1944
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The concept of 'Slytherin politics' was a blatant misnomer.
First of all, it wasn't anything close to real politics, which was a game of grand visions backed by gunboats, velvet gloves, vested interests, and demographic solicitation.
Real world politics had costs and consequences, and a reach far greater than the population of one rambling castle in the Scottish highlands. The 'politics'—if such a word could be applied to Hogwarts—was not much different to that of Hermione's Muggle primary school; it consisted of a handful of notables who climbed their way up by cultivating an arbitrary list of personal attributes, the most important of which was their popularity amongst students and teachers.
And secondly: politicking wasn't limited to Slytherins.
Members of any House could be popular, or be desirous of popularity. Tiberius McLaggen, of the Grandtully McLaggens, was a Gryffindor and a blusterer; instead of changing into his uniform in his locker room or dormitory after practice like every other member of a House team, he wore his Gryffindor Quidditch robes to meals, sweaty and windswept and roguishly dishevelled. Bernard MacMillan of Hufflepuff, cousin-by-marriage to Head Girl Lucretia Black and the Fifth Year Slytherin Prefect, Orion Black, made that fact—along with his other connections—clear from first introduction; he introduced himself to as many people as he could for this very reason.
But whatever Hermione personally made of it, it was undeniable that Tom Riddle was the most popular student at Hogwarts, favoured by most of the professors and well-regarded by his classmates and peers, as an "Alright fellow, for a Slytherin", a compliment made even greater by the lack of any vocal disagreement. Among Slytherins, Tom was much esteemed; he'd soundly beaten everyone his own age in academics or duelling, and assisted all those younger with schoolwork or exam advice as part of his Prefect duties. Popular consensus had firmly decided that he would be next year's Head Boy, and when asked about it during his weekly Slug Club dinners, Professor Slughorn's typical response was to wag a sticky, sugar-dusted finger and drop a meaningful wink.
Among Slytherins, Nott was at the lowest rung of popularity for their year, which Hermione had thought odd for someone with a close connection with the infamous book, The Pure-Blood Directory. But as she'd grown to know him, Hermione realised that he lacked the social dexterity to massage his own reputation, as Tom would have done, had he been such a figure of notoriety or controversy. Beyond that, Nott was supercilious to a fault: where his father had alienated a number of wealthy, prominent pureblooded families—the Diggories, the Potters, the Smiths—for their political leanings, Nott dismissed anyone he believed to be unworthy of his time and association, which appeared to include just about everyone at Hogwarts.
It would be unusual—remarkable, really—for Nott to associate with other students for anything other than academic obligation. For many years, this aloofness had served him well; Hermione had reason to think that Nott enjoyed being distant and unapproachable—which Tom was too, but he, in contrast, had constructed an impression of cool dignity rather than Nott's sullen arrogance. And just as Nott avoided other people, everyone else in turn had enjoyed not having to deal with him. But now, under the pressure of a time-limited task, it was interesting seeing Nott try to scramble for favours.
Hermione had gotten into the habit of staying at the library until the librarian extinguished the lamps at eight in the evening. She knew that Tom would invite her to dinner with Professor Slughorn on Friday nights, and those went on past ten o'clock before Slughorn finished passing around the cheese platter and had taken a look at his hourglass. Since she, Tom, and many of their fellow Sixth Years had observed their seventeenth birthdays in the past half year, Slughorn hadn't hesitated to break open the wine and his favourite oak-matured mead, and it was due to this that Hermione had taken to writing off Friday evenings and the following Saturday morning when it came to her homework schedule.
She was in the library one Thursday evening, not long after they'd had their first Apparition lesson with a Ministry representative. She'd been frustrated at how difficult it had been to Apparate—she'd expected to succeed by the end of her first lesson, in the same manner that she always understood a new concept or mastered a new technique by the time the professor called an end to the day's class. She hadn't, and it was extremely irksome; she'd decided to read over all the textbooks that the library could offer on the subject. Perhaps her lack of proficiency had been due to the Ministry instructor not explaining Apparition well enough. If that was the case, then it was better to get a second, third, or fourth opinion from multiple other sources.
That was where Nott cornered her, a heavy parchment folio clamped under his arm.
"I've found some more information on the whereabouts of the Chamber, Granger," Nott announced, striding up to her table without wasting time on a greeting. "You have to look at this!"
He slapped the folio down over her open textbook, scattering quills over the table.
"You're dragging me into this?" Hermione said, sliding her inkwell over to the side before it could be tipped over by Nott's stack of musty parchments. "You were the one who made the deal with him—without giving me a word in advance, thanks."
It was that to which Hermione most took offense; she made sure Nott could not mistake her tone and bearing for anything other than displeasure.
"It has everything to do with you," said Nott, not put off by Hermione's stiffly folded arms and refusal to budge over to one side of the desk. He summoned a chair from another table across the aisle and slid it right next to hers. "You're the one who said that Tom Riddle deserved a useless courtesy title in lieu of his misbegotten uncle, Morfin Gaunt. This is how he's going to get it, don't you see? The true Heir of Slytherin is the wizard who can open the Chamber of Secrets."
"And you think you can make yourself the next Merlin?" said Hermione.
"What are you on about?" said Nott. "Only Riddle is so arrogant as to think something like that."
"The Chamber—the quest for the true Heir!" cried Hermione. "By tomorrow, you'll be looking for stones to hide swords in."
"Oh, Granger," said Nott, giving her a sharp look, "you make it sound so blunt and unflattering. But I do see what you mean. Riddle, as much potential as we both know he has, is a newcomer to proper wizarding society. Old lineage or not. Can't be helped, but it can be countervailed. Riddle, if he wants to get anywhere, needs a guide. A mentor. An advisor to show him the way things are done here."
"Professor Slughorn has been willing to take him on since First Year," Hermione pointed out. "Why would Tom listen to you?"
"Old Sluggy wants Riddle to join the Ministry and make a respectable man of himself," Nott scoffed. "As respectable as a man can be when he's the Undersecretary's junior filing clerk and glorified tea boy." He leaned in closer to Hermione, his pale eyes flinty under the glow of the desk lamp. "He's better than that—I know it, and you know it. Riddle'll know it too, once he sees and recognises his true heritage. I know what he's like—too much for comfort lately—and he'll come around when I show him that the Chamber is real. What it means. And what it's capable of."
"I don't know why you keep saying it's real."
"It is!" said Nott, pushing over the folio to her side of the desk. "I've dug out some new information—here."
Reluctantly, Hermione opened up the front cover, revealing a stack of crinkled papers, spotted along the margins with inkblots and red smears that looked to be strawberry jam. There were even little strawberry seeds stuck between the pages.
The pages, once she began to read them, were in Nott's neat handwriting; it contained a list of entries that together formed a rough timeline of the Gaunt family. Line after line of genealogical charts, beginning in the fourteenth century, the Early Modern English almost impenetrable to her contemporary eyes. The family of Gaunt had planted its roots in Ireland, had branches written out on half-sheets stuffed in between, forming appendices that listed off-shoots of the family, and showed a trail of documentation that had petered off by the mid-nineteenth century.
One of the last entries of the eighteen-hundreds—and the most detailed one of that century—was a bill of transfer copied from the Department of Administrative Registration, notifying the Ministry of a change in status of an Irish wizarding residence. The property had been formerly registered to, as the document proclaimed, "The Family of Gaunt"; the lines of tiny text at the bottom revealed that it was now de-listed, with no new residence recorded under their name, and any administrative fees for that property would be charged to a new account. There was no name for the new owner, only a Gringotts vault number and a reference to a Goblin's name, followed by a line of symbols written in Gobbledygook.
"This was all the publicly available information I could get on short notice," said Nott, watching her go through the papers. "The Ministry will let you apply for personal records through owl enquiry as long as they're defunct—the Gaunts don't own that property anymore, but they'd refuse my request if I asked for the current registration records on Malfoy's house."
"Publicly available." Hermione paused, sifting through his words to find their meaning. She'd used that phrase herself before, and while it came off as forthright to any casual listener, the implication was obvious. "There's more information, isn't there?"
"I knew you'd understand," said Nott, nodding in approval. "If there's anything that Ravenclaws are good for, it's word games."
"What is it that you're looking for in particular?" asked Hermione. She wasn't going to tell Nott that she was going to fall in with his plan, but there was nothing wrong with hearing him out first. She'd heard enough of Tom's ridiculous plans in the past, including an absurd one to lure Professor Dumbledore's pet phoenix out of his office with lemon caraway tea biscuits, then trim its tail feathers for potion experimentation. "It's got to be something that you think I can find, and you can't."
"Information on the Gaunts. Corvinus Gaunt, to be precise," said Nott. "I've got a copy of his basic biography in my family's library, but the Ministry has an archive with more information than his date of birth and death, his bloodline, his wife's bloodline, and the number of sons he sired on her. Corvinus was one of the last generations of the Gaunt family to have attended Hogwarts, and after graduation, served as a member of the Hogwarts Board of Governors. The Ministry of Magic's private archive ought to have a record of motions he'd brought up to the Board, and what funding the Ministry approved in his name.
"I've a theory that the Heirs of Slytherin—the scions of the Gaunt line—must have known where the Chamber of Secrets was hidden. You've said it yourself that people have gone looking for it over the years, and found nothing at all... But I think it's more likely that people have found it—how could any modern wardmaster not notice strong magical distortions around a concealment ward? Magic, especially great magic, leaves traces! But no one's said anything because there's been a conspiracy to keep it covered up—"
Hermione coughed.
"Sorry," she said, pressing one hand over her mouth, the other waving at him to continue. "Go on. I'm listening."
Nott shot her an irritated glare. "The castle of today isn't the same castle that the founders built a thousand years ago. Headmasters of the past have had construction wizards in and out of the grounds—professional draughtsman, enchanters, and artificers—to renovate sections or bring them up to modern standards. The clock in the Clock Tower was put in two centuries after the founders died; before that, they had a bell to mark the hours. The giant orrery and telescopes in the Astronomy Tower were brought up in pieces and installed four centuries ago. Before that, a student who wanted full marks in Astronomy took a Supersensory Potion to improve his eyesight for an exam; he went blind with a bad brew so the Board had to do something when the parents complained."
"That wasn't in Hogwarts: A History," remarked Hermione, pursing her lips as she tried to remember the chapters dedicated to the construction of the castle. Building the castle had been the work of decades, and the village of Hogsmeade had grown around it, housing and feeding the earliest students when Hogwarts had been one central keep containing the Great Hall and the founders' original scriptoria, instead of a proper live-in boarding school.
She recalled the few paragraphs saying that Hogwarts had once had a chapel on the grounds, but it had fallen out of favour not long before the Statute, and students dedicated to their faith had been escorted to the nearest Muggle village, Dufftown, twenty miles away for their Sunday services. The Hufflepuff House ghost, the Fat Friar, had once been a school chaplain in the old days when that had been an official title.
But the book, published this century, had spent more time describing changes made this and last century than anything older. The biggest change, of course, had been the construction of Hogsmeade Station to accommodate the Hogwarts Express. That had been followed with the enchanted carriages and the boatshed; the boat ride into the castle had become a First Year tradition, when before that, parents brought their children straight up to the path by the front gates, under the watchful eyes of the winged boar statues.
"Everything's kept in the Board of Governors' records, my father says. He isn't a member, but his great-uncle was, last century," said Nott. "There was also a big furore back then about the kitchens—students wrote their parents about the lack of variety in the meals, always frummenty for breakfast, pease and pudding for dinner, and roasts each feast. They wanted pasties, white bread, and sweet risen cakes like they got at home, or could buy in Hogsmeade. The Prophet ran the story, Howlers were passed around, and the Board eventually put a motion in their monthly panel.
"Obviously," Nott continued loftily, lifting up his nose, "it was really a matter of traditionalists who thought students should have the same things they got when they were in school, and the modernists who wanted Hogwarts to match up to the standards of the other European schools—the French one had been selling itself for years on the quality of its dinner menus; they even served a homemade wine vintage for the older students. As far as I know, the vote came in close, the modernists on the Board won, and they had wizarding artificers in the next week to replace the old roasting racks with new ovens."
Hermione found the history of wizarding culture a fascinating anthropological study, whereas Tom had always been ambivalent about it; he had little interest in the lives of dead wizards unless they'd invented or done something that he could use in his own magical studies. Nott, on the other hand, appreciated history, and although Hermione thought his reverence for wizarding tradition was taken to an unhealthy extreme, his scholarly enthusiasm was genuine.
"So," Hermione ventured, "you're saying that the Chamber of Secrets is hidden in the Hogwarts kitchens?"
"No," Nott said, his tone short with impatience, "I'm saying that the Board of Governors records each motion proposed and passed by its members. Officially, they want to keep a record for posterity, but the real reason is to check the minutes if it turns out a member was using school funds to invest in his own business—it wouldn't be fair on the other members if they didn't get a cut too, so they enforced accountability on everyone. But we can use that: Corvinus Gaunt's voting record is on file in the Ministry, kept in the archives under the aegis of the Department of Magical Education. If there's anything he tried to cover up during his stint on the Board, it has to be there."
"I suppose it's not the worst place to start," Hermione conceded. "Why haven't you gotten the information yet? I don't approve of the deal you made with Tom, but you did agree to it, and there was a time limit involved. Surely you haven't been sitting on your hands this whole time."
"It's not that easy to sneak out of the castle and back without being noticed," said Nott, scowling. "You'd have a better go of it than me, with your Prefect badge and do-good reputation. If there's anyone else that the teachers fawn over more than Riddle, it's you."
"Thank you," said Hermione, who had almost gotten used to Nott's habit of sprinkling his compliments with unsubtle criticism. "But I can't help feeling that you're only saying it because you want me to do something."
"Cover for me on the day of the Apparition examinations, so I can get to the Ministry and back before dinner. That's the best date to do it: the Heads expect the Sixth Year Prefects to be taking their exams and won't assign any patrols on that day, while all the teachers'll be busy ensuring that no one dies of splinching."
Hermione frowned. "Why do you need me to cover you? If you're earnest about collecting information to fulfill your side of the deal, then Tom could do it in my place. He is a Slytherin Prefect."
"Because he'll want to come with me," said Nott, his jaw tightening. "And I prefer to work alone."
"You're working with me!"
"Not because I want to, Granger," Nott retorted, brushing aside her indignation with a dispassionate shrug. "And because anything is better than having Riddle breathing down my neck."
"It's really not that bad," said Hermione defensively—without considering her words. She hadn't minded the feeling of Tom's breath on the back of her neck. She quite vividly remembered the Tom of the holidays who was prickly when he hadn't taken his medicine, but very affectionate and tactile once he had. It had taken some time to get used to it, but it hadn't been an unpleasant experience to wake up in the morning with his arms holding her in an intimate embrace.
(She could see why Tom would be so partial to it, and prefer that it not be limited to special occasions like birthdays or Christmas, but Tom's fumbled justifications on the value of "convenience" had not endeared the idea to her.)
Nott would have no idea about that, of course, but he seemed to discern the true meaning of what she'd just said; his eyes widened and his response was cut off by a loud choking sound.
"You'd know better than I, wouldn't you?" was his eventual reply, words spoken with a tinge of startlement. Nott cleared his throat and proceeded, this time in a cool voice, "Well, out of the two of us, I have too much dignity than to let Riddle fondle me whenever he pleases. That's why I need a way to leave the school grounds alone, without anyone—especially him—noticing that I'm gone."
"I... could pretend to catch you out past curfew and get Hipworth to assign a detention on that day," Hermione put forward, hesitating. "Or I could go with you. I've never been to the Ministry before—I didn't even know they had an archive—"
"Unnecessary," said Nott quickly, cutting her off. "You don't know your way around, the people have never heard of your family name or connections, and you'll only get in my way."
"I know how find my way around a library," Hermione said. "And I'm faster at using the card index than you are!"
Nott gave no acknowledgement of her argument, continuing on obliviously, "It's more trouble than it's worth. You don't know how to find the archives, let alone get in and out. You just said you've never been there before—"
"Well, you can show me. I'm sure I'll catch on quickly."
"I'd be in and out faster if I didn't have to drag you along."
"Then it sounds like you can do perfectly well without needing my help," said Hermione, sniffing and turning away. She closed the folio over the stack of parchments and shoved it back to Nott.
She'd appreciated that Nott was relatively straightforward when he wanted something, but when he wanted to be sneaky, he became infuriating beyond belief—not because he was feeding her lies, but because he had a way of deflecting closer scrutiny through minor personal insults. She was torn between assuming they were his genuine thoughts and what he exaggerated to fan the flames of reactionary outrage.
Having figured out what Nott was doing, and aware that he was likely doing it on purpose, Hermione still couldn't quash her instant affront, artificially engineered or otherwise. He wanted her to object to his rudeness—he had little tact, but she'd observed in the past that he had more than this. He wanted her to go along with his plan—intrigue her with a taste of information that he'd waved under her nose—and reject the opportunity to spend time with in person, after giving her a taste of the low-level antagonism that she could expect if she did attempt to accompany him on a clandestine journey off school grounds.
It was crude, and it reminded her of the ham-handed habits of little boys on the playground when they thought one of their female classmates was pretty. They had no other way to articulate their admiration, other than to make comment on her appearance or mannerisms in a disparaging fashion. Hermione, however, refused to entertain the notion that Nott admired her; over the course of the year that she'd known him, she'd heard his petty insinuations multiple times, and had formed a solid impression that his words had nothing to do with amorous incompetence, and more to do with his own unmannerly nature. He didn't consider her a proper lady, therefore there was no reason to act a proper gentleman.
(One of the things she'd liked about Tom Riddle upon first meeting him was how he never made reference to her appearance. When he argued with her, trying to counter her points of debate, he countered them in discourse, without having to resort to discrediting her as a person. He didn't try to be kind about it, especially when he thought her ideologies too soft to be applicable for the real world, but at least he understood the workings of proper rhetoric.)
Well, then, she thought. Let Nott try and make plans around me if he wants to. It didn't mean that I have to go along with them.
She was still frustrated with Nott's plan to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, and draw Tom into it by baiting him with his own greed. Through that, she had been made aware of the reasons why Nott had been so interested in the lineage of Morfin Gaunt in the first place, and beyond that, how much information he'd been keeping close to his own chest. This whole time, she was fully aware that she hadn't told Nott the full extent of her own knowledge... but that was completely different.
"And if I'm so much of a bother, then I suppose I'll stop bothering you now," she spoke in a clipped voice, swinging the strap of her bag over her shoulder. "Have a good evening, then."
Hermione drew her wand from her robe pocket and Banished her textbooks to the correct shelves, gathering her stationery and dumping them into her book bag. She stood up and pushed her chair back from the table.
Nott was struck silent, gaping at her for a few seconds, before he collected his wits and scrambled after her, chair scraping over the floor, parchment folio jammed under his arm.
"Granger!" he cried, "Granger, wait!"
Hermione left him at the returns desk, where he'd been stopped by the librarian and berated for yelling in the library. He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet in his impatience to get away, but her view of him was soon obstructed by the closing of the library door.
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The seeds of Hermione's plan had formed during an Apparition lesson, right after the Ministry instructor lectured them on the format of the final license-approval examination. The woman had wandered over to judge Tom's progress as one of the few students who had made some strides in successful Disapparation, and after their conversation about career opportunities at the Ministry of Magic, Tom was given a card with the woman's office and department directions.
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Elodia B. Netherfield
Senior Instructor and Examiner
Apparition Licensing and Examinations
Office and Floo Network No. 39/C
Ministry of Magic Level Six
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The Ministry of Magic was just like any government institution, Muggle or Magical: its primary purpose, as elucidated by Madam Netherfield, was to serve its constituents. As of last September, Hermione was an adult witch, a member of magical society with a wizarding home registered under her name. She'd looked it up, and had seen that she was afforded certain rights, including the ability to petition the Chief Warlock, or request a trial under the full Wizengamot if convicted of a crime.
She didn't need Nott to get into the Ministry, did she?
Not when she had a goal (the Ministry archives) and a reasonable excuse to visit the Ministry (an inquiry about licenses and career opportunities in the department). Large institutions had much in common with one another: at Hogwarts, she had seen Tom wander about the castle, and as long as he walked with a purposeful stride and had an excuse prepared about doing this or that favour for Professor Slughorn, the Head Girl couldn't push him into overseeing a detention in her stead, or tutor a struggling Fourth Year student for next year's O.W.L.s.
Though Tom was better at "fact interpretation", a euphemism he used when he wanted to fluster her in public, Hermione disapproved of the way he saw fit to reinterpret facts for any and all occasions. She couldn't, however, deny its utility in the right circumstance. The "right" circumstance wasn't frivolous, like Tom fabricating an explanation for why he couldn't undertake a menial task involving busywork or younger students. The right circumstance, Hermione had concluded, involved things greater than one's personal leisure.
She'd made up her mind to visit the Ministry of Magic by the end of the Apparition lesson, and Tom had made up his mind to accompany her. It had made her somewhat apprehensive—not for the same reason as Nott's unease—but because the Gaunts were tied up with the Slytherin lineage and the Chamber of Secrets, and it was a precarious position to be in where discharging the life debt meant revealing the facts she'd discovered in the past year since she'd first met with Nott under the shadow of Hipparchus the Stargazer.
But once the plans were made and the date was set, there was no way to delay them.
The Twenty-Ninth of April, a Saturday, was the date of their Apparition examinations. Hermione was nervous about taking them—though not as nervous as she was about sneaking off Hogwarts grounds without permission from her Head of House, despite being an adult and knowing that such permissions were a courtesy rather than a legal requirement as the Hogsmeade forms were treated with the Third Years. Nevertheless, the teachers had a responsibility to care for the welfare of all students, even the adults, and Hermione felt a twinge of guilt at shirking it when they had trusted her enough to award her a Prefectship.
Tom, on the other hand, was excited; he kept glancing over to the Ravenclaw table from where he sat with the Slytherins of his year, most of whom were nervously going through their notes or scribbling helpful hints on their hands with indelible ink. The Apparition exam was a practical test without a written portion (a shame, as Hermione knew she would have excelled at it) and thus it was acceptable, if rather gauche, to bring one's study materials in front of the examiners.
(On the other hand, Apparition was all about a wizard's confidence, and seeing students shuffle their note cards was a cue to the Mediwizard that he should prepare himself for an imminent splinching.)
The exam was simple: Apparate into a circle painted on the floor while a Ministry examiner officiated, then Apparate again into another circle hidden behind a folding screen. Afterwards, there was a form to fill out for the license itself, of which she got a copy to keep. Hermione was told to keep the license on her person at all times, but in the many times she'd passed through the alley behind the Leaky Cauldron or the village square of Hogsmeade, she'd seen plenty of wizards and witches Apparate in her presence, but no one had ever been asked to present their qualifications.
Hermione and Tom had volunteered themselves first, with a string of volunteers following after them, consisting of around a dozen students. Most of them were Gryffindors; the rest were a handful of Seventh Year students who had failed or deferred the exam the previous year and preferred to take it with the Sixth Years, as an alternative to going to the Ministry and paying the fee to take it during the summer.
After receiving their licenses, they had the rest of the day to do as they pleased—everyone else in their year would be too busy preparing or taking their own exams to look for them. As the first to complete their exams, they were just in time to slip in with the stream of students heading into Hogsmeade for the weekend.
Hermione wore her Ravenclaw school robes over a plain blouse and skirt, instead of her full uniform; Tom wore the same.
Gesturing at her to follow, he led her to The Hog's Head, then behind it to the deserted stableyard, where they stuffed their robes into their bags, removing their school ties and badges to look like normal wizarding adults and not Hogwarts students. Tom knotted one of his Muggle neckties under the collar of his uniform shirt, then threw on a basic black robe to cover it; it was undecorated apart from a fastening pin in the shape of a silver snake with eyes of jet beads.
Hermione had on a modern witch's coat over her blouse, bought from the discount rack at Gladrags' the other week. It was a tad heavy for the season, boiled wool in mustard yellow with a quilted lining, a last remnant of the shop's winter line, but it looked "adult". The lapels were sharp, the buttons carved horn, and the waist darted in tightly to give it a shape that the Hogwarts uniform lacked—both boys and girls were sold the same uniform robes, with no distinction made between sex, only size and seam length.
On a Saturday morning, Hogsmeade was bustling, and the regular patrons of The Hog's Head had already begun drifting in. Hermione had seen few people venture into this pub during the times she'd supervised Hogsmeade trips as a Prefect, as most preferred the atmosphere and menu quality delivered by The Three Broomsticks, located just up the road. She wasn't surprised by the quality of the regulars today; from a brief glance, she'd seen that none of them cared about good food or a welcoming ambience. Tom wasn't surprised either; he threw a few looks over his shoulder to the bar, where the publican was wiping down the counter with a dirty rag, but made no comment as he ushered her over to the fireplace.
She would have expected Tom to have plenty of things to say about "peons", and the inherent weakness of character that led to their succumbing to such common displays of degeneracy. But he kept his mouth shut, stepping gingerly past the occupied tables and wincing when a patron let off a gassy belch in his direction. He only paused when they got to the fireplace, its bricks blackened with soot and a strange chunky stain on the hearth, brown with yellowish splatters and sparkling where it caught the lamplight.
Spilled Floo powder, she assumed, but refrained from thinking more deeply on it as Tom reached up to the jar on the mantel, and enunciated in a clear voice.
"Ministry of Magic, London!"
Hermione uttered the same location, tossing in a handful of glittering sand, and followed him into the roaring green flames.
Similar to Apparition, there was a sensation of compression, a disorienting green swirl of images, as if someone had dangled her upside-down out of a train window, while it was zooming at fifty miles per hour past a thick woodland in full spring leaf. She was blasted by a great bellowing wind from all sides, with as much force as standing at the prow of a ferry in a high squall; her ears popped, and her sensible leather school shoes slipped and skidded as she was tossed out of The Hog's Head fireplace, pressed through a narrow space like cream frosting in a piping funnel, then spat out the other end, onto the smooth glazed tile of the Ministry of Magic's atrium.
On a Saturday, the Atrium was deserted of its usual crowd of guests and workers; there was no queue at the fireplace like she'd seen in the Leaky Cauldron's public room when she'd visited Tom during the summer. From here, she could see to the far end of the Atrium, a furlong of polished dark wood that reflected the light of dozens of gilded lamps, up to a gilded golden gate at the far end of the hall. Her view of the gates and the security desk guarding it was interrupted by an ostentatious fountain, the central water feature shaped like larger-than-life figures standing around a proud, bearded wizard holding an upraised wand.
"Come on," said Tom, drawing his wand to clear off the soot stains on her coat. "We should see what that's about."
The security desk in front of the closed gates was occupied by a witch in brick-red robes, her sleeves impractically long and flowing. Her lipstick and nail enamel matched the exact shade of her robes, and she was using those painted nails to flick through the bright, glossy pages of a magazine.
"The Ministry of Magic requires wizards and witches to state the purpose of their visit and submit their wands for inspection. Any visitors presenting themselves for court trials, matrimonial, Animagus, or residential registrations, international Portkey applications, examinations, or license renewals must lodge their appointment slips during weekday working hours," she recited in one breath, not lifting her eyes from the pages of her magazine. "If an appointment has not been booked in advance, the reservation desk opens at nine on Monday morning."
Hermione stepped up to the desk, which was annoyingly set at such a height that she had to crane her neck to look at the witch sitting behind it. "Reason for visit: to access the Ministry archives."
"The archive is closed to unauthorised visitors on weekends," spoke the receptionist in a bland voice, giving her a quick glance and, after noting nothing of great interest in Hermione's appearance, had returned to her magazine with a resigned sigh. "You may mail your requests for official documents, reports, certifications, and court logs to the Department of Administrative Registration, and they'll send an answer on Monday."
"Wait—what about authorised visitors?" asked Hermione, who'd had more than enough of the wizarding world's habit of staffing front desks with unhelpful receptionists. The one at St. Mungo's had been just as annoying.
"Employees of the Ministry of Magic can go through there." The witch gestured at the golden gate behind the desk. "If you're not an employee, then you'll have to make an appointment on Monday, in person or through owl mail. Sorry, dear, but those are the rules."
"I have authorisation," said Tom, speaking up for once. He approached the desk, sliding in front of Hermione and propping his elbows on the surface, which caused the receptionist to draw herself back in surprise.
She lifted an eyebrow at him. "You're very young to be a diplomat or an international Auror."
"I'm neither."
"Sorry, doll, but you'll have to—"
Tom reached into his robe pocket and placed something flat and silvery on the security desk. "Wizarding Britain Society of Journalists official press badge. Does that count as valid authorisation?"
The receptionist frowned. "Yeees. But only if it's the real thing. May I?"
"Please."
She slid her wand out from the voluminous sleeve of her robes and tapped the surface of Tom's badge, which lit up and began to glow a ghostly blue-white. "It's real. Very well, then. I'll need your wands and your names for the records."
Tom, rather reluctantly, handed his wand over to the receptionist, and never took his eyes off her as she laid it on a scale and peeled a strip of parchment from a slot at the bottom. Tom nudged Hermione, and she surrendered her own wand, which underwent the same procedure of weighing, watching, measuring. But it was over soon, and their wands returned, along with a pair of cards on a length of cord to hang about their necks, printed with the words AUTHORISED VISITOR.
"Your names, sir and madam?"
"Thomas Bertram, journalist. And Hermione... Riddle, editorial assistant," Tom enunciated clearly, and he seemed perversely pleased at watching the receptionist's quill falter and her hand shake as she recorded their names into her log book.
"Thomas B-Bertram?" she spluttered. "The Mr. Bertram?"
"I wasn't aware there was any other," said Tom.
"You look nothing like I imagined," said the receptionist, sounding very out of breath.
"Is that a bad thing?" Tom asked.
"No!" the receptionist said hastily. "No, of course not. You're just so... so young!"
"Thank you, I suppose," said Tom. "I find that taking care of oneself is good advice to heed."
"Ah." The receptionist scrambled to find a spare bit of parchment, picking up her quill and dipping it into her inkwell, before she hesitated and said, "Do you have any tips for looking younger, sir? You have very nice skin—it's so smooth, not even a single wrinkle!"
"Hmm," said Tom, glancing over at Hermione, whose expression was torn between a mix of impatience and amusement. "You might try brewing a weekly poultice to enliven the skin. A base of lanolin, mixed with the following ingredients: powdered arnica leaf to reduce reddened or swollen skin. Dried kelp soaked in the juice of a medium Bouncing Bulb to firm and rehydrate—slice it lengthwise and push it through a colander with a wooden ladle, to get the most out of it. After epilation, use pulped Knotgrass with stems of Motherwort to reduce re-growth and smooth the skin. I recommend a substitution of Motherwort for nettle oil if you're brewing in winter; it isn't as good as fresh Motherwort, but its preserved form is available year-round, and it keeps better."
The witch behind the desk scribbled furiously to keep up, spattering ink over her parchment and the sleeve of her robe.
"Simmer the mixture to bubbling—don't let it boil over—until the oil is infused, then pass it through a cheesecloth to filter out the particulates. You should use it while it's still warm, after cleansing your face with a steamed towel; the Super Steamer spell would be appropriate here. Any extra poultice should be stored in standard potion vials, or in jars with the food preservation Stasis Charm I wrote about a few issues ago."
"Issue Thirty-Six, the one with the Kneazle personality quiz," spoke the receptionist eagerly. "I have a copy of it with me."
"That's the one," said Tom.
"Do you mind signing mine?"
"For a loyal fan?" Tom inclined his head. "I would be happy to."
The witch dug around under the desk, and after a few seconds of rummaging, dropped a magazine on the counter. She then slid a quill over, which Tom picked up to scrawl his "signature" over the front cover of the magazine, which depicted an animated portrait of a housewitch in an apron, floating dishes and cutlery around her head with her wand. At her feet, a fluffy ginger cat batted at a glistening stream of soap bubbles.
"No one will believe that I met Thomas Bertram," said the witch in a breathy voice, fanning herself with her magazine, after Tom had signed his 'name' on it.
"If they won't believe it, then I'll add a dedication in next week's correspondence column. 'To my best fan, Miss...'" Tom paused, looking meaningfully at the receptionist.
"Miss Leonora Gardiner," she squeaked.
"Of course," said Tom. "'To the most helpful Miss Gardiner,' how about that?"
"Oh, I can't wait!" she giggled, reaching for the golden lever by the front desk. "You can go through the gate now. Down the hall to the lift, press Level Nine for the archives. Take the fourth left fork, count three doors left, five right, and you're there. Do come back anytime, Mr. Bertram!"
Passing through the gates—when the receptionist was out of earshot—Hermione whispered, "Well, that was disturbing."
"I found it interesting," said Tom, tilting his head back to peer at the high ceiling, a dome of peacock blue glass panes set in a golden frame, glittering with alchemical symbols and runes that drifted along like a spiralling galaxy of stars. It wasn't as grand a display of magic as the Hogwarts Great Hall's ceiling, but it had a sense of grandeur that Muggle buildings failed to capture, with their fashion of painted frescoes that only created an illusion of depth.
"I had the one badge," Tom continued, his voice pitched to keep it from echoing in the empty hall, "but she let us both through. I suspect it went against policy, but she was too flattered to stop me."
At the end of the corridor was another golden gate, this time smaller and single leafed; behind it was a square black pit, with a pair of silver chains in the centre ascending into darkness. Beside the grille was a brass panel with ivory buttons, painted with an arrow pointing up, and an arrow pointing down.
"I didn't know wizards had lifts," Hermione remarked, finger hovering over the buttons, before she pressed the down arrow. "You'd think they'd use something more magical than this."
The lift gave off a chime. The chains rattled and clinked; they felt the rumble of something approaching from the shaft beneath their feet.
With a second chime, the golden grille slid open to reveal a spacious square box with a domed roof that matched the Atrium ceiling, and a floor tiled in a design of a large M with sparks shooting out of the topmost points. There was a panel on the inside with buttons numbered One through Nine, which Hermione pushed down, before the grilles slid shut without warning, and the lift jerked into motion—
—Sideways.
Hermione was thrown off her feet, into Tom's chest; he, in turn, was tossed back against the wall, one hand grasping for his wand, and the other scrabbling for the railing bolted to the side.
Just as she'd grabbed hold of Tom's sleeve, the elevator dropped down, then shifted to the opposite side, then up, then to the side again, before it stopped dead and gave off a cheery little ding!.
"Level Nine, Department of Wizarding Administration, incorporating the offices of the Wizengamot Representative Council, the Wizarding Examinations Authority, the Ministerial Committee for Experimental Research and Magical Patents, and the Administrative Archives."
The grille slid open.
Hermione picked herself up from where her fall had been cushioned by Tom's chest, clearing her throat and averting her eyes from his. She offered him a hand to help him up off the floor, then proceeded to smooth the creases out of her coat.
"Alright," she groaned, making sure her own wand hadn't fallen out of her pocket, "I rescind my prior statement. That was magical enough for me."
"That was interesting," said Tom, who didn't look like he had minded being used as Hermione's pillow.
(Thinking back to their Christmas holidays, she couldn't recall him complaining about it then, even though he'd winced every time he jostled his hip going up and down the stairs.)
"There must be Extension Charms built into the structure if the lift was taking us sideways. I'd known for years that the Ministry was built under the City of London, but it makes sense that they built down and expanded the space—there's not enough room at the surface to fit as much as they need to administer the whole of the Isles; Diagon Alley is crowded enough as it is."
Level Nine wasn't as ostentatious as the Atrium, but it did look as if Tom's guess on the Ministry's use of Extension Charms had been correct: the hall was bare, with tiled walls and a plain carpet under their feet, a long runner rug that extended from the lift and went on and on, the vast passageway interrupted every few feet by a door set with a little brass plaque. The plaques were engraved with the name of each minor sub-department and office owner; Hermione wouldn't have been surprised if each of the Wizengamot's fifty-odd members had an office on this level, even if most of them skipped out on the weekly proceedings and voted on them in absentia.
(For the last few birthdays, Tom had gifted her a year's subscription to the Wizengamot's newsletter, a transcript of meetings held in the last month. Upon reading them, she saw that there was only a handful of regular speakers who proposed changes or brought up charges, and when it came to voting on things like licensing restrictions for cross-bred magical creatures, the majority of votes were absentees and abstentions. To see citizens so passive about their own government was a singularly vexing experience, a feeling that grew when Hermione checked the Daily Prophet the next day and saw nothing but a two line description of the new laws, buried on Page 23.)
Now and then there was a branch in the corridor, labelled with a sign shaped like a pointing hand, and it was one of these that bore the words: Ministry of Magic Administrative Record Repository and Archive.
Behind the door was a long, balustraded gallery of iron fretwork, and from it, a spiral staircase descended into a dimly-lit expanse of tall columns. The columns weren't structural; each one was around ten feet tall and didn't reach the ceiling, the surfaces honeycombed with little slots that contained a sheaf of paper or a roll of dusty parchment fastened with a ribbon. Looking at them from above, Hermione thought it resembled a field of upright ears of corn.
The tops of the columns were flat, round circles, marked with faintly glowing letters. Where they stood, looking down at the centre of the archive, the letters were marked J-1, J-2, all the way down to J-10, where the next row of columns began with K-1 through K-10, followed by L, M, and N. It was an alphabetical organisation system, a simple method for the archivists to store and label records, but she couldn't commend it on its ease of use—it didn't endear itself to any users searching for specific names or terms.
"If you start over there, with the A's, they'll probably have a record for the Aurors," Hermione suggested, peering down from the gallery. "I do hope they have some sub-system for sorting records by date of entry. The Ministry's been around for over two hundred years, and wizards never throw anything away if they can help it. If not, Auror reports might be under D, for the 'Department of Magical Law Enforcement'—would that be under 'Magical Law Enforcement'? Or just 'Law Enforcement'?" She let out a short huff. "I wish there was a guide for using this system."
"I imagine that most people avoid this place if they can help it," said Tom, swiping his finger along the iron railing. His finger came away coated in grey dust. "Where will you be going?"
"G, for 'Grindelwald'," said Hermione, pointing to the row of shelves somewhere closer to the middle. "He's not a British citizen, but he's got to be important enough that the the Ministry has a file on him. Legally, he's the foreign equivalent of a Minister of Magic, no matter how he earned that title, so the Department of International Magical Co-operation must keep track of him, for diplomacy's sake."
Tom cocked his head, his expression sceptical. "I suspect that whatever's on public record will turn out to be rather sparse. When it comes to internal reports on important political figures, they'd only pass the good stuff around the desks of the Minister and Department heads, and not leave them where any common parchment pusher can find them."
"Something is better than nothing," said Hermione. "As dull as a financial report can be, you can use it to fill in the bigger picture if you know where to look. For instance, the occupied Norwegian Ministry importing Jobberknoll feathers in bulk is a sign that someone up the line is planning on brewing a big batch of potion. Jobberknoll parts have few other uses outside of potions."
"Flight feathers for memory potions, and down plucked from the breast for truth potions—no substitutions, unlike most vegetable ingredients in common potions," said Tom in a thoughtful voice. "Alright, I see that you have a point there. Shall we go down?"
They descended the spiral staircase to the archive floor, drawing and lighting their wands to combat the darkness. The air was still, stale and dustier than it had been on the gallery, by the entrance, and Hermione felt a pang in her chest to see a library like this in such a state of disuse.
Holding her wand before her, she noted that the wooden floorboards were inlaid with letters that matched the alphabetical designation for each row of shelves, and by following them, they could find their way around without having to climb back up the stairs to look at the columns from above.
"I'll start on the left, then," said Tom. "If I finish first, I'll throw up a sparkler. If you see it, then send up your own, so I know where to find you."
Exploring the Ministry of Magic archive was a different experience to browsing the stacks at the Hogwarts library or Flourish and Blotts. The latter two were welcoming places, with helpful staff and thousands of books on display with their spines out, the titles of each book foiled in gold leaf or embossed in silver, ready to catch her eye and loosen the strings of her coin pouch. This place, the dusty departmental archive, wasn't a place that availed itself to browsers; the individual niches were barely organised, stuffed higgledy-piggledy with scrolls a dozen deep so that when she tried to draw out a single scroll, the rest of them came out too, flopping at her feet like a brace of fish.
She smoothed them out, re-rolled them, and returned them to the niche in a better state than they'd been in before, but it was a slow process to work her way down from the very top compartments, starting from Gabener, to Galbraith and Gamp. Out of curiosity, she spent a few minutes scanning through those files, knowing the history of the Gamp family as one of great scholars and renowned academics, and that Nott was an offshoot of the branch by way of his mother. She had to tear herself away after remembering that they only had a limited amount of time before the professors at Hogwarts would begin to look for her and Tom. With reluctance, she was forced to put them away and resume her search.
Finally, she found what she was looking for at the bottom of the shelf, tucked so far away that she had to drop to her knees and scrape her elbow over the dusty floorboards to peel out the scrolls: Gaunt.
The file was thicker than she thought it would be, slotted in between Gatwick and Gavroche. Nott had showed her the Gaunts' entry in The Pure-blood Directory, and it had been a sparse few pages.
The Gaunts, according to the book, were a small and obscure family that had lingered on the edge of extinction for decades, if not centuries. They'd placed a stricter emphasis on purity than the rest of Britain's pureblood society, who'd made it a habit to seek wives of foreign blood if the current crop of British débutantes was closer than second cousins. And on top of that, unlike many great British families, the Gaunts had no list of modern achievements to add to the prestige of their name: Arcturus Black, father of Lucretia Orion, had an Order of Merlin awarded to him a few years ago; Edmond Lestrange's great-grandfather had been the fifteenth Minister for Magic; Cantankerous Nott curated Britain's largest private collection of genealogical records, and was frequently consulted by families whose children had reached marriageable age.
The last living member of the family who bore the name, Nott had said, was Mr. Morfin Gaunt, a man whose seniority gave him better claim to the title 'Heir of Slytherin' than Tom Riddle. Tom was a half-blood, his claim through the matrilineal line, but his power and abilities all but proved his legitimacy.
With shaking hands, Hermione slipped off the ribbon enclosing the roll of parchment sheets, then spread them open on the dusty floor.
She'd expected ancient, crackling parchment, and spidery sentences written in archival ink, filling the air with the metallic reek of oxidised iron-based pigments. What she hadn't expected was a thick roll of parchment, the outer layers consisting of smooth paper with ruler-straight edges, with none of the yellowed, hand-cut deckled edges she'd seen at the antiquarian bookshop. The outermost page was a coversheet bearing the insignia of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and within it was a witness testimony form filed by a member of the Law Enforcement Patrol. Following that was a record of the conviction and sentencing of one Morfin Gaunt.
.
.
2 September, 1925
DMLE routine patrol sent representative to wizarding residence in North Yorkshire to deliver hearing summons to Mr. Morfin Gaunt. (Archive reference no. 4813967; Breach of Statute of Secrecy by Adult Citizen, Muggle Baiting, cross reference file no. 3957523 with Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes.)
Representative B. Odgen was assaulted with magic by Mr. Gaunt in presence of two Muggles. Reinforcements were requested to appear at site to subdue and detain Mr. Gaunt, and Obliviate Muggle witnesses. Mr. Gaunt was hostile, resisted arrest, did not co-operate with interrogation by DMLE officers, and was placed in detention to await sentencing until date of his hearing on 14 September...
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On the parchment under that:
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Certificate of Death
Name of Deceased: Marvolo Gaunt
Date: 12 March 1926
Place of Death: Azkaban Prison
Cause: Exposure, Infirmity
Sentence: 6 Months
Prior Residence: Gaunt House, Little Hangleton, North Yorkshire
Next of Kin: Morfin Gaunt (Presently Incarcerated)
Further observations: Due for release in less than two weeks, but poor health and advanced age reduced natural resilience to Azkaban atmosphere. Remains burned and buried on island; personal effects held in escrow until next of kin's date of release (October 1928).
.
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There were pages and pages of this, official reports spanning from the years of 1925 to 1928, when Morfin was released and put on a warning list for those who would not be treated with lenience upon committing any further offenses.
Hermione dug through the papers, peeling back the years to glean an outline of a story told by these reports. The male members of the Gaunt family had been arrested and sent to prison, the Muggles they'd abused Obliviated and sent on their way, while Merope was left alone in their little cottage. Morfin had called her a thief; Merope must have taken the family silver and left home, eloping to York with her Muggle paramour, Mr. Tom Riddle.
Tom's father.
And the two convicted criminals, Morfin and Marvolo Gaunt, were Tom's uncle and grandfather. The reports lodged by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement were as dry and impassive as all official documents were, but the list of crimes spoke for itself. Hermione wasn't surprised, having met Morfin herself; skimming over the multiple counts of Muggle baiting and abuse in broad daylight, and an attack on Ministry employees, it was hard to believe that these were the in-laws of the wealthy and refined Riddle family.
She tapped her wand to the parchments, and to her satisfaction, found that they hadn't been jinxed to prevent duplication like the offerings at Glimwitt's Antiquities or the Hogwarts library. It made sense: this was a bureaucrat's archive, not a personal library. These files were a reference collection used by the administrative functionaries of the Ministry of Magic, not some private collection to be squirrelled away in a family manor.
But for now, she had other things to do. As interesting as this was, this was merely an apéritif to the main course. She could read this in her dormitory at Hogwarts, on her own time.
At the bottom of the stack, she found what she'd come for, tied up in a separate ribbon that was sealed with a piece of wax stamped with the logo of the Department of Magical Education.
Corvinus Gaunt. Born 1746, place of residence listed as the wizarding settlement near Dunshaughlin, Ireland. His name had been entered into the roll kept by the Department of Magical Education in 1783, as one of the twelve members of the Hogwarts Board of Governors. During his term as governor and, later, chairman of the board, his greatest contribution to Hogwarts was...
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July 1788 Board Assembly — Motions Passed.
Mr. C. Gaunt, Chairman of the Board, is pleased to announce the disbursement of funds from the Hogwarts Endowment Reserve for the following undertakings:
For personal convenience: installation of new bathing and hygiene facilities. Facilities shall be implemented in individual dormitories, staff quarters, Quidditch dressing rooms, and senior student commons.
For greater public health and well-being: installation of foundational operative structures, linked to sanitation apparatus dispersed across selected locations on each floor.
For the modernisation of an historic institution: accommodations shall be made to raise Hogwarts to a modern standard for the advantage and practical benefit to students; care shall be taken during installation for the conservation of significant architectural arrangements, for we aim to preserve and ensure all aspects of the Hogwarts education are of the highest calibre, now and into perpetuity...
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It was far from the most entertaining read, but Hermione had slogged through textbooks of wizarding law in the past, and she quickly got to the main point of the governors' announcement.
If there was a Chamber of Secrets, and if Corvinus Gaunt had conspired to hide it, then all evidence pointed toward its being hidden in a Hogwarts water closet.