Unrelated to this story, but happy 100th birthday to President James Earl Carter, the worthiest man to take the oath of the Oval Office. May his days remain ever blessed.


THE SAMHAIN OF SLYTHERIN

October 31, 1005 years after the Founding of Hogwarts

Hogwarts Grounds

"Aren't you cold?" Alphard wondered as the two 11 year olds walked the castle grounds in the wee hours.

Harry, wearing nothing over his red, gold-embroidered tunic, gold belt, and navy blue pants, shook his head. "My mother's enchantments remain strong."

Alphard gave a questioning glance toward Harry's bare feet.

"You know I don't like footwear," Harry chuckled.

"I don't want you to get frostbite when you fly," Alphard worried.

"I've been in colder temperatures," Harry assured, but his cousin did not seem convinced.

"Here," Alphard said as he took off his own fur boots and offered them to Harry.

"Al, this really isn't necessary—" Harry waved off.

"Please?" Alphard implored with wide eyes that glimmered softly despite their thunder color.

"If you insist," Harry mock-sighed before taking the boots and donning them. To ensure his cousin wasn't worse for wear, Harry blessed Alphard's feet with warmth and charmed them with temporary imperviousness to rough terrain.

"Thanks," Alphard said with a faint blush.

Harry pinched Alphard's cheek, at which the Black's porcelain skin flushed fully.

"Hey!" Alphard exclaimed as he swatted Harry's hand away. "I am your elder."

"By four months," Harry snarked.

Alphard sniffed in a manner that made his features seem somehow even more princely.

"But thanks for these," Harry appreciated Alphard's boots. "They'll return in perfect condition, so long as you don't lose my cloak."

"It'll be waiting in your room when you get back," Alphard promised.

"What makes you think you can get in my room?" Harry questioned.

Alphard smirked.

Hearing a raspy neigh, Harry looked up to see his pale, winged equine friend fly into view and begin flying in a wide circle above his head.

"He's here, isn't he?" Alphard asked. "Aidoneus?"

"Don't feel bad that you can't see him," Harry consoled as Alphard tried but failed to sight the thestral. "Only one sensitive to death can see thestrals. Usually, it takes a unique fear of death, a close brush with it, or the death of a loved one."

"Is that when you first saw thestrals?" Alphard carefully inquired.

"I could always see them," Harry answered. "I learned to ride them too at a young age, but my bond with Aidon came after I reckoned with my mother's passing and my own mortality."

"When you say bond, do you mean that you control him?" Alphard asked.

"No more than I control the wind," Harry said. "We have a gentlewizard's agreement, him and me. He offered to give me rides here and there, with a strong preference for being told in advance. And I—well, I'll tell you some other day…"

Despite his burning curiosity, Alphard withheld his most immediate question. "Do you think I can ride him someday?" he asked instead.

"Tell you what. If you can ride him by the end of our fifth year, I'll bring you with me to that summer's Youth Olympics," Harry promised. "We'll be the British delegation, you and me."

"You're serious?" Alphard gasped.

"Aidon will outfly any mount in the riding race," Harry boasted. "Only question is if you could hold on."

"You can count on me!" Alphard declared.

"Your first task is to actually see a thestral," Harry cautioned.

"Aye aye," Alphard committed.

Harry clasped his cousin's shoulder to bid a temporary farewell, only for Alphard to hug him, engulfing Harry in a warm, magic-saturated, vanilla-honey-musk-scented embrace. No words were exchanged, but none needed to be.

With a final nod, Harry clutched his wand and ascended into the air. Thirty feet later, Aidon swooped under Harry and began the roughly seven-and-a-half-hour flight from the Scottish Highlands to eastern England.


October 31, 1008 years after the Founding of Hogwarts

Godric's Hollow, Suffolk, East of England

Harry disembarked from Aidon and descended through the early Tuesday morning air to the roof of his mother's home. Shrouded in his ancestral cloak, Harry remained unknown to stragglers yet to travel south for the war commemoration and those eschewing the event.

Sensing no one in the vicinity, in large part because pilgrims had been directed to visit in the preceding three days, Harry floated down from the sloped roof to the stone-walled plot surrounding the sandstone cottage. The vibrant garden remained one of the most beautiful in the British Isles, a testament to the love the residents of Godric's Hollow still held for Lily Evans 10 years after her demise.

Walking along the curved path to the garden center, Harry stood before the 10-foot, white marble monument that memorialized the most famous witch of recent times.

In Loving Memory

Of

LILY EVANS

BORN

30th January 1939

DIED

31st October 1962

THE LAST ENEMY THAT SHALL BE DESTROYED IS DEATH

Harry disliked that his mother's birth and death dates were etched in muggle years rather than years since Hogwarts' founding. However, Professor Albus pointed out a number of foreign observers were not familiar with the British magic calendar. Furthermore, Godric's Hollow hosted a fair amount of magic-muggle couples who cared little for tradition.

In standard procedure, Harry used his right forefinger to incise his left palm. Splaying the bleeding appendage toward the base of the monument, Harry pushed vital fluid out until it formed a small puddle in the grass beneath him. The boy wizard then focused on his memories from his first year of life, memories of warmth and love, and funneled them into a sunny display of magic that converted sacrificial blood into lily blooms.

Giving his creations some final drops of crimson nourishment, Harry sealed the wound in his left palm before moving onto a new and much more difficult task. Though the Godric's Hollow community vigilantly watched the Evans memorial, a rare vandal did make it past the monitoring enchantments and wards. Professor Albus reversed all damage at first opportunity, if the village folk did not do so first. However, Harry knew deterrence came only through consequence; and with a Ministry prone to pamper sons and daughters of gold who "acted out" in "adolescent rebellion," Harry had to mete out justice himself.

However, he could only avenge crimes he knew about. Hence why with blood from the bone-deep gash he cut into his right hand, he painted a three-stroke Sōwilō rune across the monument, front and back, and layered his work until he expended a third of his vital fluid.

Breathing deeply, Harry chanted in old Germanic until the lightning-patterned rune blazed with crimson-golden light. Harry then poured his power into the monument until the marble shone from within. His work complete, Harry allowed the monument to return to its normal appearance within the blink of an eye — seemingly devoid of even a speck of blood.

"The moment anyone attacks you, I will know. And when I deliver their dues, they'll beg me to show half the mercy I did to Aeacus Carrow," Harry promised the monument.

Harry would never forget the laughter after Carrow put a bounty on the Evans memorial just before the past Samhain. The hired vandals received a 10 year Azkaban sentence once tracked down. But Carrow? No punishment, though he was of age. Dippet even allowed him to remain a prefect for his "otherwise exemplary record" after he gave a "public apology."

But in the end, as always, victory and vengeance went to Harry and Tom.

At that thought, Harry glanced at the ring on left little finger, procured when he and his cousin rescued Marvolo Gaunt's remains from Azkaban's crypt. The ring that, along with authenticating Tom's ancestry, bore the "Resurrection Stone" of Cadmus Peverell.

Harry touched his finger to the diamond-shaped stone and connected with its eerie power. He traced the white sigil embedded within the obsidian jewel, a bisected triangle bearing an inscribed circle. This symbol of cloak, wand and ring glowed in recognition of the Peverell scion; and thus, the moment the boy wizard dreamed of for a decade was at hand.

Harry touched the gold, Peverell-symbol pendant of the silver-chain necklace he so rarely wore. After deliberation, he activated the link to its creator. For though Gellert Grindelwald slew Harry's mother, the dark lord had raised Harry with the necessary information to locate the Cadmus stone and command its powers.

Faintly, Harry felt his old teacher's mind, locked away though he was in the most secure cell of Nurmengard. Giving a physical and mental nod of acknowledgement, Harry turned to the front door of his earliest home. The door Grindelwald himself burst through 13 years prior to steal a 15-month-old Harry Ignotus Evans from his crib.

The boy wizard proceeded through the shrubbery framing the entrance and pressed his hand against the lily-white door. Sunny magic shone in the pattern of a four-stroke Sōwilō as Lily Evans' old wards, preserved by her ashes, recognized and admitted Harry.

Maintained with a powerful preservation charm, the interior remained unchanged from when the homeowner last left. Harry carefully hovered about the first floor as he replayed his most precious memories from his time with his mother.

"Harry, Harry, you are so loved. So loved. Harry, mama loves you. Harry, be safe. Be strong."

When finished with his preliminary rounds, Harry levitated to the second floor, particularly to the room that had remained unchanged for 13 years.

Harry touched the door to his old nursery, the door his mother slammed in a dark lord's face and warded against him on a moment's notice. But the raw power of a surprised witch two years out of Hogwarts could last only so long against the world's deadliest wizard.

"Perfectly restored," Harry appreciated the door as he opened it.

He took in his old room — the golden wall coloring and furniture, interspersed with blue and red decorations and white bed sheets. Harry admired the toys his mother carved and crafted, each of which bore traces of her magic to this day. The boy wizard then turned a solemn gaze to the ceiling, still cracked from when Grindelwald pinned her against it as he seized the toddler Harry from his crib.

Every year, Harry was tempted to wave away the damage. But every year, he held himself back. If his mother kept it there, doubtlessly for motivation as she trained for her rematch with Grindelwald, then Harry would honor her wishes.

Summoning a deep breath, Harry gripped his cloak with his right hand and focused on the necromantic energies passed through generations of foremothers and forefathers. He then reached to his belt with his left and clutched a dozen-inch wand of willow. Connecting his power to it for the first time in years, a gentle breeze swept through the room as the air filled with a warm-golden glow.

His magic anchored to his forefather's cloak and his mother's wand, Harry activated the Cadmus stone with a chant created by Grindelwald.

"Herde me, deþ, as I humble thee. Retourn my loved one now to me," Harry chanted thrice, once in Middle English, the second time in Latin, the last in ancient Hellenic.

The Peverell sigil on the ring luminesced while the stone became blacker. Necromantic energies saturated the room as Harry bent nature to reconstruct a shade of his mother. And though it took a great exertion of power, the youngest son of Peverell would not be denied.

Slowly but surely, Harry felt magic coalesce into the form and character of his mother's spirit. An ethereal doe seemingly born from pure sunshine raced around Harry as it took form, upon which it metamorphosed into an apparition of Lily Evans.

"Mother," Harry gasped.

"Sweetheart," his mother greeted before opening her arms for an embrace.

Though they could not physically touch, the meeting of their magic sufficed for Harry.

"You're here. You're here," Harry choked out.

"I never left," his mother replied with a smile.

"I-I'm sorry," Harry apologized tearfully. "If I'd gone with you the moment you came for me, if I hadn't insisted on staying…"

"You did what you thought was right, for all those you cared for," his mother forgave.

"He killed you," Harry sobbed. "He said he'd spare you, and he killed you."

A pulse of guilt flared from his necklace, but Harry was uninterested in what the dark lord had to say. Knowing and respecting this, Grindelwald kept any comments to himself.

"I fought for what I believed in, and so did he," the apparition stated.

"I try to honor you," Harry said. "Every day, I fight to live up to your name."

"You've been so brave, sweetheart," his mother commended. However, there lay a quiet grief in her ocean-blue eyes.

"W-what's wrong?" Harry asked.

"The one with the power to vanquish the dark lord approaches," his mother relayed. "And the dark lord shall mark him as his equal, but he shall have power the dark lord knows not."

"What?" Harry wondered.

"Your road will not be easy, my son," the apparition cautioned.

"We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy," Harry recited one of Professor Albus' proverbs.

The fiery-haired specter gave a sad smile.

"I can't talk for much longer," she warned. "Even now, it takes a toll on you."

Harry glanced at his hands to see them pale and trembling. He mentally kicked himself for forgetting to address his substantial blood depletion before conjuring his mother. Especially when Professor Albus speculated Cadmus Peverell died to the power cost of his own stone.

"C-can you stay with me?" Harry stammered.

An ethereal finger traced over his heart.

"I'm here," the apparition promised.

Harry swallowed. "Stay close to me," he entreated.

"Always," his mother promised.

After giving Harry a parting hug, the apparition of Lily Evans backed away before giving herself back to magic in as magnificent a display as when she met her corporeal end.

Alone once more, Harry touched his heart.

"For what it is worth, I am sorry for the pain and trouble I have caused you," Grindelwald's voice sounded before he retreated from their connection.

Harry was given no chance to respond, but perhaps it was best that way. He wasn't ready to speak to his old teacher, but he was glad to have shared a personal moment with him on this day. For it meant today, he would have three of his most significant interactions with the three people who had the most significant impact on his life.

Looking out the window, Harry reckoned he still had enough time to visit the graveyard at St. Clementine Church to pay his respects to Ignotus Peverell. But when the clock struck nine, he would need to start the return flight to ensure he made it back to Tom by sundown.

For though this was the tenth anniversary of the day he lost his family, he also gained family on this very day three years ago.


October 31, 1005 years after the Founding of Hogwarts

Slytherin First-Year Residential Unit: Room 13

Harry returned to his room, the last along the left wall of Slytherin's first-year residential hall, while the rest of Hogwarts feasted in the great hall.

He didn't resent the others for stuffing their faces — the elves put out some of their best food on Samhains. But the night was never about merry gatherings for Harry Evans. It was a solemn occasion in Nurmengard, and even more solemn after Nurmengard.

Levitating his mother's wand to the top of the wooden canopy over his bed, Harry sat down on the mattress after a combined 15 hours of horseback riding without a saddle. Taking off the fur boots he borrowed from Alphard, he lay himself down on his soft sheets.

Apparently, Alphard figured he'd do this soon after entering the room, for a note awaited him on the underside of his bed tester.

Welcome back Harry,

I hope you found solace in your visit to Godric's Hollow.

Thank you for allowing me to borrow the cloak: I might have used it to prank Lestrange and Avery a time or two. I returned it to its usual place, and left along with it something you have long desired.

But first, rest well. Our inaugural match is tomorrow, and I bet half my allowance that you will not be beaten to the snitch this season.

Your favorite cousin,

Al

P.S. You should upgrade your wards. They are growing a touch too easy to penetrate.

Harry chuckled. Al knew well that the wards were enchanted to let him through, just after a little tussle. Anyone else save Horace and Professor Albus would be stonewalled.

Sinking his head into his pillow, Harry spread his magic to the top of the wooden tester over him to exchange his mother's wand for his cloak. But strangely, he felt no cloak!

"Hmmm?" Harry wondered as he cast his awareness over his room, which also bore no fruit.

Curious, the boy wizard slid off his bed and began searching the room with his physical senses. As he kept his room in strict order with sparse furnishment, Harry grew perplexed when he could not find his cloak.

Wondering if Alphard unintentionally left it in his own room, Harry moved toward the door—only for it to open of its own volition?

"Riddle?" Harry greeted the boy standing at the entrance.

"Hullo, Evans," Tom Riddle returned with a pleasant smile. "Did you enjoy your trip?"

"I did, thank you," Harry answered, crediting Riddle's deduction to the boy's brilliance. "Did you enjoy the feast?"

Bitterness flashed through Riddle's stormy eyes before he answered, "I chose not to partake."

Harry felt bad for the boy. Riddle had both a genius intellect and a prodigious connection to magic. However, he hailed from muggle London and possessed no known wizard ancestry, making him the odd one out among the 17 students of Slytherin's 999th cohort. Harry believed Riddle to be a witchborn half-blood, but only Professor Albus concurred — leaving Riddle the lone "muggleborn" in the Hogwarts house devoted to magic-blood purism.

"Have you tried sitting with Hector?" Harry recommended his studious Ravenclaw friend.

"And forfeit my house?" Riddle questioned bluntly.

Harry hadn't mustered the heart to tell the boy that no number of hard-won house points would win over the blood purists who saturated their age group. Only force muzzled those curs, such as when Harry choked Lestrange before his friends with neither word nor gesture. But Riddle couldn't afford to do that, quite literally. One offended parent of the baron class, and a muggle-sired no-name would be tossed back to the streets from whence he came.

"Why are you here?" Riddle inquired as he walked into the room.

"I was out for the day, and I just returned," Harry answered.

"No, I mean why are you in this house," Riddle posed.

"Pardon?" Harry asked, surprised to hear such a question from the new boy.

"You misunderstand," Riddle assured as he closed the door. "I am not accusing you of being unworthy of this house. Rather, I think you see the others as unworthy of you."

"Hmmm?" Harry prompted.

"You don't call any Slytherin besides Alphard Black by first name," Riddle charged.

"I treat others as they treat me," Harry shrugged.

"Perhaps," Riddle acknowledged, "or perhaps you despise what has become of our housemates' families. How far their once respectable lineages have sunk."

"Why would I care?" Harry raised. "I'm of new blood."

"Is that so?" Riddle challenged as he withdrew from his robes a very particular silver-chain necklace. A pendant necklace Harry had shown none of his peers, not even Alphard.

"You've been through my things," Harry intoned.

"This is the Gaunt seal," Riddle said of the gold pendant. "Or, alternatively, the emblem of Gellert Grindelwald. Which do you prefer?"

"I don't know how things are run where you come from, but thievery is not tolerated here," Harry rebuked.

Riddle snarled and began pacing.

"So it's 'hievery when I do it, bu' 'spoils ov war' when you an' your precious Dumbledore do it?" Riddle ranted, a rough muggle accent emerging as he did so.

"Excuse me?" Harry warned as his patience rapidly drained.

"I hear 'alf the gold in your vaul' comes from your mo'her's enemies," Riddle accused.

"Half of our cohort lives in an alternate reality," Harry scoffed. "Shall you join them?"

"There it is, that arrogance," Riddle snarled. "Tell me, do you think yourself the best wizard in our house?"

"It's not arrogance if it's true," Harry justified.

"Oh?" Riddle cackled. "I'll enjoy bringing you to heel."

Harry raised a contemptuous eyebrow.

"I will say," Riddle whispered maliciously. "It's a rather fine cloak you had."

"What!" Harry thundered, the room jostling as he did so.

"Oh, I didn't destroy it, don't you worry," Riddle yammered. "In fact, I might even let you borrow it when I'm in a generous mood."

"Riddle, listen to me and listen carefully," Harry reprimanded the small boy. "I am the closest thing you have to a friend in this house, and I might just be the closest thing you have to a friend in this school. I don't know what's gotten into you, but if you return my necklace and my cloak, then stay out of my sight for the rest of the night, I'll forget this happened. If not…"

"If not?" Riddle tested.

With but a gesture, Harry wrenched his necklace out of Riddle's grasp.

"I'll take my cloak back and forget that you exist," Harry warned. "Good luck then in this house without my protection."

"Your 'protection'?" Riddle spat.

"You think it's a coincidence Lestrange and Avery are no longer making a hex sponge of you?" Harry lectured the little ingrate. "Did you think they had a 'change of heart'?"

"I see. If you and your pet Black don't know of something, then it must not be," Riddle sneered.

"Just because your name is Riddle doesn't mean you have to speak in riddles," Harry sighed.

"So says the potty mouth," Riddle ridiculed.

Harry whipped out his wand and slung a stinging hex at Riddle's presumptuous mouth. However, the ornery boy drew his own wand and wordlessly deflected the attack.

"Good," Harry complimented.

"I can do much more 'han that," Riddle claimed as he twirled his red-golden weapon in his left hand.

"You want to have a go?" Harry asked, half incredulous and half intrigued.

"Why not?" Riddle committed as he slashed his wand at Harry's face.

Harry easily conjured an energy barrier to deflect the attack, but he found himself unprepared for the kinetic rebound that slammed into his jaw.

"First blood to me," Riddle gloated.

Harry licked the inside of his lips to find the unmistakable tang of iron.

"You hurt me," Harry whispered with wonder. "You actually hurt me."

An emboldened Riddle whipped his wand about to cast another raw spell. But now he was the one unprepared for his opponent's cast, a simple wand flick that left him weaponless.

"You have great power, but you have an even greater deal to learn," Harry declared as he caught Riddle's wand and holstered it.

"I was a sorcerer long before I touched a wand," Riddle snarled before raising his arms and hurling most loose objects in the room at Harry.

Harry lifted his left hand and froze the barrage of pillows, bedsheets, footwear, school equipment, and desk chair midair.

"Impressive. Very impressive," Harry praised. "But there is nothing you can do that I can't. Yield."

"Yield to me!" Riddle shouted verbally and psychically in his most powerful assault yet.

"The Imperius," Harry murmured to himself as he repudiated Riddle's curse.

"Hurt!" Riddle cried out.

Harry shuddered and groaned as a bolt of pain flashed through his entire body.

"D–did you just try to Crucio me?" he gasped out after barely keeping his knees from buckling.

As Riddle did not seem anywhere close to surrendering, Harry levitated the boy by the ankles and dangled him upside down. Hopefully, a blood rush to Riddle's head would calm matters.

It didn't.

A growl-hiss similar to that of a king cobra escaped Riddle's lips, and Harry's bed curtains flew from their tester to smother and strangle their charge. Harry's bed sheets then leapt from the floor to bind Harry and wrestle him to the ground.

To add to Harry's troubles, the door to his room sprang from its hinges to clobber him with such force he might have died were he a lesser wizard. Even so, Harry was stunned. His own decor, turned on him? Come alive, as if to fight for a long lost prince? Could it be…

"Now, he sees," narrated an upright Riddle after apparently reading Harry's thoughts. "Will the prodigal son atone for ignoring his lord, the one true heir of Salazar Slytherin?"

Harry was impressed by Riddle's power, but not by his black lineage. And certainly not by a baby-faced boy's delusions of grandeur.

"Incendite," Harry commanded all that attacked him.

Golden-white flames incinerated the Slytherin decor without leaving a smudge on Harry's prized clothes. Levitating slightly, the boy wizard radiated his full aura and turned heated air into a miniature whirlwind as he advanced on Riddle. But Riddle stared unflinchingly, weaponizing his affinity for the Imperius and Cruciatus into a malefic glare.

"Enough," Harry ordered in a German-accented double voice both thunderous and eerie. Yet Riddle persisted, intensifying his power output even as his body grew pale and faint.

Harry realized he faced a crossroads. Neither he nor Riddle would forget this evening, along with the actions and inactions that led to it. Whatever Harry chose to do next would define their relationship for the rest of their time at Hogwarts, and perhaps for the rest of their lives. For it was clear great deeds could be expected from Tom Riddle—terrible perhaps, but great.

Harry considered using this moment, when his command over his power was so much greater than Riddle's, to give the boy a lesson he would never forget. So that wherever Riddle went, whatever he did, there would at least be one wizard he always feared.

Riddle, clearly sensing Harry's thoughts, looked resigned but resolute in the face of the smiting to come. Yet as Harry looked down into his opponent's eyes, he saw the Slytherin scion for the boy he truly was. A boy bereft of parents and left with no one to take him in. A boy who grew up alone in a world that despised him for who he was. A boy who lived without love.

Harry took in a deep breath and drew his power back within himself. Returning Riddle's wand to its owner, Harry holstered his own wand and outstretched his right hand.

"Hello. I am Harry Ignotus Evans—Harry to my friends," Harry offered.

Stormy eyes looked up into oceanic eyes and searched for any hint of deceit.

"Nice to meet you. I am Tom Marvolo Riddle, but you may call me Tom," Tom decided.


October 31, 1008 years after the Founding of Hogwarts

Slytherin Dormitory

"Tom, I'm back!" Harry exclaimed upon returning to the Slytherin dormitory. Since Torr Burke and his father Caractacus ended up attending the Ministry celebration after all, allegedly after some half-promise of a Diagon Alley lease for the Burkes pawnshop, the Peverell-Slytherin cousins had the Slytherin dormitory to themselves.

Despite Tom doubtlessly having heard the greeting, the elder boy forced Harry to trek all the way to his quarters to engage in conversation. This at least allowed Harry to exchange his childhood garb for a school attire in honor of his cousin's most distinguished ancestor.

"Your ring worked," Harry relayed excitedly as he walked from his room to Tom's door. "I saw my mother again and talked with her. Actually talked with her! I—Orion?"

Apparently, Tom had not spent the last 16 hours alone.

"Hello Ignotus," Tom welcomed from his cross-legged hover at the head of his bed. "As you can see, our youngest friend chose not to board the midnight train. I hope you do not mind his company."

"Of course not," Harry answered. Did you really have to conceal his aura from me? he complained telepathically, disgruntled that Orion would now know about the Ignotus cloak.

"Are you wearing an invisibility ring?" Orion asked from the desk chair, his brown curls bouncing ever so slightly.

"Cloak actually, and the most legendary of them all," Harry introduced as he removed his heirloom. "The one woven by Ignotus Peverell for himself and his descendents."

Orion leaned and squinted in futile attempts to see the cloak, causing his face to fall slightly when he failed.

Emitting a faint sigh, Harry allowed it to become visible to the young Black, who saw a translucent silhouette of a tapestry of Peverell sigils and glittering stars. Even though he did not see the cloak's lustrous silver color, Orion was enthralled.

"Yes, you can try it on," Harry gave in to the silent desire in Orion's eyes.

"Not that the cloak will do you much good in present company," Tom informed.

"You can see through it too?" Orion asked as he draped the Ignotus cloak over his own school attire.

"Peverell magic remained a dominant trait in our bloodlines," Tom answered as he lifted his left little finger to reclaim his ring. "Rather fortunate for our friend Ignotus, or his cloak's powers would have faded centuries ago."

"What does the ring do?" Orion wondered.

"It reconstructs shades of the dead based on your memory, imprints left on their relics, and the impression they left on magic itself," Harry answered.

"Easiest done with powerful witches who played a profound role in your life," Tom followed with a bitterness indetectable to Orion, but undisguised to Harry.

"For example, I doubt I could reconstruct Charlus Potter once he passes, despite his formidable power," Harry added.

Orion still seemed bewildered by the contempt Harry held for the birth father who now wanted to legitimize him. However, unlike many in Hogwarts, Orion accepted Harry's decision — and that was what counted.

"Would your cloak work for me against the others?" Orion asked.

"So long as I allow it," Harry answered.

"Be warned: Ignotus is rather possessive over his cloak," Tom remarked.

"No more than your grandfather over that ring," Harry returned.

"How did you retrieve the ring, if I may ask?" Orion ventured. "It was buried in the Azkaban crypt, was it not?"

"I reclaimed it while Ignotus repelled a swarm of dementors," Tom answered.

Pale-blue eyes widened with wonder.

"What can I say? I didn't learn the Patronus just so I could beat my mother's record of being the youngest to master it," Harry shrugged.

"But surely the warden could have—should have—given you any and all assistance?" Orion asked.

Tom shook his head at the young Black's naivety.

"The one thing clear from Marvolo Gaunt's broken bones was that a number of his former peers visited him not to pay respects, but in attempts to claim his ring," Tom answered.

Orion dipped his head momentarily as he realized his father was almost certainly one of those wizards. Marvolo's end also served as a solemn reminder of how the other "noble houses" would circle like vultures if House Black found itself on the brink of ruin.

"Take heart, my friend," Tom consoled Orion. "The infirmities within magic society will be purged with the mudbloods who wrought them upon us."

Orion perked up again as he received a scapegoat for his mounting grievances. As always, Tom's demagoguery was both frightening and fascinating to behold.

"I gave Walburga a letter to read to her father," Orion informed Harry. "I have censured him for willful ignorance of your and Heir Slytherin's heritage, and I have warned Pollux that if he continues his course, I shall take his governor seat upon graduation."

Harry resisted looking at Tom, figuring the Heir of Slytherin must be encouraging Orion to work toward the position of chief governor while Tom rose through the faculty ranks to become headmaster.

"Your friend Dolohov sent you a firecall," Tom updated Harry. "He was heartened to hear you did not attend the Ministry celebration, and he claims he will bring 'like-minded' company to the Lestrange ball."

"Dolohov, as in son of the former Durmstrang headmaster?" Orion asked.

"The very one," Harry confirmed. "Andrei's the best duelist of our generation outside Hogwarts, and the first friend I told of my heritage after Tom."

"Ignotus cared not for our Hogwarts circle until Rosier the junior arrived," Tom elucidated.

"But what about Lestrange and Avery? You are so close to them," Orion wondered.

"I could barely stand them at first, and the feeling was mutual," Harry recounted.

"Actually, they consulted me several times on how to curry your favor," Tom revealed.

Harry looked at his cousin in surprise.

I did not think it relevant before, but perhaps it will come up in a conversation with the Lestranges, Tom explained. The ones you insisted on leading.

Oh, I still insist, Harry reaffirmed.

Tom was one of the most gifted orators alive, one who convinced the sons and daughters of the wizard world's wealthiest to put more faith in him than their own vaunted surnames. But the elder Lestranges would care less for prospects of adventure and more for alliances that would endure through the darkest times. Hence why Harry, who would go to Azkaban and back for Randolph, planned to take point in conversations with the elder Lestranges.

Such faith, Tom derided.

You know I look out for you, always, Harry returned.

"The sun now sets," Tom announced as the clock struck 4:33 p.m. "We thus welcome the new year, for our Celtic ancestors recognized that darkness precedes light. The brightest civilizations rise from the darkest wars, and so do we sow our greatest works in the year's dark half. Indeed, this night marks the 1009th anniversary of the Founding of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A millennium and nine years agone, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Godric Gryffindor consecrated Hogwarts Castle for the purpose of instructing the witches of these great isles. From then on, the greatest sorcerers of our world have walked through these halls and learned within these walls."

Tom smoothly levitated from his bed to a standing posture, taking care that his feet never touched the ground.

"This institution became the cornerstone of British civilization and the absolute measure of excellence," Tom declared as he moved toward the door, ceremonial emerald robes billowing as he hovered. "Even today, the magic of our forebears flows as strongly as the days they graced this castle with their presences."

Hissing to open his door, Tom led Harry and Orion out of the fourth-year residential hall and out of the Slytherin dormitory. Orion's continued use of Harry's cloak allowed the Peverell-Slytherin cousins to only cast concealment illusions about their own persons.

We three possess deeper ties to this castle than any of the other students, Tom continued the conversation telepathically. You wear the ring your ancestor Baylor Black had forged in honor of his sorting, do you not Master Black?

Orion, drawing on his preliminary instruction in the mind arts from his father, confirmed Tom's statement with a mental nod.

A great honor, it must be, to boast senior descent from the most revered of Hogwarts' ghosts, Tom commended Orion, who stroked his heirloom with pride.

And did our own ancestor, Robertus Peverell, not rank among the professors who introduced Latin to Hogwarts? Tom directed at Harry.

He did, Harry concurred.

Tom did not need to speak of Salazar Slytherin, whose mark expressed himself on the very heraldry sewn into Harry and Orion's robes.

Through the generations, our families in particular have preserved the sanctity of Hogwarts, Tom continued when they reached the base of the grand staircase. The last wizard to dwell at the top of this tower was your great-grandfather, yes Master Black?

Orion nodded fervently. Di–disrespect, he broadcast.

Indeed they disrespect him, even though he kept this castle standing through the goblin incursion, Tom empathized with Orion's anger. Half-wits and half-squibs cast mud upon the honorable Headmaster Black, all because he canceled a season of Quidditch in wartime.

Ever the storyteller, Tom narrated true facts and events in the context of his message rather than an objective historical account. If so inclined, Harry could mention that the reason the goblins made it into Hogwarts territory was because Phineas Black did not take them seriously, and that the Quidditch cancellation had nothing to do with goblins and everything to do with one of Black's favorite purebloods getting injured on the pitch.

However, as Tom once pointed out, he was but a student who had not even taken his Ordinary Wizarding Level exams. How could he be faulted if gullible minds took his word as a literal chronicle? Thus, Harry did not fact-check the incoming rant about "mudbloods."

Indeed, mud is what it all comes down to, is it not? Tom posed after they ascended two stories and proceeded down a corridor. Helga Hufflepuff, great witch though she was, bowed to her bleeding heart and insisted that Hogwarts open its doors to all born with an inkling of a connection to magic. Rowena Ravenclaw, ever thirsting for an experimental study, indulged her. And though Godric Gryffindor held at first to what he knew true, even he succumbed to the ridiculous notion that mudbloods are somehow as capable as purebloods.

My ancestor alone spoke the truth, even as his colleagues forced him out in favor of inept creatures masquerading as witches and wizards, Tom vented as they approached the witches' lavatory. Behold, the price of their folly.

Tom opened the door to reveal the moaning of Myrtle Warren, much to the surprise of Harry and the disgust of Orion.

"Mudblood!" Orion shouted, inciting an ear-piercing round of wails that sent tremors through the room.

It wanted to defile our friend Ignotus, and it has been mewling since I told her my cousin shall ever remain out of its lewd reach, Tom provided.

Harry shuddered at the thought of Moaning Myrtle's thoughts, which reportedly included 'sharing a toilet' with him. A clutch on his robe sleeve brought him back to the present, where Orion gave him a fiercely protective look of almost brotherly sentiment.

The spread of muggle blood through pure society has been as ruinous as a plague of locusts, Tom claimed. But Salazar Slytherin left a final gift for those faithful to magic. A cure by which we can cleanse the abominations that corrupt this hallowed institution.

Orion bounced.

The mudbloods tried to bury Slytherin's treasure in a heap of their excrement, but by the wit of our own ancestors—Corvinus Gaunt and Hydrus Black—the Chamber of Secrets was preserved, Tom introduced their destination to a euphoric Orion.

Myrtle chose that moment to emerge from her stall, only to get handwaved into a wall.

It suffered no lasting injury, Tom assured Harry when Myrtle crumpled to the floor slack and silent. The Heir of Slytherin then stepped forward to hiss at the serpent-marked sink.

Orion gaped as the octagonal sink column parted into eighths, with the segment facing Tom lowering into the floor to provide admittance to a downward pipe.

Do you have faith, my young Black friend? Will you answer Slytherin's noble call? Tom asked.

Orion hesitated for understandable reasons. But after a reassuring pat from Harry, who also tightened his ancestral cloak around the young Black's form, Orion took a leap of faith.

I'll take the liberty of assuming you transmuted the wastewater? Harry asked Tom.

You will take the liberty of jumping next, Tom replied with a telekinetic shove.

Aye aye, Harry snarked before jumping.

As Harry suspected, Tom had not sent the Black heir into a stream of sewage. While the dripstone-decorated tunnels he and Tom proceeded to hover through were not the most spectacular of subterranean sights, Orion managed to walk through them without issue.

"Woah," Orion gasped when the three reached the gold-coated, vault-like door.

"The Chamber of Secrets," Tom announced. "The sanctuary of my forefather."

All three felt their heart rates accelerate as they stood on the threshold of their greatest moment at Hogwarts yet.

"Ignotus Secundus," Tom addressed. "You who have been with me since the beginning. You have delivered on all I asked of you three years ago, and done so more spectacularly than I imagined. I shall never forget all you have contributed, and should you choose not to continue with this quest, I shan't hold it against you."

Harry looked into the eyes of his cousin and remembered their first conversation as friends.


October 31, 1005 years after the Founding of Hogwarts

Harry Evans' Quarters

"You must be the grandson of Marvolo Gaunt," Harry declared after they shook hands.

"You know him?" Tom asked.

"Of him," Harry clarified. "He and his son died in Azkaban though, so I believe you are the last of House Gaunt."

"Yet you have a necklace with the Gaunt seal," Tom raised as he cocked his head.

"It was the Peverell sigil first," Harry explained. "The Gaunts were one branch of Peverell descendents, the senior branch. My ancestors were the other."

"Your mother's ancestors?" Tom asked.

"Most would assume my father's," Harry gave his new friend an impressed look.

"The Potters are better known than most families, even in this house," Tom reasoned. "How could they keep such a secret in a culture obsessed with who is descended from whom?"

"They wouldn't," Harry concurred.

"Did this 'Marvolo Gaunt' have a family ring?" Tom inquired, to which he received a nod. "Where can I claim it?" he followed.

"It's likely buried with him in the Azkaban crypt," Harry answered.

"How do I get to Azkaban?" Tom asked eagerly.

"Getting there's the easy part. I could get you there before the break of dawn…but we'd be dead by daylight," Harry warned.

Tom looked at him questioningly.

"Dementors—ghoulish wraiths that feed on the souls of the living," Harry described. "Our very essences would be swallowed, then horrifically mutated until we became those foul creatures."

Tom shuddered.

"But there is a way to fend them off," Harry shared. "Well, multiple ways, but the others are riskier. If you can project a barrier or avatar of pure white magic, you can repel those fiends."

"You know this spell?" Tom asked.

"I'm learning it," Harry answered.

"You want my ring," Tom accused with a pointed finger.

"I thought I was the only one with a legitimate claim," Harry raised his arms in surrender.

"I think you still want it," Tom pressed. "You talk of yourself going to Azkaban."

"I just want to say goodbye to my mother, okay?" Harry admitted. "I-it can call back the dead, and I need to see her one more time. I'm not trying to claim your heirloom as my own—unlike the Lestranges and Notts, to name a few."

Tom still seemed unconvinced.

"Hey, friends share, right?" Harry prodded. "I'll let you borrow my cloak when you need it."

"If you help me get my ring, I suppose I could lend it to you," Tom acquiesced. "But it's mine!"

"Deal," Harry agreed.

"I could also use your help in taking my place in this house," Tom determined.

"I'm not on the best terms with these folk," Harry forewarned. "They call me 'bastard blunder' and 'mudspawn', to give a few examples."

"Hushed whispers in remote corners," Tom dismissed. "And no one ever questions your powers. Black on the other hand? They even laugh at his wand."

Harry winced as he remembered the wand-measuring contest Alphard was roped into by Lestrange and Avery. The two, despite being Alphard's "friends" for years, laughed in his face until he fled their room, then spread rumors about his wand being "small" and "limp."

"If you want me to do some wand-bending until no one mocks your blood, I can do that," Harry promised.

"I want them to know how wrong they are!" Tom yelled. "I want them to know that they are the mudbloods next to me!"

"Even if you get your family ring back—" Harry started.

"When!" Tom corrected sharply.

"Even when you get your ring back, the Gaunts died in disgrace," Harry said softly. "You'll prove your blood is old, the oldest in fact. But Slytherins will still find ways to taunt you so long as you play their game. It's what they do."

"What about the Chamber of Secrets?" Tom proposed.

"A myth," Harry dismissed.

"Myths don't last a thousand years without some truth," Tom determined.

"You aren't the first descendent of Salazar Slytherin to attend since his son Sunnon," Harry raised. "One of your ancestors would have opened this so-called chamber and, well, this would be a pureblood-only school."

"What if they couldn't find it?" Tom questioned.

"Do you know how many times this school has been searched for a 'Chamber of Secrets'?" Harry asked his young friend. "I'm telling you, it doesn't exist."

"I have to try!" Tom shouted. "Will you help me or not?"

Harry sighed.

"My mother left me a map of this school in her grimoire," he divulged. "She wrote a note encouraging me to add to it, so I'll be searching the school anyway."

Tom smiled a beautiful, genuine smile that Harry realized he'd never seen before.

"I suppose you'll want a favor in return?" Tom offered.

"We're friends, it doesn't have to be tit-for-tat," Harry remarked. "Although, since you asked, could you please be my sparring partner?"

Tom cocked his head in deliberation.

"I always hold back unless I'm against Professor Albus or Newt," Harry pleaded. "Even then, I still beat Septimus every time, and he's the head boy!"

"You beat me while holding back," Tom pointed out.

"You're untrained," Harry contended. "And you see the blood splatters? That wasn't me humoring you. You did that, with barely any training! Even after a year, it'll be more than a tussle between us. Two or three, and I'll probably struggle to beat you."

Tom still hesitated.

"Consider this," Harry added. "We both read minds. We cancel each other out that way—and with each other, we can train to block out any mental invasions. You won't be able to do that with anyone else."

"You trained with someone else," Tom countered. "I couldn't really read you until I choked you."

"One of my teachers was Professor Albus, who you don't like for some reason," Harry replied. "The other, well, I don't think you'll meet him."

"Him?" Tom questioned. "Not your mother, then?"

Harry swallowed as he mentally cursed his slip of tongue.

"Grindelwald," Tom realized.

Harry instantly seized his friend's mouth, earning some kicks in the shin in return.

"Ow, ow," Harry yelped and hopped back. "Sorry. It's just, I've never told anyone that, okay? Not Septimus. Not Algie. Not even Al."

"I know your great secret," Tom murmured.

Anger flashed through Harry until he saw the joy in Tom's eyes. Not a malicious glee, but a happiness that someone now had to trust him more than anyone else.

"I'm trusting you," Harry whispered. "Really trusting you."

Tom nodded.

"I think I can be your sparring partner," he decided. "I do still intend to defeat you, after all."

"You can try, little one," Harry snickered.

Tom at first seemed very offended, then relaxed his expression as he realized Harry wasn't truly insulting him.

"I am older than you, by the way," Tom claimed.

"Sure you are," Harry saluted to show the two inch gap between them.

Tom glared.

"I will get your blanket now, little one," Tom sneered. "Clearly, you'll need it tonight."

"It's not a blanket!" Harry hollered after his friend.

Tom returned within the minute with the Peverell cloak, but just as he did, the door to their hall opened as their male cohort fellows returned from the Samhain dinner.

"I smell a fight," Lestrange claimed.

"Only if you start one," Alphard retorted. "Besides, no one was here besides Riddle."

"In other words, no one," Avery led the boys in a cruel round of laughter.

Tom hissed, but Harry cast both a silencing spell and his cloak over his friend.

Doors opened and closed as the Gravely twins, Burke, Shafiq, Bulstrode and Selwyn returned to their rooms. However, as Lestrange and Avery were next-door neighbors to Harry and Alphard respectively, they saw Harry's doorless room before opening their own doors.

"Told you so," Lestrange prided himself.

"You're back! What happened! What's going on? Are you redecorating?" Alphard rapid-fired.

"Someone once told me setting the curtains on fire is a great way to start," Harry shrugged.

"Spoken like a true son of the Wild Witch," Avery muttered.

Harry glared, and Avery recoiled.

"So long as you did not burn the book I left you, I'm sure everything else can be replaced by morning," Alphard waved off.

"Of course," Harry agreed, still having no idea what or where the book was. "Your boots, by the way," he floated the fur footwear back to Alphard.

"Aw, you're like a married couple," Lestrange cooed.

"We all know how much you're looking forward to your wedding, Randy," Alphard drawled.

"You're marrying your cousin?" Tom asked, making himself visible while keeping the cloak itself invisible.

Alphard, Avery, and Lestrange looked at the Slytherin scion with varying degrees of contempt.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Lestrange asked in a warning tone.

"I only wonder, if your family converges to a single line of descent, does that not put you at risk of extinction?" Tom posed.

"Obviously, I will have an heir and a spare," Lestrange sneered.

"But your uncle wanted a son, did he not?" Tom deduced. "That is why he is giving his daughter to you, so his descendants keep the Lestrange name. But what if his struggles pass on? Perhaps not to your cousin, but your future sons?"

Harry was impressed by Tom's logic. The others, not so much.

"I think you missed something in your burning rounds, Evans," Avery remarked.

"Don't question what you don't understand, Riddle," Alphard rebuked.

Lestrange drew his wand.

"Mudblood midget! Take that back!" he demanded of Tom.

Tom folded his arms.

"Crucio!" Lestrange cast.

Alphard and Avery gasped, but Harry dispelled the amateur attempt with an offhand wave.

Tom laughed.

"Were you serious?" he taunted. "You didn't even make Harry flinch! The room behind us? That was us playing around. I'd offer a demonstration, but I fear you'd end up like his bedsheets."

"Excuse me?" Alphard asked sharply as Avery drew his wand.

"Let's all calm down," Harry suggested verbally and magically.

"He insulted my family, Evans!" Lestrange bellowed. "Maybe you don't understand, since you have no family, but my wand calls for blood."

"He has me," Tom declared.

"What?" Alphard asked.

"Lestrange said Harry has no family. That is false, for he has me," Tom reiterated.

Alphard opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by Avery's laughter.

"Not even bleeding-heart Evans would slum it with you," Avery jeered to the amusement of the gathering crowd of first-year boys.

"Magus est Potestas," Harry responded as he clasped his left forearm with Tom's right.

"What?" Selwyn asked.

"Magic is Might," Harry translated the motto of House Gaunt.

Alphard gasped as he seemed to realize exactly what Harry was saying. The others, unsurprisingly, couldn't take a hint.

"Are you actually going to slum it with the mudblood?" Avery questioned.

"He's of magic—very strong, very old," Harry gave another hint.

"What on earth?" Shafiq murmured.

"He's lost it," Bulstrode muttered.

"Birds of a feather," Burke whispered.

As the mumblings increased, Harry wished he had a door to slam in these fools' faces.

"We need not entertain the bleating of sheep," Tom offered a place in his room to Harry.

Harry nodded and walked with Tom.

"By the way, just because we blew out the door doesn't mean my wards have fallen," Harry warned his cohort. "Try to enter at your own peril."

Though a pleasant shock of fear spread through the other boys with that threat, Harry breathed a sigh of relief when Tom closed the door to Room 3 behind them.

From the interior, Tom just gave a short hiss to seal his room.

"So not fair," Harry grumbled, to which Tom smirked.

"I think the others might dislike you after tonight," Tom observed.

"You think?" Harry drawled. "Anyhow, as you said, it's not like I even like them."

"I understand the sentiment," Tom empathized.

Harry figured Tom was referring more to where he grew up than Hogwarts, but chose to save those follow-up questions for another day.

"You meant that? Calling me family?" Harry pursued instead.

Tom sat on the edge of his bed and offered the space to his right to Harry.

"My mother gave up on life when I was born. My father is either dead as well, or worse, abandoned me," Tom related. "I spent my entire life feared and reviled by lesser beings, until your Professor Dumbledore deigned to fetch me. I entered this world, thinking I would find worthy companions, only to find more disappointment. That is, until we met today."

"Why haven't you shown your Parseltongue?" Harry asked. "Even if they question your descent from Salazar Slytherin, it's a power none of them can hope to replicate. And you know how effective it is here—you walked through my wards as if they didn't exist."

"There is power in the unknown," Tom answered. "The more defined your abilities are, the more your enemies believe they have your measure."

"But if your abilities are too unknown, they'll be assumed nonexistent," Harry countered.

"That is why I have you," Tom smiled brightly.

"And what would you have me do?" Harry asked cautiously.

"Stand behind me," Tom requested. "Others will come and go, but you are special. Together, we'll do extraordinary things. So I ask you to stand behind me as long as you can, cousin."

"As long as I can, cousin," Harry promised.


October 31, 1008 years after the Founding of Hogwarts

Threshold of the Chamber of Secrets

"I said I'll stand behind you as long as I can," Harry reaffirmed. "What good is that promise if I turn my back when you stand at the threshold of your birthright?"

Tom smiled as he did when Harry promised to help search for the Chamber of Secrets.

"Come forward, cousin mine," Tom directed as he opened his arms for a…hug?

Beyond shocked, Harry stepped forward to embrace his cousin for the first time. Although their magic had met many times before, never had Harry felt so intimate with the person he loved most.

"Orion," Tom addressed once Harry stepped back.

The boy perked up, surprised to hear his first name emerge from Heir Slytherin's lips.

"Of all I call friends, you have known me for the least amount of time. Yet you already show greater faith than any outside of my own family," Tom commended. "Come forward, my good friend."

Tom lifted his left hand toward Orion's chin, luminescing the Gaunt ring for the Black heir to kiss. Though Harry and Tom sensed Orion wrestle with some discomfort, the young Black stepped forward, cupped the proffered hand, and kissed the ring.

"May you continue to hold the favor of Slytherin, hunter mine," Tom honored.

Orion beamed as he stepped back. Tom then turned to hiss at the serpent-adorned door, opening Slytherin's ultimate sanctuary for the first time in centuries.

After the Heir of Slytherin entered, Harry levitated himself and Orion through the portal into what could only be described as a temple. Nearly a millennium after Salazar Slytherin's departure, the Founder's residual magic still saturated the air. On the topic of air, Harry and Orion's ability to breathe confirmed the existence of a passage to the surface, one likely near the head of the temple given the faint stream of twilight.

Tom projected a measure of his aura to bathe the temple in his emerald glow. Orion, who had never witnessed such a display, gaped at Tom in wonder. Harry instead focused on the massive statues of open-jawed king cobras lining the central walkway, seven per side.

Do you now concede Slytherin favored seven over thirteen? Tom badgered Harry. Given you failed to take a hint from the rooms-per-residence-unit and this chamber's very door.

Fine, you win, Harry admitted. Covens still take thirteen members though, not seven.

Tom mentally sneered before touching down onto the central walkway. With Harry behind his right shoulder and Orion behind his left, the Heir of Slytherin walked equidistantly between the serpent statues and the waters that submerged them from the neck down. Harry wondered if Slytherin designed the chamber to hold an artificial pond of such a height, if that amount of water trickled in from the Hogwarts lake over a thousand years, or if water actively flowed to and fro the lake. In any case, it provided for a spectacular sight.

"Behold," Tom announced with a pronounced Old-English accent when they reached the head of the temple—literally.

At the end of the walkway, a vast circular area spread and connected to the chamber's contracting walls, along which lay several openings to alternative tunnels. Amidst this dwelled the head of a mammoth statue of Salazar Slytherin, which gazed imperiously upon them with the mien of an austere deity.

As with all other depictions of the serpent-tongued Founder, the aquiline-nosed statue looked nothing like Tom in countenance. However, it emanated the severity and grandeur Tom — or more accurately, Voldemort — aspired to.

Indeed, Harry saw a procession of such images flash through his cousin's mind. Images of his friends humbling themselves before Tom, professing utter and undying fealty. Even proud Walburga sank to her knees, but she retained far more dignity than Randolph, who prostrated himself and kissed his lord's bare feet. The only one genuflected on a single knee when honoring his lord was Orion, and "Ignotus Secundus" was the only one sanctioned to remain on his feet — provided he bowed, of course.

"Have you told your so-called friends of your cousin's plans for them?" Alphard Black pressed Harry on after their first fourth-year Potions class. "Well, unlike you, I actually care about others. And I will not throw my friends into his furnace."

A furnace did indeed burn in Voldemort's heart, Harry could not deny it.

"They will all kneel before me one day," Tom vowed the night he and Harry broke Tatius Crabbe's reign over Slytherin.

Yet as much as Harry hated to admit it, he held some of the same grievances Tom did. Grievances against pampered princelings who derided him and his mother since his childhood. Grievances against stagnant snobs who strutted about as if muggles did not hold dominion over the earth. Grievances against mewling mutts who boasted of magic "old" and "true," when they would piss themselves in the mere presence of Grindelwald.

In fact, they pissed themselves in Harry's true presence.

"My followers will ever grow, but I shall always put my one true friend first before them all," Tom promised Harry the previous Samhain.

Who else cared so for Harry besides his mother, who was ten years reunited with magic? Who else could Harry trust to never betray him in favor of another?

"You are the one true heir Salazar Slytherin foretold," Harry lauded his cousin with a courtly bow.

"Heir Slytherin," Orion echoed in a small, reverent voice.

Though faced with Tom's back, Harry felt his cousin beam. The Heir of Slytherin then extended his left hand and hissed in his native tongue, prompting his ancestor's statue to lower its jaw until the beard almost totally descended into the water.

"Do you sense he who lies within, cousin?" Tom asked.

"Sense who? What?" Orion asked after Harry nodded solemnly.

"Let us just say, I think I have a bigger and better pet than Ignotus," Tom boasted.