1941
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When the holidays ended and the school term resumed, Tom found himself browsing the section of the Hogwarts library dedicated to household spells and charms.
In First Year, he'd skipped past this section and headed straight for advanced Defence. It wasn't because he thought household spells were pointless—after living as a Muggle for years, Tom appreciated the value of magic, and thought all magical disciplines had their uses, even the menial ones like Care of Magical Creatures where one touched creature scat more often than their wand.
As useful as they were in the context of maintaining a proper wizarding home, Tom had once thought that household spells just weren't relevant to him. They simply weren't as important to his well-being as knowing the official Defence spell lists up to Fifth Year. But now, he had revised his opinions. There was relevance, value even, in knowing his way around domestic charmwork, all those esoteric spells for peeling potatoes, potting fruit preserves, or mending the lumpy little signs of pilling on the elbows of knitted jumpers and woollen winter robes.
Pretending to be an expert in magical home care gave Tom an instant audience.
And knowing these things did improve his quality of life in small ways.
According to the theory of basic spellcrafting, the creation of new charms came down to a combination of words, intent, and wand movements. (Creating powerful curses and hexes was not quite as simple; potion invention and item enchantment were whole fields unto themselves.) With the right conditions: specific syllables, spoken with the right intonation, a simultaneous swish of a wand in the right pattern, a wizard could create a unique magical effect. It stood to reason that reversing the process—a slight alteration of the established pre-conditions with the aid of arithmancy—would allow the effect itself to be altered.
He found in one book, A Wizard's Guide to Crup Care, a grooming spell that a wizard could use for his rough-coated crups when they shed their thick winter fur in the spring. The book had a diagram of the proper incantation and wand movements, but Tom had found that shortening the vertical flicks produced a lighter, weaker cut. Extending the wand movement in a flatter, horizontal stroke made the cut trace around the contours of the skin instead of going straight across and producing jagged edges.
A closer shave, as it were.
He practised it on the pet cats he found in the Common Room, and when he'd stopped leaving large bald patches on their fur like the coat patterns of a Holstein cow, he'd moved to testing it on Peanut. And when he could trim Peanut's fur and whiskers without any unexpected results, he tried it on his legs, and finally on his own throat and chin, where the pale, wispy imitation of a man's whiskers had begun to sprout, to his great annoyance.
What he had long been dreading had arrived: pupation.
He had known for years that this phase of life would be unavoidable, even for someone as Special as he. He had seen the signs of its approach in the scratch and crackle of his voice. He saw it in the sharpening line of his jaw in the Grangers' bathroom mirror, the straining stitches on the shoulder seams of his shirts and jumpers, and the hem of his uniform trousers revealing more of his socks and ankles at the end of each term than at the beginning.
He was changing. He was growing older.
While some part of him relished being seventeen and being freed of the constraints of childhood, at the same time, it was a reminder that life at Hogwarts was finite. And that there were things, no matter how Special or powerful he yearned to be, that he was not powerful enough to halt or control.
Because he knew what else this meant, what else he couldn't control.
He'd known it when Hermione had taken his hand, and he hadn't wanted to let her go. He'd known it when he let Hermione use the shared bathroom in the cellar's magical tent first, so when it came time for his turn, he could brush his teeth surrounded by a flowery fog of her scented soap.
It was disgusting.
He was disgusting.
(But he kept doing it until the end of the holidays, and missed it—her smell, her touch, her presence—once term had started and there were only other boys in his shared bathroom.)
Tom's revulsion had nothing to do with the concepts of Sin and Temptation, the way Reverend Rivers had spoken of them when he came to Wool's and lectured the children. It had been a transparent attempt to warn the orphans that funny business wasn't tolerated under Mrs. Cole's roof... With the exception, of course, that if one was properly married in the eyes of God and the Church, any funny business being had wasn't his business at all.
Tom's revulsion had everything to do with the fact that somehow, overnight, his priorities had rearranged themselves.
He still wanted greatness, renown, knowledge, and power—everything the Sorting Hat had told him that he valued. But he also wanted her—Her—
—Was 'want' what this feeling was called?
Because it felt too much like the fiery abyss of Temptation for his comfort.
It was the fact that he couldn't push it away, cut it off, or spell it into non-existence like all the other changes that had been forced upon him. That part troubled him the most.
He hoped that as suddenly as these sensations had come upon him, they would go away, as long as he had the patience and forbearance to wait it out. It was a physical reaction, the same one which affected stray cats and street mongrels during certain times of the year. After a week or two of strange behaviour, they always returned to their original states.
Tom Riddle was not a cat or a dog; he was a human—no, he was a wizard. He was better than any of them. He was better than all of them.
These changes were fleeting; the inconvenient urges were ephemeral; those vivid dreams were forgotten by morning.
Magic, however, was permanent.
Tom had resolved to spare none of his valuable time on pondering the mysteries of Sin and Temptation. He had the mysteries of Magic to attend to.
So he'd come up with an altered shaving spell, based off the one meant for grooming crups and kneazles. And it was better—or perhaps he was just a better wizard—than the spell the other boys in his dorm used to rid themselves of their unsightly facial hair or neaten their sideburns. He'd seen them coming out of the bathroom holding a washcloth to their faces.
Apparently their fathers had showed them what to do, and it was a variant of the Severing Charm. It made sense: the Severing Charm was notable for its versatility. Its intent was centred on separating a piece from a whole, cleaving one thing from another. A Fourth Year had the power to perform it—but control was a whole other issue. And control became the issue: the Severing Charm, no matter how much or how little power one put into casting it, sliced a line straight across. An adult wizard with years of practice could control the angle and trim his moustaches with a single swipe of his wand. A student wizard wasn't quite as good.
It meant that there was a niche there, a place where his spell would be useful, a practical application whose value other people could appreciate.
A market.
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Exclusive to readers of Witch Weekly:
The Perfect Trimming Charm!
(Turn to next page for instructions.)
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Are you tired of having half a dozen different pairs of shears, scissors, and knives for your daily household duties? Do you want a safe, fast, and convenient alternative to keep everything in your daily life looking neat and tidy? Here's what you can use the new Trimming Charm for!
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1. Gardening with a wave of your wand. De-thorn roses for your floral arrangements. De-sting nettles for your potion brewing. Cut blackberries from your brambles—no prickles, no crushed fruit! A perfect accompaniment for meringue or trifle!
2. Cooking with none of the fuss. For crisp roasted poultry, use the Trimming Charm around joints and limbs to remove the skin on your pre-plucked chicken, goose, pheasant, or turkey. Rub butter on underside of the skin, replace, and roast. De-scale fish by applying an angled Trimming Charm from tail to head, following diagram on Page 3.
3. Wearing your most daring seasonal robes. The Gladrags' Wizardwear summer dress robes selection is on sale now! The hemlines may be bold, and the sleeves sheer, but the Trimming Charm will allow you to entertain in confidence, wearing the Audacia ribbon front day gown (Page 44) or the Genevieve satin ruffle evening robe (Page 45). Follow the simple instructions on how to apply the mess-free, worry-free Trimming Charm on Page 4.
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All the disgust he felt earlier couldn't compare to the disgust he felt now, laying on the pandering so thick he thought he could feel the oil leak out of his pores and soak into the parchment.
He wondered if this was what Gellert Grindelwald felt, praising his audience for having been born with the gift of magic in their blood, even if most of them were sots in a dingy tavern looking for someone to give their life a greater meaning, not one of them thinking about the work required to get there. He wondered what Grindelwald felt about having the tavern regulars admire him, hanging onto his every word, and what the admiration meant to him when he knew it came from people for whom he held not an ounce of respect.
Some part of him wondered if Grindelwald had his own Foil.
Respect from lesser beings didn't matter if he had respect from the one person—or the few people—that really mattered. Respect from only lesser beings was... unfulfilling, Tom thought. Respect and admiration were easily had, naturally accrued when you were better than everyone else. Born greater. But it was like a Seventh Year student taking the First Year exams—of course he would rank first in every subject.
It was a victory—that was undeniable. But it was no accomplishment.
Some other part of him wondered what he'd be doing if he didn't have his own Foil.
He probably wouldn't be writing this half-baked article, where every word that came out of his mouth and out of the tip of his Dictation Quill was as painful as proofreading Avery's Transfiguration essays. (Which Tom still did because he and Avery were "friends", as the other boy had accepted his status as a lesser being. By now Avery had acknowledged that Tom was cleverer and more powerful than he, far better at everything important that Mr. and Madam Avery had ever hoped to see in their own precious son, and so there was no shame in Avery's asking for help to overcome his own regrettable deficiencies.)
If Tom hadn't had a Foil, he knew he certainly wouldn't be having clandestine meetings in the back of the library while the rest of his Housemates were out watching a Quidditch game.
("It's a 'match', not a game," he could already hear Rosier lecturing at him, on the only subject on which he was an authority. "And if you're talking about the game itself, it's not a game, it's a 'sport'! The greatest sport ever invented!")
Tom put the finishing touches to his wand movement diagrams. He considered them the most interesting thing about this vapid article, a legitimate intellectual challenge that his school assignments didn't offer. He appreciated the process of teaching and learning magic; Tom could disparage the Hogwarts professors all day, but he'd never say the same things about his magical education. He just didn't understand why other people needed the dull presentation of a fluff article to think learning new magic was worthwhile.
"Hermione," said Tom, "you're a girl—"
Hermione's quill jerked over her parchment. Ink dribbled down the page. She looked up. "Excellent observation, Tom."
I could hardly forget, could I? he thought. Antonella Everard is a girl. The Fifth Year prefect, Lucretia Black, is a girl. But whether people were witches or wizards never mattered to me, only that they were obstacles or tools. Hermione is a girl, but not just a girl; she doesn't fit into any of the neat little boxes that apply to everyone else.
Hermione is the first witch I ever knew. That makes her more important than everyone else.
Special.
(He chose to overlook the fact that Dumbledore was the first wizard he'd ever met.)
"If we're going to make sarcasm into a competition, you haven't a chance," Tom said. "My question was actually that, as a girl, do you believe witches would take lifestyle advice from a wizard?"
"Are you asking if the average witch would allow you of all people to decide their suitability for motherhood?" asked Hermione. "The answer is no."
"Not that kind of 'lifestyle advice'," Tom said, rolling his eyes. "No, home decorating tips, fashion and fripperies, that sort of thing. Things that the married housewitch would occupy her time with while the children are away at school."
"It depends on the wizard," said Hermione, tapping the end of her quill against her chin in thought. "Most girls wouldn't listen to someone like Professor Slughorn tell them how to decorate their dormitory or wear their uniforms. Or any man who signs all his correspondence as he does—'H.E.F. Slughorn' with a list of his titles and qualifications. Everything about it makes him look like someone so dusty that he'd consider mayonnaise strange foreign nonsense. Someone who is more appealing would be... modern. Approachable and modest. Informative without being condescending..."
She trailed off, then peered at him in clear curiosity. "Are you planning on publishing something?"
"Maybe," said Tom. "It depends on what you mean by 'you'."
"Oh," said Hermione, sitting up straighter in her chair. "You're using a pen name?"
"I was thinking about it. I want a name that I won't be embarrassed about if I ever get rid of it—something close enough to my real name that I could reveal it one day without anyone questioning it," said Tom. "But according to what you've said, 'T.M. Riddle' won't do."
"How about 'Tim Roddle'?" Hermione suggested. She covered her mouth to hide her snickering.
Tom glared at her. "That's the most uncreative anagram I've ever heard. I need something better than that."
"It's simple and modest," she said, "and you shouldn't use a fancy or well-known surname if you want the average witch to be interested. In the Muggle world, I'd buy a cookery book written by a Mrs. Drummond over one written by a Lady Penshurst. Just by her name, I'd assume Mrs. Drummond has recipes that my Mum and I could cook at home, while Lady Penshurst's book asks for two pints of 'almond cream enriched with aged liqueur of vanilla'. And," she added with a frown, "I would also assume that it'd be the servants doing the cooking rather than the Lady herself."
"If you had a pen name, what would you choose?" asked Tom.
"I'd pick one from a book," said Hermione instantly. "No one would recognise it; wizards don't read Muggle fiction. 'Scarlett Blakeney', maybe, if I was writing as an older witch—it's an obvious reference to The Scarlet Pimpernel. And if I had to write under a man's name, then... 'Hector'. Like Hector of The Iliad, or one of my dad's great uncles. My mum might have named me that had I been a boy, since it's a tradition in our family to have names starting with 'H'."
"You seem to have put a lot of thought into it," Tom remarked. Of the two of them, Hermione had a greater familiarity with fiction, whereas he personally didn't read fiction if he was offered the choice. Wizarding textbooks and spell guides were fantastical enough not to need any other types of reading material.
"Well," said Hermione, "I've thought about writing, too. There aren't as many forms of entertainment in the wizarding world as there are in the Muggle one—I've seen the plays and novels, but there's nowhere near as many authors. And wizards don't have cinema or the wireless at all. You could tell an existing story, and wizards would never have heard of it and believe it to be original. Though that would be plagiarism, of course, unless you do what Shakespeare did and changed all the character names."
"If you were to give me a pen name, what would it be?"
"Don't you want to choose your own?"
"I trust your judgement; shouldn't you be flattered?" Tom raised an eyebrow. "It's not like I'm asking you to name my firstborn son."
Hermione frowned. "But you'll never have a firstborn son. You always go on about how much you hate children."
"Correct," said Tom. "So that's why it should be an honour to you. It's the closest you'll ever get."
"Hmm." Hermione bent down and rifled through her book bag on the floor. After a minute or two of shuffling papers and furious muttering, her head popped up from under the table. "How about 'Thomas Bertram'? He's one of the characters from Mansfield Park, the baronet's son. It's a proper English name, and nothing like the unusual Greek names that you only ever see on old men. Professor Slughorn is a good example of what not to do—one of his middle names is 'Flacchus'. No one names their children 'Flacchus' anymore; just by hearing it, you can tell that he was born last century. And 'Bertram' as a surname doesn't indicate any particular blood status either."
"It sounds... plain," said Tom. There was nothing grand about the name. It could be the name of a vicar or an accountant, but not an emperor.
('Tom Riddle' isn't an emperor's name either, said the voice of common sense in the back of his head. He was used to ignoring it; those who only ever relied on common sense became vicars and accountants, and never emperors.)
"You let me name your pet rat, which you've kept for the last three years," Hermione said. "And anyway, if you're set on an anagram, there's nothing interesting you can make out of your name. 'Mild Doormat Lover'? Well, I suppose it'd fit an expert on home furnishings."
Tom scowled. "Mockery doesn't suit you, Hermione."
"It's sarcasm, Tom," said Hermione reprovingly. "I thought we were having a competition."
Her nose wrinkled up the way it always did when she was trying to control her facial expressions. He could tell she was trying to keep from smiling; she lacked the kind of subtlety that would allow her to impersonate a Good Girl to match Tom's Good Boy—not that she needed to, when she genuinely strove to be Good. In honesty, Tom quite liked the way it brought out the soft dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose.
There were very few things in the world that Tom considered endearing, but this was one of them.
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Dear Mr. Bertram,
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It is our pleasure to inform you that your submission, 'The Perfect Trimming Charm', will appear as the feature article in the October 25 (1941/#43) issue of Witch Weekly Magazine. Payment for a 5 page feature article with integrated sponsor promotion equates to 17 galleons, 15 sickles, and is included in the message pouch. See included receipt for full statement of remittance. Please mail back the Payment Arrangements form should you wish future payments to be deposited directly into a Gringotts vault.
We would like to offer you the opportunity to be a regular contributor to Witch Weekly Magazine, which allows the benefits of further royalties in future re-printing, or cross-publication in our sister journal, Housewitch and Home. Regular contributors (17 submissions or more within a period of 365 days) will be eligible to receive a Press Identification Certificate, which grants holders access to:
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— Wizengamot sessions, including hearings and trials.
— Reserved interview slots with Ministry of Magic department heads.
— Press box at league Quidditch matches in the British Isles. (First come, first served, seats are limited. International championship matches not included.)
— Wizarding Britain Society of Journalists' annual dinner and awards ceremony.
— Discounted subscription rate for all major publications, including The Daily Prophet and Quidditch Quarterly.
— Nomination panel in our annual Most Charming Smile award.
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Looking forward to seeing your work in future editions of WWM,
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Clementine Wimbourne,
Editor-in-Chief
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The pouch of galleons was the first thing that Tom opened when he received his reply during breakfast. It was heavy—far heavier than the pouch that came with the Hogwarts student fund every year. It was the most money he'd ever held at once, though not the most he'd ever beheld: last year, when one of the Chasers on the Slytherin Quidditch team had quit mid-season to study for his N.E.W.T.s, they'd held an emergency tryout and Lestrange had ordered a new broomstick by owl mail just to have the extra edge against his competition. There had been a huge pile of gold on his bed the evening he'd made the order, which he had to split between three owls to carry.
This pouch was only a fraction of those, but it was still sizeable. Converted to British pounds sterling, this was a fortune.
And all I had to do was write a stupid article, thought Tom, closing the flap on the money pouch and slipping it into his book bag.
The best part was that he'd gotten away with it with his reputation intact, just like all the instances where he'd arranged convenient accidents for his own benefit. No one suspected quiet, scholarly Tom Riddle of teaching his classmates' mothers how to shave their legs.
(It was somewhat disturbing when he thought deeper on it. He wasn't sure it would make for the most effective bragging material. He likened it to someone in the Slytherin Common Room insulting someone else's mother: it just wasn't done, because with how interconnected wizarding family trees were, it was tantamount to slinging mud at one's own cousin.)
The second best part was beating Albus Dumbledore's record. Dumbledore's first essay on magical theory had been published when he was sixteen, a month or two from seventeen. Though Tom's authorship credit had been attributed to a Mr. Bertram, there was still satisfaction to be had in knowing that the real writer wasn't even fifteen. Perhaps one day he would show it to Dumbledore, and rub it in his long, crooked nose.
He was wary of showing Slughorn. It would just be an excuse for the professor to start inviting him to Slug Club evenings now, instead of waiting until next year, when Tom was in Fifth Year and old enough to be permitted an extension to the curfew. Tom was looking forward to new privileges—and being Prefect—but not to being the centre of Slughorn's interest in filling a gap on his photograph shelf.
Tom knew that some wizards would say that Transfiguration Today was a more respected, more sophisticated publication than some low-brow gossip rag for witches.
But the gossip rag had ten times the circulation. It had a legion of loyal readers who would buy things just because the man in the paper told them to. And this was of a more tangible use than the non-existent loyalty of a handful of bickering academics who were busy competing with each other to add another point to Gamp's list of magical limitations, when they could be looking for new things that magic could do.
If Grindelwald could content himself in starting his journey with the ale-soused dregs of society, then surely Tom Riddle—Thomas Bertram—whoever—had much greater a potential in canvassing the comfortable middle class. One characteristic of the middle class was that, no matter the nation to which they belonged, they were aspirational.
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The weeks flew by, but Tom scarcely noticed. He was too busy spending his time writing or reading or cosying up to the professors for information on specialty spellwork and other magical shortcuts that were never published in generalist handbooks.
He filled his diary with lists of obscure household spells and all the variations he could make of them. The Steaming Spell, used to freshen up dirty drapes and press the wrinkles out of delicate dress robes, could be cast at full power as an alternative to the Smokescreen Spell. In Duelling Club, Tom found the overpowered Steaming Spell more useful, because while smoke made a decent visual distraction, it was just magical smoke, not much better than an illusion.
Steam, however, could be used offensively. It could conceal Tom from his opponents, and it could burn and scald when cast in a certain way, and that was useful after Professor Merrythought had told him off for his overenthusiastic Incendios, which he was informed were not appropriate for student-level duelling. The good thing was that wizards, being useless and unobservant, only saw his charmed steam as a fog of white indistinguishable from a Fumos.
When he included it into his next article, he wrote of using a milder version of the superheated Steaming Spell to blanch beans, broccoli, and asparagus to retain the bright colours and natural flavours that were lost in boiling or roasting. He included instructions on how to poach fish in thyme and lemon with mixed vegetables with one pot and a single spell. And he didn't forget the obligatory nod to Potage's on Diagon Alley, purveyor of quality cauldrons and kitchenware.
The amusing thing was how no one noticed or cared that he "borrowed" recipes from Muggle cookbooks, only changing a few ingredients or instructions here and there to make use of the new spell. The recipes padded out his articles, which served to his advantage when his payment was based on the number of pages he submitted.
After many years of deprivation, Tom had developed an appreciation for good food. He held the firm belief that ensuring the general public knew how to prepare dishes more complex than porridge, buttered toast, or breakfast fry up counted as a social good, on par with ensuring universal literacy. The more people who knew how to cook, the less need he had of partaking in such tedious chores himself. It was the same with military enlistment: all the other orphan boys did it, so he wouldn't have to.
And there was something even more amusing:
Tom got his first fan mail.
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Dear Mr. Bertram,
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Last week, I used the Super Steamer Spell for suet pudding, and I turned out the most perfect spotted dick for my daughter's engagement supper. I have always had some trouble cooking my puddings to a pleasing consistency right through to the centre, but this was tip-top. Your instructions were excellent, sir, and though I admit I never took the N.E.W.T. in Charms, I managed well, quite well indeed, with the spell diagrams.
Our Geraldine and her new fiancé promised that they'd let me host the family Christmas party this year if I would serve spotted dick once again. I plan to try your steamed custard recipe next time! Mr. Bertram, please pardon me for the presumption, but if you have not a mother-in-law already, I should like to make an introduction with my niece, a Miss Nanette Cahill née Maunders, 31 years old, a widow in good standing...
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Alright, that second part wasn't so amusing, but it was proof that his spells worked, and that his instructions were good enough that even someone who hadn't opened a textbook since they left Hogwarts could follow them correctly.
Tom wasn't too keen on the idea of making magic so democratic that people who hadn't put in the time to study and understand magical theory could have access to spells they would not have had in any other situation. He'd always felt that people who didn't practice magic, live for magic like he did, didn't deserve to be good at it, a view which Hermione would contest, because she believed everyone deserved help and guidance if they needed it—that was the reason for the existence of magical schools. Hadn't the great Salazar Slytherin, a master of magic, one of the most powerful wizards in British magical history, been a teacher himself?
Tom, for all the indignity there was in being a teacher to common housewives, was nevertheless a teacher. One who was being reimbursed for his efforts. And he wasn't going to publish the spell variations he'd used in Defence and Duelling Club, so there were still some secrets left.
Some part of the magic remained Special.
Oh, look. The woman, Mrs. Maunders of Barnton, had even included a photograph of her spotted dick.
The animated photograph depicted a spotted dick being vivisected by a sharp knife and drenched in brandy cream.
Tom stared at the photograph, wondering if there was supposed to be a subliminal message hidden in the picture, a secret code in the framing or presentation.
Or maybe it was just spotted dick.
"Riddle?"
Tom tore his gaze away. "What is it?"
Rosier dropped into the bench on his left side, pulling a plate towards himself and pouring a cup of tea. "Orion Black and Matthias Mulciber approached me after Duelling Club yesterday," he said, reaching for the milk and sugar. "Oh, did someone make pudding? It looks good. Shame it's not the real thing—Pater always lets me and Dru have leftover pudding for breakfast during the winter holidays. Mother doesn't get up before eleven, so she'll never know."
Tom stuffed the photograph into its envelope and turned back to his breakfast. "What did Black and Mulciber want?"
"They want to sit at our side of the table."
A slight frown appeared on Tom's face. "They can sit where they like; there aren't any rules about assigned seating."
From what he'd observed, members of Hufflepuff House sat wherever they liked, and sometimes with members of other Houses. Gryffindors clustered in the centre of their table, where their House's Quidditch team chose to sit, and everyone piled up around. In Ravenclaw, seating came down to whoever got there first.
At the Slytherin House table, there was no official seating chart, but there was tradition. The First Years sat on the benches closest to the High Table, the seats nearest the Sorting Hat and the teachers. The Seventh Years sat farthest away, in the seats nearest the door. Prefects were given more leeway, but past the first two weeks of term, they sat with their own year. At the beginning of each school year, current members of Slytherin House were entitled to move one section further up.
As Fourth Years, Tom sat somewhere in the middle of the long House table. Black and Mulciber he didn't know well, but they were younger than him, and he'd seen them in Duelling Club. From where they were seated today, he assumed they were both Third Years.
Rosier slurped his tea, then set his cup down. "There's the rub. They want to sit next to you."
"Is there any reason in particular?" Tom asked.
Rosier sat with the First Years now and then, but it was only because his younger sister Druella had just started Hogwarts and their parents sent them gift parcels with the same owl. That was considered an acceptable reason to flout tradition. Having no reason other than 'Just Because' was not acceptable. This was annoying after he had gotten used to sitting with Hermione and reading her Muggle newspapers when the House tables were combined into one big table for the holidays.
"They want to know where you get your spells from, Riddle. You made a smokescreen that caused boils during the last Club meeting. How did you do it? I had to go down to the Hospital Wing after to get the blisters cured," Rosier said. He rubbed his chest where Tom had scalded him with a jet of steam in a recent duel. "That wasn't a normal boil jinx; Black and Mulciber said they looked through all the books on curses they brought from home, and they didn't find anything. I looked through mine, and there was nothing in them that looked like what you did. Nothing that counts as tournament legal, at any rate. And we all saw how Merrythought never stopped or called you off early."
Tom surveyed the breakfast offerings, picking up the serving tongs while subtly scanning the Third Year section of the House table. "So they want to sit here and ask me to give up my advantages? That doesn't seem quite fair to me."
"They're from good families," Rosier said. "They've got advantages to offer of their own. Orion Black's father was awarded an Order of Merlin a few years back—the official reason was for services rendered to the Ministry. The semi-official one is that he's got fingers in the nomination committee and bribes in the right pockets. They're not exactly a family you can just turn down."
"Well, if they're offering something of value, then I suppose we can come to an agreement," Tom conceded, who thought it somewhat gauche to drop the 'But my family!' line in every other conversation.
He strongly disliked Slytherins who used their parents' names and accomplishments—if one counted successful bribery as an accomplishment—to strong-arm their way around the school. It seemed like the opposite of the cunning that Salazar Slytherin valued so much. In that, he commiserated with Hermione on her complaints about students who sent their homework assignments to their parents for advice and sometimes wholesale answers. It was the kind of thing to make Rowena Ravenclaw roll in her grave.
(It was times like this that Tom almost believed that the magic of the Hogwarts castle came from the non-stop grave rolling of the Founders, from where their bodies were hidden away in a secret crypt beneath the school.)
"If they want help with their 'Defence homework', I want to borrow the books they brought from home," said Tom. "I assume there won't be copies of them in the library?"
"No," said Rosier, lowering his voice and ducking his head so that he was concealed from the High Table. "They're counted as family heirlooms. Not strictly legal, but Old Sluggy keeps his own, and doesn't make much ado about hiding them. He doesn't care as long as he doesn't see anyone turn up in the Hospital Wing with something that can't be explained away as 'Defence homework'. He'd have to report that sort of thing to the Headmaster."
"Good," said Tom, making a note of that detail about Slughorn for later. "Invite them to dinner tonight."
He had already known that Slughorn kept questionable ingredients in his personal potions cupboard. No unicorn blood as far as he could tell, but he thought he'd recognised Sphinx claws, and weren't Sphinxes rated by the Ministry as beings capable of speech and reason? 'A souvenir from a colleague in Egypt' was as valid an excuse as 'beloved family heirlooms' when it came to his Potions professor.
"I want help with my 'Defence homework' too," Rosier said reluctantly, scratching his nose. His eyes darted toward the Fifth Year area of the table. "I saw the way you took Malfoy apart the other week. Won't stop him from trying to challenge you again, though—he keeps claiming that you're getting in lucky hits, but I don't think so. No one can be that lucky."
"Five in a row isn't luck," said Tom in a flat voice. He laid the napkin on his lap and began tucking into his breakfast. "And I'm not in the business of helping anyone for nothing."
He hoped that new people wanting to sit next to him at meals would be a unique circumstance, and that they would go back to their own seats the next day. He didn't enjoy being interrupted while eating, especially with the type of conversation Slytherins liked to engage in, which involved casual mentions of everyone's parents and what they did or didn't do for a living.
Tom couldn't relate; he had no parents and they, being dead, did no living.
For once, Avery and Lestrange were useful for something—on most days they sat on either side of him and spent that time stuffing their faces. People found themselves reluctant to interrupt when those two were demolishing mounds of scalloped potatoes and whole roast chickens between them.
"I can offer you the same," Rosier suggested. "We have a family library too. Not as much variety as what the Blacks have, but there's hardly any families who do."
Tom considered the offer for a moment. "Do you have anything on mental magic? The Confundus, Memory Charms, Calming Draughts and other emotion and mind-affecting potions? I've read the books about them in the library, but the descriptions seem too simple, and I suspect the good books are all in the Restricted Section."
Rosier looked blank for a second or two. "You're looking for textbooks on Healing, Riddle?"
"Not necessarily," Tom replied. He raised an eyebrow and elaborated no further.
"Ah..." said Rosier, comprehension beginning to dawn. "I think we have some in our collection, but I'd have to wait 'til the holidays before I can get them. What you want isn't anything I can just write home for."
"But you can get them, can't you?" Tom asked, his gaze searching Rosier's face for any trace of deception. For any chance that the value of Rosier's offer had been embellished or overstated. Tom wouldn't show his own hand if it turned out that Rosier was testing him on behalf of his family or another's. Perhaps he was setting up an elaborate trick, a frame job like Tom had done to the Slytherin girls months ago: put an expensive heirloom book in the hands of a student on the Hogwarts charity list, then pin him for thievery, the same thing as had been done to maids and footmen from the very invention of domestic service.
Tom had no doubts that if the opportunity presented itself, the majority of Slytherin House wouldn't hesitate to teach an upstart half-blood to mind his manners and heed his betters. In the Common Room, he didn't hear them speak of him in that way, as a half-blood who ought to be taught about the way things were. But in the days leading up to a Quidditch game, they used certain words for the members of opposing teams who were deficient in blood, if not in skill and talent; on the pitch, those players were often the victims of dirty plays and name-calling.
It had led to Tom's private belief that most current members of Slytherin were useless, a canker on the original values of their House's founder—but what most of them lacked in true ambition, they made up for in cold-blooded opportunism. They didn't care about achieving greatness with the strength of their own magic, not when they could replicate the effect of being 'greater' by cutting everyone else down and making them lesser.
"Can you, Rosier?" said Tom softly. The sound of his voice was dark and resonant and laced with magic, the echo of his words lingering above the clatter of cutlery and the hum of other people's conversation, as if he'd shouted the incantation to a spell in an empty ballroom. But there was no perceptible effect, no doves or flowers or floating teacups, just Tom Riddle asking an innocent question at the dining table, his expression open and sincere.
Rosier looked slightly uneasy, as if he was debating if it was just his imagination or if he'd been caught in the radius of an experimental spell that a student from another House had cast on another. His breathing had become a notch more ragged, but he didn't look away; Tom wouldn't let him look away until he had got the measure of the other boy.
"Yes," said Rosier, lowering his eyes, "but only after Christmas."
"I'll teach you one of my spells for each book I want to borrow," said Tom, leaning back. The mysterious pressure faded. Rosier sagged against the wooden table. Tom patted the corner of the napkin against his lips. "The same goes for Black and Mulciber. I can teach them—but if you can't learn, then that's your own look out."
"I understand." Rosier swallowed. "I'll tell them."
"You'll make sure this stays between us, won't you?" said Tom. "This little 'Defence homework' study group arrangement. We can't have everyone learning how to top the age brackets in the Duelling Club, can we? There's no sense in giving everyone an advantage."
"Of course not," said Rosier. He dropped his napkin over his barely touched breakfast plate, pushing himself to his feet. His knuckles were white on the edge of the table. "I'll see you at dinner, Riddle."
"I'm looking forward to it," Tom replied amiably.
Tom finished his breakfast and went to class with a spring in his step.
The tides were changing. He could feel it. He was earning his own money, studying magic beyond the level of his Hogwarts classes, and gaining a following on two different fronts. He could see the path of his not-so-distant future unfolding before him, dazzling him with its as yet untapped potential.
He wouldn't need to take the conventional path to respectability after leaving Hogwarts. No low-level starting position as a secretarial assistant in the Ministry of Magic could ever appeal to him now. As of now, he knew he was not completely unaccountable to someone else higher up the ladder, but in this line of work, the things he wrote and made were credited under his name—not his name exactly, but that wasn't the point—and it was that name which gained recognition. It was quite unlike the Ministry where the head of the department took credit for his underlings' innovations, or a professional Quidditch team where the Seeker did most of the work, but the winners' purse was split with the entire team.
(Tom had a lot of things to say about the ridiculous nature of Quidditch rules and the points awarding system, but he had long ago learned to keep his opinions to himself. He shared a dormitory with boys who either played for the school team and reserve squad, or followed the professional leagues. There was only so much logic could do to in the face of an impassioned mob.)
In the publishing business, Tom was paid piecemeal. And once he had made his name and reputation, he could easily take his pieces to another publication if he was offered a better situation with more benefits elsewhere. It was humouring the readership that mattered; the editors and printers had little power over the individual writer if he made himself both popular and indispensable.
He was a true Slytherin—he could be ambitious and an opportunist.
One day, he supposed, he'd get around to thanking Hermione for coming up with the idea. It was more profitable and less risky than doing other students' homework.
He'd do it once he got over the strange urges that came over him when he saw her in the corridor, or bent over a book at her House table, or with an ink smudge on her cheek while she wrote her History of Magic essays in the library. Tom prided himself on his self-control and willpower. Whilst he hadn't reached over and wiped the ink off, he had still been tempted to; the memory of her parting embrace on the Hogwarts Express railway platform two—no, two and a half years ago—had not faded from his mind.
Some days he wanted to forget it had ever happened, or that afterwards, he had wanted it to happen again. Some nights it lingered, vivid and persistent, in his memories. It was a good job that he could cast a Silencing Charm to last until morning.
The danger of Temptation, the knowledge of it as had been imparted by the Reverend Rivers, had revealed itself then and there to be a tangible risk. That was the one thing that Tom would not allow himself to forget.
It wasn't his immortal soul that was in peril; instead, it was his dignity and self-respect.
But this would soon pass. It was a momentary hindrance.
Adolescence was merely a phase.
Greatness could last a millennium.