watery green window he'd slept in last year. I'm back at Hogwarts once more, and it's just as magical as I remembered.
The other Slytherin boys left him alone while they unpacked, no one commenting on the state or quality of Tom's belongings. The background conversation soon turned to the events of the summer, and what everyone had got up to during the holiday.
Lestrange sent him a few meaningful looks, which Tom returned. Neither of them drew any attention to Lestrange's new shoes, of which the left was slightly smaller than the right.
"I heard Hatty Hastings was thrashed by his father the day he got back. Didn't show his face at a single gala the whole summer. What'd be the point anyway? I mean, now that everyone knows he'd rather marry a hat than the witch wearing it," said Avery rather callously, sorting out his socks from his pyjamas.
Rosier chimed in with, "Pater said they brought up Madam Hastings' Howler during the quarterly Wizengamot assembly. The woman has got some lungs to her, I can tell you. Not very surprising, though—didn't Hatty's great-aunt captain the Harpies back in ninety-eight? They were still second-rate to the Falcons back then, when they had Renwick as their Keeper..."
At that point, Tom closed and silenced his canopy curtains.
Tom spent the weekend reacquainting himself with the Hogwarts library. He got used to the feeling of carrying his wand in his pocket. His one-of-a-kind wizard's wand, not just a pointy, polished stick as it appeared to Muggle eyes. He liked knowing that he could draw it whenever he wanted, that it was ready at an instant to be used as a weapon and not just a threat. He sank into the ambience of living in the magical world, of talking portraits and clanking armour and the wistful melodies of Merfolk singing in the lake outside his window.
The warm glow of nostalgia converging onto reality lasted until Monday morning, whereupon Hermione cornered him after breakfast, waving a letter and the front page of a Muggle newspaper into his face.
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BRITAIN DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY!