Such is life, subject to constant change in plans. So I happen to apparate to the capital instead of Brimington, and I really have no time to lose when I enter Borgin and Burkes.

"You were here before, in winter," Burke immediately recalls, yet his smile is a skeptical one. "You want to buy boomslang skin, don't you?"

"I actually do, better yours than none, but I also have a suggestion to make."

He leans over the old counter to eye me even more intently.

"A suggestion?" He wonders. "You need money, don't you?"

I simply nod and let him believe whatever he wants.

"Why's that?"

"See, sir, here comes my first condition. No questions."

He chuckles, resting his hands on the counter. "You're making conditions before I even know what's in it for me?"

"I'll sell what you want, well above value. I'm certain there are shelf warmers you'd like to get rid of …"

"You could sell anything with that face of yours, indeed." He crosses his arms over his chest, then proceeds to ask, "How much money do you need?"

"How much can you pay?"

"Ten Galleons."

"Mr Burke," I sigh, "I won't even start for that."

"So you're not desperate?" His forehead creases.

I hesitate. "What do you mean?"

"The desperate ones always settle for ten Galleons," he claims. "Always worth a try …"

"What can you offer me instead?"

"Ten percent of what you sell?"

"Fine – but you need to let me see your best customer, the one who met me on her last visit here."

"It's your lucky day then." He can't suppress a grin. "She's expecting me today. But be warned, she loves to surround herself with young men …" It's clearly taking him a huge amount of discipline to not rub his hands together in utmost greed. "She'll be thrilled when she gets to see you instead of me. Come on! You'll need a handful of goods to flog. And a pinch of Floo Powder."

It doesn't take me long to land right in Hepzibah Smith's fireplace. Air weighed down by pithy perfume surrounds me, accompanied by a tingling sensation in my nose as the dust in her huge living room shimmers against the sunlight.

Behind ancient floor-length velvet curtains, rarities of all kinds are displayed, all the tables are filled with kitsch and junk, but also infinitely expensive artefacts. Quite lost in the sheer flood of clutter and indoor plants.

"Mr Riddle?" the old lady shrieks in delight, then, as she struggles to get up from her sofa – Victorian-style – she groans.

Contenance, patience, charm, I chant in my head again. No matter how much I may detest it, I have to play my part now.

"Ms Smith." I give her a nonchalant smile as she finally makes it to the fireplace. "It's good to see you again!"

A bold-faced lie. It's by no means good. That wig must be as antique as her, and the colours she has so eagerly painted her face with glow in all shades of the spectrum. The too-tight, way-too-pink dress is also a sight I won't be able to forget anytime soon. And what I actually wanted to see around her neck is not even there. She's not wearing the locket, to my great annoyance.

"We briefly met last year, right?" she giggles. "And when Mr Burke mentioned that he was sending you now, I was excited right away!"

"Oh were you?" Who'd have known. She's much to pleased at my sight indeed …

"There aren't too many admirers of art out there," she says with a shrug. "Every contact counts!"

"Oh, I'm sure it does."

"But where are my manners, would you like something to drink? Hokey? Hokey, are you around? Would you be so good as to join us for a moment?"

"Ma'am – I really don't want to trouble you," I claim. As though I'd like to drink from her glasses …

"My lady called?" A house elf is promptly standing in the doorway, apparently she's just been waiting to appear. "Hokey is at your service!"

"Hokey, you really are the fastest elf in all of London! Be a sweetheart and get the young man and me some tea, will you?"

Hokey nods, then, snipping but her fingers, she's gone again.

"Let's sit down, shall we?" the old witch suggests, placatingly directing me past giant monsteras and tables full of trinkets and glass boxes.

"Extraordinarily beautiful plants you have." I nod and glance at one, demonstratively impressed.

"Yes, yes, they really feel at home here," she claims. "In Chinese symbolism, they stand for a long life and veneration of deserving people."

"So two things that you combine," I say, quickly adding, "although the former doesn't show on your face at all and your art collection seems to be a unique treasure."

I would like to curse my tongue out of my body for that, but we all have to do what we have to do …

And at least the joy in her mimic is genuine. Flattered and proud, she looks around her exhibition and says, "You recognise this right away, of course – being Burke's new colleague …" As though it was a conspiracy behind closed doors, she whispers, "Surely you'll soon be taking over the shop!"

"You know," I begin, waving it off, "to be completely honest, I'm still a student – so that would have to wait … However, you can never start early enough with learning about the arts of this world, can you?"

She nods, rather thoughtfully. "A student, I see. I assume a Hogwarts student?"

"Yes, ma'am, correct."

"Such young blood," she says under her breath, then looks up at me with a wink. "I remember it like it was yesterday when I was there …"

And surely you were right there with the founders, it flashes through my mind, although I simply smile.

"Hokey is bringing tea and biscuits," we hear the house elf returning. She carries the literal silver platter with two cups, a teapot along with a plate full of too sugary biscuits.

"Thank you, Hokey," the old witch says, but with such exuberant joy, so affectionately, that it forces me to hesitate.

Hepzibah Smith is an egocentric old lady who basically has nothing and no one – except financial status and possessions.
And, apparently, Hokey.

The way the house elf merrily beams before leaving again, even I can sense a fair bit of genuine attachment between the two.

House elves serve. Crimes against them are not being punished. They have no rights. No protection from abuse – and that's what many families take advantage of, they're literally slaves.

But that's not the case here. The two are fond of each other. Hokey likes the old bat, and Smith has probably found her one and only friend in that house elf …

How strange.
Perhaps in the end, the chatty collector of lost treasures is not as despicable as I would've liked to believe.

It'd be easier that way.
To take a life hardly causing grief excludes a great deal of ethics, to make a nobody disappear from the face of the earth – that should be easy for someone like me.
But to judge and condemn a person that obviously has a certain value due to good deeds – that's more of a dilemma.

Like Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, I suddenly realise that the first murder is probably indeed the most formative.
That in the end it doesn't come as easily as a good plan should dictate.

I came here with the determination to kill her – only to be sure I won't do it now.

Perhaps less absolute methods might be enough, after all. She's eating out of my hand, that's not a bad start.

We talk for quite a while, about everything and nothing, over tea from antique cups, and she empties the plate of pastries with disciplined perseverance while she keeps informing me about previous auctions in Milan and Paris.

Until my eyes wander over to one of her shelves. "You read Muggle books?"

"Oh sure, now and then," she confirms. "There's nothing like a cosy evening with a good book."

Interesting … "What's your favourite one to read?"

"Well, currently Madam Bovary," she replies, ever so casually, "but I gather you might not know the story."

"I actually do," I surprise her. "Flaubert's scandalous work. A woman that marries for social advancement and yet only stumbles through life dissatisfied until, driven by recklessness and selfishness, she ruins her whole family."

"Oh, but don't say that," Ms Smith whispers, "the longing for more she had deep within her, that was to blame for everything! She wanted to be free just once, and to be loved and respected … And then poverty … you see, that changes people."

"You say that as though you knew poverty."

"Yes." She looks up at me, quite vulnerably so. "Well … we can be very poor in many ways, even if we are able to afford everything financially."

"What do you lack?" I simply ask her, holding her gaze.

"I'm … lonely," she hesitantly admits. "At times …"

Whether she'd speak so honestly if I wasn't using legilimency on her, I can't tell. The disclosure of her deepest worries and needs, however, don't seem to bother her one bit.

"My family is only speculating on my inheritance," she sighs, a sad but knowing smile on her lips. "They circle me like vultures, with favours that are no trouble, with contrived pretexts to make themselves look the best in front of me. A truly stale feeling. Tom – may I call you Tom?"

I nod.

"You know, Tom, that's what I so appreciate about these cold, dead objects. They don't hurt me. They don't change. They don't have a Janus face. My greatest blessing – my financial independence – is also my greatest curse."

Her coquetry has entirely evaporated. The longer we talk, the deeper our exchanged thoughts become.

It's something I've long observed in myself.
I cannot talk about trivialities.
Every conversation with me either revolves around the core of the universe, or it doesn't even take place long enough to be worth mentioning.

It's just that you can't get to the core with everyone equally. With Harper, it's like with no one else.
But old Hepzibah surprises me, too. Behind all the make-up, all the pomp, there is nothing but a sad, old soul who's suffering from desolation.

What's left of me when the coldness and all my arrogance flakes away? What am I when my fury fades? Nothing but a lost child of two worlds, neither of which is able to understand nor hold me …

"How can I cheer you up, ma'am?" I ask. It's raw intuition.

"Oh …" She waves it off with a warm smile. "You came here to sell me something, Tom. I don't want to waste your time, and the nice conversation alone was a delight. I haven't exchanged such philosophical thoughts for a while."

"And yet my question remains unanswered."

Her eyes literally glow, and she hardly dares to say it. But after a deep breath she admits, "I would really like to dance again, sometime …"

It's no surprise. I hear her thoughts flash as if she were an open book. And who knows? Maybe dancing is the last brick of the bridge that will lead me to what I'm here for.

"Well then," I say, rising to offer her my hand. "Here we go."

She's honestly surprised. "You and me?"

"Would you rather dance with your house elf?"

She giggles, shaking her head at once. "Although I'm very fond of my Hokey, it's different to dance with a young man like you …"

"Hokey can provide for music, though!" the house elf volunteers again. She's already starting the gramophone, and we promptly find ourselves with Clair de Lune.

Mrs Smith has long since stopped devouring me with glances, now that we have gone beyond superficialities. And I see what's behind her colourful mask, too – nothing more than a dreaming soul enjoying the way we're silently swaying along to the piano notes.

And yet she suspects it. Probably because it always ends the same for her. Yet she looks at me without a trace of scepticism or disappointment in her features.

"You're not here to sell me something," she asserts. "You're not here to cheer me up either." She laughs to herself and shakes her head. "No, you were so in love in December. With the girl who accompanied you, am I right?"

"I don't use that word," I mildly protest. "What is love anyway?"

She winks. "I've never known that either, and yet in the end it doesn't matter at all if you find another soul who understands you."

I nod. Probably true.

"What are you here for, Tom?"

Schubert, meanwhile, plays his Ständchen for us, and a little more elated, we spin around in the dusty light of her treasure trove.

"You have something that's literally calling to me," I come clean. "You had it with you when we first met."

"The locket?" The corners of her mouth turn up. "It's probably over a millennium old. Supposedly it belonged to –"

"Salazar Slytherin," I finish her sentence. "I'm a student of his house."

"I see," she hums, "so you feel … connected to him?"

"So to speak," I keep it vague. "I'm sure you paid Burke vast amounts for it."

"Oh, yes." She sighs. "I was very excited about it, despite the price. But unfortunately it became the one piece that now gives me no pleasure whatsoever. I heard Mr Burke whisper once, only a few weeks ago, that he had snatched it from a poor young woman for no more than ten galleons."

I abruptly stop moving.
Is that supposed to be a coincidence, too?

"What is it?" Mrs Smith asks, truly concerned at once. "Come and sit down, Tom."

She places herself right next to me and asks, "Did I say something wrong?"

"Not at all," I reply, yet my mind is on Mr Burke and his recent words. "The desperate ones always settle for ten Galleons."

"I think so, too," she agrees. "Can you imagine? Mr Burke's business practices irritate me a lot. I had honestly assumed until then that he was a trader with a conscience and backbone. But to rob someone by just giving them ten galleons, asking me to then pay him infinite sums in return … that's just not right."

"Did you happen to learn when he acquired the locket?"

She thinks about it for a second, then she nods. "Probably in the mid-twenties, yes. He sold it to me about sixteen years ago."

I have no more doubts.

A young woman, desperate around the date of my birth, bringing Salazar Slytherin's inheritance to Borgin and Burke …

I came here because I wanted to follow the locket's loud call, but that I'd once again find myself directly in the tracks of my mother I hadn't seen coming.

"Tom," Ms Smith gently says, "please let me know why you're suddenly so quiet and thoughtful."

I'll be damned if I'm telling a living soul. But perhaps words are not necessary anyway after our unexpectedly peaceful encounter.

"Ms Smith, I can't explain." I see her disappointment shining through, yet she continues to listen. Inclined. "But may I … see the locket?"

She nods right away, asking Hokey, "Would you get it for me?"

"Is the lady sure?" Hokey asks, her common sense fully intact.

"Yes, quite sure, Hokey, I trust our guest."

This is the worst possible thing she could ever say.
Why do people trust me lately? Why does Harper trust me? It was so much easier just to confirm everyone's distrust …

"Here it is." Hokey soon approaches us again, handing the locket to her master carefully.

"Thank you," Ms Smith says, twisting the medallion in her hand absently. "You can leave us now, Hokey."

The house elf is extremely reluctant to do as she's told, especially after noticing my interest in the artifact, but eventually she changes the room.

"Here." Ms Smith already hands me the cold locket. "This is it."

To hold what must have been in my mother's hands is odd on every level. To see what she saw. A snake that almost makes me speak Parsel again …

"You could manipulate me," Ms Smith then states with utmost aptness. "You could take it and mess with my memory. You would be able to do that because surely you are an outstanding student of Slytherin."

I lower my voice, for a moment without a mask, likely just as soulless as I am. "I could also kill you, Ms Smith. Poison your tea and erase your house elf's memory – so that she'd spend the rest of her days in Azkaban, having to believe she was to blame for your demise."

Ms Smith gulps. It's the very first time. "I suppose, sometimes there really are depths hidden underneath a pretty face."

"Most certainly," I reply.

"Surely you could murder me and call this relic your own," she says, yet without avoiding my gaze. "After all, it once was taken from a poor soul for a mere ten galleons as well. But I wish to pass it on to you anyway, Tom. It's obvious it means something to you."

"Why would you do that? Naive altruism?"

"No," she replies, wide awake and genuinely thankful. "Because I had such a lovely afternoon. It's been very long since I felt that included in life again."

"I've only ever known death."

"Even better," she claims, "I always appreciate irony of fate."

As do I. I stare at the locked. "You paid a lot of money for it."

"If there's one thing I have plenty of, it's money."

I draw in a deep breath. "Ma'am, and yet you can keep it without fear of me doing you harm."

"I do know that," she softly says. "I know, Tom. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked my dear Hokey to bring it."

"With all due respect – a house elf could hardly have saved you."

"Oh, don't be so sure," she protests in amusement. "Many of us make the foolish mistake of underestimating the powers of house elves. If Hokey were a witch, she would be praised as very talented. More talented than me, she certainly is."

Once again, I find that very interesting …

"And now take it," she says, closing my fingers around the locket with her hands. "It never really suited me much anyway. And all I can think of while wearing it is that young woman who felt compelled to give it away for so little in return."

I look at the pendant in my hand. This is hopefully as absurd as it gets.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, and perhaps you'll dance with me again sometime?" she says with cheerful hope in her voice. "Possibly when you invite me to the wedding with your beloved?"

I nod my head in reluctant resignation. "Yes. At the latest then, ma'am."

Her face lights up, then she points to the magical bag Burke filled with all sorts of junk. "Now what did you bring?"

"It's trash and trinkets, if you ask me."

She giggles as if she was young again.

"Maybe I'll still find something, just show me what he wants to get rid of …"

She buys it all, and as we part she finally asks me, "What are you going to do now, Tom? Will you visit her?"

"Soon," I say. "But before that, I have to go back to Hogwarts."

"Why's that?" She looks at me in surprise. "It's the holidays, isn't it?"

"The best time to get some clarity without making a fuss."

She smirks. "I suppose you're very right …"

I'm a Parseltongue. If that's not enough for the ever hungry serpent in Hogwart's ancient pipes, maybe the locket will stop it from tearing me to pieces.

Time to find out.

"Good luck in your endeavours," Ms Smith says.

"Thank you, for everything. And your purchase."

"Yes, yes, of course," she giggles. "And don't give greedy Mr Burke my regards, will you?"